"Whoa!" he exclaimed, pulling her back toward him. It was the guy who had been so unfriendly in the solarium.
Ivy regained her balance, but the guy held on, his eyes as powerful as his hands.
"Let go,' she said.
They stood side by side on the step, and after a moment, she took a step higher to even out their height.
"Feeling better, I see," he said dryly.
"And you," she answered lightly, "feeling as antisocial as ever."
His eyes traveled down her, and she became acutely aware of her tight jeans and oversize shirt Determined not to appear self conscious, she gazed back at him steadily. He was clean shaven today and wore a pair of tattered jeans, old shoes, and a terry cloth robe that was about a foot and a half too short for him, "Nice seeing you—and not talking—again," Ivy said, starting down the steps.
"Do you have a car?"
She turned around, surprised by the question. "Yes. Why?"
"I need a ride."
"A ride now? Where?"
"Not far," he replied casually. "The next town over." Ivy cocked her head.
"Providence," he said.
"Providence is the next state over," Ivy told him.
"Wherever," he replied gruffly. "Just get me out of here." In the fluorescent light, his bruised skin looked grayish green.
"Sorry," Ivy said. "I don't know what kind of medical problems you have—other than amnesia and—"
"I've never been better." He started down the steps toward her.
"Andy's looking for you."
"To hell with Andy. To hell with all of them!" he exploded. Ivy stayed calm but moved quickly down the stairs, trying to stay ahead of him without triggering a chase that she was sure to lose.
"They'll let you out when you are well."
"I can't wait that long!" She reached the door marked Level 2 and pushed against it. It didn't budge. She pushed again.
He smirked. "Already tried that. I've tried them all." He walked steadily down the steps toward her. "The only one that opens onto a floor is Level G."
Ivy hurried down the steps, hesitating at the door to Level 1, then continuing past it. The guy quickly closed the gap between them, catching her from behind, turning her toward him and backing her against the wall. "Get out your keys."
"Why do you want to leave?" she asked.
"Hand them over," he demanded.
"You don't even know why!" she guessed. "You have no idea what you're doing or where you're going!" Releasing her, he took a step back. This was her chance to get away, but something she'd glimpsed in his eyes held her there.
He sat down slowly on the concrete steps, then dropped his head in his hands.
"What's going on?" Ivy asked in a gentler voice. He shook his head.
"I don't know. I just know I have to get away. Somebody's after me, and I've got to get away."
Ivy moved several steps below him and sat down. She saw that his forearms were badly bruised, as was the side of his head, close to his left ear. A long cut scored his neck, just beneath his jaw. There was more to his story than being found unconscious on a beach or saved from drowning; he'd been beaten up—badly.
If he was in serious trouble, she'd be crazy to get involved. For all she knew, he remembered what had happened to him but didn't want to admit it because he was to blame.
Ivy began to rise, men stopped. What if he did have to get away—what if someone was hunting him down? All he was asking was for a way to leave the hospital. Ivy's instinct was to help. Then again, when first dealing with Gregory, she had trusted her instincts, and she'd been dead wrong.
"What have they told you about your condition?" she asked.
He shrugged her off. "It doesn't matter."
"Answer my question."
Sighing, he complied. "There was water in my lungs. Obviously I've been beaten up. I have a head injury. The brain scans indicate that the memory loss isn't physical." He glanced away. "They had me talk with a psychiatrist—if it's not physical, it must be mental, right?"
"Possibly," Ivy said, feeling for him, remembering how she blocked out Tristan's death and how the "accident" had come back to her bit by bit in horrifying nightmares. His eyes met hers.
"It's happened to you. That's what you meant the other day, when you said that remembering was as painful as not."
She nodded, wishing she could assure him that things would get better, but her situation was different from his. She'd had Will, Beth, her mom, and Philip's care, and the enduring love of Tristan to get her through. What did he have?
"What's your name?" she asked.
"My memory problem must be contagious," he replied. "How would I know?"
"You said you didn't remember how you ended up hurt. You didn't tell me what you do remember."
His smile was more of a smirk. "The hospital staff calls me 'Guy.' 'Guy Unknown' is what they've entered in the computer, which, I guess, is one step better than John Doe."
"What should I call you?"
"What would you normally call someone who pushes you against the wall and demands your keys? Something stronger than jerk, I think." Then he stood up and descended the steps, stopping one step lower than hers, as if he had remembered that she had wanted to look him straight in the eye. "I have to get out of here. It's the one thing I know, the only thing I'm sure of."
His dark blue eyes pleaded with her, and Ivy had to pull her eyes away to think clearly. "You're going to have a hard time getting past a security guard in that bathrobe."
He tugged at the hem. "Andy lent it to me so I wouldn't walk the halls and moon people."
Ivy laughed. "Okay," she said, making up her mind. "Take it off."
"What?"
"Take off the robe," she told him, then tried not to stare at the power in his upper body or the bruises that colored it. "Now turn around. Face away from me."
"Why?"
"We're trading." When he had turned, she removed her oversize shirt and draped it over his shoulder. "Ready," she said, after putting on the robe.
He turned back, wearing her shirt, grinning at her. She had been right: lit with a smile, his face was the kind to break a girl's heart.
"It'll do," she said. The words Stonehill High stretched across his chest and the shoulder seams were pulled tight, but he was less conspicuous in that than in the short robe.
"If there's no security guard, we'll just walk across the lobby like we're doing nothing wrong," Ivy instructed him. "If we get stopped, I'm the patient and you're the person who has come to pick me up. We tell them that we got tired of waiting for Transportation to bring us a wheelchair—they make you leave in one."
"Right."
Ivy reached in her purse for the rental key. She wondered what Beth and Will would say if she told them about this. Then she wondered if her auto insurance covered carjacking.
"So if someone asks, am I your boyfriend?"
"Brother," Ivy answered quickly. Guy smiled, as if amused by her answer, then started down the steps. He pushed open the door on the ground level and strode confidently into the lobby. He seemed so at ease. Ivy wondered how much experience he'd had at faking it.
They were halfway across the lobby when someone stopped them.
"Miss, do you need assistance?" As friendly as the voice had sounded, when Ivy turned around, she saw that the security guard was carefully assessing her and Guy. "No, not at all."
"Are you a patient?"
"I was." Ivy answered truthfully.
"Do you have discharge papers?"
"Of course." She opened her purse and pulled them out, glad that she had written the hospital directions and her appointment time on her discharge papers. She hoped the guard wouldn't notice the date.
Recognizing the forms, the guard waved aside the papers. To Guy he said, "She should have a wheelchair, and you need to bring the car to the curb to pick her up. Hospital policy."
"Okay," Guy replied. "Stay here, Isabel." Isabel? She tried not to laugh. He fetch
ed a wheelchair that had been left by the elevator. As Ivy sat down, the guard received a call on his radio. "What's the patient's description?" the guard asked. "Tall, sandy colored hair—"
"Hang on, Izzy!"
Guy pushed the chair toward the front door so fast Ivy thought they were going to crash into the plate glass. "Whoa!" she cried as the glass slid back just in time and they shot through the opening. They flew past another occupied chair, across the concrete plaza, and onto the asphalt. "Wait, wait!" Ivy cried.
"Can't wait. Which way?" Guy shouted back. She pointed. He ran and pushed like a madman, dodging between two cars, then hanging a left, making her shut her eyes and cling to the chair arms.
"Slow down, you crazy thing!" But she was laughing now and he was, too, as they flew past a long row of cars to the end of the lot.
"The white car!" she yelled. "Brake! Brake!" He did—and nearly dumped her onto the trunk of the VW. Breathless, leaping from the chair. Ivy unlocked the car with two clicks. Slipping into the driver's seat, she tossed her release papers and purse in the back. Guy left the wheelchair on a patch of grass and hopped into the car.
They drove away, laughing, the windows down and the wind in their hair.
Nine
"ISABEL?" IVY SAID WHEN THEY HAD STOPPED FOR A traffic light. "Is that what I look like to you?"
Guy peeked sideways at her. "It seemed like a good name for a sister."
Ivy drove on. Common sense would dictate that she take Route 28, a road with lots of beach traffic and people around, in case he wasn't trustworthy. Instead, succumbing to instinct—or insanity—she chose Route 6, a highway that ran the spine of Cape Cod and would quickly put distance between them and the hospital.
"So, what's your name?" he asked.
"Ivy."
"Ivy. Izzy—I wasn't too far off. But Ivy is better for a girlfriend."
She didn't reply, telling herself that he wasn't flirting, and more important, that she didn't want him to. "Where are we going, Ivy?"
"I haven't decided. It looks as if Andy cleaned you up pretty well."
"Are you saying I looked raunchy?" he replied, then his demeanor softened.
"I don't know what I would have done without Andy." Ivy sighed. "I feel so guilty!"
"I hope we don't get him in trouble."
There was a long silence. "Well, nothing we can do about it now," she said, glancing toward Guy. "Those Nikes have seen better days."
He lifted one foot and pulled back the shoe's rubber sole, grinning at her.
"I'm taking the Dennis exit. We're getting you new shoes and a shirt."
"We are? Are you any good at shoplifting?" he asked.
"I'm buying," she replied.
"No," he said quickly.
"Yes," she insisted.
"Ivy, no. I don't want you to do anything more for me." Was this some kind of pride thing? she wondered.
"What are you going to do about it?" she asked aloud. "Open the car door and get out? I'm going sixty."
"Seventy," he corrected. She glanced at the speedometer and slowed down.
Another long silence followed. She knew what he needed—his family, friends, and memories—but all she had to offer were things that money could buy.
"Do you remember anything?" she asked. "Like whether you live on Cape Cod or were just visiting?"
"I live here." His initial moment of hesitation tipped her off. "I see. That's why you thought Providence was the next town over, rather than the capital of Rhode Island."
Guy took a deep breath and let it out, as if she were trying his patience. "It's like this. Some things—names, a person, an object, even a smell— seem familiar, but I don't know how or why. As soon as I try to focus on what seems familiar, it slips away."
"That's hard." She heard Guy turn in his seat and was aware of him studying her; she kept her eyes on the road.
"Was it like that for you?" he asked.
"Yes—and no. I couldn't recall the crash, but I knew who I was when I woke up. And I knew what I had lost."
"Which was?" he asked.
She didn't answer. "Here's our exit." Ivy drove a half mile along a two lane road bordered by a mix of deciduous trees and scrub pine, then turned into a lot serving a small strip of stores, where she and her mother had stopped a few days before. Between the shops of Wicker & Wood and Everything Cranberry was a store that sold sportswear. Ivy parked at the sandy edge of the lot, where the trees provided shade. Pulling the keys out of the ignition, she turned to Guy. "What do you think you'll need to get by for a while?"
"I don't need anything from anyone."
"A shirt, sweatshirt, and shorts," she went on, "socks, shoes, underwear ... a towel. What else?" He stared straight ahead, his fists in his lap. Ivy reached for her purse in the back of the car. "Listen, I know this doesn't solve any of the larger challenges you're facing, but it's a start."
Guy exploded. "My larger challenges? You talk like a freaking psychiatrist!"
"Would you prefer that I call them unsolvable problems?"
"Wouldn't that be more honest?''
"Only if you think they're unsolvable," she said.
"Next you'll be lecturing me on the twelve step program. Step one: admit you have a problem."
"That's a good beginning," she replied. He grimaced. "Not just the admitting part. It tells us that somehow you know about substance abuse programs. It's a clue."
"A clue telling me what?" he asked incredulously. "That my father was an alcoholic? That my brother—or was it my friends, or was it my mother—did drugs? Maybe I did! Or maybe this clue tells me simply that AA made a presentation at my school and I happened to be listening that day. It tells me nothing!"
Ivy struggled to remain patient. "Obviously, one puzzle piece has no significance in itself. But once you start putting it together with other pieces, it will make a picture. Pay attention when you suddenly come up with a puzzle piece—don't push it off the table in a rage." She dropped her keys in her purse. "Are you coming?"
"No:"
"Don't make such a big deal out of it—you can pay me back later. In the meantime, you can't go without a shirt and decent shoes." She waited thirty seconds longer, then got out of the car.
He poked his head out the window. "Nice outfit," he called to her. Ivy glanced down—the bathrobe! She started to laugh.
"Hey, it's my beach wrap."
Using Will's sizes as a guide, Ivy flipped through the brightly colored T-shirts and cotton shorts. Guy was scared, she thought; anyone who'd leave the hospital—a roof, a bed, and food —when he had no other place to go was very afraid of something.
His bouts of anger came from his fear and his hurt pride. If Will were in this situation, would he act this way? She wasn't sure, but Tristan had had that kind of pride.
Ivy added to her list of purchases a large backpack, a pair of cargo pants, sunglasses, and a second towel. At the checkout counter she used her debit card, asking for cash back. Then she stuffed the money, the receipt, and other items in the pack.
Emerging from the store, she walked slowly toward the car, mulling over the situation. When she looked up, she couldn't believe it—Guy was gone. She looked around quickly, as if he might have gotten out of the car to stretch his legs, but he had disappeared. She gazed into the green shade of the woods that bordered the parking lot. His escape route—to where? Guy himself probably had no idea.
He had left her T-shirt on the car seat. Ridiculous, stupid pride! Taking a pen from her purse, she wrote the name "Guy" on the backpack, then picked up the pack, and with all her strength, flung it toward the trees. Afterward, she drove to Nauset Light Beach, where she ran through the pounding surf until she was exhausted, wishing her jumbled emotions could drain into the sea.
"YOU COULD HAVE CALLED," WILL SAID TWO HOURS later. "You should've had your phone on. You had us worried."
He was working next to the large garden between the cottage and inn, sanding an old bookcase he'd found among Aunt Cind
y's stash of furniture. Beth sat nearby in an Adirondack chair, a book opened facedown on the chair's flat arm.
"I told you I was fine," Ivy replied.
"Your appointment was hours ago. I thought something was wrong?"
Ivy removed her shoes and shook the sand out of them. "I went to the beach."
Will's mouth held a straight line and the muscles in his forearms shone with sweat as he sanded furiously. Beth looked from him to Ivy, then back to him.
"Why would you assume that something was wrong?" Ivy asked.
"Given your track record. Ivy, why would I assume things were okay?"
She didn't reply. "If Beth, who wasn't even hospitalized, had gone for a follow-up appointment and arrived home three hours after you expected, wouldn't you have worried?"
"Okay, fine, you win," Ivy said, hoping to end the discussion. Will looked up from his work, his anger gone, but his deep brown eyes troubled. "I'm not trying to win. I'm just trying to understand what's going on."
"Me too," Ivy replied honestly, and headed into the cottage.
Ten
"BUT YOU LIKED TO KAYAK ON THE RIVER AT HOME," Ivy said to Beth at noon on Sunday. With only a few guests staying past the weekend, they had finished work and were returning to the cottage, following the stone path through the garden. "Billingsgate Island sounds so mysterious, rising out of the water at low tide—and that sunken ship!" For the past week, Beth had been complaining of writer's block. "They'll inspire you," Ivy added encouragingly.
"I guess," Beth replied without enthusiasm.
"Maybe it's not the kayaking," Ivy said, after a moment of thought, "but the person you're doing it with. Has something happened since the ice cream date with Chase? You seemed to really like him then."
Beth shrugged. "He texts me a lot."
"Meaning too much," Ivy concluded. "And you're too nice to tell him to back off." Beth turned to Ivy.
"You know you're too kindhearted," Ivy said, smiling at her friend. "You don't even swat at flies."