“What is this nonsense with your memory?” Edie’s mother asks, blowing Dr. Perez’s dream of a happy reunion. She is blonde like Edie and has frosty eyes. She has the same hoity-toity voice, too, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if she calls me a cretin.
Both parents are tall and thin and wear matching navy-blue blazers with gold patches on the
breast pockets. They’re so stiff and formal that I can’t imagine Edie ever calling them Momma or Daddy.
“Well?” her mother says, and I shake my head because she’s as scary as her daughter. I don’t know if she’s crazy, too, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing and find out.
“The doctors say you’re having memory problems.” Edie’s father has gray hair, slicked back with pomade and a wide-tooth comb. Out of the two, he appears nicer.
I give him my best blank stare and smile because I want him on my team.
“Have you lost your voice along with your memory?”
Without looking at Edie’s mother, I answer her. “No, ma’am.”
“Please.” Edie’s father puts a hand on his wife’s arm but his dark brown eyes are directed at me. “What are you doing in El Paso, Edith?”
That’s a good question. “I don’t know, sir.” Out of the two I’d rather answer Edie’s daddy.
“You talked to Amanda an hour before you left home.”
“Who?”
“Your TZE sister.”
“I have a sister?”
Claire shakes her head, annoyed. “You’ve been friends since you pledged Tau Zeta Epsilon in college.”
I’ve never pledged anything, and my best friend since second grade is Lida.
“She’s playing games again, Marvin.”
“Don’t get worked up.”
Clearly these two do not know the definition of “worked up.” In my house, “worked up” means someone’s about to pitch a hissy fit and knives are an option. Edie’s mother is cold and controlled and hasn’t even raised her voice. Personally, I’d welcome a hissy fit with homicidal undertones any day over this woman’s icy calm.
“You lied and told Amanda that you were going to Hawthorne,” she says, and I can practically see frost hovering over her words.
Marvin pats her shoulder and I think that maybe he’s going to tell her to go easy on me, but he says, “The stress isn’t good for your health, darling.”
Her stress! What about my stress? These people are getting me agitated. I need something for my nerves. I need Valium or Xanax or propofol. I know they’ve got some around here somewhere.
“What should we tell Blake?” Marvin wants to know.
Blake Shelton? Tell him he’s as hot as a helping of HELL YEAH! Their eyes drill into me and even if I wasn’t faking amnesia, I know better than to be a smart-ass. “I don’t know a Blake.”
Darling looks like she wants to choke me. “This is disgraceful,” she says, and I swallow hard.
“How could you have humiliated that fine man and his family?”
They’re a tag team. A tag team with mean faces like Edie’s. I am outnumbered and helpless. My thong is riding up, and I want to tell them to go to hell.
“How could you humiliate your family?”
“The last time was bad enough.” Darling brushes the front of her blazer like it has lint on it, as if a piece of lint would dare come within ten feet of her. I know I wouldn’t. “We can’t show our faces at the yacht club.”
The last time Edie tried to kill herself? Or did she humiliate “that fine man and his family” more than once? Not that that should be a concern at the moment. Edie tried to carve out her veins, I’m wrestling with a complete meltdown and a wayward thong, and they’re worried about showing their faces at a stupid yacht club!