Clean Slate

by Harley Crowley

Chapter 15

  When Carrie came home he was in the kitchen again, the kitchen that was looking familiar now that he'd spent some hours there. Aside from an empty cookie jar on the counter there was only the white toaster and the sleek coffee maker, and their used cups. Her first words, coming through the door with a sheaf of papers under her arm, had been, "Anything new?" The only thing new was the love/lust feeling he had discovered, and Katherine's messages. He didn't think it was the right time to talk about either of those, and he shook his head.

  He refilled the cups and carried them to the table where she sat waiting, serious-faced, lips parted to say something to him. He waited and she closed her mouth again, until he said, "What? What are you thinking?"

  "Now I don't know what to do," she said, with her hands out, palms up in helplessness. Help was what he didn't have for her.

  She took a sip of her coffee. "How did it go when you called the office?"

  "Oh boy." He shook his head. "Lou wasn't happy. He seems like an excitable guy. And he sounds like he's afraid of Andrea."

  "Everyone is afraid of Andrea. She's the Red Queen. You know, 'Off with his head!' You seem to get along with her better than most. That's because she knows how indispensable you are."

  "I'm not much use to her this way, am I? I wish I could remember something about work. Have I talked about a Fitzhugh contract? That seems to be the crisis right now."

  "You don't talk about work much."

  "What do we talk about?"

  Her eyes shifted to her fingers, which had been tapping out a rhythm on the tabletop. Her hand stilled. "Our schedules. What's for dinner. The weather."

  She looked out the window and said, "Fa bello."

  He followed her eyes, ignoring her implication for the moment. The sun was high and the sky sparkling blue, and the surface of the bay was whipped up in whitecaps, like dabs of frosting on the blue. A tugboat lunged through the water. There wasn't as much wind up here on the hill.

  "Fa bello molto," he replied. That was a shock.

  "I know Italian?" He tried to think of other words. He pointed at his chair. "Sedia." He waved his arms around in an imitation of an enthusiastic Italian. "Pranza. Tassi." He looked at Carrie. "Moglie." It was exhilarating at first, but then he couldn't put together any sentences out of the words.

  She looked amused. "I wouldn't exactly say you 'know' Italian. We learned some words before we went to Italy last year." She turned thoughtful. "But it's something, isn't it? Something you remember. Maybe your memory hasn't gone too far. Maybe it's on its way back."

  "I remembered '*98' for the messages. Or my fingers did."

  He went on, trying to put the unreality of his experience into words. "I feel perfectly normal. I know how to do everyday things. I even remember those Italian words. But I'm a stranger to myself. Everything about me is a mystery. My only personal memories are the ones from yesterday. My history is gone, my job is gone. I remember you now, but it's just from when I met you last night."

  He smiled at her. "That's one of my good memories."

  She was listening intently, and she ignored the editorial comment. "What about the law. I know you don't remember anything about Halstrom-Pierce, but do you remember the law? All the things you learned? Because you remembered the Italian words."

  He tried not to let his mind go there yet. His study was full of books, and some of them were probably law books. He was afraid to find out that it was all gone, everything he had probably almost killed himself to learn. Or that what he knew was so rudimentary as to be useless. *98. Fa bello. Big deal. It didn't make a life.

  "I think it's time for me to go to a doctor." He'd been avoiding the idea, but maybe there was something going on in his head that would explain this, something they could find, get a picture of. Something they could fix, and he could be cured of this damn thing.

  "I do too. I was thinking about that on the way home," Carrie said. She looked at the clock.

  "Dr. Richardson's office closes at 2:00 on Fridays. Maybe we can catch her before lunch. If we wait too long we're in the weekend." She looked at him for confirmation. "What do you think?"

  "That's my regular doctor?" Carrie nodded.

  "Yes, we both go to her."

  "Okay. Would you mind doing the calling?"

  She went to the phone and pulled a little address book out of the drawer under it, dialed a number. While she talked to someone at the doctor's office, he sat there feeling like the makings of a scientific experiment. Or like a freak. See the amazing man with the blank mind. He talks. He walks. And he doesn't know a damn thing.

  Carrie turned to him with the phone at her ear.

  "Have you had a headache at all?"

  "No."

  "Blurry vision?" He shook his head. "Weakness in your arms or legs?"

  "Nope. Except when you came to the door at the motel," he remembered. "But that was just momentary. I think it was anxiety."

  She went back to the phone. Then to him again, "Dr. Richardson can see you after regular hours, about 2:30. That okay with you?"

  He nodded. "That's fine. It's not like I have anything else scheduled. That I know of."