by Sam Tschida
Just like the rest of the town of Long Beach, the beach itself is filled with people on the raggedy edge of California. Lots of young and beautiful people who look like they might be on drugs and could benefit from a shower. Not quite as square or polished as Pasadena. Not as much money as WeHo. Not as glitzy as Sunset. Also, more drugs in plain sight.
In my selfie, a breeze is ruffling my perfectly highlighted hair, the sideswept bangs covering one eye like I’m Marilyn Monroe. The nearby lifeguard station hints that I might be on the set of Baywatch. As for the push-up bikini top—it’s doing its job and then some.
I trudge down the beach to find lifeguard station three. I don’t expect to find anyone there but I’m going one hundred percent Veronica Mars on this investigation and not skipping a single step. Maybe I’m a PI or a cop! Who knows. When I find the spot where I took the picture, I’m right outside some public restrooms. In front of the restrooms, a homeless guy who appears to be tweaking hard (on meth?) has built a semipermanent structure. Was I really smiling like I was on a Hawaiian vacation right in front of him? Maybe it wasn’t even a selfie. Maybe this guy, or someone like him, took my picture. Maybe I simply don’t see the homeless. That’s what they always say about rich people. Have I been walking through life oblivious to the human suffering around me?
The homeless guy takes out his earbuds and walks over. “Yo Mia, you got a couple of bucks? I need bus fare.”
“What?” My jaw drops. “You know me?”
“Duh.”
“How?” Do I volunteer my time at the soup kitchen? Do I regularly give spare change to panhandlers?
“Like you don’t know?”
“I don’t.”
“Thursday free lunch at that church.” He squints harder at me. “What are you on today?” I volunteer to feed the homeless! God, I love myself. “What about bus fare?”
I give him $10 of sock-drawer money because I’m that kind of person.
He fist-bumps me and gives me a “thanks,” and then, with the confidence of someone who believes he’ll actually see me around, he says, “See ya around.”
* * *
I pull out my phone and check out the next post to investigate. My yacht is just a ways down the shoreline at the Long Beach Marina. Or it could be a friend’s yacht, or just one of the many yachts I frequent in my daily life. I tagged it #TheGoodLife. The yacht’s name, I suppose? Did I pick that name?
The Good Life is not hard to find. She’s parked on the end of the first dock. Or is it a pier? IDK.
When I catch sight of her, I feel all sparkly and effervescent and my breath catches at her beauty. I laughed at Cindy when she said I might wake up to a dream, but she was right. I’m living the dream. The Good Life is probably the fanciest boat at this particular dock. She’s big and white with lots of decks and undoubtedly stocked with more martini glasses than flotation devices, like any good boat should be. “Maybe this is where I had my accident,” I say as I scan the decks. I could have reenacted Overboard.
I study the Insta post once more. I’m with a girl I didn’t tag. We look like models having the time of our lives, and really, why wouldn’t we be? Young, beautiful, rich, on a yacht—what more could a person want?
I step onto the boat and turn a full 360 degrees to take in every inch of the view. It’s so pretty. I can’t believe I own a boat?! Well, a skeptic like Max couldn’t believe it. I can because I’m open to joy and wonder in my life. Glass half full. Heart half full. I kick off my heels. The gentle rocking of the boat doesn’t work well with stilettos. Neither does sand. I would give anything to find my wardrobe soon. If not, I’m tracking down my debit card and buying some more shoes.
The cabin is unlocked so I wander in. The fridge is stocked with cheese and olives and other things I like. I open the olives and eat four or five. The owner of this boat also has a jar of chocolates, another food group I enjoy. I open a bottle of expensive fizzy water and plate up some snacks, take them up on deck, and lie down in a deck chair. Luckily I found a hat in the cabin because the sun is strong, threatening to turn my skin into a raisin. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I don’t want wrinkles. And water is the answer. No one can ever drink enough.
I want to share this moment with Max, in addition to everyone I don’t know. So after I post a picture of myself on Insta, I send the same photo to Max and write, I found my boat. I like it. Gonna take a nap on it now. Zzzzzzzzz you later.
The gentle rocking of the boat, the sunshine, the olives…Soon, I let myself drift to sleep aboard The Good Life. I can see why I wanted a boat, unless my parents gave it to me or I inherited it. As I’m dozing off, I make a mental note to walk over to the marina’s office later. Maybe they can help me find a key so I can steer this thing to Baja. Or they can give me the name of the captain I normally hire. I must have one.
What feels like a million years later, a male voice jars me out of my sleep. “Hello!” It’s not a friendly hello; it’s an “explain yourself” hello.
I open my eyes to find a middle-aged white guy dressed in an outfit that screams I own a boat.! It makes me want to run the other way, but I’m cornered. He’s standing aboard The Good Life, staring down at me.
I reach for my phone, ready to dial 911. Strange man, in my space. I’m not messing around.
“Do you know the Olsons?” he asks.
“Uhh…” I don’t know anyone, obviously, but I say, “Yes.” It seems easier than the truth.
He relaxes just a little.
“That’s good to hear. I’ve been trying to look out for them while they’re gone.”
“Their boat?”
“Yes, Dave and Mallory Olson from Arizona.”
“How long have the Olsons been gone?”
“Months,” he says.
I could be the new owner. This guy doesn’t know everything. Either that or the Olsons have a twentysomething daughter.
“Someone threw a party on deck last week.”
I glance at my Insta post. It’s from last Sunday. “Was the party on Sunday, the twelfth?”
He thinks for just a second and nods. “That sounds about right.”
“That must have been me,” I say. “You should have dropped by.”
He gives me a really? look. And I can see him trying to figure out if I’m so confident because I’m right or because I’m just that brazen. When it comes down to it, though, he’s probably collecting the hottest yacht club gossip. I bet he’s just pretending to be friends with the Olsons so that he can get all nosy with me. In fact, I’m sure that’s what’s going on. This man is so not friends with the Olsons.
“That was my boat-warming party,” I say, and who knows. It might have been. “You don’t happen to have the Olsons’ number, do you? I lost my phone and wasn’t able to upload my contacts.” The lie slips off my tongue before I can even think it through. It’s so easy.
The guy gives me the Olsons’ number and I shoo him along with a smile and a declaration that I need to continue my beauty sleep. He might contact the Olsons, but not before I do.
I immediately call and leave them a message. “It’s Mia. Please give me a call about The Good Life. I have a few questions.”
They’re probably not answering their phone because they’re in Switzerland and it’s midnight there. Everyone who’s anyone is in Switzerland this week.
I can see that the Nosy Neighbor is headed to the marina office. I don’t particularly want to answer questions I don’t know the answers to, and it’s not like I’m one hundred percent sure about my boat ownership. More like seventy-five percent sure I own a boat. So, it’s off to the next post. I say good-bye to my darling yacht and head down the pier back to the beach.
The next post is a picture of me kissing an ice sculpture Cupid at the art museum. It’s time-stamped at 11:11 on Tuesday night, which means that this was probably the last pla
ce I was before the hospital.
I send Max a text: Status report: I own a yacht and volunteer to feed the homeless. I hope you’re doing as well as me. Want to grab lunch?
If I had my memory and a life, I’d probably find it weird to text Max such frequent updates, but given the situation, the guy is basically my best friend.
14 Isn’t that cute! I, of course, respectfully disagree.
CHAPTER
FIVE
I think about changing my Insta bio to Texting and Driving a Ferrari because that’s what I’m doing. Well, not exactly texting—just checking notifications on my phone when I’m at a stoplight, so whatever, bitches. Stop hating. Everyone who’s anyone texts at stoplights. (Quote me on that.) Anyhoo, I’m on my way to the art museum where I almost died.
Back to my latest notification…
I click on it and a post from @Mia4Realz pops up. What the fuck? At first I think it’s a memory, one of those “one year ago today” reminders, but it’s not. (A memory would be nice, by the way, motherfuckers!)
But supposedly I posted this today.
I did not. This picture does not look familiar
As I look at the post, my heart speeds up and I get that weightless feeling when adrenaline starts to flood your body and your muscles are ready to run, leaving your brain behind, like in those Warner Bros. cartoons when Road Runner is about a mile ahead of himself. That’s me. Someone is messing with me.
Well, in reality, I’m still in the Ferrari. Someone lays on the horn behind me and I realize that I’m sitting through a green light. The horn guy passes me on the right. As he swerves around me he yells, “Get off your phone, bitch!”
I set the phone down and just focus on getting to the art museum. It’s two blocks ahead on the left. I’m so close, but I feel like someone is breathing down my neck rather than just messing with me online. A left-hand turn in busy traffic is almost more than I can handle.
When I finally pull into the art museum lot, I stare hard at the screen. I think I’ve been hacked. Whatever this is, I definitely didn’t put this up.
It’s a promo. There’s a picture of me with an I have a secret face and, might I add, perfectly blown-out hair. The caption reads, “ANNOUNCEMENT COMING SOON!”
It gives me chills. Is some creep messing with me? Maybe the person who conked me on the head is playing games on an epic scale. Maybe they want something. If so, I wish they’d just come out and say it. They probably don’t realize they’re messing with an amnesiac.
I’m the only one freaked out, though. My followers immediately start liking it.
Ooooh!!! Tell me.
I wonder if someone is trying to blackmail me. I feel like I’m about to receive a text asking for a million dollars or they’ll announce some dirty secret I don’t want the world to know. On the flip side, if they reveal my dirty secret at least I’ll know something about myself. That’d be nice for a change.
But I’m practical, and I don’t like being a sitting duck. After I share the post with Max via text with an appropriate WTF! message (because this is the kind of news you need to share with your BFF), I go about figuring out how to solve the problem. After finding Report Something and then Hacked Accounts in my app, which feels like a Veronica Mars—like accomplishment in and of itself, I explain the issue: I’VE BEEN HACKED! SAVE ME! Et cetera, et cetera. It’s so satisfying fixing problems without talking to people.
I’m crossing things off my to-do list like one of those women who answers emails while on the treadmill.
* * *
The Long Beach Museum of Art is housed in a decaying million-dollar beach house. It looks like a house flipper’s wet dream, like you could buy it for one million, fix all the chipped paint, and then sell it for ten. Never mind the fact that a good chunk of California’s 109,000 homeless people camp out on the beach below.
A ticket is going to cost me too much of JP’s sock drawer money. The dude at the admissions counter looks exactly like who you’d expect to work in an art museum: underfed and pale.15 He doesn’t look like a reliable witness, unless you want to know where to score dope, but I give him a chance. “Do you remember a party here on Tuesday?”
He gives me a snooty look and says, “Would you like admission to our special exhibit as well?” He proceeds to tell me about the exhibit, something about the evolution of self-portraiture, blah blah blah. It’s called MySelfie.16
I’m pretty sure I could tell him a few things about selfies.
“So about Tuesday,” I say. “Were you working?”
“Tuesday…” He taps his pen and squints. “Tuesday…hmmm, I wasn’t working. I can check to see who was, though.” He pauses to think. “Maybe Ben, I don’t know. Are you asking about that thing that happened?”
“What thing?” My pulse quickens. Maybe this derelict will help me before I even have to pay the admission fee.
“There was a fancy party for the opening of MySelfie. Some mystery chick left the party in an ambulance.”
Me.
A little girl starts screaming like I would if I were to express how excited I am about the clue. Her plight to get another juice box—I’m not feeling that. Her parents are urgently digging through a diaper bag as if the world will end if they don’t pop a Capri Sun in her mouth. As soon as she stops screaming, I’m going to find out what happened to me.
The mom, thank God, finally solves the problem by handing the kid her phone—thank you forever and ever, Steve Jobs—and my guy starts talking again. “My boss was all freaked out. He thought she might sue the museum for whatever happened.”
“What happened?”
He shrugs. “At first the story was that she slipped and fell, but now there’s a rumor circulating about the executive director’s mistress and his wife getting into a fistfight at the sushi table. Last I heard, they were both pregnant.”
When he catches the look of shock on my face (Mistress? PREGNANT?), he says, “Who knows what really happened. Might have just been performance art. Really, that’s probably what it was.” He smiles.
I touch my stomach, which does not feel pregnant. There’s no way this Prada gown would fit me if I were pregnant. Not to mention, Dr. Patel definitely would have mentioned a pregnancy. I am decidedly Not. Pregnant.
He makes eye contact with me, as if he’s going to say something important. “I wish someone had invited me to the party. I’m a bit of an actor.”
I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “You don’t have a guest or donor list, do you?”
“I was in a commercial last year. Maybe you’ve seen it…”
OMG. “What was the commercial for?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“It was for this surf shop in Huntington Beach.” He pulls up the party guest list on his computer while telling me about how he was “in the commercial, but not the star of it.” I stare at him with a frozen smile. “Who do you want me to look up?” he asks.
Obviously I was there, but I ask anyway. “Are there any Mias on the list?” I bet I’m a regular on guest and donor lists around here.
“What’s the last name?”
“Um, not sure. I don’t know her that well.” Understatement of the year.
“Uhhh…” He scans the list and announces, “No Mias.”
Frustration threatens to cloud my optimism but I square my shoulders and literally put my chin up. I’ve only been out of this coma for a little over twenty-four hours. I’m gonna get there.
“How about JP Howard?”
He scans the list again. “Oh, he’s always on the list. He donated a Rembrandt or something last year. I don’t know how much it’s worth, but it’s a lot.” Then a big lopsided smile takes over his face. “And here’s my duuuude.” He nods with appreciation and I see the name Frederick Montcalm.
“Your dude?”
“My boss, as in knock
ed-up two chicks and caused a fist fight. I want to be him when I grow up.”
I channel Veronica Mars17 again and sidle up next to him. I need to see that address.
“Umm…” he says. “What are you doing over here?”
I get it. I’m on the wrong side of the desk, but if he wants to be a ladies’ man like that boss he thinks is so cool, this is his chance. While he tries to figure out if my flirty smile and proximity mean that I’m into him, I sidle up even closer and scan the list. Frederick Montcalm lives on Balboa Avenue in Laguna Beach.
Before he can pull out his phone to show me his commercial on YouTube, I sneak away, leaving him to watch himself not starring in a commercial. A “hey” echoes unanswered in the cavernous lobby when he realizes that I am definitely not that into him. I’ve already moved on to the exhibits.
I should be sort of happy—I mean, I’m closer to finding out more about myself, but a feeling of existential dread is eating at the frayed edges of my tentative happiness. I’m just a nameless woman who got her head smashed in at some party where I wasn’t even a guest. I was probably JP’s plus one. No big deal, but…who am I? It’s not like I’m some 1950s housewife who goes by Mrs. JP Howard and lives in the shadow of my husband. I’m a Millennial with a decent Insta following and an undercut.
I pick up a pamphlet for the self-portrait exhibit. It’s a bunch of touchy-feely mumbo jumbo about the artist becoming the spectator to her own art, and about how that places the artist in a position of extreme vulnerability, becoming the audience of her own suffering (because that is what art is—a tangible representation of suffering).
These idiots have no fucking clue.
The exhibit pamphlet goes on to say that self-portraiture is a way for the artist to supercharge her artistic growth. Being the audience and the creator at one time is like adrenaline for the creative brain.
Pretentious much? I just want to know if they sell earrings at the gift shop. Or maybe a scarf.