"What kind of word is it?" he queried. "I'm a wordsmith. Twenty questions. Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective?"
"If I could remember that, I might be able to come up with it."
He was tossing a quarter stick of butter into the pan. "Hey, I once learned hypnosis. Why don't you let me take you under?"
"Does that really work?"
"It's how I come up with interview stuff sometimes, from years ago. We really do have a complicated memory system. I think everything you ever knew is buried somewhere, maybe in a tiny little wrinkle."
She suspected he might be right. In this case the repressed info was still there; it just had been deliberately covered over and hidden.
"So do you want to hypnotize me? You're sure you know how?"
"I'm not boasting, but I could make Methuselah remember the day he first got out of diapers."
She stared at him. "My God, I think that's it. Methuselah. I think that's the word I couldn't remember." She kissed him on the mouth enthusiastically. "I've got to check something."
She popped the cork and poured herself a glass.