"Mommy!" I exclaimed when she was only a few feet away.
"Pardon me?" she said.
The stout man brought his head back.
"Mommy, what's going on? Alice found your picture in a catalogue and sent it to me in
Provincetown and Kenneth found out who you were and where you were," I said quickly. "Grandma Olivia gave me the money to come out here. Mommy, don't you recognize me?"
"What?" she said laughing.
"Who is this?" the stout man asked.
"I have no idea," Mommy said. Her eyes turned as cold as two small stones in a West Virginia mountain brook.
"It's me, Mommy. Melody. Don't you recognize me? Really?"
"First, honey," she said in a sharp, hard voice I didn't recall, "I could never be your Mommy. I'd have to have been six when I had you."
The stout man roared with laughter.
"And second, I never saw you before in my life. I wish they would fix that damn security system here," she told the stout man. "Any riffraff can walk in off the street and you know what we have walking the streets around here these days."
"Yeah," he said nodding and gazing at me.
"Mommy . . ." Tears burned under my eyelids. I tried to swallow so I could continue, but the lump in my throat felt like a chunk of coal.
"Maybe it's someone's idea of a joke," the stout man offered. "Anyway, don't worry about the security system. You get this job and you'll be able to move into a classy place, honey. And so will Mr. Marlin."
"Please, listen," I finally uttered. Mommy glanced at me and then quickly threw her head back to brush the hair from her eyes. I was shocked by how empty she could make her eyes, as if she knew how to turn all her emotions off. She tightened her hand around the arm of her fat escort and continued down the walkway as if I didn't exist.
I stood there, gaping after them, watching her disappear around a turn. She laughed at something the man said and then threw me one final disdainful look before she disappeared. I sank to the stone bench at the side of the walkway, stunned, feeling cold, actually shivering in the hot California sun. Despite her coldness, there was something in Mommy's eyes that told me she had recognized me, that she wasn't suffering from amnesia, but at the same time, there was something that said, "Be gone, don
't you dare come back into my life, especially now."
How could she pretend to be a woman in her twenties? She looked it, but she knew she wasn't, and how could she leave me standing here, amazed and in shock after I had come so far? I buried my face in my hands and started to sob. I had come all this way to be ignored and rejected by my own mother, who I had hoped would be so happy to see me it would even cure amnesia. I took a deep breath and sat back. I remained there, staring, shaking my head, feeling nauseated and sick. Tears streamed down my cheeks, dripping off my chin, but I made no attempt to wipe them away.
A handsome dark-haired, young man and a very pretty blond-haired woman came hurrying down the walkway. They both glanced at me and smiled as if seeing someone bawling on a bench was just part of the scenery around here. They hurried into the building, their laughter tinkling behind them. Above me, a window was open and Latin rhythms came pouring out. This was not a place to be mournful, I thought and rose to my feet. I actually wobbled for a moment, the world around me taking a spin. I held on to the back of the bench and waited for the vertigo to pass, but it lingered like cramps that wouldn't dissolve.
"Hey, what are you doing?" I heard and turned to see Spike standing there. "You all right?"
"No," I wailed.
"What happened? I've been waiting and waiting. I thought I had better come in and see if I could find you. Hey," he said and lunged at me to prevent me from crumpling to the cement walkway.
Only minutes later I woke in his arms. He was sitting on the bench with me in his lap, gently slapping my cheek.
"Melody . . . Melody . . ."
"What happened?"
My eyes fluttered open again and the world came back into focus.
"You fainted," he explained.
"Oh. I'm sorry," I said, feeling horribly embarrassed. Fortunately, no one else had come by to gawk. We were still alone. Spike helped me sit up.
"You all right? Take a deep breath. Go on. That's it. What happened?" he asked when the color returned to my face.