What You Remember I Did by Janet Berliner, Janet & Tem Berliner Page A

have been meaningful, or Becca might have just gotten distracted again. "Maybe you ought to call Patrick," she said finally.
    "Why?"
    "Call him and ask him. He might know something."
    "Dammit, Becca , don't play games with me. Tell me what you're talking about."
    "I'm not playing games. I'm not talking 'about' anything in particular. I'm just saying call Patrick."
    "He's coming over to stay with Mother tonight."
    "Good. You can ask him in person."
    "Not exactly. Not in front of Mother."
    "Oh, she wouldn't know–Shit. Gotta go. Call you later." Becca hung up in the middle of an exhortation to "Knock it off!"
    Nan managed to get both herself and her mother dried and dressed before Patrick showed up. Catherine could more or less eat on her own, so Patrick got himself a bowl of stew from the pot on the stove and sat with their mother while Nan did what she could to make herself presentable in the twenty minutes before she had to leave to meet Matt at Le Jazz Hot. It really didn't matter how her hair looked or what she wore; after a little wine and a little sultry alto sax she'd be naked and tousled in Matt's bed anyway.
    The sly, secret pleasure of this thought was not dulled by the interactions with her mother and sister, as she'd have expected it to be. If anything, it was sweeter than ever. If she'd had time, she'd have journaled about this; it was probably a clue, and Tonya could probably help her figure out what it meant.
    But there was barely time to give her brother last-minute instructions (he didn't even pretend to be listening), kiss her mother good-night (she pulled Nan close and whispered loudly, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"), reposition the list of emergency phone numbers that had fallen off the bulletin board and find her keys, which Catherine had helpfully put in the refrigerator vegetable crisper. She had dashed out of the door and was getting into her car when Patrick shouted for her to stop and brought the cordless phone out to her.
    "It's Becca . She says it's important." Ever the pesky little brother, he crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw, completely within earshot.
    "I can't talk now, Becca ."
    "I know, Pat's right there, and you've got a date. But I might have remembered something, and I thought you should know."
    Nan glanced at Patrick and said carefully to her sister, "Like what?"
    "I don't know exactly. Something–funny."
    "Funny?"
    Patrick raised his eyebrows and leaned forward, ready to be let it on the joke.
    At the other end of the line, Becca said breathlessly, "I don't know, I don't know, I can't quite remember it, it's right on the tip of my tongue, you know? The tip of my memory." She gave a nervous laugh. "I'll keep thinking about it and maybe the whole thing will come to me, or enough to help you. I wanted to call you right away and tell you I think I remember something. Something–like you said."
    Nan passed a hand over her eyes. "Right, sis. Thanks. I'll call you tomorrow."
    She handed the phone back to her brother, waved off his questions, and actually squealed her tires speeding off. She was far more wound up than even an anticipated evening of great jazz, great wine, and great sex could account for. There was an edge to her excitement that scared and aroused her, a sense of danger and recklessness in the face of danger. She was eager to hear Laura Newman play. A friend in Denver, a fellow Jazz enthusiast, had told Nan that Newman, billed as "The only white woman sax player," was someone she shouldn't miss. She couldn't wait to hear her, to feel that exact moment when the Merlot's glow hit its peak. She couldn't wait to see Matt, to kiss him from head to toe, to take him deep inside her.
    In a state of barely containable excitement, she ran a stop sign. The club's lot was full, so she found a spot on the street in the lot next door where a bookstore was holding a reading. On the way to the club's entrance, she found herself walking between an old couple who