“Why do we have amnesia?” calls Uncle Dean.
Harris goes off-script. “Let’s see. Traumatic brain injury? Yes. We have all hit our heads, and while we remember how to walk, talk, and eat, we none of us remember who we are.” Back to the script. “All right. Your mission for the rest of the evening is to discover your own identity. You’ll find tea and coffee on the sideboard, booze on the cart, plus chocolate-covered strawberries, orange cake, and shortbread cookies. Eat your fill. And while you’re eating, find out who you are on this great earth. Except! You must not ask. You don’t get to ask questions like Have I been president? Or Did I write a book? Instead, you’ve got to talk to people as naturally as possible, and your job is to tell your friends about themselves. Give them clues. So you might say, “?‘I hear you like jelly beans,’ if someone is President Reagan. Or ‘I loved your latest novel.’?”
“Does the president like jelly beans?” asks Tomkin.
“Yes, he does,” says my father. “Now, when you’ve figured out who you are, step to the deck and see Tipper about it. If you end up wrong, she’ll send you back in.”
* * *
—
I EAT THREE shortbread cookies and pour some Jim Beam into a teacup when the adults aren’t looking. I want to stop my thoughts circling around Buddy Kopelnick. The two old-fashioneds haven’t been enough to do it.
As the game begins, Tomkin bounds up to me, grinning. “I saw your tag!” he says.
“I saw yours,” I tell him. He is Walt Disney.
“I’m glad to meet you because I love you a lot,” Tomkin says.
“You love me?” I drink from my teacup. The straight bourbon burns the roof of my mouth.
“Oh, yeah.” He does some kind of motion with his hand that I can’t interpret. “You’re the best.”
I tell him Mary Poppins is pretty excellent, even when you’ve seen it ten thousand times.
“What?”
“Mary Poppins.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me who I am! Didn’t you listen to the rules?”
“That’s not who you are.” But Tomkin is distracted by the plate of orange cake Tipper has just handed him. He wanders off, shoving forkfuls into his mouth.
I drink from my teacup again. The room blurs.
“Did you have a chocolate-covered strawberry?” says Erin, who is Cher. “Oh my god, you have to.”
“I like your hair,” I tell her.
“Penny did it,” she says, touching a braid.
“No, your person’s hair.”
I drink more from my teacup and let the edges of the world go soft. George and Yardley stand in front of me now, holding hands.
“I’m thinking my guy is some kind of serial killer,” says George, who is Charlie Chaplin.
“How come?” I ask.
“Everyone hates him. I mean, me.”
“I hate him with a passion,” says Yardley. “Pfeff hates him. Major hates him.”
“You’re very talented at what you do,” I tell George, meaning Charlie Chaplin. “You, maybe not so much,” I say to Yardley, who is Kermit the Frog.
George complains that he doesn’t know the name of any serial killers, so how can he possibly figure this out?
Yardley laughs.
I drink from my teacup.
Yardley tells me, “White looks very good on you.”
“I’m wearing blue.”
“No, on your person. It looks good on your character.”
“But who am I?” I say. “Tomkin loves me.”
“No telling,” says Harris to Yardley as he walks over. He pats me on the back. “You finding yours hard?”
“A little.”
“I know I’m Beethoven,” he says. “But I’m pretending to be puzzled to please your mother.”
I drink from my teacup.
Tipper is next to me now, looking concerned. She is not playing the game, just supervising. “You okay, Carrie?” she asks. “You look— Well, Daddy gave you a cocktail or two, didn’t he?” She points to my teacup. “That tea is decaf. Do you want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll get you one.”
She bustles off. The room tilts. I walk over to Major, who is sitting on the couch, alone. He leans forward obligingly so I can read the sign on his back. He is Paul McCartney. “I love your accent,” I tell him.
“Pfeff called me a disgrace.”
“Oh, no,” I say. “You’re just a little mushy, that’s all.”
“Does that mean I’m not Hitler?” says Major. “I’ve been worried I was Hitler.”
“Not Hitler,” I tell him.
Uncle Dean sits down across from us. “I am obviously Sherlock Holmes, but I don’t want to be the first person to go sit outside.” He grins at Major. “I heard you on the radio this morning.”
Suddenly, I am no longer on the couch but leaning against the bookshelf. “Are you a little drunk?” Pfeff is saying to me. “Is that possible?”
“Show me your sign,” I say.
“I just showed it to you.”
I don’t remember. He shows me his back, apparently for the second time. He is Pablo Picasso. “Do you mean my character is a little drunk or do you mean I myself am a little drunk?” I ask him.
“The latter,” says Pfeff. “But whatever. So am I. Oh, here’s a question.”
“What?”
“How do you feel about your sister now?”
“Penny?”
“No, I’m talking to—” Pfeff gestures to the card on my back. “The person you are tonight.”
And now I am sitting with Bess, squashed together in an easy chair. “Yardley told me white looks good on me, too,” says Bess, who is Marilyn Monroe. “Do you think she’s saying that to everyone?”
“No,” I tell her. “Just you and me.”
“Okay, are you ready? Here’s a clue,” Bess says.
“Ready.”
“I like your little green friend.”
“My what?”
“Your little green friend.”
I drink from my teacup. It is nearly empty. Tomkin climbs on top of me and Bess, sitting on our joint laps. “You don’t know who you are yet?” he asks me.
“No.”
“But you’re the best guy!”
“What about me?” says Bess. “Am I the best guy, too?”
“I have no idea who you are,” says Tomkin. “But you’re a lady.”
And then I am with Penny, over by the stereo, and Tomkin and Bess are at the dessert table, eating shortbread. My cup is empty, so I set it down on a windowsill.
“Apparently I have a lot of sex appeal,” says Penny, who is Elvis Presley. “You have sex appeal as well, I should say.”
Her face is blurry but I force myself to focus.
“Are you drunk, Carrie?” she asks me sharply.
“No.” I force myself to look at Penny directly—and reel back. We didn’t sit near each other at supper. This is the first time I’ve been close to her since she came down in Erin’s black turtleneck.
Her pale cream hair shines against the dark shirt. And she is wearing the black pearls.
38.
I REACH OUT and touch them at her neck. “Those are Tipper’s.”
“I asked if I could try them. You got a turn. All her other stuff is so old-lady.”
“She let you wear them?”
Penny shrugs. “Sure, whatever. Tomorrow I think we should go to the Vineyard and do some crimes. We could see an afternoon movie and go to the arcade, or whatever. Something different. You, me, Yardley, and Erin?”
How could Tipper let her wear the black pearls?
“Well,” says Penny, ignoring my silence. “Up to you. Oh, and your father is not your father.”
“What?”
“Your father is not your father,” she says again. “Hope that helps.” She reaches out as Erin walks by. “Erin, I’m very sexy, right? Major told me I’m very sexy.”
She and Erin go off together.
I grab Bess. “Penny just said to me, ‘Your father is not your father.’?”
“Yeah?” Bess adjusts the strap of her dress. “Was it helpful?”
“What did she mean?”
Bess shrugs. “Did you see she’s wearing Mother’s black pearls?”
“Yes.” I lean against the bookshelf to steady myself.
“I’m going to see what Mother will lend me,” says Bess. “I mean, the black pearls are probably the coolest thing she has, but girls at school are wearing these long ropes of white pearls, like costume jewelry. Do you think Mother has anything like that I can wear?”
“No.” I shake my head to clear it. “What did she mean, ‘Your father is not your father’?”
“God, Carrie. Chill. I don’t know. I didn’t see the second movie.”
I have to get some air.
* * *