For about a week, maybe two.
It was easy to lose track of time.
3
I WOKE SUDDENLY: THREE SHARP TAPS ON MY window. I was startled because my old bedroom had been on the second floor. In other words, no one could knock on the window unless they had superpowers, like the ability to fly.
I sat up in bed and pulled back the curtain. It was dark outside, but I could still recognize Ace Zuckerman. I had seen his picture in my wallet and on my desk and in the yearbook and other places, too. In the flesh, though, he looked about as opposite of James as it gets. The contrast between my “boyfriend” and my “pretend boyfriend” was almost comical.
Ace was wearing jeans, like James had been, and a warm-up jacket. On Ace, though, everything was really filled out. I didn’t have to see it to know that underneath his jacket was certainly not a faded concert T-shirt. Ace’s hair was light brown and sort of shaggy. He was muscular. And handsome, I suppose, though in an almost cartoonish way. Everything about him seemed too broad, too big. If someone had asked me right at that moment, I would have said, “Definitely not my type.”
I opened the window, and he swung himself over the frame. He moved like an athlete, and he knew to throw his legs way out in front of him so they wouldn’t hit the bookshelf under my window. The casual grace of his movements alerted me to the fact that he had entered my room that way many times before.
The first thing he did was kiss me. On the lips. And he didn’t ask my permission either.
I couldn’t recall him ever having kissed me before.
I actually couldn’t recall anyone ever having kissed me before.
So, in a way, this was my first kiss.
He tasted like Gatorade (could have been worse I suppose), and his tongue was dull, directionless, and too much in my mouth. The nicest thing I can say about it was that it ended quickly.
He pulled away, but was still sitting on the side of the bed. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
“No, but I know who you are. You’re my…” He looked at me hopefully, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. “My…”
“Boyfriend,” he finished. “Ace.”
“Yes, my boyfriend.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. It’s just…I was away at tennis camp. I’m a counselor this year and…”
“Really, you play tennis? I do, too.” I was just making conversation. I already knew that, of course.
“I know you do. That’s how we met. You’re good.” All of a sudden, he smacked himself in the head, and the violence of it actually scared me. “I choked! I should have left camp early. I should have come!”
“It’s fine, Al.”
“The name’s Ace,” he whispered.
“I know that.” I had no idea why I had called him Al. I knew his name, but I think I had been momentarily stunned by the self-flagellation.
He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Here, I brought you something. I was at the camp Pro Shop, and I guess these reminded me of you.” He took a pair of white terry cloth tennis wristbands out of his pocket.
I wondered what about me screamed tennis sweatbands to him. Had he meant them as a joke? I could tell by his mouth—a thin pink line of determined patience and anticipation—that he hadn’t.
It certainly wasn’t the most romantic gift ever, but you know, it was obvious the guy meant well, so I put the wristbands on.
“Looks nice,” he said. “With your, um, pajamas.”
I walked over to my closet mirror under the pretense of looking at my wristbands, but what I actually did was study Ace’s reflection. I was trying to figure him out, and sometimes it’s easier to do that when people don’t know that you’re looking at them. I watched him watching me. His eyes were tired, and he seemed pleased that I was wearing his gift. Maybe there was something wistful in his look, maybe it was the pills in my drawer (duh), but all of a sudden I realized that I was probably having sex with him. I also decided I didn’t want to have that conversation just yet; it was difficult to predict where such a conversation might lead.
Instead, I turned away from the mirror, walked across my bedroom, and kissed him again, like maybe I could figure things out that way. His lips were soft, but his chin was sandpaper against my face, even though I hadn’t seen any hair on it. After about ten seconds, which seemed like way too many, I pulled back. “So, thanks for these,” I said. I didn’t know how to break it to Ace that the doctors said I had to refrain from all sports for the next couple of months. “Do I, um, play much tennis this time of year?”
“You start practicing in early spring,” he reported. “But you’ll definitely get a lot of use out of them then. I was thinking long-term, I guess.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “about the way I came in. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I should have let you kiss me. I definitely shouldn’t have used tongue. I, well, I panicked. I choked. I’m not usually a choker. Not on the courts. Not off them either.”
I told him it was okay, that these were confusing times or something like that. Then I said I had a headache, and he took that as his cue to leave the same way he’d come.
I closed the curtains. I was about to take off the wristbands when Dad knocked softly at the door. “Oh, you’re awake? I was just planning to slip out.” I looked at the clock; it was already 9:30 p.m.
“Where?” I asked.
“Just to get some coffee. We’re all out, and I’m probably going to be up late working,” he said. “Do you need anything?”
I told him that I didn’t.
“I’ll be back in a half hour,” he said. “Nice wristbands, by the way.”
I listened to him close and lock the front door.
I listened to him back down our driveway.
Our house was so quiet.
I took off the wristbands.
Even though I was still drained, I couldn’t fall back asleep.
I decided to put on my headphones and listen to Will’s mix.
The first song was, of course, “Fight Test.” I remembered Will saying that it had something to do with how we met. So I decided to call him.
“Hallelujah, your phone’s back on,” he said. “I wanted to call, but my mom said I should let you rest.” I let him ramble on about the yearbook and the letter he’d written me and some research he’d done on the Internet about amnesia and whatever else popped into his head.
“So, how’d I meet you anyway?” I asked him when he’d finally paused for a breath.
“I know this is gonna be hard to believe, but you didn’t like me straightaway.”
“No?” I said in mock incredulity.
“Indeed, my friend. I grew on you. I’m like that. I’m a grower. But officially, we met the first day of ninth grade in an informational meeting for The Phoenix, but you know we didn’t meet that day, not really. We just saw each other and exchanged names and went on about our business. The first time I really met you was about a month later. They had taught us how to lay out pages on the computer, and I was watching you work over your shoulder, which is something you despise though I didn’t know it at the time—”
I interrupted, “Actually, that’s something everyone despises.”
“Right, that’s good advice there, Chief. I’ll make a note. Back to how we met, you pasted a picture of the cheerleading team onto the page and it was starting to look really nice, but it made the copy shift so that only the first line of the caption paragraph was left on the bottom, what they call—”
“An orphan, I know.” I didn’t know how I knew, but I did.
“Hey, you remember! That’s a good sign. I said to you, ‘Sucks about the orphan.’ And you turned around and gave me a look like you wanted to kill me. You thought I was talking about you being adopted—”