Page 48 of Solo

She smiles. “Yeah, I did. And it was pretty perfect, you know. Just the one wrong date on page fifty-six, down in the fourth paragraph—” She slaps a hand over her mouth, as if to stop anything else from slipping out.

I feel my eyes narrow as I go from impressed to suspicious in two seconds flat.

“How could you possibly know that?” It comes out as more of an accusation than a question.

“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you,” she says, rolling her eyes with exasperation. “I have a synthetic memory.”

“A what?”

She concentrates and tries again. “A pornographic memory. No, that’s not right either.” She giggles at her inability to spit the word out. Whatever word it is she’s trying to say. “I have an eidetic memory. There. That’s right.”

“A what?”

“You know, phonographic. I have a phonographic memory,” she explains, the tiniest hiccup escaping her lips at the end of the sentence. It makes her giggle again.

My eyebrows go up in sudden understanding and supreme surprise.

“D–do you mean you have a photographic memory?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Hold on a sec,” I say, waving one hand at her while putting the other to my forehead, which feels as if it’s stuffed with cotton candy. “Are you telling me you’ve memorized my master’s thesis?”

“Yup. And your doctoral one, too. And every textbook you’ve ever assigned, and all the scores I read. I can’t help it, I pretty much remember everything I see.”

“What? No fucking way! You’re shitting me, Miss Brenner,” I accuse with a light elbow to the ribs.

“Hey,” she complains, elbowing back. “I shit you not, Dr. Drew.”

“Prove it,” I say with a firm nod, as if it’s been decided.

“Huh?”

“Show me how you do it,” I command, twisting my head to look around us. When I spot the novel she was reading earlier in the day, I snatch it up and flip to a random page. “Okay,” I say as I look down at the page, then back up at her again. “Page two hundred and sixteen. Paragraph two.”

“Oh, come on,” she whines. “I’m not a trained seal, you know.”

“Oh-ho! Did you want to maybe retract your previous statement about having a—a what was it again? A synthetic memory.”

“Ei-d-d-ethic,” she stammers and slurs at the same time, and it’s fucking adorable.

“Exactly.”

“Jesus Christ,” she hisses. “You are such a pain in the ass! Fine, fine, fine. Get ready to have your socks knocked off, Dr. Drew…”

Katherine closes her eyes and puts her fingers to her temples, as if she’s channeling some long-dead spirit. But she’s only channeling the spirit of a third-rate romance writer named Whitney Larabee Lovelace.

“Ahem. Okay, here we go.” She takes a deep breath and squishes her face together in a dramatic facsimile of melodramatic lust.

“‘He leans down, his fingers playing gently along the line of my jaw. I can’t help but lean in to his touch. It burns a fiery trail everywhere that his skin connects with mine.’”

She’s recited the paragraph verbatim. Suddenly her eyes pop open. “And the word ‘connects’ is missing an n by the way.”

I’m staring at her now, mouth agape, eyes wide, book dangling precariously from my fingertips.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I murmur in stunned appreciation.

“I know. Right?” She cackles with a grin, reaching for her wine bottle. When she does, my hand somehow lands atop of hers.