Blank Slate Kate

Chapter 3

The trip to the doctor's office is incredibly weird. Nothing looks familiar, except the ancient subway trains that are somehow still running, and both the subway itself and the walls of the stations we pass through are plastered with signs advertising products and services I've never heard of. Gay dating websites, online universities, and lots of other strange things. I sit quietly beside Jake on the noisy train, holding tight to his hand, and try to stay calm. The doctor will help. We'll figure out what's wrong with me and then I'll get my memory back and know where my parents are and where I live. It'll all be fine. It has to.

We wait for a few minutes in silence at the walk-in clinic before our number's called and I have to explain my condition to the woman at the front desk. At least, I try: she doesn't want to hear it.

"Health card," she says, cutting me off without even looking at me.

"I don't have one."

She looks up. "Why not?"

I look at Jake, since I don't know what to say, and he offers, "She was mugged last night. That's why we're here, to make sure her head is okay."

The woman's eyes shift between me and Jake. She frowns but says, "Take a seat over there and the doctor will see you in a while."

"A while" turns out to be nearly two hours. Lots of people seem to get in ahead of us, but I assume they must be sicker than me. Everyone around me looks different than I remember, far less grunge and far more really long dresses and sleek jeans. Fashion's changed a lot in eleven years, apparently.

To pass the time, Jake shows me how his black rectangle, an iPhone, works then lets me play a variety of adorable games, flinging birds at pigs and chopping fruit in half and feeding candies to a cute little monster. I'll have to get one of these phones. Once I have a job, and money, and a place to live. Or at least, once I know where all those things are. Maybe I already have an iPhone.

A doctor, a tall black woman with straightened hair and red glasses, finally calls my name and Jake comes with me to the doorway.

"Just her," the doctor says. "You can wait out here."

I shake my head. "I need him."

She glances between us but says, "Okay. Come on."

We sit in her office and together manage to explain what little we know about what's happened to me while she types notes into a computer on her desk. When we're finished, she gently examines my head and looks in my eyes, then sits down and types some more before saying, "Well, you're definitely not a teenager. Thirty-two or so seems about right."

"Okay." It's not, actually, but it's starting to sink in, and having a doctor say it makes it sink in even further. I'm in my thirties. "But what's wrong with my head? Why have I lost the years?"

She sighed. "You definitely have a bump there, and it's possible you have a mild concussion. But it's not serious enough to cause the amnesia. So I don't know."

I shut my eyes, misery sweeping me. She's supposed to know. She's supposed to fix it. It's 2011. Can't she just wave a little thing over me like on Star Trek and make everything okay?

Her phone rings. She listens then says, "Got it. Thanks," and hangs up. "Jake, I'd like to talk to Kate alone for a minute."

He stands up and I look up at him, alarmed.

"It's okay," he says gently. "I'll be right outside the door. Don't worry."

I am worried but I let him go.

When the door closes the doctor says, "Is there anything you haven't told me?"

"I don't think so. I remember being seventeen and then being here. I don't have any memory of meeting Jake but the story he just told you is exactly what he told me this morning."