Claire closes her eyes. Meredith is suddenly fascinated with the papers in her folder and Mimi starts to laugh. “That’s funny,” she says.
“What’s funny?” I don’t understand their reactions.
“Your joke.”
“That wasn’t a joke.” These people are so confusing, with their rules and boundaries and stupid humor. “What’s worse than rainin’ cats and dogs?” I ask, stretching way back in my memory for dumb jokes. “Hailin’ taxis.” I take the napkin from my lap. “That’s a joke.” Maybe not a very good one, but a heck of a lot better than a broke cup that isn’t broke. I stand and push in my chair. “I’m worn thin as Bible paper. If y’all will excuse me, I’m goin’ to my room.”
Meredith catches up with me as I’m trying to remember which way to go. “Edie,” she calls to me.
I turn toward her and wait beneath a painting of flowers and a stream. I step out of my heels because I discover something I didn’t know before just now: high heels are comfortable until the second they’re not.
“I don’t believe Clarice accented the a when she said ‘Baroque,’ and it did sound like she said ‘broke.’?” Meredith spells the difference and gives me a short history of the seventeenth century. “I’m not saying this was your mistake, but I wanted to save you from embarrassment if it ever comes up again.”
She’s trying to help me without making me feel dumb. I appreciate that, and I look into her brown eyes and at the freckles sprinkled across her nose. She’s cute as a button and I can’t imagine her being a pain to anyone.
She puts her hand on my arm. “I know your memory loss must be difficult, and I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings.”
“You haven’t hurt my feelin’s.” I guess I can take her off the list of people who might think I’m faking.
“Think of ‘Baroque’ as a homophone. Like ‘die’ and ‘dye,’?” she says.
I use homophones in my lyrics all the time. “?‘I was ridin’ high on your love, but you were writin’ hi to another girl.’?”
She smiles and drops her hand. “I bawled when I saw Georgie’s bald head for the first time.”
I smile, too. I’ve never had a sister, and Meredith seems like a good enough person. “I’d love to meet Georgie. I don’t know for sure, but I think I like babies.”
Her smile kind of wavers.
“Didn’t I like babies before?”
“There are some women who aren’t naturally maternal.”
I suspect there’s a lot more to it. “Did we like each other?”
She is far more diplomatic than her brother when she says, “I’ll bring Georgie over when Rowan walks Magnus.”
17
I don’t know why anyone would think Meredith is a pain. Maybe she has two faces, but I don’t think so. She appears to be one of those rare people who are genuinely kind. I can gather from what Meredith didn’t say that Edie didn’t like her, but that’s no surprise. Last night Oliver said Edie didn’t like anyone. I’m sure that’s an exaggeration. There must be at least one person she liked.
I find my bedroom and shut the door behind me. The curtains are open now and the bed is made. I’d left a cup of coffee on the nightstand and it’s gone. Am I supposed to leave a tip? A thank-you note? I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this.
I toss my shoes on the floor and sit on the edge of the bed. What am I supposed to do now? I met with Doc Barb and the parents this morning. Marv showed me how to use a computer and ordered a phone. I had tea with Claire, Meredith, and Mimi. And I don’t know what to do with myself now. I’m so used to living on a schedule. Even my free time was filled with No Time Before You Salon. As crazy as it sounds, I miss it. Even more crazy, I miss Katrina, too. Maybe because she liked me, and I never got on her bad side. We were friends. Not like with Lida, but like being friends with a cat. Cute, smarter than it seems, and attacks for no reason.
If I’m bored now, what’s there to do with myself for the next month or two? I think about my conversation with Marv and wonder when I can move into Edie’s penthouse—no, my penthouse—but I doubt it’s up to me. Dr. Barb said I need four to six months of progress before I can be on my own. In four to six months, I’ll be living in Texas.
My gaze falls on the intercom Novia mentioned last night. It’s the size of a tablet, and I pull it onto my lap. This is more than just an intercom. I’m looking at integrated technology, and it doesn’t take long to figure out how the system operates. I kick back against the padded headboard, tap the kitchen icon, and order a ham sandwich, potato chips, and a Dr Pepper like I’m at a restaurant. While I wait for lunch, I open and close the shade across the room, then pull up different security cameras in the house and around the property. Nothing much going on besides someone making my sandwich, people in gray uniforms polishing wood, and the landscapers raking leaves outside.
I can connect to the internet and surf the web, and if anyone wonders how a person with amnesia can operate the tablet, I’ll say Marv showed me.
My fingers are itching to type Marfa and then pull up the Do or Dye web page and see Momma’s picture. I want to search for old news articles from the day I had my accident and see if there’s any mention of me or why I was in El Paso. More than anything, I’d love to connect to Google Earth and see both Momma’s and Daddy’s homes, but I can’t risk someone seeing my searches and tossing me back in Livingston faster than I can say “Google search.”
Lunch arrives and I eat my sandwich as I look up anything I can on Edie Randolph Chatsworth-Jones. I discover she was an art dealer and a benefactress, sat on the boards of several charitable organizations, was a shareholder in Hawthorne Corporation, and traveled often. There are a lot of photos of her at galas and events and on the covers of Entrepreneur magazine’s “Women to Watch” issue and Elle’s issue titled “The New Generation of Power.” Maybe Dr. Lindbloom was right about Edie being brilliant.
There’s a whole lot of information about the family on Wikipedia. I skim most of it because I’m not interested in acquisitions of multinational conglomerations (and yes, I had to look u
p the definition of multinational conglomeration) and looking at a family tree of people I don’t know is boring.