“Can I see you again?” He was standing directly in front of a street lamp and it cast an ethereal glow around his shoulders.
“What would you do if I said no?”
“Don’t say no.”
It was another one of those moments where I flirt with my conscience and pretend for once that I am going to do the right thing.
“Come over for dinner,” I blurt. “I’m not much of a cook, but hey…”
He looked surprised at first and then grinned.
“I’d love to.”
And that’s how it happened.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Before I leave work, I make a quick call to the number at the bottom of Dobson Orchard’s wanted poster. The detective I speak to takes my name and number and thanks me for the information. He promises to call if anything comes up. Then I call my favorite Thai restaurant and order a large tray of red vegetable curry—To Go.
Pickles is waiting for me by the door when I get home. I place my packages on the counter and grab a coke from the fridge.
“You’re pathetic, Pickles,” I say, hooking the leash to her collar. “You know I don’t have time for this today.”
Our quickie turns into twenty minutes as Pickles willfully disobeys me and refuses to pee on command. By the time we get home, I have thirty minutes before Caleb is due to arrive. I place the curry I bought into a casserole dish and stick it in the oven to keep it warm. I polish two wine glasses and then polish off a glass of wine. Then I take out all of the ingredients to make a salad and line them up in alphabetical order on my counter.
Caleb arrives five minutes early.
“For you,” he says, handing me a bottle of wine and a small potted Gardenia bush. It is sprouting a single white flower and I pause to smell it.
“This is my favorite flower,” I say in half surprise.
“Really? Lucky guess.”
I grunt. If only he knew.
I distract myself by trying to calm Pickles down as she hysterically throws herself at Caleb’s leg. When he bends down to pat her on the head, she yelps and runs away.
“It’s a ‘she can touch you, but you can’t touch her’ kind of thing,” I explain.
“She’s a tease then, just like her owner.”
“You don’t know her owner well enough to make that assertion,” I smile.
“I suppose not.”
He looks around my living room, and I suddenly feel embarrassed. My home is small and there is a lot of purple. He’s been here before, of course, but he doesn’t remember that. I am about to explain why I don’t have nicer things, when his eyes light up.
“You used to have long hair,” he says sauntering over to a collage of pictures on my wall. I reach up and finger a choppy strand of what’s left of it.
“Yes, in college. I needed a change, so I took off twelve inches.” I clear my throat and duck into the kitchen.
“I kinda got a late start on dinner,” I say, picking up a knife, pausing to watch him. He is walking from knick knack, to kick knack, inspecting everything. I watch him pick up a ceramic owl from my bookshelf. He turns it over and inspects the bottom then gently places it back. He bought me that owl.
“I’d give you a tour of the apartment,” I say to him, “but you can see the entire place from where you’re standing.”
“It’s cute,” he smiles. “Girly. But definitely you.”
I c**k my eyebrow. I don’t know what he means. He doesn’t know me….he did, but he doesn’t now. I am getting confused. I viciously chop the onions.
Four years ago, Caleb helped me move in. We painted together; my living room tan and my bedroom lilac. Knowing my penchant for perfection, he dabbed his roller on the ceiling above my bed to annoy me. He left a purple stain, I was furious.
“There, now you’ll think of me every night before you close your eyes,” he had said, laughing at my mortified face. I hated imperfections, hated them. A stain on the carpet, a chip in a teacup, anything that marred the way things were supposed to be. I wouldn’t even eat broken chips. After we broke up, I was grateful for that blob of paint. It was the last thing I saw before I went to sleep and the first thing I saw when I woke up. I would stare at that purple scar like Caleb’s face was hidden somewhere in it. Caleb had been my imperfection, with his slightly Americanized British accent, and the way he could play any sport and quote any philosopher. He was such a mix of class and jock, romance and jerk, it made me crazy.
“Can I help you?” It was meant as a question, but he was already nudging me out of the way as he pried the knife from my fingers and went to work on the mushrooms. I pause on my way to the stove and watch him slice the vegetables.
“So…did you remember anything this week?” I pull my staged casserole dish from the oven and set it on the stove.
“I did.”
My body becomes rigid and blood rushes to my head.
“I was paging through a magazine, one of those travel publications, and there was a picture of a campsite in Georgia. I don‘t know if I ever camped there. For all I know, I could be making it up in my head, but I felt something when I was looking at the pictures.”
I look away before my eyes can tell on me. He camped there all right, with a snake named Olivia.
“You should camp there. Maybe it will jog specific memories for you.” I realize my foolishness after the words are already out of my mouth. I am on team ‘amnesia’. His remembering would be the end of my foolish game.
He opens his mouth to say something but my doorbell cuts him off. Caleb looks at me in surprise, his hand suspended over a bell pepper.
“Are you expecting company?” he asks.
“Not unless you invited your amnesia anonymous group.” I dry my hands, dodging a mushroom he tosses at me and head over to the door. Whoever rang the doorbell was now resorting to pounding with what sounded like both of their fists.
I unlatch my bolt without bothering to look through the peephole and swing it open. A woman is standing in front of me, her fist poised midair.
“Can I help you?”
I rule out Jehovah’s Witnesses because they always come in twos and her makeup is too smudgy to be a salesperson. She is looking at me with a mixture of fear and anxiety. As I am about to say “no thank you” and close the door in her face, I notice a neat row of tears streaking down her cheeks. We stare at each other and then in a moment of horror I know.