The Details
"...three."
It was a man's voice followed by the sound of fingers snapping.
Desiree Fairchild woke and looked without recognition at the walls of the room.
"Where am I?" she asked. "And who are you?"
"You don't know?"
The man sounded concerned.
"There are diplomas on the walls, a mahogany desk and dozens of books on your shelves. I would guess that you're a doctor, yet you're not wearing a stethoscope."
"Not all doctors tend to the ailments of the body."
"You're a shrink," she concluded.
Dr. Morton Zimmerman smiled and nodded.
"So, what's the story?" the woman asked. "Am I a lunatic or something?"
"No, not at all."
"Then why am I seeing a psychiatrist?"
"You have amnesia."
"Amnesia?" Desiree echoed with a laugh. "I thought that only existed in soap operas and badly scripted B-movies."
"No, it's a real condition that is caused by a head injury, stroke, drug abuse or psychological trauma. Amnesia is usually temporary, lasting only minutes or a few hours, but in some cases, it could last weeks, months and, in extreme cases, years."
"And you're trying to help me get my memory back, right?"
"That's correct. I just tried hypnosis, but I'm afraid it wasn't successful."
"You must know who I am. After all, you're my doctor."
"I know only your name. Your fiancé brought you to see me a few days ago for a consultation. Today was your first day of treatment."
"I have a fiancé?"
Her face brightened considerably.
"Well, he must know something about me. Why don't we ask him?"
"Good idea," the doctor replied. "Let me call him in. He's outside in the waiting room."
When Justus Coleridge walked through the door, he looked expectantly at his fiancée. He was tall, well-built and handsome—Desiree was glad of that—and the expensive cut of his suit indicated that he probably had money.
"How did the session go?" he asked, addressing the doctor.
"Not very well, I'm afraid. She still doesn't remember anything, not even the fact that she has a fiancé."
Justus turned to Desiree.
"You don't know me?"
"Sorry," she replied.
"Do you think hypnotizing her again might help?" the worried young man asked the doctor.
"She doesn't respond well to hypnosis."
Desiree remained silent as Justus and Dr. Zimmerman discussed her condition.
"The results of the medical examination don't indicate any head injuries or stroke. All the tests are negative, including the toxicology screen, so I'm assuming her amnesia is caused by psychological trauma. There's something she simply doesn't want to remember, so she blocks everything out. I'd like to try traditional psychiatric therapy and see if we can't discover what that something is. If we do, there's a good chance your young lady will get her memory back."
The psychiatrist then turned toward his patient.
"Is that all right with you, Desiree?"
She looked up at him and nodded.
"I'm willing to try anything that will help me remember."
When they left Dr. Zimmerman's office, Justus led Desiree to the underground garage where his late-model Jaguar was parked.
"Are you hungry?" he asked as he opened the passenger door for her.
They drove to a small French restaurant, one where there were no prices printed on the menus. Justus ordered for them both since his dinner companion couldn't remember what she liked to eat.
Even before the main course arrived, Desiree knew why she had agreed to marry the man at the table beside her. He was intelligent, charming, witty and affectionate.
"I know it won't be too long before you get your memory back," he said as they waited for the server to bring their after-dinner coffee.
She patted his hand.
"I hope you're right. Then I can concentrate on making new memories with you."
Justus's face lit up with joy.
"Do you really mean that, Sweetheart? Then let's not wait any longer. Let's fly to Vegas tonight and get married."
A warning bell rang loudly in her head.
"I think we should wait."
He looked crestfallen.
"You keep saying that," he protested. "So what if I don't know everything about your past? I don't care. I know all I need to know about you. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You love me, don't you?"
"Of course, I do," she replied honestly—she knew that much at least. "But I don't know anything about myself."
"We can find the answers together."
"Just give me a little more time. That's all I ask. I'll go back to Dr. Zimmerman for therapy, and if that doesn't work, then we'll go ahead and get married anyway. I promise."
* * *
The following day, Justus had to attend an important business meeting at his office. While he was out of the house, Desiree searched through the rooms, hoping to find some key to her identity. She started in the bedroom where she found a handbag on the dresser. All that was inside it was a leather wallet, which was empty. There were no credit cards, money, driver's license, social security card or any other form of identification.
"You didn't really expect it to be that easy, did you?" she laughed at herself.
She next opened the door to a large walk-in closet. On one side, Justus's suits, shirts, jeans, jackets and sweaters hung neatly from wooden hangers. On the other side were women's clothes—presumably her own.
"Funny, but I don't recognize any of these things. Maybe if I saw them on me ...."
Desiree tried on several of the outfits. They fit her perfectly, but there was something odd about the clothes in general: they didn't appear to have ever been worn. Although there were no price tags on the items, the fabric felt stiff as if it had never been laundered.
She looked down at the several dozen pairs of shoes lined up on the floor. They, too, looked like they had just been taken out of a box. There were no scuff marks, and the soles were in pristine condition. Even the Reeboks had no tiny pebbles, blades of grass or dried dirt stuck in their treads. A search of the dresser drawers revealed much the same: lingerie that had never been worn and nylon stockings still in their packages.
As she walked into the bathroom, she passed by the full-length mirror on the back of the door. She was surprised by the reflection she saw. In all the confusion over who she was, she had given no thought to what she might look like.
"I'm beautiful!" she exclaimed, examining her face and body in the mirror.
She was somewhere on the brighter side of thirty with strawberry-blond hair that softly framed her pretty face and eyes the color of sapphires. She was neither tall nor short, and she was slender but not skinny. One thing was obvious: she and Justus made an attractive couple. His dark good looks were a pleasing contrast to her fairness.
The thought of her fiancé reminded her of her objective. She reluctantly walked away from the mirror and searched the vanity and medicine cabinet. The cosmetics and toiletries she found were full and apparently had never been opened. Even the eye shadow wand was spotlessly white.
"Something's definitely wrong here," she concluded. "I may have recently gone out and purchased an entire new wardrobe—God knows Justus could probably afford it—but makeup, soap and shampoo, too?"
She picked up a stick of deodorant and took off the lid. The clear plastic safety cap was still on it. It was evident that the solid stick of Secret had never been applied to an armpit.
Desiree carefully searched through several other rooms, none of which held a clue to her identity. There were no photographs, no personal mementos that struck a chord in her subconscious mind, nothing that screamed, "Look at me! I'm Desiree Fairchild, and I live here." Frustrated, she sat down on the living room couch, choked back her tears and wrung her hands in despair.
It suddenly occurred to her that she wore no jewelry. If she was engaged, where was her diamond ring?
Justus came home from work shortly before dinner.
"What's wrong?' he asked when he saw the troubled look on his fiancée's face.
"I seem to have misplaced my engagement ring. You haven't seen it, have you?"
"The truth is I haven't gotten around to buying you one yet. Given your memory loss and all, we haven't had the time to go shopping."
"What about my clothes and my cosmetics? They're all brand new."
"You couldn't remember where you lived, so I had to buy new things for you. Somewhere out there is a house or apartment that contains all your old belongings."
"Nothing has been used yet—deodorant, shampoo, even the soap is still in its wrapper."
"I wish I could explain it, but I can't. I don't follow you into the bathroom when you're bathing or getting dressed."
It was the time sequence that troubled Desiree most.
"Just how long have you known me?"
"Not quite a month. A few weeks perhaps," he replied with a shrug.
"And we're engaged already? That was quick! How did we meet?"
"I saw you and thought you were beautiful, so I asked you out."
"Where did you see me?"
"Someplace downtown. I don't remember exactly."
"You don't remember where you met the woman you want to marry after knowing her only a few weeks?" she asked with disbelief. "I don't think I'm the only one in this relationship that's having trouble with amnesia."
As she questioned Justus further, Desiree became frightened. Either he was suffering from a lapse of memory similar to hers or he was being deliberately evasive. He could not remember the names of restaurants they had eaten in, movies they had seen or quiet moments they had shared. Even more disturbing, he could only recall certain facts about his own life: where he worked, what he did for a living, what car he drove. Yet he couldn't tell her where he was born, where he went to school or whether he had any brothers or sisters.
At least he knows more than I do, Desiree thought sadly. All I have in my memory bank is a name without a past.
* * *
The following morning, Justus took her back to Dr. Morton Zimmerman's office for her first therapy session.
"I don't suppose you offer a buy one, get one free deal, Doctor?" she asked with a laugh. "I think Justus might benefit from a little therapy to refresh his memory."
Thus, the session began with Desiree telling the psychiatrist about her conversation with her fiancé and the search of his house. The doctor listened attentively but said very little. When he did speak, it was only to ask questions.
At the conclusion of the session, Dr. Zimmerman excused himself and went out to the waiting room to speak privately with Justus. Desiree got up from the chair and idly walked around the room. She stopped to examine the diplomas on the wall. On each of the four framed certificates, the psychiatrist's name was prominently displayed in semi-Gothic print. There were gold seals embossed on the parchment-like papers and an assortment of signatures, all of which were illegible. But something was missing. There were no details on the documents: no dates when the diplomas were awarded, no school names and no issuing state or municipality. Was Morton Zimmerman really a doctor?
Desiree next looked at the items on his mahogany desk. She picked up the doctor's appointment book. It was empty. Her attention turned to the calendar on the desk that read Wednesday, September 7—day of the week, month and date, but no year. The rest of the pages in the calendar were blank.
"What the hell is going on here?"
For the first time since she had opened her eyes in this office only two days earlier, Desiree was finally seeing the world around her. She went to the window and opened the blinds. There was not a single pedestrian on the street and no one driving down the road.
"Where is everybody?"
Thinking back over the past two days, the amnesiac realized she could count on one hand the number of people she had seen since undergoing hypnosis: Dr. Zimmerman, Justus, the hostess at the French restaurant that had seated them and the waiter who had served them their dinner. That made a total of only four people.
There were several cars parked on the street, but one was indistinguishable from another. They were nothing more than unstylish metal bodies on four wheels, and when Desiree looked closely, she could see that the license plates were blank.
Justus and Dr. Zimmerman returned to the office. They both looked at her oddly.
"Come away from the window, darling," Justus urged her.
They apparently feared she was contemplating a leap from the seventh-floor office.
"Doctor Zimmerman," she asked as she walked away from the window, "where did you go to medical school?"
The question took the psychiatrist off guard.
"Why? Don't you think I'm qualified? I assure you I ...."
She gave him no chance to finish his sentence. Instead, she quickly hammered him with additional questions.
"What year did you graduate? For that matter, what year is it now? It doesn't say on your desk calendar. Why is there no dial tone on your telephone? Where are all the people that are supposed to be out in the street?"
Justus Coleridge did his best to calm his distraught fiancée.
"Now, Desiree, you mustn't get upset."
"Not get upset? How can I help it? It's as though I'm walking around in a painting in which the artist included cars with no license plate numbers, an appointment book with no patients' names, a wallet with no money or credit cards—a painting with no details on the canvas."
"What you're experiencing is perfectly normal," the psychiatrist assured her. "You're suffering from hysterical posttraumatic amnesia, which is not uncommon. It's a condition characterized by abnormal behavior, disorganized recounting of events and bizarre mood swings. But it is only temporary, I promise you."
"Are you married, Doctor? Do you have children? Do you like to go fishing on the weekends, do some gardening, play a little golf or maybe take in a ball game? You don't know, do you? All three of us exist in a world without details."
* * *
Once again Justus led Desiree down to the garage where the Jaguar was parked. As she suspected, the expensive sports car had a plain white license plate—no state, no numbers, no letters.
"Didn't you ever wonder why your license plate is blank?" she asked.
"To be honest, I never even noticed it before."
"Take a good look around. Can't you see that something is seriously wrong?"
"Why worry about such things? What's important is that we have each other. We're happy. Isn't that enough for you?"
Desiree was exasperated. Had the world around her—small though it was—gone mad? No, she realized, but she might have. She had to face the facts: this no-detail world may be the product of her own diseased mind.
Then she grasped at a slender straw of hope.
Maybe this isn't real. Maybe I'm under hypnosis right now, trying to find my misplaced memories. In a few moments, Dr. Zimmerman will count to three and snap his fingers, and I'll awaken to an existence where my Reeboks have scuff marks, where my toothpaste tube has been squeezed out of shape and where there are more than four other people.
"Come on, darling," Justus urged her as he held the passenger door open. "Let's go home."
"No. I'm going to walk down the street and see if I can't find some answers."
The buildings along the main street—a nameless thoroughfare since there were no street signs—were like those commonly found on a movie set. From the outside, they looked like a school, a bakery, a bank, a post office, a hardware store, etc., but they were mere façades. Beyond the storefront windows, the buildings were vacant. Although a collection of wigs and unnamed hair care products were displayed on blue satin in the window of Rita's House of Beauty, there were no sinks, hairdryers, mirrors or adjustable chairs within, just four plain walls and a bare floor. There weren't even any light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. The same was true with the other businesses along the street.
"Have you seen enough yet?" Justus asked gently. "Did you find any answers here?"
"No, but at least I question this nightmare we're in. I don't just meekly accept it like you and Dr. Zimmerman seem to do."
Desiree stopped in front of a bookstore. A revolving wire rack of paperback books could be seen through the shop's window. There were perhaps a dozen books on display whose front covers were a blend of colors with no distinct shapes. They apparently had no titles and no authors, for there was no writing on them.
One book, however, stood out like a neon rainbow in a black-and-white movie: My Heart's Desire by Ursula St. John. If the title failed to inform the reader that Ms. St. John's book was a romance, the cover art left little doubt. A dark-haired handsome man with the exaggerated muscles of a professional bodybuilder, wearing a shirt open to the waist to expose his ultra-masculine chest, held a beautiful, young, strawberry-blond woman in his arms. The lovers were the epitome of romance and desire. They also reminded Desiree of caricatures of Justus and herself.
She walked into the store and picked up the book. She turned the novel over and read the synopsis on the back. With a sharp intake of breath, she read the names of the main characters: Desiree Fairchild and Justus Coleridge. She pocketed the book—there was no such thing as shoplifting in a no-detail world—and told Justus she was ready to go home.
That night, after reading the first three chapters, Desiree put the book down and contemplated the improbable situation in which she found herself. The main character of the book, Desiree Fairchild, was having emotional problems caused by some unknown event in her past. She was seeing Dr. Morton Zimmerman, a successful psychiatrist. Although she was desperately in love with the wealthy and handsome Justus Coleridge, she was reluctant to make a commitment. The names and physical descriptions given in the book were identical to those of the real people in her no-detail world, and the relationships among the three people were the same.
What does it all mean?
She continued to read long into the night despite Justus's advising her to get some rest.
"I can't sleep right now," she said with rising excitement.
Dr. Zimmerman told her that she had apparently buried some emotionally painful secret deep in her subconscious mind. Desiree desperately hoped that a secret would be found in the pages of the novel she was reading.
"Put the book down," Justus suddenly cried. "Don't read it. Please!"
"Why not? Don't you want to know the truth about who we are?"
"Not if it means losing you, I don't."
* * *
Not surprisingly, the story had a happy ending. The novel's Desiree Fairchild completely recovers from her psychological trauma with the help of Dr. Zimmerman, marries Justus Coleridge and lives happily ever after. Ursula St. John had written a typically predictable romance.
"There are no answers in here," Desiree said angrily, throwing the paperback book across the room. "I might as well go to bed. Maybe tomorrow I'll be lucky and wake up in Kansas with Toto, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry."
She walked to the large, sweeping staircase and looked up. On the wall of the landing, there was a large mirror, one Desiree hadn't noticed before. She walked up the stairs and came face to face with a stranger. The reflection was not that of an attractive young woman with strawberry-blond hair, sapphire eyes and a slender frame. Instead, it was a woman teetering between middle and old age. Her poorly dyed red hair had gray roots, her breasts had lost their battle with gravity and her stomach bulged thanks to too many calories and too little exercise.
Desiree screamed, closed her eyes to block out the reflection and put her hand out as if to ward off the truth. She took a step back, and suddenly she was airborne. A moment later she landed at the foot of the stairs with a force that nearly killed her.
* * *
The patient opened her eyes. She was in a hospital, her mind clouded with painkillers. When an elderly doctor entered her private room, she saw a policeman posted outside her door.
"You're awake at last," the doctor said with a grandfatherly smile.
"Where am I?" she asked, expecting another vague answer.
"You're in Massachusetts General. You've had an accident. You fell down a flight of stairs and hit your head, and you've been unconscious for the past three days."
"Who are you, Doctor?" she asked suddenly. "Where did you go to medical school, and when did you graduate?"
"I'm Dr. Morris Silverman. I graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1974."
"It's so nice to hear details," she mumbled and closed her eyes with relief.
"Speaking of details," Dr. Silverman said, his grandfatherly smile disappearing, "when you're feeling up to it, the police would like to question you. Also, your husband is outside. He's very anxious to see you."
"Could you send him in, please?"
Dr. Silverman left the room, and Justus entered. The policeman stationed in the hall insisted that he leave the door open.
"Darling! I'm so glad you're all right," Justus cried.
His eyes were red from lack of sleep, and his face was unshaven.
"I've been so worried about you."
"I'm fine."
"Do you remember what happened?" he asked anxiously.
"I remember seeing a strange woman in the mirror on the landing. I was frightened and foolishly took a step backward."
Relief showed on her husband's handsome face, and he glanced back at the policeman posted in the hallway.
"Why is there a cop at my door, Justus?"
A troubled look crossed her husband's handsome face.
"Why did you call me Justus?"
"Because that's your name."
"No, it isn't. It's the name of the lead male character in your latest book. My name is Harley McQueen."
The sudden recollection of her past and the realization of her true identity proved to be more upsetting than the fact that she had been unconscious for three days. She was Ursula St. John, who had once been an editor for a Hollywood scandal sheet before writing a bestselling romance that had catapulted her to fame and fortune. Beautiful, young Desiree Fairchild was the main character in her most recent novel and existed only on paper.
Devastated, the bestselling author turned her head to the wall.
"I'm feeling very tired suddenly, Harley," she said. "I want to go to sleep. Why don't you come back later?"
Not long after her husband left, Ursula St. John called to the policeman standing outside her door.
"I'm ready to make a statement now," the writer announced.
Fifteen minutes later a detective arrived, notebook in hand.
"Mrs. McQueen, do you know what happened the night of your accident?"
"Yes, I'm afraid I do," she replied sadly. "My husband tried to kill me by pushing me down a flight of stairs."
"Are you sure?" the detective asked eagerly.
"I'm sure. What a fool I was! I was stupid enough to believe that true love existed outside the pages of romance novels. I was so much in love with that handsome young man that I showered him with gifts, jewelry, clothing—even a Jaguar—and yet I couldn't prevent him from straying. When I found out about his affairs, I threatened to divorce him. According to the terms of our prenuptial agreement, he would have received nothing, so he tried to kill me and inherit my money."
The detective didn't wait for any further details. Instead, he left the hospital to arrest Harley McQueen for attempted murder.
* * *
Later that afternoon, one of the nurses went into Ursula's room.
"Excuse me, Miss St. John. I'm not bothering you, am I?"
"No. What can I do for you?"
From the pocket of her nurse's smock, she took out a paperback copy of My Heart's Desire.
"I was wondering if you would sign my book," she said shyly.
Ursula looked at the two people on the cover of the novel and lovingly touched the image of the dark-haired young man.
"He looks just like your husband," the nurse needlessly pointed out.
Fighting back her tears, Ursula opened the book and, with the pen the nurse had handed her, signed the title page.
"Thank you so much," the young woman said. "I loved this book, and I can't wait to read your next one."
There won't be a next one, Ursula thought bitterly. I'm through with romances.
Maybe she would try her hand at writing mysteries or crime thrillers, but another love story was out of the question.
When the nurse left, Ursula closed her eyes and remembered the strange dream-like state she had been in for the past three days. Apparently, her mind, unable to face the truth of Harley's betrayal, had taken refuge in the happily-ever-after world she had created in her book. For a brief time, Harley had become Justus Coleridge, the man she had always dreamed of, her own heart's desire. In the fictional world, which contained only the details she'd written into her book, she had been young and beautiful and Harley/Justus loved her as much as she loved him. But by regaining her consciousness, she had lost Justus Coleridge forever.
Perhaps, she thought sadly, I might have been better off never regaining my senses. Had I stayed in that no-detail world, I might now be Mrs. Justus Coleridge and be well on my way to living happily ever after.
Salem wouldn't be happy in a no-detail world. He likes the little details in life (such as Godiva chocolates).
