Siri, Who Am I?

by Sam Tschida

  “And you lied to me.”

  Fuck. How many times am I going to hear that today?! “I don’t even know who I was before, Max. I know I lied. I don’t know why, but that’s not who I am now.”

  He’s wearing an expression of disbelief, the look of someone who’s heard too many excuses. “What happened at the bank? Did someone steal from you, or are you just broke?”

  “I can explain,” I say.

  “Does this explanation end with you paying me for my services? Or Crystal, for that matter?”

  “I just have to figure out my financial situation. It’s all messed up and…”

  He shakes his head. “Mia, you don’t get it. I would have helped you for free. I really like you, but you lied to me.”

  My shoulders slump. I’ve fought as hard as I could today but I don’t have anything left in me.

  “You’re the same as the person you were before you woke up. You might not remember her, but you’re making the same decisions. It’s who you are.”

  A liar, a scam artist—that’s all Max thinks I am. He’s the person who I trust the most, the first person I want to text with any news. If he doesn’t trust me…I don’t know what I’ll do.

  “I was scared you’d leave me if I told you the truth,” I say.

  His face fills with sadness. “Looks like neither of us can trust the other.”

  “Don’t say that…” I put my head between my knees like someone who’s about to faint. Actually, I am feeling faint. Dizzy, even.

  He shakes his head. “You can’t possibly be with someone you’ve been lying to.”

  Is he talking about himself or JP?

  “And I think we both know you don’t have five stars from the Better Business Bureau.”

  I lift my head. “Max, that’s enough. Can’t you see that I’m flailing here? You want me to assume responsibility for mistakes I don’t even remember making, solve problems that run deeper than I even understand, and be a saint while doing it. So what if I cut corners? So what if I didn’t tell you the awful truth about me? I’m doing the best I can here.”

  Max looks at me with concern. “Mia, I don’t care that you’re a hustler. I’m more worried that you’re in over your head. Yesterday we met a drug kingpin and you threw all his money straight at his head. Who knows what that asshole might do?”

  “I know he’s a lowlife, but so am I.”

  Max gives me a look. “You’re not a lowlife.”

  “Yes I am. But I can handle myself. I know I can.”

  He sighs. “Okay. Fine.”

  I sit up straight. “Wait, what?”

  “Maybe you can handle yourself. There’s only one way for you to find out. Go home to JP. Figure out what to do with GoldRush. I’m here if you need me but…I have to head back to my own life now.” He stands, dusting off the seat of his pants. “I can take an Uber.”

  “No, let me take you home. I have the Ferrari.” It might be awkward but I owe him this much. And I’m too wrung out to cry.

  * * *

  Max asks me to drop him off at the lab instead of his house. “Chan isolated the problem with the lie-detecting software. I can fix it and start the process of getting the lab up and running again.”

  “Does that mean you can get your job back?”

  “If we can fix everything she did, then yes. Chan thinks it’s doable.”

  “Awesome,” I say, but I don’t mean it. I’m not ready to let Max go back to the lab. I’m not ready to let him go at all. I don’t want to go our separate ways, and back to the life I had.

  “Let me come to the lab with you. I want to see how the brain scanner works.” It’s pathetic. He’s trying to get rid of me and I’m just begging for scraps.

  “Um, you don’t need to come with me.”

  “No, I’m invested. I want to know that everything is going to turn out okay.” I paste on a smile.

  He’s still thinking.

  “I really want to see how it works. I’ve been waiting since that first time I walked into your lab.”

  He relents by the time we arrive. “Come on up.” I don’t think he means it but I’m too desperate not to take the invitation. Leaving Max and going home to JP and the life I’ve been looking for is the scariest thing I can think of doing. When Max and I step off the elevator onto the third floor, a bunch of his labmates are already there. There are a lot of forced “Hey Max!” greetings and awkward averted eyes. Something definitely went down.

  A bro-y dude saunters up to Max. “Hey man. She got you good, didn’t she?”

  Max narrows his eyes. “What did she do to it?”

  Bro-scientist raises his hands defensively. “You better go find out for yourself. She didn’t just fuck with the software, she made some serious points about…your relationship.” He laughs uncomfortably. “I mean, it’s clever AF. If I didn’t know you, I’d probably high-five her. You’re not gonna like it.”

  Purposefully, like a soldier marching into battle, Max walks down the hall to the room with the brain scanner and the computers. On the wall, there’s a schedule of who is using the brain scanner. It’s all Max and Fay up until he became my intern. He writes his name down in all the available slots on Monday and my irrational sense of abandonment increases.

  One of the bro-scientists sidles up to me. “I don’t think Max introduced us,” he says.

  “Mia.” I hold my hand out.

  “Are you and Max a thing?”

  “Ask Max,” I say. Professionally, Max might be struggling a little, but his bro-scientist and scandal points are going through the roof. He’s trying to salvage his career from breakup drama with me in tow. I smile dismissively at the bro-scientist and use the reflection from a framed poster of Einstein to apply more Pirate to my lips. A quote is superimposed over Einstein’s picture: Imagination is more important than knowledge.51

  When Max is done with the calendar, I follow him into the fMRI room. The helmet of truth is just sitting there taunting me. I can feel it coming. Someone is going to have to wear the damn thing, and here I am like one of the girls on The Price Is Right—wearing a fancy dress and ready to demonstrate the product.

  This is probably not the work crisis I should have tagged along to witness.

  “So how does this work?” I say. Please don’t make me test it. Please don’t make me test it. I’m the only person in the room and he needs someone to take it for a test drive.

  “Well, maybe you can help me test out this thing…”

  What did I tell you.

  He sets me down in a chair in the center of the room and puts the wearable brain scanner on me. I’d rather be putting on some lingerie to get his attention instead of a twenty-pound metal helmet.

  “You should be able to move freely while you’re in the helmet,” he says.

  “Maybe if you’re a linebacker. You should make this thing smaller.”

  “Next version.”

  When I put the helmet on, inspiration hits. “Max, are you testing this thing? Is it on?”

  “Let me just ask you a few questions to make sure it’s working right, and then we’ll try to trigger the bugs Chan identified.”

  He looks down at a sheet of paper and then up at me. “None of my test questions are going to work on you.”

  Duh. I don’t know my address and I still have to look up my birthday on Facebook.

  “I’ll just freestyle,” I say. “My name is Mia Wallace and I don’t remember my life before last Tuesday. I own a business and have a boyfriend who I’ve met once on the way home from the airport.” It sounds even more pathetic when I say it out loud in a laboratory while wearing a brain scanner.

  “Looks good,” he says.

  I frown. “What’s good about that?”

  “I just mean that’s all coming up as truthful. Keep going.”

  �
��Well, you accused me of being a liar.”

  He looks up, his expression worried. He knows I’m going to take this somewhere he doesn’t want it to go.

  “That’s true,” I confirm. “I lied to you.”

  “Mia, stop. It’s okay.”

  “Number one: I found out at the bank that I’m broke. I spent money I don’t have and am in serious debt. Number two: I’m wanted for check fraud. I was too embarrassed to tell you. I probably told a thousand little lies to back up those bigger ones, but those are the main lies.”

  “Mia, you don’t need to do this.”

  Oh, but I do. “I’m not a habitual liar, though. I really like you and I didn’t want you to think less of me.”

  I stop and look up. “How did that come out? Does it look true?”

  He nods, which is amazing. I was 70 percent sure it would fail.

  “I know, Mia. You’re not a bad person, but I don’t think I can trust you.”

  “Max, maybe I feel this way for messed-up psychological reasons, but whatever—I can’t worry about where my feelings come from. I just experience them.”

  From the look on his face, he’s preparing for a crash.

  I step on the accelerator. If we’re going to crash, so be it. “I love you,” I say, loud and clear.

  He looks at the brain scanner results and says, “Um, no you don’t.”

  “What?” I’m genuinely shocked.

  “No, the imaging says that you definitely do not love me.”

  “This machine is bullshit then. You can’t tell me how I feel.”

  Chan, who is totally not paying attention to the drama, wanders into the room and hands me a list. “Just read these lines,” he says to me. Looking toward Max, he says, “Watch the scanner while she reads. Fay programmed these statements to come up as automatically false.”

  I stand and say, “Chan, you read them. I’m out of here.”

  “No!” Chan looks pained when I suggest this, but I’m out. I put myself on the line and Max not only didn’t respond—he told me I was wrong. I still don’t think I’m intrinsically dramatic, but that has to be the worst “I love you” ever.

  “Mia, wait,” Max says.

  “It’s okay. I just need to be alone right now. I’ll text you later.”

  In the parking lot, I sit behind the wheel of the Ferrari and say a silent prayer of thanks for the heavily tinted windows so I can have a good, private cry. I turn on the breakup music and sob.

  I don’t know what I want—Max just proved it with science. Crystal texts a Thanks to me, and I start crying even harder. I want to tell Max about it, but not after that fiasco in the lab. I could tell JP, but I don’t even know who he is. Why would I text somebody I just met with news about Crystal and Jules? It doesn’t feel right.

  Of course, that’s my own damn fault. JP has been there for me the whole time. It’s not his fault that he was on vacation when I decided to have a head injury. I look at his last few texts—it’s nothing but messages that he misses me and wants me to come home.

  The irony hits me. I’m avoiding him out of fear that he might want to declare his love for me. This entire emotional affair with Max is probably just a subconscious act of self-sabotage. I’m scared of letting someone love me and so I am avoiding it.

  Time to stop being such a chicken shit, Mia. I text JP: On my way! Autocorrect provides the exclamation point. As I start the engine and drive to the only home I know, I try to match that enthusiasm, for the man who wants me and for the life that I actually have.

  * * *

  When I pull up to JP’s, I sit and listen to the Ferrari click for a good long while. It was a hot day. Hot car. The lights inside the pink house are on and JP is waiting inside for me. The life I had planned for myself is waiting inside for me. Throw pillows and vacations to Switzerland.

  I could be Mrs. Howard. Mrs. Jacques-Pierre Howard, the queen of Jacques-o-late. I start laughing, the kind of hysterical laughter that’s basically crying.

  I pick up my sparkly clutch and will myself all the way to the door. It’s still #homesweethome. Pink house with pink door and a flowerpot.52 Such a beautiful facade.

  Do I knock or just storm in and throw my stuff on the floor? This morning I would have thrown my purse on the couch, flopped over the edge and put my feet on the coffee table. But JP doesn’t seem like a feet on the coffee table, eating cereal in bed kind of guy.

  Max ate cereal in bed with me.53 My eyes start to water at the thought, which is dumb. Eating cereal in bed is gross, and we shouldn’t have done it either. Max and I are both gross. We are…perfect for each other. I decide to knock while opening the door like a nurse entering a hospital room. I belong here, but I’m not in charge.

  “Hi!” I call out.

  There’s takeout on the kitchen island and I can hear the TV from the bedroom. I head there and see JP on top of the covers, half propped up against the headboard. At the sound of my footsteps, he blinks back to life. “Mia…”

  I sit on the bed next to him. “Sorry to wake you up.”

  He scoots over and puts his head in my lap, which might be normal for people who are dating, but for me it’s strange. We just met. If only I’d trusted him and told him about the memory loss.

  “Rub my back, would you?”

  His skin is hot to the touch from sleeping. His body is undeniably beautiful, muscles and smooth skin under my hands. He’s Jacques-o-late, though, not chocolate. Does that make him a substitute for the real thing, for Max? Is he seitan, the vegetarian wheat meat?54

  “Mmm,” he says. “I tried waiting up, but jet lag. How was your work thing?”

  I’m in an ad for The Good Life.

  “I’m sorry I took forever. I had trouble getting one of my clients to her date.” I remember the flashback from earlier. “Do you still want me to give up my business?”

  He sighs. “I want you to sell it and make lots of money, and then have some beautiful babies with me.” He looks at me suggestively. “Speaking of which…”

  Is that what I want too? Was I going to dissolve GoldRush? Investing $100,000 in Jules wouldn’t make sense if that were true.

  “Mmhmmm,” he whispers into my neck between kisses. He slides his hand up underneath my dress along my bare thigh. “I missed you.”

  On the one hand, that feels really good, but on the other, I wish he’d buy me a drink first. “Can we take it a little slower?” I ask.

  He groans. “Reading you loud and clear. Let’s make this last.” He flips me back on the bed and slides my panties down.

  I guess he thinks “take it slower” means more foreplay. Who can blame him? He’s practically my fiancé. We’ve been apart for almost a week and we fought right before he left. He’s probably been looking forward to the make-up sex for days. I should probably want to tear his clothes off too. Girls who don’t know him probably want to tear his clothes off.

  His hand on my leg feels good. Sort of. Then his head is between my legs, which is really nice of him. JP seems to be very generous. Ohmygod.

  He looks up. “Relax, cherie.”

  I can’t. I can’t shut my brain off. A sexy billionaire who wants to marry me is going down on me—that should be a good thing. I close my eyes tighter and try to power down my stupid brain. Relax, Mia—a billionaire is on your clit. Just enjoy it.

  This isn’t a big deal. We must do it all the time. This is probably the gazillionth time that I’ve had sex with this man, but it feels like having sex with a stranger.

  I should probably just tell him I have a headache, but I don’t want to fuck up a second relationship in the span of an hour. “Is there some lube around here?” I ask. “I’m sorry. I’m just really dehydrated.”

  He slowly undoes the side zipper on my dress and pulls it over my arched hips and down my legs. “I forgot how beautiful you are.”

&
nbsp; “Funny you should say that.”

  He trails kisses from my stomach up to my breasts and somewhere in the middle of everything my brain goes blank. I’m floating on a cloud and I don’t know if I’m in the moment or remembering some past moment. Either way JP comes hard and doesn’t notice that I don’t. I guess JP isn’t that perfect. Do men ever notice?

  He has some sort of wet wipe in the nightstand for cleanup. He hands me one and I wipe between my thighs.

  With my head on his chest, his breathing goes even and there I am with a beautiful stranger who loves me. But here I am crying. Real love should feel better than this. I reach over him for the remote. Maybe something silly will take my mind off of everything that has happened today.

  I turn on a rerun of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Kim and Khloé are on their way to the police station. Kris is yelling at Kim to stop taking selfies because “Your sister is going to jail.”

  I giggle in spite of myself. Kim is so vain but I love her. And Khloé is such a ho bag but I love her too. Here I am tucked into the crook of a handsome man’s arm. He’s just made love to me and wants to propose, and the only people who feel like family are the Kardashians. They’re like my sisters except they forgot to give me a K name.

  And really, if anyone could relate to what’s happened to me, it would be the Kardashians. Girl, you wouldn’t believe it, but JP just proposed and we made love, but I can’t remember him and I think I really love Max even though I just met him too. Oh, and I might go to jail for check fraud. If anyone would get that, it would be them. I wish I could meet them for cocktails and tell them all about it.

  I wish I had a sister who would take selfies in the back seat while my mom was driving me to the station to turn myself in for check fraud. I need a girlfriend to talk this over with. Max is great, but I need to talk about him too.

  Now I’m full-on crying.

  JP wakes up, probably concerned about an impending flood, and looks at me. “Are you okay?”

  I laugh half-heartedly. “The Kardashians.” I smile weakly. “This show makes me cry.” He looks confused. “I think I’m overtired or getting my period or something.”