If I Forget You (6 page)

He turned to the back seat, his eyes widening with recognition. Had he seen her before? She shifted across the seat, hoping he’d give her more of an indication that they knew each other. Instead, he gave her the once-over before catching her eyes and reeling her in like a hooked fish.

She had to admit, he was attractive … in an odd sort of way. He had dimples in both cheeks when he smiled, nearly hidden by his dark brown, neatly-trimmed scruff. His short wavy hair matched his scruff and his eyes, but he had a crooked, almost flat nose and kind of a thick neck.

“Hi, Avery,” he said with a nod.

She gave him a watery smile, unsure how she should respond. Was she supposed to act like she knew him? Because she could have sworn she’d never seen him before in her life. “Thanks for saving us,” she said, trying not to stutter.

“No problem. Where do you need to go?”

“Just home,” Avery said, her mouth growing dry. “Over by Corbin Park.”

“I know right where it is.”

Tam was still eating him up with her eyes. Oblivious to Avery’s confusion, she bit her lip when he turned to her and smiled again, his dimples even deeper this time. Those things could kill a girl if he wasn’t careful.

Ryan pulled away from the curb. “So, Tam, do you and Avery go to the football games?”

Tam shrugged. “We go to some of them.”

It wasn’t lost on Avery how Tam said “we,” as if she never did anything without Avery by her side. Lately, that was exactly how it was.

“Well, I’ll have to keep an eye out for both of you next time,” Ryan said, glancing at Avery in the rearview mirror. She smiled.

“You can drop us both off at my house,” Tam interjected before Avery could give him her street address. “Avery’s got to help me pick out my outfit for the party tonight.”

“Oh?” He glanced at Avery in the mirror again, confusion plastering his face. “You’re both going to a party?”

Tam leaned across the seat and gave him a sticky-sweet smile. “Yeah, you want to come?”

“I’m not invited, and I have something else tonight.”

“Cancel whatever you’re doing. You can come with us. Nobody’ll say anything. You know how this stuff is.”

He smirked. “Yeah, I can come after I’m finished, I guess. The party will go late, right?”

“Oh, yeah, it will.” Tam leaned closer to him, brushing his elbow with her hand. The connection between them was so intense Avery could feel it all the way in the back seat. She stopped herself from clearing her throat. This was nothing new. Tam was always flirting like crazy.

“See you later. You too, Avery,” he said as he pulled into Tam’s driveway and they both got out. He followed Tam with his eyes, and Avery gave him a little wave, which he returned half-heartedly.
C’est la vie.
She would probably forget his face and name by that night anyway.

By the time she arrived home, her mother was in her studio, working. Avery poked her head in and said hello.

“Oh, hi,” she answered, looking up from her canvas.

“How was the conference?”

“Good.” Then her mom’s eyes lit up. “Oh! You remember Victor and his wife are coming over tonight, right?”

Victor was one of her dad’s Marine buddies from when they had lived in Oceanside. He was one of those big teddy-bear men who looked gruff but had a heart of gold.

“They’re coming for dinner, just like last year. Victor’s stepson, Ryan, will be coming too. I thought he was pretty cute the one time we met him, remember?”

“I don’t remember him,” Avery said as her mouth went dry.

Ryan.

It couldn’t be the same Ryan she had just met. Was his name Ryan? She pulled out her phone and texted Tam.

Was that guy’s name Ryan?

Tam answered back.
Yes, why? It’s so cute how you forget names.

No reason.

Only, there was a big reason why, and she wasn’t sure if she should panic or not.

Her mom cleared her throat after Avery’s thirty seconds of silence. “Oh, I’m sure it’ll come back to you when you see him again. I’ve got to finish up on this project then start cooking. Can you help me?”

“I have a party tonight,” Avery reminded her, realizing this was probably one of the only times she had reminded her mom of something instead of the other way around. Or maybe Avery had never told her she was going.

“But it’s your dad’s best friend,” her mom said as she stopped moving her brush across the canvas and looked hard into Avery’s eyes. “This is good for all of us to get together and talk about your father. It’s therapeutic. We need this, especially right now.”

She meant because next week would be the third-year anniversary of her husband’s death
—
definitely one of those super glued memories for Avery. It was never an easy time to get through, and Avery was looking forward to the party to get her mind off it.

Standing still, she felt her fingers twitch. She wanted to go to the party so badly her bones ached. Parties had never been her thing since there were so many people and events to remember afterward, but Tam loved them. Anything Tam loved, Avery loved.

Her mom must have seen the battle reflected in Avery’s face. She set down her brush and stood. “All right, you can go to your party, but please help me with dinner. How late does the party start? Maybe you’ll have time to eat and socialize for a bit before you go.”

In other words,
do everything I want you to do, anyway.
Avery could see the desperation in her eyes, the fact that she didn’t want to be stuck with Victor’s family all by herself. This was a hard time for both of them. Unfortunately, Avery wanted to deal with her loneliness and grief in different ways than her mother did.

In the end, Avery decided to help her, of course. She drove to the store in the pounding rain to pick up groceries for dinner. When she got home, her mom pointed out a few things Avery had missed on the list and Avery had to go back to the store to pick them up. This was a regular occurrence when it came to Avery doing the shopping. By that time, Tam was calling Avery every thirty minutes from her home phone. Apparently, she had left her cell phone in the broken-down Gold Bug.

“You’re supposed to be over at
my
place getting ready right now,” Tam complained as Avery pushed her shopping cart down the drink aisle looking for club soda. “I’ve got your outfit all ready to go, and I need those earrings you said you’d bring. Why did your mom spring this on you last-second?”

“I don’t know. She probably told me ages ago and I forgot.” Avery rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a Post-it. “Yep, she wrote it down for me two days ago. ‘Remember the dinner party with the Royals Tuesday night at 7:00.’
I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Of course,” Tam said, laughing. “Typical Ave.”

“Oh, shut up.” Avery crumpled the Post-it and put it back in her purse just as her phone beeped through Tam’s babbling. She pulled it away to see a reminder about the dinner. Her mother must have put it into her phone weeks ago. Go figure. How could Avery manage to overlook such an event when it was recorded in two places? She felt like banging her head against the shelves of Coke she was walking past.

“Well, can you get here soon, please?”

Avery let out a heavy sigh as she found the club soda and put it in the cart. She still needed to find two other things, and she cursed herself for overlooking stuff the first time she was here. The clock was ticking and her mom needed her home fast. At last year’s dinner, they’d had dessert and coffee and looked at old pictures of her dad. They had all reminisced for hours. Avery hadn’t seen her mom smile like that in a long time.

“You know, Tam,” Avery said, her voice deflating, “I don’t think I can come to the party tonight. This is just … it’s too important to Mom. I need to be there for her, and for Dad. This is as much for him as it is for us.”

Silence.

“I understand,” Tam said tenderly after the long silence. She knew how much Avery struggled with her father’s death. “I’ll miss you, though. Like, a lot.”

“I know, I’m sorry. You’ll have to tell me
everything
tomorrow. Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Let’s have a sleepover tomorrow night,” Avery said in a lame effort to placate Tam as she turned a corner into the bakery. “My place or yours? I’ll bring mint brownies.”

“Oh, good idea. Um, mine.”

Avery grabbed a box of brownie mix and threw it into the cart. “Have fun tonight.” Heavy sigh. “Without me.”

“I’ll try.”

That night, Avery answered the door when the bell rang. She blinked twice as she looked at Victor and then at Ryan standing next to his mother. There he was, with his increasingly adorable crooked nose and looking a tad shorter than she’d imagined he would be
—
closer to her own five-foot four inches. That was when she realized why he had looked so confused in the car when Tam had announced she and Avery were going to a party tonight. Why would she go to a party when she was supposed to be at home entertaining him and his parents?

But the Royals didn’t even live in Spokane. Last year they had flown from California. Hadn’t they? She put a hand to her forehead as Ryan gave her a soft smile and she opened the door wider for them all to enter.

“So glad you’re here!” her mom said loudly from the kitchen. She poked her head into the room as Avery told the Royals to make themselves comfortable.

“Lovely to be here,” Mrs. Royal called out as she sat next to Victor. Avery couldn’t remember her first name.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Ryan said in a low voice as he passed Avery on his way to the living room.

“I’ll, uh, get you all some drinks,” she said softly, giving Ryan a quick glance before leaving the room. She had to get out of there.

“Mom,” she said as soon as she was in the kitchen and out of earshot. “Did the Royals move here recently?”

Her mother turned around from whisking some hollandaise in a double boiler, her eyebrows knitted. “No, they haven’t moved here.” She turned back to the hollandaise, and Avery waited. She knew how important it was to get the sauce right at the perfect time. Finally, her mother lifted the top pan and set it aside. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, you mean Ryan?” she asked, turning back to Avery. “He doesn’t live with Victor and Amber, remember? He’s staying here with his grandparents until he graduates. We met them at the mall for dinner last Christmas. Ryan goes to Rogers. You still don’t remember after seeing him? You two talked all through dinner.”

Avery tried not to let her eyes fill with tears. It was times like this that made her feel completely, one hundred percent stupid. She didn’t remember even one shred of that dinner. She dug and dug into her memories and came up with nothing. “What restaurant?”

“Olivia’s
—
the steak place. You had the salmon.”

Avery shook her head. How could her mother recall so many details? “I don’t remember,” she whispered so intensely it was almost a hiss. “What am I supposed to say to him?”

Her mom tilted her head and rested a warm hand on Avery’s cheek. “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. Just tell him the truth.”

But she couldn’t. She’d never admitted to anyone except her mother and Tam the extent of her forgetfulness. She knew it would only sound like an excuse. She’d just have to flub her way through it, as usual.

7

After her shower, Avery pulled on the yellow dress and looked at herself in the mirror. Not bad. It was sexy, but comfortable enough she could fall asleep in it if she wanted to. Not that she was planning on falling asleep at the party.

She dried her hair, put on a little makeup, and slipped on a pair of flats. Chloe had gone to bed an hour ago. She had probably stuck earplugs in so she could drown out the noise. It was only ten o’clock and Avery could already hear the bass thumping next door and more than the usual amount of traffic driving up and down the street.

As she looked through the small stash of jewelry she’d brought from home, she realized she should probably double-check Jordan’s address against the address next door. Maybe it was only a coincidence Chloe’s neighbor threw parties. When she checked, she was glad to see she was right. It made her wonder if Jordan knew she was his neighbor. If he didn’t, he was about to find out.

Avery’s stomach turned over when she stepped outside. She’d never been to a party by herself. She’d always gone with Tam, and after the falling out, she had never gone to another one. Nobody would have let her into a party after all of that, anyway. She wouldn’t think about it now. Why couldn’t all of those memories flit away like most everything else?

There was a little stone path through the trees and bushes between the two houses. Avery followed it through and gripped the strap of her clutch as she surveyed what she was about to walk into. It looked like a typical party. The weather was warm enough for people to hang out on the lawn and the front porch. Everyone had a beer can or bottle or a red plastic cup in their hand. Some girls were dressed skimpier than Avery, but some were in jeans. She walked around a group of guys smoking cigarettes. One of them turned around and winked at her as he looked her up and down, but she didn’t stop. Would she recognize Jordan when she saw him? She had looked at her notebook before she’d left, staring at the list she’d compiled of all the Jordan traits from her entries.

Short, dark blond hair. Highlights
—
not sure if they’re fake. That might be weird …

Light blue eyes.

Chews fingernails, but files them for his dad.

Dresses nice.

Wears black Oxfords.

Sharp features like Mom’s square sketches.

Has a somewhat deep voice.

Who was she kidding? None of that was going to help her recognize him in a crowd, but how hard could it be? She had seen him a few times now. She could form his face in her mind if she tried hard enough. Maybe. Why couldn’t she have inherited her mother’s artistic skills so she could draw pictures instead of write lists? She groaned to herself as she walked up the front steps and through the open door. Maybe he would recognize her. She could hope for that, at least.