I sidle up next to him and reach for a CD. Caleb, oblivious to my presence moves down the alphabetized line of artists. I trace his steps and just as I move a few feet behind him,—his body turns in my direction. I freeze and there is a brief second when I have the urge to run. I grind my heels down and watch as his eyes trace my face like he’s never seen it before, and land on the plastic square in my hand. And then, after three long years, I hear his voice.
“Are they any good?”
I feel the shock rush from my heart to my limbs and settle like lead in my stomach.
He still speaks with the same diluted British accent I remember, but the hardness I was expecting to hear isn't there. Something is wrong.
“Ummm…"
He looks back at my face and his eyes touch each of my features as if he’s seeing them for the first time.
“I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that."
Shit, shit, shit.
“Err, they are okay,” I say, shoving the CD back on the rack. Seconds of silence flick by. I decide he is waiting for me to speak.
“They’re not really your style.”
He looks confused.
“They’re not my style?”
I nod.
“What exactly do you think my style is?” His eyes are laughing at me and there is a hint of a smile around his mouth.
I run my eyes over his face looking for a clue to the game he is playing. He has always been so good at facial expressions, always the right one at the right time. He looks placid and only remotely interested in my answer. I feel safe so I say, “Umm, you’re a classic rock kind of guy…but I could be wrong.” People change.
“Classic rock?” he repeats, watching my lips. I shiver involuntarily as a memory of him looking at my lips that way comes rushing back to me. Wasn’t that look how it all started?
“I’m sorry,” he says dropping his eyes to the floor. “This is awkward, but I…uhhh…don’t know what my style is. I have no memory of it.”
I gape at him. Was this some type of sick joke? Some way of getting back at me?
“You don’t remember? How could you not remember?”
Caleb runs his hand across the back of his neck, the muscles in his arms flex. “I lost my memory in an accident. Sounds corny I know. But, the truth is—I have no idea what I like or liked, I guess I should say. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
He turns to leave, probably because my face is so full of shock it makes him uncomfortable. It feels as if someone has taken a potato masher to my brain. Nothing makes sense. Nothing fits together. Caleb doesn’t know who I am. Caleb doesn’t know who I am! With every step, he takes toward the door I become more desperate. Somewhere in my head I hear a voice scream, “Stop him!”
“Wait,” I say. My voice is barely audible. “Wait…wait!” this time I scream and several people turn to stare. Shutting them out, I focus on Caleb’s back. He is almost to the door when he turns to face me. Think fast, think fast! Holding up a finger indicating for him to wait where he is, I set off in a trot for the classic rock section. It only takes a minute to find what used to be his favorite CD. I return with it clutched tightly in my hands, stopping a few feet away from where he is standing.
“You’ll like this,” I say, tossing him the copy. My aim is off, but he catches it with grace and smiles almost sadly.
I watch him walk to the register, sign his credit card receipt, and disappear right back out of my life.
Hello—Goodbye.
Why didn’t I tell him who I am? Now it is too late and the moment for honesty has past. I stay rooted in his wake, my heart beating sluggishly in my chest as I try to process what has happened. He forgot me.
Chapter Two
At some point during the fifth grade, I watched a murder/mystery on television. The detective, who I had a ridiculous crush on, was named Follagyn Beville. A modern day Jack the Ripper was targeting prostitutes. Follagyn was hunting him down. He was interrogating an especially ratty looking hooker, with stringy blond hair that was stained black at the roots. She was curled up on a mustard yellow couch, her lips sucking greedily on a cigarette. “Wow, what a terrific actress!” I remember thinking. She should like, win an Emmy for being so pathetic. She held a rocks glass in her hand, and was taking quick, birdlike sips of whiskey. I watched her movements, hungry for the drama, memorizing everything she did. Later that night I filled a glass with ice and Pepsi. I took my drink back to the windowsill and lifted an imaginary cigarette to my lips.
“No one listens to me,” I whispered so that my breath frosted the glass. “This world—It’s cold.” I took a sip of Pepsi, making sure that I rattled the ice.
A decade and a half later and I still have my sense of the dramatic. The day after my run in with Caleb, hurricane Phoebe ripped through town and spared me from having to call in sick to work. I am in bed, my body curled possessively around a bottle of vodka.
Around midday, I roll out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom. There is still electricity despite the category three hurricane that is rattling my windows. I take advantage by running myself a bath. As I sit in the steaming water, I replay the whole thing in my mind for the millionth time. It all ends with, he forgot me.
My pug, Pickles, settles herself on my bathmat and watches me carefully. She is so ugly, I smile.
“Caleb, Caleb, Caleb,” I say it to see if it still sounds the same.
He used to have a weird habit of reversing people’s names when he heard them for the first time. I was Aivilo and he was Belac. I thought it was ridiculous, but eventually I found myself doing the same thing. It became a secret code that we used when gossiping.