Gabrielle Zevin - Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

He examined me from both sides and then from the front. “A little swollen around your left eye and cheekbone, but most of it’s covered by the tape and gauze.”

“Look under the gauze, will you?”

“Chief, I am not looking under the gauze for you! It’s completely unsanitary and probably against the rules! Do you want me to get kicked out of here and not be able to visit you?”

“I want a report before I have to see it for myself. I want to know if I’m, like, disfigured.” I tried to say this casually, but I was scared. “Please, Will, it’s important.”

Will sighed heavily before grumbling, “I said I’d tell you anything, not that I’d do anything. I want it on the record that I, William Landsman, did not want to do this, and am furthermore not trained for medical procedures.” He went into my room’s doll-house W.C. and washed his hands before returning to my bedside. He placed his left hand gently on the right side of my face before using his right hand to slowly remove a section of surgical tape from the left side near my hairline. “Tell me if I’m hurting you. Even a little.” I nodded.

When one of my hairs got pulled in the tape, I winced what I thought was imperceptibly, and Will stopped. “Am I hurting you?”

I shook my head. “Go on.”

Ten seconds later he had removed enough of the tape so that he could lift up the gauze and look under it. “There are nine stitches, and a raised knob right below that, probably the size of a brussels sprout, and a larger bruise spread out across your forehead. None of it looks permanent. You’ll probably have a tiny scar from the stitches.” He refastened the gauze as delicately as he had removed it. “You’re still insanely, unfairly, torturously beautiful, and that’s the last I’m gonna say about it, Chief.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You are welcome,” he said jauntily. “Glad to be of service.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Don’t think I’m unaware that you were really just fishing for compliments.”

“Yup, you see right through me,” I said.

Will leaned in close and whispered, “Come on, admit it. You really do remember me. All this amnesia crap is so you can get a break from The Phoenix. ”

“How’d you know? I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings, Landsman.”

“That’s real considerate of you.”

“So, what’s my boyfriend like?” I asked him.

“Let’s see. Ace Zuckerman is an awfully good tennis player.”

“You’re saying you don’t like him.”

“As he’s not my boyfriend, I don’t think I’m technically required to, Chief.”

“What about James Larkin?”

“James Larkin. Larkin comma James. Yeah, we haven’t really met him yet. He’s new this year, which is unusual for a senior. I think he might have gotten kicked out of his last school or something.”

“A delinquent?” That was interesting…

Will shrugged. “I only met him this morning when he dropped off the camera at The Phoenix and he was polite as anything. FYI, the kid is nothing like Ace Zuckerman.” He paused. “Or me.” He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out his laptop. “You have your headphones with you, right?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

“You always do. Where’s your bag?”

I pointed to the closet in the corner of the room. Will opened the door and started digging through my backpack, which probably should have bothered me, but it didn’t. It seemed like someone else’s bag anyway. He pulled out an iPod, presumably mine, then plugged it into his laptop. “When I heard from your dad, I decided to make you a mix. Don’t worry. I burned it for you, too.” He handed me a CD and a playlist entitled Songs for a Teenage Amnesiac , Vol. I. “It’s not one of my best. Some of the selections are a little broad,” he continued, “but I was under time constraints. I promise that Volume II will be better, as it is with, for example, the second record of the Beatles’ White Album or the Godfather movies.”

Will handed me my headphones and put away his laptop. He started speaking really fast. “It’s hard to make a good mix. You don’t want anything too cliché, but you don’t want to make the songs too obscure either. Plus, you can only fit about nineteen tracks on a CD, and you want each one to say something different, and you want a balance of slow and fast songs, and then there’s the added pressure of making sure each track organically leads to the next. Plus, you’ve got to know the person for whom the mix is intended really well. For example, on yours each of the songs means something. Like the first one is sort of how we met freshman year. I thought it might jog your memory.”

I read the CD liner. “‘Fight Test,’ the Flaming Lips?”

“Yeah, I was on the fence between that and ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part I.’ And also ‘To Whom It May Concern’ by John Wesley Harding. I eliminated that one first ’cause I had another of his songs I wanted to use and it’s bad form to duplicate artists. The one I used instead is called ‘Song I Wrote Myself in the Future,’ and it’s the next to last track.”

I was about to ask him how we had met, but I was interrupted by the arrival of someone who made me forget the mix and William Landsman for the time being.

“Hi, Mrs. Miles,” Will said to my mother.

“Hello there,” she replied uncertainly.

Will laughed. “We’ve never met before, but I’ve seen your picture. I’m William Landsman, Will.”

“Could we have a moment alone?” my mother asked Will.

Will looked at me. “You’ll be okay?”

I nodded.

“I should be getting back to yearbook anyway,” Will said.

“There’s yearbook in the summer?” I asked.

“It never quits.” He took my hand in his and shook it rather formally. “I’ll call you,” he promised. “Don’t forget to charge up your cell phone.”

After Will closed the door, neither my mother nor I spoke.

My mother is beautiful, and since I’m adopted you can know I’m not saying that as some sort of backhanded way of telling you how pretty I am. Besides, everyone says so. And she isn’t beautiful in any of the clichéd ways. She’s not tall and skinny and blond with big boobs or something. She’s little and curvy with wavy light brown hair halfway down her back and almond-shaped ice blue eyes. It felt like I hadn’t seen her in forever. I almost started to cry, but something kept me from doing it.

Mom, however, did not hold back. She burst into tears almost as soon as she got to my bedside. “I told myself I wasn’t going to do that,” she said. She mock-slapped herself across the face before taking my hand.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Your dad told me not to come, that you didn’t want me. But how could I not come?” She looked at my face. “Your poor head.” She ever so gently stroked my brow, and then she leaned over to hug me. I pulled away. I needed to know a few things first.

“You and Dad are divorced.”

She nodded.

“But why?”

Dad came into the room then. His voice was hard as bricks. “Yes, tell her, Cass.”

“I can explain.” Mom’s eyes started to tear again. “You were twelve when I ran into Nigel. It was just by chance.”

“Who’s Nigel?”

“Her high school boyfriend,” Dad answered for her.

“Just by chance,” Mom repeated. “I was waiting for the subway, and it was the most random thing in the whole—”

I told her that I didn’t want a story, only facts.

“I…” she began again. “This is so hard.”

I told her that I didn’t want adjectives and adverbs, only nouns and verbs. I asked her if she could handle that. She nodded and cleared her throat.