“No. I’m working with a therapist, but I still haven’t remembered.”
For a moment I consider sharing that my fugue state might be related, directly or not, to Jaycee Long. I’d told Damien about her not all that long after we started sleeping together. He’d made pasta for us one night at his place, this dreamy spaghetti carbonara with a sauce I fantasized about for weeks, and later—after sex and before more sex—we put on the TV to find a movie to watch. There was one, whose title I can’t remember now, about the disappearance of a young child, and as Damien read the description aloud, I felt myself freezing up. “What’s the matter?” he’d asked me, stroking my hair. And I’d told him. It had been easy to tell him anything.
But what’s the point of resurrecting it now for him? This conversation is a one-off.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asks.
“There is something, yes,” I say, glad he’s given me anopening. “I’m trying to get a handle on why, in this midst of basically losing myself for two days, I went to Greenbacks. Because maybe figuring that out will help me understand the rest.”
He leans back in his chair, and for a brief moment, his knees brush mine. Startled by the touch, I shift my position slightly.
“And you thought I might have an idea?”
“I was hoping so, yes.”
“All I know is that you seemed to believe you still worked there. You said something about it being your first day back.”
I summon an image from that morning, of me stepping off the elevator. Yes, I’d had the sense that I’d been away for a while, but certainly not for years. “Like I’d been on vacation?”
“Right.”
“But... but why Greenbacks? There are so many other places I could have gone that day. Like myownworkplace.”
He narrows his eyes and crosses his arms against his chest.
“You tellme, Ally.” All of a sudden, his tone has cooled.
“Tell you what?” I ask, flustered by the sea change.
“Why do you think you showed up there?”
“Damien, I haven’t the foggiest—that’s why I’m askingyou.”
“It wasn’t because of the story you’re doing?”
“Story?”
“The woman who handles our PR says that someone who works for you called her a week or so ago. She said she was doing research and wanted to speak to the person onstaff who oversees the financial advisory end. Maybethat’swhy we were on your mind.”
I frown, momentarily at a loss. “It must have been my researcher, who’s helping me on my next book,” I tell him. “But I can’t imagine why she’d want to speak to someone in that role.”
He doesn’t respond, simply studies me. The silence unrolls like a ball of yarn.
“Damien, I never suggested she talk to anyone at Greenbacks,” I continue, more insistence in my voice this time. “So that call doesn’t explain why I showed up out of the blue. And you and I didn’t have any contact prior to this, did we?”
Another few beats of silence.
“We haven’t talked since you left,” he says coolly. “Per your request.”
“Per my request? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You made it clear after you broke things off that you didn’t want any personal contact with me.”
I nearly gulp in surprise. I have no clue where this is coming from.
“Damien, I wasn’t the one who ended things.”
“No?”
