Exiting the bedroom, Jana’s heart jumped when she ran headlong into the maid, who was leaning over, suspiciously close to the door.

“OOP’s, Excuse me!” Jana exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m….I’m fine, you just scared me a little.”  The maid replied.

“I’m sorry.”  Jana stated.  “I didn’t know you were standing there.  Did you want something?”     “I…uh just wanted to let you know it was time for you to go to the beauty shop.  But I see you’re ready.  The limo’s waiting.”

“Good.  I’ll probably be back in about three hours.”  Jana stated, wondering if she was supposed to check out with a maid.

As Jana started down the plush carpeted hallway, she thought that the maid seemed awful nervous.  But thinking that she was just being paranoid, Jana dismissed the thought. Continuing down the hallway, she came to an expansive semi-circular landing with an elaborately carved mahogany bar along the right side.  It looked well stocked with a variety of liquors.  Shelves of crystal glasses lined the wall behind the bar.  There was an oil painting of herself reclining on a chaise lounge.  She was clad only in a beautiful emerald green cloth.  Fortunately, it covered all the strategic places.  She blushed a little as she considered what may have been involved in the posing sessions which must have been required to generate such an intricate painting.  The painting was exquisitely detailed right down to the small triangular birthmark on Jana’s right upper thigh.

Scattered about near the bar were luxurious stuffed chairs and couches with low coffee tables.  Jana was drawn to a white baby grand piano located on a small stage next to the bar on the landing.  Dancing across the mirror-like top were multicolored lights and she reached out her hand feeling almost as if she could capture the elusive rainbows.  As the glittering lights climbed up her hand and arm she realized that they were actually reflections from the glass chandelier high above the foyer.

Turning toward the stairway, she noticed the maid standing at the railing watching her and she felt a shiver down her back.  Since Jana was the kind of person who liked everybody, she was bothered by the uncomfortable feeling she had about this woman.  It wasn’t so much the way the maid acted, but the way she looked at her.  She just gave Jana an eerie feeling.  Then again, the circumstances were making Jana feel uptight and it could just be her own imagination. Anyway, she shouldn’t have let her guard down and let the maid see her looking around.  She was going to have to be more careful in the future.

Smiling at the maid she said, “I’ve always thought that those reflections were an interesting phenomenon.  Haven’t you?”

“Yes.”  The maid said as she went over to the piano and rubbed it with a cleaning cloth to take off an imagined smear.

Turning on her heels, Jana purposefully stomped down the stairs, muttering under her breath about “not being able to find good help these days”, a saying that her old boss used to love, especially when an employee made a major mess, and that Jana hadn’t fully appreciated until now.

Halfway down the stairs, she heard the sound of cascading water and looking up, before her was the most magnificent fountain she had ever seen.  It looked as if it was made out of white marble and gold.  Forgetting about her resolve not to be obvious in front of the maid, she circled the fountain with her mouth hanging open.  Fighting off the desire to just climb into the fountain, having always wanting to do that, instead she had to pacify herself by looking closely at the four female statues standing against the gold center, for they seemed almost real, the sculpture work was so finely done in marble.  They were each holding a vase and water sprouting from the top of the fountain fell into these vases, and then, from tiny holes at the bottom of them water poured out over the women’s bodies.

The cool water from the fountain splashed on Jana as she reached out to stroke a golden cherub sitting on a fish.  There were four of these also, and the fish had water extruding from their mouths spraying the cherub-fish combination ahead of it.  She marveled at the elaborate scroll work and delicate filigree, also done in gold, which adorned the rest of the fountain.  The water gave off a tinkling sound and droplets in the air sparkled and glistened from the rays of light refracted from the elaborate crystal chandelier that acted as hundreds of prisms causing rainbows to dance about the room like elusive butterflies.

Jana had a hard time believing so much extravagance even existed.  But more than that, she was totally flabbergasted that she was married to the man that had all this money.  How could an ordinary person like Jana become such a beautiful, glamorous and sophisticated woman?  She wondered again how she was ever going to be able to keep up the pretense of being Victoria.

A light spray settled softly on her hair and she stopped at one of the many mirrors along the wall to take a quick glance at it.  Once again the shocking difference in her appearance took her breath away.  When she saw the confident demeanor that her new body as Victoria exhibited, the doubts of her abilities from the moment before, disappeared just as quickly as they had come.  She thought to herself, I just might be able to get away with this charade. Well, she was just about to have her first test.

There was no front door, only what was obviously an elevator and pushing the button the doors quietly slid open.  Stepping inside she marveled that even the elevator was elaborate.  There was only one button on the wall and pushing it she was quickly swept down to the lobby.

Stepping through the front doors and out into the sunlight, a limousine was waiting for her.  The door was opened by a chauffeur so large in size that he almost made the limousine look small.  As he helped Jana inside she asked him, rather meekly, to take her to the beauty boutique.

Comfortable from the size of the man in the front seat Jana relaxed and thought about Michael.  She wished that he was next to her and that they were enjoying the ride in the limousine together.  Any other time it would be exciting to be riding in a limousine but with the uncertainty of the future riding heavily on her, Jana could only feel worried and totally alone.

“Got any tips for me today?”  The chauffeur asked breaking into her reverie and startling her.  What could he possibly be talking about?

“Nothing today.  Did my last tip help you out?” Jana asked, hoping to get some information.

“Oh, it was great.  The stock jumped ten points after I bought it.”

“That’s terrific!”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Mrs. Davenport.  If it hadn’t been for you, I probably would be wearing cement galoshes.”

“Don’t think anything of it.”  What else could Jana say, she had no idea what the chauffeur was talking about, let alone anything about stocks.

“No really, if there is anything I can ever do for you, you just let me know.  Ole Jake will come to the rescue, as they say.”

At least she finally knew someone’s name!

“Thank you Jake, I’ll keep that in mind.”  And Jana certainly would!  At least this was one person that she knew was grateful to her and would help her if she ever needed his kind of help.

“Suzanne says that you fainted this morning.  I hope you’re feeling better.”

“Boy, word sure gets around fast.”  Jana said.

Jake smiled and said. “Suzanne was just trying to be protective.  You know Mr. Davenport wants you well taken care of.  So, he hired Suzanne who he thought was the best.

Well, Jana thought, she sure hoped that Mr.  Davenport didn’t do her any more favors.  But, at least now she knew the maids name.

The limo came to a stop and Jana tried to build up her courage as she waited for what seemed like an eternity for Jake to open the door.  Her stomach muscles tightened as she remembered that it was just this morning that she had woken up and was thrust into this whole bewildering situation.  Now the agonizing moment of truth was here and she had to pretend to be a woman that she knew almost nothing about.

“Mrs. Davenport!”  Exclaimed a tall, thin rather feminine looking man who jumped up from where he was seated at an impressive looking computer and sashayed around the counter to Jana.  He oozed with the unique quality of a man having a genuine interest in women’s attire.  “You’re one of the few people I know that can look gorgeous in jeans and a T-shirt.”

Jana felt her face redden as she said, “Thank you.”

“And the only person I know that would blush at such a compliment.”  He added seeing her red face.  “How’s everything going?  Made any killings lately?”

Jana knew that the man saw the shocked look on her face before she was able to catch herself.  Thinking quickly she said.  “Now, would I tell you if I had.”

“Are you kidding, Mrs. Secret Mystery woman herself.  I’ve been lucky to get your name out of you.”

Jana just smiled.

One of the girls came up to the man asking him a question and Jana just stood there.  Interrupting the girl he looked over at Jana and said.  “Don’t you want to go on back?”

Jana said, “Sure,” and headed toward the back.  It looked just like any other beauty shop, except that it was a little more elegant and the hairdressing stations were spread out a little more than the one she went back to back home.  One other thing that stood out was that every station contained a computer similar to the one up front.  She glanced around hoping that someone would come up to her and tell her where to sit, but no one paid any attention to her and she started getting nervous. What was she supposed to do, she wondered?  Starting to feel faint from the stress, she brought the back of her hand up to her forehead.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Davenport?”  A young girl with concern on her face said, as she grabbed Jana’s shoulders to steady her.

“I’m…uh, just feeling a little off color today.  If you could just help me to a place to sit.”

“Would you rather go back to the office and lay down on the couch?”

“Sure.”  Jana replied, relieved that someone was finally helping her.

The girl led Jana to an ordinary looking door.  As she unlocked it and they stepping inside, Jana was surprised to find a waiting room.  It was decorated in a dark rich wood with heavy leather clad furniture.

“I’ll sit down here for just a few moments.  I’ll be fine.”  Jana said.  Now that she was in this room, she wanted to be alone so she could explore the premises.

“Are you sure?”  The girl asked.  “I can have Simon bring you something, a drink or something.”

“No, that’s not necessary, I’ll be fine.  You go on back to work.”

“Okay.”  The girl said, as she disappeared back into the other room.

Jana jumped up and made a quick survey of the room. Picking up a brochure from one of the table’s, she decided this was a waiting room and the place not only did hair, but performed entire makeovers.  They covered everything anyone could possibly need to fit into the world of the beautiful people.  They had departments specialized in plastic surgery, facial therapy, body exercise and reconfiguration, wardrobe, hairstyling and care, etiquette and poise, and even stress management and assimilation. This, Jana figured, must be how she had changed into Victoria.  She wished she could go through this all over again but she knew that they would become suspicious if she were to suggest it.

Setting the brochure back down again, Jana saw that there were two doors leading off of this main room.  One was off to the right and toward the back.  Opening the one on the right she found that it lead back out to the beauty shop through a storeroom.  As she started to close the door again she heard a voice say, “….look so terrible before.”

“Well….probably being married to Charles Davenport has finally caught up with her.”

“What do you mean?  He’s a gorgeous hunk!”

“Honey, sometimes it’s not so good to have a gorgeous hunk.”

“Yeh, I know what you mean.”

“I only wish I had my husband over a barrel like she does him.  I wouldn’t let him get away with any of the things he pulls.”

“But, Simon says that he’s a business wiz and that’s what she needs.”

“Listen dearie, being a business wiz doesn’t make it where it counts, if you know……”

At that moment Jana heard another door opening and she quickly and quietly closed the storeroom door and sat down in the nearest chair.

Simon poked his head in and said.  “Are you okay, Mrs. Davenport?  Tina said you weren’t feeling to well.”

Rising, Jana said.  “I’m just fine now, Simon.  Guess I’ve been working too hard.”

“I don’t doubt that.”  Simon replied.  “Well, when you are ready to get started just come on out.  I have to get back out front.”

Jana said, “Fine.”  Relaxing a little, as the door closed again.  Boy that was a close call, she thought, feeling a little guilty about eavesdropping.

Going over to the other door she found that it led into a hallway.  There was no one around, passing on down the hallway, she couldn’t help noticing the dozens of before and after pictures lining the walls.  She caught a glimpse of two pictures of herself and was drawn to them like a bee to the golden pollen of a flower.  Here was a picture of the old Jana next to a picture of the new Victoria and she marveled that such an incredible change could have taken place.

“Mrs. Davenport is there something wrong with the pictures?”

Jana jumped as she realized that she had been observed. “No….No.  It’s just that every time I seem them I’m amazed by the change.”  Jana said hoping she had covered her lapse adequately.

“Yes.  We do wonderful work here, don’t we?”  The woman said with a pleased smile.

Jana now knew for sure how she had gone through such a dramatic change.  It had never occurred to her that there was a place where someone could come for such a complete make over.  The woman and Jana stood awkwardly for a few moments, then the woman gave a small gesture of a shrug and turned and walked down the hall and through the door that Jana had just entered.

Knowing that there must be a main office around somewhere, the next door she encountered had a sign on is saying “private” so she decided that must be it.  Somewhat hesitantly, she opened the door to find a good size office decorated similarly to the waiting room.  It was empty.

She closed the door behind her and crossed over and sat down at the desk.  She was just starting to wonder what to do next when she noticed an envelope addressed to Mrs. Victoria Davenport in the in-basket.  She started to reach for it, as she saw the name Victoria Davenport on some other papers on the desk.  On the corner of the desk she spotted a briefcase with the Monogram V.J.D.  This whole thing is crazy, she thought to herself.  What would she be doing with an office here?  She looked at some of the papers and in the envelope, but found nothing but very involved real estate contracts and financial data.  One important thing she did notice was that they were signed by Mrs. Victoria Davenport.

She didn’t want to go back out too quickly, but she didn’t know what else to do.  She left the office and headed back toward the door leading to the waiting room.  As she passed a room she heard muffled sounds and not being able to contain her curiosity, she leaned close to the door.

“Well, keep a close eye on her and let me know if there is any more problem.”

Then she heard Simon’s voice answer, “Yes, Sir.  She even looked at the pictures like she had seen a ghost or something.”

Simon’s voice was different.  The flippant feminine quality had been replaced by a sinister sound.  It was enough to make her want to turn around and run.  But at that moment Simon came bursting out of the room almost running her down.

“Mrs. Davenport!”  Was all that Simon could exclaim.

“I was just on my way back to have my hair done.”  Jana said, trying to sound nonchalant.  “I’m feeling much better.”

“Sure.  Come with me.”  He said grabbing her hand and nearly pulling her down the hallway.  Jana got the impression that Simon didn’t want her sticking around the back offices any longer.

Back in the limo, sitting quietly, Jana thought about all that she had learned. But it seemed that with every morsel of information came a ton of new questions.

Gazing out the window of the limousine, Jana thought how lucky she was to have the safety of the car and Jake.  The big city seemed so frightening.  No matter how hard she tried to think other thoughts, the same questions kept repeating themselves inside her head, “How did I get here?  What is going on?  Where is Michael?”  She felt as if she would go crazy if she wasn’t already that way.

Her eye caught a sign that said Public Library.  Maybe she could get some answers there about her amnesia and what she might be able do to help her regain her memory of the past five years.

“Jake, I would like to go to the library.  Could you stop please?”

“Certainly ma’am”

When the limousine came to a stop, she said she would only be a few minutes and then stepped out of the car.  She hoped Jake wasn’t upset that she didn’t wait for him to open the door for her, but before she thought about it, she was already out of the car.

The library seemed larger on the inside than on the outside with more books than Jana even knew existed.  For a modern city like Los Angeles it was rather old fashioned except for the computers scattered about for references. Jana headed for the card catalog knowing it would take her forever to figure out the computers.  She checked under amnesia, and was surprised to find no references whatsoever.  Now surely there should be something in the library about amnesia, she thought.  She looked for references to the brain.  This category was too broad and it would take her forever to find amnesia.  Then she thought of memory, after all that is what she had lost.  There it was.  She wrote down the numbers for two books “Remembering and Forgetting” and “Memory and Brain”.

Sitting down with the books, in the first one she found “Amnesia:  The Failure of Factual Memory”.  Starting to read it she stopped and sat there totally dumbfounded.  The book was telling her that a person who has amnesia can’t really function and that all those movies, showing where the person hit on the head forgets their past, aren’t true.  Actually, they may remember all about their past but can’t remember day-to-day things in their present.  Also listed, was something called retrograde amnesia, where a person loses the memory of a period of time previous to an accident.  But there weren’t any cases where the memory loss was for more than a few weeks.

Nowhere could Jana find anything even remotely similar to what she seemed to have, where she was functioning just fine in the present, but just happened to have lost 5 years of her life and was living a life that was totally alien to her.  Reading the pertinent parts of the other book she found about the same thing.

Jana sat and tried to think.  If she didn’t have amnesia then what did she have?  She had heard stories about people with multiple personalities maybe she was one of those people.

Getting up she went back over to the card catalog.  Checking the catalog under multiple personalities, she discovered that they were in another section.  But she couldn’t find any of the books.  They sure must be popular, she thought.  Maybe she could check the magazines.  Finally she found a few articles.

So, a person with multiple personalities experienced lost time.

She certainly had.

The lost time could be years.

In her case it definitely was.

They usually have many personalities.

She only knew of two.

It usually starts from bad things happening in her childhood.

That wasn’t true of Jana, she had a wonderful childhood.

The other personalities came out to help the person deal with problems that the major personality couldn’t deal with.

None of this made sense.  It just didn’t seem to fit Jana’s profile.  She had had a wonderful childhood; she had never experienced any loss of time before she became Victoria.  And, she was completely happy with Michael.  So why would she go into another personality to deal with problems when at that time she didn’t have any.

It seemed, the more she tried to find out, the more confused she became.  She concluded that for the time being, she would have to investigate the contents of the missing years and not try to analyze why they were gone.  Anyway, that missing piece to the puzzle might just fall into place on its own once she found out more about Victoria.

Maybe the answer would be back in Spencer, Missouri where she had grown up.

Back in her luxurious penthouse bedroom, Jana started to make plans to get back to Missouri.  After experiencing the shear inadequacy and helplessness of being out of her league at the hairdressers, Jana had decided she needed to get back to where it all started so she could put the pieces together.  She had decided there was no conceivable way she could play Victoria.  It was a totally different world that Victoria had grown into and Jana would just bring suspicion on herself if she tried to pretend to know how to act.

She jumped, as the phone rang, startled due to the sudden break in the nervous silence of her bedroom.  Stepping over to the bedside table, she started to pick up the receiver, and then hesitated.  Who could it be and what was she going to say to them?  Deciding not to answer, she let it continue to ring.  Finally the ringing stopped.  She sat down on the bed, relieved that she got out of that problem when she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Jana said.

As the maid walked in, she seemed surprised to see Jana sitting there.

“I put a call through to you from Mr.  Davenport.  I got worried when you didn’t answer it after your passing out earlier.”  The maid said looking puzzled, “are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m OK, I was in the bathroom” Jana said. “Do you want me to get him back on the line?”

Jana wanted to scream “No, tell him I don’t want to talk to him now or ever” but she just politely said “sure”.

As the maid left the room a thousand questions went through Jana’s mind.  What kind of relationship did Victoria and Charles have?  What was she going to say to him?  Did Victoria love him?  Did they have special things they said back and forth to each other?  But most of all, would she give herself away?

She jumped again when the phone rang.  Reaching over she slowly picked up the receiver as if she were in slow motion like a death procession.

“Hello.”  She almost couldn’t get the word out.

“Hello, Vic.” A stranger’s voice said.  “How’s everything there?”

“Just fine.”  She was starting to shake.

“Glad I caught you home.  I was just checking to find out if you received the envelope yet.”

“Envelope?”

“You know the one I told you about.”

She took a quick look around the room and saw a manila envelope on the desk.  Should she tell him it’s there or not? Would he want to discuss it?

“Yes, it’s over on the desk.”  She finally decided to say.

“Great, everything you need to know is in the envelope,” he said, “We really need to get this taken care of as soon as possible, OK?”

“Sure.”  Jana said relieved she didn’t have to make up a story as to why she didn’t want to discuss what was in the envelope.

“Suzanne said you weren’t feeling well and that you passed out earlier.”

“Oh, it was nothing, she was just exaggerating.”

“That’s good to hear.”  Then he quickly said, “Love ya, bye” and hung up.

That wasn’t so bad.  Maybe she could pull this off after all, Jana thought, forgetting momentarily the terror she had just gone through.

Going over to the desk she picked up the envelope. Inside were a lot of legal papers.  She glanced through them and they seem to be for the purchase of some land.

The cover letter said:

 

Dear Mrs. Davenport,

 

Enclosed please find contracts for the purchase of 168 acres of land in Golden, Colorado.  As you can see from the contracts, this land contains a 25,000 square foot building which is currently housing the Great Wheel Tire Corporation.  A copy of the lease is also enclosed.

We feel that this is a good investment for you.  It also gives the Great Wheel Tire Corporation cash flow, enabling it to restructure which will allow it to stay in business.

Please sign all copies and have them notarized and returned to us as soon as possible to avoid any hardship on Great Wheel Tire Corporation.

As agreed, we will be expecting the $2,900,000.00 to be transferred to the Colorado Bank and Trust on June 12, l999.

 

Sincerely Yours,

Brad Young

Attorney At Law

 

“Two million nine hundred thousand dollars?” Jana gasped.  As she started to recount the zeros, she must be wrong.

But she wasn’t.  Where did they expect Victoria to come up with two million nine hundred thousand dollars?  She opened the desk drawer and pulled out the checkbook.  A whole Twelve thousand two hundred fifty three dollars and nineteen cents was the balance.  There must be a bank account somewhere with that much money, but where?

Wait a minute, she thought.  Thumbing back through the papers she found that the only one that signed the papers was Victoria.  Why wasn’t Charles’ name on them?  And why was Victoria supposed to be the one coming up with the money?

Jana thought back to what she had heard in the beauty parlor.  It must be true.  What was it the girl said, something about “Victoria not having to answer to her husband about anything she did”.  The thought slowly crept into her mind that as incredible as it might seem Victoria was the one with all the family money.  But, Jana had to dismiss that thought because her mind couldn’t accept the fact that she, as Victoria, could have amassed what appeared to be a financial empire of gigantic proportion.

Immediately Jana went over and picked up the phone.  She definitely had to get out of town now.  Then she put the phone down.  Her getting that money would save a company and a lot of jobs which would affect a lot of people’s lives.  She couldn’t just leave.

She sat down on the bed and held her head in indecision. She felt trapped but yet a wonderful feeling started to swell within her.  She alone could dramatically affect many people’s lives and give them a secure and prosperous future.  This overwhelming feeling of satisfaction in being able to help others gave Jana confidence and the inner strength she previously lacked.  Helping them would be well worth the risk of being found out.

With this new found strength, she went over to the desk and pulled out the address book.

 

 

*      *      *                       *      *      *

 

Beginning     Chapter 3

 

Copyright 1990-2018 by Anita and David Mathews