She has asked Harris to explain the rules. “Hear ye, hear ye,” he announces in a resonant voice. He is reading off a pad of paper. “We are now a group of extremely famous people,” he says. “We are so famous, even Tomkin will have heard of most of us.” Laughs all around. “But—sadly, we all have amnesia.”
“Why do we have amnesia?” calls Uncle Dean.
Harris goes off-script. “Let’s see. Traumatic brain injury? Yes. We have all hit our heads, and while we remember how to walk, talk, and eat, we none of us remember who we are.” Back to the script. “All right. Your mission for the rest of the evening is to discover your own identity. You’ll find tea and coffee on the sideboard, booze on the cart, plus chocolate-covered strawberries, orange cake, and shortbread cookies. Eat your fill. And while you’re eating, find out who you are on this great earth. Except! You must not ask. You don’t get to ask questions like Have I been president? Or Did I write a book? Instead, you’ve got to talk to people as naturally as possible, and your job is to tell your friends about themselves. Give them clues. So you might say, “？‘I hear you like jelly beans,’ if someone is President Reagan. Or ‘I loved your latest novel.’？”
“Does the president like jelly beans?” asks Tomkin.
“Yes, he does,” says my father. “Now, when you’ve figured out who you are, step to the deck and see Tipper about it. If you end up wrong, she’ll send you back in.”
* * *
—
I EAT THREE shortbread cookies and pour some Jim Beam into a teacup when the adults aren’t looking. I want to stop my thoughts circling around Buddy Kopelnick. The two old-fashioneds haven’t been enough to do it.
As the game begins, Tomkin bounds up to me, grinning. “I saw your tag!” he says.
“I saw yours,” I tell him. He is Walt Disney.
“I’m glad to meet you because I love you a lot,” Tomkin says.
“You love me?” I drink from my teacup. The straight bourbon burns the roof of my mouth.
“Oh, yeah.” He does some kind of motion with his hand that I can’t interpret. “You’re the best.”
I tell him Mary Poppins is pretty excellent, even when you’ve seen it ten thousand times.
“What?”
“Mary Poppins.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me who I am! Didn’t you listen to the rules?”
“That’s not who you are.” But Tomkin is distracted by the plate of orange cake Tipper has just handed him. He wanders off, shoving forkfuls into his mouth.
I drink from my teacup again. The room blurs.
“Did you have a chocolate-covered strawberry?” says Erin, who is Cher. “Oh my god, you have to.”
“I like your hair,” I tell her.
“Penny did it,” she says, touching a braid.
“No, your person’s hair.”
I drink more from my teacup and let the edges of the world go soft. George and Yardley stand in front of me now, holding hands.
“I’m thinking my guy is some kind of serial killer,” says George, who is Charlie Chaplin.
“How come?” I ask.
“Everyone hates him. I mean, me.”
“I hate him with a passion,” says Yardley. “Pfeff hates him. Major hates him.”
“You’re very talented at what you do,” I tell George, meaning Charlie Chaplin. “You, maybe not so much,” I say to Yardley, who is Kermit the Frog.
George complains that he doesn’t know the name of any serial killers, so how can he possibly figure this out?
Yardley laughs.
I drink from my teacup.
Yardley tells me, “White looks very good on you.”
“I’m wearing blue.”
“No, on your person. It looks good on your character.”
“But who am I?” I say. “Tomkin loves me.”
“No telling,” says Harris to Yardley as he walks over. He pats me on the back. “You finding yours hard?”
“A little.”
“I know I’m Beethoven,” he says. “But I’m pretending to be puzzled to please your mother.”
I drink from my teacup.
Tipper is next to me now, looking concerned. She is not playing the game, just supervising. “You okay, Carrie?” she asks. “You look— Well, Daddy gave you a cocktail or two, didn’t he?” She points to my teacup. “That tea is decaf. Do you want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”