Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(22)

Like what? I wondered, but didn’t say. “Besides, my memory might still come back.”

James’s house was on its own private road. The house was gray stone and not really a house at all. A mansion, I suppose. It would have seemed larger had it not been in the middle of an even more expansive lot. It reminded me of estates I’d seen in France when my parents had “wandered” there the summer I was seven. I didn’t even know they had such houses in North Tarrytown.

James had no neighbors, and even though it was already evening, there wasn’t a single light on that I could see. It seemed lonely. I wondered how many people lived there.

Despite Will’s plaintive looks, I got out and walked James to his door. The knocker on the door was an enormous iron lion’s head. Its nose and eye were badly dented. It reminded me of myself.

“I probably would have freaked out if you hadn’t been there. I didn’t get a chance to tell you before.”

“I’m glad I could help,” he said.

“I wanted to call you, but I didn’t know your number or anything. So, well, thanks, I guess.” I reached out to shake his hand.

“How formal,” he said. He surrounded my palm with his other hand before gently squeezing it.

We seemed frozen in that handshake, and then Will honked the car horn.

“I think your friend wants to go,” James said. He let my hand drop and said coldly, “I should go, too. Thank him for the ride.”

I decided not to take James’s sudden changes in temperature personally. Some people were like that. He’d been kind to me when I’d needed someone and to expect anything more would be unreasonable. I’d thanked him now and that was enough. Besides, I already had a boyfriend.

As he was pulling out of James’s driveway, Will asked me, “What the heck took so long?”

I said how I’d just been thanking James again, and Will said, “That kid’s a strange duck.”

I asked him what specifically he meant.

“Well, and I don’t know if this is true, but when he transferred here, they said it was because he went crazy over some girl at his old school.”

I asked him what specifically he meant by crazy.

“Like stalking her and making threats. That kind of crazy. I heard the girl had to get a restraining order or something,” Will informed me.

James didn’t seem the type to me. If anything, he was overly respectful. Plus, he had that trustworthy voice. “How do you know it’s true?” From what I could tell, everyone at school just liked to talk crap about everyone else.

“Do you want to know what his nickname was at his old school?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Crazy James.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him.

“Duh, it means he’s”—he twirled his finger in a circle around his ear in the universal sign of psychotic—“crazy. Loco.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s not even a real nickname. It’s his name and an adjective.” Will was being so childish.

Will shrugged, as if to say, Don’t blame me.

“You made up the whole thing with the nickname, didn’t you?”

“No, of course not!” Will sighed. “Maybe. But the point is, it could have been his nickname. It was for illustrative purposes. All the other stuff was totally, totally true, Chief.”

We got to my house and Will patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry if all the yearbook stuff seems overwhelming at first. I’ll pick up the slack until you’re feeling completely up to snuff, okay?”

Will was fond of old-lady phrases like up to snuff, which probably would have amused me if I hadn’t been feeling pretty annoyed with him at this point. “Thanks. Say, Will, why do we like yearbook so much anyway?”

About a million colors passed over Will’s face. He began by sighing and that turned into a laugh. His brow furrowed for a second, and then his blue eyes seemed to cloud, like he might cry. He didn’t cry though.

“Is it a hard question?” I asked.

“No. It’s probably ludicrous…I just hoped it might be something you would remember on your own. I know it might seem lame to some people, but we both really believe in what we’re doing. I’d say you even more than me. To us, it’s not just a book with a bunch of pictures. It’s an icon, a symbol. It gives the younger kids an ideal to aspire to, and the older ones who’ve graduated something to hold on to when the world is hard. We both really believe that it can define the school and the way people see the school. A good high school yearbook can make a better school. And better kids. And a better planet. And a better universe. We write the story of the year. If you think about it, it’s a huge responsibility.”

“Good speech,” I said sincerely.

“I’ve given better. We used to always talk about all the things we would do when we were finally running the show. How we’d really include everybody in the yearbook, and make it democratic and personal at the same time. How we’d make sure it wasn’t just pictures of the popular people and the athletes and the kids who were friends with people on the staff. You’re all three, by the way.”

“I am?” I knew the athlete part to be right, but I hadn’t felt at all popular in my one day at Tom Purdue.