Just for Clicks

by Kara McDowell

  “Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal. So we’re not biologically related. So what? We’re still sisters. Your still our mom’s daughter. One white lie can’t erase the eighteen years of history we have as a family.” She rubs her lips together and leans into the mirror to examine her lip gloss.

  We’re still sisters. Her words echo in my head. We’re still sisters. Are we? We haven’t been acting like it lately. We haven’t even been acting like friends.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. For the first time since I entered her room, she gives me her full attention.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “You’re chewing on your lip so hard you’re going to draw blood.” She tilts her head to the side and studies me with a concerned expression and pursed lips.

  “Oh. It’s . . . it’s nothing.” I can’t do it. I can’t tell her that I’m looking for my birth mother in an attempt to prove the thing Poppy’s trying so hard to avoid, and possibly sabotage the future of our reality show.

  “Is it Jackson? Rafael?” she asks.

  “What? No!”

  “I’m not blind. You spend all of your time with Rafael, and you never talk about Jackson. What’s going on?”

  “There’s nothing to tell. We’re just friends.” He made that perfectly clear when he almost sprained his neck dodging my kiss. But I can’t tell Poppy the whole story, because it’s humiliating and things are so weird between us.

  “Sure. I definitely believe that you’re randomly and secretly dating Jackson while spending all your time mooning over your ‘just friend’ Rafael. Or, like we learned in science class, the simplest answer is the right one, and you’re a big liar.” Her expression dares me to contradict her.

  I grab the toothpaste and leave, but I’m still thinking about our conversation while I brush my teeth. I once read an article about words that have no English equivalent. The Inuit have a word for when you’re so excited for someone to come over that you keep opening your door to check for them, and there’s a word in Hawaiian that describes the action of scratching your head to help you remember something forgotten. Pana po’o. What I need is a word for when someone replays a conversation in their head, giving them the chance to say all the witty and amazing things they should’ve said the first time. If I could go back three minutes, I’d tell Poppy that if the simplest answer is the right one, I would have known years ago that we weren’t really sisters because she’s a shallow automaton and I’m . . . well, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I am when her words hit me again.

  The simplest answer is the right one.

  I don’t need to hack hospital files or track down the wizened old nurse who delivered me. All I need is some good old-fashioned snooping.

  I make a big show of putting away the Halloween decorations while Poppy and Mom brainstorm holiday vlog topics. Once I’m satisfied that they know exactly what I’m doing, I pull the closet door closed and flip on a flashlight app on my phone. Then I dig.

  The box of journals doesn’t turn up anything. Neither does the trunk of old family photos or the box of my dad’s clothes that Mom couldn’t bear to part with. I’m starting to get discouraged when I take the top off a box of files. I thumb through sixteen years of taxes before reaching a thin file that says Medical Records. I lean my phone-flashlight against a box and open the folder with unsteady hands.

  It doesn’t take long to find it. Below a few hospital bills is a single sheet of paper.

  On top is the logo for Gilbert Regional Medical Center. Below that it reads PROOF OF BIRTH.

  It doesn’t look like any birth certificate I’ve ever seen in movies. There’s no official seal on the bottom or anything. Just a few blank spaces filled in with messy handwriting.

  This is to certify that: Baby Girl Dewitt

  Was Born on: November 22, 2000

  Name of Mother: Brittany Dewitt

  Name of Father:

  Delivering Physician: Eric Barney, M.D.

  Below that are official adoption papers signed by my parents, making them the legal guardians of Claire Dixon.

  I place the two papers side by side and stare at them. Relief courses through my body at this evidence that I really am the adopted one. Poppy needs this life more than I do. If our roles were reversed, she would have a lot more to say than “I don’t care.” Plus, it’s liberating to finally have an explanation for why my life has felt so hard the last few years. I know I’m lucky to live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. My closet is overflowing with free clothes. Any other teenage girl would kill to be me. But it’s never really felt right, and now I know why.

  I read the Proof of Birth paper again and focus on the date. According to this paper, I was born on November 22. Poppy and I have always celebrated our birthday on November 23. It’s weird that this is the thing that makes me cry. For some reason, the thought of my parents ignoring my true birthday hurts worse than the confirmation that I’m adopted. It’s another lie on the increasingly long list.

  I sigh as I slip the papers back into the box. It’s not much, but it’s a start. I retreat to my room and lock the door. Armed with a full name and a determination to find my real family, it’s time to get to work.

  I spend the night Googling endless variations of “Brittany Dewitt Gilbert Arizona,” starting with the obituaries. It feels morbid, but I want to get the bad news out of the way first—just in case. I breathe a heavy sigh of relief when nothing turns up and focus my attention elsewhere.

  Next, I search at least a dozen social networking sites and find plenty of women named Brittany Dewitt, but none of the profiles scream forty-year-old woman-who-abandoned-her-baby-in-a-stranger’s-hospital-room. Not that I have any idea what that type of woman would look like. I suppose there’s every likelihood that my real mom is one of these women beaming at me from her profile picture. She could be the brunette standing on top of a mountain or the blonde blowing out birthday candles with a party hat strapped crookedly to her head. It’s been eighteen years since she had me, and it would be silly to assume that the memory of me is anything but an annoying gnat she swats away when it intrudes on her happy life with her loving husband and perfect children.

  I sigh and drop my face on the keyboard. My forehead presses on the letter h, spilling it at least twenty-five times in the search bar. I’ve been at this for hours and my brain feels like mush. I’m at a complete and utter dead end. I need help. Normally, I’d ask Poppy, but I know she wouldn’t want to be involved with this. I’m tempted to ask Rafael, but Halloween finally put us back to a normal place, and I don’t want to threaten that by bringing up all my baggage again. With the two of them ruled out and given my miniscule social circle, there’s only one place left to turn.

  I was hoping that Gideon or Nora would be on BITES chat, but the only one around is Serge. It’s a long shot, but I send him a message explaining my predicament, and he immediately replies.

  He’s either suggesting my birth mother is an alien, or was abducted by aliens, or . . . something else entirely. I’m never really sure with him.

  Serge breaks from tradition to send me a link. I click on it and am taken to a family history website that is specifically designed to help people find their family members. It’s worth a shot, at least. I stretch my arms over my head and then shake them loose, ready for another marathon session of snooping.

  I type Brittany Dewitt into the search box, chose “Arizona” from a drop-down menu, and click a button that says “Search Records.” Fifteen seconds later, I have a list of two dozen records that match Brittany Dewitt, including birth years for each. Halfway down the list, I see a birth year that matches my mom’s. I click it, and am given everything I could ever want to know about this particular Brittany Dewitt, including her address.

  It’s almost scary how easy that was to find. I didn’t have to pay, or give the website my name, or anything. I simply searched her name, and it spat out a list of addresses spanning the last tw
enty years. I’m also given access to several people who are listed as “possible relatives.” I glance over the strange-to-me names. As far as I know, one of these men could be my father. Or not. I might never know.

  My fingers fly over the keyboard without permission from my brain, and before I have consciously made the decision whether or not I wanted to find her, I have a street map of her last known address pulled up on my screen. It’s a home in Superior, a ghost of a town east of Gilbert that I know by name and not much else.

  I stare at that address for a long time, unsure of what I want to do with it.

  Directions to 623 Copper Street, Superior, Arizona

  Head east on E Guadalupe Rd

  0.6 miles

  Turn left onto S Power Rd

  1.5 miles

  Use the right 2 lanes to turn right to merge onto US-60 E toward Globe

  38.2 miles

  Take exit 227 for AZ-177

  0.2 miles

  Turn left onto AZ-177 N/Ray Rd

  167 feet

  Continue straight onto S Magma Ave

  0.2 miles

  Take S Magma Ave to W Copper St

  2 minutes (0.6 miles)

  Days blur into weeks. I don’t sleep. Brittany Dewitt’s address fuses itself onto my brain as if my life depends on remembering it. Every morning on my way to school and every afternoon on my way home, the urge to skip town nearly overcomes me. Once, I missed all of first period because I drove right by the school and was halfway to Superior before I chickened out and turned around. It’s the last thing on my mind at night and the first thing I think about every morning.

  Originally, I was hoping to find her as a means of getting out of signing my contract with STARR Network. But I have no idea if that would even work. The ink dried on Poppy’s contract weeks ago, and every day that passes without me signing mine puts more distance between us. I want to make Poppy happy, but I’m not sure how much of my future I’m willing to compromise for her. If she’s not looking out for my happiness, should I be concerned about hers?

  Just when I’m starting to feel like I’ll explode if I have to think about my family for one more second, distraction arrives on a Wednesday afternoon in the form of Rafael Luna.

  “I brought you a present!” He leans against my doorframe with his hands behind his back.

  I sit up from my sprawled position on my bed, where I was doing my homework, surprised to see him standing in my room. Or nearly in my room, anyway.

  “Your mom let me in. I told her it was a surprise.” He grins.

  “But my birthday is not until Sunday!” Saturday, I mentally correct myself. My birthday is before Poppy’s, making me a whole day older than she is. One day might not sound like a big deal, but when you’re a twin, every second counts.

  “I couldn’t wait. Close your eyes!” he instructs, and I comply. “I didn’t wrap it for reasons that will become clear in a few seconds.” He takes my arm and pulls me to my feet, then puts his hands on my shoulders and leads me across the room. My legs bump into my desk chair, and a slight pressure from Rafael’s hands indicates I should sit down.

  Sitting, I ask, “Can I look?”

  “Not yet.” His arm brushes against mine as he leans forward, sending a shiver tumbling down my spine. My curiosity is tugged to the surface when I hear his fingers tapping against my keyboard.

  “Now?”

  “Patience is a virtue.” Rafael’s voice is close to my right ear and the intoxicating scent of spearmint hits me.

  “Not one of mine.”

  The tapping stops, starts, stops. Hands cover my eyes, blocking out all the light in the room. He clears his throat. “Are you ready?” My limbs weaken at the nervous tremor in his voice.

  I nod my head under his hands and he pulls them away. My computer screen is logged onto the Scratch website I showed him weeks ago.

  “Okay, don’t laugh. I’m brand new at this.” He clicks on a project titled “Happy Birthday, Claire,” and it’s only then that I realize what he’s doing.

  “You didn’t!” I look at him but he keeps his eyes on the screen.

  “Whenever you’re ready.” He gestures to the computer.

  I click to start the animation and jaunty music plays from the speakers. A boy appears on the screen, with a thought bubble above his head that says, “I have no friends.” He turns his head left and right then shrugs his shoulders.

  “That’s me,” Rafael explains helpfully.

  A girl with long brown hair, a face full of freckles, and a laptop walks into the picture.

  “That’s you!”

  I nudge him in the arm to make him stop talking.

  “I’m Rafael!” the boy says, in Rafael’s actual voice.

  “I’m Claire!” the girl says, in a high-pitched version of Rafael’s voice. I immediately crack up laughing. Then, for reasons that can’t be explained, they both start hopping up and down as pumpkins rain from the sky. After thirty seconds of this, they’re transported to a room filled with balloons and eighteen floating birthday cakes. Animated Rafael says, “Happy Birthday, Claire!”

  As soon as it’s over, I immediately watch it again. By the third viewing, I’m laughing so hard, I’m crying. When I finally turn back to Rafael, he looks at me like he’s bracing himself for a punch in the face.

  “I love it!”

  “You do?” The lines around his eyes smooth and he smiles.

  “It’s amazing. I can’t believe you learned Scratch for me.” And then, out of nowhere, I develop a lump the size of a pumpkin in my throat. “I can’t believe you took the time to do this.” He turns to me so we’re eye to eye. He crosses his arms and rests them on my knees. It’s the first time he’s touched me since Howl-O-Ween, and as soon as he does, the space between us shrinks and expands simultaneously. My hands hang limply by my side, waiting for an order from my brain. He’s close enough that my breath catches in my chest, but not close enough for me to be sure what he’s thinking.

  “I hope it’s okay that I did.” His eyes lock on mine, and I get the feeling he’s trying to gauge my reaction to his words. My first instinct is to put my hands around his neck and lean forward and kiss him, but last time I did that, it ended in disaster. So instead, I spring to my feet, knocking him backwards in the process. He puts his hands out to catch his balance.

  “Of course!” I smile in a fake, overly happy way that would make Mom and her camera proud.

  He turns back to my computer and exits out of Scratch, revealing another tab open to the map of Brittany Dewitt’s address. I should have gotten rid of it a long time ago, but at this point it may as well be the background image on my computer. “What’s this?”

  “My birth mother’s address.”

  “What? How did you find her?”

  “You can find anyone with Google and enough time.” I shudder at the truth of this statement, and wonder how easy it is to find my address on the internet.

  “Are you going to go see her?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Wow. That’s huge.”

  “Not as huge as your animation. It’s the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten.” I shut my computer, hoping to let the subject drop. I don’t feel like talking about my birth mother, and I want him to understand how much I love his present.

  “Didn’t your Mom buy you a Mercedes last year?”

  I wrinkle my nose, realizing how spoiled that makes me sound. He interprets my reaction as a slight against my mom.

  He shakes his head. “I know things are kind of confusing and messed up right now, and maybe it’s not my place to say this, but I’d give your mom a break.” His eyes look sad, the way they did that night at the park when we first talked about the blog.

  “When you said you were jealous of me . . . what did you mean by that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m jealous of how much your mom cares. I know you don’t see it, but everyone else
does.”

  “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  “It’s not her. I could care less about her. It’s my dad.”

  “You don’t think he loves you?”

  Rafael runs his hand through his hair and sits on my bed. He leans against my headboard and stretches his long legs out across the duvet. The sight of him there hitches my breath.

  “Loves me, sure. Likes me? I don’t know. We never spend time together, because he’s always working. The other day, I asked him if I had a baby book. How pathetic is that? I wanted some proof that he cared to remember anything about my life.”

  “It’s not pathetic.”

  “Says the girl whose every move is documented for the rest of time.”

  “Or until the internet explodes.”

  “Or that.”

  “So what’d your dad say?”

  “He said he couldn’t remember. How’s that for ironic?”

  I sit down next to him, and we both lean back against the headboard. He closes his eyes.

  “Aren’t we a pair of tragic childhoods.” Now that Brittany Dewitt’s address isn’t glowing at me from my computer screen, my body relaxes. I close my eyes and drop my head on Rafael’s shoulder without thinking about whether or not I should or what message I’m sending. I’m too tired to worry about any of that right now. Every inch of my body feels exhausted.

  “We should probably start our homework,” Rafael says. And maybe I’m imagining it, but he doesn’t sound very committed.

  “Definitely,” I agree but don’t move. I doubt my body could move if I wanted it to.

  “Hey Claire. Can I ask you something?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Are you falling asleep?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Go to sleep. We can talk later.”

  Incoming Texts

  Unknown number

  Hi Claire! This is Stella from STARR Network! How are you doing?

  Me

  I haven’t decided yet about the show.