Chapter Four
FOUR
This is not my bed.
I touch the mattress beneath me, and my hand sinks into something wet and cold. The dampness soaks through my skirt and hits my skin. I’m not in my room. I’m not in any room. I look up, and the bright morning sun burns my eyes.
The scent of wet earth wafts up, and I realize with horror that I am lying in mud.
Rocking a little, I try to stand up, but my dress and the two-inch wedges make it too hard.
After a few failed attempts, I see that there’s no avoiding it.
I’m going to have to place my hands right in the mud to get leverage.
Just as I am about to, a shadow passes above me. I look up to see a figure.
“Are you all right?” a man’s voice asks.
I open my mouth to answer, but no words come out.
My throat is dry, my mouth cottony. I’m not all right.
I’m outside, sitting on the ground, flat on my butt.
What am I doing here? The last thing I remember is walking away from Jo and Daniel’s party.
I look down and see I am still wearing the same dress that I wore to the party.
Holding one hand up to shade my eyes, I can make out a young man sporting a short beard and sunglasses. He bends forward, reaching out his hand, and I grab at it, desperate for his help. He pulls me to my feet, where I teeter a bit, cognizant of a thrumming pain in the back of my head.
“I saw you slip,” the man says. “Are you okay?”
“I slipped?” Glancing around, I recognize the signposts of my suburban neighborhood.
Azalea bushes whose flowers were bright violet and neon pink a few weeks ago, now brown and wilted in the June heat.
The sound of a sprinkler system hissing to life.
I pat the pockets of my dress. “Where’s my phone? What day is it?”
“It’s Sunday. I’m actually on my way to a job interview.”
“A job interview,” I repeat, the words feeling foreign in my mouth. I feel funny, zonked, the way general anesthesia left me in a dreamlike state after I had my appendix out.
“Never mind,” he says. “I can be late.”
I turn to look over my shoulder at the house behind me. I know this house. The Allards built it a few years ago and rent it out. My eyes travel to the front door. That’s where that nanny was killed, right there in the foyer. What am I doing here? “I don’t know how I got here. God, I’m thirsty.”
The young man takes a water bottle out of his messenger bag and offers it to me. I take it, gulping the water greedily as some of it dribbles down my chin.
“How did I get here?”
“Not sure. What’s your name? I’m Finn.”
“Caren. I’m Caren Costa.”
“Do you need me to call someone?”
“What? No. What time is it?”
“It’s ten after six.”
“Six in the morning? That makes no sense. Did I spend the night here?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he says hesitatingly. “Maybe I should call someone.”
“No. I just want to go home.” I wince from a sharp pain in the back of my skull. “I think I hit my head.” I pull my hair up off my neck and tilt my head so he can look. “Anything?”
“Oof,” he says, recoiling a bit. “I think you’re right. You have some dried blood on your neck. Maybe you should go to a hospital.”
“No. Please. I just want to go home.” As a wave of nausea hits me, I grab his arm to steady myself. My head feels like it’s going to explode. “I’m not usually like this.”
“It’s okay.” He pats my arm. “I’ve got you.”
I grab onto him more tightly, grateful for the support, and we begin walking. “Which way?” he asks when we get to the corner.
I gesture to the left. I know the way home. Everything is coming into focus for me now, except what happened last night. From the moment I left the Allards until about ten minutes ago is a complete blank for me.
We walk along in silence. We pass an older man on the walkway of his house, stooping to pick up his paper.
He waves at us, and we both wave back, as if we are on a perfectly normal morning stroll.
But nothing about this morning is normal.
Not the way my head throbs, or how dry my mouth is.
Not the way my thoughts stick together like wet leaves.
When my house comes into view, I point to it. As we walk up the front path, the door opens and Miguel steps onto the stoop. As soon as I see the concern on his face, tears fill my eyes.
“There you are!” he calls as he meets us halfway up the walk, enveloping me in a hug.
“I was wondering where you were.” He pulls back a few inches to examine me.
“I was starting to get worried. I called you but your cell is in the house. I was about to call—” He stops mid-sentence and jerks his head back.
“Caren, are you okay?” When I don’t respond right away, he looks to Finn.
“Uhm, hi, I’m Miguel.” He holds out his hand.
“Finn.” Finn shakes it. “I’m just walking her home.”
“What’s going on?” He turns back to me and glances down at my dress. “Did you fall in the mud?”
“She slipped and fell,” Finn says. “I saw it happen.”
“My God, where did this happen?”
“I just want to go inside,” I say.
“I think she should see a doctor,” Finn says. “I think she might have hit her head. There’s some dried blood back there.”
“I’m sorry, was it Finn? And how do you know my wife?”
“I don’t really,” Finn says. “I was walking to a job interview when I saw her fall. I stopped to help.”
“I think I was out with the dog,” I say.
As if on cue, Kugel runs up to the front door and jumps at the glass, barking. Miguel looks back at him. “Well, he’s here. I got back ten minutes ago and he was asleep in the dog bed.” He turns to Finn. “Did you say you have a job interview to get to?”
I catch a note of skepticism in Miguel’s voice. Finn nods.
“Thanks for the help, man,” Miguel says. “But I think we’ve got this.”
Finn seems to hesitate. He looks me in the eye as if he wants to say something, but then he turns and leaves.
Miguel wraps one arm around me and guides me inside the house.
In the foyer, I sit on the staircase and let Kugel overwhelm me with licks and kisses.
He knows, I think, that something happened to me. Miguel clears his throat.
“I think that guy’s right, mi amor. We ought to go to the hospital and let them look at your head. Let’s get you changed.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I could swear I took him out last night.”
Miguel squats down and begins to remove my muddy wedge sandals.
“You had me really worried. It didn’t look like anyone had slept in the bed.
I looked all over for you. When I called your phone and you didn’t answer…
” He takes a sharp breath, runs his hand through his hair.
“I didn’t know what to think. That maybe you were at Yumi’s.
I was about to call her. Did you spend the night there? ”
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”
“All right. Up we go.” His tone of voice is the one he used with Rachel and Zach when they were little.
He helps me up the stairs and into the bathroom.
After he turns the shower on, he stands there, a lost look on his face.
“I just don’t understand what happened. Did you not come home last night at all?
Did you drink too much and crash at Yumi’s? Or Kenya’s?”
“You asked me that already.” My mind is a total blank.
The more I try to squeeze out some little image or scene from after Jo and Daniel’s party, the more my head throbs.
“I told you, I can’t remember.” Tears fill my eyes.
“Miguel, I don’t remember anything from last night. Nothing after the party.”
“Shhh.” He holds me for a minute until I stop crying. “We’ll figure this out. Can you shower by yourself?”
I let out a little sniffle-laugh. “Yeah,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I can shower by myself.”
“After you’re dressed, we’ll go to the hospital, okay? Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
After he leaves the bathroom, I peel off my dress. My body aches as if I’ve been in the back seat on a ten-hour car ride and haven’t been able to move my legs. When I wash my hair in the shower, the shampoo mixed with blood circles the drain.