"Look, Deeny: having a lawyer doesn't magically make things easier.
It doesn't magically save you from the consequences of your words and actions."

"Did something bad happen in Mariola?" I asked her.

"Wait, wait!" I said. "Go back a second!
You said 'The Iodine Story'. What is that?"

"You don't know?" Hugh looked surprised.
"The Iodine Story," he repeated, as if saying it again somehow clarified it.

As I was leaving, Hanna ran and fetched the book.
She pressed it into my hands, insisting that I take it.

"Be our Perry Mason!" she chirped, smiling and nearly dancing with excitement.

Lucy continued: "You know, I'll admit that I'm more than a little jealous.
I'd love to have interesting men interested in me. But I gotta say that it worries me a little, too."
She paused. "Because if you're going to be carry on like this with all kinds of men,
at some point they're going to come here, looking for you."

"Do I have a police record?" I asked in alarm.

"No, but it's not for want of trying!" he quipped, laughing, cackling, clapping his hands.

I smiled to encourage him, but honestly I didn't find it funny. I didn't find it funny at all.

I had to find out whether I owned a car, and I had to talk to Barney.
Once I had a handle on those two things,
All my curiosity and questions about my past would be over.

I'd be ready to move forward, as though last Tuesday was the first day of the rest of my life.

"Don't feel too bad," Cameron said. "Feel bad, yeah, but not too bad.
The good news is, I like you a lot better this way. A *lot* better.
In fact, you should seriously consider never getting your memories back."

"Why did it take several days before anyone even *started* to be concerned about me? What's that about?"

"You really have to ask?"

"Charlotte didn't say much, but she did ask me why my name is Mason."

"What kind of stupid question is that?" Carly began,
her face registering annoyance, puzzlement, and curiosity all at once.

"That's — uh — actually a really good question, actually," Tatum put in, hesitantly.

"The point is..." Jen insisted, turning a slight shade of red,
"the point is, that now we — you — don't know anything.
Everything is potential, right? The sky is the limit."

"That's only the upper limit," I countered.

"Hitchhiking? No. Me, hitchhiking? Where? Like, out here, in the desert?"

"Yeah, maybe a dozen miles west of here."

I tried to put it together, but the pieces didn't fit. "Hitchhiking... dressed like this?
Barefoot? With an umbrella? What-- did I drop out of the sky?
Like Mary Poppins, with the umbrella?"

"Thanks for all the stuff," he interrupted gruffly. "I guess that's everything — and this is goodbye."

"Goodbye?" I exclaimed. "Why does it have to be goodbye?"

He gestured helplessly. "I don't know! What else could it be?"

In a nutshell, the song is about all the crazy, misguided things
a man might do if he fell for a woman: things like:
get a job, rent a decent apartment, bathe more frequently...

"Here's the thing, Merope," Agent Kirchmeyer said.
"If we take what you said at face value, what do we have? Something about cylinders.
We don't know what these cylinders are. Frankly, they sound like rolls of money.
Which, of course, is nice for him, but not really remarkable,
if you know anything about the Switcher."

Suddenly, I felt a warm, wet tongue give a quick lick to my right ankle.
I yelped and scrambled my way out of the car, clutching the plastic bag.

"Hey, sorry about that!" said a young male voice. "I tried to stop her,
but you know... dogs..." as if the word dogs explained everything.

"A liability?" she repeated. "Is that what concerns you? That he's a liability?
Weren't you and I liabilities for each other?"

"The moment you told the processing people that you accept him as Anson Charpont,
he became for all intents and purposes, legal and otherwise, Anson Charpont. In every way!"

"You don't think Stan would come after us, do you?" I asked her, half joking, half serious.

"That clown is capable of anything," Femke answer in a grim tone.
 

"I don't know," she replied, undaunted. "But think about vampires:
how come some people get bit and die, and other people get bit and turn into vampires themselves?"

"I don't know the answer to that," I exclaimed, exasperated,
"but vampires aren't real!"

He smiled and looked me in the eyes,
and in that moment I didn't like him any more.

He said, "It's pretty simple. There are links missing from the chain.
We don't have John Doe number one, and we don't have Anson Charpont.
All we have is you."

"And how is that a problem?" I asked, my mouth suddenly gone dry.

"I get the picture: The processing center looks at my old world and my new world and asks each one if they want me."

"That's a good way to put it. Then, if you're a no-go in both directions, they give you their whole-new-life bit. It's a package deal: a new name, a Greyhound bus ticket, and the offer of a shitty job that you'd never take. They walk you to the door, tell you the world is your oyster, and give you a great big swat on the butt, 'cause it's your birthday."

The barista called to me from inside the sidewalk window, asking whether I liked the scone.

"I think it's more of a concept piece than a breakfast item," I replied.