Triggers

  Griffin nodded. “I understand. We’re hoping you’ll stay here. We’re advising all those who were affected by the memory linking to stay under our care until we get that sorted out, and, well, with everything you’ve been through…”

  Dora looked out the window again, but her vision blurred as tears welled in her eyes.

  CHAPTER 38

  AFTER having the MRI scans, Eric and Jan went by Jan’s locker at the hospital. She kept a change of clothing there—you never knew when a patient was going to vomit on you, she said. She put the clothes in a plastic bag, and they headed back to Eric’s apartment, stopping at a CVS along the way to buy her a toothbrush and a few other things. The sky was cloudy.

  Events hadn’t gone the way Eric had intended. He’d wanted to help Jan, yes, but he’d really only planned to get her to a shelter.

  But now she was here, in his home.

  And he knew more about her than anyone else in his life. More than he knew about his parents, his sisters, his son, his ex-wife.

  He thought back to this morning, back to when he’d come to get her at the Bronze Shield, her setting up to play, rolling the characters, and—

  No. No, those were her memories, not his; he hadn’t been there at the beginning of the game. God, they came to him just like his own memories now…like she was a part of him.

  Like they were a couple.

  Huh. Funny phrase that. “A couple.” A singular noun for two individuals. Except…

  Except they weren’t quite individuals anymore. He was linked to her, and for events they had shared—the MRI session this afternoon, her collapsing before that, what went down at the gaming store, their interaction yesterday—the memories were hopelessly intertwined. He couldn’t think about any joint experience they’d had without her perspective mixing with his own.

  Time was passing. It would be evening in a few hours. And then night, and—

  And he did care about her.

  And she did like him.

  And she was very, very beautiful.

  But—

  But when they’d come into the living room now, and he’d sat on the long white couch, he’d expected her to sit down beside him. Instead, she took the matching chair that faced the couch and sat with her knees tucked up toward her chin.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked. “Coffee? Beer?”

  She just sat there.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Jan? Did you hear me? Would you like something to drink?”

  “I heard you,” she said. “I just figured you’d answer your question.”

  “Jan, I can’t read your mind—just your memories. This isn’t a time of crisis.” So far, anyway…

  “Oh, right. Sorry.”

  He tried to move to more neutral ground. “It’s strange that the linkages can, at least some of the time, connect not just memories but thoughts, too.”

  “Why’s that strange?” she asked. “It’s all just brain activity, right?”

  “Yeah, but memories involve permanent changes in the brain—an actual physical alteration in its structure. Thoughts are evanescent.”

  “I wish I could read your memories,” she said, and she gave him the faintest of smiles. “That would save me the embarrassment of having to ask you what that word means.”

  “Evanescent?” said Eric. “Fleeting. Vanishing like vapor. Unlike the laying down of memories, there’s no permanent structural change in the brain associated with having thoughts.” He shifted on the couch and looked across the glass-topped coffee table at her. “You know, it’s funny. If someone attacked you with a knife and scarred you, the courts would assess the physical damage—how long a scar, how many stitches it took to close the wound, whatever—and they’d come up with a figure that you’d be entitled to in compensation. But hurting someone with words that they’ll always remember? With an act they’ll never forget? That’s physical damage, too—it changes you just as permanently as a scar. But instead of tallying up what the compensation should be, we just say, ‘Get over it,’ or ‘You should develop a thicker skin,’ or—and this is ironic, given that it’s the one thing that’s impossible—‘you should just forget about it.’” He shook his head, thinking about the things Tony had said to her, had done to her.

  She was quiet for a time, then, so softly that he wasn’t sure he’d heard every word correctly, she said, “I can’t take it.”

  “Take what?” asked Eric.

  “The memory thing.”

  He nodded; it was unequal, it was unfair, it was unbalanced. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am—I don’t mean to invade your privacy.”

  But Jan shook her head. “It’s not that; it’s not you. It’s her.”

  “Who?” asked Eric.

  “Her. That woman who is linked to you—the one who sells houses. Um, Nikki Van Hausen.”

  “What about her?” asked Eric.

  “She knows everything that’s happened between us, everything that happened today.” Jan looked away. “And everything that will happen later.”

  “But she’s gone from our lives,” Eric said. “She left LT when the lockdown ended. I’ll probably never see her again.”

  “She’s not gone,” said Jan. “She’s right here. She’ll recall this conversation, recall what happened with Tony at the Bronze Shield, and if we ever—if we ever make…” She shook her head a bit and fell silent.

  Eric looked around his living room—familiar surroundings to him, alien ones to Jan, but, yes, doubtless recallable by Nikki Van Hausen even though she’d never been here. It was easy to forget that the intimate way he knew Jan was echoed by the way Nikki knew him.

  But it wasn’t the same, God damn it. It wasn’t. Nikki was a complete stranger to him, just as he was to her. Oh, sure, it was probably interesting to her in an abstract way that she had someone else’s memories, but there was no emotional connection between him and her.

  “Sweetheart,” said Eric—and a memory, or rather a lack of a memory, hit him; Tony had never called Jan that, or any other term of endearment. He went on: “It’s okay. We never have to see her again, or even think about her.”

  But Jan shook her head once more. “She knows—or will know—what you just said. And she’ll resent it—she’ll think you’re insulting her. Don’t you see? She’s got the same level of access to you that you have to me; she can’t help but be fascinated by your life.”

  “I’m sure she just wants to get on with her own,” Eric said.

  “Just like you did?” Jan replied, looking at him across the intervening coffee table.

  “It’s different,” he said again.

  “I don’t know,” Jan said sadly.

  “Just don’t think about it,” Eric said. “As one of my favorite writers once said, ‘Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.’”

  “I don’t think I can ignore this.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then got up, crossed over to her, perched himself on the wide padded arm of the chair, and reached to stroke her tattooed shoulder. But she flinched, and he stopped.

  After a moment, she rose and walked out of the living room, heading to the second bedroom, the one that was there for when Quentin visited, leaving Eric wondering at what point in the future—the next day, the next week, the next year, the next decade—Nikki Van Hausen would recall what him having his heart broken felt like.

  CHAPTER 39

  UNDER normal circumstances, Bessie Stilwell might have wished to spend more time in Los Angeles. She’d always wanted to see the Walk of Fame, and find the stars there for Cary Grant and Christopher Plummer and James Dean. And it certainly was nice to be somewhere warm after Washington. But her son was still in the hospital, and although she’d seen him first thing this morning before she and Darryl had flown here, she needed to get back, to be there for him.

  They left the TV studio and headed straight for the Los Angeles Air Force Base. Bessie was put in a secure waiting room, with two uniformed
Air Force guards standing outside the door, while Darryl went off to speak to the base commander. She lowered herself slowly, painfully, onto a wooden seat and picked up a magazine off a table—but the type was much too small for her to read.

  At last, Agent Hudkins returned. “Okay, ma’am,” he said. “Everything’s set. I’m sorry we have to make two big flights in one day.”

  “That’s all right,” Bessie said. “I need to get back to my son, anyway.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Shall we go?”

  • • •

  JANIS was lying on the bed in the guest room, in a fetal position, her eyes closed, thinking about what she’d done. Part of her was elated at having left Tony. And part of her was terrified, wondering what the future held.

  And, of course, there were the memories of Josh Latimer being shot. They were still vivid, but they weren’t real anymore; they felt like any memory felt, with no sense that the thing was happening again right now. The soldier she’d met today, Kadeem Adams, had post-traumatic stress disorder; his flashbacks felt like the horrific things were really happening again. But, thankfully, it seemed Jan wasn’t going to be experiencing that immediacy every time she recalled Josh being shot.

  “Jan…?” Eric’s voice, not much above a whisper—the kind of tentative uttering of a name one uses when testing if someone is asleep.

  She opened her eyes. He was silhouetted in the doorway, a thin, bald man, leaning against the jamb. “Hmmm?” she said.

  “Dr. Griffin called. There’s going to be a press conference about Jerrison’s condition at 4:00 P.M. He wants me to be part of it.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  “Do you want to come?”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Could be a couple of hours. He wants us all to go over what we’re going to say first, before we face the reporters.”

  She hadn’t been part of the surgery. “Can I stay here?”

  “Of course,” and although he didn’t say it, she heard in his tone and was grateful for it, “For as long as you like.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I’m going to head out. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. You like Chinese.” She’d never told him that, but he knew. “There’s some leftover kung pao chicken.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jan soon heard him leave the apartment. She lay there a while longer, hugging her knees, but at last she got up, left Quentin’s bedroom, and headed into the living room.

  The furniture was nicer than any she’d ever owned; everything in her place had been named for some damn Swedish lake or river and had been assembled with an Allen key. But this stuff—the coffee table, the bookcases, the cabinets, all in what she guessed was cherrywood—was expensive.

  Besides numerous hardcover books—a luxury Tony had never let her buy—there were objects on the bookshelves: an Eskimo soapstone carving of a bird, a quill pen, a bronze medallion with the word “Champ” engraved into it, a white marble chess piece. Each of them doubtless had a story behind it—they were keepsakes, mementos—but they meant nothing to her.

  But there was someone beside Eric who could tell the story behind each one: Nikki Van Hausen.

  It was a distinctive-enough name, Jan thought, although, if she were married, it might be her husband’s first name that was in the phone book.

  Jan exhaled noisily. If she were married. This Nikki woman knew everything about Eric, but Jan didn’t know even the most basic facts about Nikki.

  She went into Eric’s office. He had a MacBook Air sitting on a glass-topped workstation, with a Safari browser window open. She typed “Nicky Van Hausen” into Google, but that produced too many hits to be useful. But adding “real estate” to the string quickly turned up pay dirt, thanks to Google’s offering the correct spelling of the first name: her website, but also, Jan was surprised to see, an article from this morning’s Washington Post. Upon getting word of the memory linkages that had occurred at LT, a clever reporter had interviewed Nikki, since she remembered the operation as clearly as Eric himself did.

  Her website—which offered “2% commissions” and “free home appraisals”—gave her phone number. Jan picked up the handset in this room, then set it back down; she didn’t want the Caller ID to show Eric’s name. She went to the marble entryway, got her purse, dug out her cell—and saw that she had four voice messages from Tony. She shuddered, ignored them, and placed the call.

  “Nikki Van Hausen Realty,” said a perky voice.

  “Is this—” Christ, she still didn’t know if it was Miss or Mrs. “Um, is this Nikki?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Nikki, this is Janis Falconi.”

  There was silence for three or four seconds. “Oh.”

  “I need to talk to you,” Jan said.

  “What about?”

  Jan’s turn to hesitate. “Sharing Eric’s memories.”

  “Look, about that article, I didn’t—”

  “No, no. I don’t care about the article; I don’t care that you know that stuff. It’s just—I just…I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d be more comfortable with all this if I met you.”

  “Umm. Okay. Maybe.”

  “Could we get together this afternoon?”

  “Um, where?”

  “Well, I’m sure you know I’m staying at Eric’s place, and I don’t have a car or a key. Could you—could you come by his home?”

  “Ah, will he be there?”

  “No. No.”

  Nikki sounded relieved. “Yeah, I guess I could do that.” A pause. “He’s in the Potomac Palace, right?” she said, naming his condo development. “Penthouse two?”

  Jan shivered slightly. “Yes.”

  “I’m showing a place near there this afternoon. About 4:30, okay?”

  “Fine,” said Jan. “Thanks.” They ended the call, and she held her cell phone in her trembling hand.

  BESSIE hadn’t had much to do with the military since her husband had come back from Korea all those years ago. She was amazed at how high-tech everything had become: here at the base there were all sorts of computers, complex screen displays, and sundry gadgets that she couldn’t begin to identify, and—

  And, well, no, that wasn’t right. She did know what a bunch of them were, now that she thought about it: she knew because Seth Jerrison knew, having learned about them since coming to office—although a lot of them still didn’t really make sense to him, either, what with being a history professor and all. As she and Darryl walked toward the plane, they passed soldier after soldier, and out on the airfield, near the jet that was going to take them, she saw what had to be a bomber, and…

  And the word Counterpunch popped into her head.

  And as they continued on into the plane and were shown to their seats, details about it came to her—horrible, horrific details. Her hands were shaking so much that she had to ask Darryl to do up her seat belt for her.

  Yes, the US had been pushed too far by terrorists; there was no doubt about that. But this—this was…

  Of course, a response was necessary; yes, leaders had to lead.

  But this!

  The plane started rolling down the runway. She had four hours until they’d land.

  Four hours to decide what she was going to do.

  CHAPTER 40

  AT 4:54 P.M., Eric’s phone emitted a strange double tone. Jan had heard his phone ring earlier, when Dr. Griffin had called, and it had made a normal sound, but—

  Ah! It must be one of those Enterphone things, like at Rodger’s place; Rodger was Tony’s best friend. She picked up the handset. “Hello?”

  “It’s Nikki Van Hausen. I’m downstairs.”

  “Ah, okay. Um, damn, I don’t know what to do to let you in.”

  “Press six,” said Nikki—like she’d been here a million times before, like she fucking lived here.

  Jan did so. She heard an electric whine through the handset and then that connection, at least, broke. She straightened her hair in the mirrored
door to the entryway closet, then looked through the peephole in Eric’s front door, and saw—

  It was like the tunnel vision she’d had when Josh Latimer was dying. She saw a woman, impossibly small, impossibly far away, coming toward her, closer and closer and—

  And Jan opened the door. There’d been a picture of Nikki on her website. In it, Nikki had reddish hair, but now she had light brown hair with blonde streaks—and she was a few years older; she looked to be in her mid-thirties.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Nikki said. “Weather’s getting hairy out there.” But then she stopped and just stared at Janis. “Wow,” she said softly.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s strange seeing you. Eric’s memories of you are flashes, you know? Your smile, your teeth, you tossing your head a certain way, the tattoo—he loves the tattoo. But to see it all brought together is…”

  “What?”

  “He remembers you as being beautiful, of course. But, well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and…” She shrugged a little. “And, well, it’s interesting to see, that’s all.”

  “Oh?” said Janis, a little defensively.

  Nikki lifted a hand. “Sorry, I’m not saying this right. What I mean is, you are absolutely lovely. I can see why Eric fell for you so hard.”

  Jan’s heart skipped a beat. “Fell for me?”

  “He’s crazy about you,” Nikki said. “But he knows you’re vulnerable, and he doesn’t want to take advantage. Plus, there’s the age thing.”

  “Who cares about that?” Jan said.

  “He does. It really bothers him.”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  They were still standing in the entryway. Jan took Nikki’s coat and motioned for her to go into the apartment proper. As Nikki walked ahead, Jan said, “Can I offer you a drink? Coffee?”

  “I’m fine,” Nikki said, entering the living room—but she came to a stop so suddenly that Jan actually bumped into her from behind.

  “Sorry!” Nikki said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…”

  Jan moved to stand beside her and saw the wonder on Nikki’s face. “Yes?”