I worked very hard at pretending the epilepsy had never even happened—and did a very thorough job of forgetting.
So when it came back—out of nowhere, in my midtwenties—I had some feelings about it. Dark feelings. Hopeless feelings. Self-hating feelings. Lots of those.
That first seizure brought the feelings all back—and maybe even bigger. Maybe worse. Almost as if ignoring it all for so long had allowed all those emotions and assumptions to fester and mutate and grow.
But I’d coped.
I’d found a way to drag myself out of a very dark place back into the light. I’d worked to fill up my world with flowers and sunshine and color. It wasn’t theoretical for me—it was very practical. If Duncan erased those things from the school, he erased them from my life.
And what if the darkness took back over?
I couldn’t let that happen.
It wasn’t just the school that was in danger. It was me.
But we weren’t going to think about that now. We were going to figure out some way to bring this guy back to life. For his sake, as well as mine—and everybody else’s.
“This is going to work,” Alice said.
“I think he needs to have some good, old-fashioned fun,” Babette said.
I frowned. “Fun?”
“You should take him dancing—what about that line-dancing bar by San Luis Pass? Or that secret disco on Post Office Street? Or even just to the Pleasure Pier. You could ride the merry-go-round, hit the bumper cars … Or—don’t overthink it—just go swimming in the ocean. Go walking down Seawall Boulevard.”
Alice was nodding. “We have to start confronting him with joy.”
“Can you confront someone with joy?” I asked.
“You know…” Alice said, trying to rephrase. “Pelt him with joy. Attack him with it. Joy-bomb him.”
“Joy-bomb him?”
“Yes,” Alice said, like Duh.
“And get him into therapy,” Babette added. Then she made me circle “therapy” on the list twice and put stars all around it.
She wasn’t wrong. We weren’t professionals. It seemed pretty clear that he was dealing with some hefty post-traumatic stress disorder, and none of us were really qualified to cure that. So therapy would be a cornerstone of this plan.
“Good luck with that,” Alice said, and as I pictured Duncan’s stony face, he did not strike me like a willing candidate for therapy, either.
But Babette wasn’t worried. “Trust me,” she said. “I’ve got a guy.”
It was so fun to see Babette taking on a project. The fog around her seemed to burn off at the prospect of helping someone. And of course, helping Duncan meant helping all of us. And the school, too. And potentially putting everything—well, almost everything—back the way it should be.
* * *
When the flow of ideas finally started slowing down, it hit me that I had no idea how we were going to make him do all these things “Babette,” I said then, feeling suddenly worried. “How exactly are we going to get him to cooperate?”
“Oh, that’ll be easy,” Babette said, with a little wink.
“Nothing is ever easy with Duncan,” I said.
“Now it’s time for me to share a little secret,” Babette said.
“Okay,” Alice and I said, leaning in.
“After Max died,” Babette said, “the board asked me to take over.”
Alice and I looked at each other.
Babette went on, “But I refused.”
“I knew it,” I whispered.
“Actually,” Babette said. “They didn’t just ask. ‘Begged’ would be a better word.”
“But you were too overwhelmed by grief to take it on?” Alice asked.
Babette nodded.
“So you let them hire Duncan,” I said, nodding.
“Honestly, right then, I was too numb to care who they hired.”
“I get it,” I said.
Babette pulled her reading glasses down her nose. “But that doesn’t change who I am. Max and I built this school. And nothing happens here without my say-so.”
“Are you saying things aren’t as bleak as they seem?”
Babette gave me a smile.
“Are you saying Kent Buckley is not the final word on everything?”
Her smile got bigger.
I smacked my hand on the table. “I knew Max wouldn’t have left us with that dude in charge,” I said.
“Here’s what I need you to know,” Babette said. “I could have both of them fired tomorrow.”
“You could?” Alice asked.
“But I’m not going to.”
“You’re not?” I asked.
Babette shook her head.
“Why not?” Alice asked.
Babette glanced up at the heavens. “Because Kent Buckley is married to my daughter, and so that could make things awkward. And because you like Duncan. And I like Duncan, actually. And I think he’s got potential. And he needs our help.”
“So if there’s a way to fix things amicably, that’s what you prefer?” Alice asked.
“Exactly,” Babette said.
I nodded. I got it.
“And frankly,” Babette added, “I wouldn’t mind a project. Something to redeem this whole, inexcusable year.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“So here’s how it’s going to work,” Babette said. “You’re going to tell him that he has to do one thing I ask of him every day—maybe a small thing, maybe a bigger thing—and that if he agrees to all my demands, I won’t fire him right away.” She smiled. “But I still reserve the right to fire him later.”
Alice looked at Babette in awe. “So we’re blackmailing him.”
She shrugged. “In a good way.”
“What if he says no?” I asked.
She shrugged again. “Then he’s out.”
“Babette,” I said, in a state of besotted admiration, “you are an absolute genius.”
seventeen
Here’s the thing: when they called the drugs they’d given Duncan “amnesia-inducing,” they weren’t kidding.
He didn’t remember anything.
I didn’t hear from him again after that night we spent together, even though I’d written my number on the post-surgical instructions and written “Call me if you need anything”—with “anything” underlined twice.
I did half-expect to hear from him again, if I’m honest.
Minus the whole surgery thing, it had been a very pleasant time.
I found myself thinking about him. Wondering how he was. Picking up my phone to call, but then deciding against it. Thinking about the moment when he’d said, “Even if I don’t remember, I’ll remember.”
What would he remember, if he didn’t remember?
It was the feeling you get after you’ve had a great date. A kind of rising, excited feeling of anticipation … like, even if the moment itself was over, the connection still lingered.
One part of trying to control epilepsy for me was trying to keep my emotions in check. Like, I tried to avoid the extremes when I could. Which is one of the many reasons I didn’t spend a lot of time in the dating pool. Dating was hard. Dating was tense. For all the bliss people felt about love and romance, it was stressful, too. And potentially destabilizing.
I didn’t want to be destabilized. Any more than I already had been.
I was all about being the opposite, in fact.
So as I walked over to school that first morning after break, I had a wild sense of uncertainty. What would it be like to see Duncan again after all that? Would he be friendly with me? Flirty? And if he felt drawn to me like I did to him, what then? What on earth was going to happen next?
I had no idea.
But I felt almost hungry to see him. My last two encounters with him had been so very Old Duncan, I’d almost forgotten what New Duncan was like.
Until I saw him there.
He was in the courtyard, as the kids arrived, standing at attention in that gray suit, like nothing had ever happened. Hair swooped up and back. Navy tie knotted tight.
New Duncan, for sure. There he was.
Because when I walked over to him with a slightly goofy smile, the way you do with people you feel close to, people you’ve kissed, for example, or people whose pants you have removed, for Pete’s sake—he blinked at me like I was a total stranger.
“Hey,” I said, settling in pretty close next to him.
I could be wrong, but I thought I felt him edge away. “Hello.”
Just days before, I’d had my hands on his shirtless torso. I’d stroked my palms up and down over the velvet of his hair. I’d let myself melt under the weight of those arms. I’d slept beside him in his bed.
Not to mention: the kissing.
Today, that suit might as well have been made of metal.
He didn’t meet my eyes. “Thank you for the ride home the other day.”
“Oh!” I said. “You’re welcome! For a second, I thought you didn’t remember.”
“I don’t remember,” he said, all just-the-facts-ma’am. “But I know you agreed to come. And I woke up at my house. So, I figure you must have gotten me there somehow.”
“Oh,” I said, deflated. “You don’t remember anything?”
He shook his head. “I remember that I asked you to drive me home. And that you agreed to do it. But I don’t remember it happening.”
Oh.