False Memory

“I’ve got my girlish moments.”

“We’re so exposed,” Susan said fearfully.

“It’s not a long way to the car.”

“Anything could happen out here.”

“Nothing will happen.”

“There’s nowhere to hide.”

“There’s nothing to hide from.”

Fifteen-hundred-year-old religious litanies were no less rigidly structured than these twice-a-week conversations on the way to and from therapy sessions.

As they reached the bottom of the steps, the rain fell harder than before, rattling through the leaves of the potted plants on the patio, clicking against the bricks.

Susan was reluctant to let go of the corner of the house.

Martie put an arm around her. “Lean on me if you want.”

Susan leaned. “Everything’s so strange out here, not like it used to be.”

“Nothing’s changed. It’s just the storm.”

“It’s a new world,” Susan disagreed. “And not a good one.”

Huddling together, with Martie bending to match Susan’s stoop, they progressed through this new world, now in a rush as Susan was drawn forward by the prospect of the comparatively enclosed space of the car, but now haltingly as Susan was weighed down and nearly crushed by the infinite emptiness overhead. Whipped by wind and lashed by rain, shielded by their hoods and their billowing coats, they might have been two frightened holy sisters, in full habit, desperately seeking sanctuary in the early moments of Armageddon.

Evidently Martie was affected either by the turbulence of the incoming storm or by her troubled friend, because as they proceeded fitfully along the promenade toward the side street where she had parked her car, she became increasingly aware of a strangeness in the day that was easy to perceive but difficult to define. On the concrete promenade, puddles like black mirrors swarmed with images so shattered by falling rain that their true appearance could not be discerned, yet they disquieted Martie. Thrashing palm trees clawed the air with fronds that had darkened from green to green-black, producing a thrum-hiss-rattle that resonated with a primitive and reckless passion deep inside her. On their right, the sand was smooth and pale, like the skin of some vast sleeping beast, and on their left, each house appeared to be filled with a storm of its own, as colorless images of roiling clouds and wind-tossed trees churned across the large ocean-view windows.

Martie was unsettled by all these odd impressions of unnatural menace in the surrounding landscape, but she was more disturbed by a new strangeness within herself, which the storm seemed to conjure. Her heart quickened with an irrational desire to surrender to the sorcerous energy of this wild weather. Suddenly she was afraid of some dark potential she couldn’t define: afraid of losing control of herself, blacking out, and later coming to her senses, thereupon discovering she had done something terrible…something unspeakable.

Until this morning, such bizarre thoughts had never occurred to her. Now they came in abundance.

She remembered the unusually sour grapefruit juice that she’d drunk at breakfast, and she wondered if it had been tainted. She didn’t have a sick stomach; but maybe she was suffering from a strain of food poisoning that caused mental rather than physical symptoms.

That was another bizarre thought. Tainted juice was no more likely an explanation than the possibility that the CIA was beaming messages into her brain via a microwave transmitter. If she continued down this twisty road of illogic, she’d soon be fashioning elaborate aluminum-foil hats to guard against long-distance brainwashing.

By the time they descended the short flight of concrete steps from the beach promenade to the narrow street where the car was parked, Martie was drawing as much emotional support from Susan as she was giving, although she hoped Susan didn’t sense as much.

Martie opened the curbside door, helped Susan into the red Saturn, and then went around and got in the driver’s seat.

Rain drummed on the roof, a cold and hollow sound that brought hoofbeats to mind, as though the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death — were approaching at full gallop along the nearby beach.

Martie pulled back her hood. She fished in one coat pocket and then in the other until she found her keys.

In the passenger seat, Susan remained hooded, head bowed, hands fisted against her cheeks, eyes squeezed shut, and face pinched, as if the Saturn were in one of those hydraulic car crushers, about to be squashed into a three-foot cube.

Martie’s attention fixed on the car key, which was the same one she had always used, yet suddenly the point seemed wickedly sharp, as never before. The serrations resembled those on a bread knife, which then reminded her of the mezzaluna in Susan’s kitchen.

This simple key was a potential weapon. Crazily, Martie’s mind clotted with images of the bloody damage a car key could inflict.

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked, though she had not opened her eyes.

Thrusting the key into the ignition, struggling to conceal her inner turmoil, Martie said, “Couldn’t find my key. It’s okay. I’ve got it now.”

The engine caught, roared. When Martie locked herself into her safety harness, her hands were shaking so badly that the hard plastic clasp and the metal tongue on the belt chattered together like a pair of windup, novelty- store teeth before she finally engaged the latch.

“What if something happens to me out here and I can’t get home again?” Susan worried.

“I’ll take care of you,” Martie promised, although in light of her own peculiar state of mind, the promise might prove empty.

“But what if something happens to you?”

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” Martie vowed as she switched on the windshield wipers.

“Something can happen to anybody. Look at what happened to me.”

Martie pulled away from the curb, drove to the end of the short street, and turned left onto Balboa Boulevard. “Hold tight. You’ll be in the doctor’s office soon.”

“Not if we’re in an accident,” Susan fretted.

“I’m a good driver.”

“The car might break down.”

“The car’s fine.”

“It’s raining hard. If the streets flood—”

“Or maybe we’ll be abducted by big slimy Martians,” Martie said. “Be taken up to the mother ship, forced to breed with hideous squidlike creatures.”

“The streets do flood here on the peninsula,” Susan said defensively.

“This time of year, Big Foot hides out around the pier, bites the heads off the unwary. We better hope we don’t have a breakdown in that area.”

“You’re vicious,” Susan complained.

“I’m mean as hell,” Martie confirmed.

“Cruel. You are. I mean it.”

“I’m loathsome.”

“Take me home.”

“No.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you anyway,” Martie said.

“Oh, shit,” Susan said miserably. “I love you, too.”

“Hang in there.”

“This is so hard.”

“I know, honey.”

“What if we run out of fuel?”

“The tank’s full.”