Gayle looked at Dianna and Patty, then down at her hands, and finally out the window. The other two women waited in silence. Inside her chest her heart was pounding hard enough to break. And break it might.
Forgotten.
Everything … just gone.
She took a tissue from her purse and pressed it to her eyes. Fighting for control. Feeling her face burning with borrowed shame. This wasn’t her fault, but it felt that way. It was like school, when boys made crude jokes about her breasts and the girls just walked past her in the hallway as if she were a piece of dog shit on the ground. No, worse than that. Like she was nothing at all to them. Like she did not exist, and if she died they wouldn’t even pause in their day to notice. It felt like that.
Like some part of her had died. And that somehow she, not Dianna, was to blame.
Gayle wanted to leave. She even looked at the door, but did not get up or move toward it. She needed to be out of there, to be somewhere with enough air. Somewhere neither Dianna nor this tattoo artist, Patty, could see her.
Forgotten. Every awkward moment. Everything that was said and shared. Every secret. Each kiss. And what they had done together in bed. Forgotten, as if it were nothing. As if she were nothing.
Just get up and go, she told herself. Just say fuck this, tell Dianna I never want to see her ever again, and go. Go back home.
Home.
Gayle got to her feet. The room swayed, but she managed to keep her balance.
There was a shopping bag on the floor by the barber chair in which Dianna sat. Gayle went over to it, removed one of the big magnums of white zinfandel, and studied the label without really reading it. The wine had a screw cap and Gayle twisted it off.
“I’ll get you a glass—” began Patty but Gayle silenced her with a stare and took a very long drink from the bottle.
Gayle used her foot to nudge Dianna’s chair until they were eye-to-eye. “And you really want me to believe that you don’t remember a thing about that night?”
Dianna shook her head.
“Nothing?” insisted Gayle. “Not one moment of one of the most important nights of my life?”
“I’m sorry.”
Gayle took another heavy pull. She had no head for wine and welcomed the punches it was going to throw.
“Sorry? Well, imagine how I feel.”
“I can.”
“Oh, why? Because you’re a psychic?” Gayle shot back.
Dianna looked hurt. “No,” she said, “because I have a smidgeon of actual compassion. Empathy, too.”
She held out her hand for the bottle. Patty watched the drama, her heart racing. Gayle wanted to throw the bottle at Dianna. She wanted to scream and kick her. There was an ugly ringing in her head that was probably blood pressure and hurt and shame coming to a furious boil.
“Why did you even bother to have me come here?” Gayle demanded. “What’s the point? You just punched a big hole in everything. My self-confidence, my sexuality. All of it. Why would you want to rub it in my face?”
“Because,” said Patty, “this isn’t something she did to you. This is something someone did to her.”
Gayle paused, the bottle halfway to her lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She means,” said Dianna, “that someone stole my memories. They stole some of Patty’s, too.”
“Stole?” echoed Gayle, half smiling. “How does someone steal a memory?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” said Dianna. “Patty and I are victims. You’re a victim, too, in a way. Whoever did this stole from all three of us. We’ve been violated in a way I can’t even properly describe.”
“And you want me to believe that?”
“Yes,” said Patty.
“Yes,” said Dianna. “I need you to. From the texts you sent and I apparently sent before I…”
“Before you forgot me,” finished Gayle.
“Yes. From what we shared in those texts someone stole something very special and very beautiful. But they stole a lot more than that, Gayle. They stole my whole life as a lesbian. They stole everything that defines who I am … and I am so terrified I don’t know how to even be. I thought you being here might help trigger something, or give me some insight into what I lost so I can get it back.”
Gayle’s hand tightened on the bottle. “Do you want it back?”
“Yes. God, yes, I do.”
The room was quiet except for the rain on the window. “This is all insane, you both know that, right?”
They said nothing.
“I don’t believe in ESP, channeling, Atlantis, astral projection, tarot cards, astrology, or any of that crap.”
Patty and Dianna were silent.
“I’ll listen,” Gayle said. “That’s all I can promise. And then when we’re done here I don’t think I ever want to see either of you again.”
Gayle took another long drink and handed the bottle to Dianna.