Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(47)

He chuckles and takes my hand, heading back to the Purple Room. Fleming is nowhere in sight. “Here’s an example you may know. You said you arrived here on August 24, 2011.”

“Yes,” I breathe, expecting everything from the sound of a Boeing triple-seven coming from his mouth to more accents from British Airways.

“Well, I remember vividly what I did that day.” He winds deeper into the maze. “It was seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit. I had an omelet and four slices of bacon for breakfast, grilled wild salmon for lunch at Ringside, which cost twenty-eight dollars, and spaghetti with meatballs for dinner. I made fourteen business calls, sent one hundred and seventeen emails and read the paper where I learned that the summer Olympics ended in China and Judge Kaplan of Oregon District Court ruled against a local company on logging violations.” He turns on Aisle 422 and reaches on shelf sixteen for a law textbook.

“Page one twenty-seven, paragraph three from the bottom.” He hands it to me.

I skim the book and there it is! Judge Kaplan’s opinion, verbatim. I think I just had an orgasm. With my brain.

“Bloody hell! You’re absolutely right! That day I bought the paper when I landed, and I’ve read it so many times over the years. I remember the news about the summer Olympics except you probably only read it once.” I resolve to dig the paper out of my closet later and read it again.

“That’s why I picked that date. I thought it would stick out for you. And of course, you already know that’s the day I bought my house. I must have known you were coming.”

He is not trying to be romantic. He reports this in his usual factual way. But it’s the most intimate confession of his feelings he has made. I can’t resist. I throw my arms around his neck, reaching for his lips like they might soothe this cerebral fire. But they only fuel it further.

He laughs. “Does my place turn you on?”

“No, you turn me on.”

“Elisa, I think you have a fetish for men with strange brains.”

“Yes, I really think I do.”

“By all means, be my guest.” He brings my lips back to his but now I’m alert again. I want to know more. There is something about what he said that is hinting at the curse behind the blessing.

“You said you also remember every emotion?”

I’ve hit something because the tectonic plates shift in his eyes. Now I realize the secret behind those eyes. They zoom and absorb and shift because he is living in many places and times all at once.

“Yes, I remember emotion.” His words are guarded, his voice harder. I know I have minutes, maybe seconds, before his sudden disclosure ends.

I sort through thousands of questions for the most relevant. “Can you ever forget?”

He smiles without his dimple and brushes his fingers against my cheek. He takes the book from my hand and tucks it back in its spot without looking.

“No, Elisa. I cannot.”

“Never?”

“Some doctors theorize it will wane with age. But since age seven when we first discovered it, I have noticed zero difference.”

His voice is slower, heavier, as though the memories of his thirty-five years are weighing it down. No matter how astonishing I find his brain, it just occurred to me what a fearsome sentence this must be.

“Do you wish you could forget?”

He smiles. “Some things, yes. Others—like the way you look right now—no.”

I walk into his arms and caress his stubble. “And the things you wish you could forget? Are those what make you tense this way?” I risk the thesis question.

On cue, his shoulders petrify. He has shut down. My time is up.

“Come,” he says. “We have a million books, one eidetic memory and one eager scientist who wants to read them all. Put me to work.” He kisses my lips lightly.

I kiss him back, feeling a surging emptiness. I thought once I knew something about him—something real—the craving would be satisfied. But it’s not. It’s beastly. Because I know that the eidetic memory, like his success and his looks, is superficial. The inner Aiden is still hiding.

We leave the Purple Room, winding through the maze hand in hand, my brain exploding with information.

“Aiden, can I please ask one more question?”

He narrows his eyes. “One.”

“If you remember everything, why have a painting of me to begin with?”

He stops walking. “Because I want the fantasy.” He shrugs.

“And what is that fantasy?”

His jaw flexes. “By definition, it’s something that will not come true.”

My stomach twists sharply again, as the voice inside starts wailing. The fantasy. Not the real girl. And the real girl, I cannot give for more than twenty-nine days. Run, you fool. Run now and secure some strong medication for the plane ride.

I swallow. “You’re probably right.”

The deep V cracks between his eyebrows. That same flicker of helplessness that gleamed in his eyes when he looked at my paintings this morning, flashes now. It’s enough to lock my feet. Madly, I miss the man who is hiding even though I’ve never met him.

“Let’s live the fantasy a little longer, then,” I say.





Chapter Twenty-Three





Secrets