The Memory Book

by Lara Avery

  We didn’t talk much on the ride over, just about what kind of brownies would be his preference (no, I told him, I would not put weed in the butter), and where we’d meet later.

  Coop dropped me off at the bottom of Stuart’s driveway, and there he was, echoing warm waves back and forth: my boyfriend. He lifted me up to face level and we kissed like it had been two years since we’d seen each other, not two weeks. I had forgotten that he had a scent, a mix of that outdoor sweat and a clean detergent smell.

  “You’re better,” he muttered into my neck. “I’m so glad you’re better.”

  “Not all the way,” I said, and tensed a little, but that went away when he took my hand and we walked together toward his house.

  As we walked, Stuart jerked his head back toward the street and asked, “Who gave you a ride?”

  “Oh, just Cooper Lind,” I said.

  Stuart opened his white-painted door. “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen him around. What’s his deal?”

  The nerves in his voice were puzzling at first, and then as he faced me in his big open foyer, his long, thin arms across his chest, I realized: He was jealous.

  “Oh! Oh, no, Stuart—Coop’s just my dumbshit neighbor.”

  This seemed to relax him a bit, and the smile returned to his black eyes. I reached out and stroked his shoulders, touching the freckle on his collarbone. He put his hands around my waist, Stuart’s nose touching my nose.

  “Yeah, just your friendly neighborhood pothead. He used to play baseball at Hanover until they kicked him off the team for being too high all the time. He told everyone he quit,” I said, and laughed to mask the guilt that instantly grabbed my stomach.

  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that. Actually, I’m positive I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Stuart laughed with me. He tilted his chin to kiss me, and by the time I was done kissing him back, we had both forgotten what we’d been talking about.

  We walked through his house slowly, Stuart telling me stories behind all the objects: the handwoven rug his parents had waited a year to acquire while it was being knotted by artisans in India, the room full of instruments we could only be in for just a second to make sure the temperature stayed correct, the rack of spices his mother used to make her own chai. I giggled at school photos of Stuart through the years, one with braces, one without, one with long hair, the rest without. And the books, a whole room made of walls full of books.

  A section for fiction.

  A section for poetry.

  A section for biographies, for philosophy, for essays.

  After sandwiches, we walked toward the Dartmouth campus. I was nervous at every turn that I’d forget something, forget what I was talking about, forget where I was. I tried not to be distracted, but under everything I said, I was asking in my head, What if I fuck up?

  “What do you want to do?” Stuart asked.

  I shrugged. “How’s your writing going?” I asked.

  “This is so pretentious of me, but I’d actually prefer not to talk about it. If I talk about it too much, it… loses its luster. Takes a different form. Or something.”

  “I don’t mind,” I told him. At least one of us had work they were excited about. “I completely understand,” I said, trying to put on a smile.

  We ducked into the lobby of the Dartmouth performance hall. The last time we were near here, we were making out on the field behind it. Our footsteps echoed on the shining, checkered tile. I’d never been inside.

  “What time is it?” Stuart asked.

  “It’s two thirty,” I said. I had been checking my phone every chance I got, in case Mom came home and found me gone, or in case Coop was heading back early.

  Through the row of closed, arched wooden doors, the sounds of an orchestra floated out, muffled.

  Stuart knocked on the box office door.

  Suddenly, a balding man opened the door. When he saw Stuart, he smiled a little.

  “Glen, can we pop inside for a second?”

  “Eh.” Glen glanced toward the doors. “Fine. Go through the side door, though.”

  I mouthed what? You know him? as Glen led us down the hallway.

  Stuart whispered, “My parents are on the board.”

  I raised my eyebrows and resisted whispering back, fancy.

  We entered the performance hall without anyone looking up. The orchestra was in plainclothes, practicing. It was unearthly beautiful. We found seats near the back, in the dark.

  “So your parents…” I began.

  “They give as much as they can to keep this going—these are tough times for orchestras.”

  “I can imagine,” I said, watching the violinists chop the air in sync with their bows.

  “My parents used to be musicians themselves. They always tell me they were never that great, and they met because they were both third chairs.” Stuart laughed a little. “They realized at the same time that they weren’t going to go anywhere. It’s sort of bittersweet for them, but they loved music all their lives—Sorry. I’m talking too much.”

  “No, no,” I said, taking his hand. “I didn’t know your parents were musicians.” I closed my eyes. “It sounds like a fairy tale.”

  “This sounds like childhood,” Stuart whispered, leaning close to me.

  I thought of his house full of books and music, of every day being like this. I sighed. “I can’t help wishing I had a childhood like yours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I almost said rich, but it was not about the money. “Where books and music and philosophy brought me closer to my parents, not further away.”

  I thought of the one bookshelf we had at home, in the living room next to the TV, a mix of Dad’s mystery novels, Mom’s garbage magazines, and mostly kids’ books that Mom and Dad had read to us over the years. All my own books I just stacked on the floor in my room.

  And I’d never heard a professional orchestra before. It wasn’t as if an orchestra wasn’t something my parents would like, I’m sure they would, but it was so far off their radar, it might as well have not existed. The closest they got to a musical ritual was playing Johnny Cash while they sorted the bills. I smiled to myself at the image.

  Stuart whispered, “Trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I wish I was closer to my parents, too. I mean, they support me in whatever I do, but I feel like they know too much about books, and music, and writers. They know way more than me about good writing.” He let out a little defeated laugh. “Like, how are you supposed to impress people like that?”

  I was surprised. “I imagined you all sitting around at happy family dinners, drinking wine and talking about Kierkegaard.”

  “Ha! More like sitting around an empty table, in an empty house, because everyone’s in different cities.”

  That’s right, I remembered. Stuart’s family owned houses here, in New York, and in India. The orchestra started over.

  Stuart put his arm around me. “My favorite parts are actually parts like these, when the orchestra messes up, when they’re out of tune, when they play the same note over and over.”

  I turned to face him. “Why?”

  “I don’t like too much perfection. It scares me.”

  “It doesn’t scare me,” I said immediately.

  “Why?” Stuart echoed.

  I thought of all my plans, now ruined, and pushed down the sadness that was coming up in my throat. I would tell him soon. “Because I know it doesn’t exist.”

  The orchestra swelled. Stuart looked at me. “This is pretty close,” he said, and our mouths met long and slow. I didn’t know how to respond to that, because soon, I would be so far from perfect, I’d be unrecognizable.

  Stuart has his own world to juggle, and a book to write, and he doesn’t need another person to add to all the questions he has about his life, let alone a person who might slowly lose herself before he even gets a chance to know her better. I was too tired t
o tell him right then everything that was inside me.

  After Coop dropped me off at home, I wrote Stuart an email telling him about NPC. And that I will not be in New York next year. And that it’s probably for the best that we don’t see each other. I wish we had gotten to be in New York together, at least. It’s hard for me to even type that. I want him to stay with me until the end of the summer but I will try to be brave and try not to picture him riding the Q and N trains he loves so much with his arms wrapped around another girl, hurtling through the city.

  I’ll also say this: I don’t know much about boyfriends and dating, and now I won’t know much about love. But as last dates go, Future Sam, I’d say that one was pretty great.

  THREE NEW MESSAGES

  My god, Sammie, why didn’t you tell me? I mean that’s my initial reaction, but I understand you probably had your reasons. But regarding you and I: Are you kidding? Of course this doesn’t change anything. I want to help you through this. I want to be there for you. I don’t want to just run away. When can we meet?

  I think your phone’s off, by the way, because it’s just going to voice mail. But seriously, I’d love to come over and talk about this.

  Well, I just spent the whole night researching Niemann-Pick. This is so wild, and I can’t imagine you going through this alone. I would like to help you in any way I can. Obviously, yes, my life is up in the air right now, but I can’t think of just letting you go. Call me when you’re ready.

  So on one hand I’m dancing around my room in my underwear screaming HALLELUJAH at the top of my lungs. I just want to fucking ENJOY this because not everything has to make sense. On the other hand, Stuart has known me for two months and is pledging himself to me when he could be enjoying his summer diseased-girlfriend-free, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

  Either way, he is coming over.

  GRATITUDE

  A couple of hours later, I slid open the door and Stuart wrapped his arms around me, clutching my back as if I would float away.

  “Hi,” he said into my hair.

  “Hi,” I repeated, and when we let go, I took in his wet eyes, still with traces of sleep in them. It looked like he didn’t get a lot of it. “Thank you for being so wonderful,” I told him, and as I said it, a bang sounded from down the hall. My family was stirring.

  With Stuart and my parents in the same room—a room, mind you, covered in peanut butter–crusted plates and pillows from everyone’s various beds and crumb-filled blankets—I felt like a little girl again, looking back and forth from one person to the other, trying to follow a conversation that I didn’t quite understand.

  Stuart looked around at our wide, low-ceilinged room, the McDonald’s colors in the kitchen, the chrome table, the bookshelf in front of him lined with garbage magazines and kids’ books. I wondered exactly what Coop wondered the other day: if Stuart knew what he was in for.

  “So how long have you and Sammie known each other?” Mom asked after she had settled on the couch in her scrubs, next to my dad. Harrison had stayed in his room, and Dad sent Bette and Davy outside to play with Puppy. All of us held cups of green tea.

  “A few years, kind of,” Stuart said, looking at me. “But we’ve been seeing each other for just a few months.”

  “You understand that Sammie is in a compromised position, healthwise,” Dad said, giving Stuart an unblinking stare.

  Stuart nodded.

  My chest was tight. I pressed my hands into my cup, and took a scalding sip.

  Stuart hadn’t wanted to sneak out and talk, like I had wanted to. He was the one who wanted to speak to my parents. There was a little part of me wondering, why couldn’t he just talk to me? Like, why do we have to bring the adults into this right away? As usual, the McCoys always have to make things so intense. I tried to give Stuart an out.

  “Well,” I said. “Now that we’ve all made each other’s acquaintance, Mom, Dad, I know you have to get going to work.”

  I looked at Stuart, searching his face for signs of panic. But his hands were still calm, clasped lightly around his cup, and his gaze still steady. It appeared I was panicking for both of us.

  “Before you go, Mr. and Mrs. McCoy, I can’t imagine what you’re all going through,” Stuart said, setting his cup on the carpet so he could put his hand on my back. “When Sammie told me, I…” He took a deep breath, thinking, breaking his exterior a bit.

  Mom smiled encouragingly. He really did care. I couldn’t help but melt a little, too.

  “I researched what’s at stake, and I don’t want her…” Then he turned to me, probably aware of the way I tensed under his hand, that he was talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room. “Like I told you, I don’t want you to have to go through all this alone.”

  “We don’t, either,” Mom said, her voice catching in her throat. “And we plan on taking off more work if things get worse, as Sammie knows.”

  “But for now, it’s tough,” my dad muttered. “With the other kids and all that.”

  I sat as frozen as I felt. I was very confused, but I wasn’t sure why.

  Stuart was saying, “I may have to go back to New York at some point, but I’ll stay for as long as I can, and help out with the little kids while your parents are at work.”

  “No, no need to go that far,” I said, but my parents’ sigh of relief was audible.

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t know all this already, but I felt I was being discussed as a concept, rather than as a person. A concept everyone in this room deeply cared about, but a nonperson all the same. A generator of consequences.

  By the end of the conversation, Dad was taking Stuart outside, hand on his back, so he could show him where we kept the chicken feed. They emerged from the shed, my dad holding a brand-new fifty-pound bag hoisted over his shoulder, pointing with his other hand at the chicken coop.

  Hey, it’s movie night and it’s my turn to choose but Bette keeps saying it’s her turn which is just NOT TRUE so fine we’re watching Toy Story 3

  grandma took me and harry and bette to that one when it came out i think it was my brithday

  it was my birthday and we got cupcakes from lou’s and i remember we went to the movie and even thogu harry and bette liked it i did not

  mom keeps saying what are you writing

  non of your buiesness

  We’re watching Toy Story 3? It’s my turn to choose.

  They keep saying it’s beette’s turn but it’s not it’s either mine or harry’s that’s not how it goes

  they started the movie

  grandma took me and bette and harry to toy story 3 last year on my birthday and we bought cupcakes at lou’s and snuck them into the theeter in gramma’s purse

  WHOA there’s this little girl here

  She’s very cute

  they tell me to put away this computer and watch the movie but i don’t want to i don’t like toy story 3

  who’s this little girl

  i asked her who she was and she started to cry i’m sorry

  they’re telling me to pt this away

  oh i know her

  i think she is one of bette’s friends from preschool

  she’s crying

  no thanks id rather type

  no thanks id rather type

  i dont know that little girl

  HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO

  Last night I fell prey to one of the standard symptoms of dementia: reverting to the age I was when our movie night tradition first began, or maybe before that. Short-term memory gone, diving deep in the subconscious, I was a kid again. A kid who had not yet met her youngest sister, Davienne.

  Poor, sweet baby Davy. When I snapped out of it, and Mom and Dad told me what happened, I held her and rocked her and told her that of course I remembered her, of course, of course. It was just that I was feeling sick, and my brain wasn’t working right.

  She understood after a while. To make it up to her, I let her put stickers all over me.

  Movie night started when I
was eleven, Mom was pregnant with Davy. It was the first year we got a TV. Mom and Dad have always held the belief that staring at screens was bad for kids. That’s why I had to save up all my own birthday and Christmas money to buy this laptop, and why my parents still only carry flip phones. (Grandma and Grandpa bought me a smartphone last spring because they knew I used it to look things up for debate.) Anyway, it’s pretty understandable why they gave in. Three kids and a soon-to-be infant, two full-time jobs, and no options for a babysitter in a five-hundred-person town.

  The ones I remember:

  WALL-E: Harrison’s choice. First movie night ever. Dad accidentally burned the pizza but Mom ate it anyway. In fact, Mom was hugely pregnant and ate the whole thing herself. Mom and Dad were asleep by the end of the movie so Harrison and I started the DVD over from the beginning. When they woke up at midnight, they were astounded at how long the movie was. To this day they still think WALL-E is four hours long, with no dialogue, just robots beeping at each other, and will never let us watch it.

  STAR WARS EP. 1: A few years later, I’m pretty sure Davy was two or three. It was Dad’s turn to pick, and he was excited to “encounter contemporary efforts at the classic science fiction franchise.” When Jar Jar Binks started talking, he grumbled, “What is this racist bullshit?” and all of us pretended like we didn’t hear him at first, but then Mom started laughing, and Davy yelled, “Bullshit!” Harry laughed so hard he cried.

  MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO: Bette’s choice. She was around six. Coop came over for this one, because he loved Hayao Miyazaki, the filmmaker. He taught everyone how to pronounce the director’s name. The freakiest, most beautiful cartoon I had ever seen, full of colors and creatures, and it wasn’t all happy-go-lucky. It was about death and friendship and dark magic. Pretty sure this was when Bette discovered she might be from another planet. Every day for a month after she saw it, she wore Totoro ears she made out of construction paper, and stretched all her shirts out by putting pillows under them, chanting, “Totoro! Totoro!” One day I came home from school and found Coop in the front yard with her, prancing around, his shirt also stuffed with pillows.