Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(46)

We spent the rest of the afternoon throwing cameras down the steps of Tom Purdue. Some of them had timers, which we could set prior to throwing them. With others, we’d press the button and throw the camera really fast to get the shot in midair. Still others were total Hail Marys and we hoped they’d land on the button and take a picture as they hit the ground. I had no idea what sort of images we were getting, but at least it was fun.

On the second-to-last camera, James cut his thumb on one of the shattered lenses. He didn’t even realize it until I pointed it out to him. “How could you not notice?” I asked him.

James laughed. “I’m used to bleeding for you.” He held up his palm. I kissed it, right in the middle. I was about to move from palm to mouth when I saw Will watching us from the front doors of the school. When he caught my eye, he came outside really fast and started heading down the stairs.

“Hello, Naomi,” he said. “Larkin.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Working on the weekend?” James asked Will.

“Never stops,” Will said stiffly. “You’re bleeding, Larkin.”

“I blame her,” James said.

“Naomi,” Will said softly, “do you really think you should be running up and down these stairs without a helmet?”

“A what?” James asked.

“You know, for her head. If she reinjured herself—”

I cut him off. “I’m fine, Will.”

Will just nodded. “See you around. Naomi. James.” He nodded again as he said each of our names and then he was gone.

“It’s lucky he didn’t see us sledding.” James touched my forehead. “You’d look pretty cute in a helmet actually.”

Because he was cut, I tried to send James home without me, but he wouldn’t go. He insisted on helping me pick up the camera carcasses, which I was against. “When I was a kid,” he said, “I had a tendency to let other people clean up my messes. I’m trying not to be that way anymore.”

I pointed out that this wasn’t his mess; it was mine.

“Still,” said James. By then, the blood was practically pouring from his thumb. I wondered if he needed stitches.

“You wouldn’t be abandoning me if you stopped to get a Band-Aid, you know.”

I didn’t have time to develop the film in the school’s lab until the following Wednesday.

There wasn’t much to look at. A few shots of sky. Some concrete. A lot of black. Still, the point wasn’t always that the pictures be pretty, was it? Sometimes it was about the process, like with Jackson Pollock paintings. As I made enlargements of the photos, I hoped that Mr. Weir would see it that way.

Mr. Weir hated my project. “It’s an interesting gimmick, but it wasn’t the assignment. Your assignment was to tell a personal story in pictures.”

“This is a personal story.” I defended my project. “This is exactly what happened to me.”

“Naomi, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that this isn’t personal. It’s simply that the assignment counts for your whole grade, and I’m expecting something deeper.”

When the bell rang, I took my pictures with me and stuffed them in my locker.

“What did Weir think?” James asked. He was standing behind me at my locker.

“He didn’t get it.”

Blank-slate time all over again.

Saturday afternoon, James, Alice, Yvette, and I took the train into the city to see a show. We hadn’t decided what we would see, and when we got there most everything was sold out. There were a couple of tickets left for the Rockettes’ Holiday Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, so we went to that, despite the fact that Alice found it “degrading to women” and James found it “campy.”

Even if you have no interest in lines of aging showgirls wearing too much makeup kicking up their legs, there’s something impressive about it. Something spectacular. It’s like a sicko cloning experiment.

At intermission, James went outside for a smoke, and I went to the bathroom. Alice and Yvette remained in the theater to argue about whether the show was “objectifying women” (Alice) or “celebrating their athleticism” (Yvette). I didn’t necessarily think the two positions were irresolvable.

There was a long line outside the bathroom. I wondered if I would make it through before the show started again. Not that it mattered. The spectacular didn’t have a story you had to follow—it was just a bunch of women standing in a row.

Someone placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Naomi Porter?”

I turned around. It was a Japanese guy, maybe in his thirties. He was wearing expensive black glasses, a Rolling Stones T-shirt, a red hoodie, charcoal pin-striped pants, and black Converse sneakers. He was holding the hand of a little girl in a gray dress with hearts on it and pink sneakers, Converses like her dad’s.

“You probably don’t remember me,” he said. “I’m Nigel Fusakawa.”

The name was familiar.

“Cass’s husband,” he added. “Everyone calls me Fuse.”

He stuck out his hand, and without thinking I shook it.

“She was supposed to come today, but she has a bit of a cold.”

I nodded.

“Could you do me a favor?” he asked. “I’m here by myself. Would you mind taking Chloe to the bathroom?”