“I’m not sure I understand. Why would you have lost James?” Dad asked quietly.

“Because…maybe it won’t make any sense to you, but not having pasts was something we had in common.” It hurt me to even say this next part. “I think it might have been one of the main reasons he liked me.”

“I doubt that very much.” Dad smiled for a second and then he sighed. “You can drive again?”

I nodded.

“Shame about you being grounded, then.”


I didn’t talk to James until Tuesday night, when he got back to Tarrytown. I probably wouldn’t have even gotten to talk to him then except that Dad had left me alone for about ten minutes, so that he could go get coffee.

We didn’t discuss L.A. or anything that had happened there. To tell you the truth, I was overjoyed just to hear from him. I had been worried he might not make it back from California at all.

He didn’t say anything at first, but I knew it was him.

“I can’t stay on the phone long, Jims,” I said finally. “I’m not even supposed to be on the phone now.”

He apologized and then he got even quieter—so quiet, I could hear Raina watching TV in her bedroom, and the fridge making ice, and Raina’s cat, Louis, lapping water from his bowl. When James did finally speak, his voice was so strange. He asked me, “What do you know about yourself for certain?”

I said, “My name.” I laughed to let him know I was done discussing the matter.

He must have taken it like a dot-dot-dot instead of the period I had intended, because he continued, “Besides your name. Besides your name, besides the facts, what do you know about yourself to be true, essentially true?”

Normally, I liked his…I guess you’d call it philosophy, but on this night it was sort of scaring me.

I told him that I loved him, because it was all I could think to say. “I wonder,” he said. “I just really wonder. If you knew everything, would you still feel the same?”

I should have just confessed that I did, in fact, know everything, but I didn’t.

Then he said, “How do you know that being in love with me wasn’t some grand mental delusion?”

I felt insulted, like he was saying that everything that had happened between us didn’t count for anything. I took it the wrong way, and I didn’t say what I wish I had said, something like, “Love is love. It’s not about knowing, and besides, I know everything I need to know anyway.”

Instead, I told him I had to go; Dad would be back any minute, and I was in so much trouble already.

Then in a clear, strong, reassuring voice, he said he loved me, too (that too still smarts), and that he’d see me in school the next day, which ended up being a lie.

At lunch, I called his cell phone from the school pay phone. Raina answered. “Naomi,” she said, “I was about to call you. It’s been a hectic day.” Her voice was scratchy and raw, as if she’d been up all night talking.

“Is something the matter with James?” Given James’s history, all manner of horrific possibilities came to mind.

“No,” she said. “No, he’s fine.”

Then she told me. James had voluntarily decided to go back to Sweet Lake, which was the Albany mental health facility he’d been in a year ago.

“Why?” I asked. “He was fine.”

“I think that he was feeling a bit overwhelmed” was all she said at first.

“He was fine.”

“And he basically is fine, but he didn’t want things to get bad. They have before for him, you know. It’s good, honey, he’s trying to be responsible.” She said that it might only be for a couple of days, and that he was in the transitional facility, not the full-on psych ward or something. The difference was that at the transitional facility, he could still keep up with his schoolwork and make phone calls. “It’s really just a house, Naomi,” she said. “He’ll probably call you in a couple of days once he’s settled in.”

I was numb, but underneath that numbness was an indignant little tumor. I couldn’t believe he would take off without even telling me himself.

A week passed without any word from James.

I decided that if he wouldn’t call me, I would call him. There were things he should know and things I needed to say. So whenever Dad was working or out, I would phone Sweet Lake.

I called him maybe thirty times over the next three days, but he never called me back. There wasn’t a direct line to his room or anything. Eventually, I put it to the receptionist point-blank, “Is he getting my messages?” The receptionist sighed or sniffed very heavily—over the phone, this sounds like the same thing—and replied, “Yes. He’s getting your messages, but sometimes a patient doesn’t feel up to returning a call.”

Screw that. I would go see him myself.

I hadn’t forgotten my promise to him. I hadn’t forgotten his “rules.” But I didn’t want him locked up without knowing the truth: I hadn’t been with him because I was delusional or an amnesiac. I had loved him. I think I really had.

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.