Remember Our Song (8 page)

We had the occasional lunches with people who were supposedly our friends, but it was just so awkward that I didn’t enjoy them much.  It was like because they couldn’t
see
my amnesia, they thought it wasn’t there and kept on talking about various subjects as if I was expected to be familiar with them already.  Jeremy was constantly explaining things to me.

One morning Jeremy turned up at my doorstep a full half hour before he said he was going to meet me.  Normally we met somewhere else, or in front of my building, so I was a bit surprised to see him there.  In his hand he had a bunch of roses, every
color except red, which he held out to me with a close-mouthed smile.

“Happy Birthday!”

“What?  Today?”

“Twenty-six today, want me to sing happy birthday?  I’m tone deaf but game if you are.”

“No need!” I accepted the flowers. “Thank you, they’re beautiful.  I’m not quite ready… you’re a bit early aren’t you?”

“Yeah, sorry.  I thought it was going to take me a lot longer to find the perfect bunch of flowers than it actually did.”

“I won’t ask how you knew I don’t like red roses.”

“Probably for the best, Bea.  I’ve got another surprise for you today, something really nice, but it will take most of the day, hope that’s alright?”

“As long as I can get a walk in at some stage,” I said.

“You can walk out there.”

“Out where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Hmmm.  I’ll just put my shoes on I guess.”

I had to search around the apartment a bit before I spotted where I’d kicked my shoes off the previous evening, under the coffee table of course.  I sat down on the couch to pull them on.

“Wow, you’re really walking well now.  Hardly any limp at all.”

“Hey… you’re right.  That kinda sneaked up on me.  I got used to it, thought I’d be limping forever.”

“Can’t keep a good girl down.”

“So, where are we going?” I tried to catch him out with the sudden question.

“It’s a surprise,” he said with a smile.

It turned out that Jeremy was doing the driving this morning and he took us north along the good old Interstate 5 for about an hour until we came to a small town, where he turned off to the east.  The landscape on either side of the road quickly turned from sparse vegetation, tough looking plants that clung to the dry ground with desperation, to a reasonably thick forest of tall evergreen trees.

Eventually Jeremy pulled over next to the road, where some construction works had been going on, though there was no sign of any workers or machinery on site this morning.  Jeremy hopped out of the car and circled back to the trunk, opening it and rustling around while I heaved myself on to my feet, stiff from sitting in the car for so long.

Jeremy stood up with a big wicker basket in one hand and some blankets in the other before closing the trunk and coming around to my side of the vehicle.

“What’s this?”

“A picnic, plus some blankets to sit on.  I thought we’d walk from here so you can get your exercise for your leg.”

“Walk to
what
?”

“You’ll see.”

We walked along a dirt track that showed evidence of heavy machinery having driven along it at some stage, though how long ago I couldn’t tell.  Recently enough so that the track and tire marks hadn’t been washed away at least, though deep as they were it would have taken quite the deluge to do so.  They had dried and hardened into an awkward walking surface since they were made, that was for sure.

The wide track had apparently been cut straight through the forest, which loomed close on either side.  Any trees that weren’t evergreen were showing the yellow and orange signs of late fall, much of their
color already dropped to the ground around them, and the track we were struggling along. 

More than once I
stumbled on the uneven ground and had to reach out to Jeremy to steady myself.  By the time Jeremy paused I was pretty much gripping the material on the sleeve of his jacket the whole time, afraid that an awkward slip would twist my leg and cause some massive injury, although I was hardly limping I still didn’t have full confidence in it.

“OK, this is it,” Jeremy said.

“It’s the best dirt trail I’ve ever seen!” I fake-swooned.

“Haha, no.  Just over this next little hill.”

Jeremy transferred the blankets to under the arm that was holding the basket and took my hand, helping me the last several steps up the gentle rise.  On the other side, set in front of a beautiful lake, was a house planted in the middle of the bare dirt and a smaller building to the side, built in the same style.  It was a big house by anybody’s standards, though dwarfed by Jeremy’s mansion back in L.A. My mind raced, trying to picture it with the surrounding area all lush and green rather than torn up by machinery.

“Wow… it’s beautiful, Jeremy.  What is this place?”

“This is the house we’re building.  Come on, let me show you around.”

Chapter 8

Jeremy led me to the front door, which didn’t yet have steps leading up to it, and dug into his pocket, reaching up to the keyhole and twisting the key before turning the handle and pushing the door open.  Looking through, I could see that the interior of the house was much further from completion than the outside, most of the walls didn’t have any covers on them, the fluffy insulation laid bare.  I leaned in and looked around but couldn’t see much beyond the entranceway.

“Need a boost?”  Jeremy asked.

“Um… yes I think so.”

Jeremy set the basket down just inside the door and put the blankets on top of it before sliding everything out of the way to the left and stepping behind me.

“OK, how are we gonna do this?” I asked.

“Um… face me… OK, yeah.”

Putting his hands into my armpits he lifted me off the ground and placed me in a sitting position on the bottom of the doorframe.  I had my hands on his shoulders to help stabilize myself and when I felt Jeremy pause it couldn’t escape my attention how close he was standing, my knees on either side of him.  It was the closest we’d been since the hug in the boardroom at Bloxhamtech.

I looked down into his eyes and found myself almost lost in their depths, my own reflection stared back like the pictures of myself on my laptop, as if that woman still existed inside Jeremy.  I felt something stir inside me, like a little shiver of electricity that bounced around in my stomach.  The sensation jolted me out of my daydream and I cleared my throat awkwardly as Jeremy slowly backed away, allowing me to swing my legs up.

My heart was pounding as I struggled to my feet, looking away from him so he wouldn’t see how flustered I was.  I took a few steps further into the house and heard Jeremy climb up behind me and come to my side, looking around.

To my left what I assumed was a living room had some furniture haphazardly strewn about the place, everything brand new but looking completely out of place in the unfinished house.  Straight ahead was some unknown room with huge bi-fold doors that opened out on to a slightly higher drop than the front door we had climbed in.

“Why is there furniture here?  Won’t it get ruined, or at least in the way when everything else gets done?”

“Well, you were kind of the driving force behind this project, picking
colors and finishes and what not.  Without you it all kind of ground to a halt,” Jeremy looked around wistfully.  “The whole thing was supposed to be almost finished by now.  A few companies volunteered to send out sample furniture so we could see it actually in our house before we decided what we wanted.  I guess they were hoping for a bit of free press if and when the house got photographed for a magazine.”

“But why is it here now?”

“Oh, well, we confirmed with them a long time ago when to have the stuff delivered.  With everything that’s been going on, we... I… forgot to cancel or postpone it, so it turned up earlier this week.  I’ve arranged for them to take it all back already, but they haven’t picked it up yet.  Obviously.”

“What’s this room going to be?”  I asked, moving to the room with the bi-fold doors.

“This was going to be a dining room, open plan to the kitchen over this way.  These doors will open out on to the deck, got to love that indoor-outdoor flow, and it will be mostly made from wood from the trees we cut down for the driveway.  The deck will go down a few shallow levels until it meets the ground, and no swimming pool because…”

Jeremy indicated the lake with a wide sweep of his hand.

“It’s very picturesque,” I said.

“Took a long time to find, but when we came out here and saw it, we knew it was ideal.”

“You don’t mind the trade down in the size of the house?”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, “I don’t know what I was thinking in the first place buying that.  I was just young and dumb, bought it because I could.  I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do when you make your first billion.  There are rooms I haven’t been in for
years
.  People could be living there and I’d have no idea.  I picture myself going in one day to find some guy sitting in a chair reading the newspaper while his wife watches a TV.  I’d be like ‘Who are you?’ and they’d say ‘We’re the Johnsons… do you mind?’ and I’d just have to leave.”

I laughed, “Kind of like that old show ‘The Young Ones’ where they’d go into a room and there’d just be some band set up playing some music.”

“I got you the boxed DVD set of that show… do you...” his voice trailed off.

“No, I remember catching the odd rerun when I was little.  I never saw enough of them to really understand what was going on.”

“Hehe, I think you got the gist of it.  Worst tenants in the world enter room, sometimes via the door, sometimes via busting down the wall, random things happen, next episode.  It had its moments though, that’s for sure.”

“So, guided tour time, I think,” I said.

Jeremy showed me through the various bedrooms, bathrooms, studies, ‘man-cave’, huge internal garage and so forth for the next half hour or so.  He was just telling me about where there would be carpet and where there would be tiles made out of bamboo when my stomach rumbled an opinion about something.

“Allow me to translate.  My stomach says ‘You mentioned something about a picnic, good sir?’”

“Tell your stomach that yes, that is correct.  I guess we don’t need the blankets to sit on, we can use the sample furniture, unless you’re feeling brave enough for a late-fall/early-winter picnic by the lake?”

“Yeah, the lake!  What’s it called?”

“Lake Oroitz,” he said.

“That’s a nice name.”

“I think so too.  Front door will be easier… how are we going to get you out of here?”

“I think I can manage to get down OK by myself.”

Sure enough, clambering out was easier than climbing in and I landed on the ground even steadier than I had anticipated.  I smiled, feeling physically normal for the first time since I had woken up in hospital.  The two of us walked around the side of the house between it and the outbuilding I had seen previously, which Jeremy appeared to be purposefully ignoring, along a gentle downward slope until the bare dirt of the construction zone gave way to lush green grass.

Jeremy spread out one of the blankets on the ground, having left the others just inside the front door and put the basket down on top of it.  I helped him unpack the basket, which was jammed completely full with everything we could possibly eat or need, including a thermos of hot coffee, the
flavor of which was indeed growing on me, that helped keep me warm.

It was a wonderful, simple, intimate lunch with nobody but the two of us within sight, and nothing but the natural beauty of the lake and forest around us.  Although he owned the land, it was a picnic that would have been perfect even if he didn’t.  I found myself looking at him in a different light, seeing something behind the money that otherwise
colored every facet of his life.  There was more to him than just that.

I felt an internal debate swinging in a direction I’d been fighting against for months as conversation flowed easily and I laughed long and hard.  It felt good to let go of my
defenses for a while, the lake was so calm and reassuring I let the peace flow through me and one by one muscles that I hadn’t even noticed were bunched up began to relax.

“I really love this place,” I said quietly.

“That’s what you said when I first brought you here.  Want to go for a quick walk along the shore?”

“Yes please.”

The lake was just as pleasing to the eye no matter how far we walked, but I was definitely reaching the limits of my walking-stamina by the time we returned to the picnic location and Jeremy packed the remnants of our meal back into the basket.  The day was just starting to cool off, I rubbed my arms and glanced up at Jeremy to see a smile playing on his lips as we made our way back towards the house.

“What’s that smile about?”

“Hmm?  Nothing… well, it’s just been a really nice day.  A perfect day, actually.  I’m glad it was your birthday.  I’m just thinking I’ve got one more surprise for you before we leave, and I hope you like it.”

Jeremy led the way towards the mysterious outbuilding, but instead of heading towards the door, he walked to the side and started tinkering with some greasy red contraption
on the back of a trailer that suddenly sprang to life with a cough and a splutter.

“A generator, for electricity.  We’re not connected to the main grid yet, but I made them finish this building first.  It was done before the… accident, so I’m really hoping you remember it.”

I was intrigued, I tried to get some kind of an idea about what the building was for by looking at its exterior, but it just looked like a small, rectangular, version of the main house.  Jeremy found the keys in his pocket and opened the door before looking at me.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

Leading me through the open doorway, I heard Jeremy flicking several switches before pulling me further into the room and turning me to the left.

“OK, open them.”

Although I’d never been in one before, that I could remember anyway, there was no mistaking the purpose of the room I was in.  In front of me was a complex panel of buttons, lights, sliders and switches looking through a glass wall into a room with nothing but a stool, a stand for holding sheets of music, and a microphone on an articulated arm.  It was a recording studio.

“Why is this here?” I asked, scared of the answer.

“It’s all for you.”

“But I don’t… I can’t… not anymore.”

“You can, Bea.  I’ve seen it, heard it.  It’s OK to sing again.”

“No I can’t, you don’t understand!”

“I do, I really do.  But take it easy, I’m not saying get in there and lay down a multi-platinum album right now.  I just wanted to show it to you, and maybe have you listen to something.”

“Listen to what?”

“Listen to… you.”

Jeremy leaned down and pulled out a pair of headphones, the kind that completely cover your ears, and plugged them into the appropriate socket on the complicated panel in front of us.

“Would you listen… for me?  You said it was like breaking the surface after being underwater for six years.”

I stood still, watching apprehensively as Jeremy took my lack of response as ‘close enough’ to agreement and lowered the headphones over my ears before pressing a few buttons and moving a slider.  Jeremy looked back to me and pulled one side of the earphones out for a second.

“You should close your eyes again.”

I did so and as Jeremy let the headphones come back down over my ear the entire world was cut off except for the sound of faint static, which gave way to the deep tones of a double bass, the opening notes of a song I knew well, ‘Indifference’ by a band from my hometown who hit it big, Pearl Jam.

Instead of the familiar voice of Eddie Vedder launching into the first verse I heard something I hadn’t heard in a long time.  It was me, singing again.  Tears forced their way through my closed eyelids as I listened to myself perform a very passable cover of a song that meant a lot to me.

I thought back to how I used to feel when I sang, in high school performances or my brief stint in a band.  It was such freedom, like I was
flying
, and I could hear that sense of self-determination in the version of me singing from the big foggy gap in my life.  She wasn’t locked up in a cage of her own construction anymore.

The song ended, fading away to the sound of applause from some unknown crowd and I opened my eyes to see Jeremy watching me solemnly.  When he saw I was looking at him, he pulled the headphones off and laid them carefully down on the panel beside us.

“How did you do it?” I asked, “How did you make me fly again?”

“You did it yourself, Bea, I’m just your number one fan.  This is another very special place, I count myself as lucky to have been here when I saw your dreams come true.  We hired the sound technician for the day and I had him
fade in that applause track when you finished.  The look on your face was one of the best gifts I’ve ever had.”

“What did it look like?” I asked, smiling at the shadow of the memory, my eyes still moist.

Jeremy took a step closer so he was right in front of me and I looked up at him, the stranger that knew me so well, still trying to find that spark of memory to light up the details of our life together in my mind.  His hands rose to my face, wiping away the remnants of my tears with his thumbs, and I felt the warmth in his palms like he was radiating strength into me.

“It looked just like this, Bea.  Just like this.”

I felt his hands begin to pull away and I quickly raised my own to cover his, keeping them firmly planted on my cheeks as I raised myself up on to the tips of my toes and kissed him.  Jeremy hardly moved for a moment, as if he’d forgotten how to kiss, but then returned it with growing confidence until we had to break it off to catch our breath.

We stared at each other for a moment, my heart beating so hard I thought for sure he would hear it.  All the protests inside my mind were washed away by the more immediate desires of my body, the usually strongly asserted points washed away by the events of the day, a perfect day as Jeremy had said.