Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(53)

“You’d do that for me?”

“Christ, Jims, I threw myself down a flight of stairs just to meet you, didn’t I?” It was a joke between us, but he didn’t laugh.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay, but I’m holding you to that.”

I didn’t hear from him for about a day, but I figured that was probably a good thing. It meant he was busy and having a good time. He called me Friday night.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“I need you to come.”

“What’s wrong?”

He hadn’t even gone down to USC yet. It sounded like all he’d done since he’d gotten to California was sit in his dad’s house. “I’m just having a little trouble getting started is all.”

But it was more than that. There was something in his voice that scared me. “Are you all right?” I asked.

He didn’t answer my question. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I looked it up. You can fly out of JFK tomorrow morning. I’d pay for the ticket. All you’d have to do is come.”

I found myself saying yes. I threw a couple of T-shirts, my laptop, a few randomly chosen CDs (I’d misplaced my iPod), my headphones, and another pair of jeans into my backpack.

I knocked on Dad’s door; he was on the phone, but he got off right away.

Despite the fact that I had been lying for a month, I am not a good liar. My stories are too elaborate and I forget them halfway through; I stammer; I sweat; I smile too much; I don’t make eye contact; I make too much eye contact. On this day, I was just right. “Dad,” I said, “I forgot to tell you that I’m supposed to go to a yearbook conference in San Diego tomorrow. I’ll be back Tuesday.” I was glad I hadn’t ever told him about quitting yearbook.

Dad didn’t even blink. “Do you need any money? A ride to the airport?”

I took the money; I got a ride from Alice and Yvette. Alice had just broken up with Yvette for the second time since the play had ended.

“Cookie, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“He sounded bad, Alice.”

“If he sounded bad, maybe you should have called his mother?” Yvette suggested.

“She just makes things worse,” I said.

When we got to the airport, Alice got out of the car to hug me. “Listen, cookie, we love James, too, but do any of us really know him even?”

“I do!”

“Okay, okay, if you’re sure.”

“Call us when you get there, Nomi,” Yvette said from the car.

I was anxious as hell while I was waiting to get on the plane.

My anxieties flipped between ten or so major issues, many of which also fell under the subheading “if the plane crashes”:

1) I hadn’t ever flown alone before.

2) If the plane crashed, Dad wouldn’t even know I was on it since he thought I was going to San Diego for a yearbook conference.

3) If the plane crashed, Dad’s last thoughts about me would be that I was a liar.

4) I didn’t pack enough clothes, especially socks and underwear.

5) If the plane crashed, I still wouldn’t be speaking to my mother.

6) If the plane crashed, there was a sister who would never know me.

7) James.

8) If the plane crashed, I would still be in a fight with Will.

9) If the plane crashed, I would never “dazzle” Mr. Weir. I would be “incomplete” for all eternity.

10) I hadn’t brought anything to read.

I figured I could fix the last one at least, so I went into the nearest airport bookstore.

On a table toward the middle of the store, they had Dad’s book, which was just out in paperback. Out Wandering: A Memoir. I turned the book over and read the copy. “From the celebrated writer who along with his wife, Cassandra Miles-Porter, brought you the bestselling Wandering Porters travel series comes this deeply personal memoir about the end of his marriage, as seen through the prism of world events…” blah, blah, blah “…how he and his daughter managed to find peace of mind even while…” blah, blah, blah “…and in some ways, we are all out wandering…” blah, blah, blah. It sounded dreadful. I read Dad’s bio at the bottom. “Grant Porter lives with his daughter, Naomi, in Tarrytown, New York.” I added a couple phrases of my own, “his daughter, Naomi, who is a low-down, rotten liar and who has been lying to him for weeks.”

As a pointless act of contrition, I brought the book to the counter, and with the money the author himself had just given me, I bought a copy.

I landed in California around ten in the morning. Even though he had arranged my flight, James was two hours late picking me up.

He hugged me hard when he saw me.

“Jims, you were supposed to be here two hours ago.”

“Traffic,” he said with a vague wave of his hand. “It’s just L.A. I’m so goddamn happy that you’re here.” And he did look happy, better than before he’d left. His eyes were bright.

We got in the car; I had been planning what I would say to him since we’d gotten off the phone. The idea was to move James in positive directions; the dangerous thing, in my mind, was inertia. “So I thought we could maybe start with taking a campus tour?”

“Is that what you want to do?” he asked.