A Clean Slate. Laura Caldwell

      She gave me a quick hug, then pulled back and held me at arm’s length. “You okay?”

      “Not really,” I said, but then I couldn’t help smiling. Laney did that to me. Just being around her made me feel better.

      “What are you grinning at, girl? You’ve totally freaked me out. Get in the car.” She gave me a pat on the ass and opened the passenger door.

      “So what’s going on here?” she said when she’d taken the driver’s seat.

      “I was hoping you could tell me.”

      “First things first.” She lifted a cardboard coffee carrier, two white cups from Starbucks tucked inside, steam seeping from the openings in the top. “You sounded like you hadn’t gotten your fix yet.”

      “Oh!” I said. “White chocolate mocha?”

      She nodded.

      “Nonfat?”

      “Of course.”

      “I love you.” I took a sip, the warm, creamy concoction sweet on my tongue.

      I know that lots of people hate Starbucks. They complain that these little green-and-white stores are the devil’s work, the corporatization of the coffee world, but I just don’t care. I’ve tried the others, the mom-and-pop coffee shops, the trendy little tea places, and nobody—and I mean nobody—makes anything close to my white chocolate mocha. It’s comfort in a cup.

      Laney squeezed my hand, then put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. “All right, tell me what happened today.”

      I went through the whole thing—the dry cleaners, my town house, Beth Maninsky, and finally my talk with Ben. As I spoke I stared at the hula girl that was stuck to Laney’s dashboard, the one that made swivels of her hips each time the car bumped or turned. For some reason, the movement of the girl’s tiny hips soothed me. Laney had owned the hula girl since high school, and it had been on the dash of every car she’d had since. It was a permanent fixture, something I could recognize.

      “Kell, I don’t get this,” Laney said. “Your memory was fine last week.”

      “Was it?”

      “Yeah.”

      Silence filled the car.

      “Jesus,” Laney said. “Are you telling me that you really can’t remember anything about the last five months?”

      “Nada.”

      She stared intently at the road. “What do you remember about your birthday?”

      May 3. May 3. May 3. I chanted the date in my head as if it might conjure up some images, but I could only remember my thoughts about my birthday in the weeks leading up to it. I’d been expecting Ben to propose on that date. I’d told him in February, a few weeks after Dee died, that I wanted to get married, that I wanted to be engaged by my birthday, and Ben had indicated he wanted the same thing. So as that day drew near, I made sure to have my nails done to perfection. I’d shaved and plucked nearly every stray hair on my body. I’d even bought a new black dress to wear to dinner. But the actual day of my birthday? I couldn’t recall a thing, and I told Laney as much.

      “Oh, boy.” She sighed.

      “What? What happened?”

      She gave me a sidelong glance. “Maybe we shouldn’t go there just yet. You should sleep, you know, then see how you feel.”

      “Other than scared shitless, I feel fine. Tell me.”

      “I don’t know…”

      “Laney!”

      “Are you sure?” she said. “Do you really want to hear it?”

      “Of course.”

      “Okay, well, I told you Ben dumped you that night.”

      I felt my mouth form a tight line. “Yes, so you said.”

      “He’s a complete shit. Absolutely no sense of timing. But that’s not the only thing that happened.”

      “What,” I said, “is the other thing that happened?”

      Laney stopped at a light and gave me a look. “I hate to be the one to tell you this.”

      My stomach twisted. “Just get it out.”

      “Bartley Brothers laid you off.” She squeezed my hand. Someone honked behind us, and Laney gave the driver the finger before pulling into the intersection.

      “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Tell me that you are kidding.”

      Laney shook her head. “Sorry, hon.”

      “They fired me?”

      “No, no. You got laid off. Major difference.”

      “How so?”

      “They gave you nine months’ severance pay.”

      My mouth snapped shut for a moment. I didn’t know what to think about that. On one hand, I’d worked my ass off at that place, praying that it would pay off one day, that I’d be a partner eventually. To have that all washed down the toilet was maddening. But on the flip side, I’d been bordering on miserable there for the last few years, and I’d always secretly wanted to be one of those people who got axed with a golden parachute.

      Then the effect of what Laney was saying hit me. “Are you telling me that I got laid off on my thirtieth birthday?”

      “’Fraid so, sweetie.”

      “And Ben broke up with me?”

      “Pretty much.”

      A few seconds went by. The hula girl’s hips swirled and swayed as Laney turned a corner. “That,” I said finally, “has got to be the worst goddamned birthday on the planet.”

      The car was quiet for a minute, but pretty soon, a short, reluctant chuckle came out of my mouth. “It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad,” I said.

      “Right. Under different circumstances.”

      Another half chuckle, a sort of shocked cough, escaped me, and Laney followed with one of her own. And then I couldn’t help it—I did it again. A few seconds later we were both giggling, slowly and stupidly at first, until the sound caught a rhythm that rolled and grew louder, and soon our laughter filled the car. It felt like the first time I’d laughed in forever.

      I was wiping my eyes, trying to get myself under control, when I noticed that Laney had stopped in a circular drive of one of the Lake Shore Drive high-rises near Addison.

      “What’s going on?” I said. “What are we doing here?”

      Laney pursed her mouth and gave a quick whistle, the way she did when she was nervous. “You don’t remember this, either?”

      I glanced out the window at the building—tall, made of huge gray blocks, a plate-glass window in front of a large marble lobby. As far as I knew I’d never been in the place.

      I looked back at Laney. “What’s to remember?”

      “You live here.”

      3

      I walked into the lobby and took in the details, hoping for something that would trigger my memory, some plant or chair or something that said, Yes, I live in this building. But the gray marble floor seemed as unfamiliar as the front desk and the man sitting behind it, so when he stood and said, “Afternoon, Miss McGraw,” I almost choked.

      Laney put her hand on my arm and steered me to the left. “How are you, Mike?” she called over her shoulder as we walked.

      “Fine, Laney. Have a good one.”

      “How does he know me?” I whispered.