“Sorry to startle you. Just wondering how you take your coffee?”
My sweet Dax. He’s staring at me with his big green saucer eyes and this crinkle in his forehead that only appears when he’s concerned about something. Like when he finds a baby bird flung from its nest or reads about natural disasters in the news.
That look, that crinkle, is aimed right at me. I’m the broken baby bird.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” I’m trying very hard to keep the panic from my voice, but all of the potential causes I’m coming up with for his sudden bout of Gemma-related amnesia are not reassuring.
“Do you know who you are?” His voice is so deep and so kind that for a moment, I strongly consider diving into his arms, laying my head against his chest, and being that broken baby bird. But I can’t. I need to figure out what the hell is going on.
“The name Gemma doesn’t mean anything to you?”
Dax doesn’t blink. There isn’t even the teeniest tiniest flicker of recognition on his face.
“Gemma Wilde.” I try again. “Wilde with an e.”
He lifts his head. “Like the store down the street?”
“No! Actually…yes, I guess that is my store. But that wasn’t—”
Then it hits me. A possibility. A perfectly logical explanation for everything. And I cling to the idea like it’s a life raft. “Did Kiersten put you up to this? Because if she did, it’s way too fucked-up to be funny, and I need you to end this horrible trick now. Right now, Dax.”
So much for not sounding hysterical.
My nerves are so on edge that I feel like I could easily lift a Toyota Prius or collapse into a heap of ugly tears. It has to be a trick. It has to.
I stare down Dax as if the sheer will of my beliefs will make him open his mouth and confess everything.
He sets the two mugs down on the counter and pulls out his phone again. “Is there someone I can call for you? A family member?”
I need to fix this. Whatever we’ve done. I need to talk to my aunt and put everything back.
“Thanks for making coffee. I appreciate it more than you realize. But I need to go.”
* * *
—
I wander down James Street like I’m a character in a post-apocalyptic drama who’s just emerged from a bomb shelter: staggering, dazed, not entirely sure if the world around her is real or a hallucination brought on by one too many canned kidney bean dinners.
The thing that’s tripping me up the most is that everything is so ordinary. James Street is busy with its normal Tuesday morning pedestrian traffic. Little old ladies with their wire shopping carts on their way to the Jackson Square market. Tight-panted hipsters heading home after an all-night house party. Bleary-eyed parents pushing strollers. Lazy twentysomethings who refuse to buy a coffee maker when there’s a perfectly good coffee shop nearby.
Typically, I fall into that last category. I share Dax’s philosophy that coffee tastes better when someone else makes it, which is why, despite not being entirely sure if I’m going through a delusional episode, I join the line at Brewski’s.
Coffee is never a bad idea.
“What can I get for you?”
Staring at me are two light-brown eyes belonging to the dark-haired, man-bunned barista.
“Oh hey, Gemma,” he says. “Grande oat latte, right?”
“You know who I am?” It comes out in a kind of creepy whisper, but the barista, whose name I am almost certain is Snake, doesn’t seem to notice.
“Uh, yeah. It’s Gemma with a G. I remember because this one time I wrote it with a J and you said, Actually, it’s Gemma with a G, so that’s what I call you in my head every time I go to write on your cup.”
This isn’t weird. Well, it is weird, but for all the right reasons. I do order my coffee here pretty much every morning. And Snake is usually the one who serves it to me. This part of my life is exactly as it should be.
“I also wrote your name down in my phone after we made out that night. I figure if a woman is willing to put her tongue in your mouth, you should probably remember her name forever. I’m just a gentleman like that.”
“I’m sorry, what?” In addition to being potentially delusional, apparently I also have broken ears. I must have heard him wrong. Because that did not happen. There always has been and forever will be an entire Brewski’s countertop between Snake’s tongue and my mouth.
“We made out?”
“Yeah.” He smiles as he nods. “Last New Year’s. Hooper invited you to his party. I think he was secretly hoping the two of you would bang. But then midnight came, and we were both doing J?ger shots out in the garage, and I said, Wanna make out? and you were like, What the hell? and kissed me. I’m kinda hurt that you don’t remember that.”
First off, who the hell is Hooper? Second, I don’t remember because I was skiing in Sun Peaks last New Year’s with Stuart and his family. I wasn’t even in Hamilton, and I sure as hell wasn’t in a garage making out with my barista.
“Listen.” I brace my hands on the countertop and paste on the most perfectly normal, definitely-not-having-a-meltdown smile I can muster. “I’m having a rough morning. Can you add an extra espresso shot to my drink? I think I need it.”
“Drink’s on me, Gemma with a G.” He winks and clicks his fingers at me.
Before I can protest, I’m ousted from the cash line by a pointy-elbowed toddler-mom, and Snake is moving on to his next customer.
Free coffee in hand, I take a seat at my favorite table by the window and refuse to let myself think about my dilemma until I’ve made it three-quarters of the way through it. By that time, the double shot hits my bloodstream. I’m feeling slightly more focused and ready to tackle the facts.
Last night we performed a spell. Or a cleanse. Or a ritual sacrifice involving jerk chicken and possibly my reality. This morning I woke up, and it’s as if I’ve lived the last four years of my life without Stuart. That part doesn’t seem too awful. Except in erasing Stuart, I’ve somehow extracted Dax from my life, which is an utter and total catastrophe.
I pinch myself one last time. Mostly because I have no other ideas to confirm that what I think is happening is actually happening.
Our spell caused a rift in the universe. We created a hot tub time machine without an actual hot tub.
I still can’t believe it. I’m, like, 84 percent of the way there. The other sixteen thinks there might be a possibility that I have suffered some sort of emotional block brought on by the breakup with Stuart. Except, as much as I hate that my sister was completely right, I’m no longer that emotionally torn up that Stuart and I are over. But if that is the case, there is only one person who will tell me straight up, without any attempt to sugarcoat things.
The phone rings twice before she answers.
“Hey. Hold on for a second. The little one just pulled a knife from the dishwasher, and I’m not entirely sure if she intends to use it as a weapon.”