Wanting to Remember,Trying to Forget(40)
He led her a few feet down the beach to a secluded spot behind another boulder. A table draped in a red and white checkered table cloth from Rocko’s stood in front of her. Two place settings on either side and one large covered platter in the middle.
“I decided to give you a day of your favorites,” he explained. “This is your favorite spot on the beach. Rocko’s is your favorite restaurant, but…” He lifted the lid of the platter. “…I used Mama’s kitchen to make chicken-a-la-king.”
She covered her mouth with her hand, tears filling her eyes. “Max, this is perfect.”
“I’m not done yet.”
He walked around the table and lifted a weathered cardboard cut-out of the Beach Boys until it stood upright. It was faded, torn at the edges, and she could tell that it had seen better days.
“Don’t judge. This was impossible to find and bear in mind that you’re the one who likes music that’s a hundred years old.” He knelt down and pulled a battery-operated radio from underneath the table. He pressed play and sound of Kokomo filled her ears.
“I really do love this song,” she said, swaying her hips as it progressed. “Do you have the cast of Jerry Maguire under there, too?”
He sighed. “Unfortunately not. Tom Cruise was busy today.”
She walked towards him and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Thank you. It’s perfect; you’re perfect, but there’s one more favorite that I think you’ve forgotten.”
His dimpled twitched, but he stopped a smile. “Nope. I think I got it all.”
“You sure?” she asked, tilting her lips up to his.
“Pretty sure. Maybe you need to remind me.”
She kissed him then, her senses documenting everything. The mingled smells of salty sea air and Max’s cologne. The sight of the sunset on the horizon and mixture of colors in the sky. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The feel of his skin. The taste of his lips. It was her first birthday since the accident and she wanted to remember every perfect detail.
He broke the kiss and pulled out a chair. “Let’s eat.”
They sat down and Max plated their food. Before she lifted a forkful to her mouth, Max slid a blue suede box across the table.
“One more thing,” he said.
She stared at the box nervously. Her heart began to race. It was a jewelry box, but he couldn’t possibly be proposing. She loved him, yes, but she did not know how he felt about her and marriage was something she was not quite sure she was ready for. Four months was too little time to be a hundred percent sure. Or was it?
She slowly reached over and took the box, taking a fair amount of time before she opened it. If it was possible to feel relief and disappointment at the same, then that’s how she felt.
“Hair clips?” she asked with a laugh.
“Yeah. I had them made.” He took one clip out of the box and ran his fingers over the butterflies at the end. The sun had almost disappeared now so he tilted it so she could see the brownish-colored stones that were embedded in the wings. “You won’t understand my connection to butterflies,” he said with a naughty grin, “but let me tell you about these stones. It’s called Sardonyx, it’s one of your birth stones. It’s the less common one and there’s actually a very interesting story behind it. So back in the day, Queen Elizabeth the first had a ring with this stone in it and she gave it to the Earl of Essex as a token of their friendship, a symbol that she would always be there when he needed her. It didn’t end very well for them because she…had him executed, but…I like what it means…and that’s why I’m giving it to you.”
Her throat tightened and she tried to blink back her tears. The gift was thoughtful in so many ways. “This is the best birthday ever.”
He smiled, seemingly shy, and he tried to cover up his sentimentality with modesty. “You’re just saying that because you don’t remember what I did for you two years ago.”
“What did you do?” she asked before filling her mouth with chicken-a-la-king.
“There’s this…guy, a singer. Rudolph…Rudolpho, I don’t know. Something like that. He’s not really famous or anything but you love him because you have crap taste in music.”
“It’s my birthday so you can’t be mean to me.”
“Okay, well, anyway, he was doing a concert and I tried to get you tickets but they were all sold out so after the show, I managed to get past security and talk to him. I convinced him to go to your apartment and serenade you.”
Her eyes grew with fascination. “That’s insane! How did you get him to agree?”
He shrugged. “It didn’t take much to convince him. He’s a hopeless romantic, I guess.”
“Like you.”
There was a part of her that was saddened by the story, because it was another moment of awesomeness that she could not remember yet it intrigued her even more. “What did you do for me last year?”
Silence. Balled fists and then more silence.
“Max?” she urged.
“Nothing,” he said softly. “You made other plans last year.”
They were entering a no-go zone again and although she was almost fearful of his reaction, she decided to probe further because she wanted all the details of her past, whether they were good or bad. “Will you tell me what happened?”
His jaw tightened, another sign that his temper was flaring.
“Please.”
The usual Drop it, Danny didn’t leave his lips. Instead, he simply shook his head. “Tell me.”
“Let’s not go down this road, Danny.”
The warning signs to back off were all there yet still she continued. Fueled by the need to fill in the blanks, she persisted, feeling that it was unnecessary to be protected from her own past. “Just tell me.”
He snapped. “Richard, alright! You made plans with Richard. He stood you up. You spent the rest of the night locked in your apartment, crying your eyes out, and refused to talk to me. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
He stood up so fast that his chair toppled over in the sand. He marched a few feet down the beach and stopped, clasping his hands behind his head.
She stood up too and approached him cautiously. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t want to ruin this perfect day and now I have. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“You wanna be with me, don’t you, Danny? I mean…this is real for you too, right?”
“Max, how can you even ask me something like that?”
His eyes locked on hers and she understood then his reluctance to tell her. He had not been trying to protect her from her past. He had been trying to protect himself. Questions filled her head and she wanted to know more. She wanted to know why he was asking questions like that. What had happened that made him so angry? Richard had become Voldemort, the name she could not mention. Lauren and Amber reacted the same way every time she brought him up.
As she looked at Max now, she realized that she would have to accept that Richard was one thing in her past that she would never know about unless she regained her memory.
“I just wanna know,” he said. “You don’t remember how you felt about him. If…if Richard had to walk back into your life, who—”
“Hey.” She cupped his face in both hands. “Don’t even think like that. I could never feel about anyone the way I feel about you. I don’t need my memory to figure that out. I gave you me and you gave me you and I won’t ever let you go.”
He pulled her towards him and kissed her, possessive and unyielding. “You’re mine now,” he whispered.
September
Max stood in front of the magazine rack in the supermarket and groaned. Danny had asked him to pick up a few magazines on his way home and as his eyes surveyed the variety, dread built inside him. There were so many to choose from. She wanted a few bridal magazines for a wedding she had been asked to plan and a few on décor but she also asked for a few lifestyle and celeb magazines. He hated celeb gossip and when his eyes caught sight of yet another picture of another Kardashian, he wanted to throw up.
How could people read this junk?
He took one of every magazine, dropped it into his shopping basket and headed for the check-out counter. As he handed the magazines to the cashier one by one, a picture in the corner of one of them grabbed his attention. His eyebrows creased together as he quickly grabbed it back and studied it in more detail.
“You gotta be kidding me!” he said to himself.
He immediately pulled out his cell phone.
Max: Why is there a picture of you and your BOSS making out on the cover of Hot Gossip???
Jordan: He tripped and fell on my face
Max: I thought he said that you guys DON’T have that boss-accountant sort of relationship.
Jordan: I know right! He told me the same thing
Jordan: Yet still he fell on my face
Max: Give Tyler a message for me, will ya?
Max: Balls and shears
Jordan: Don’t know what that means but sure. I’ll tell him.
* * *
Danny sat in front of a laptop, transforming the design in her head into electronic pictures. Max had downloaded a program where she could manipulate a basic picture of an open room into something that was fully decorated.