May 2015

Right Now I'm Having Amnesia and Déjà Vu at the Same Time. I Think I've Forgotten This Before. – Steven Wright

"I feel like I'm losing my mind." I slapped the cover of the book shut.

"Anything in particular?" Ducky asked absently. He was half buried in a wingback chair at the end of the home repair section; it was poetic that that was a chair with the ugliest fabric, in desperate need of reupholstering and repair.

"I'm trying to find a show that I know was in the 70s. It only lasted a season or two, but I can't find it in any reference book or online."

"Perhaps you're remembering the wrong title?" he asked; he was listening, even if he sounded a hundred miles away.

"No. I know I have the right title. Shades of L.A."

Ducky nodded, then stopped and cocked his head. "I remember that title. Something—ah, yes, someone who was able to communicate with the dead…"

"Ghost Whisperer?" Suzy suggested. The whole crew was in attendance; we were celebrating the end of the school year by going out to dinner at Farley's Ice Cream Parlour—decent enough food, fabulous ice cream served up with barbershop quartets. Lexi and Lindsay, who was spending the weekend with us, planned on demolishing an "Oinker"—a platter with a 3" lip, holding fifteen generous scoops of ice cream, seven toppings, and an ocean of whipped cream. (My brother killed one off on his own in high school, earning a blue ribbon with a medallion reading "I was an Oinker at Farley's." If you share an Oinker and manage to finish it, you get a "Little Oinker" ribbon.)

"No, not Ghost Whisperer. Not Medium. This was a cop who got shot, had a near death experience, and when he came back, he was able to see and talk to people who are dead and solve their murders."

"You sure it's not Ghost Whisperer?" Ev asked doubtfully.

"No. It was more fun." From the back of the store came a peal of laughter; Mother was flirting with Geoff while she helped him shelve books.

Lily was busy playing on her phone. "What was the title?"

"Shades of L.A. I'm sure of it."

"Well…I found one from 1990…"

I tried not to be annoyed. "I found that one, too. But I'm absolutely certain it was in the 70s."

"Are you sure you couldn't be wrong? Why are you so dead cert that it's in the 70s?" Ev countered.

"Okay, this is a stupid way to remember it…but I remember being at a convention, someone had a room party and they were showing videotapes of the show. I was talking with…" I snapped my fingers several times. "You remember Marie Williams? Her husband."

Ev burst into laughter. "Which husband! She's been Marie Williams, Marie Culpepper, Marie Porter, and Marie Galway." She made a face on the last name. "I think I missed a few in there."

Lily nodded. "Yep. I've only known her as Culpepper, Porter, and Galway, but I heard her discussing marriage and divorce at Scarborough Faire last year and she mentioned seven."

I ignored Ducky's sudden, appalled attention. "I'm sure it was Williams. He was the nicest of the ones I've met. And that puts it in the 70s, for sure."

Lily came over with her phone. "Is this the show?"

I watched a couple of minutes of a YouTube upload, getting more excited. "Yes! That's the one! You found it!"

"You found it," Lily countered. She backed out of the screen to her Google search. "It's the show from 1990."

"But—but I was so sure." I wracked my brain. "Oh, my gawd…" I almost moaned.

"What's wrong?" Ducky looked at me sharply.

"It is the right show. It was from 1990. And I was talking with Marie's husband—but it was the one she's married to right now, not husband number three. Koslowsky, Marz, Williams—he was the nicest one—Inez, Culpepper, Porter, Galway." I made a face reminiscent of Ev's from a moment before.

Ducky laughed. "I'm impressed that you remember them all."

"Finally remember them all. She's been in fandom forever; I've met all of the husbands as well as the in-betweens. I really wanted it to be Steve Williams I was talking to. He was nice. Instead it's Mike Galway."

"What's wrong with it being Mr. Galway?" He still looked amused.

"He's—" I wasn't sure how close the girls were, or which customers were within earshot. "—a jerk. A know-it-all. Bombastic. Annoying. But I remember discussing the show and we were both upset that it had been cancelled, it was so good—" I made a face. "He was being informative. He was being nice. He's never nice."

Ducky shrugged. "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It's not impossible for him to be nice twice a day."

Ev snorted. "I can tell you haven't met him."