Bloodline(40)

“You won’t be sorry!”

He chuckles. “I already am. Here, I Xeroxed the two articles for you. Look for a man with dark hair in his late twenties.”

I thank him and then Mrs. Swanson, give Deck a chaste kiss, and rush to the restaurant.

I’m halfway there before the question crackles up.

How did Dennis know I’d be in the break room of Schmidt Insurance?





CHAPTER 28

Panty popper. That’s what Ursula would have called Paulie Aandeg. I know because she referred to plenty of men that way when she, Libby, and I were living together in Minneapolis.

Jesus, he’s a panty popper.

She didn’t use the term to describe just any good-looking man.

Only good-looking men who looked like Paulie Aandeg.

Kris Jefferson, I correct myself.

That’s how he introduced himself.

Even if I hadn’t gotten a rough description of him beforehand, I would have known immediately walking into Tuck’s Cafe that he had not been raised in Lilydale. The liquid way he holds his body, his shockingly tight tan corduroys, the wavy dark hair feathered away from his face, the even darker beard and mustache with a shock of white at the chin, chocolate eyes, straight white teeth.

He’s gorgeous.

A panty popper.

The intense rush of hunger I feel when I ease into the booth across from him is out of proportion, embarrassing. Animal, almost. I push Ursula’s term out of my brain, honest-to-god worried that I will accidentally say it out loud.

So, how long have you been popping panties?

“Excuse me?” he says, his first words since we introduced ourselves.

My face rages with shame before I realize he’s calling over the waitress.

“More coffee.” He points at his cup and then at me. “You want anything?”

“Tea, please,” I tell the waitress. To him: “Thanks for meeting with me. I was starting to think you were a myth. Should we dive right in?”

It’s abrupt, but his attractiveness—and my response to it (I’m practically married!)—has me on edge. I am happy with Deck. He fills all my needs. This must be related to my pregnancy hormones, and I don’t like it one bit. I yank out my notepad and a tape recorder to put some space between us. I depress the play and record buttons simultaneously and lift my eyebrows. “What can you tell me about yourself?”

Even his smirk is sexy. “Why don’t you tell me about Paulie Aandeg first.”

I snap the stop button. “That’s not how this works. For all we know, you’re an impostor.” I realize I’m jumbling myself in with the town of Lilydale. For all we know. “It’s on you to prove you’re Paulie Aandeg.”

He watches the waitress fill his cup, twirling a large gold ring on his pinkie finger. “Why would I pretend to be anybody but myself? There’s no reward here. My mother hasn’t been seen since the fire, if I understand correctly. What’s the percentage in making all this up?”

He has a good point. I have a better one. “Why come back at all, then?”

He reaches into his denim jacket pocket and tugs out a pack of Camel straights. He taps one out. He brings it to his mouth and then reaches into his other pocket for a book of matches. The matchbook features a palm tree graphic above the name of some hotel. He strikes a match and brings it to the tip of his cigarette. The delicious smoked-chocolate scent of tobacco grinds into my senses.

“Why not?” he asks.

He has a slight southern accent. Mississippi? I hit the play and record buttons and then pull out the copies of the two articles Dennis gave me, noting to myself that the microfiche must be accessible again for him to have made copies. The type is too small for Kris to read upside down. I bank on it. “Paulie Aandeg—”

He interrupts me. “Paul.”

“Excuse me?”

He shrugs. “I’m thirty years old.”

“Paul Aandeg,” I continue, “disappeared on September 5, 1944. What do you remember about that day?”

“Nothing, until I got hypnotized a few months ago,” he says. His arm makes the smallest twitch. “After that, only chunks of my life. Snapshots, not movies. I remember the town, a little bit. I remember my mom giving me potato chips, and the sailor suit, and Mom walking me to school. The teacher wrote letters on the board. I wished I was home. Then, I left school.”

“Why?” My muscles are poised like rubber bands.

“I don’t remember. The brain is funny, you know? Creates a fugue state. Only tells you what you want to know. If it’s too stressful, it’ll rewrite the story for you.”

Goose bumps blister my flesh. “I don’t think that’s how memory works.”

“You study the brain?”

I want to write something down, to act professionally, but nothing comes to mind. “What’s the significance of the date?”

He leans his chin in his hand. “What date?”

“September 5,” I say through gritted teeth. “The day you disappeared.”

He shrugs. “First day of kindergarten.”

That doesn’t help me, but then again, maybe that’s all there is to it, just coincidence that it’s also my due date. “What’s the next memory you have?”