“Anyway, she burst into tears the minute the words were out of my mouth and I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry,” I lie. Strawberry freckle face is cuddling with rejection tonight. It is a wonderful thing.
“So,” I say, “amnesia.”
Caleb nods, looking down at the table. He absently traces a pattern of circles with his finger.
“Yes, it’s called Selective Amnesia. Doctors, eight of them, have told me it’s temporary.”
I suck thoughtfully on the word “temporary”. It could mean my time with him is as temporary as hair dye, or an adrenaline rush. I decide I’ll take either one. I am having coffee with a man that formerly hated me, “temporary” didn’t have to be a dirty word.
“How did it happen?” I ask.
Caleb clears his throat and looks around the room like he’s gauging who can hear us.
“What? Too personal?” I can’t keep the laughter out of my voice. It feels strange that he is hesitating to tell me. When we were together, he told me everything—even the things that most men would be embarrassed to share with their girlfriends. I can still read his expressions after all these years and I can tell that he is uncomfortable sharing the details of his amnesia.
“I don’t know. It seems like we should start with something simple before I tell you my secrets. Like my favorite color.”
I smile. “Do you remember what your favorite color is?”
Caleb shakes his head. We both laugh.
I sigh and fidget with my coffee cup. When we first started dating I’d asked him what his favorite color was. Instead of just telling me, he’d forced me into the car saying he needed to show me.
“This is ridiculous, I have a test to study for,” I complained. He drove for twenty minutes, blaring the terrible rap music he liked to listen to and finally pulled up beside the Miami International Airport.
“That, is my favorite color,” he said, pointing to the lights lining the runway.
“That’s blue,” I said. “So what?”
“That’s not just any blue, its Airport blue,” he said. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
I turned back to the runway to study the lights. The color was eerie, it looked like fire when it burned at its hottest and turned blue. Where was I going to find a shirt in that color?
I looked at him now, the memory clear in my mind and gone from his. What would it be like to forget your favorite color? —or the girl that smashed up your heart?
Airport blue haunted me. It became a brand to me, a trademark of our broken relationship, and my failure to move on. Airport f**king blue.
“Your favorite color is blue,” I say, “and mine is red. Now we’re best friends, so tell me what happened.”
“Blue it is,” he says smiling. ‘‘It was a car accident. A colleague and I were on a business trip in Scranton. It was snowing heavily and we were on our way to a meeting. The car skidded off the road and wrapped around a tree. I sustained serious head injuries…” he rattles it off as if he is bored with the story. I imagine that he has recited it hundreds of times already.
I don’t need to ask what he does for work. He is an investment banker. He works for his step-father’s company, and he is rich.
“And your co-worker?”
“He didn’t make it,” his shoulders slump. I bite my lip. I’m not good with death and the words that you’re supposed to offer as condolence. When my mother died people said stupid things that made me angry! Soft, fluffy words that carried no weight; “I’m sorry”—when it clearly wasn’t their fault, and “if there is anything I can do—” when we both knew there was nothing. I change the subject rather than offer empty words. “Do you remember the accident?”
“I remember waking up after it happened. Nothing before that.”
“Not even your name?”
He shakes his head.
“The good news is the doctors say I’ll remember. It’s just a matter of time and being patient.”
The good news for me is that he doesn’t remember. We wouldn’t be talking if he did.
“I found an engagement ring in my sock drawer.” His confession is so sudden, I choke on my coffee.
“Sorry.” He pats me on the back and I clear my throat, eyes watering. “I really needed to tell someone that. I was getting ready to ask her to marry me, and now I don’t even know who she is.”
Wow…wow! I feel like someone just plugged me in and threw me in the bathtub. I knew that he had moved on with his life, I spied on him enough to know that, but marriage? It made me itch just to think about it.
“What do your parents think about your condition?” I ask, steering the conversation in a more palatable direction. The thought of Leah in a white dress made me want to laugh. She was better suited for slutty lingerie and a stripper pole.
“My mother looks at me like I’ve betrayed her in some way, and my father keeps patting me on the back, saying, “You’ll get it back soon, buddy, everything’s going to be fine, Caleb.” He imitates his parents to a “t” and I smile.
“I know it sounds selfish, but I just want to be left alone to figure things
out—you know?”
I didn’t, but I nod anyway.
“I keep wondering why I can’t remember. If my life was as great as everyone keeps telling me it was, why doesn’t any of it feel familiar?”