Hello Stranger(91)

It was unbelievably trippy.

But it was also progress.

I confess, I’d been hoping to put on that dress, walk out on that roof, and see every face with total ease in a blaze of triumph—just exactly like old times.

But it wasn’t exactly like old times.

In some ways, it was better. Because seeing familiar faces again was a joy. And not seeing unfamiliar faces?

It was fine.

It was manageable.

The last time I’d been on this roof at a party, I was positively nauseated with fear.

But tonight? I was okay.

If I recognized a person, great. If I didn’t, that was okay, too.

That was triumphant in its own quiet way.

Before the party, I’d come up with a throwdown phrase in case I started to panic, and it went like this: “Help me out here. I have a facial recognition problem. Have we met before?”

Want to know what the hardest part of that phrase was? The word help.”

Which, as we know, had never been my thing.

But I wasn’t asking anyone for anything hard, I told myself. I wasn’t asking for help with trigonometry, or climbing El Capitan, or storming the beaches of Normandy. All anyone had to do was answer one easy little question.

This, I reminded myself, like all hard things in life, was an opportunity.

A chance for me to practice asking for help.

And: Have we met before? You couldn’t buy a better starter phrase for that. A person could fulfill that request with one syllable.

That’s what I told myself. No big deal.

I practiced it over and over while I was getting dressed, and then I’d walked across the roof—as ready as I’d ever be—while arguing with the nervousness in my chest in a way that would make Dr. Nicole very proud. This was doable. No dry heaving out behind the mechanical room necessary.

I could just … breathe.

And admire Mrs. Kim’s magazine-worthy tables. And feel the rays of the setting sun warming my skin. And enjoy my skirt’s ruffles swishing around my calves. And sway a little bit to the music of the band.

If that’s not a triumph, I don’t know what is.



* * *



ON A SCIENTIFIC level, it was totally fascinating to watch the fusiform face gyrus somewhere in between functioning and not functioning—seeing it do its thing in real time. It kept prompting me to think about everything my miraculous body did all the time without ever needing help or acknowledgment.

Which made me feel grateful. Scientifically and otherwise.

There was one confounding variable, though, in my data-gathering. One totally unfamiliar face that should have—by all established patterns—been unintelligible … showed up on the rooftop fully intact.

I could see it loud and clear.

A guy in a dark blue suit arrived maybe half an hour in … and I recognized him right away—even though I’d never seen him before.

I sidled my way over to Sue and elbowed her until I had her attention.

“What?” she said.

“Tell me who that is,” I said, tilting my head in the blue suit guy’s direction.

Sue peeked over. “Oh god, I’m sorry!” she said. “My dad invited him.”

“Tell me it’s not—”

“It’s Joe,” Sue confirmed, with a no-sense-fighting-it nod.

“No, no, no,” I said. Had I just been boasting about how okay I was?

“My dad loves him, apparently,” Sue said. “He’s helped him move furniture so many times, my dad nicknamed him Helpful. Did you know that?”

“I did,” I said.

“My dad invited him as a setup! For you! I cleared it all up and explained that being willing to help move furniture does not definitively make anyone a good person and that a setup was useless because he’d already dumped you and broken your heart. But by then it was too late.”

He’d already dumped me and broken my heart.

Wow. He sure had.

While Joe greeted the Kims, up here in the breeze, against a brilliant pink sunset, I let myself watch him.

Seeing my mom’s portrait had been bittersweet bliss. Seeing my own real face in the mirror had been a relief. Seeing Sue and the Kims and various friends from art school had been all varying levels of fun.

This was something different.

First of all, I wasn’t seeing Joe again.

I can’t even capture how mind-bending it is to see someone for the very first time—and recognize him.

I mean, I had kissed this guy! Twice!

But I’d never seen him before.

A memory of Joe’s naked torso as he threw me down on my bed rumbled through my memory like thunder.

I shook it off. Fine, fine—I’d seen him but hadn’t seen him. It was a brain glitch. Not news. We got it.

But here’s what was shocking: how dreadfully good-looking he was.

He didn’t just have a face. He had a really, really good one.

Strong, straight features. Angles and edges. A chin! An Adam’s apple! Plus a nose, two eyes, and—here, a close-up memory flashed through my mind—that mouth.

Astonishing.

And dreamy. And heartbreaking.

And … the opposite of fun. Given that he’d already dumped me and broken my heart.

My awareness of his attractiveness—and the fireworks of longing it was setting off in my body—came into focus and permeated everything I saw before I’d had time to tell my fusiform face gyrus no. I mean, the man had a silk pocket square! And he could tie a double Windsor knot! And that blue suit! It looked so good, it made me angry. No one should ever be allowed to look that good in a suit. Who tailored that thing?