The Memory Thief (12 page)

Her body tightens around mine, but she doesn't say anything, which makes me laugh. Now that I have what I want, I can take my time. “I thought you wanted to talk,” I say. “So here I am, talking. Did you change your mind? Would you rather just listen?”

“I give up,” she says. “We can take a rain check.”

I am on a roll. Why not push my luck a few shaky steps further, and see if it holds? “Can I just say one more thing?” I ask her, holding myself still.

She sighs. “Sure.”

“It's a question, actually.”

“Go ahead.”

I put my hands on her hips, move her just a little, hide my face in her hair. My heart's drumming out a fusillade of beats, but I haven't come this far to back out now. It takes everything I have to raise my face, put my mouth against her ear, and speak. It's the scariest thing I've ever done, but I know it is right. She looks so beautiful. She feels so good. I can't see myself wanting anyone else, and I might as well go for broke.

“Will you marry me?” I whisper, feeling my pulse speed up like it does when I'm training hard. I remember lying on my axe in the snow with my heart crashing against my ribs, as much from anxiety as from adrenaline. Now, like then, I wait.

She says nothing.

My heart my heart my heart.

On Saturday afternoon, as I am contemplating whether to immerse myself in a giant vat of bourbon, there is a knock on my door. Nevada barks once in acknowledgment, then settles for sniffing the bottom of the door vigorously. He sounds like a hog hunting for truffles.

I open the door and there is Grace, resplendent in knee-high black boots and a flowing green dress that stops mid-thigh. With her red hair streaming over it, she looks like Christmas. I say this and she smiles.

“I guess that would make you the Grinch,” she says.

Nevada is beside himself, whimpering with joy, trying to stick his nose up her skirt. I pull him back. “Quit it,” I say. She kneels down and pets his head; he closes his eyes and licks her face in doggy ecstasy.

I observe this tableau until a semblance of social niceties comes back to me. “You want to come in?”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

I stand aside and she gets up, squeezes past me. Her now-familiar lavender and vanilla scent fills the air. We stand in my living room, staring at each other, until I find my voice. “What are you doing here, Grace? I didn't think you were speaking to me.”

“I'm not,” she says, like the Sphinx.

I give up. “I was just going to have a drink,” I say. “Want one?”

“What are you drinking?” She edges past me into the kitchen, Nevada in her wake. As always, her comfort in my house takes me by surprise. She knows it better than I do.

“Gentleman Jack,” I say, trailing behind the two of them. “If I can find some.”

“Bourbon?” Her sculpted eyebrows rise.

“Let me guess. I don't drink hard liquor.”

She shrugs.

“Do you?”

She shakes her head.

I check the wine rack. “Shiraz, then? There seems to be an impressive collection.”

She nods.

I cast around for a corkscrew, pulling drawers open at random, and she beats me to it, finding it in the first place she looks. I open the wine bottle—at least I remember how to do that—locate the glasses, and hand her one. “Okay, I'll bite,” I say as I fill my own glass. “What are you after, Sphinx-lady?”

“I thought you might like to go dancing,” she says.

It's my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Do I like to dance?”

She nods again.

“Am I any good?”

“You're not too terrible.”

“You're not just saying that, so I'll get out on the floor and make a total fool of myself?”

Her mouth twitches, but she shakes her head. “I'd offer to sweeten the deal,” she says, “but I'm guessing that would just freak you out.”

I hazard a glance at her, alarmed. “What kind of music are you talking about?”

“Does it matter?”

“Only inasmuch as I am not going to a country-western bar, or a place where I have to do the shag,” I warn her. “No beach music.”

“You'll go?”

What the hell. It's superior entertainment to what I had planned for the rest of the evening—drinking my way to the bottom of a bottle, wallowing in my plight, then passing out on the couch. “Sure,” I say.

She looks like she wants to throw her arms around me. “No line dancing, no shagging,” she says. “I promise.”

“Then let me go take a shower.”

I let the hot water run over me, loosening my muscles. As a courtesy to Grace, I even wash my hair. Out of the shower, I throw on a black Pixies T-shirt, beige shorts, and my Pumas. Eyeing myself in the mirror, I decide I look almost human.

I run a comb through my hair and present myself to Grace, who has put on my Vanessa Mae remix of the Four Seasons and is sitting demurely on the couch, like she's waiting to be interviewed for a job. Nevada is curled up next to her, his nose tucked under his feathery tail.

“All right?”

For no reason I can tell, her eyes fill with tears. She looks into her lap, away from me.

Now what? I sit next to her on the side Nevada hasn't claimed, put my arm around her shoulders. “Did I do something, Grace? I mean, something else?”

Her voice is muffled. “Just ignore me, please. I promised myself I wasn't going to do this.”

“Really ignore you, like go do something else and come back in five minutes? Or kind of ignore you, like talk to you about something stupid until you stop crying?”

The smile is back in her voice. “The former.”

“No problem. I'll just … clean up the kitchen.” God knows it could use it. “Come find me when you're done, um, not doing whatever you're not supposed to be doing.”

She snorts, half laughter, half tears, and I make my escape.

It takes her longer than five minutes to pull herself together. I am loading the last of the impressive stack of plates into the dishwasher when I hear her come into the kitchen behind me. She clears her throat.

“Sorry,” she says.

I don't turn. “No need to apologize.”

“You still want to go?” She sounds like a little girl.

“Sure I do.”

“It's early. We could take a walk on the beach with Nevada, then get some dinner, if you want.”

“Fine,” I say. I dump the detergent in and turn the dishwasher on, then collect my courage and look at her.

She is sitting on one of the kitchen stools. Her eyes are red around the edges, but the tears are gone. She has washed her face. “Why are you being so agreeable?” she says.

“Why are you still speaking to me?” I counter.

“Fair enough.”

I attempt lightness. “Seriously, Grace, you're saving me from myself. My sole plan tonight was to obliterate myself. My liver should be thanking you.”

“I'm a hero, then.”

“Of sorts.” I salute her with a little bow.

“Awesome,” she says, pure Valley Girl. “Do I get a costume? I always wanted one, like Wonder Woman or something.”

“No way. Seeing you in that star-spangled miniskirt might kill me.” It just slips out, and in the silence that follows I wish I could crawl under the sink like the little kid from
A Christmas Story.

Grace recovers first. “Aha. The monk reveals his true colors,” she says.

“I'm sorry,” I mutter, staring at my sneakers. What the hell is my problem?

“Don't be. It means you're still human after all.”

I go to where she sits on the stool, place a hand on the wall either side of her. “Hey, Grace,” I say, an inch from her face.

“What?” she answers, looking up at me. Despite her bravado, she looks fragile to me, all high cheekbones and big eyes.

I don't have an answer, at least not one I'm willing to share with her. Silence descends again, and in it I can hear Johnny Cash coming from the living room; she must have put my iPod on shuffle.
Because you're mine … I walk the line.

A shudder runs through me, part lust, part cowardice. I hold her gaze as long as I can stand it. “Let's go dancing,” I say.

She slips from the stool, out of the cage my arms have made. “Whatever you say, big boy.” Whistling for Nevada, she heads to the front door to get his leash, and I am off the hook.

We take my Honda. Nevada rides in the back, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. “Don't fall out now, buddy,” I tell him. “It'd be a shame if you had to go to the emergency vet clinic, what with this fabulous night of line dancing we have lined up.”

“No line dancing,” Grace says. “I promised.”

“You sure did. But how do I know I can trust you?”

“You don't,” she says. “I guess you'll just have to take it on faith.”

I laugh. “Well,
that'll
be a change.”

We head down to the north end of Wrightsville Beach, where Grace says there's better parking. In the middle of beach season, I doubt there will be any parking. But I am trying hard to be agreeable, so I don't argue. Lucky enough, we do find a spot and it's late enough that we don't even have to pay for it, something that's fast becoming one of my pet peeves.

The wind is blowing off the Atlantic as we make our way up the narrow boardwalk and through the dunes, which serves to break up the hot, humid air to some degree. It still feels as if we're breathing through a wet sock, as far as I'm concerned. Nevada, on the other hand, is beside himself with excitement. He prances at the end of his leash, sniffing the air.

“You're not supposed to have dogs on the beach this late in the season,” Grace says, apropos of nothing.

“Then why did you tell me to bring him?”

“I forgot,” she says.

I start to get mad, then give it up as a bad job. “I guess I can't hold that one against you.”

She gives me a startled look, realizes I'm joking, and smiles at me. “I guess not.”

So we walk on the beach, Nevada gamboling ahead of us, dashing in and out of the surf, barking. Grace's long red hair blows in the wind, and after a while she secures it in a knot at the back of her head. She keeps glancing at me happily when she thinks I can't see, and I fight the urge to shake her. I wish there was some way for me to clarify that this is not intended as a Romantic Walk on the Beach, which is how she seems to be taking it. Maybe we used to do this all the time, before? Hell, for all I know, we've had sex in the dunes, or out there in the water. I don't have the heart to ask. Instead, I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

When it comes right down to it, I feel like I owe Grace a good time. My dealings with her may be awkward and confusing, Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole-ish as hell, but they don't mess with my heart. Grace, on the other hand, has come out of a couple sessions with me, especially that last one at the Mushroom, looking like she's been immolated. She's right—she had a perfectly good life, with a guy who loved her. Now she's got me, moody as a cat and just as reluctant to be petted. I've lost myself; she's lost us. It's fair to say I got the shittier end of the deal, but still, her piece is no picnic. Staring over the breaking waves, I remind myself of that fact and resolve to be a better version of my current self for the remainder of the evening.

By the time we've strolled all the way down to the north end of the beach, onto the sandbar across from Figure Eight Island and back, we've worked up a decent appetite, and Grace asks me where I want to have dinner.

“Anywhere. You pick.”

“How about Circa?” she says. “You always liked that.”

“What kind of food is it?”

“Tapas. Small plates. It's downtown.”

“Sounds fine,” I say, even though I'm more in the mood for something simpler—pizza, maybe, or a burger. Saying this to Grace, though, may be more trouble than it's worth. After all, what if I am not, traditionally speaking, a pizza-and-burger kind of guy?

We load Nevada back into the car, take him home, and dry him off. He looks after us mournfully as we lock the door and leave him behind. Truth be told, I envy him. The idea of going to dinner with Grace makes me nervous. It seems like a Date with a capital
D,
something that I have been assiduously trying to avoid. Yet here I am.

I park the car where Grace directs me and we go in. The restaurant is candlelit, with piano music and sophisticated décor. It is definitely a Date restaurant, I conclude as we settle into one of the dark wood booths opposite each other. The wine list alone would take me ten minutes to read, if I went through the whole thing. I peruse it dutifully, then give up. I have no idea what any of these wines are, or whether I enjoy them. And I am tired of asking Grace what I like. I order whisky, neat, which is what I was after this afternoon in the first place. She orders a glass of Wolf Blass Shiraz.

“To what?” she says, raising her glass.

I think for a moment. “To a good night,” I say. “And to continuity.”

She gives me her Sphinx-smile. “If you say so.” And we drink. Then we eat: four kinds of cheese, filet mignon wrapped in puff pastry for me, duck for Grace. And then we drink some more. I pay, which puts the finishing touch on the Datelike vibe. Then we go dancing.

Time has passed, though I can't tell how much. Maybe it doesn't matter. Nicholas won't let me through when he's awake, and his dreams aren't date-stamped. Sometimes when he's awake I can leave, and I always seem to go home, to our house in Boulder.

Tonight I'm in my now-habitual place by our bed, watching Madeleine sleep. She hogs the covers, but I've never minded. My body temperature runs hot. I sleep naked, and Maddie used to roll over and press herself against my back, to steal my heat. I complained, but only on the surface. Really I loved it, that we knew each other that well, that we fit. Plus, it cooled me off, which was an added plus. Tonight she sleeps restless, with the covers kicked off, and I stand next to her, snow on my pants, ice crystals on my gloves. It's nicely ironic.

I will her to open her eyes, to see me like Gabe did, but nothing happens. Instead she makes a sound in her sleep, like a small frightened animal. She pushes the pillows away from her face like they're suffocating her, and whimpers. She's dreaming, and not about anything good.

Before I really think it through, I'm on my knees next to the bed. I wind my hand into the thick fall of her hair and press my lips against her cheek. Sweet dreams, I think. I rummage through my memories until I think about a night I want to give her, if I can—the night she finally said she'd marry me, the night Gabriel was conceived. Something I want her to dream about, something we share.

But memory is a flighty temptress. It's hard to think about making love to her by the river, about the moment she said yes to me, without remembering the rest—what happened with J. C., how I told her about my dad. I kneel next to her and remember. She dreams for me, my lips cold against her skin.