Remember Tomorrow Page 15

  Arie wanted to pull her close, to kiss her, to take away any pain that she might have caused in the past. But she couldn’t, and she didn’t know how to broach the subject without possibly reminding Cees of the pain she had caused. Besides, she didn’t know if it was really a memory, did she?

  “I’ll make breakfast while you take a shower.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to get up now. It’s only four. Momma won’t be here for another hour or so. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

  “No, I don’t think I’ll be going back to sleep anytime soon.”

  Cees was standing so close Arie could smell the light scent of Cees’s face wash. She fought back the urge to reach out and touch her cheek.

  “You’re staring,” Cees said softly.

  “You’re not wearing your glasses.”

  “You scared me so bad I didn’t want to take the time to Þ nd them.” Cees chuckled, but she still looked puzzled when Arie left for the kitchen.

  • 147 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  As Arie began to prepare Cees’s breakfast, her thoughts were on Lilly Nguyen, or more speciÞ cally, on her nightmare about Lilly Nguyen. If the nightmare had any element of truth to it, Lilly knew a lot of what was going on.

  Arie winced at the idea of having to ask Lilly for anything.

  Lilly had made no effort to hide that she couldn’t stand to look at Arie. If there was any truth to the things Momma Nguyen said and what Lilly had hurled at her in the dream, Arie wouldn’t blame either of them for wanting her back out of Cees’s life.

  Arie cracked an egg in a small bowl and went in search of the egg whites that she had purchased at the store with Momma Nguyen. Arie whisked the eggs and stopped. What would she do if she found out they were true? What if she wasn’t a very nice person and she had purposely hurt Cees because she was tired of being in a relationship? Was that the kind of person she had been?

  She heard the water in the bathroom turn off and she began whisking the eggs again. That felt as wrong as her not wanting children. Ever since Momma Nguyen had told her that, she had turned it over and over in her head. She just didn’t believe it was true. It felt right that she would want a family. Cees had held her, comforted her, and yes, they had almost made love. She needed to be near Cees when she was home and she looked for Cees when she was not near. That, Arie thought, was love, and that was what made family. She knew that without much thought, so what would have made her push Cees away so ruthlessly?

  v

  Arie inhaled the scent of minerals and damp compost. She sat back with her hands on her thighs and looked at the freshly hoed soil. Cees’s small house was perfect. She had made it so that all nails, screws, and beams were perfectly symmetrical.

  Not one beam was out of place, not one door hung out of kilter.

  Everything about it was as Cees had planned.

  • 148 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  The days after her nightmare had become more strained than ever, and Arie was starting to feel like she was becoming more of a burden than a friend to Cees. She had been told she was a landscape architect, that she and Cees had met on the set of Cees Bannigan Your Home, but that she had left that job within a few weeks. She didn’t know why, and as far as she knew, she had had no other form of employment. So how had she paid her bills?

  That apartment couldn’t have been cheap. Arie picked up some dirt and let it run through her Þ ngers. She stood and dusted her pants, looking with pride on her neat little rows of soil. Momma Nguyen had loaned Arie her laptop and had shown her how to Google for information about the ß owers that grew best in the PaciÞ c Northwest. As perfect as Cees’s home was, it was as if she had purposely neglected the backyard.

  She looked at her watch. Despite Cees’s growing distance and her own worries about what was real and what wasn’t in her nightmares, she still looked forward to having Cees come home.

  Home? When had this house become her home? Arie shrugged. Of course it was her home. It was the only home she knew. That apartment wasn’t a home. It didn’t look as if it ever had been. Unlike so many things, especially those dealing with Cees Bannigan, the apartment on the riverfront brought her no memories, just a cold, stark reality of how much was blank to her.

  Arie found Momma Nguyen on the phone speaking in rapid-

  Þ re Vietnamese. Arie would have continued on her way, as this was how she usually held conversation, but Momma stopped her.

  “My sister hurt herself.”

  “Oh no, what happened?

  “Don’t know. She too embarrassed to say, but I need to go over there.”

  “Okay, I should be Þ ne. You go ahead.”

  Momma frowned. “I have to call Cees Þ rst.”

  “I’d rather not bother Cees at work.” Arie pulled the scarf off

  • 149 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  her head and wiped it across her face. “I had very few headaches.

  You just go. If I start to feel one coming on I’ll call her myself.”

  “Are you sure? If you die while I’m gone, she’ll kill me.”

  Arie blinked. “Um, okay, I promise not to die until you get back.”

  Momma glared at Arie a bit longer before they grinned at each other. Arie had long since stopped being offended by anything Momma had to say, between calling her stupid and berating her about mistreating her girl. Lilly was her baby; Cees apparently was a full-ß edged girl. Arie had developed a thick skin.

  “Take a shower. You smell like a pig, and not a BBQ one either.”

  “Okay.”

  “And eat something.”

  “I will,” Arie said, still grinning.

  Momma picked up her bag and gave Arie one last glare.

  “I promise. I still have half my sandwich from yesterday.”

  Momma rolled her eyes. “Half a sandwich,” she muttered as she walked out the door. Arie shut the door behind her and started for the bathroom. She stopped in the middle of the living room as she noticed the quiet of the house. She had never been in it alone.

  Either Momma Nguyen or Cees had always been with her.

  It was not a big house. In fact, all of the homes in Cees’s neighborhood were small. If Arie had to guess, she would bet few had more than three bedrooms and even fewer had a second bath.

  But Cees’s house didn’t feel small; it felt cozy, like what Arie imagined a home was supposed to feel like. The only room in the house she hadn’t gone into was the one where Cees slept. She had assumed it was smaller than the one she had been given and with very little closet space because she had occasionally awakened to Þ nd Cees sneaking into her bedroom during the early morning to retrieve some article of clothing from the closet. Arie hadn’t been speciÞ cally forbidden, but Cees kept the door closed at all times.

  • 150 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  Arie was opening the door before she had time to do much more than chastise herself for invading Cees’s privacy. She inhaled deeply and walked in. There was very little furniture in the room, but it had been freshly painted. She remembered the faint odor of fresh paint on that Þ rst night, but it had passed and she never thought anything more of it. Now she looked at the child’s room with shock. There was no cradle or crib, just a neatly made futon where Cees had obviously been sleeping. The walls were brightly colored and adorned with farm animals that had been painstakingly drawn by a patient hand. Cees’s hand.

  Momma’s words about Cees wanting a family came back to Arie as she stood in the center of the room. She walked over to the closet and opened the door. Inside was a cornucopia of items that any new parent would purchase—linens, stuffed toys, a colorful mobile—but it was the framed photos on the solitary shelf that caught Arie’s eye. For some reason she knew what they would be before she turned them over, but she had to see them anyway.

  There were four eight-by-ten photos of her and Cees. One was taken as they sat on a log at a rural campsite, faces pressed c
losely together. Another was of Arie alone. Anyone looking at that photo would have no doubt that Arie was in love with the photographer. The focused eyes, the parted lips, the slight smile. Heat started at her nipples and traveled south. She was both aroused by what she guessed happened after that picture was taken and jealous of what she couldn’t remember. Was it possible to be jealous of oneself? The other two photos were of them dressed up at events and smiling into the camera. They looked like they belonged together, as if they were happiest in each other’s presence. But something ruined that. Arie placed the pictures back in the closet face down as she had found them.

  With one last look at the baby items, she closed the door. No, not something. I ruined it.

  v

  • 151 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  Arie walked out of the bathroom and had to stiß e a scream.

  Lilly didn’t blink as she folded her arms and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Guess you didn’t forget how to scream,” she said straight-faced.

  “You know, if your mother had said that, it would have sounded a lot less cruel,” Arie said, her voice sounding as cold and unfamiliar as if a stranger standing behind her had uttered the words. Lilly dipped her head.

  “How did you get in?” The real question is why are you here? Since her Þ rst night at Cees’s she hadn’t seen Lilly, and she didn’t think Cees had either.

  Lilly held up a small key clutched, talonlike, between bright red nails and smiled. “I have a key, remember? Oh wait, I’m sorry. Most people with memory loss also lose their short-term memory too, don’t they? I looked that information up on my computer. Momma mentioned that you were quite adept at using hers the other day. Funny the things you seem to remember and the things you don’t.”

  “Did you come over here to accuse me of something?”

  “No, I could have called you for that. I came here because my auntie fell and broke her hip. Momma needed to be with her.

  Cees would kill us if we left you alone.”

  “So what you’re saying is, your mother made you come over?” Arie smiled at Lilly’s scowl. There was something about Lilly Nguyen that brought out the worst in her. Or maybe it was the truth in her.

  “Nice to see the old Arie. You’ll be back in your own hole in no time.”

  Arie blinked at the obvious attempt at cruelty. For the Þ rst time since leaving the hospital, Arie had to struggle to Þ nd the right words. “Tell me what I did to her. I know a little, but it doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Lilly’s frown deepened. “Momma said if I get in Cees’s business again she would disinherit me.”

  • 152 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  Arie had hoped that Lilly’s obvious dislike of her would translate into a breaking of the rules. She had forgotten the Momma Nguyen factor.

  “I’m sure your mother will leave you millions. She has at least two hundred dollars in IOUs tucked in her bra from me alone.”

  “You played cards with her?”

  Arie looked down at her feet, which must have been all the answer Lilly needed.

  “You give her Bloody Mary?”

  Arie looked up, startled that Lilly had guessed the truth so quickly. Lilly was grinning and then she started to chuckle, and before too long, she was in a full-blown doubled-over guffaw.

  “No wonder she loves coming over here. She told me that you weren’t mean anymore and that car accident must have knocked some sense into you.”

  “She told you that?” Arie was proud that she had Þ nally won someone over in the Nguyen family.

  “Yeah, but now I know why she likes you so much. She likes taking your money. You should have seen her when she came home yesterday. Boy, she was high-stepping like a fashion model on a catwalk.”

  “You live with your momma?” Again the taunt came out unbidden. It stopped Lilly’s laughter with the efÞ ciency of a slap across the face. She had unwittingly found a soft spot. Or had it been unwitting?

  “I promised your mother I would eat lunch.” Arie started toward the kitchen. “Do you want something?”

  Lilly followed Arie into the kitchen without answering. “So you remember how to cook?”

  “I was only offering you a sandwich, but yes, I remember how to cook.” Arie opened the refrigerator and pulled the cold cuts from a drawer. She set them on the counter and turned to face Lilly. “Look, I get that you don’t believe that I have amnesia.

  • 153 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  Unless you want to tell me why you would think I would play such an evil trick on Cees, I can’t really Þ ght that. In fact, if you want to go on home, I won’t tell her you left.”

  “She’d Þ nd out,” Lilly said grudgingly.

  “Cees would? How? She won’t be home until this evening.

  I’ll tell her she just missed you. I don’t need twenty-four-hour care, you know.”

  “No, I mean Momma.”

  “Oh,” Arie said and went back to her sandwich preparation.

  “So what do you do here all day?” Lilly asked in a tone that made Arie think she had already concluded the answer was nothing.

  Arie decided on civility instead of being lured into a verbal Þ ght. Besides, she could think of nothing biting to say. “I wake up and make breakfast for Cees.”

  “You do? She wakes up at the crack of ass, doesn’t she?”

  Arie turned to look at her, smiling at the analogy. “Crack of ass? Yeah, I suppose she does.”

  “What do you do after she leaves?”

  “I clean up, get showered and dressed. Sometimes I watch TV with Momma. She likes watching Judge Joe.”

  “She told me you like him, too.”

  Arie cleared her throat but didn’t answer. She didn’t know why she was embarrassed. It’s not like it was a soap opera or anything.

  “Momma also said you like One Life to Live.”

  “Um, yeah, sometimes I watch it with her.” Arie was unsuccessful in keeping the annoyance from her voice. “Why all the questions?”

  “I just Þ gured you might need a little help Þ nding a J.O.B.

  when Cees gets tired of you free—I mean when you’re ready to go back to your own place. What else do you do?”

  “Momma Nguyen takes me to my doctor’s appointment every other Friday. Sometimes we play cards. I just started working in Cees’s garden.”

  • 154 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  Arie turned around at the sound of Lilly’s chair scraping back. Lilly walked over to the door leading to Cees’s small backyard and opened it as if she couldn’t see it through the eight glass-paned windows.

  Lilly stood with her hands on her hips for a few moments and then returned to her interrogator’s seat. “Cees avoids the yard at all costs.”

  Arie didn’t speak. It was a statement, not a question. She braced herself for what Lilly would say next.

  “She didn’t used to hate yard work. That’s how we made our extra money when we were kids. She loved being outdoors. I think you ruined that for her too.”

  Arie opened her mouth to speak, and when nothing came out, she just shook her head. Do not cry, Arieanna, told herself, but Lilly’s verbal barbs were starting to take a toll on her. Maybe it was what she had seen in that room, maybe it was the fact that Lilly was probably telling the truth—Cees was better off without her in her life. Arie took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to ignore the fact that she could feel Lilly’s eyes on the side of her face.

  “Looks better,” Lilly said grudgingly.

  Arie took a few moments to compose herself before answering. “I thought if I made it nice, she could sit and relax after work, weather permitting.” Arie could have kicked herself for giving Lilly more ammunition to hurt her.

  “Yeah, she could use some relaxation. She used to come dancing with me to let off steam; now she’s too afraid to leave you home alone. By the way, you can cross Subway off your list of prospective employers ’c
ause I’d have to hurt you if you took this long to make my damn sandwich.” Arie dropped the lettuce into the colander and turned around to Þ nd Lilly rooting around in her bag. She smiled and pulled out a small book of crossword puzzles. Arie realized that Lilly was pretty when she wasn’t scowling, glaring, or using her words as hate daggers.

  “Cees likes to dance? I didn’t know that.”

  • 155 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  Lilly pulled the top off her pen with her teeth. She was frowning again, but this time in concentration. “Loves to dance.

  She’ll dance by herself if she has to. Doesn’t even need a drink.”

  “Really? I wonder why she didn’t tell me.” Maybe that’s what they needed to break the tension that seemed to have developed between them since they had almost made love. She could ask Cees to go dancing with her. Arie was just warming up to the idea when she realized that she didn’t know the Þ rst thing about dancing.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  Arie was so caught up in her disappointment that she hadn’t realized that Lilly had temporarily abandoned her crossword.

  “I thought maybe I could ask Cees to take me dancing. You know, to relieve some of the stress of all this, but I don’t think I remember how.”

  Lilly stared just long enough to make Arie feel uncomfortable.

  “Cees told me you didn’t dance.” Arie must have done a bad job of hiding her disappointment because a few moments later Lilly smiled. It wasn’t an unkind smile, just a little too thoughtful. “I can teach you.”

  “Why would you do that?” Arie asked, not bothering to hide her suspicion. She and Lilly had a very open relationship. She was very open about her dislike of Arie, and Arie was openly bewildered by it.

  “Because someone needs to help her blow off some steam.

  She isn’t going to leave you behind, and I won’t be seen with you, so I think you should go with her.”

  Arie turned back to her food preparation. She would love to help Cees blow off some steam in a different way, but she’d be damned if she would mention that particular inadequacy to Lilly.