His office door was closed. I was about to knock but I could hear he was on the phone with someone. I didn’t want to interrupt him—Dad hated that—so I loitered in the hallway outside his door and waited for him to be finished. I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop, at least not at first.
“…looks normal, but I’m worried, babe,” he said. Silence, and when I next heard him his voice was muffled. “…psychotherapy…”
I wondered who Dad was talking to about me. Mom, maybe? But he wouldn’t be calling her “babe”…
“…break it slowly. Everything in its time.”
Break what slowly? Was I still the subject? I tried to listen more closely, but he moved somewhere else in the room where I couldn’t hear him at all. The next time I heard him he was laughing. It was definitely not my mother. “Caracas!” he said. “I wish I could…”
Dad had always traveled a lot for his job; in addition to the books he wrote with Mom, he wrote articles for travel and men’s magazines. I concluded he was probably talking business. It made me resentful, actually. I hated being small talk, just another one of his stupid anecdotes. To tell you the truth, I didn’t care who he was talking to. I didn’t want to be anyone’s topic of discussion.
As I stalked back to my bedroom, I vowed to be less anecdote-worthy. That way, people wouldn’t talk about me over late-night phone calls or in the goddamn bathroom at school.
As much as it was in my control, I would be normal.
By the end of the week, I had obtained a doctor’s note permitting the sunglasses, and I gleefully presented it to Mrs. Tarkington. “Well, it’s certainly not orthodox,” she said, but she wasn’t the type to argue with something on hospital letterhead.
Other than that, I occasionally got lost; I occasionally heard people talking about me; I occasionally told them to go screw themselves. Under my breath, of course—I was normal. In order to tolerate our arctic cafeteria, I brought a couple of extra sweaters. I let Ace hold my hand in the hallways. I never went back to the greenhouse.
On Saturday night, my campaign for normalcy continued when I went with Ace to a party that a tennis buddy from another school was hosting. Ace didn’t bother to introduce me to the friend—maybe I already knew him?—and I never figured out who he was on my own either.
For all practical purposes, Ace abandoned me nearly as soon as we arrived. He became enmeshed in an elaborate drinking game that involved shots, dice, quarters, darts, a bull’s-eye, and chest bumping. Although I watched the game for about fifteen minutes, I came out with no sense of the rules or how the winner was determined. I suppose it was like any drinking game. Last man standing.
I’m not being fair. Ace did ask me a couple of times if I was having a good time. I lied and told him I was. To tell you the truth, I was glad that he was occupied because, aside from tennis, I hadn’t been able to figure out one thing that we had in common. If our conversations were a play, they would have been like a high school version of Waiting for Godot:
Ace: Do you remember that time Paul Idomeneo got really stoned and jumped off the roof onto his dad’s trampoline?
Me: No.
Ace: Well, it was pretty awesome.
Me: Sounds amazing.
Ace: Yeah, that kid was hard-core as hell. So, do you remember that time…
(And repeat. Endlessly, endlessly repeat.)
I suppose he was trying to be helpful, telling me little things that might jog my memory. Unfortunately, Ace had no sense of what would interest me, and I was too embarrassed/polite/normal to question him about anything important, like, for example, What do I see in you? From the stories he told, our relationship had consisted largely of a bunch of parties where people acted like jerks interspersed with the occasional game of tennis.
I probably should have broken up with him. I didn’t, though, mainly for two reasons: one, I didn’t want to end it if it turned out that I really did love him (and I still held out some hope that my feelings would all eventually come back to me); and second, I’m a little ashamed to say, though it was probably the more important one, being with Ace made school easier. He protected me from those nasty lunch girls. Despite my memory being gone, I wasn’t a moron. With my multiple sweaters and not knowing who anyone was, I knew how I looked to people, and I knew how vulnerable my situation at school was without Ace to define me socially. Being with him went a long way in my campaign for normalcy.
Ace brought me a beer, which he opened for me. “I had to go to the fridge to get this. The ones in the coolers were all hot. Having a nice time?”
I smiled and nodded and watched him walk away.
But I wasn’t having a nice time, and looking around the place, I wondered if anyone there was. Because everyone looked a little miserable just below the surface, even Ace with his inexplicable game.
I’m pretty sure the doctors had mentioned something about avoiding alcohol and it turned out to be very good advice. Another one of the “fun” side effects of my injury was that I couldn’t hold liquor at all. Halfway through my first beer, I was starting to feel ever so slightly smashed. I decided to go look for a place to lie down. I made my way to a bedroom on the second floor, but it was occupied by other partygoers.
I wanted Ace to drive me home, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. It was probably just as well. The last I’d seen him, he’d been pretty wasted and not in the greatest vehicle-operating condition.
I made my way out to the front lawn. I really wanted to get home. Unfortunately, the party was about twenty miles from Dad’s house, so I couldn’t walk. As I stood there puzzling it out, I started to have that déjà vu feeling. Had I been to this house before? Had I been in this situation? Might my memory be coming back? It wasn’t any of those things, of course. The only reason it felt like déjà vu was because it was the most clichéd situation in the world—I was the star of a driver’s ed video on designated drivers.
I called Will on my cell phone to see if he would pick me up, but he wasn’t answering. I left him an incoherent, rambling, probably embarrassing message. I was too drunk to worry that my English teacher might be the recipient.
Reluctantly I called Dad at home, though I knew he wasn’t likely to be there. He’d gone out with Cheryl and Morty Byrnes, travel writers who used to be Dad’s and Mom’s friends, but now were just Dad’s. I had commented that it was strange, because Cheryl Byrnes had really been Mom’s friend in the first place. Dad’s response was that “In situations of infidelity, the cheated-on always gets all the mutual friends.”
Dad didn’t pick up the home phone so I dialed his cell. I cleared my throat and tried to make myself sound less drunk.
“Naomi,” Dad answered, worried.
“Daddy,” I said, and then I completely ruined my plan to sound less intoxicated by starting to cry.
“How much did you drink?”
“Just the one, I swear. I thought one would be okay.”
I managed to explain to Dad where I was and he said he’d come and get me.
While I was waiting for Dad to pick me up, Will called me back.
Will also offered to drive me home, but I told him it was too late, I’d already called Dad.
“Where was Ace in all of this?” Will asked icily.
“The game,” I answered.
“What game?”
“The rules to the game were unclear.”
“Chief?”
“Oh, Will,” I said. “Silly, silly Will. I have to wait for my daddy now.”
“Honestly, Naomi. You aren’t supposed to drink after a head trau—”
I hung up on him. The phone rang again, but I ignored it. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I lay down on the sidewalk and concentrated on not throwing up. I set my purse on top of my stomach, like a flag so that Dad could locate me, or a grave marker, if he didn’t.