James explained, in an odd, low voice, “I hadn’t been afraid that I wouldn’t be accepted. I’d been afraid that I would.”
I deluded myself into thinking he was talking about me—how we’d just met and now we’d be on two separate coasts or something like that.
By the time lunch ended, the coolness between us hadn’t quite thawed.
After school, I was taking books from my locker when Ace Zuckerman came up to me. I hadn’t spoken to him for months other than an occasional nod in the hallway. As I was still preoccupied with James and the whole acceptance business, I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him now either.
Ace was captain of the tennis team that year, and he wanted to know if I was going to go out for it.
I said that I hadn’t planned on it.
Ace was outraged. In addition to hair, the guy was incredibly passionate about tennis. “Well, you’re a great player, and it would be a real shame for you not to play because of me.”
“You?” I laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just don’t want to play tennis anymore.”
“You love tennis, Naomi. How can you not remember that?” Ace was standing really close to my face when, suddenly, something pulled him away. It was James, his eyes wild and blazing.
“Get the hell off of her!”
I tried to tell James that Ace and I had only been discussing tennis, but it was too late. These things tend to take on a momentum of their own.
Although James was wiry, he was not weak. He pulled Ace off of me and threw him against a locker. He punched him.
Ace hit him back, but mainly just to get James to stop attacking him. “You tool,” Ace said. “We were only talking about tennis.”
As I was trying to pull James off of Ace, James accidentally elbowed me in the eye. I knew without even seeing it that there was going to be a bruise.
Out of nowhere, Will Landsman got between Ace and James. I didn’t even know he was in the hallway. “Everybody calm down,” Will yelled. “You’ve just elbowed Naomi, you jerks!” Will shoved James with both his palms.
At this point, the assistant headmaster came out of her office to break it up.
James got a five-day suspension, and Ace, because he hadn’t started it, three. Will and I both got one day of detention each, even though we’d only been bystanders. When I got home, my dad was pissed. He worried that my head couldn’t take any more trauma.
“Who started it?” Dad demanded.
“I don’t know.” Of course it had been James, but I didn’t want to tell him that. I repeated what I had thought at the time, “These things take on a momentum of their own.”
Will and I served our detention together the next afternoon. We had to go pick up trash around the football field.
“This sucks. I was trying to break it up. I shouldn’t even be here,” he said.
“Who asked you to get involved? I was handling it.”
“Nice shiner,” Will muttered. “I have a million things to do. I’ve got to lock all the club pages. I have to decide who I’m sending to Philadelphia for Nationals. And, as you know, we are understaffed.”
“We all have things to do,” I said.
“What do you have? A packed schedule of hanging out with your exquisitely moody boyfriend?”
I didn’t say anything. He was trying to pick a fight.
When I’d first heard about our detention, I had been thinking about taking the opportunity to make up with him. I had even been thinking about giving him that record player. When I got my memory back, I had remembered it was for him. Will had this huge collection of albums that he had inherited from his dad, only he never played them. He kept them hung on the wall, like posters. He’d never even had a record player. In any case, I had originally intended it as an “editor-to-editor, back-to-school” gift.
Looking at him, I could tell that too much had happened. We were past apologies and record players.
We didn’t speak for the rest of the afternoon.
James’s birthday was the Saturday before Valentine’s Day. He hadn’t told me—he was not big on birthdays—but I had seen it on his college forms.
I wanted to do something really nice for him because he seemed a little down.
I got Dad’s permission to take him to the Hyde Park Drive-in in Poughkeepsie, which is about a seventy-minute drive from Tarrytown. They were having an Alfred Hitchcock festival, and James was such a movie buff.
It was a great day; the weather was really warm for February. We stayed to see two Hitchcock movies, Vertigo and Psycho (“Are you trying to tell me something?” James joked). Afterward we had dinner at a Friendly’s, and everything was great until on the way home when James’s car ran out of gas.
Honestly, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.
“We’ll just call your mother,” I said.
“I can’t. I can’t. She’s already thinking I’m unstable because of the fight and the weirdness around the college letter. I can’t give her one more thing. I can’t.” He was panicking.
“I’ll call my dad.” Unfortunately, Dad wasn’t home and his cell phone was off. Even before I dialed, I remembered that he was at one of Rosa Rivera’s tango exhibitions. Then I called Alice. She wasn’t picking up either.
James finally agreed to phone his mother, who wasn’t home anyway.
My dad got home around one a.m. and agreed to meet us with the fuel. We weren’t far from Tarrytown. By then I was freezing. I was still disproportionately affected by cold, and James was worried about me. There was this raging look in his eyes, like he wanted to punch something. “I can’t goddamn believe I forgot to fill up the tank,” he said.
He looked at me. “You’re shivering.”
“Jims,” I said through chattering teeth, “I’m fine.”
“I can’t be trusted with anyone.”
“That’s not true. I’m just cold. I’m not going to die. Things happen.” I put my hand on his shoulder, but he shook me off.
His reaction seemed so out of proportion to the situation. We were only forty-five minutes from home for God’s sake. I’m ashamed to say it, but I was a little embarrassed to see James so—I really hate to say this—weak.
When Dad showed up, he didn’t seem all that mad about it, but it’s hard to tell with my dad sometimes. When we got back to my house, he asked to speak with James outside.
I stood at the window and listened to him.
Dad gave James a speech about how I was still “delicate” (which made me sound edible or like a glass figurine), and that James needed to be more responsible with me if he was going to keep seeing me. While I knew that James was already aware of everything Dad had said, I also knew that Dad needed to say it.
“Naomi,” Dad said when he came back inside, “I’m worried, kid. James seems a little out of control.”
“He’s fine,” I insisted, a little too adamantly, I suspect. “He’s under stress from all the college stuff.”
Dad looked me in the eyes. “I want you to know that I trust you.”
James had been planning to go visit USC for a tour on the Thursday after his car ran out of gas. He called me the night before he was scheduled to leave.
“I don’t know if I can go,” he said.
I asked him why not.
“I don’t feel right.”
“Jims, your car broke down. It was no big deal. Nothing’s happened.”
“It didn’t break. It ran out of gas because I forgot to fill it.”
“That could happen to anybody—”
“And it’s not just that. There was that fight and getting suspended. And…and I got fired from my job, I didn’t want to tell you, I’d missed too much work.”
“What do I care about your job? You were going to have to quit in a couple of months anyway.”
“My mom’s worried, and even you seem different. The way you looked at me on Sunday night. I’ve seen girls look at me that way before. I didn’t like to see it from you.”
“The way I looked at you was only worry because you seemed upset. And I’m not different,” I insisted. “I love you. Look, if you get there and you’re miserable, I’ll come. I promise.”
“Your dad would never let you.”
“I won’t tell him. I’ll make something up, I swear. I’ll tell him I’m going to a yearbook conference or to visit my mom or something.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Christ, Jims, I threw myself down a flight of stairs just to meet you, didn’t I?” It was a joke between us, but he didn’t laugh.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay, but I’m holding you to that.”
I didn’t hear from him for about a day, but I figured that was probably a good thing. It meant he was busy and having a good time. He called me Friday night.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“I need you to come.”
“What’s wrong?”
He hadn’t even gone down to USC yet. It sounded like all he’d done since he’d gotten to California was sit in his dad’s house. “I’m just having a little trouble getting started is all.”
But it was more than that. There was something in his voice that scared me. “Are you all right?” I asked.
He didn’t answer my question. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I looked it up. You can fly out of JFK tomorrow morning. I’d pay for the ticket. All you’d have to do is come.”
I found myself saying yes. I threw a couple of T-shirts, my laptop, a few randomly chosen CDs (I’d misplaced my iPod), my headphones, and another pair of jeans into my backpack.
I knocked on Dad’s door; he was on the phone, but he got off right away.
Despite the fact that I had been lying for a month, I am not a good liar. My stories are too elaborate and I forget them halfway through; I stammer; I sweat; I smile too much; I don’t make eye contact; I make too much eye contact. On this day, I was just right. “Dad,” I said, “I forgot to tell you that I’m supposed to go to a yearbook conference in San Diego tomorrow. I’ll be back Tuesday.” I was glad I hadn’t ever told him about quitting yearbook.
Dad didn’t even blink. “Do you need any money? A ride to the airport?”
I took the money; I got a ride from Alice and Yvette. Alice had just broken up with Yvette for the second time since the play had ended.
“Cookie, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“He sounded bad, Alice.”
“If he sounded bad, maybe you should have called his mother?” Yvette suggested.
“She just makes things worse,” I said.
When we got to the airport, Alice got out of the car to hug me. “Listen, cookie, we love James, too, but do any of us really know him even?”
“I do!”
“Okay, okay, if you’re sure.”
“Call us when you get there, Nomi,” Yvette said from the car.
I was anxious as hell while I was waiting to get on the plane.
My anxieties flipped between ten or so major issues, many of which also fell under the subheading “if the plane crashes”:
1) I hadn’t ever flown alone before.
2) If the plane crashed, Dad wouldn’t even know I was on it since he thought I was going to San Diego for a yearbook conference.
3) If the plane crashed, Dad’s last thoughts about me would be that I was a liar.
4) I didn’t pack enough clothes, especially socks and underwear.
5) If the plane crashed, I still wouldn’t be speaking to my mother.
6) If the plane crashed, there was a sister who would never know me.
7) James.
8) If the plane crashed, I would still be in a fight with Will.
9) If the plane crashed, I would never “dazzle” Mr. Weir. I would be “incomplete” for all eternity.
10) I hadn’t brought anything to read.
I figured I could fix the last one at least, so I went into the nearest airport bookstore.
On a table toward the middle of the store, they had Dad’s book, which was just out in paperback. Out Wandering: A Memoir. I turned the book over and read the copy. “From the celebrated writer who along with his wife, Cassandra Miles-Porter, brought you the bestselling Wandering Porters travel series comes this deeply personal memoir about the end of his marriage, as seen through the prism of world events…” blah, blah, blah “…how he and his daughter managed to find peace of mind even while…” blah, blah, blah “…and in some ways, we are all out wandering…” blah, blah, blah. It sounded dreadful. I read Dad’s bio at the bottom. “Grant Porter lives with his daughter, Naomi, in Tarrytown, New York.” I added a couple phrases of my own, “his daughter, Naomi, who is a low-down, rotten liar and who has been lying to him for weeks.”
As a pointless act of contrition, I brought the book to the counter, and with the money the author himself had just given me, I bought a copy.
I landed in California around ten in the morning. Even though he had arranged my flight, James was two hours late picking me up.
He hugged me hard when he saw me.
“Jims, you were supposed to be here two hours ago.”
“Traffic,” he said with a vague wave of his hand. “It’s just L.A. I’m so goddamn happy that you’re here.” And he did look happy, better than before he’d left. His eyes were bright.
We got in the car; I had been planning what I would say to him since we’d gotten off the phone. The idea was to move James in positive directions; the dangerous thing, in my mind, was inertia. “So I thought we could maybe start with taking a campus tour?”
“Is that what you want to do?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve never seen USC before, and isn’t that kind of the point of why you’re here?”
“I…I guess so. I thought we could go to the beach, maybe go surfing. I’ve been wanting to take you surfing as long as I’ve known you. We could take the tour tomorrow, right? I think I’d prefer that.”
“Okay,” I said.
So we drove to the beach, but on the way I started feeling a little queasy. By the time we got there, I was really ready to get out of the car.
“Christ,” James said right after he’d parked.
“What is it?”
“I should have picked up the surf gear from my dad’s before we came here.”
“It’s fine. Let’s just sit awhile, okay? I’m feeling kind of green, you know?”
James sat down next to me on the beach, but I could tell he was feeling antsy. He kept drawing these circles in the sand with his right index finger. Finally he jumped up. “Why don’t I drive back to my dad’s house, and you wait here? I’ll come back with the gear and lunch, too.”
“How long will you be?”
“Probably about an hour.”
I agreed. I’d been traveling for hours, and I was in no mood to get back in that car.
The beach was deserted, and it was a little too cold for beach-goers. The air was crisp and salty. The sand was different from the kind you find on the East Coast: softer, but also firmer somehow. I fell asleep.
I only awoke because a couple were having a picnic on the sand near me. It seemed odd that they would have chosen to be so close to me when they could have sat anywhere, but whatever. He was about forty-five and she was probably ten years younger than that. The guy had gone all-out. He had brought the bottle of wine, the checkered blanket, a stereo with some guy singing opera, roses, and a picnic basket. It was kind of sweet, really. You could tell he’d put a lot of effort into it.
“Sorry,” she called out to me, “did we wake you?”
I shook my head. “It’s fine. Would you happen to have the time?” I’d left my backpack in James’s car.
“About four,” she called.
“Thanks.” James had been gone for about two and a half hours.
Maybe he’d just gotten stuck in traffic again? He couldn’t call me; no one could. My phone was in my backpack in his car.
I decided not to panic. I woul
d just lie back down on the beach and wait it out. I really wished I’d taken my bag, because at least then I would have had my headphones.
Another two or so hours later, it was dark, the picnickers were packing up to leave, and James was still not there. “Can we offer you something to eat?” the man called out to me. I figured he probably thought I was a street kid. “We brought way more than we could ever finish.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t at all hungry. I was too worried about James to be hungry. “I’m fine. I’m just waiting for someone.”
The man nodded at me sympathetically. “You shouldn’t keep a lady waiting,” he said.
“Damn right,” the woman said.
Still, before they left, the woman gave me the remains of their Caesar salad and half a carton of strawberries. “Just in case he’s too much longer, right?”
I didn’t touch the food. Looking at it made me want to weep.
I was terrified for James, of course, but thoughts of self-preservation began to creep into my brain. I wondered what I should do if James never came back. Who should I call? Alice, maybe? My mother? Not Dad. He’d worry too much. And I couldn’t bear telling him I’d lied. Maybe Will? Then I started to wonder where the nearest phone was. I didn’t even know that much about my location. Somewhere on the Pacific coast near L.A., I reckoned. That narrowed it down to roughly a thousand different places.
Just as I was about to enter all-out panic mode, James appeared. He was carrying a paper bag from a burger place.
“It got cold,” he said. “So I had to throw out the first bag and get another.”
I didn’t even eat hamburgers, but I guess he didn’t know that. I jumped up and hugged him and kissed him all over his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Even in the dark, I could tell his eyes were bloodshot. “I…I tried to call you. Your phone was off.”
“It was in your car,” I said.
“Oh, right.”
“Looks like you already ate,” he said, pointing to the picnic remains.
“Some people felt sorry for me,” I said. “They thought I was homeless.”
“Are you mad?” James asked. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Only the smallest amount. Mainly, I was scared for you.”