Vampire Sun

I didn’t want to make a scene, so I held her hands discreetly, just like two friends visiting together, sharing a sweet moment. Or, heck, praying together. Why not?

We weren’t two friends and we most certainly weren’t praying; instead, I was employing the same technique I had used with Henry Gleason, my client. Except Henry’s memory had been fresh and vivid and full of charged emotion, which had heightened his remembrance.

Now, as I held her hands, I asked her to tell me anything that she could remember from that day. She nodded, her eyes still closed.

And just as she opened her mouth to speak, I was inside her mind, completely and thoroughly…

* * *

“It was just like any other day, you know,” she began, and as she spoke those words, images appeared in her thoughts, images I was now privy to, as well. In her mind’s eye, I saw a very different scene in Starbucks. Yes, I was reliving these memories right along with her, without her knowing it. It’s good to be me.

Sometimes.

Yes, we were in this very same Starbucks but, instead of it being evening, the day was bright, at a time when I would have been just been getting up—a miserable, painful time of day for me. On this day, Jasmine had been working an earlier shift, and she distinctly remembered watching Lucy Gleason come in.

“We were busy, but not Starbucks busy,” she said.

“Starbucks is an adjective now?” I asked. “Never mind. It’s just a rhetorical question. Continue.”

She answered anyway. “Well, we have different levels of busy, at least here. Starbucks busy is our busiest, since it can get crazy in here, especially in the mornings and especially on the weekends.”

“So, it wasn’t Starbucks busy,” I said. “Got it.”

The scene continued in her mind, and I continued following it with much interest.

“You have to remember, Sam,” she said. “We have thousands and thousands of customers a week. Days go by in a blur. Heck, hours go by in a blur.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Starbucks busy.”

“Right,” she said.

Luckily, she did remember some of that day. She had to, because she had been forced to recall what had happened, especially after being questioned repeatedly by the police. For her, it wasn’t just another day. For her, it stood out. Sadly, there were still missing chunks in her memory. That was not unexpected. Some claimed that the subconscious remembers everything a person sees. However, that hadn’t been my experience when I’d occasionally plumbed people for their memories. No, I didn’t go around doing this often. In fact, very little. But the few people I had done this with, I had seen whole chunks of missing memory. Empty spaces filled with nonsense.

That was what I was seeing here: people coming and going, their faces vague, their bodies amorphous, their orders blurring into the next order. Then Jasmine had a gap filled by other memories, other people, and other places and times. I saw who I suspected was her boyfriend. I saw things I really didn’t need to see. Then I saw a woman who was clearly her mother. She smiled often at her. All of these superfluous memories were interwoven with the main thread, which was that day in Starbucks.

That fateful day.

* * *

Jasmine is working the register. People come and go. Money is exchanged, credit cards are swiped, gift cards are used. The door opens, and Jasmine looks up and greets the customer, as any good Starbucks employee should.

There she is.

“Welcome to Starbucks,” I hear Jasmine say.

Lucy Gleason nods and appears to say something, but Jasmine’s wandering mind fills in the gap with an image of her boyfriend riding a dirt bike, shirtless.

Now, Lucy Gleason is waiting in line behind two other people.

Here, Jasmine’s memory is fuzzy at best. The snatches that she recalls of Lucy waiting in line are brief and chaotic, and that’s to be expected. Still, every now and then, Jasmine’s eyes land on Lucy…and for good reason. Lucy is chewing her nails nervously, and looking around. In particular, she’s looking up.

She’s looking for cameras.

Now, Lucy’s head snaps around quickly, looking behind her, and this also catches Jasmine’s attention.

In a blur, the two people before Lucy come and go, and now it’s her turn to order. Lucy steps up.

“What can we make for you?” asks Jasmine.

Lucy doesn’t look her in the eye. Instead, she cracks her neck a little, then reaches back and rubs it. Nervous, stressed. “Just a water for now.”

“Sure,” says Jasmine cheerily enough. “Can I get you anything else?”

The image in Jasmine’s memory is briefly replaced by another face, another time, another customer. That Jasmine has remembered this much from a brief encounter with thousands of customers is amazing enough. This other customer fades away, to be replaced again by Lucy, who is now walking away.

Jasmine briefly watches her go, before the image fades away. It was, of course, where Lucy was clearly going that got my attention.

She had been headed to the bathrooms.

* * *

I released Jasmine’s hands.

“And that’s all I remember,” she was saying.

“You can open your eyes now,” I said, aware that she was still mostly under the command of my voice, which did little for me, but excited the bitch within me.

Jasmine opened her eyes slowly, and seemed to return to the present. She blinked hard, and then, opened her eyes wide.

“Wow, what happened? I felt like I was asleep—”

“You won’t make a scene,” I said evenly, keeping my voice low. I could have just as easily thought the words, but we were isolated enough, and there was enough ambient noise that I couldn’t have been overheard.

She nodded minutely, blinked slowly, and said, “I really don’t remember much. She ordered a water, and then went to the bathroom.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“No,”

“Never saw her exit?”

Jasmine shook her head. “If she did, I didn’t see it. We don’t monitor the bathrooms here. There are no keys or anything. People just come and go, and the bathrooms are around the corner, sort of out of my sight from the cash register.”

“Did you see her pick up the water?”

She thought hard, and then shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Sorry I wasn’t of much help,” she said. She looked at her cell phone. “I have to get to work. My shift starts soon.”