Distant Memory (23 page)

“May I help you?” the woman asked. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy, like an old phonograph record. She smiled briefly.

“I would like a room for the night, please,” Lisa said.

The woman studied her, staring at her bruised face. Looking down, Lisa noticed her white cotton shirt was dirty from where she had lain on the golf course parking lot. “What happened to you?” the woman asked unabashedly.

“I had to crawl under my car. Not much fun.” It was all Lisa planned to offer. If the woman asked any more questions, she would just leave.

“I hate that. Had my share of car trouble this year myself. No joy in that for a woman. Now my husband, well, he can fix anything. You want him to look at your car?”

“No. But thanks. I just need to clean up and rest. Do you have a room?”

“Yup,” the woman said. “You got a credit card?”

“I’ve got cash,” Lisa said.

“Good enough for me,” the woman said. “One or two beds?”

“Two please.”

The woman eyed Lisa again but said nothing. She pulled a piece of paper from under the counter and pushed it toward her. “Fill this out. I need a license number for your car and a ten-dollar deposit for the phone. The room is thirty-two bucks.”

“That will be fine.” Lisa counted out the money then looked at the form. It asked for a name. Lisa couldn’t decide if the irony was funny or tragic. She wrote
Nick Blanchard
on the name line and then walked to the lobby window to read the license plate number of the car.

“I can’t remember my plate number either,” the woman said.

Lisa handed the registration back, leaving the other information blank. The woman picked up the money and the form without comment. Lisa tried not to show her relief. Things were working out and she prayed that they would continue to do so.

“Room 102,” the woman said. “You can park right in front of the door. Checkout time is noon tomorrow. Any calls, including local calls, are extra. The best restaurants are down in Ojai. I recommend the restaurant at the golf course for breakfast.” The woman pushed a brass-colored key across the counter.

Lisa had had all of the golf course she wanted. “Thank you.” She took the key and left the lobby.

Lisa moved the car to a space in front of the room and unlocked the door. She held the door as Nick hobbled in. Just before entering the room herself, she cast a glance back at the lobby. The clerk was staring back at her. “Just what we need, a busybody.”

“What?” Nick asked. He had already made his way to the first bed and was sitting slump-shouldered on the edge.

“Nothing.” Lisa stepped in, carrying the bag of items she had
purchased at the drugstore. “Take your shirt off,” she said as she locked the door behind her.

“But we’ve only just met,” he joked. His face was pale in the incandescent light, and his voice lacked some of the vigor she had come to expect.

“Cute. Do you need help?”

“No,” Nick replied. “I can get it. Just give me a minute.” He began to unbutton his shirt. The left sleeve was dark with blood but looked drier than the last time she had seen it. She was relieved to see no wetness that would indicate new bleeding. That relief changed when he removed the shirt. The skin just below the shoulder lay open in a wide gap. A wave of nausea washed over Lisa, but she willed it back. Rising, Nick walked the short distance to the sink and vanity that separated the bathroom from the closet. He studied the wound in the mirror. His face paled all the more.

“I think you had better sit down,” Lisa said.

“Odd,” Nick said. “I would think a wound like this would hurt more. It hurts plenty, but it looks like it should hurt much worse.”

“You may be a little shocky,” Lisa said. “Go back and sit on the bed.”

“I need to clean this first. This thing is begging for an infection.” He turned on the water and reached for a white washcloth that, along with a face towel, rested on a wire shelf mounted to the wall.

“Let me do that,” Lisa said.

“Are you sure? This isn’t pretty.”

“I’ll manage.” The nausea returned. “We should rethink the hospital option again. I think I saw a sign for one back near the drugstore.”

“In Ojai. I saw it too.” Nick shook his head. “We can’t do that. The bad guys are still out there. Hospitals would be the first place they would look.”

“I don’t think they would try anything in public.”

“These days people shoot each other over parking spaces. I don’t think a hospital will stop these guys.”

“We can’t run forever,” Lisa said.

“So you’re ready to go to the police now?”

The thought chilled Lisa. “No. But you can. I don’t need to go with you.” Lisa felt the water. It ran lukewarm, just as she wanted. Too cold or too hot would only heighten the pain that Nick was about to feel.

“I can be as stubborn as you. I’ll go to the police if you do.”

“That’s not fair, Nick.” Lisa dipped the washcloth in the warm flow until it was wet through and then gently placed it on Nick’s wound. Nick didn’t flinch, but he closed his eyes tight and inhaled deeply. “Painful?”

“I’ll live.” His voice was breathy and uncertain.

“It needs stitches and proper medical care.”

“I’ve told you: Doctors are required to report all gunshot wounds. The bullet may have just grazed me—”

“It’s more than a graze,” Lisa interjected.

“Nonetheless, a doctor would recognize it for what it is.”

The cloth turned pink then red as it absorbed blood from the wound. As gently as possible, Lisa cleaned the open gash, repeatedly rinsing the washcloth. “I could call for an ambulance and then just disappear into the night.”

“No way, Lisa,” Nick objected through clenched teeth. The cleansing was becoming more excruciating. “I’m not leaving you to the wolves. Fate has thrown us together. I intend to see it through.”

“So you really are a white knight? Some would tell you that you need psychoanalysis.”

“I’d be a case study, all right.” He turned his shoulder to the mirror. “It’s deeper than I thought, but not too bad.”

Lisa shook her head. “Yeah, right. Not too bad.” There was sarcasm in her voice. “I suppose you’ve seen worse.”

“Actually, I have.”

“Yeah? Where?” She stepped away for a moment to retrieve the first-aid kit and other items she had purchased.

“Vietnam. I was there for a few months before the troops were pulled out. Not a very fun party. In fact, it was no party at all.”

“I don’t imagine that it was.” She pulled the plastic top from the spray antiseptic bottle. “This may sting a little, but it should ward off infection.” She sprayed a fine mist on his arm. He jerked and drew in a noisy breath but said nothing. “Are you okay?”

He took another ragged breath. Tears of pain welled up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said softly. “I wish there was a better way.”

“Antiseptics sting. That’s not your fault, Lisa.”

“That’s not what I mean. If you hadn’t stopped to help me, you wouldn’t be here with a gaping wound in your arm. Instead, you’d be safe at home.”

Nick turned and placed his hands on Lisa’s shoulders. He pulled her a step closer. “Now you listen to me,” he said softly, but firmly. “The word
if
is the most useless word in the English language. People think that by putting the word
if
in front of a sentence, then whatever
could
have been
would
have been. That’s nonsense. If I hadn’t stopped to pick you up, I might have driven five miles farther and been killed in an auto accident. How likely is that? I don’t know. No one knows what might have been. Helping you may prove to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have no way of knowing. So no more
if
s, okay?”

“Still, I feel that—”

“No,” Nick said shaking his head. “Feelings get you into trouble. You saved my life today in the way that you handled that attacker. You didn’t fight back because you felt like it; you fought back because you had to. You did what needed to be done. That’s it, that’s the bottom line. Feelings are blind, they have no intellect, and they just pop up to make us feel good or bad. It’s our brains that will get us through this, not our emotions. Do you understand that?”

Lisa nodded. Nick’s words were making sense.

“Things happen, Lisa. They just happen. The universe grinds its gears at its own speed, and we have to move with it. Fate has its own plan. We just do the best we are able.”

That seemed wrong to Lisa. It was too mechanistic, too … she - couldn’t find the right word …

Nick released her and turned back to the mirror. “It all pans out in the end, Lisa. Everything balances in the end; the yin and the yang, the black and the white, the good and the bad. The universe is a pan balance, and we are just grains of sand in one of its pans.”

“That’s kind of New Age, isn’t it?” Lisa said. She had turned back to the first-aid kit, removing a large gauze pad. She placed the dressing on the wound. “Here, hold this.”

“Call it what you like, I believe it. Sooner or later, everything works out for the good.”

The words struck Lisa hard, as if they had dislodged a piece of memory, a nugget of recollection from the rubble of her mind. “Everything works out for the good,” she mumbled.

“That’s my philosophy,” Nick said.

Everything works out for the good
. Lisa let the words swim around in her mind. Something familiar. Not quite right, but close.
Everything works out for the good. All good things …
No, that wasn’t it. She closed her eyes, trying to pick through the remains of her memory.
All work is good?
No.
All good is work?
Still wrong.
All things work … All things together work … All things work together for the good of … the good of …
She was close. She knew it, could feel it.
All things work together for the good of those …
But the words were gone, replaced by churning frustration.

Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the tiny medical kit. She picked up a roll of gauze and wrapped it around Nick’s arm, securing the dressing in place. “That should do for now.” She popped the top of the ibuprofen, removed the protective seal and the cotton, and
poured out three tablets. “Here. You’re a big guy; you can handle three tablets. They should take the edge off the pain. How’s the leg?”

“Swollen a little, but better. I smacked it pretty hard. I won’t be running any races soon.”

“Let’s pray you don’t have to.” Lisa took a plastic cup she found on the vanity, removed its sanitary wrapper, filled it with water, and offered it to Nick. He downed the pills in a single gulp. As an afterthought, Lisa took two of the pain relievers herself. “You go lie down. I’ll clean up this mess. Leave your shirt off; I’ll soak it in some water and see if I can’t get the bloodstains out.”

“Okay, doctor. I suppose I’ll be getting a bill for this.”

Lisa smiled at the small humor. “No, I owe you for three meals and two motel stays. Let’s just call it even.”

Nick walked to the bed closest to the door and reclined on the covers. Lisa closed up the first-aid kit and replaced it and the other items in the pharmacy bag. Then she rinsed out the blood-impregnated washcloth, filled the sink with cold water, and submerged the cloth. Taking Nick’s shirt, she placed it in the sink of water too. After an hour, she planned to remove the shirt and hang it in the bathroom to air dry. Poking her head in the lavatory, she saw a heat lamp mounted in the ceiling. That could be used to help dry the shirt, she decided.

By the time she had finished cleaning up, Nick was asleep, snoring softly. Lisa was exhausted too, but she refused to lie down. Her mind was cluttered with images of all that had happened that day, but especially the attack.

For the first time since stepping into the room, Lisa took in her surroundings. The room was old but quaint. An inexpensive dresser stood next to the wall opposite the beds. A television rested on its surface. There was no artwork on the cream-colored walls. The carpet was tan and of thin pile. A round table and two chairs were situated next to the window. Brown drapes hung over the opening. Lisa sat in one of the chairs and rested her head in her hands.

Her sadness was returning, but she was tired of crying. She needed to think, to reason, to summon up her intellect.

Standing again, she began to pace in the small space between the beds and the opposite wall. She could take no more than five steps before turning around, but she paced anyway—back and forth, back and forth. The swell of emotion faded slightly with each step.

What next?
she asked herself.
I can’t stay here forever. I must do something, but what?

Perspective. She decided that she needed perspective, a frame of reference. When she had awakened that morning, she had no idea where she was. She could recall neither the Pretty Penny Motel nor the town of Mojave in which it was located. Nor did she recall knowing the community of Fillmore where they had stopped for lunch and where she forced her way into the ramshackle church.

The church. The memory of it, dusty, broken down, long abandoned, brought warmth to her. It was a balm to her troubled spirit, a palliative to her mind. She had been alone in the building, yet she had felt welcome, as if she had belonged. It made no sense.

The familiar phrase she had struggled with a few moments ago came again to the forefront of her mind: “All things work together for the good …” She was no closer to completing it. It still lay just beyond the reach of her memory.

Perspective
, she reminded herself.
I need a frame of reference. I don’t know where I’ve been or even where I am
. The city and town names meant nothing to her. Santa Barbara, Fillmore, Ventura, Ojai, and the others she and Nick had passed through were just meaningless titles. Lisa began to feel that if she could gain the bigger picture of her surroundings, the details of her life might come back.

Turning her attention to the table, she saw an aged vinyl folder. She sat down again and opened it. Inside were a few sheets of letter-size paper, a small brochure about the motel, and a pamphlet about the history of the Ojai Valley. The pamphlet called Ojai “The Shangri-la of
California.” Another brochure, a map, was in the folder. With her finger, Lisa traced backward the path she and Nick had followed until she had found Highway 101. She remembered that and followed the red line that represented the highway until it ran off the page. Turning the paper over, Lisa found another map, one that covered all of southern California. She began the reverse trace again: The 101 to the 126 to Interstate 5 for a brief jog, then to the 14 back to Mojave. North of Mojave was a city named Bakersfield. Nick said he had been coming from Bakersfield when he found her.