Honor Thyself (19 page)

“I love you, Carole,” he said, even though she didn't remember him. “You're an incredible talent. We've made some great movies together over the years. And we will again, after you get all this behind you.” He was still deeply respected and active in the business, and had been for half a century, as long as Carole had been alive. “I can't wait to get you back in L.A. I've lined up the best doctors for you at Cedars-Sinai.” Her doctors in Paris were going to recommend doctors for her at home, but Mike liked to feel useful and be in control. “So where do we start?” he asked expectantly of Carole. He wanted to do whatever he could to help her. He knew much about her early life in Hollywood, and before. More than anyone else. Stevie had explained that to her before he arrived.

“How did I meet you?” Carole wanted to hear the story.

“You sold me a tube of toothpaste at a corner drugstore, in New Orleans, and you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen,” he said kindly. He had made no mention of the scar on her cheek. She had seen it by then, now that she was walking. She had been to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. It shocked her at first, and then she decided it didn't matter. She was alive, and it was a small price to pay for her survival. It was her memory she wanted back, not her flawless beauty.

“I invited you to come to L.A. for a screen test, and you told me later, you thought I was a pimp. Nice, huh?” He was a big jolly man, and at the memory of it, he roared with laughter. He had told the story a million times. “First time anyone ever thought I was a pimp.” Carole laughed with him. She had also recovered all of her vocabulary by then, and understood the word. “You'd come to New Orleans from Mississippi,” he went on. “From your dad's farm. He had just died a few months before, and you sold it. You were living off the money, and you wouldn't even let me pay for your ticket. You said you didn't want to be ‘beholden’ to me. You had a hell of a drawl then. I loved it. But it didn't work for movies.” Carole nodded. Jason had told her the same thing. She had still had a touch of it when he married her, her Mississippi drawl, but it was long gone now, and had been for years. “You came to L.A., and your screen test was terrific.”

“What happened to me before that?” He had known her longer than anyone, and she thought he might know something about her childhood. Jason had been sketchy about that, and didn't know all the details.

“I'm not sure,” he said honestly. “You talked a lot about your dad, when you were a kid. It sounds like he was good to you, and you loved growing up on the farm. You lived in some tiny town outside Biloxi.” When he said the word, something clicked for her. She had no idea why, but a word came to mind and she said it.

“Norton.” She stared at him in amazement, and so did Stevie, as the word fell out of her mouth.

“That was it. Norton.” He looked delighted. “You had pigs and cows and chickens, and—” She interrupted him.

“A llama.” She herself looked stunned as she said the word. It was the first thing she had remembered on her own.

Mike turned around to glance at Stevie, who was watching Carole intently, and Carole was nodding. Her eyes looked into Mike's. He was opening a door for her that no one else could.

“I had a llama. My father gave her to me for my birthday. He said I looked just like her, because I had big eyes, long eyelashes, and a long neck. He always told me I was funny-looking.” She was speaking almost as though she could hear him. “My dad's name was Conway.” Mike nodded, afraid to interrupt her. Something important was happening, and all three of them knew it. These were the first memories she'd had. She had to go back to the very beginning. “My mom died when I was little. I never knew her. There was a picture of her on the piano, with me on her lap. She was really pretty. Her name was Jane. I look like her.” As she said it, tears filled Carole's eyes. “And I had a grandma named Ruth, who made me cookies and died when I was ten.”

“I didn't know that,” Mike said softly. The memory of her was sharp in Carole's mind.

“She was pretty too. My dad died right before graduation. His truck turned over in a ditch.” She remembered everything now. “They said I had to sell the farm, and I …” She looked blank, then suddenly stared at them. “And then I don't know what happened.”

“You sold it and went to New Orleans, and I found you.” He filled in for her, but she wanted it from her own mind, not his. And she could go no further. That was all that was there right now. No matter how much she wanted to remember more, she just couldn't. But she had remembered a lot in a short time. She could still see her mother's photo and Grandma Ruth's face.

They chatted about other things then for a little while, and Mike reached over and took her hand in his. He didn't say it, but it killed him to see her so hampered. He just prayed her memory would come back, and she'd go back to being the bright, busy, intelligent, talented woman she'd once been. It was frightening to think that she might not, that she might be forever limited, with no memory of anything beyond last week. She was having some problems with short-term memory too. There was no way she could ever act again if she stayed like this. It would be the end of an important career, and a lovely woman. The others had been concerned about the same thing, and in her own way, so was Carole. She was fighting for every scrap of memory she could get. Her visit with Mike had been a major victory of sorts. It was the most she had remembered so far. Until now nothing had opened those doors, and remarkably he had. She wanted to remember more.

She and Stevie talked about her going back to Los Angeles, and her house. Carole had no memory of what it looked like. Stevie described it to her, and already had several times. She talked about her garden, and then looked at Stevie strangely and said, “I think I had a garden in Paris.”

“Yes, you did,” Stevie said softly. “Do you remember that house?”

“No.” Carole shook her head. “I remember my father's barn, where I milked the cows.” Bits and pieces were coming back, like a jigsaw puzzle. But most of it didn't fit. Stevie wondered now if Carole remembered the Paris garden, would she eventually remember Matthieu? It was hard to guess. She almost hoped not, if he had made her so unhappy. She remembered how upset Carole had been when they closed that house.

“How long are you staying in Paris?” Stevie asked Mike.

“Just till tomorrow. I wanted to see my little girl here, but I've got to get back.” It was a long way to come, for a man his age, for one night. He would have gone around the world for her in a flash, and had wanted to ever since Stevie called. Jason had asked him to wait, so he had, but he'd been desperate to come.

“I'm glad you came,” Carole said, smiling at him. “I haven't remembered anything till now.”

“You will when you get back to L.A.,” Mike said with a confidence he didn't feel. He was genuinely frightened for her. He had been told what to expect, but this was worse somehow. Looking into her eyes and knowing that she remembered nothing of her life or career, or the people who loved her, made him want to cry. “If I were stuck here, I'd have memory lapses too.” Like Sean, Mike had never liked Paris. The only thing he liked there was the food. He found the French hard to deal with in business, disorganized, and unreliable at best. What made the city bearable for him was the Ritz, which he said was the best hotel in the world. Other than that, he was happier in the States. And he wanted to get Carole back there too, to doctors he knew. He had already lined up some of the city's best. As a self-declared, devoted hypochondriac, he was on the board of two hospitals and a medical school.

He hated to leave her that night to go back to the hotel, but he could see that she was tired. He had been with her all afternoon, and he was exhausted too. He had tried to jog her memory further with stories of her early Hollywood days, but nothing more had come back. Just bits and pieces of her childhood in Mississippi. But nothing past eighteen, when she left the farm. It was a start.

Talking to people at length was still wearing for her, and trying to push her memory exhausted her. She was ready to go to sleep, as Mike got ready to leave. He stood next to her bed for a long moment before he left, and smoothed the long blond hair with his hand. “I love you, baby.” He had always called her that, ever since she was a kid. “Now you get better and come home as soon as you can. I'll be waiting for you in L.A.” He had to fight back tears again as he gave her a hug, and then left the room. He had a driver downstairs, waiting to take him to the hotel.

Stevie stayed until Carole fell asleep, and then she left too. Mike called her in her room when she got back, and he was upset. “Jesus,” he said. “She doesn't remember a damn thing.”

“The llama, her hometown, her grandmother, her mom's photo, and her father's barn were the first glimmer of hope we've had. I think you did her a lot of good.” Stevie was grateful and sincere.

“I hope we get past that soon.” Mike wanted her to be her old self, and back in her career. He didn't want it to end like this, with Carole brain-damaged and impaired.

“I hope so too,” Stevie agreed, and he told her he had given a brief interview outside the hospital. An American journalist had recognized him and asked how Carole was doing, and if he had come to see her. He said that he had, and she was doing fine. He had told the reporter that her memory was coming back, in fact she remembered almost everything. He didn't want the word staying out there that she had lost her mind. He thought it was important for her career to paint a rosy picture of her progress. Stevie wasn't sure he was right, but it couldn't do any harm. Carole wasn't talking to reporters herself, so there was no way for them to know the truth, and her doctors weren't allowed to talk to them. Mike really cared about Carole, but he always had her career in mind.

A brief report of his conversation with them turned up on the AP wires the next day, and ran in papers around the world. Movie star Carole Barber was recovering in Paris, her memory had returned, in a quote from Mike Appelsohn, producer and agent. He said she was coming back to L.A. soon, to resume her career. The article didn't mention that she hadn't done a movie in three years. It just said that her memory had returned, which was all that mattered to him. As he always had, Mike Appelsohn was looking out for her, and had her best interests in mind.

Chapter 11

F
or the next several days after Mike's visit, Carole was feeling awful. She had caught a terrible cold. She was still prey to ordinary human miseries, just like everyone else, in addition to the neurological damage she was trying to overcome, and learning to walk with ease again. Her doctor had two physical therapists working with her and a speech therapist who came every day. The walking was going better, but the cold had her feeling miserable. And Stevie caught the cold too. Not wanting to get Carole even sicker, she stayed in bed at the Ritz. The hotel doctor came to check her, and gave her antibiotics in case she got worse. She had a nasty sinus infection and a vicious cough. She called Carole who sounded nearly as bad.

There was a new nurse on duty who left Carole alone during lunch. Carole was lonely without Stevie to talk to, and for the first time since she'd been there she turned on the TV, and watched the news on CNN. It was something to do. She couldn't concentrate well enough yet to read a book. Reading was still hard for her. And writing was worse. Her handwriting had suffered too. Stevie had long since realized that she wouldn't be writing her book anytime soon, although she hadn't said as much to Carole. There was no way she could write it now anyway. She no longer remembered the plot, and her computer was at the hotel. She had more basic problems to deal with. But for now Carole was enjoying watching TV, as she lay alone in her room. The new nurse hadn't been much company anyway, and was pretty dour.

With the sound from the TV, Carole didn't hear the door of the room open, and was startled to see someone standing near the foot of her bed. When she turned her head, he was there, watching her. He was a young boy, in jeans, and looked about sixteen years old. He was dark skinned, and had big almond-shaped eyes. He looked malnourished and scared, as his eyes met her. She had no idea what he was doing in her room, and his eyes never left hers. She assumed the security guard outside her door had let him in. He was probably a delivery boy come to deliver flowers, but she saw no evidence of a bouquet. She tried to speak to him in halting French, but he didn't understand. She tried English then. She wasn't sure what nationality he was.

“Can I help you? Are you looking for someone?” Maybe he was lost, or a fan. They had had a few of those, looking for her, although the guard was supposed to keep them out.

“You are a movie star?” he asked, in an unfamiliar accent. He looked Spanish or Portuguese. And she couldn't remember Spanish at all. He could have been Italian too, or Sicilian. He was dark.

“Yes, I am.” She smiled at him. He seemed very young. He had a loose jacket on over a dark blue sweater. The jacket looked like it belonged to someone else, twice his size, and he was wearing running shoes with holes, like the ones Anthony wore. Her son said they were his lucky shoes, and he had brought them to Paris. This boy looked like he owned nothing better. “What are you doing here?” she asked him kindly, wondering if he wanted an autograph. She had signed a few since she'd been there, although badly. Her current signature bore no resemblance to her normal one. The bomb had done that too. Writing by hand was still hard for her.

“I am looking for you,” he said simply, as their eyes met. She knew she had never seen him before, and yet there was something about his eyes that she remembered. She could see a car in her mind's eye, and his face in the window, staring at her. And then she knew. She had seen him in the tunnel, in the car next to hers, before the bombs went off. He had jumped out and run away, and then everything exploded into fire and seconds later went black for her.

At the same time she saw the vision in her head, she saw him take a knife out of his jacket. It had a long, ugly curved blade and a bone handle, and was an evil weapon. She stared at him, as he took a single step toward her, and she leaped out of bed on the other side.