Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(64)

“After the staring has continued an appropriate time,” the TV narrator went on, “the male porcupine covers the female from tip to toe with his own urine.”

“Please do not ever do that to me, darling,” Rosa told Dad.

“His own urine?” Dad asked. “Isn’t that redundant? Who else’s urine might he be using?”

The TV narrator advised “never getting too near porcupines mating,” which seemed like sound, if obvious, advice to me.

I didn’t hear what happened after the urination because my cell phone rang, so I went into the dining room to answer it. It was Will’s girlfriend, Winnie.

“I was wondering if you’d heard from Will,” she said stiffly.

I hadn’t spoken to him since lunchtime, which wasn’t particularly uncommon since I wasn’t on yearbook anymore and we didn’t have any classes together. He’d sometimes call me at night, but just as often not. “No,” I said. “Why?”

“No one’s heard from him since the ambulance came. We thought he might call you.”

“Winnie, what are you talking about? What ambulance?”

“You haven’t heard, then?” she asked.

Obviously. Why do people always ask that? I said, “No, Winnie. Please tell me.”

It had started after school at The Phoenix. First he had had a coughing fit and then he said he was having trouble breathing. He tried to continue working, though everyone could tell he wasn’t himself. Then he passed out. He woke up right before the ambulance got there. Winnie said that he told everyone to keep working, and that nobody should come with him in the ambulance, and that he’d call with instructions later that night. “Isn’t that so like Will?” Winnie asked. “Only he never called in with instructions, which is completely not like him, and now everyone’s freaking out. I should have gone with him. I can’t get Mrs. Landsman on the phone.” Her voice was small. “Do you think he’s dying, Naomi?”

“I’m sorry, Winnie, I have to get off the phone now. I’ll call you if I hear anything.” My hands were shaking.

Dad muted the porcupine program and called out from the living room. “Is everything okay?”

I took a deep breath. I dialed Will’s home number, but no one picked up.

“Is everything okay?” Dad had come into the dining room.

“It’s Will,” I told Dad. “They…” I cleared my throat. “They took him away in an ambulance. He’s sick. We have to go to the hospital.”

Dad looked at his watch. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Besides, it’s nearly ten o’clock, Naomi. They won’t let you visit him until tomorrow anyway.”

“I have to know what’s wrong.” I started heading toward the door.

“Wait!” Dad said. “I’ll call the hospital first.”

While Dad found the number to the hospital and called it, I thought of how Will knew everything about me, and how if he were gone, part of me would be missing forever. I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who wants to know all your stories.

Dad hung up the kitchen phone and said, “They have a William Landsman, but of course they wouldn’t tell me anything about his condition. We can’t ring his room because it’s too late. But if he has a room, he’s definitely not dead, Nomi.”

“What if he’s dying, Dad? I’m going down there.”

Dad sighed. “It’s ten o’clock. Visiting hours are over. Besides, it’s storming out.” There was a particularly brutal late spring downpour going on outside with wind, lightning, and all the special effects.

“Maybe his mom will be in the waiting room? And she could tell us what happened,” I argued.

Dad looked me in the eye. “Okay,” he said finally, grabbing his keys off the dining room table. “Rosa, we’re going out for a bit.”

In our rush we had forgotten umbrellas, and Dad and I got completely soaked on the walk from the parking lot to the hospital.

When we got there, the waiting room of the pediatrics unit was completely empty. I whispered to Dad that he should ask the nurse behind the desk if she could tell us about Will’s condition. I figured they’d be more likely to respect an adult than a teenage girl. But when the nurse asked if Dad was Will’s guardian, Dad shook his head no, like a goddamn idiot.

I burst into tears. My dad could be so annoying.

The nurse looked at me curiously. “I recognize y’all. Head trauma in August, am I right?”

I nodded.

“I pretty much have a photographic memory for faces,” she reported. “How you been, hon?”

“Mainly good. Except my friend Will might be dying and no one will tell me anything,” I said.

“Oh, honey, he ain’t dying. He just has”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“pneumonia is all. A bad case. His lung collapsed, but he’s sleeping now. And I didn’t just say that.”

I leaned across the desk and kissed her once on each of her cherubic peach cheeks, even though getting physical with total strangers was not my thing at all.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you, thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “And I didn’t just say that, either.”