The Memory Book(40)

“I feel like I’m going to start puking into this glass in two seconds.”

“Good puke or bad puke?”

“Both.”

“You probably wouldn’t be the first person to lose it over a milk shake here. They are so good.”

“I can barely taste it.”

Stuart dug in with a spoon. “That’s a tragedy.”

“We’ll have to come back here after this whole thing’s over,” I said.

“Two milk shakes in one day? Living fast and loose.”

I laughed. “No, I mean later this summer.”

Then we were both quiet for a minute. Even though we talked about our futures constantly—Stuart finishing his collection of short stories, me going to NYU—we never really talked about what our future looked like, or whether there was even an our future in the first place. I had moved so fast to make things clear between us, I didn’t really think about why.

Maybe it had a lot to do with the fact that I thought it was almost too good to be true. That I wanted to get as much out of him as I could before he moved back into a world where there were thousands of girls just as smart as me and just as encouraging and ten times more pretty, and there he would move on.

I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

“Stuart…” I began.

“Yeah?” he asked, still digging into the glass with his spoon.

“Look at me,” I said.

Looking puzzled, he stopped and took my hand across the table. I loved when he did that. I always had the urge to look around to see if anyone was looking at us when we held hands, a sort of silly, vain little thought that they might look at us and think, Aw. That couple is in love.

But my words caught in my throat. Maybe now wasn’t the time to have this conversation, on the brink of one of the biggest moments of my life thus far. And anyway, we had never said “love.” I’ve said it here, but I realize I have a very small understanding. A very true understanding, but a pretty small one.

I took a breath and said, “I should have gotten peanut butter cup.”

“Ha!” he said, shaking his head, and resumed eating. “Oh! You know what?”

“What?”

“This just reminded me—there’s this ice cream parlor in Brooklyn, I can’t remember what it’s called, but they have the best milk shakes. Like maybe even better than here. I’ll have to take you there.”

I swallowed another gulp. “Take me there?” My heart started beating hard. Even harder than it already was, which was very hard.

“Yeah, this fall,” he said, and gradually, my pulse slowed. Relief melted from the top of my head to my toes. This fall. As in, we would be together then. Together enough to go to an ice cream parlor. Suddenly, I got very hungry.

“Thatta girl,” he said, watching me dig in with my own spoon.

I swallowed a mouthful of milk shake, and didn’t try to hide my smile.

“What?” he asked, smiling with me.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just happy.”





I HAD TO WIPE THE SWEAT OFF MY PALMS ON MY DRESS SO I COULD TYPE


I’m hiding from everyone in the girls’ locker room. My graduation gown keeps dragging on the floor so it’s hanging on the hook on the door.

After Mom and Dad and the kids dropped me at the gym entrance to park the car, I thought I had forgot everything until I pushed out the first words to myself in a whisper, “Oliver Goldsmith once said…” and the rest would come. I kept repeating it, Oliver Goldsmith once said, Oliver Goldsmith once said, as if every time I said it I had been drowning and came up for air.

As all the teachers and administrators grouped together at the front, I saw Mrs. Townsend, her black poof of hair rising above the others.

“Hey, Mrs. T,” I said, and she turned around.

“Sammie,” she said slowly with a soft smile, and pulled me into a hug. She smelled like so many different products mixed together, lotion and shampoo and perfume, but in a good way, in a way that fit.

“Thank you for everything,” I said, and choked back the tears I had been holding in all day.

“You’re going to be great,” Mrs. T said.

Then I couldn’t help it, the tears came for real, because of how many times she had said that to me over the last four years, before my first week in AP classes, before my first tournament, before the beginning of my senior year, before the disease came along and tried to mess up everything, and after. I knew this would probably be the last time she’d ever say something like that. Before she moved on to say her good-byes to someone else, I touched her arm.

She turned back to me.

“Will you introduce me out there? I mean, the speech?”

“Oh!” she said, considering.

“I know Principal Rothchild is supposed to do it, but it would mean a lot… you know… because you’re the only one who knows how big…” I swallowed back more tears. “How big a deal it is for me to do this.”

Mrs. T smiled again, determined. She nodded. “Of course I will,” she said. “I’ll go chat with Mr. R.”

Now the gym is standing room only, and everyone’s voices are swirling around in one big roar.

I should probably go. They are lining us up out there by last name. I’ll be between William Madison and Lynn Nguyen. Everyone is taking photos of themselves, and here I am, typing on a toilet. If I fail, let it be known that I was here, in a bathroom stall, going over the speech one more time. I tried.