Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(52)

“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.”