Chapter 6

When she walked through the glass doors of Martin Aerospace Industries, it was exactly fourteen days after the accident. As she entered into a spacious, well lit atrium, she looked up to see a full sized bi-wing airplane suspended from the ceiling, directly over a long desk at which sat a good looking young man in a uniform. It wasn't her fantasy man.

"Good morning, Mrs. Bonneville," he said, with a brilliant smile. The smile was genuine, as was the way he recoiled as he looked at her face. She knew the bruises were still livid. "It's good to see you again. We were all worried about you."

"Thank you," she said, her attention split between wondering what he thought of her still colorful visage, and imagining him without that uniform hiding what appeared to be a very good body. "My memory is still very spotty."

"Is it? That's too bad," he said. "What kind of things are giving you trouble?"

"Your name, for one," she said, with no trace of sheepishness.

"Not a problem," he said, still smiling. "That's because you never knew it. I'm Howard."

"Why is it that you know my name, Howard, but I didn't know yours?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm just a little cog in a big machine. You mix more with the big wheel types."

"Then my taste is questionable," she said, smiling at him.

He looked startled. She glanced at his left hand, which was in view on top of the desk. There was no ring on his fourth finger. It occurred to her that she, a married woman, had just flirted with him, a single man, and that this might be awkward for him.

"Anyway," she said, keeping the smile on her face, "another hole in my memory is exactly where my office is."

"Oh," he said, looking more comfortable. "That's easy. Third floor, turn left. Your name is on the door. Let me sign you in and get you your security badge."

He went through a series of steps that were completely unfamiliar to her, but were efficient and quick. As she clipped the security badge onto her blouse, he pointed her toward a bank of elevator doors. Something made her choose to head for the stairs that wound, in spiral fashion, around the walls of the atrium. By the time she got to the third floor, she was even with the airplane, and could see it had two cockpits, one in front of the other. Behind the rear one was mounted a lethal looking machine gun of some sort, angled up toward the fourth floor and beyond.

Stepping into the carpeted hallway behind a door with a huge, blue 3 painted on it, she remembered to turn left. Fifteen or twenty feet later she found her name on a solid looking brown-stained door. She reached to turn the lever, and found it was locked.

She knew there was a ring of keys in her purse, and she opened it to dig through it. She became aware of someone coming her way and glanced up.

"Hi, Claire. Welcome back," said a woman, as she passed. The woman looked horrified, rather than pleased to see her.

"Thanks," called Claire. "It's good to be back."

Others greeted her. Almost all of their faces registered shock at her appearance, but all also smiled and welcomed her back. She felt an uncharacteristic glow inside and recognized, somehow, that she should be surprised. Or maybe her old self would have been surprised. She was beginning to think her old self had imposed limits on her life, whether consciously or not.

When she got into her office, the desk looked familiar. She eased into her chair, just sitting there, seeing what it felt like. Motion in her peripheral vision made her look to see a man standing in her doorway. The name "Quentin" jumped into her mind. But he wasn't ... the man.

"Welcome back," said the man. "I understand there are some memory issues." He controlled his emotions much better than the others had when they saw her face.

"Yes," she said. "But I think I can function."

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"Quentin," she said, hesitantly. "But that's all I get."

He grinned. "That's an improvement, then. You've always been very formal with me and called me Mister Halloran. I'm your boss."

"Shouldn't I have been formal with my boss?" she asked.

"Not as far as I'm concerned," he said. "Can I sit down? We should go over things and find out if you can actually still do your job."

"Of course," she said, standing for some reason.

He sat and, with little fanfare, started shooting questions at her. Some of them sounded technical, but the answers to most of them were right there on the tip of her tongue. Half an hour later he leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees.

"Well, whatever you lost, it wasn't your skills here. I'm going to have to keep you on non classified work for a while. The government is sticky about their clearances and memory loss makes them nervous. I'm going to push for your case to be normalized. Is there anything concerning your memories, or lack thereof, that we can do to help you? How are things at home?"

She thought about that. She was trying to decide whether it was appropriate for her boss to ask that kind of question and, if so, whether or not it was appropriate for her to answer it.

"If I think of anything, I'll let you know," she said, dodging the question in the end.

"Good," he said, standing up. "We missed you. I'm glad you're back. I'll have Marcie bring you some work. If you need any help to get going on it, do not be afraid to ask. Okay?"

"Got it," she said.

He went to the door and paused there.

"I'm really glad to have you back, Claire," he said.

"Thank you," she replied, feeling that warm glow inside again.

She was going through her drawers when a young woman came into the office with an armload of files.

"I'm Marcie," she said. She looked uncomfortable. "In case you forgot me, I mean. Mister Halloran wanted me to bring you these files to go over. Somebody else did them and he wants you to look them over and see if you can find anything wrong with them."

"Okay," said Claire. "I'm glad to meet you, Marcie."

"That's so weird," said the girl. "We've known each other for six months since I started interning here."

"Shit happens," said Claire, without thinking.

Marcie looked at her oddly, but then nodded. "Yeah," she said. "I guess it does."

The first file took her an hour to go through. The second took half that time. By the time she got to the fifth or sixth one, she was turning pages like a speed reader. She didn't find any problems until she'd been at it a full two hours. Without knowing how she knew it, she recognized that some totals were too small. As she scanned back over the financial data, she found where somebody had transposed numbers in three different places causing the subsequent math to be all wrong. When she corrected them, it was clear that if this file had gone forward as she received it, the customer, in this case a large airline, would have been undercharged by almost twice what the amount should have been.

She took that file to Mr. Halloran.

Claire and Cindy were sitting at an outside table at a deli near the office, eating lunch.

"I didn't intend to get anybody fired," moaned Claire.

"Rick Sanders would have cost the company over two million dollars," said Cindy. "You saved that money. And from what I understand, a sixth grader shouldn't have made those kinds of mistakes. Did you know when they cleaned out his desk they found pills? Oxycontin is what I heard. He was probably high when he did that file."

"All I know is that they don't waste any time rolling up the carpet and kicking somebody out the door," said Claire. "He was being marched by my office door within an hour after I told Quentin about the problems."

"There were other things going on that might have been involved in that," said Cindy.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. When you were hired, he had put in for the position. After they chose you over him, he complained about it for months. Then, when you got hit by that car, he tried to get your job again. He said your amnesia was a liability for the company, and that you should be demoted. He was pretty bold about it."

"I hope this doesn't cause people to think I'm some kind of head hunter," said Claire.

"Nobody liked him. He bragged about everything and nobody believed most of it. I wouldn't worry. I even heard one person suggest he was probably fudging things on purpose, just to get back at the company."

Claire's original feeling of guilt faded. She didn't want to think about Rick Sanders. She changed the subject.

"Quentin asked me how things were at home. Is that normal?"

"What's not normal is for you to call him Quentin," said Cindy, smiling. "You've loosened up a lot. I like the new you." She frowned. "Not that I didn't like the old you."

Claire waved a hand negligently toward her friend.

"No worries. I am who I am, and if you like that person, then I'm happy. I didn't know whether to tell him about John or not."

"About John?" Cindy looked tense.

"About the fact that I can't believe the old me ever married him," said Claire.

"Shit," said Cindy, softly. "I always knew there was tension, but I didn't know it was that bad."

"He's a self centered, egotistical egomaniac," said Claire.

"There's a lot of ego in there," said Cindy.

"You can say that again," replied Claire.

"What are you going to do? You already said divorce isn't a good idea."

"I've been thinking about that. It seems like the kind of divorce should matter."

"Kind of divorce?" Cindy looked curious.

"Yeah. Like if I do something he divorces me for, then I get it. I was acting badly in some way, and that might be perceived as reflecting on my security clearance. But if he does something and I divorce him for it, then it seems like that shouldn't count against me. I mean I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just standing up for my rights."

"So, did he do something?" asked Cindy, leaning forward.

"Other than being unsupportive and almost sociopathic, he patronized a prostitute the night I was in the hospital."

"Oh my God," gasped Cindy. "How in the world do you know that?"

"He admitted it," said Claire.

"Just like that?" Cindy looked horrified.

"Not exactly. There was more."

"Do I want to know?" She blinked. "Of course I want to know!" The look on her face became one of genuine concern.

"Be careful what you ask for," warned Claire.

"How much worse could it get?"

"After you left, he came home hammered. He decided that since my memory was spotty, he was going to tell me what kind of wife I was supposed to be."

Cindy just waited, silently.

"It turns out I'm supposed to be the kind of wife who kowtows to her husband and takes it up the ass."

All the color drained from Cindy's face. Then bright red spots bloomed on her cheeks.

"That bastard!" she hissed. "And right after you got out of the hospital!"

"It also turns out I'm pretty good at some kind of martial art. Did you know that?"

Cindy's mouth formed an "O." "I knew you had training in self defense, but that's all. What happened?!"

"I knocked his drunk ass out," said Claire, simply.

"You did not!" gasped Cindy.

"Boot to the head," said Claire. She frowned. "Where did that come from? Actually, it was my bare heel to his chin. It was automatic. I didn't even think about it. He dropped so hard I was afraid I'd killed him. But all he did was sleep until morning. It was then that the part about the hooker came out."

"Oh, Claire, baby, I'm so sorry," moaned Cindy.

"So yes, I suppose I have grounds to pursue a divorce. What I don't have is any proof."

"I don't know what to tell you," said Cindy. "I do know this, though. This is exactly the kind of thing DSS gets all hinky about."

"DSS?"

"The Defense Security Service. That's who did your background check for your security clearance."

"Why would they care if my husband cheats on me?"

"Because you could, in theory, be blackmailed to prevent that from becoming public knowledge," explained Cindy.

"How about I be the first to announce it?" said Claire. "That should pretty well nip blackmail in the bud."

"Your clearance is suspended right now," said Cindy. "You don't need any drama. Maybe you should go talk to legal."

"The company provides divorce attorneys?" Claire's right eyebrow rose.

"No, silly, but they know what kind of things will cause you problems and what won't. Plus those guys all hang together, so I'm sure they do know somebody who can procure you a divorce with the absolute minimum of fuss."

"Unless John doesn't cooperate and tries to give it to me up the ass that way," said Claire.

"You make him sound so cold blooded," sighed Cindy. She blinked. "Of course you do. The man's a reptile!"

"I don't know if I want to upset the apple cart more than it already has been," said Claire. "I have enough problems already."

"I do not agree," said Cindy, folding her arms under her breasts. "You need to move on this as soon as possible. One of the things DSS pries into is your moral attitude, and letting John get away with this isn't moral."

"So I just don't tell anybody," said Claire. "They can't get upset about something they don't know about."

"And then, later, when you need to divulge that, because he's done something even worse, then all of a sudden your character comes into question for having secrets. The government doesn't like secrets."

"But they require me to keep theirs," muttered Claire. "That doesn't seem fair."

Cindy sighed. "Claire. You need to force the issue now. Go to marriage counseling if you'd rather try that, but make some kind of move so you're on record as having made a choice not to accept his immoral behavior."

"What about me?" asked Claire. "According to old Claire she as much as cheated on him."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about yourself in the third person," said Cindy. "It's kind of creepy."

"Sorry," said Claire. "I guess I just don't feel like myself yet. I still think of her and me as being separate people."

"To answer your question, there is a huge difference between thinking about another man while you're checking your oil and what he did. A huge difference! You know that. You even said that."

"New Claire would agree with you, if she were talking about herself in third person." Claire smiled. It was nice to smile.

"Talk to legal. Want me to get you an appointment?"

Her impulse was to say "no," but just then a man walked by in the hallway. When she realized he wasn't "her man" either, she wondered what she would do if she ever did see him. If that happened, she didn't want it to be too late to do something about it. She felt like she'd lost a good portion of her life by what now seemed like the mistake of marrying John. She wanted what was left of her life to be pleasant, and it would be more pleasant without John, whether she ever remembered who Mr. Wonderful was again or not.

It felt a little harsh to consign John to the dumpster but, sketchy memory or not, she was confident she could recognize someone who didn't love her or care about her best interests. Why should she be saddled with such a man?

Still, she was pretty sure she didn't just burn bridges willy nilly. The fact that she was vacillating suggested she normally thought things out before making a decision.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," she finally said. "I suppose I should concentrate on getting back to work, and trying to live as normal a life as I can. John and I can work out our problems later."

"If you say so," said Cindy. "But if he tries to hurt you, call me. I'll come get you."

"If he tries to hurt me I'll call you," said Claire. "But it will be so you can come get him ... and take him to the hospital." She smiled, grimly. "Did I mention I know how to kick ass?"

The issue with John was taken out of her hands, in a manner of speaking. On her second day back at work, a man wearing a suit knocked on her door and asked if she had time to answer some questions. He flashed a gold badge at her and introduced himself at "Agent Garber". When she looked at the badge, it said "Special Agent" and "Defense Security Service" on it in enameled letters

The first question out of his mouth was whether she was aware that her husband, allegedly while intoxicated, had beaten up a prostitute at a downtown hotel on the same date she was injured in the car crash that led to her questionable memory situation.

"I was not," she said, her face tense.

"Didn't think so," said Garber. "Not the kind of thing hubby comes home and tells the wife about."

"A prostitute, you say?" she said, leaning in.

"Sorry to be the bringer of bad news," said the man. His attitude suggested he wasn't sorry at all.

"How is she?" asked Claire.

"Do you really care?" asked Garber.

"We're all sisters," she said, calmly.

"Right. You're talking this pretty calmly."

"Among the things I don't remember are my marriage and my husband," she said. "Let's just say I'm not going to miss him that much."

"So you plan to divorce him?"

"If what you say is true," she said, carefully. "Wouldn't you?"

"Can't say," he shrugged. "I'm not married."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Yes, but with the hours I work, I'm surprised," he said, smiling.

"If you found out she was paying a gigolo for sex because of all those hours you work, would you be okay with that?"

"I see your point," he said. "But you didn't know about this?"