Siri, Who Am I?

by Sam Tschida

  I’m still staring at him. Am I an artist having an affair with this guy? I can’t fit that in with everything else I’ve learned.

  “Lauren, did you hear me?”

  I don’t respond. I just can’t.

  “Lauren?”

  Max says, “Who do you think this woman is, Mr. Montcalm?”

  Frederick looks at him, totally baffled. “My wife, of course.”

  Oh great. I’ve literally sought out an Alzheimer’s patient to help me figure out who I am. #figures.

  I glance at a framed picture of a middle-aged woman with blond hair and a yoga body. That must be Lauren.

  I point to the picture and whisper to Max, “There’s the woman who must have tried to murder me.” All of that inner peace must have exploded out of her in a fit of violent rage. I think that happens more often than people are willing to admit. It takes a lot of bottled-up rage to hold a side plank for a minute.

  “So you have no clue who I am?” I repeat.

  “Would you turn on the television, Lauren? I want to watch that show with all the cooking and the British accents.” There’s an edge to his voice now, like he’s sick of Lauren not acting enough like Lauren.

  I bet Lauren is out spending Frederick’s money and talking to a lawyer about inheritance law in between yoga headstands.

  While Max chats with Frederick about modern art and his wife, I decide to give myself a tour of the house I might have been gunning for. It’s all contemporary California living, a sleek, sexy house with an open-concept floor plan for entertaining beautiful people. The side of the house facing the ocean is floor-to-ceiling glass that takes advantage of the view. Modern art pieces accent what little wall space there is. It’s beautiful, but if you look straight down, it’s almost as if you could tumble down the cliff the house is suspended above. I think it’s a view that could cost you your life.26

  On an expanse of white wall facing the ocean in the dining area, there’s a painting that draws me in. It’s all blues and greens, the color of tropical water. A dark shape lurks below the surface. Not the typical hint of a shark. This looks like the outline of a woman with her dress billowing around her. She’s drowning, I think. A placard below the painting identifies it as Artist at Seashore by Lauren Montcalm.

  While I fixate on the drowning woman, my head starts to feel weird and I lean against the wall and slowly sink to the floor. When I shut my eyes against the pain in my head, I see Lauren. She’s standing in front of the window overlooking the Pacific. The blue and green painting is in the background.

  “Mia, what are you doing here?” She’s upset with me.

  “I need money.”

  “You need to stay away.”

  Lauren Montcalm…Why did I need money from her? Was it a payoff to walk away and leave her marriage undisturbed? Am I an extortionist trying to get as much money as possible from a nice lady who does yoga and paints pictures of drowning women that represent how she feels being married to a ninety-year-old man?

  Am I a mean slut?

  There’s a martini shaker and a bottle of gin in the corner of the room. I might not know who I am but I know what to do with the shaker. I throw together a martini as if I’ve done it a million times, probably while entertaining all those billionaires drinking cocktails on The Good Life. Frederick pipes up from the corner. “Do I hear you making a drink, darling? Would you make me one, too?”

  “Of course dear,” I say like I’m in an old Hollywood movie, wearing my satin day dress. That seems to be Frederick’s reality, at least based on the way he talks to Lauren.

  Poor Lauren.

  I carry three martinis on a silver tray to the cozy seating area Frederick seems to prefer. It’s on the side of the house that faces the driveway and, in my opinion, preferable. “Frederick?” I say, handing him a glass. He takes it and says, “To us.”

  “To us,” I echo as I lift my glass. Whoever the hell us is.

  Max silently takes the third martini. I think he gets that it’s better for me to play along with Frederick’s delusion right now.

  Frederick takes a few sips and starts to doze off again. Max wanders freely while I glance back at the picture of Lauren. I hate to say it but she looks like she can take me. I should probably exercise in addition to avoiding meat.

  Max and I finish our martinis and leave them on the tray for the housekeeper, who’s nowhere to be seen. Before we let ourselves out, I take a last glance at the Pacific, which is spread out before us looking like the $10,000-per-square-foot view that it is. I can’t imagine trying to steal that man from his wife, but so far, betting against myself seems to be a winning strategy.

  “Max, I remembered something. I’ve been to this house before.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I lie. “I just saw Lauren in the house. She was mad at me, but I don’t know why.” I don’t want to tell him I was asking for money.

  “Hmm. Sometimes recovered memories aren’t true. A lot of times, if someone suggests something, you can actually have a vision of that memory, but it’s only because of the suggestion.”

  I nod.

  “Just like when you think you remember events from your childhood that happened to a brother or sister because you’ve heard the story. That guy at the art museum might have unintentionally planted that memory.”

  “That sounds smart.”

  “You probably set up Frederick and Lauren or went to a party at their house, if anything.”

  I love how Max doesn’t want to think the worst of me. It warms my heart. Thinking the best of myself is getting harder. I could easily believe that I was using so many people, that I was sleeping my way to the top, that I was associating with known criminals. And I haven’t even told Max everything. I can’t give up Max’s good opinion. If I can only be the woman he thinks I am…

  “You want to drive, Max?” What red-blooded American man doesn’t want to drive a red Ferrari down a coastal highway? I owe him at least that.

  He says, “Are you sure? It’s JP’s car,” but he has an eager look on his face.

  “I’m so sure.”

  * * *

  Halfway down, Max pulls into a scenic overlook.

  “I’m okay, Max. You don’t need to pull over.”

  “I’m not worried about you. You might think you slept with that old guy, but there’s no way you could have. I almost felt bad for him the way you were looking at him. I’ve never been rejected that hard before.”

  With a flip laugh, I say, “I bet you haven’t.” Any girl would think twice before rejecting Max. “Anyway, you’re too optimistic.” I would tell him about the extortion, but doing so would violate my policy of hiding the worst facts about me.

  He gets out of the Ferrari and walks over to the gravel turnaround. There’s a steep drop-off with no guardrail.

  “We have too much to do, Max! We don’t have time for scenic overlooks,” I shout into the wind. I have to find Crystal, learn how to run a business, and figure out who assaulted me before Sunday. “Plus, are you sure you want to give up on your job completely?”

  He gives me a let’s not talk about it look. “I’m sitting my black ass down on this bench and looking at the ocean. There’s always time for the ocean.”

  I give up and get out of the car, kicking the gravel with my toe in front of Max, who is defiantly relaxing.

  “I like that house over there. That yellow one is bomb,” he says. I recognize it for what it is, a prompt for me to chill and engage in the scenic view with him.

  I nod. “Yeah, it looks good.” They all look good. I can’t bring myself to care about the stupid house, but I do care about Max, who, it strikes me, I know very little about. “Where are you from?” I ask. I can’t believe I haven’t asked him that yet, or anything else for that matter.

  “Duluth, Minnesota.”

&nbs
p; “How does that work?” I ask, sitting next to him. “Isn’t everyone in Duluth Swedish or something? It sounds like the whitest place on the planet.”

  He laughs. “It pretty much is. My parents are both math professors at the University of Minnesota. I was basically the only black kid wherever I went, at least until I got to college. It was a total culture shock.”

  “Professors. That sounds nice.” I wonder what my parents do. Or if they’re even still alive.

  “It was nice. I grew up in a renovated old house in a residential neighborhood overlooking the lake. My childhood was all hockey, science fairs, hot chocolate after school.”

  “Overlooking the lake,” I repeat. “Sounds pretty bougie to me.” My cynicism about the view is melting away with Max, though. There’s something psychologically healing about overlooking the world from a hilltop. “Why is a view so calming?” I ask.

  “Because you can see your enemies coming. It’s a biology thing.”

  He’s right. If whoever pushed me into Cupid came running up the hill, I’d go in the other direction—or maybe stand my ground. Max is so smart.

  “Duluth is the middle-class version of this. Lake Superior looks as big as an ocean, but it’s gray and frozen half the year.”

  Suddenly I want to ask Max a million questions—Does he have siblings? What did he do on Friday nights when he was kid? Who did he take to the prom?—but my thoughts are interrupted by another notification from Instagram. I think it’s going to be Jules but it’s a message from someone called @JennyBeans11561.

  Hi, saw your selfie at the museum. Super cute! Anyhoo, I worked the night of the party. Your GF is cray. She literally said, “If you ever come near me again, I’ll kill you!”

  My girlfriend? I’m just going to take this as confirmation that I definitely wasn’t getting along with at least one woman at the party.

  I respond, Thanks @JennyBeans11561! Let me know if you think of anything else. Love your profile photo! Xoxo.

  Max isn’t impressed when I read the message out loud to him. “I don’t know if someone who goes by @JennyBeans11561 is a credible source.”

  “You can’t judge people by their Insta handles. Yours is @BlackEinstein3l4,” I scoff. I’m feeling defensive because I’m pretty sure I’ve been a @JennyBeans11561 at some point in my life.

  “What’s the matter with that? I’m proud of being black and smart. More black guys should be proud of that instead of bragging about street shit.”

  I hold my hands up. “OMG. We don’t have to get all racial about this. I just think you sound like a total snob. That’s all.” I flash an overblown smile and he laughs.

  “Coming from you?! All you do is take pictures of yourself.”

  “That’s what everyone does, Max. Not taking pictures of yourself doesn’t make you better than me.”

  “Ummm, it might.”

  I slap his arm and try to remember that line from the MySelfie exhibit about how selfies make the world more democratic…

  “I just mean that you should take anything anyone says to you on Instagram with a grain of salt. It’s not like she’s testifying in court.”

  “But that’s the beauty of Instagram, Max. You can be anyone you want online. There’s a filter for any look you want to achieve, any mood you want to set.”

  Max gives me the side-eye. “I mean, that’s nice if you only care about what’s on the surface, but it’s ultimately fake. Who cares if some chick in Florida likes your photos if your life actually sucks? I think people need to pay attention to what really matters.”

  I shake my head. “What are you, eighty?” I don’t even know how he’s surviving in this day and age.

  “My point,” he says, “is that you shouldn’t trust everyone you meet online.”

  “Max.” I look at him. “Not all of us need people to be hooked up to a brain scanner to understand if they’re telling the truth.”

  He looks at me and starts laughing. “Oh, trust me—it helps. I’d take it with me everywhere if I could.”

  “You’re going to have to make it a little sleeker, in that case. And really, do you always want to know if someone is telling the truth?” I stand and snap a few selfies with the ocean in the background, taking five shots at just the right angle until I have the perfect photo. After I filter it through Clarendon, which makes the blue of the ocean and my eyes pop, I show him the result. I look like I could be on the cover of any magazine. “Isn’t this nicer than the reality that someone tried to kill me a few days ago and I have no memory of who I am?”

  Max nods. “Yep, you look gorgeous—like a model, even. A beautiful girl in front of a beautiful view. But something’s missing.” He gets a sparkle in his eye and pats the bench next to him. “Come over here.”

  I start laughing. “Oh, I have an idea of what you think is missing.”

  He laughs, takes my phone from me, and slings his arm around my shoulder. He holds the camera in front of us, capturing the gravel turnaround in the background rather than the ocean. “There we go. Now that’s a good picture.”

  I study the photo. Our heads are pressed close together. He has a cheesy grin, and I’m mid-laugh. We look happy.

  “It captures exactly this moment and what I would want to remember.”

  “It is really cute. But if I were to redo it, I’d pose us in front of the ocean and filter it. And I’d make sure that you could see my whole dress and then maybe tag it #love or #firstdate or #myboo.”

  Max shakes his head. “It’s perfect. Our expressions say it all.”

  What does he think our expressions say? “You’re gonna have to hashtag it for me then.”

  He laughs. “Enjoy the mystery.” He leaves his arm around my shoulder, and we look at the sunset for at least a minute before I pull out my phone again.

  * * *

  On our way back to Long Beach, I call Crystal. She doesn’t answer. A small part of me is relieved to avoid the verbal harassment, not to mention a window into my past life I might not want to take a peek through. If it weren’t for the $35,000 at stake and the fact that Jules is waiting for his foulmouthed dream girl, I would delete her from my contacts.

  But I’m starting to think I should warn her about Kobra, or at least give her a heads-up. Maybe he’s fine and just dying for another date with her, but…maybe he’s as scary as he looks.

  Crystal’s voicemail message is intimate and cute: “It’s me. Leave a message,” she says like the only people who call her are her best friends.

  I channel my inner BFF. “Crystal!! It’s me. Mia. I got you a date with an amazing guy. It’s on Sunday. Call me!” After I hang up, I text her the details. Date with Jules at 8 pm in two days. Sorry for late notice! He’s super excited to see you!!!

  Also, Kobra is looking for you…

  I wait a beat and then decide to throw a Hail Mary and tell her the truth. Sorry for whatever happened between us. I had a head injury last week and my memories are a little fuzzy. Hope you’re not still mad!

  This is bad. Even without the head injury we’re getting down to the wire. I charge $35,000 for a match, and Jules thinks he’s meeting the woman of his dreams this weekend. I can only hope she’ll decide to forgive me for whatever I did—and fast.

  25 Am I a T-Swift fan?

  26 And I’ve already determined that I’m not dramatic.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  As we head north on the PCH toward Long Beach, Max plays a neuroscience podcast called The Naked Neuroscientists—nerd alert. This particular episode about memory was obviously selected in my honor and Max looks like he would be taking notes if his hands were free, but all of the science talk makes me as sleepy as if I were drinking a glass of warm milk with cookies. Two minutes of mnemonics discussion and I’m out.

  When the engine shuts off and the sudden silence wakes me up (how does t
hat work?), all I want to do is go back to sleep or maybe drive back to Laguna with Max and admire the ocean view I was too busy to stop for an hour ago. Reality is too much. “Ugh.” I rub the sleep from my eyes and groan. “I still have to find Crystal.”

  Max opens the door and gives me a hand out of the car. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Max, should you be worrying about your project, too? I’m glad you’re working for me, but I don’t want you to lose your career, if you need to…” I trail off because it’s not like I know what he should be doing.

  “No. This is where I want to be.” He offers me an arm to help me to the back door, either because I look too sleepy to walk or because he wants to be close.

  I might not know my own mother, but I know I’m not a person to question a win-win situation. Thank you, Max.

  As we pick our way through the lamplight to the back door, Max drops a bombshell. “Mia, I hate to say this but do you have anything else to wear? That dress, it’s pretty, but…”

  While he disarms the alarm system, I smell my pits. I still smell mostly like whatever designer perfume I put on prehead injury, but there are some strong base notes that aren’t quite floral.

  “Don’t get me wrong, it looks great. I think you got some coffee on it earlier, though, and I don’t know what that is,” he says, pointing to a smear of something along the hem, blood.27

  He’s right. I’ve been working this cocktail dress a little too hard. It’s remarkably resilient fabric but it’s not made out of yoga pants. “I don’t have anything else.”

  “No problem. JP has a dry-cleaning service. They’ll do it overnight. You just have to message them.”

  Wow—perks of being a billionaire. Crystal’s giving me a headache, but the rest of this gig is pretty sweet.

  “Mind if I grab one of those for the night?” I ask, pointing at Max’s mountain of T-shirts on the couch.

  “Go for it.”

  Max’s T-shirt features a picture of a guy dribbling a brain like a basketball and the slogan NEUROSCIENCE. GET IN THE GAME! “Do you play basketball?” I ask.