When I’d regained my senses, mere moments after blacking out, Lane was insisting I go to the hospital, so I played the only hand available to me, the old “let me have a little dignity” ploy. When that didn’t work, I threw a fit. I was desperate. He was way too preoccupied dodging my verbal blows to follow through on the E.R. threat, but I still needed a reasonable explanation, so I zoned in on my weird posture. I’d been sitting oddly (understatement!), and it must have pressured an important nerve so my heart rate went through the floor and my brain was starved for oxygen. That sounded good, even if it might be wrong. Wasn’t it embarrassing enough to have that kind of thing happen without adding my over-protective mother to the whole embarrassing equation? Was he really that cruel? I was relentless. He finally caved.
Faith’s attention was straight ahead. I didn’t need to hide this time.
“Are you sure I can’t talk you into that gold pair?” Faith was asking the woman, clearly distraught over the lady’s color choice.
“For goodness’ sakes, Faith, I’m not going to be walking up and down Miracle Mile looking for a client. It’s a formal cocktail party, and formal implies black!”
Faith shrugged and got to her feet. “Suit yourself. Barb will ring it up for you.” She noticed me standing there, then quickly called to the redhead behind the cash register, pointing at the shoe box and telling the girl to ring up the sale using her own employee code. The customer was too busy collecting her purse and a short jacket to notice she’d been handed off to an assistant. I waited where I was until Faith approached. She was conspiratorial, whispering.
“The party’s going to be a complete failure. She’ll return them within two days. I hate returns. All that nasty paperwork…”
“What all do you have to do for returns?” I tried my best to look interested. I was hoping she’d launch into one of her patented lengthy explanations, but my ploy didn’t work.
“Oh, Sydney, honey, what happened?”
Frick! How could she have possibly known?
“Please tell me he didn’t take you to a fish restaurant.”
“No, nothing like that.” I watched the poor woman paying for the wrong shoes, then decided I better make the lie big. If she even
suspected
I’d had another “losing touch with my body” episode, she’d drag me straight to a hospital. That had been our deal. Thank God she didn’t know Lane. It had taken all my wits to talk
him
out of that particular course of action. If he and Faith ever got together, they’d be a nightmare.
She raised her eyebrows and waited.
“What can I say? I wasn’t what he had been expecting.”
There, was that one big enough?
She clapped her hands and let out a little squeal. “Why do you look so down? That’s good! Men like surprises.”
“No, you don’t understand. Not only was I clumsy, I was a little tongue-tied, too.”
She grabbed her purse, waved her goodbye to Barb and started steering me out of the shoe department. “Trust me, Sydney, none of that matters. What does matter is how it ended. He wants to meet you sometime tomorrow, right? Same time, same place?”
“Yes… but… not for the reasons you think.”
“Sydney, if it was as awful as you say, he wouldn’t want to be subjected to you again, no matter what.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. He’d do anything for his sister. I’m the only one she’ll talk to.”
“But he insisted on tomorrow, right?”
“Will you stop it already? Shae asked me. It didn’t come from him.”
“That makes perfect sense,” she nodded as if it was exactly what she’d expected. “Kids and dogs are excellent at reading people. Maybe it’s because they haven’t been taught how to ignore their guts, or maybe it’s because they’re still innocent. Nobody really knows the answer. So, did Lane ask for your phone number yet… for Shae, of course?” She added that part only after I moaned.
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Don’t worry, he will. On the next date he’ll wangle your phone number out of you. Give him mine, of course.”
Sure, Faith, sure he’ll ask. On the very next date. About a hundred years from now, if I get any say in it.
* * *
Instead of heading home, Faith swung the car toward Gillie’s and circled around looking for an open spot. She thought it was time I picked up my car, so I wouldn’t feel like a prisoner. I should be free to come and go as I pleased, she rambled on, zipping into an open spot. “Besides, there may be something in your car that will trigger a memory.”
Exactly what I was afraid of. “What if we find something you don’t want to see instead?”
She turned off the engine, gathered her purse and just sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead. “Look, Sydney, I need the truth. Are you playing some game with me? Is this all a big scam, or is what we have for real? Look me in the eye and tell me I can trust you.”
“I can’t answer that, because I don’t know.”
“That answer is getting old. Really old. You need to do better than that.” She closed her eyes. Was it out of anger or hurt?
I couldn’t blame her one bit. If my assignment this time was to patch things up between her and Sydney, it would have to be Sydney who changed the most. Further, my switch had taken place in the nick of time, to the point where Sydney had to be totally freaked out by being made to sit in the corner while I took over her life. I’d shown up on the brink of something horrible she was all ready to do to Faith, which would make her furious. How could I succeed at convincing her that she’d been going in all the wrong directions, when no one else in her real world could come close?
Yet, there had to be hope. Recalling what little I could about Claire and Tom, there’d been no answers obvious at the start of that switch. It had looked hopeless; two people as far apart as imaginable, yet in love at some time in their past. Claire, it seemed, had sensed me from within and reacted to it. Tom, in the external sense, saw something radically different in the woman he’d once loved, and liked what he saw, reacting to that. Maybe I
had
been a catalyst in a way, showing them how things could be by my simply being there.
How could any outsider hope to accomplish magic that way? I simply had to believe that somehow answers would come to me. Meanwhile I had to say something.
“All right, Faith, here goes. I think Max was right about me hurting you. The problem is that I don’t recall any of it, or anything else. It’s as though something came along and wiped me clean.”
“You mean like shock therapy?”
“Maybe like that, yes. They say you sometimes lose your memory and get really confused, so that comes very close, except I don’t think I had that done. Max would have known something like that and jumped at the chance to rub my face in it, don’t you think? Anyway, without my memories, I only met you two days ago and from what I have learned since, I think you’re pretty terrific. I would be proud to call you Mom.”
“Then who
are
you now? Are you anyone I once knew?” she whispered instead, sounding like a child experiencing the magic of Disneyland for the very first time. “Wait,” she said, waving her hands when I was about to speak. “Don’t answer that. Just promise me you won’t go away. This is where you belong, with Steven and me. We’ll take care of you for as long as you let us.”
Somehow I ended up in her arms with her caressing my hair and whispering soothing words like “This was how it was supposed to be. How it should have been all along. Mothers are supposed to protect their children.”
What did I do? I sat there like a starving infant, sucking up as much love as she was willing to feed me, but deep inside, I was fearful. I could be wrong, and if I was, how could this ever have a good ending?
* * *
“Wait here, in the car. I’ll be right back.”
I watched her until she disappeared inside the restaurant. Five minutes later she came bounding out with Sydney’s black purse looped around her arm, laughing.
“What service! Can you believe it? As soon as ‘our’ waiter saw me, he ran in the back and grabbed your purse without me even having to ask for it. He didn’t even offer me a table. Why do you think that is?”
“Because he’s smart?”
“Here,” she said, handing it to me. “You do the honors.”
There wasn’t much in it: A set of keys, a pack of chewing gum, some black eyeliner, tissues, and a pair of black kidskin gloves. “No wallet,” I said, seeing her eyes trained on the gloves.
“Good thing I offered to pay, huh?”
“You see the gloves, right? That means no fingerprints. No identification either. No credit cards. Nothing the police could use to track down a would-be criminal.”
The key had an “H” on it. Could that mean Honda or Hyundai? Whichever one it ended up to be, I’d have to drive it back to Steven’s house. I could only pray that I wouldn’t switch bodies while I was behind the wheel, or faint again.
We lapped around the parking lot three times before stopping next to a beat up Honda Civic with one soft tire. Could
that
be it? Sure enough, the key fit the door, but the ignition switch was gone—nothing but wires hanging down under the dash. I’d seen such things in movies, where the car would run if the right two wires were twisted together. It usually meant the car was stolen.
The rest was stripped down to bare necessities, just like the purse. Nothing in the glove compartment, nothing under the seats. No trash, no old receipts. Why wonder any longer? The car was stolen. In fact, someone might be watching us even now on one of those security cameras high up on the light poles. I tossed the key on the car seat, first remembering to wipe both sides of it with one of the gloves, flipped the door locks, then slammed the door.
“It was stolen,” I said, jumping back into Faith’s car. “Let’s get outta here!”
I was dragging Faith in deeper and deeper, but I needed her too much to stop now.
Except for the dream, I was doing just fine. Sydney’s life had become mine, and anything I needed to do to stay right where I was, I’d do twice. So much for my Rule One, which now lay shattered at my feet—
splat!
I was the one who mattered, not her. I
needed
to stay now, if only to protect the others from her once my inevitable switch put her back in control again.
And then everything changed. She finally “spoke” to me in my sleep, but like any dream the details evaporated in a puff of smoke once I awoke. I tried to recall if she was just a voice, or had a “body” like a ghost, but all I had left was residue. Bottom line, she was a screaming maniac. She wanted her life back and would rip me out of her if that’s what it took to get it. All this after days of silence.
Although I couldn’t remember much about any of my past hosts, I was quite sure I’d never been forced out before. Something like that would most likely stick. Waiting for her to make her move turned rapidly into fear, and out of that grew a brand new emotion—hatred. Suddenly I wanted to lash out in return, hurt her in some way. More importantly, if she succeeded in forcing me out, she’d undoubtedly hurt Faith, and hurt her badly. She might harm Steven as well. I’d already tried to warn Faith about that kind of thing dozens of times, but I could really turn up the volume now. I’d have to be more specific, even if it was risky. At the very least she’d be alert when the time came.
Lane and Shae were a completely different story. With them, I’d be able to sever every tie anchoring them to Sydney, but just thinking about such a thing really hurt. Cutting off my own toe would be preferable.
I was lost in thought, chewing Frosted Mini Wheats, when Faith pulled up a chair next to me. I hadn’t even heard her come into the kitchen. In fact, I really wasn’t aware that I was eating. It was all mechanical, something I did for Faith. Sydney could starve to death for all I cared.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Faith said.
I began counting. Four words so far. I was sure she’d mention Lane before she’d reached ten. She always found a way to tell me he’d called, as if I didn’t know already. Steven had one of those phones installed that announced every caller and the caller’s phone number. There were days I’d have sworn he’d done it just to torture me. I’d already resorted to covering my ears with a pillow to block that annoying computer voice:
Call from Riley, Lane
. It didn’t work. My brain kicked in and forced me to listen even closer, right through the pillow. I’d considered taking a jackhammer to the stupid phone, or at least a sledge hammer, or anything that would smash it into little pieces.
One of the Mini Wheats escaped my spoon. I chased it down while Faith sat examining her fingernails. “Lane called
again,”
she said.
Five words! That might be a new record. “Faith, didn’t I ask you not to tell me when he calls anymore? Just tell him I’m busy. Come on, you’re creative, so come up with
something
.” I tried to keep my voice calm.
“I’m willing to ignore a lot of things, Sydney, but I will not start lying for you.”
“Not lying. I’m just asking you to tell him I’m busy that’s all.”
“Busy is not a word I would use to describe you these past few days. You don’t do much except mope around. Half the time you don’t even bother to get out of bed when I leave for work, and you’re still there when I get home.”