The Forgetting Curve (Memento Nora) (9 page)

WINTER

I didn’t want to go. Neither did the hummingbirds. The flutter of their wings grew louder and louder as our car got closer to the doctor’s office. Mom gripped my hand as if I were going to fly away.

“It’s up here on the left,” she said more to me than to the driver. He knew where he was going: the Nomura Medical Complex.

It was a low cluster of buildings right outside the gates of Nomura North American headquarters. I’d forgotten the company preferred its own doctors. I hadn’t been here since Mom and Dad went away.

Grandfather had taken me to doctors and dentists downtown. Their waiting rooms were full of old furniture, ancient magazines, and even older people.

The inside of the Nomura Medical Complex gleamed. And we didn’t have to wait. That may have been because it was Saturday.

“Dr. Ebbinghaus is ready for you, Miss Nomura.” The receptionist bowed, and a crisply uniformed nurse hurried to meet us.

She whisked me away to do the whole weigh-measure-poke-prod thing in the privacy of an exam room. Through the cracked door, though, I could see Mom talking to a tall red-haired woman in a white lab coat. The woman nodded solemnly as Mom spoke. No doubt she was telling the doctor about my fixation with their so-called trip to Japan. The hummingbird wings roared in my ears. I almost missed what the doctor said when she stuck her head in the door.

“Nurse, do a quick scan. Lateral view of temporal-occipital region.” She pulled the door shut behind her without even looking at me.

Something in your head
, the hummingbirds said.
She wants to see something in your head.
I rubbed the raised surface of the ID chip behind my ear.

The nurse scurried around. She draped me from the neck down in a lead cloak, lowered a camera from the ceiling, carefully pointed it at my head, and then hurried out of the room. The camera made a slow circle around my head and then jerked to a stop. Nursie scurried back in and made everything disappear—cloak, camera, and herself—leaving me to stare at the blank walls and listen to the hummingbirds flitting through my head.

Well, the walls weren’t entirely blank. There was a small screen mounted in the corner, the sound muted. I could watch this wellness ’casts that seemed to be heavily punctuated by drug ads and stock reports.
I’d rather watch the walls.

TFC’s stock was up, and sure enough it was followed by an ad for some new revolutionary app promising the TFC experience over your mobile.
Forget your cares wherever you are, starting July 1
^st
.

Wherever you are? To do that, TFC would need to have something
inside your head.

Shit.

I fumbled for my mobile, but I wasn’t fast enough.

Everyone, including Mom, came back into the room then.

“Young lady,” the doctor said to me. Her name tag said H
ANNAH
E
BBINGHAUS
,
MD
. “You check out fine. I think we only need to adjust your medication slightly.”

The nurse handed me a pill and a glass of water. The hummingbirds buzzed. Mom nodded for me to take them.

“Winnie, you need this,” she said when I didn’t move.

Everyone stood there, arms crossed, until I put the pill on my tongue and chased it down with the water. And then they checked to make sure I didn’t spit it out.

Damn.

I told myself to call Aiden when I got to the car.

The hummingbirds grew still on the ride home. They were encased by a languid nothingness—creamy as pudding—in my head. I began to feel that everything really was going to be alright.

I could forget about the past, go to school, work for the company…

I needed to tell Aiden something, but I couldn’t remember what.

VELVET

Aiden walked me to my door. I realized I was still holding his hand. Squeezing it, I mouthed, thanks. He touched my face where I’d been crying. This damsel thing was so not me, but I felt much better, especially as he caressed my cheek.

“We’ll figure this out,” he said.

Then he leaned in to kiss me. I met him halfway. He tasted like his coffee—sweet and wide awake. I probably tasted like salt. I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel his arms around me again.

I pulled away slowly.

“That was a helluva first date,” I said before I slipped through my front door.

Always leave them wanting more.
Book of Velvet.
Yada, yada, yada.

As great as the kiss had been, I still felt shaky and furious about what I’d let slip today.

Mom was actually home and cooking. Not for us—but for the homeless shelter. Once a month, she scraped together enough coupons to get buttloads of free stuff or traded the coupons on the Hour Exchange for food. Then she’d make up big batches of whatever, freeze some, and donate the rest.

She was a genius at making Dad’s army pay stretch around the block.

I ducked out of dinner early. It was vegan meatloaf, anyway. Whole chapters of the
Book of Velvet
are devoted to the evils of textured vegetable protein.

In my room, I turned on some tunes from my mobile, which I’d discovered quite by accident can play on my new “internal speaker.” Talk about frying your cerebral cortex. (I definitely killed some brain cells with that little discovery.)

From between the mattress and box spring, I pulled out my lyric/poetry book. I scribbled down phrases and verses and refrains. I had a few complete songs, but most were in various stages of construction. Some were just ideas.

I turned to a fresh page and wrote down Steven’s words, which I kept hearing in my head:
I didn’t think anything was your thing
.

It pissed me off because it was true.

I’m no artist or musician or engineer. I’m not even a hacker. I can’t even finish a song. My one claim to fame is the dubious ability to throw together a cheap ensemble. Big deal.

I scribbled down some more lines:

Okay, maybe
this
could be my thing. Maybe. I’d finish this song or one of the others in my notebook, and I’d get Spike and the boys to play it. If it didn’t suck.

Oh. Crap. Spike.

AIDEN

I had so much to tell Winter.

Her new house was a lot like her old one. It’s nice but not showy—like ours. It wouldn’t be proper for Uncle Brian to have a nicer house than his older brother (and boss). Dad is very conscious of those things, even if he doesn’t like to admit it.

Aunt Spring let me in. “We just got back from shopping, Aiden-kun. Come sit and have a cup of coffee. Or tea? Winter can model what she bought for us.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary. I’d love a cup of coffee, though.”

“Nonsense, she’d be happy to do it. I’m sure she’d value your opinion.”

Well, I tried.
This should be good
. For Winter to even go shopping with Spring was monumental. They don’t share a passion for retail therapy—and their tastes are worlds apart.

I love my aunt, but she’s always been hung up on the superficial. Maybe it’s a rebellion against growing up in a tattoo shop. Maybe she wants to get out of the lab and into the boardroom. (That’s Mom’s theory.) Who knows.

I poured sugar and cream in my coffee and planted myself on the kitchen counter to enjoy the show.

But it wasn’t the least bit funny.

Winter came out wearing a white dress with red poppies on it. It was something a twelve-year-old girl might wear to church or to the symphony. She twirled around watching the skirt wrap around her legs. She smiled at me and ran off to try something else.

She
had
to be putting us on.

“Doesn’t she look lovely—and happy?” my aunt asked. The smile on her face said she didn’t think Winter’s performance was strange at all.

The show repeated itself a few more times. Was this performance for her mother’s sake? If so, Winter had suddenly become a better bullshit artist than I was. And that was saying a lot.

Finally, Winter came out in a purple golf shirt with a bear on it and a matching plaid skirt and sneakers.

“Nice show, pumpkin,” Spring said as she kissed Winter’s cheek. “You kids have a nice time chatting. Winnie, remember the doctor said no caffeine.” My aunt disappeared in the direction of the bedroom.

“That was a hell of a performance,
Winnie
.” She hates that nickname. I waited for the placid façade to drop, for Winter to emerge and fix me with one of her looks and then rip me a new one for calling her Winnie.

It didn’t happen.

She smiled at me, her eyes not really focusing. “Thanks. That’s nice of you to say.”

“Okay, Winter, stop shitting me.”

“What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her voice stayed very mellow.

Maybe she
didn’t
know. Her pupils were huge. She swayed a bit as she stood, and one hand trembled slightly. She grabbed it and held it in front of her.

“Let’s go sit out in the sun,” she said, walking toward the patio.

I followed dumbly. Winter is not a sun person. I caught her when she stumbled out onto the pavers. She eased herself into a lounge chair facing the sun.

“Ah, that feels great. I could sit here all day.”

She looked like she could. My Winter couldn’t sit still long enough to read the directions on a shampoo bottle. Lather. Rinse. Time for a new project.

“What’s going on?” I planted myself on a chair facing her.

She’d closed her eyes to soak up the sun.

“Winter?”

“Sorry.” Her eyes flickered open. “This medicine makes me sleepy.”

“Medicine?” Maybe she was sick, but she’d still want to know what I found out. “I saw Velvet today.”

“Velvet.” She knitted her eyebrows together as if she were struggling to concentrate. “She’s cute, isn’t she? She dresses like she’s going to work in that vintage shop the rest of her life, though.” She laughed. “No wonder Mom doesn’t want me to talk to her. Everything is finally okay. I can get on with my life. Forget about art and hummingbirds. Work hard. Go to school. A good school. Work for the company.” Her eyes slid shut again, and she nodded off.

Forget about art? Work for the company? She must be stoned. My Winter would never say that sober.

The universe muttered its somber agreement.

I left Winter snoozing in the sun. Aunt Spring was in the kitchen chopping vegetables.

“Poor dear. Everything seems to take a lot out of her these days.” She sounded like she was talking about her grandmother, not her fourteen-year-old daughter.

“Is it the meds?”

Aunt Spring chopped up a carrot before answering. “The delusions came back.” She opened another bag of carrots and started chopping again. “You’re welcome to stay for dinner,” she said, looking at a mound of orange cubes in front of her.

“No, thanks, Aunt Spring. Dad expects me home.” I turned to go, but then had a thought. More of an ill-formed plan. “Mind if I use the facilities first?”

“Of course not.” She motioned down the hall with her knife.

I passed the guest bath and made for Winter’s. Inside I found a new prescription bottle. I scanned the label with my mobile and slipped one pill into my pocket. I’m not sure why, but one of those whispers from the universe told me to seize the opportunity now.

Aunt Spring was still chopping carrots when I let myself out the front door.

11:35 PM. SOMEWHERE IN THE CITY OF HAMILTON…

Good evening, citizens. Today our fair city hosted a little get-together, a summit of Patriot Party leaders and hopefuls. You probably saw that on the news. Candidates big and small, all promising to make this country secure right after you vote them into office.

What you didn’t see was a secret enclave of mayors from across the country meeting at TFC headquarters. My sources say they were strategizing—with TFC and Green Zone’s help—about how to implement Hamilton’s mandatory ID program in their own towns.

Imagine that. Chips for everyone.

This next song is “Something’s Happening Here” by the Fortunate Sons.