Sleeping Beauty (8 page)

Without so much as a “May I come in?” Dr. Charmant trots past me into the living room, leaving a swirl of really great cologne in his wake. That scent… I inhale deeply, but both the cologne and the memory fade away, leaving me staring dumbly at the puddle of tea I’m standing in. I throw a hand towel on the floor. When I turn around, Charmant is splayed out on my sectional couch, arms spread wide over the back cushions, making himself right at home. I resist the urge to rub my temples some more.

“You look really nice today,” he says.

“’
Today
?’” I say. “How would you know what I look like on any day? And why have you been coming to my house? West says you‘ve been here every day. Why didn’t I finish the testing in the sleep lab? When did my episode start? And what day is it anyway?”

He laughs. “Funny,” he says, patting the couch next to him. Like,
right
next to him. “I’m beat. Come sit with me.”

Now I’m creeped out.
Why did West let this guy in here?
And why in the world would he think I would snuggle up to him on my couch? I inch my way to one of the chairs next to the sofa, wondering how long it will take before Davin comes to check on me.

When I don’t sit next to him, Charmant looks–I can’t quite put my finger on it. Hurt? His demeanor changes abruptly, and he sort of folds up, taking his arms off the back of the couch and leaning towards me. “Claire–”

My pique rises. “Dr. Charmant, I barely know you. And I don’t understand why you’re here. Did Dr. Pickering send you?”

Now he looks just as stunned as I feel. “Wow. That sounded weird. First of all, you’ve got to start calling me Brendan again.”

“‘
Again
?’ What do you mean ‘again?’”

He clears his throat, stalling. “Uh, well, you haven’t called me Dr. Charmant for…well, since the sleep lab, so it sounds really strange to hear you say it now.” He chuckles half-heartedly “C’mon, Claire, you’re acting like you don’t have any memory of anything that’s happened since then.” He stops. “Wait…that’s not what you’re saying, is it?”

“You and my brother are all BFF now, why don’t you let him fill you in on how this usually works?”

He purses his lips, in that way he does when he’s amused. “I tried that.”

“And?”

“He shared a very interesting parable about a lampshade that I didn’t fully understand.”

“I don’t remember anything, okay?” I say, slashing the air with my hand. “I never do. All I know is that my brother took my cell phone and I don’t know what day it is and–and–” I grab a handful of hair. “You see this? My hair grew!”

When I’m done with my tantrum he leans back against the cushions, cool as a cucumber. “Hmmm. Well that’s going to make this difficult.”

“You mean more difficult than waking up and not knowing what day it is? What exactly is
your
difficulty?”

“This.” He puts his fingers on the manila envelope on the coffee table and slides it towards me. “This could be difficult.”

I pick it up. “What is it?”

“Open it.”

I bend the metal prongs up, unfold the flap, and let the contents slide out onto the coffee table.

EVENSONG

FADE IN:

EXT CHURCH, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – EVENING

FOG shrouds the street. ECHO of footsteps approaching. CHURCH BELLS toll in distance.

My head jerks up. “How did you get this script?”

“I told Charley I’d get it from Andy and bring it to you. I wanted you to have it as soon as we were sure you were out of the woods. West said yesterday that he could tell it wouldn’t be long.”

I perch my elbows on my knees, close my eyes, and press my temples, stopping only when I think my fingers will poke right through the soft spots. “I don’t understand what’s happening. How did you know about this movie?”

“You told me.” He stops. “Well, actually your brother told me first, said you wouldn’t stop talking about it every time you opened your eyes.” He looks around. “Didn’t you see the card?”

“From Andy Gordon.”

“Oh, good, you did see it. Shooting begins on the twenty-fifth. That doesn’t give you much time. I don’t know exactly how this works, but I thought I could help you memorize your lines.”

Eyes still closed, I shake my head a few times, trying to break free of the alternate universe I seem to be trapped in. “What–what exactly is the connection between you and
Evensong
?” I open my eyes. “Or you and the chicken card for that matter.”

“Andy Gordon is a…professional acquaintance.”

My mouth pops open and goes slack. His expression changes from neutral to high amusement.

“You know Andy Gordon,” I say. “The director.” I point at the script. “Director of
Evensong
. You know him.”

“This is so weird that you can’t remember,” he says, shaking his head, still humoring me. “To answer your question–again–yes. Well, no, I don’t
know
him. His sister’s the director of graduate medical education at the hospital. She’s the one that brought me on for my fellowship. We worked with Andy to set up a program so sick kiddos could get passes to visit the movie sets, remember?”

I shake my head. “What does that have to do with the script?”

“Well…” he trails off. It seems to be sinking in now that I’m not pulling his leg, that I really don’t have any idea what he’s talking about. “Uh, West told me about what happened on the set the day you were an extra. He said your agent was desperately trying to hide what was going on from Andy Gordon, but obviously that wasn’t going to last very long. I called Andy’s sister, and she called him and then he called me.”

“You told him I was going to be completely out of it for a few weeks and he was okay with that?”

“Well, Davin and I fudged a little on the details. We didn’t want him to cancel your screen test.”

“I–I did a
screen test
? While I was having an episode?”

He nods. “You did great. Really, really great. You were amazing.”

I get up and pace back and forth across the living room, hugging myself and rubbing my arms. “Dr. Charmant–“

He sighs heavily. “Brendan.”

I stop pacing and start muttering under my breath. “What’s happening to me, what’s happening to me, I don’t understand…”

“Claire…”

“Stop calling me that!” I drop into a crouch and clasp my hands to my head, whimpering. “I don’t know what’s happening to me!”

In an instant, he’s beside me, touching my arm. “Hey, babe.” He slides his hand from my arm, down my back, and around my waist. “It’s going to be okay. Come sit down.”

I stiffen. “Don’t touch me. Get your hands off me.”

“Claire, please don’t do this, just let me help you.”

I spring to my feet, spinning away from him. “I don’t know what’s been going on, but I’m glad I don’t remember, and I want you to leave!”

He opens his mouth to say something, but just as abruptly changes his mind. Instead he stands motionless and silent, watching me as I hyperventilate and tear up. “Okay,” he says quietly.

“Now! I want you to leave now!”

He starts backing up towards the door.

I point to the tiny, round table by the door I use to hold my keys. My hand is shaking. “And leave my key.”

“Okay.” He works the key off the ring and drops it onto the table. Once his entire body is in the hallway, he nods towards the script on the coffee table. “You need to get going on memorizing your lines.”

I snort. “I have a small part and, like, a month to learn my lines. I think I’ll be okay.”

He looks at me like he wants to tell me something, but isn’t sure how I’ll take it. A device in his pocket sounds off like an air raid siren. He fishes out a cell phone, looks at the screen and then silences it. “For starters,” he says, “you do not have a ‘small part.’ Charley Coney called after the screen test, and said that Andy Gordon had changed his mind. You’re playing Rebecca Reed.”

I sink down onto the armchair an inch at a time. “But that’s the lead. I thought Elizabeth Moreau had that part.”

“She did. Then she had a nervous breakdown and tried to overdose on sleeping pills after her fiancé ran off with a country gospel singer. Now you’re the lead opposite Jonathan Varner.”

I’m speechless.

“Another thing…” He scratches his head, stalling for time. “You don’t have a month,” he says finally. “The twenty-fifth gives you just over a week.”

My brain chews on this information for a few seconds, and kicks it right back out with a big, bright, yellow label: BULLSHIT.

“But–“

“This episode was long. Longer than any of the others. You were out of it for over a month and a half.”

My hand flies to my hair. “But my hair...” I hold up a piece of it so he can see. “My hair would have grown–.”

“Yeah, I know, it grew about two inches. You were complaining about your split ends, so one of your brother’s friends came here and cut it for you.”

“A month and a half…” My eyes go out of focus and I hear a strange buzzing in my ears. I feel like I might pass out–not the way I do before an episode, but a true Hollywood faint. The kind that you need smelling salts for.

“And Claire?”

I snap out of my catatonia and look up.

“There’s almost no part of the last seven weeks that I want to forget.”

The door closes. I stare at it until his footsteps fade away.

Chapter Seven

“You did what?”

Davin shows up ten minutes later. Like West, he acts like he’s walking on eggshells as he moves around the apartment collecting Sentinels. He throws them into a box while I try to bring him up to speed on my encounter with Dr. Charmant.

“I told him to leave,” I say.

Davin puts the box down. “You don’t remember anything? Since the day you came home from the sleep lab until the second you woke up?”

I exhale, getting frustrated. I keep trying to get to the bottom of the Dr. Charmant-has-my-apartment-key-on-a-key-ring situation, and Davin keeps leading me back to this same question. “I already told you twice: no.”

He sighs like he’s relieved. “Well, that’s good.” He sees my expression. “And bad. Very bad, you know, for this…other thing.” He pulls the fake dictionary off the shelf and adds it to the box.

I can only assume by “other thing” he means my doctor showing up at my house, using my key to get in the door, parking himself on my furniture, and weirding out when I ask him to leave.

I pretend to wipe some dust off the shelf with my fingers. “I don’t understand why you’d leave me alone in my house with my freaking doctor! Didn’t that strike you as pretty strange?”

Davin shakes his head. “Oh, man, what an epic cluster. We didn’t just leave you alone with the guy.”

“Well, what was he doing here?”

Davin drops into my desk chair. “Uh, let’s see. It was seven weeks ago…did a lot of surfing to catch the end of the season. Some of the details...”

Oh, great
, I think. “Catching the end of the season” is synonymous with “using a lot of pot and assorted party drugs, and testing one’s stomach capacity for beer while simultaneously balancing one’s full weight on a surfboard atop a ten-foot wall of water.”

I cross my arms. “Just hit the high points.”

“Well, West called me the day you were at the sleep lab. He said that your doctor–not Brendan, this was the chick you told me about–had called him. She said you had started an episode while you were there, and that she wanted to watch you in the lab for twenty-four hours. After that, she said we could come and pick you up.”

“And he was at the sleep lab when you came and got me?”

“No, the woman doc was there.”

“So when did I see him if it wasn’t when you came to pick me up?”

“Calm down, gidget. The woman doc–what’s her name?”

“Pickering.”

“Right! Pickering…just like the dude in
My Fair Lady
.” He affects the gayest and worst British accent I’ve ever heard and warbles out a verse from the movie. “‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’”

I shake my head. “Wow. I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question for you by now. Please don’t ever make that sound again.”

“
Anyway
,” he says, “Dr. Pickering set you up with some new drugs, thought they might shorten the episode and help you be more alert during it.”

“Yeah, the shortening part worked like gangbusters,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Well, I know, but you should’ve seen you! You woke up about two or three days after we brought you home from the sleep lab, and you were so…normal. It was really amazing, the clearest I’ve ever seen you during an episode. We really did think you’d snapped out of it.” He watches me closely. “But you don’t remember, right?”

I groan. “I’m not answering that anymore. Would we be standing here having this conversation if I remembered it?”

“Sorry.”

“When did you realize that I hadn’t snapped out of it?”

He looks suddenly pained, like the conversation is gouging him through the eye with a butter knife. “Uh, I guess it was about five days later when you crawled back into bed and slept for three days.”

“Oh. Well, can we get back to the high points? I’d like to solve the key mystery.”

He blows out a breath. “You didn’t see him again until the beach, about two weeks after the lab.”

“You–you guys took me to the beach?”

“
I
took you to the beach.” Now he won’t even look at me, like he’s embarrassed about it or something.

“You took me to the beach…during an episode? Why would you do that?”

“Because you wanted to get out of the house. West was gone and…” he gets busy digging around for something in the box. “And I just thought it would be fun.”

“Why was Dr. Charmant at the beach?”

He looks at me, incredulous. “Did you get dain bramaged too when you were sleeping? Maybe he was there waiting for you to arrive so he could give you a brain transplant.”