“I don’t remember that one.” I laugh. “Besides, you never know. Maybe I am rich.”
“And maybe I’m the long-lost granddaughter to the queen.” She scoffs and wraps a purple scarf over the throat of the mannequin. The way she does it, the way the scarf wraps so tightly, makes me stop. My eyes lock on the pale skin of the plastic girl and the tightly wound purple scarf. I can’t swallow—I swear I can feel the itchy fabric on my throat. I move my head a little, as if it will loosen the scarf for her.
“Crazy coma patient.” Angie waves her hand in front of my face. “You’re doing it again. Just sing.”
My lips open like I am a trained seal. “Listen, listen to the wind and stone. Listen, listen to the sounds of old. Listen, listen as my hopes are drowned. Listen, listen to the sounds that bullets make of blood and bone. Where will you run today? How will you ever get away?”
And there it is, one small section of a morbid song that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, doesn’t exist.
Angie gives me a funny look. “Still makes no sense. You sure that’s the way it goes?”
My eyes lift to meet hers, but I am still stuck in the odd fog the lyrics give me, so my mouth remains closed. I nod and walk away, clutching the window cleaner and wondering if anything will ever make sense.
She is the only person I have ever sung the song to. She caught me singing it when I was working. I remembered it ages ago, but I never told Derek. I sort of hate the way he’s always pressing me about my memories. It makes me feel like I should clam up more, like I did with the guy calling me Sam.
The idea of being pressed to remember makes me feel funny. I’m certainly the only amnesia patient who fears that she should avoid her previous life. The possibility of being an anal-loving stripper isn’t making me feel better about my past.
I wonder if I should even tell Derek about the men calling me Sam or the girl who looked exactly like me until she burned up, dying the way I nearly did.
Derek is so intense about the memories. He thinks I don’t notice that he presses my memories on a schedule, like a bus route. Mondays he does it in the morning. Tuesdays he comes and gets me for lunch and drops hints about it. Wednesday he doesn’t do it. Thursday it’s at dinnertime. Friday it’s after sex—we always have sex on Friday. Saturday and Sunday he likes to do it randomly. Every week is the same.
Not that it matters. I am Jane. I like being Jane. Jane Spears is an uncomplicated girl who works in a shop and dates a doctor. A girl could do a lot worse.
I stay a bit late to help close the shop. When we’re done we walk home, carrying bags of clothes from Angie’s closet. She went through it, weeding out the clothes that were a little too ambitious for her size.
She nods at me as our heels click along the cold cement. “You know, I need to try the six-month-coma diet. You don’t know for sure how old you are, and you’re still a size four. It’s like winning the woman lottery. You could have a bunch of little bratty kids running about while you’re here free as a bird. You know how many women would die to be able to say they don’t know how old they are?”
“I know how old I am.”
She scoffs. “You don’t. You only know what Derek has told you. It could be a pack of lies. Hell, I’d tell everyone that it is a pack of lies and that you’re twenty-five for the next decade.”
Her words mean nothing to her. They’re a joke. But they couldn’t have come at a worse time. For me they are a possibility I have never actually considered.
Could it be that Derek is lying to me about who I am? It is possible, though why would he? Why would he tell me I am a certain age and that my parents are dead? Why would he tell me I hate running and I love chicken Parmesan?
We pass through some steam, and something about it is familiar. The clicking of the heels on the cold concrete, the steam coming up from the manhole, and the way the cold wind pushes against my face, like it doesn’t want me to walk any farther—I have done this before.
At some point and in some place similar to here, I have walked in heels through steam and the resistant cold wind. It had to have been an important moment for me to feel the dread I do now.
To anyone else it would be a “whatever” moment. To me it is almost like remembering. It is muscle memory. My body recognizes the actions, not the story.
When we get to Angie’s building I realize she is midway through a story I have not heard a word of. Her pretty dark eyes are watery and sad. “So I said no and handed him his keys, and he hasn’t called or come back home. I think he is actually living with her, so soon.”