Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac A Novel

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her Chief. She'd get all his inside jokes, and maybe he wouldn't be so frustrated with her for forgetting things she can't possibly remember. She'd know about her mom's new family. She'd know about her dad's fiancée. She wouldn't have to spend her junior year relearning all the French she supposedly knew already. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn't have wanted to kiss him back. But Naomi picked heads.

Gabrielle Zevin’s debut novel, Elsewhere, was an ALA Notable Book and a Quills Book Award nominee. Of her writing, The New York Times Book Review said, “Zevin’s touch is marvelously light even as she considers profundities.” She lives in New York City. You can visit her on the web at www.memoirsofa.com.

     “Are you Ace?” I asked, remembering what James had said about my having a boyfriend.
     Will removed his black rectangular-framed glasses and wiped them on his pants, which were gray wool like James’s had been. I would later learn that removing his glasses was something Will did when embarrassed, as if not seeing something clearly could in some way distance him from an awkward situation. “No, I most definitely am not,” he said. “Ace’s about six inches taller than me. And also, he’s your boyfriend.” A second later, Will’s eyes flashed something mischievous. “Okay, so this is deeply wrong. I want it on the record that you are acknowledging that this is deeply wrong before I even say it.”
     “Fine. It’s wrong,” I said.
     “Deeply—”
     “Deeply wrong.”
     “Good.” Will nodded. “I feel so much better that you don’t remember him either. By the by, your man’s a dolt not to come.”
     “Dolt?” Who used dolt?
     “Tool. No offense.”
     “Leave. Right now,” I said in a mock stern tone. “You go too far insulting Ace . . . What’s his last name?”
     “Zuckerman.”
     “Right. Zuckerman. Yeah, I’m really outraged about you insulting the boyfriend I don’t remember anyway.”
    “You might be later and if that’s the case, I take it all back. Visiting hours only started a minute ago, so he’ll probably still come,” Will said, by way of encouragement I suppose. “If it were my girlfriend, I would have been waiting outside before visiting hours.”