And screw James. They were his rules, not mine.
Not to mention, I’d had my fingers crossed.
I knew Dad wouldn’t let me drive up to Albany by myself and especially not to visit James.
I called Will. “Coach,” I said. I knew I was laying it on a bit thick with the “coach” bit, but I needed Will to be in as good a mood as possible.
“What do you want?” Will asked.
“So the thing is,” I said, “I sort of need you to drive me to Albany tomorrow.”
“Why in God’s name would I do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. It had basically been a Hail Mary. I’d been a jerk to Will. So I told him goodbye and I started to hang up the phone.
“Wait a second. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it yet.”
“Okay.”
“What’s in Albany?”
I told him.
He lowered his voice. “Honestly, Naomi”—he’d stopped calling me Chief ever since I’d quit yearbook, and now that I had my memory back and could remember what good friends we’d been, it stung—“don’t you think I have better things to do on a Saturday than drive you to see your crazy boyfriend?”
“Yes. I’m sure that you do.” I wanted to add that James wasn’t crazy, but I knew by Will’s question that he was coming round.
“I have a yearbook to run. By myself, I might add.”
“I know.”
“And a girlfriend now.”
“Yes.” I’d seen him and Winnie Momoi. Everyone said how cute Winnie and Will were together. Even their names were alliterative.
“Well, I just wanted to make sure you appreciated that my whole life doesn’t revolve around you anymore,” he said. “You’ll pay for gas. And meals. And incidentals.”
“Incidentals? Like what?”
“Like…like sundries and vitamins and pens. Like I don’t know like what. I was just on a rhetorical roll. Incidentally, how long does it take to get to Albany?”
“Two hours, I think.”
“Okay, that’s two CDs. I gotta get started on a mix for tomorrow. Because even though I’m driving you, I’m still not speaking to you, Naomi.”
I decided not to point out the obvious: that he was, in fact, speaking to me.
I heard him flipping through his CDs in the background. “Songs for Visiting Naomi’s Crazy Boyfriend in Albany.” Will and his mixes.
“Catchy title,” I told him.
“I’m gonna fill it with all the famously mad and/or suicidal recording artists. Jeff Buckley. Elliott Smith. Nick Drake. And maybe a couple love songs, too. But the really, exquisitely tortured kind.”
“There’s one other thing,” I told Will. “I need you to call my dad and tell him that it’s something I have to do for yearbook.”
“Christ, Naomi, I am not going to lie for you.”
“Please, Will…He’ll believe you. I can’t go otherwise.”
“He knows you quit,” Will said after a moment.
“I know. Just say it’s something I committed to before that only I can do.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m not promising anything. Not to mention, I don’t like the idea of lying to your dad.”
That night, Will called my dad and told a very short story about my having agreed to photograph the Special Olympics.
Dad didn’t question Will. Everyone knew that William Blake Landsman was no liar. Besides, I think Dad could tell I needed to get out of the house.
We left at noon on Saturday. Mainly I pretended to sleep in the car. I was too nervous to even talk to Will.
When we got there, Will told me he would wait in the car.
“I need you to come in with me,” I said.
“Why? Are you scared?”
“No…well, I think there’s a small chance that he might not want to see me, so I need you to give your name at the desk.”
“He doesn’t know you’re coming?” Will was incredulous.
“Not exactly,” I admitted.
“Congratulations. This sounds exceedingly well planned,” Will said as he opened his door.
I had expected a prison, but Sweet Lake reminded me of Thomas Jefferson’s house, Monticello, where I had taken a field trip in fourth grade. Or maybe it looked like a very large B&B.
Visiting hours on Saturday lasted from noon to seven. I had called ahead. It had been that same receptionist, and I’m pretty sure he recognized my voice because he said, “You do know that patients have the right not to see someone.”
Will gave his name at the desk, and then we went to wait in the visiting room.
“Will,” James said, coming through the door. “Is something wrong with…?” Then he saw me. At first, I thought he was going to walk right back through those doors the same way he’d come, but he didn’t.
He walked to the sofa where Will and I were. After a while, James sat down, but he wouldn’t look at me.
When he finally did look at me about five minutes later, it was not in a very pleasant way at all. “So?” he said.
I had rehearsed what I wanted to say ever since I’d decided to come. I took a deep breath.
I thought about asking Will to leave, but I didn’t. “I think you”—I turned to James; I didn’t care if he wanted to look at me or not—“have gotten the idea that if I could remember everything, I wouldn’t want to be with you. And since that is the case, I shouldn’t be ruining my life by being with you in the meantime when you’re so…flawed. Is that right?”
He nodded and muttered under his breath, “Something like that.”
“Well, here’s the thing. I haven’t been an amnesiac since January. I love you now. It’s not gratitude or amnesia. It’s love. And I know you’re screwed up. Everyone is screwed up. I don’t care.”
“You’re a goddamn liar,” James said.
“I can’t believe it,” Will said. “How could you not say?”
I looked at Will.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
His face was flushed. “I’ll wait for you by the car,” he said. And then he left.
James didn’t speak to me for a long time. Finally, he said, “Let’s go outside. I can’t be in here anymore.”
It was a nice day, and I don’t mean that it was sunny either. It was humid and not too cool, like winter was getting annoyed with itself and wanted it to be spring just as much as everyone else. We sat down at a picnic table.
I remember wanting to touch him, but not feeling like he would let me. Eventually he took my hand. “It’s cold,” he said. He cupped his hands, which were dry and warm, around mine.
“Sometimes,” he said after a while, “I was sort of jealous of your amnesia, I know how crazy that probably sounds. Because for so long in my life, I just wanted to forget everything that had ever happened to me…
“After my brother died, it became real easy to picture myself dying young. But recently I’ve realized that I’m probably not going to unless I do something to make that happen. I know this probably seems evident to you, but it’s, well, it’s news to me. And if I’m not going to die young, that means I’m stuck with the consequences of my actions. That means I have to figure things out, do you know?”
I did.
“Because now, I’m older than my brother ever was. And I’m going to go to college, which is something that he never did. The way I see it, now’s a really good time for me to get a handle on all of this.
“As for you…well, I just don’t want you to turn into another Sera,” he said. “But you make things difficult for me.
“I wish we’d met some other time,” James said. “When I was older and had my shit together. Or younger, before everything got so messed up.