Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(39)

He didn’t answer.

“When my dad came in?”

He still didn’t answer.

“About kissing me and if you had permission?”

“Yeah,” he said in a low voice, “I remember.”

“Well, you would have had it.” I took a deep breath, and then I added, “I’m not with Ace anymore.”

He took my hand in his and said, “Naomi, don’t you think I knew that?”

Then I kissed James, or he kissed me.

(Who knows how these things start?)

And then I kissed James again, or he kissed me again.

(And if you don’t know who started it, it’s hard to know what came next.)

And I and him, and him and me.

(I will always remember that he tasted like cigarettes and something passing sweet, which I could not quite identify.)

Andiandhimandhimandme.

(And so on.)

It might have gone on like that forever except that Dad knocked on my door. “Kiddo?”

James and I broke apart, and I told Dad to come in.

“I didn’t know you had company,” Dad said.

“I don’t, not really. James just stopped by to pick something up, and I didn’t want to bother you if you were working. You met James at the hospital, remember?” I went on and on. Even though we hadn’t been doing it or anything, I knew that that kiss was written all over my face. Also, I couldn’t stop smiling.

Dad nodded distractedly. “Oh hey. Yeah.” Dad reached over to shake James’s hand. “Thanks for all your help, son.”

James nodded. “My pleasure. Well, I’ve got my shirt.” James held up the shirt, presumably for Dad’s benefit. “Guess I’ll be on my way. See you in school, Naomi.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I said.

As I walked James to the door, he whispered to me, “Is that gonna cause trouble for you?”

“My dad’s cool.” I really didn’t care if it did anyway. “Whenever I break one of Dad’s rules, I can always claim amnesia.”

“I believe you used it with the CliffsNotes, too,” James pointed out. “But—”

“Don’t deny it, Naomi. It really is a good, all-purpose excuse. Robbed a bank? ‘But, officer, I didn’t remember I wasn’t supposed to rob banks.’ I wish I could use that one, too.”

“What would you use it for?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Things. Mainly things I’d done in the past, but you never know what might come up.”

At the door, he kissed me again.

When I got back to my room, Dad was waiting for me. Of course, he wanted to know if I was seeing James, but I wasn’t sure of the answer to that yet. “Not technically.”

“He’s very handsome, and he looks older than you, if I’m not mistaken. Both of which do not exactly recommend him to me, your dear old dad. I assume you know what you’re doing though.”

I nodded.

“In any case, I came to talk to you about the wedding.” He said that they were planning to have it at a hotel on Martha’s Vineyard the second weekend of June. It would just be me and him; Rosa Rivera and her two daughters, her sister, and her brother; Dad’s mother, my grandmother Rollie; and “significant others of the aforementioned.” He said Rosa Rivera wanted me to be a bridesmaid along with her two daughters, which struck me as ridiculous.

“But, Dad, I barely know the woman!”

“You’d be doing it for me, too.”

“Not to mention who’ll be left to watch the wedding if nearly everyone’s a bridesmaid?”

Dad said that wasn’t the point.

“It wasn’t that long ago you were lying to me about even having a girlfriend, and now you want me to be in your wedding. It seems fast and unfair, and…”

“And?” Dad prompted. “And what?”

I thought of when James had said “screw the past,” how right that had felt. I was moving forward with James, and Dad was moving forward with Rosa Rivera, and screw whatever had come before. I was going to be all about now, about am, about present tense. “Tell Rosa Rivera I’m happy to be her bridesmaid.”

Dad’s stunned look was pleasurable in and of itself. “I thought we were in for the long haul on this one, but I guess not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled, but why the sudden change of heart?”

I felt reckless and happy, so I kissed my father on the cheek. “Oh, Dad, what possible difference can why make anyway? Just go with it.”

My phone rang. It was Will, so I told Dad I had to take it. Dad just nodded. I could tell he was still dazed by my turnabout. I vowed to do it more often.

“You sound different,” Will said skeptically. “Your voice is all full of…I don’t know what.”

I laughed at him. I liked being unpredictable, unreadable.

“It’s that cat James,” he said simply.

This seemed to come out of nowhere. I hadn’t mentioned James to Will since that day we picked him up. “Sort of,” I admitted. “What makes you say that?”

“I have eyes, Chief. I saw your play. I read the program. If you’re in love, I’m happy for you. You don’t have to hide it. He certainly seems more interesting than Zuckerman.”