Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

by Gabrielle Zevin

  “Um, okay.”

  “I think you might make a good Hamlet…I like the idea of a girl Hamlet, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?” I watched her make a note on a legal pad and wondered when I could slip out of the theater without her seeing.

  At that point, we were inside the theater, and Alice turned her attention to organizing the auditions. I probably could have left, but something kept me there. With its dingy red velvet seats and its scuffed wooden stage, the theater reminded me of a foreign country. It was like all of a sudden discovering that Prague or Berlin was in the middle of my high school. The room was overflowing with nervous energy and excitement, and I guess I wanted to see how it would all turn out.

  Before the auditions, Alice made a speech, a few words about the play and her “vision” for it. I liked how passionate she was about things, and somehow she made me forget that I had intended to leave.

  As I was at the top of Alice’s list, I was the first to read. I guess because I didn’t much care whether I was cast or not, it was pretty painless. I even got a few laughs. Whether they were a result of my incompetence or my comedic skills, I couldn’t have told you.

  I rushed up to the yearbook room. By that time, I was about twenty-five minutes late, and yearbook was in full swing. Without even talking to Will or anyone else, I set down my bag and went immediately to work going through the foreign language clubs’ group photos.

  “I like that one,” Will said, pointing to a picture of the Spanish Honor Society in sombreros. “Better than just a bunch of kids standing around.”

  I nodded. I had already selected that one myself.

  “Maybe all the foreign language club group photos could have themes? Like French in berets?”

  “Oui. Eating French toast.”

  “And French fries. Very culturally sensitive and subtle.”

  “Or how about the sign-language club dressed up like Helen Keller?” I joked.

  “Or the Latin club in a graveyard. You know, ’cause it’s a dead language?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Yeah, that last one’s too gimmicky. I like Helen Keller, though. Why don’t you get on that, Chief? How exactly does one dress up like Helen Keller anyway?”

  “Blindfolds? Ear muffs?” I shrugged and went back to going over the pictures.

  “Why were you late?” Will asked.

  I was about to tell him the story, pass it off like a big joke, but at the last second I didn’t. Even though he hadn’t been anything but nice, I wanted it to be my own secret, something Will didn’t know about me. I doubted I would even get cast in the play anyway, but I wasn’t ready to laugh about it yet either. “Mr. Weir kept me after class,” I lied.

  “Still haven’t come up with your project?”

  I shook my head.

  Sunday night around nine, a girl called me on my cell. Her voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Cookie,” she said, “what’s the story? Are you in or are you out?”

  “In, I guess?” In my opinion, it is always better to be in if someone gives you the choice. But actually I had no idea what the girl was talking about.

  “Cookie, do you even know who this is?”

  “No,” I admitted, but that had been happening to me pretty much all the time. I was learning to go with whatever.

  “It’s Alice Leeds, the director of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and I need to know if you’re my pretty girl Hamlet,” she said.

  “But, Alice, I don’t really know the first thing about acting.”

  Alice didn’t care. “These drama kids have so many bad habits, which I need to break them of anyway. You’re a virgin, and that’s what I like about you. So come be in the play, dolly, it’ll be divine, I swear.”

  Even though I knew Will would probably murder me, I found myself saying yes.

  Play rehearsals started the following Monday, which gave me many opportunities to confess to Will. I didn’t. Instead, I told him that Dad was now making me see a therapist every Monday and Wednesday after school (I was already wasting my time with that every other Tuesday night), and that he shouldn’t expect me until around five on either of those days.

  Rehearsals began with everyone in the cast saying their name and the part they would be playing. Next, Alice introduced the crew, which included her assistant, a wardrobe girl (Yvette Schumacher, Estragon from English), the lighting and scenic designers, and others. The very last person Alice introduced was James Larkin, who was designing the video installation to accompany the play and who took no notice of me at all. I wasn’t completely sure what “designing the video installation” meant, but I had no intention of asking him either. James had made it perfectly clear that whatever had happened between us in the hospital was just about him being a Good Samaritan, nothing more.

  We read through the play. I had more lines than I had been expecting.

  After that, Yvette measured me for my costume. While she worked, I watched Alice and James having a discussion across the theater. “That new guy is scorching,” Yvette said. “Totally Alice’s type. I should be jealous.”

  “Jealous of James?” I asked.

  “No, silly, Alice,” she said. “She’s my”—she lowered her voice—“girlfriend, but she likes boys, too. I don’t know why I’m whispering. It’s not exactly a secret.”

  Of course, everything was a secret to me.

  “How long have you and Alice been together?” I asked.

  “Just since the beginning of last summer. She’s been my best friend since third grade, but it was extremely tortured for a while. It took us forever to admit anything to each other.”

  Rehearsal was over just before six. As I was walking out, Alice called me over. “Naomi, cookie, come and meet James!”

  James said, “We’ve met before.” He studied me. “Her hair was different then.”

  At his mention of my hair, I felt self-conscious and reached up to play with it.

  “Don’t listen to him. It’s brilliant,” Alice said. “I never would have thought of you for the part if you hadn’t done it. She looks just like that actress from the French movie, I can’t remember her name.”

  “Jean Seberg,” James said. “A bout de souffle. In English, Breathless. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. 1960. The film that started the nouvelle vague. My second favorite Godard film. It’d probably be my favorite Godard except that it’s everyone’s favorite, so my first is 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her.”

  “James is a movie buff,” Alice reported, despite it being perfectly evident.

  “And Jean wasn’t French, she was American,” James said. “Not to mention, your hair is darker than hers. Incidentally, I didn’t say it was different in a bad way.” He cocked his head lazily and squinted at me. “I like it better now.”

  “Well, now that that’s out of the way,” Alice said, clapping her hands. “You’ll be working together.” She explained that it was her intention that Hamlet’s story be an important part of the video projections. “You both should get started as soon as possible,” Alice said.

  James asked me if I needed a ride. He suggested we sort out our schedules on the way home. His car was out of the shop.

  Even though I’d been planning to go upstairs to The Phoenix to work, I found myself saying yes.

  During the short ride to my house, we figured out that Saturday afternoon was the best time for both of us (he worked Saturday and Sunday nights), and before I knew it, he was pulling into my driveway.

  “Hey,” I said, “how did you know where I lived?”

  “That is a good question,” he said.

  I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, so I asked him why it was a good question.

  “The thing is, I looked it up. I thought I might stop by your house to see how you were doing.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “Guess not.”

  I considered saying how I wished he had, but then Ace’s face popped into my head.
For better or worse, Ace was still my boyfriend, so it didn’t seem right for me to be flirting with some other guy, particularly one who ran as hot and cold as James.

  Instead, I told James that I would see him on Saturday and got out of the car.

  Later that night, I was on the phone with Ace. “But what about homecoming?” he asked. The dance was also that Saturday, and we had planned to go with Brianna and her boyfriend, Alex. Alex had been one of Ace’s best tennis team buddies before he graduated and went to NYU.

  I assured him that it was fine. “I’ll be done with play stuff around five.” I decided not to mention James.

  “Is that gonna give you enough time?” Ace asked.

  “What do you know about it?” I countered.

  “I do have a sister, Naomi. All that girl stuff takes serious prep.”

  “How long does it take to put on a dress?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t know. What about your makeup? Your nails?”

  “You worried I’m gonna be ugly, Ace?” I teased him.

  “Guess you won’t be needing much time for your hair.”

  “Ha,” I said.

  James picked me up on Saturday at noon. When I got outside, I could see that Yvette was sitting in the front seat of his mom’s station wagon, and in the backseat was a suitcase full of period costumes. I hadn’t known she was coming.

  Once I was in the car, Yvette turned around to look at me. “James and Alice thought it would be cool if you played Ophelia and Hamlet in the projections, so I’ve got costumes for both. And a wig for the Ophelia part.”

  We drove to a park a couple of towns over in Rye. And James videoed me standing on a rock in a Hamlet costume, and then lying soaked in a river as Ophelia, and the day pretty much went like that until a ranger came to kick us out of the park because we didn’t have the proper permits for shooting video. James reasoned with the guy and said since we were students we didn’t need permits, and the ranger said we could stay fifteen minutes longer. This was fine with me; I was completely freezing and had been all day. Even though I hadn’t complained, James remembered about my being cold and made sure that Yvette covered me up with a coat whenever we weren’t shooting. James was really professional that way. I’d seen my mom at work, and he reminded me a little of her.

  Back in the car, Yvette said she had to go get ready for homecoming. She was going with Alice and a group of girls from drama. James said he would drop her off first and me second. On the way to her house, Yvette teased James about not going to homecoming. “Just about everybody in the play asked him, you know. Girls and boys,” she said to me.

  James laughed. He said that not everyone had asked him and that he had to work anyway.

  When we reached Yvette’s house, James and I helped her take all the costumes inside. She kissed James on the cheek. My involuntary and embarrassing reaction was to wonder if I could get away with doing that same thing when we got to my house.

  Yvette kissed me on the cheek, too. “Maybe I’ll see you tonight, doll,” she said.

  On the drive to my house, James asked me if I was going to the dance that night. I told him that I was, “With Ace.”

  “Ah yes, the jock. Good name for a tennis player, Ace is.”

  “Unless you’ve got a run of bad serves,” I joked.

  James didn’t laugh, but then it hadn’t been much of a joke, I suppose.

  About a minute later, he said, “You were good out there today. Really game and relaxed. You made things easy for me. You’re amazing at keeping still.”

  I laughed. “What can I say? It’s a gift.” I told him how my mom had been a photographer, so I had spent most of my life posing for one thing or another.

  “Had been?”

  “Well, still is. But we’re not really speaking at the moment.”

  He didn’t push me to say anything more about my mother, which I appreciated. “I don’t know a thing about acting, so that probably accounts for my relaxation,” I said.

  “Maybe you should just accept the compliment,” he said.

  But I’d never been much good there. At least not that I could remember. “Where do you work?” I asked.

  He told me that he worked at the community college as an AV specialist, which basically meant projecting movies and videos for their adult education classes. “Pays pretty well, and my dad thinks I ought to have a job. I get to watch a lot of things I wouldn’t otherwise get to see.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, over the summer, there was this class on Swedish cinema, so I’ve pretty much watched everything Bergman ever did. Do you know who Ingmar Bergman is?”

  I shook my head.

  “He’s this brilliant director. His films are mainly about sex and memory. You’d probably find them interesting with…well, everything that’s happened to you,” he said. “And now there’s this class about the films of Woody Allen, so I’ve been watching a lot of his, too. I like him, but not as much as Bergman.”

  “I love Woody,” I said. “My parents used to always rent all his movies when I was little. I especially love Hannah and Her Sisters and The Purple Rose of Cairo.” I was glad that there were some things I could still remember liking.

  “Maybe you could come down sometime and watch a couple?” he suggested. “I could get you in. Not that it’s any big thing. You could bring your jock.” I’m pretty sure he was teasing me with that last part, but his deadpan made it hard to tell.

  By then, he was pulling into my driveway. I told him that I doubted that Ace even liked Woody.

  “Probably not,” he said. “Have a good time at your dance, Naomi.”

  I wore the black velvet dress from my closet because I hadn’t had time to buy anything else. (Maybe the truth was that I hadn’t made time to buy anything else.) At the very least, I couldn’t remember having worn it before.

  “Even better than last year,” Dad said when I came downstairs.

  When he came to pick me up, Ace didn’t mention my having worn the dress before. He just kissed me on the cheek. “You look nice.”

  Ace drove us all to the dance. I sat in front with him, and Brianna sat in the backseat with Alex, who, despite being Ace’s good friend, turned out to be a complete dick. I actually felt sorry for Brianna, which was saying something. The boy was drunk before we even left for the dance, and he kept trying to kiss her and paw her. I kept hearing her say, “No, Alex. No. Just wait, would you?” and other things like that. Ace turned up the radio, I think, to give them privacy, but maybe he was simply tired of listening to Brianna’s protests.

  Finally, I turned around and said, “Look, Alex, hold off for fifteen minutes, will you? She wants to look nice for her picture, okay?”

  “Naomi, it’s fine,” Brianna said icily.

  I tried to make a joke of it. “She probably spent the last ten years getting ready.”

  I think I heard Alex mumble something about “immature high school kids,” but I wasn’t sure.

  The rest of the car ride was completely silent. I could tell Brianna, Ace, and that tool Alex were all pissed at me. I didn’t care about Brianna or Alex, but I felt somewhat bad about Ace. I started to regret having said anything in the first place. I mean, a girl like Brianna could take care of herself.

  Inside the dance, they named the homecoming king and queen, and I saw one of the freshman staffers from yearbook taking pictures. I could tell that the pictures weren’t going to turn out well. For one, the angle was too low, which would give everyone double chins, and for two, he wasn’t getting any sort of variety. I went over to him and told him to stand on the table. He did. Then he thanked me and said that he was getting better stuff. He showed me a few in his camera’s digital monitor. I took off my heels and got on the table and shot a couple of frames myself. It was the most fun I’d had all night. I started to hypothesize that maybe the reason I had gotten so involved with yearbook was because I had liked taking pictures. Maybe it had been that simple. I wondered if it was all that simple—if
my memory never came back, maybe it was as easy as asking myself what I liked and what I didn’t like.

  When I turned to get off the table, Will was standing under me. “Can I help?” he asked, offering me his hand.

  I accepted it. It’s difficult to get off a table in a dress.

  “I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it. I despise these things. Patten got sick, so I had to cover the photo keychain booth.” The photo keychain booth was one of yearbook’s many fundraisers. “Your dress—” Will began.

  “I know, I know. It’s the same one I wore last year.”

  “If you’d let me finish, I was going to say that it looks better with your hair that way,” he said. “You clean up good, Chief.”

  “Thanks.” I slipped my heels back on, and I was now looking down at Will a spike’s worth. “I like your suit,” I told him.

  “Had to improvise.” He was wearing an emerald velvet suit and a paisley shirt. He was the only person dressed even remotely that way. “Get any good homecoming court pictures?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Just your usual thrill of victory, agony of defeat.”

  “Ah, youth. Bittersweet. Fleeting,” he wisecracked.

  “Exactly.”

  “I watched you, though,” Will said, looking me right in the eye. “You looked really, really…happy up there.”

  I had been happy, but I didn’t like the way Will was looking at me. No, looking isn’t the right word. Seeing. I wasn’t comfortable with how much Will saw. He made me feel transparent when I was still opaque to myself.

  He said he’d tried calling me that afternoon, but that my phone had been off. I was about to make up yet another lie when Ace was suddenly by my side. “Will,” Ace said.

  Will nodded. “Zuckerman.”

  “Been harassing my girl?” Ace said, putting his arm around me.

  I knew that objectively speaking there was nothing wrong with Ace calling me “his girl,” and yet the arm offended me. It seemed over the top. “Just yearbook business,” I said.

  “Right. Always with the yearbook business,” Ace said in a nasty tone that perplexed me.