Siri, Who Am I?

by Sam Tschida

  Who could think of egg salad at a time like this?

  “It’s really good, sweetie.”

  Cindy agrees. “It sounds gross, but everyone likes it.”

  “Does it have onions?”

  Brenda shakes her head.

  Anything for Brenda. “Okay. I’ll have an egg salad. And could one of you turn on the Kardashians again?”

  * * *

  After another binge session of nearly a whole season of the Kardashians, a knock on the doorframe makes me look up—Dr. Patel, this time with his hair brushed and a few more hours of sleep, it looks like. I set down my phone, which yielded no more information—just a bunch of apps: a weather app, a banking app, Facebook (which I don’t seem to use), and some kind of off-brand dating app.5 “I ordered your discharge papers, Mia.”

  “Discharge papers?”

  The doctor nods. “Yep. There’s nothing more we can do for you, medically speaking. It’s just a matter of giving yourself time to heal and, like I said, surrounding yourself with familiar people and things.”

  “Doctor, I don’t know anything about myself.” Except for my first name. I don’t even have a first and a last name, unless you count “4Realz.” Like an idiot, I use a cutesy nickname instead of a real name on every app. I can’t even Google myself. My phone is a digital trash can. No one has called me and I have nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep tonight besides this hospital bed. “Is there any way I could stay just one more day?”

  Two hours later, Brenda wheels me out to the curb. I’m wearing the clothes they say I arrived in: a lemon-yellow cocktail dress. It’s Prada6 and has a fitted bodice with sequins scattered about, spaghetti straps, and a short skirt. The shoes and cape (you heard me right) are dyed to match. The cape, technically a capelet, ties with a big floppy bow over one shoulder.

  I left the tiara at the nurses’ station for Cindy. Maybe it’ll give her a thrill. A rhinestone-studded clutch just fits my phone. Besides the phone, there’s a receipt for a Smartwater, a bobby pin, and two keys to who-knows-where on a rabbit’s foot key chain. My lipstick is Chanel (!) in a shade of red called Pirate. (Thank you, Chanel. I needed that.)

  I look pretty good except for the bloodstains, mostly on the cape besides a rusty smudge on the hemline that doesn’t look too gruesome. “Sorry we couldn’t wash it, sweetie. It was dry-clean only,” Brenda says.

  I rise from the wheelchair and take a deep breath. The traffic blurs past. I might as well be a superhero trying to jump onto the roof of a moving train, but I’m just a normal girl (I assume) trying to hop aboard life.

  As such, I untie my cape. Minus the cape, which took the brunt of the blood spatter, the dress looks nearly perfect. With a sigh, I shove the cape into a nearby trash can. It’s overflowing with fast food cups so I have to jam it in. Good-bye, designer cape.

  “You can do this, Mia,” Brenda says.

  Do what? is the question. I have to do something, though, even if it’s stupid. I can’t sit in front of the hospital all day.

  “I’m giving you my number. Text me when you get wherever you end up going.” Brenda wraps me in an antibac-scented hug. She’s a big woman and I just want to stay there wrapped in her soft hug forever, which is pathetic. Brenda probably has a real family. Did I ever even ask?

  “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” As I say it, I know it has to be the weirdest hospital good-bye ever. She might only know my first name and that I might be vegetarian, but she knows me better than anyone else. I can tell that she knows it, too; the poor woman looks like she feels responsible.

  When I glance over my shoulder for a final good-bye, I see Cindy prancing in my tiara in the lobby just beyond the sliding doors and Brenda making a cut-it-out motion. I’m tempted to run back and ask if I can just hang at the nurses’ station, but I can’t. It’s just me and my phone.

  * * *

  In a stroke of brilliance, I look up my last Uber trip and enter in the same destination: the Long Beach Museum of Art. It sounds important, just like me.

  The app shows a dot where I’m supposed to meet the driver. Like a cat following a laser pointer, I walk a few feet down the block, then across the street.

  My UberX shows up—I got a random upgrade to a black shiny car with a driver who looks like Enrique Iglesias, except without the face mole. Speaking of which, how do I remember Enrique Iglesias’s face mole7 and not my own last name?

  “Nice dress,” he says, handing me a bottle of water.

  Enrique makes comfortable chitchat, and I settle in and automatically open Instagram. (It’s muscle memory.) And there I am.

  @Mia4Realz…

  Pictures of me with glitter on my face, me submerged in a milk bath. Is this super glam Insta feed for real? I mean, my profile name says it is.

  Questions of why I’m in a milk bath aside—like, waaaaay aside—the rest of it looks pretty damn good. The bio isn’t helpful. @Mia4Realz. SoCal 4evah. GoldRush.

  Four posts down I find my house. #homesweethome is an adorable pastel brick duplex on a palm-lined street. My only question now: do I live in the blue brick building or the pink? I assume pink.

  “Driver, I’d like to change my destination.” I can scope out the museum anytime. Getting home is more important, and I could use a milk bath. Enrique without the mole doesn’t recognize the pink brick façade but he’s game to figure it out. “How about we check a few of my other Insta posts and triangulate?” I suggest.

  It’s worth noting that I seem to be good at problem-solving. Even Enrique appears to be surprised by my use of triangulate in a sentence. I definitely graduated from something.

  Based on a few pictures, a shot of me with a FedEx in the background (the Ocean Boulevard branch) right across from the music center, and a postcard-worthy snap of some palm trees, Enrique drives south on Ocean until he finds my front door. “How come you don’t know where you live?” he asks.

  “Long story, and I don’t even know most of it. I lost my memory.” Should I be telling strangers this? Thankfully, Enrique doesn’t strike me as a serial killer.

  “How?”

  “Don’t know that either,” I say, though I’m ninety percent sure someone tried to kill me. I don’t even think I’m a drama queen. A drama queen would have already been way more dramatic about the memory loss.

  “When’s your memory coming back?” he asks.

  “Mind if I roll down the windows?” I shut my eyes and breathe in the fresh air. The temperature is perfect with a light breeze. Long Beach smells a little like pee, but mostly like ocean. Enrique plays some top forty pop stuff and I want to tell him it’s okay to play his own music. I mean, I know he’s not really Enrique Iglesias but…maybe he is? Maybe he had to become an Uber driver to make ends meet after the world forgot about him—just like it forgot about me. Maybe we can start a support group.

  “I’m not sure when my memory will be back,” I say. I laugh like it’s funny. If anything, I might be repressing my feelings. Totally not a drama queen.

  Enrique looks at me in the rearview, checking to see if I’m full-on nuts or just pleasantly unhinged (if that’s a thing).

  I remember what Dr. Patel told me before he discharged me: “There’s often a psychological component to memory loss. You were probably suffering emotionally and psychologically at the time of the injury, which might explain why you’re having difficulties latching onto your sense of self.”

  Dr. Patel’s diagnosis was amnesia as a form of identity crisis? Ugh. It made me hate California. If he’d offered me essential oils and a pamphlet for a meditation retreat in Big Sur, I would’ve lost it.

  “Amnesia isn’t easy to treat or understand,” he’d explained. “Memories change over time. Some fade. Some become stronger. Everyone has different memories of the same event. Memory is just a story we tell ourselves, not an objective truth. That’s why your sense
of self, which is dependent on memory, is something that fluctuates and changes.”

  “So basically, you’re telling me that I need to make up a new story about my life,” I’d said.

  “Well, not exactly, but…yes. At least until you remember the old story.”

  Thank God for Instagram. I’d already written a story for myself, and damn if it wasn’t pretty.

  Enrique pulls up to the pink door. Impulsively, I ask, “You want to come in?”

  He gives me a suspicious look.

  “No pressure,” I say in a thin, high voice. “I can walk in alone. I mean, it’s my house, right?” I laugh awkwardly as Enrique gives me the side-eye.

  Uber asks me if I want to tip him and I say yes, if only so Enrique doesn’t think I’m a total psychopath. He could have easily ditched me but he got me home.

  I pull the keys from my rhinestone-studded clutch and one of them fits perfectly in the keyhole. This is my home. Final stop on the crazy train. I’m so jittery I pause to talk myself up before turning the key, like I’m about to go on stage for a performance. This is my house, my refuge, not some rando from my contacts list who will hang up on me. I love this house and it is going to love me back. With a deep breath, I turn the latch and open the door.

  It looks like the Property Brothers have been here. The floor plan is #openconcept with tons of #naturallight and let’s just say: I must love throw pillows. French doors open to a courtyard in the back, and there’s a freaking statue of a nymph or an angel in a fountain. #praisejesus.

  Even better, there’s a guy at the kitchen table: a sexy black man in glasses and a Star Trek T-shirt featuring a big picture of Spock. The shirt says TREK YOURSELF. Is this guy my boyfriend? If so, where was he? I can’t give him a pass just because he’s extremely hot. He looks surprised to see me and like he’s not sure what to say. He must feel bad about not checking to see if I was still alive. I don’t care how good-looking he is, dude better have a damn good excuse…

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  I want to say, you should be. But I’m not sure that’s a great way to start the next chapter of our relationship.

  “I’m Max. JP didn’t say anyone else would have the key.” Ah. Soooo…not my boyfriend. He stands and walks toward me.

  “I don’t know who JP is but I’m pretty sure I live here,” I say with complete confidence.

  He eyes me skeptically. After taking in my cocktail dress and matted hair—I probably look like I just completed a walk of shame and murdered someone along the way—he says, “Then why did JP hire me to house-sit?”

  God, I hope he doesn’t expect me to have an answer to that.

  He repeats the question with added emphasis. “Why did JP hire me to house-sit if he knew his girlfriend was going to be home?” (I take the extremely sexy compliment back.) “And what is your name, by the way?”

  “Mia,” I say.

  “He definitely didn’t mention you.”

  My mind is blank. Like a genius, I let a “because” hang in the air while I run through a list of options in my mind:

  ■ He’s my husband and didn’t want to worry me with the responsibility of taking care of all the miniature succulents and throw pillows.

  ■ He expected me to be out of town, too. (Don’t ask me where. Obviously.)

  ■ I was the original house sitter and this guy is the last-minute replacement.

  I freestyle an answer. “Um, I was supposed to be on vacation, too, but…I had to cancel because…” I turn around and lift my hair to show him the nasty gash, which the doctors stapled together. “I had an accident.” (I am Meryl Streep.)

  Max’s eyes widen. “Whoa.”

  “Tell me about it.” And that’s when I know I’m in. Max is a nice person; he won’t kick an injured woman out of JP’s house (which could still be my house but the odds aren’t looking good) and onto the street.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Not sure,” I say. “Whatever happened knocked the memory right out of me. I just got out of the hospital an hour ago.”

  “And came straight here?” The confusion on his face is apparent. “Who drove you home from the hospital? And were they sure you lived here?” He looks around the room. “Where’d they go anyway? You have amnesia and they just dropped you off like it’s no big deal?”

  I laugh in a way that could become bitter if things continue this way. “I Ubered over. The driver was super nice and helped me find my address.”

  “Using what?” Max looks confounded.

  I breeze past the question. I don’t want to get into my Instagram sleuthing just yet. “Speaking of which, I should give him a review. He went above and beyond.”

  “Umm, five stars for sure. But…what…?”

  “It’s totally okay.” I comfort him about the uncertainty of my situation. “I just need to…Trek myself.” I grin. “And my instincts say that I live here.” Really, this place fits. There’s a Degas on the wall and it doesn’t look like a poster from Target. This is the kind of place where a girl with a designer cape would live. I Trek myself so hard.

  Max looks down at his shirt. “Uhh…I don’t think that’s what this shirt means. I’m not trying to get rid of you or anything.” He looks at me so sincerely I can’t not believe him. “But I’m still not sure this is your house.”

  Okay. I trust him. I wish he’d quit with the details, though. I just need to lie down. But I can see he’s still chewing on the issue. “You have a key,” he says, “which implies that you’ve probably been here before, but that doesn’t mean you live here.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s my house.” I can stretch a false sense of confidence pretty far.

  “You could be the maid.” He points this out as if we’re in math class and everything is logical and makes sense.

  “I arrived at the hospital wearing a crown.” I gesture to my cocktail dress. “And this. If anything, I have a maid.” Unless I’m J.Lo and this is a Maid in Manhattan situation, but I doubt he’s seen that.

  “Just saying. I have a key and I definitely don’t live here…”

  I collapse on one of the kitchen stools and rest my head in my hands. “Dude, JP is probably my husband.” (At least in this version of the story.) “Who knows, maybe this is my house and he’s my executive assistant.”

  He laughs hard at that. “I’m looking forward to when you call JP and ask if he’s your secretary or your husband.”

  Apparently JP comes off as a lot more important than me. Go figure. That’s when I notice the pile of mail sitting on the counter in front of me. I start brazenly flicking through, ignoring Max’s side-eye. All addressed to JP. Nothing has my name on it, unless you count the ones marked for the “current resident.”

  Glancing back at the TV, Max says, “Well, whether you live here or not, you need somewhere to stay tonight. Want to watch Our Food System with me? Might as well settle in.” He points to a half-eaten take-out pizza. “Help yourself, if you’re hungry.”

  “Maybe I’ll grab some chocolate.” There’s a bowl filled with Jacques-o-late bars on the counter. This chocolate is freaking everywhere these days. “Once you go Jacques-o-late, you never go back” is the company’s slogan. The ads all feature women biting chocolate bars with orgasmic looks on their faces. I think it’s…okay, as in I will eat all of it, even though it’s missing a little something. I can’t put my finger on it.

  I should probably want to find out more about Max—I mean, what if he’s lying? What if he’s actually JP and he’s just messing with me? What if I’m JP and we’ve never met in person before so he doesn’t actually know what I look like? Can I trust him? What are my standards normally? “You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

  He yawns. “No one would say yes to that. Especially a serial killer.”

  “Oh my God. You are a serial killer.”

&n
bsp; He takes a while picking out the best slice of pizza, the same one I would have grabbed, with the ideal toppings-to-cheese ratio. “I’m black, Mia. Statistically, there’s zero chance of me being a serial killer. As long as you don’t call the cops and catch a stray bullet, you’re good.”

  Too black and too cute to be a killer. And he shares pizza.

  Before I move to the couch, I glance at the TV. The documentary playing in the background is about how humans are killing themselves with corn syrup and nitrates. At the moment, a slow death by trace amounts of anything seems to be the least of my concerns. “I’m tired. Can you point me to the master bedroom?” I say this as naturally and breezily as possible, hoping he won’t say hell no and make me sleep on the couch.

  He hesitates a second, glances at my head wound, and says, “Sure. We’ll figure out what’s really going on in the morning.” He says this in a reassuring way, not a threatening way. Gotta love a sweet nerd.

  While he carries a glass to the sink, I casually check out the bookshelves while munching on more Jacques-o-late. It’s all fancy leather volumes or first editions with a few photos artfully arranged across the ledges of the shelves. An attractive man with dark, side-parted hair and a Prince Charming jawline is in several, along with people who might be his family members. JP?

  I’m not in any of them.

  Max leads me down a hallway filled with original artwork, lit gallery style, to a master bedroom big enough for a California-king-size bed. I check out the crown molding and a slightly domed ceiling painted to look like a soothing sky. The bedding is cumulus-clouds-level fluffy and the whole room smells like lavender. Navy-blue walls and a few manly paintings (originals, of course) take the vibe from spa day to European. It could be a man’s or a woman’s room. Long Beach is nice enough, but this place looks like it should be in Laguna or Malibu or France, even.

  Max watches my reaction. “I missed this place so much,” I say with a wistful smile.

  He laughs because, really, who wouldn’t?