The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (23 page)

I slow down and look over at him and slowly smile. “There was this girl at the hospital. She smelled like cloves and vanilla. I can’t get her scent out of my head half the time. It’s weird. I’m not a stalker, I promise.” My smile disappears. “My dad wouldn’t tell me who she was. And she never told me her name. I called her baby and she didn’t like that, and I didn’t remember her and my dad warned me she was trouble. I have a photograph of her I found in my wallet but I forgot to ask Kimberley about her. Maybe she knows her…the thing is my recovery has been all about baseball. I haven’t ventured too far into looking at my past. These headaches I get make it hard to concentrate on anything other than baseball. Sometimes, even baseball proves to be too much to think about.”

“You’ve had a lot on your plate. Just recovering takes time and a lot of energy. What kind of medication do they have you on? And is it working? I mean, if you’re still getting the headaches, maybe you need to try something else.”

“Sometimes,” I say slowly. “The pills dope me up. I try not to take them before I do a pitch session. I’ve slowed down enough as it is. But they dull the pain and some days I couldn’t function without them. I guess you could say they serve as my biggest crutch on those days. And they don’t prevent the headaches. I still have those all the time.”

“Could you be sensitive to light?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m in the sun all time and that isn’t going to change. Baseball is all I’ve got. Failure isn’t an option. We should probably start there.”

“Okay. That’s good to know. No giving up on baseball; got it,” he says.

My admission and his acceptance eases the tension. I’m not here to sacrifice my career and I’m relieved I’ve told him this. Time will tell if he supports my decision or not.

We jog for a while at a slower pace, staying clear of the waves and the various people scattered along the shoreline.

“We’ll just go through things one at a time. We can make of a list of your medications and determine one by one how they make you feel. Perhaps, adjust the dosage. We need to document how much sleep you get and how well you’re eating. All of that contributes to your stress levels and your general state of mind. Then we can make some initial assessments and go from there.”

“Nobody has really paid attention to any of that stuff,” I say slowly. “My sleep is sporadic because of the headaches. I can’t remember the last time I had a decent night’s sleep. The headaches wake me up at night. I’ve become a light sleeper since the line drive.”

“Right. Sleep deprivation is not good. I don’t like that. Part of our goal here should be to just get you powered down. They have you all worked up about your form. There’s been this singular focus on you coming back to baseball. I think we need to step back and assess what all is going on with you. For example, do you have flashbacks? Unrelated episodes. You’re doing something or thinking about something, and you flash back to a completely different time? And are you losing time? Do you find yourself staring off into space?”

“Sometimes,” I say warily. “I thought it was the drugs.”

“Could be. Or, it’s related to how your brain is working to put things back together for you. I’m not saying you’re ever going to remember everything, Linc. I want to state that up-front. I can’t promise you that kind of progress. But if we get you to a calm state and give your mind and body the much-needed rest, we might be able to bring some of it back. I’ve seen it before. It’s a reasonable goal. It could be as simple as looking at photographs and listening to sounds, even music. These strategies might be enough of a trigger to help you make connections with your memory. This is simplistic I know but think of a child’s coloring book. The dotted black lines are there but need to be drawn in and then be colored in to properly fill out what the picture is supposed to represent. The latest research in neuropsychology shows us that the mind can work like that too.”

“How would it work exactly?” I ask.

“We help your mind fill in the dotted black lines and missing colors using things like photographs of people you used to know that you no longer remember. Kimberley can help us with some of that since she’s known you for so long by helping us identify dates, times, important events and when they happened. She’s prepared profiles like that for her other clients for completely different reasons, but her team can help us with the research of all of that. All of these things will help you, and your mind will probably start to make the connections, and your memory may begin to come back. Maybe not fully, but enough so that you can function in life a little more effectively. It’s worth a try in any case.” He looks at me. “If you want to try, of course.”

We turn and head back toward the beach house at about the same time. “I want to try,” I say slowly. “Thanks for being so willing to help me. I appreciate your time.” I start to smile. “But I'm not sure what to call you.”

“Just call me Brad. I’m just here to help you out. Ask me anything. Tell me anything. It stays between us unless you want others to know. That includes Kimberley.”

“Okay.”

He stops running all together. “You don’t have to remember anything if you don’t want to. We can eliminate the pressure altogether if you just want to move forward instead of confronting your past. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s not up to me. It’s up to you and you alone.”

“I have a life I can’t remember but on some deep level I can’t quite get to, I know it’s important to try. I don’t know how I know that, especially given my questionable behavior in the past twenty-four hours, but maybe just approaching things differently will help me out in some new way.”

“That’s good. That’s what we want. A different approach. That’s all I can promise, but I’m fairly certain we can make your memory work better.”

“Then, let’s do this thing,” I say.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Never Say Never -LINC

Ten minutes later, we’re climbing back up the steps that lead to the house from the beach. Kimberley’s on her laptop typing away furiously. She stops when she sees us and looks solely at Brad for some kind of reassurance. He smiles at her. She doesn’t smile back.

“She didn’t wait for my return call,” she says. “Instead, she contacted her lawyer and he’s already responded for her.”

“Who didn’t wait for your call?” I ask feeling uneasy by the anxious look on Kimberley’s face.

Brad gives Kimberley a warning look, but she starts to wave him off. “He should know, Brad. He needs to know.”

“I agree but it’s complicated and maybe today isn’t the best day to tell him all of that.”

“Tell me what? Can you two please stop talking about me like I’m not in the God damn room? I really hate that.” I turn to Kimberley. “Who didn’t wait for your call?”

“Tally,” she says flatly. “It’s bad, Linc. Things can get a whole lot worse for you.”

“
Tally
. You keep talking about Tally. Do I know her?” I stalk off to the house and return with my wallet. “Is this her? My dad wouldn’t tell me.”

“That’s her. A long time ago. Yes.”

“Jesus Christ! This is the girl from the hospital I talked to that last night. This is
Miss Cloves and Vanilla
,” I say to Brad as I hand him the photograph. “I’ve really fucked this up with her, haven’t I?”

“Okay. Wow. Okay. Let’s take a minute or two here. Sit down, Linc.” Brad pushes me into one of the deck chairs and moves over to his wife.

“
Trust me.
Now is not the time. If we want this to work, you need to listen to me. First, let me see what the email says.” Brad leans over Kimberley’s shoulder and scans the message. “Not today. No way.” He looks intently at Kimberley. “Just respond saying he’ll comply. We’ll deal with the rest of this later. He needs to know everything, but let’s not dump it all on him at once, okay? He doesn’t remember. He’s trying to put his life back together. Not much of this is his fault. He got hit by a line drive going ninety miles an hour in a baseball game. Let’s give it a rest for a second, shall we?” Brad says with growing irritation. “Having the world know that he’s lost some of his memory is not the worst thing that could have happened to him. He could have
died
. That didn't happen. I know she’s hurting, and I get why she’s doing what she’s doing, but Linc needs someone on his side too. And I thought that was
us
, working together as a team to help him. I thought that was what you wanted, Kimmy. All I’m asking for is a little time here, until I can assess what all is going on with him. Let’s stop the crazy train, shall we?”

“I thought you didn’t use the word
crazy
, Doc?” I say.

We all laugh, which breaks up the tension that’s begun to circulate among the three of us.

“You’re absolutely right, Dr. Stevenson,” Kimberley says with a hint of a smile. “You’re right. ESPN and the LA Times are not the worst things to happen to him. You’re right.” She turns and looks at me. “I’ve got this. You don’t have to worry about any of this; I’ll handle it.”

Brad clears his throat and hangs his head a little before looking at me as well. “I’m sorry too, Linc. I don’t usually lose my temper quite like this in front of a friend or a patient or with my wife, for that matter. I just think we need to take some time with all of this and not react too quickly or to everything that transpires. We need to be patient and think things through.”

“I know you’re right, but you’re messing with my
mojo
, mister,” Kimberley says with a tired smile.

“Only when I have to,” Brad says back to her easily.

“Okay. We’ll think things through but I still need to call Mikhail Rostov. Tally’s boss,” she says looking at me, “and try to help her out.” She slides out of her deck chair where she’s been working and goes to stand at the deck’s edge staring out at the magnificent Pacific. Brad follows her. It’s a surreal five minutes while Kimberley seems to quietly count the ocean waves that hit the shore and Brad methodically strokes her back and whispers words I cannot hear.

I hang back from the two of them feeling ashamed of my escapades from last night with a woman named Trinna whose face I can’t even recall now. In vain, I search for a silver lining in all of this, but I can’t seem to find one.

Kimberley comes back to the table and grabs her cell phone and immediately transforms into the publicist extraordinaire we all know with a single smile. She moves away from us as she dials.

“Mikhail, it’s Kimberley Powers. God, it’s been a while I know. I miss you. Yes, we should totally work together again. I may be in San Fran in the next week or two. Let’s meet up.” She pauses. “Yes, that’s why I’m calling actually. Tally Landon is amazing. It’s been a bit crazy for her the past few months, and it’s gotten a little worse today. Look, she’s one of my best clients just like Lincoln Presley is, so I was wondering if you could spare her for the next couple of nights?” She stops again. “After all, tonight’s just a run-through, right? That would be great. I don’t want there to be any repercussions if she misses it, you know? I told her I’d ask you personally. You’ve always been so good to your dancers, Mikhail. You’re the best.” Kimberley vaguely smiles and then winks at Brad and me. “Yes, I still work with them. It’s a three-year contract with the NYC Ballet. Yes, they’d take her back in a heartbeat; that’s a fact, actually. But you’ve been good to Tally, right? I’m sure I’d know if one of my best clients was unhappy on any level with you or SFB. We go back pretty far. Tally and I.” There’s a long pause and finally a victorious laugh from Kimberley. “Thanks, Mikhail. I knew I could count on you. I’ll let her know. Thanks.”

She ends the call and looks over at Brad. “Alrighty then,” she says with a ghost of a smile.

“
See?
You threatened to take his best talent straight back to New York, and he fell right in line,” Brad says.

“Hopefully, Tally will see it that way,” Kimberley says looking anxious all at once. “She is really upset and I need to call her back within the next fifteen minutes like I said would. I mean who knows what she’ll do next.”

“Babe, she’s just hurting, probably as much or more than Linc but in a different way. Let me call her. I’ll tell her you wanted to ensure you got back to her within the agreed-upon time frame, but you’re stuck on another conference call. Let me try to smooth some things out with her.”