fourteen

You’re No Body Until Somebody
Bloods You

Despite my stories about supernatural creatures, I wasn’t a superstitious chica. I understood that the ghost was actually a manifestation of my own guilt.

“It was a rat,” I said.

“What is it about you and rats?” Oswald said. “It’s the country. There are lots of animals here. Which reminds me, you should watch out for skunks at night. One was near the house yesterday.”

“Maybe I should go inside.”

As we walked back to the house, I kept glancing to the field, but my hallucination was over for now.

Oswald kissed my cheek and said, “Sleep well.” When I was alone in the bedroom, I locked the windows and the door. Better safe than scary.

Gabriel came to my room soon after I got up the next morning and told me, “I’ve got to make a run to the City, but I’ll be back tomorrow.” He took my gloved hand in his. “Do you like your therapy?”

I twined my fingers with his. “Do you see any improvement in me … in who I am?”

“Honey, I always thought you were fabulous.”

“Thank you, Gabriel. It would be wonderful if Oswald thought I was fabulous, too. I’m so lucky to spend this time with him, to have another chance at our relationship.”

Gabriel kissed my hand. “Yes, well, take care of yourself.”

My disappointment at seeing him leave was alleviated when I went to the parlor and Lily told me she was going to try to put me in a relaxed, focused state.

“You’re going to try to mesmerize me, aren’t you? Mesmer coming from Franz Mesmer, who had a whole school of spiritualism based on animal magnetism. These days we use “magnetism” to describe sexual attractiveness, but Mesmer thought our bodies contained magnetic fluid. Wacky.”

“How do you know about Mesmer?” Lily asked while I arranged myself on the purple velvet sofa.

“I wrote a story in college about a man who was so charismatic that he could convince people at a glance to do his bidding. Of course, no one is that charismatic. Charismatic is derived from an ancient Greek word, ‘kharisma,’ meaning gift. Hmm …”

“What?”

“Some words and phrases raise my ookiness level. You should ask me about that when I’m under.” I crossed my hands over my chest and said, “Okay, mesmerize away.”

“Why don’t you come sit here?” She indicated the chairs.

“This is more dramatic.”

She didn’t look convinced, but said, “If you’re more relaxed there, you can stay.”

“Totally relaxed. Yet focused. Keenly focused.”

“Good.” Lily dimmed the lights and moved a chair next to the sofa. She had a small penlight that she clicked on and held it in front of my face. “I want you to focus on the light and imagine yourself in a wonderful safe place. Where are you?”

“I’m lying on the ratty old sofa in my friend’s nightclub. A wonderful band is practicing a new song.”

“Good,” Lily said somewhat skeptically.

“It’s a great club. What music do you like?”

“Hmm? Classical and soft jazz. Relax and start counting backward from one hundred.”

“One hundred, ninety-nine.…,” I began, and when I was in the eighties, I got bored so I switched over to Spanish. By the time I got to quince, I went to French, because I could count up to quatorze in French.

“Now, Milagro, are you comfortable?”

“Very.”

“You’re safe here and warm. Let’s go back to the night you were supposed to meet Wilcox. You were excited and happy to see him again.”

“I’m always happy to see cute guys. He’s cute, right?”

“So I was told. You go to the restaurant to meet him. You’re wearing a pretty dress.”

“Which one?”

“Whatever you want to imagine. You walk into the restaurant—”

“Hold on. If he’s a surfer, maybe I would have gone with jeans.”

“You wore a dress.”

“Are you sure?”

Lily clicked the light off. “I don’t think you’re in a relaxed, focused state.”

“Quelle bummer. I thought things had changed.” I told her how I used to earn money at F.U. by being a psychology test subject. “I didn’t score well for hypnotic susceptibility.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that first?” she asked, and I heard a note of irritation in her voice.

I sat up and looked at her. “Because I wanted it to be like a Hitchcock movie, where the beautiful and brilliant psychiatrist uses hypnosis to draw out the memories from the fascinating amnesiac.”

Lily blinked for a few seconds and twirled one curl around her finger, so I said, “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“This is supposed to be healing, not fun.”

I shook my head. “I think it could be both, like a spork is both a spoon and a fork. Let’s go outside.”

She narrowed her hazel-green eyes at me, which I didn’t think was in the shrink handbook, and said, “I’ll go outside if you’ll do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you outside.”

“Okay.” When we were in the garden, I said, “Okay, what is it?”

“Let’s work awhile.”

I soon became engrossed in replanting a conifer that had outgrown its container.

When I stood back to admire my work, Lily said, “Who is your favorite humorous writer?”

I was glad she was going to talk about books. “I have lots, but Mark Twain would be one of my top three.”

“What’s his style? What’s his voice?”

“It depends on his topic, but he often wrote in first-person, past tense, and his narrators are frequently ironic or terrifically deluded,” I said. “I can recommend a few books, if you like.”

“What’s a ‘serious’ literary voice?”

I shrugged. “I was taught to write in present tense, third person, stripped-down emotionally detached prose.”

Lily raked leaves from under a bush. “Tell me about the time your mother left you at the mall, but this time describe it in present tense, third person.”

“But I already told you what happened.”

“You said you’d do what I asked if we could come outside. This time don’t call her ‘my mother Regina.’ Say ‘her mother.’” Lily did the eye squint thing again, and I realized that she had an edge under the smooth professional surface.

“Fine,” I said, and I wondered why I felt so annoyed. “The girl is ten years old and her mother takes her to the big indoor mall. At first she’s excited because her mother never takes her anywhere and she thinks her mother wants to be with her,” I said in an affectless voice. “Her mother is very thin, perfectly groomed, and perfectly coordinated in new clothes.”

“How did the girl feel?”

“She’s proud of her mother,” I said, surprised to remember how I’d felt at seeing her looking as striking as a crane in a flock of frumpish pigeons. “Her mother tells her to sit on the bench by the fountain and wait.”

“What happens then?”

“The girl does as she’s told because she wants her mother to be pleased with her. Her mother is never pleased with her. The girl waits and the hours pass. The girl watches other people buying and eating food, and she’s hungry because it’s lunchtime. She thinks of going to look for her mother, but that would make her angry and the girl will be locked in her room again.”

My mood, the happiness of being in the garden, was gone.

“Go on, Milagro.”

I took a breath and then said, “Her classmates walk by, but they ignore the girl because she’s new to the school and she isn’t allowed to visit anyone or have anyone over. Her mother doesn’t like the mess and noise of children.”

“Does the girl just sit?” Lily asks. “Or does she do anything else?”

“The girl has books in her backpack that the librarian gave her. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. So the girl begins to read. Soon she forgets that she’s hungry and she forgets that she’s waiting and she forgets everything but the world between the covers. She’s in that world with Laura and her family.”

“What is she feeling?”

“She’s feeling what they’re feeling: the bone-chilling prairie winters, the sweetness of an orange at Christmas, the terror of scarlet fever, the happiness of a family who loves one another.”

My throat constricted and I turned my face away from Lily.

“What happened to the girl then?” Lily said quietly.

“She wants to be one of them, living within the pages of a book. Night comes and the mall empties. A cleaning lady sees the girl and speaks to her in Spanish. She takes the girl by the hand. The lady’s hand is warm and firm and the girl misses being touched so much and no one has touched her or loved her since her abuelita died. She is so small and alone and her grief is so enormous. All she wants is human touch and she cries and begs the woman, ‘Please can I live with you?’”

And then I couldn’t speak anymore. Something inside me felt broken.

Lily was there with a tissue, and I wiped at my eyes and tried to calm my breaths.

“What are you thinking, Milagro?”

I glared at her. “I’m thinking that this isn’t my story. My story isn’t a tragedy or a drama. My story is full of laughs and has a happy ending. Everyone says I’m a happy-ending sort of girl!”

“Who says that?”

“I don’t remember!” I shouted. “And this stupid exercise won’t help me remember.” I walked into the house and to my room, slammed the door shut, and picked up my pen. I wrote in first person, past tense, and let myself get lost in my story, a happy, magical story. When I heard the dogs barking and a car coming down the drive, I closed my composition book and went to investigate.

AG was ahead of me, opening the front door and saying, “Come in, come in.”

A pretty young woman with long red curls entered the house and handed him a folder. “Here’s the prospectus you wanted, Sir,” she said with an English accent. She was wearing a blue cotton dress the same color as her eyes, and I felt self-conscious about my sack-of-potatoes outfit.

When she saw me, she looked stunned. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Milagro, this is my assistant, Nettie Matthews,” AG said. “She was acquainted with your friend, Wilcox Spiggott.”

“You knew Wilcox?” I asked. “Gosh, I’ve been wanting to talk to someone who could tell me about him.”

AG said, “You girls go and chat while I look this over.”

I said, “Let’s have lemonade on the terrace.”

Nettie followed me into the kitchen and stood silent as I poured two glasses of pink lemonade. I led her onto the terrace and we sat down.

After she took a few sips of her drink, she said, “Mr. Grant told me that you have amnesia. You really don’t remember me?”

“I’m sorry.”

She gazed at me and smiled sadly. “I wanted to come see you earlier, but the Grants said I should wait. We met when you were on holiday in London.”

“Did we? Honestly, it’s awful that I forgot that trip.”

“You and I wrestled in bikinis in a nightclub.”

“You’re kidding! That’s great. In mud, or Jell-O?”

Her smile widened. “In a vat of red liquid.”

I laughed and said, “I can’t wait to remember that.”

“When we first met, I wasn’t aware that you were Milagro de Los Santos.”

“It’s not like I’m anyone important. I’m so sorry about Wilcox. How did you know him?”

“My family has been employed by the Spiggott family for generations. Wil and I always knew each other and … he was a lovely lad,” she said. “I was shocked when my father told me he’d disappeared and then the Grants reported that he had been …” She shook her head, distraught.

“I wish I could tell you something about what happened to him. I don’t even remember him. All I know is that I liked him and that he surfed.”

“That was one of his passions,” Nettie said. “His other was passion. He loved to party and laugh and shag and talk. I thought he would always be in my life.” Her eyes glistened with tears.

I put down my lemonade and wrapped my arms around her.

After a few minutes, Nettie pulled away and wiped at her tears. “I’m not supposed to upset you in your condition.”

“Nettie, I’m supposed to stay here until I remember things. You’re welcome to come and visit whenever you want.”

She gave me a tight smile. “Thank you, but my father, who worked for Wil, is visiting and I want to spend time with him. Mr. Grant has leased me a sweet house in town with a purple gate and big yellow and pink roses. I hate leaving my father there, worrying about Wil. Besides, my father’s not fond of employees and employers consorting.”

“Consorting sounds like we’re sex partners or criminals. We’ll just be cocktailing.”

“I’ll try,” she said, but I could tell she was being polite.

Late in the afternoon, I went out to dig up the dead mock-orange shrub. Lily came into the garden and said, “Are you okay?”

I regretted letting her get to me so I spoke normally. “I will be when I remove this. It has a heavenly scent that always reminds me of being in love, but I don’t know what I was thinking planting it here. This climate is far too cold for this species.”

“Maybe you were thinking of being in love.”

“Perhaps,” I said as I dug around the trunk. “I might have forced it to survive, but it never would have thrived.”

“Oswald just called and he’d like me to visit his office to do a psych evaluation on one of his partner Vidalia’s charity cases. Will you be all right by yourself?”

“Vidalia, like the onion?” I hauled out the shrub and said, “Sure, I’m fine. Go have a little fun. You’ve been trapped here with me and missing out on all the wonderful sights. You and Oswald should go out to dinner, too.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Lily, my policy is, when a fun chick suggests a good time, say yes.”

She laughed and I think we both felt better.

Lily must have taken my advice about dinner, because she and Oswald weren’t back by the time I went to bed. I wished I could be out and about, having fun with Oswald, too.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I had disturbing dreams that made even less sense than most dreams: I was in a car that lost control on a mountain road; I was dressed in a white robe watching a creepy ceremony in a strange ugly language; my ex-boyfriend Sebastian was kidnapping me.

The worst was a dream of myself as a small child. It was a hot day and my mother Regina had filled an aboveground pool with water. She set a ladder beside it, and then she turned and went into the house and locked the door.

I didn’t know how to swim yet, but the water excited me. I climbed the ladder, jumped in, and sank. Suddenly I wasn’t a child anymore but a woman, and my wrists and legs were bound by heavy chains, and mans’ hands held me down as I struggled to reach the surface.

I awoke fighting the blankets, in a cold sweat, ready to kill anyone who would hurt me. But I was alone in the dark.

Oswald came to see me in the morning before he went to work. He looked fresh and handsome in a navy suit and ivory shirt.

I felt proud of him and said, “It’s wonderful that you donate time to care for those in need. I really admire you for making a difference.”

“Maybe when this situation is over you can pursue a career that helps others, like teaching. You can always write about zombies and monsters in your free time.”

“But my political horror stories do help others,” I said, surprised that he didn’t understand.

He frowned a little. “Yes, of course.”

“I’m so glad you took Lily out last night. It’s a pity she has to spend her vacation stuck here with me.”

“She doesn’t feel that way at all. She loves her profession, and she thinks you’re a very intriguing case.”

“If I’m the most exciting thing on her plate, I find that a little sad. I hope you took her out somewhere nice for dinner.”

He paused and said, “There’s a hillside winery with a tram.”

“Oh, but I would have loved to go on a funicular!” I said. “It’s got ‘fun’ right in the name.”

He got an odd expression and seemed about to say something when the dogs started barking to announce someone arriving. “I’ll see who that is.”

I went outside with him and was thrilled to see that Gabriel had returned. Oswald wanted to talk alone to his cousin, so I ran across the field to Mrs. Grant’s cottage. I knocked on her open door and she said, “Come in.”

She was drinking coffee and relaxing on the sofa with a pile of celebrity magazines. Her legs were curled beneath her and her silver hair was charmingly mussed.

“Are you busy?” I asked as I sat across from her, feeling very sack-of-potatoish by comparison.

She put down a glossy weekly. “Would it matter if I was?”

“No. I was just being polite. Were you ever in the movie biz?”

“On the periphery, Young Lady. I knew people, but my family didn’t approve of being in the limelight.”

“That’s too bad.” I picked up a magazine, opened a dog-eared page, and saw a fashion spread of gorgeous, copper-skinned Thomas Cook in designer clothes. “Mrs. Grant,” I began.

She rolled her eyes. “Lily said I should let you establish our relationships, but would you please stop calling me that? You always call me Edna.”

“Edna,” I said, feeling pleased with myself. “It’s very peaceful here, isn’t it?”

“If you mean boring, say so.”

“Oh, no, far be it from me to find fault with this bucolic wonderland. Your grandson and I are getting along swimmingly. So don’t give up hope that you may yet have the opportunity to buy a grandmother-of-the-groom dress. I’m thinking something in puce.”

“Why puce?”

“It’s a nice purply color, even though puce originally meant flea-colored.”

She ignored my fascinating information.

“Young Lady, do you really want to reconcile with Oswald?”

“It’s not reconciliation if I don’t recall breaking up. How could I do any better than Oswald?”

“It didn’t work out before, Milagro.”

“But I’m different now, careful and thoughtful, serious and sincere. There should be a way for people who’ve loved each other to correct past mistakes. Isn’t that what you and Mr. Grant are trying to do?”

She thought before answering. “I don’t know if that’s what I want. How much should one compromise in order to be accepted by another?” She sighed and suddenly looked much older. “My family would be overjoyed if AG and I remarried.”

I flipped open the magazine to the photos of her obsession, Thomas Cook, and held it toward her. “Better a real relationship with a real person who’s stable and reliable and still foxy, than a fantasy about someone who probably looks like a toad in real life.”

“Do you think so?” she said, a smile playing on her lips.

“Oh, yes, these photos are airbrushed and Photoshopped. They can make anyone look like Adonis. He’s not real.”

“You may be right, Young Lady.”

“I am, Edna. Now, if you need to talk again, I’ll be in my room.”

I wasn’t sure, but after I left I thought I heard her laughing.

By the time I returned to the house, the mood had changed drastically. Oswald, Gabriel, and Lily were in the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee. Oswald had taken off his jacket, and Gabriel was pacing.

“¿Que pasa?” I said, and gave Gabriel a non-skin-contact hug.

“Hey, baby,” Gabriel said. “I was just telling everyone that we’re having a visit from our Council director tonight.”

“He’s no one special,” Oswald said, his mouth turning down at the corners. “We told the Council you still don’t recall anything.”

“He’s going to interview you,” Gabriel said. “He’ll ask the same questions we have.”

“This is unreasonable,” Lily said. “Milagro’s not in any condition to be pressured by the Council.”

Gabriel ran his hand through his pretty red-gold hair. “We’ve done everything we can to buy time. But someone is dead, or at least we think someone is dead, and that takes precedence.”

Oswald came to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve canceled my appointments so I can be here for you. Lily will give the Council director her evaluation and our cousin, Sam, an attorney, has set up guidelines that he must follow so that you’re protected from any difficulties.”

“Oswald, don’t worry. I’m very good at answering questions. Just ask Lily.”

I glanced at my shrink, who was suddenly fascinated by the coffee in her mug.

Oswald said to me, “Can we talk?”

I nodded and he led me upstairs to his bedroom. I looked around at an airy room with luxurious white linens on the bed and a beamed ceiling. It looked like the room at a luxury hotel, a room out of a magazine.

Oswald closed the bedroom door and then went to a bed table and searched around in a drawer.

I glanced at the bare surface of the dresser and an image flashed in my mind: the same dresser with a clutter of books and jewelry and colognes by a vase of flowers.

The image had vanished when Oswald came to face me. He looked more nervous than I’d seen him yet and said, “How’s your fauxoir going?”

“Fauxoir? That’s the perfect term for it. Why didn’t I think of that?”

He smiled briefly and took my hands in his. “I had a good talk with Lily last night. She explained how your parents’ neglect affected your behavior. I should have realized it before, but you always made it seem like a joke. Will you forgive me?”

He smelled wonderful, of the herby lotion he used, and his clear gray eyes looked into mine.

“Of course I will, Oswald.” I tucked my head against his shoulder. I could feel his chest rise and fall.

“Mil, now I understand why you need so much attention. I should have tried to help. I want to help.”

I thought he could help me right now by taking off his clothes. “You’ve been very helpful, Oswald.”

He kissed my forehead at the temple, making me nuzzle closer to him. “Milagro, I want to make you happy.”

I hoped he would drop his trousers, but instead he dropped down on one knee and then reached into his pocket. He held out a ring with a huge, glittering yellow diamond in a classic setting. “Will you marry me, Milagro de Los Santos?”

I stared from the ringasaurus to Oswald.

Smiling, he said, “It’s your engagement ring. Before you hit your head, you told me you still loved me.”

“But it’s so soon, Oswald!” I was just as thrilled by the offer as I was shocked by the suddenness.

“I know, but we don’t have to set a date. We can wait until you remember your love for me, or until it develops again,” he said, still holding out the ring. “I brought you into my life, my world, Milagro, and I will always do my duty by you.”

“Don’t offer because it’s your responsibility.”

“I wanted to wait, but it’s important for your own protection to be engaged now. It will prove to the Council that we trust that you didn’t kill Wilcox, that we fully support you.” He shifted to his other knee. “I’ll be a good husband, Milagro, and I’d like to be the father of your children. Please tell me that you’ll marry me when you’re well again … if you love me again.”

My policy was always to say yes when a successful, sexy, fabulous man asked for a romantic commitment. Besides, I could always change my mind later. “Yes, Oswald, yes!”

I pulled him up and kissed him, laughing as he took off my ugly glove and slipped the ring on my finger. I looked at it there for a few seconds. It seemed like a ring for a rich woman with demanding taste, the sort of ring my friend Nancy would love.

I was more interested in the man. I yanked his T-shirt up and ran my hands over his back, zinging wonderfully before my hands traversed the denim over his marvelous butt.

His hands were under my smock, but stopped around my waist. He pinched the flesh and said, “You want to be careful not to gain too much back.”

“But the clothes I brought fit perfectly now. This is my normal size.”

A smile flitted across his face. “Yes, but I thought that you’d like to stay the weight you were when you came, except healthy, of course.”

I drew away from him. “If people didn’t have unrealistic ideals, they wouldn’t submit themselves to being cut up.”

“It’s not me, Milagro. You were concerned about your puppy fat when your wedding dress wouldn’t fit.”

His lips went to my throat, and I was thinking, Puppy fat? when there was a knock on the door.

“Hello?” I called out.

“Milagro,” Lily said. “Can I have a minute?”

I looked at Oswald and he nodded. “Just a sec,” I said. My fiancé, fiancé! and I went to open the door.

Lily waited with her hands clasped in front of her like a girl in etiquette class. “Would you like a session before the Council director gets here?”

I glanced at Oswald and he smiled nervously. “Oswald and I just got engaged again!” I held out my hand so she could see the ring.