Mostly at Target, of course. (Right? I wasn’t going to Paris on a school-librarian’s salary.) A budget-conscious renaissance, but a renaissance all the same: scarves, purses, necklaces, striped knee socks, platform sandals, circle skirts, lipstick. The crazier and more colorful, the better. All the color I’d spent my entire life avoiding came flooding back in—as well as the fabrics, the movement, the textures.

I may have gone a little bit overboard. It’s possible I tilted a bit more toward “circus clown” than fashionista that first year. But it didn’t matter. The transformation saved me. It gave me something to do—something to look forward to and get excited about. It gave me a way to call attention to myself that was positive.

In a situation full of downsides, it was undeniably an upside.

I might never drive again, but dammit—I had a fun wardrobe.

And, to be truthful, through all that, the memory of Duncan Carpenter was kind of my inspiration.

He was definitely fashion-fearless.

I thought of him a lot during that year—his collection of pants and ties alone was great food for thought. If there was a crazy pair of pants in the world, he owned it. He had plain cotton pants in every color from red to green to purple, as well as seersucker, and a whole collection of patchwork madras. He had pink pants with flamingos, blue pants with palm fronds, and yellow pants covered in pineapples. Honestly: American flags, hibiscus flowers, hamburgers, dalmatians.

Not to mention his rule that he’d wear any tie any student ever gave him, which gave rise to a whole collection of doozies: rubber ducks, flying pigs, ice-cream cones, Frida Kahlo, and even Einstein sticking out his tongue. The kids got competitive, trying to find him the craziest, most shocking ties. And from dollar bills to Homer Simpson to cans of Spam, he wore them all. On picture day every year, he wore a tie with his faculty photo from the year before printed all over it for a picture-within-a-picture infinity effect.

And don’t even get me started on his socks.

It was more about the surprise of it than anything. The whimsy, and the naughtiness, and the rule-breaking. It had an effect on other people. Kids teased him about his fashion choices, and so did adults, and he liked it. It was something he did for himself—but also something he did for others. It was a way of making his own rules—but doing it so cheerfully that nobody minded. It started conversation after conversation in the loveliest, most self-deprecating way.

It disarmed people. It relaxed them. It put them in a good mood.

I mean, this was a guy whose permanent faculty name tag, which should have just listed his name and department, like, “Duncan Carpenter/Kindergarten + Athletics,” every year, mysteriously came back with a “typo” so that it read: “Duncan Carpenter/Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

That was Duncan: a human mood-enhancer.

Wearing the flower hat to school that day did many great things for me—but I never expected it to give me a taste of what it felt like to be Duncan Carpenter.

It felt pretty good.

In the wake of that flower-hat day, the number one question I started asking myself when getting dressed in the morning became, “Is it fun?”

Later, I would read a bunch of books on color theory and the psychology of joy that would explain exactly how bright colors and whimsy create actual, neurological responses of happiness in people. But back then, I didn’t know any science. I just knew that wearing a red dress covered in flowers to work with polka-dot sandals made me feel better.

And I’d really, really needed to feel better.

Now, this morning, I had many, many complex feelings about seeing him again—but one of them was definitely excitement. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to see him again. And I wanted him to see me again—or maybe even see me for the first time—all new-and-improved, no longer mousy, no longer invisible, no longer trying so hard to disappear.

Which made my choice of outfit this morning extra critical.

This was a way of standing up for myself. A way of saying I’d had all this color inside me all along. He hadn’t chosen me back then, but back then, I’d been hiding.

I wasn’t hiding anymore.

I was a lady with a flower hat now.

Faced with darkness, I had chosen flowers. And polka dots. And light.

And if anybody on earth would appreciate the hell out of that, it was Duncan Carpenter.

* * *

And then—finally, at last, and way too soon—it was eight forty-five. Time to head over for the nine o’clock meeting.

Since waking up, I’d changed outfits no less than seven times—finally settling on an apple-red shirtdress, a pale blue polka-dotted scarf around my neck, stewardess-style, and blue open-toed platform sandals that matched my blue pedicure. Nowadays, my hair was down past my shoulders—mostly for the fun of braiding it and wrapping it up in wild buns.

I’d kept the bangs pink, though.

Pink bangs had kind of become my signature thing.

I added hoop earrings and red lipstick and subtle winged eyeliner that gave a retro Mary Tyler Moore vibe. Alice had given me a little pack of edible tattoos in cupcake flavors for my birthday with little empowering sayings, like, I REALLY DON’T NEED YOU, BECAUSE I SAID SO, and I WOKE UP LIKE THIS. I went ahead and applied one—YOU GOT THIS—to the outside of my bicep, even though my sleeve covered it. I could smell its faint caramel scent through the fabric.

You got this.

I wanted to be amazing. Not something as ordinary as “hot” or something as common as “pretty.” I wanted to be astonishing.

Kind of a tall order for a Monday morning faculty meeting.

Before I left, I put my hair in two high buns and stuck little paper flowers in them, Frida Kahlo-style.

Then I pulled my bike and its flower-covered basket out of the garage, and I got on.

It was the longest three-block biking commute in the history of time.

I couldn’t wait to see Duncan Carpenter again exactly as much as I hoped he would never show up. I longed for the moment to arrive as plainly as I dreaded it. And, just as I had since the moment Kent Buckley had spoken Duncan Carpenter’s name, I thought about his arrival fully as often as I refused to think about it.

Which was constantly.

What would it be like to see him again?

In that photo Kent Buckley had shown us, Duncan had cut his hair … so that would be weird. The Duncan I’d known and loved had sported the very definition of bed head—some different configuration every day. A lovable mess.

In the photo, Duncan had seemed undeniably different: more grown up, more serious, better at shaving. But I couldn’t think of Duncan as a guy in a suit.

I knew who Duncan was.

He was a guy in a Hawaiian shirt.

The anticipation woke up all my senses, raised my awareness of everything—the feel of the wind over my skin, the sounds of the cars going by, the color of blue in the sky, the flock of pelicans gliding by overhead. My insides were tingling with nervousness—in good ways and bad.

Would he be glad to see me? Would he remember me right away—or would I seem so different it would take him a second? Would he like my new vibe? There was always the possibility that he wouldn’t. How would I respond to him if he told me to tone it down? Would I be the old me and nod meekly, eyes downcast—or would I get sassy, lift my eyebrows, and say something like, “Says the man in the flamingo pants”?

Would it be joy or would it be agony? There was no way to tell.

But my money was most definitely on both.

* * *

I arrived right on time, expecting to find Duncan handing out donuts, or arm-wrestling somebody, or doing the robot on the stage. Expecting the fun would’ve already started.

But when I stepped through the doorway, Duncan wasn’t there yet.

The way our historic school building was set up, the cafeteria did double-duty as a theater. A kitchen at one end, and a stage at the other. This was why all large school meetings took place in the cafeteria—and why we could never hold assemblies at lunchtime.

My nervousness crescendoed as I stepped through the doorway, but then it subsided.

The chairs were full of teachers.

But no Duncan.

I was both relieved and disappointed at the same time

I blinked. Scanned again. And then I decided to leave the room quickly and come back later.

Look, this was Duncan Carpenter.

I couldn’t be just a dot in an audience the first time I saw him again. I needed to stride into the room, tall and resplendent in my red outfit like a slightly funky and very Technicolor goddess, thankyouverymuch. This was the biggest crush-slash-heartache of my life, and I had a lot to prove and a whole new paradigm about myself to set up—right before I quit forever.

This had to be a heck of a moment, and I wouldn’t get a do-over.

I needed to make an entrance.

Was that so unreasonable?

Answering my own question, I threw myself in reverse—lifting a finger like I’d forgotten something, then backing up and spinning around, figuring I’d take a lap around the cloisters and come back in five for a second grand entrance attempt.

But guess what?

Duncan himself was right behind me—striding through the doorway just seconds after I had. So when I stopped, spun around, and reversed direction—all in the span of one second—I ran smack into him.