His Pretend Baby

by Theodora Taylor

  If things went well that night, I imagined we’d be having all sorts of discussions I’d never had before with anyone. About where we were now. About where we could be in the future. Lately, I’d even been feeling not so weird about the fact that his last girlfriend was my current boss. Sam had left Marco a little broken when she’d not only dumped him, but married a Russian hockey player a few weeks later. However she’d given us her full blessing.

  There was seriously nothing standing in the way of us taking our relationship to the next level.

  Nothing except the spliff I smoked just an hour before Marco was due to pick me up.

  And as we drove toward his parents’ house, bad thoughts started twisting around in my head. Marco liked me. I knew he liked me well enough—mostly because Marco liked everyone. He was just that kind of affable guy. But I’d had a feeling from the beginning that he was using me to rebel against the part of him that wanted to settle down with a nice, traditionally pretty girl like Sam.

  And when he invited me to his parents’ home for Thanksgiving to meet his family, I had a gut feeling—an instinct you might call it—that this wasn’t going to end well.

  I thought the weed would help. Get me nice and relaxed, but instead it made me even more convinced our relationship was on the verge of falling apart, even though we were technically on the verge of completing a significant milestone.

  In fact, I had a lovely job with a boss I adored straight out of college. A cute and funny boyfriend who was taking me to meet his family for Thanksgiving. But my former foster kid pessimism just wouldn’t let me go.

  They’re going to try to be nice, but they’ll end up hating me, I couldn’t help thinking as Marco came around to my side of the car to open the door. Just like the Perezes did.

  But wasn’t it a little racist to think Marco’s family would reject me? It wasn’t like all Hispanic families were the same. And from what I’d gleaned, Marco’s family wasn’t anything like the Perezes. The Gutierrezes weren’t pretending to be a happy family, they really were happy. They’d raised five wonderful kids, one who was a pillar of the community. And Marco’s sister, Daniella, still continued to provide Ruth’s House with occasional pro bono legal services, even after Sam and Marco broke up.

  There was no reason for the pool of dread in my stomach, making it so I barely spoke on the way to Irvington. His family won’t hate me. They won’t make Marco hate me, I chanted inside my head. All the way until we pulled up to the curb in front of his parents’ modest red brick two-story. We parked right behind a Tesla, which looked very out of place among the economy cars lining the block.

  “Did Daniella trade in her Prius?” I asked Marco.

  Marco grinned. “Nope, looks like Berger decided to rent one for his visit. That’s what he drives in Portland.”

  “Oh, your brother owns a Tesla?” I said by way of small talk. I knew Berger was some kind of engineer, but I hadn’t known he made enough to not only afford a top of the line Tesla, but rent one everywhere he goes.

  “Yeah,” Marco mumbled. “Leave it to him to find a place that rents Teslas in Indiana.”

  Except it wasn’t a rental. Marco’s youngest sister, Cat, answered the door, practically jumping up and down. “Did you see the car Berger got me for my birthday?” she demanded, before Marco could so much as introduce me. “I love being nouveau riche!” she cheered.

  Marco just smiled, his dimples flashing as he called over her shoulder. “Already spreading the wealth around, Little Bro?”

  Before “Little Bro” could answer, Maria shoved her daughter aside to squeal in Spanish, “And he bought us a house in Oak Park. Oak Park! Us, the Perezes, in that nice neighborhood where I used to clean house. Right down the street from Sam and that hockey player. Can you believe it?” She covered her mouth with both hands and shook her head frantically, obviously in a state of complete shock.

  I would have been completely confused if the sea of family members hadn’t parted at that moment to reveal a man even I recognized as Go Gutierrez, the robotics wunderkind. He’d recently made the covers of several tech magazines. Not only because of what still shone through as solidly good looks underneath a huge black beard and hipsteriffic glasses, but also because his company, GoBotics, had just been acquired by a huge multinational technology outfit, which had pretty much made him a billionaire overnight.

  I stood there staring in a state of shock, as somewhere in the distance, Marco introduced me to all of his family members. Go was by far the tallest member of his family, leaner than Marco, but not skinny, and dressed in a simple grey hoodie that he wore like a suit.

  He stared right back down at me, though he seemed to be speaking to Marco, when he said, “You didn’t say you would be bringing a girl with you.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Marco answered, his tone even friendlier than usual. It was the same tone I’d heard him use with some of the angry guys who showed up at the shelter, the ones who just might be convinced—by the right cop, of course—to walk away without the need for any paperwork or physical “assistance. “Sorry, I should have mentioned it when you sent around the Thanksgiving plan.”

  “There’s plenty of food for everyone,” their mother Maria assured all of us in some other part of the room.

  “We’ll have to speak in English for her comfort,” Go pointed out.

  “I speak a little Spanish,” I told him, wondering why I was finding it so hard to look away. “You don’t have to speak English if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s fine, Nyla,” Daniella assured me. “Berger stop. Let’s just get dinner on the table please.”

  “She smells like weed,” Go said, as if his sister hadn’t even spoken. He finally broke from our stare off to look over at Marco. “You’re a police officer. Why are you dating someone who smells like weed?”

  “Okay, okay,” their father said into the uncomfortable silence that followed. “Dinner will be on the table in a few minutes. Marco why don’t you show Nyla your old room?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me your brother was Go Gutierrez?” I demanded on a hiss, as soon as Marco and I were upstairs in his room and out of earshot.

  Marco shrugged and flashed those adorable dimples of his. “He’s still just my little brother, Berger, to me.”

  Then he kissed me, sweet and warm and nice. Reminding me of how lucky I was, because maybe I did smell like weed, but Marco acted like he didn’t care.

  “Do me a favor, okay?” he asked, fingering my turtleneck after he was finished kissing me. “Just humor Berger for the rest of dinner, and maybe keep this turtleneck on. My parents aren’t huge fans of tattoos and they’re already dealing with… all of this.”

  He indicated my face with a wave of his hand, and I wasn’t quite sure how to take that. While I know he’s right about it probably being off-putting to his more conservative parents, I didn’t love the look that flashed across his face as he said it. And I can’t help but wonder if one of the conversations we’ll be having in the months to come will include a follow-up to a casual question he’d asked a few weeks back about whether or not I’d ever thought about “taking all that out.”

  But before I could respond, his little sister, Cat, called up the stairs. “Dinner’s ready, Marco! You better not be up there doing anything with your girlfriend. We’re a nice, Catholic family!”

  They are a nice Catholic family. That much is made immediately clear to me over dinner. Despite their insane income jump, the Gutierrezes seemed like any other down-to-earth family on Thanksgiving. Sitting around their modest dining room table, they all appeared to have great fun telling me stories about Marco’s pre-cop adventures in high school and college. Generally going out of their way to help me know him and make me feel welcome.

  Well, at least his sisters and parents tried to make me feel welcome. I could feel Go’s eyes on me throughout the entire of the meal. Coolly analyzing me in a way that made me feel…weird. Wrong. Like his icy gaze was burning me up from the inside.
To the point that I had to take off my turtleneck in what felt like a fit of fever.

  I knew I’d made a mistake as soon Marco’s hand settled on the back of my neck, reminding me with the seeming caress that he’d asked me to keep the tattoo on my neck covered. Oops.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m a little hot. Must be the wine.”

  Marco just smiled tightly. Only to freeze when his mother squinted and asked, “What’s that on your shirt, dear?”

  And that was when I remembered not only did I have the mascot for my favorite band tattooed on the back of my neck, I also happened to be wearing one of their concert tees under my sweater.

  Antonio actually tilted his head all the way to the side to squint right along with Maria at my t-shirt.

  “Is she some kind of Buddhist?” he asked Marco in Spanish.

  “No, Dad…” Marco began, only to trail off, seemingly at a loss for a decent explanation of why I had a laughing Buddha with blood dripping out of his mouth on my shirt.

  “That’s Death Buddha, Mom,” a voice explained from the other end of the table. “One of my favorite bands.”

  I blinked in surprise and looked over to see that yes, indeed, it was Go talking. His gaze was still sharp on my face, but a little softer now.

  “Mine, too,” I answered carefully, feeling exactly about this conversation the way a deep sea diver might feel about treading into shark infested waters. Fascinated but understandably wary. “I actually followed them around for a year after I finished college.”

  He looked off to the side, then right back at me in a way that put me in mind of a robot having to stop to make some computations before speaking again. “You followed them around,” he repeated. “Why?”

  “Why? Because they’re my favorite band,” I answered with a laugh. Also, my pierced up boyfriend at the time had invited me to go along with him. But that didn’t feel like an appropriate addendum for the Thanksgiving-dinner-with-my-boyfriend’s-parents table. Especially since we’d broken up less than three months into the year I spent following them around.

  “Death Buddha, oh I remember that horrible band now. What a terrible name they have,” Maria said. “I used to say that to Go when he was home for break from Carnegie Mellon and would blast that awful music in his room. Didn’t I used to say that? Thank goodness none of my other children like that metal music.”

  I frowned then, and cut my gaze to Marco who’d asked me out on our first date with a pair of tickets to see Death Buddha—a band he claimed to love.

  As if reading my thoughts, Marco said, “They aren’t so bad, Mami. There aren’t many metal bands with Hispanic drummers out there. We should all be supporting them.”

  Daniella harrumphed. “Whatever, that’s not what you said to Berger when he—”

  Before Daniella could finish the sentence, Marco said, “So yeah, Nyla followed them around for year, but then she came to her senses and decided to go back to school. Now she’s got a degree in Child Psychology and a good job and a great boyfriend…”

  Everyone laughed at Marco’s joke. Everyone but Go.

  “Why Child Psychology?” he asked me from his end of the table.

  His question was so direct, it felt like an interrogation.

  “Because I like kids,” I answered carefully, that shark-infested water feeling coming over me again.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “You tell me,” he answered. “Women are fond of upspeak, I know, but that didn’t feel like a finished statement. I heard an ‘and.’”

  I thought about his words and asked, “Are you trying to ask me why else I decided to get a masters in Child Psychology?”

  “Yes, I’m asking why you took out substantial loans to get this degree of yours, only to take a five figure job at a domestic abuse shelter where you deal mostly with women and only occasionally with children. From the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem like a good plan.”

  At the word “plan,” the entire table groaned.

  “Leave her alone, Berger,” Phoebe, the second oldest sister, said.

  “Yeah,” Marco agreed, his face not quite so affable now. “Not everyone has a plan.”

  “And our community is lucky to have a progressive shelter like Ruth’s House. In fact I’ve done quite a bit of pro bono work for them,” Daniella pointed out.

  “That’s because you plan to become the governor of Indiana one day,” Go shot back. “Nyla, on the other hand, followed a band around for a year before settling into a not very promising career.”

  “Hey,” I snapped back, tired of being spoken about like I wasn’t even at the table. “I might not have a plan, but I care deeply about the good work Sam is doing at Ruth’s House, and I’m glad to be of service to the many children of the women who come to the shelter. A number of those kids are going through the worst fucking time of their lives, and Ruth’s House provides them with counseling, tutoring, and a variety of progressive services like yoga and meditation classes.”

  “Nyla, language…” Marco said, giving the back of my neck a squeeze. His smile was barely hanging on by a thread at that point.

  “Sorry,” I said, shooting an apologetic look to Maria. “I’m just saying they get a lot more than I had growing up in the foster system, so…”

  But before Maria could answer, Go said, “You’re applying your degree to a low paying job because something bad happened that put you in the foster care system when you were a child. I’m assuming death or some type of abuse. And this Sam helps not only women, but also children who are suffering. So instead of coming up with a plan for your own life, you’ve decided to go along with hers. That makes sense.”

  “Jesus Christ, Berger!” Marco said, finally losing his cool.

  “I will not have that kind of language in my house,” their mother said.

  “Seriously, Mami, he’s the one interrogating Nyla, the former foster kid, about her life plan over freaking Thanksgiving dinner, and you’re coming after me?!” Marco asked.

  “He’s got a point, Mom,” Daniella said. “I know he bought you and Dad a house, but we really shouldn’t let him treat poor Nyla like that.”

  My gaze cut to Go then, not loving how they made me sound like some tragic head case who couldn’t handle a few questions from their younger brother. He was obviously agitated, rocking slightly and gripping his fork so tight, I could see the whites of his knuckles.

  “Classic Berger,” Phoebe muttered.

  “Seriously not cool, Berger,” Cat agreed. “Not everyone can make a plan for their life that turns them into billionaires.”

  “Not everyone even wants that,” Marco pointed out.

  And Antonio said, “I apologize for our son’s behavior, Nyla. I think you owe her an apology, Rodrigo.”

  Something shuttered in Go’s eyes, and I guess you can take the billionaire out of Irvington, but you couldn’t make him not listen to his father, because he muttered, “Sorry,” before turning his eyes down to his plate of untouched food.

  I should have left it at that. For a long time afterward I’d think about how I should have just accepted the apology and changed the subject. I know for a fact that was what my wonderful and beautiful boss, Sam, would have done.

  But there was something about the way he was looking down at his plate. It gave me the strangest feeling…the opposite of everyone else at the table: that he wasn’t trying to insult me, he was trying to understand me.

  Also, there was a question knocking around at the back of my mind. A bad one that I kind of didn’t want the answer to, but nonetheless found myself asking.

  “If your name’s Rodrigo and your nickname’s Go, why’s everyone calling you Berger?”

  Go looked back up then, and the table went super quiet. Which confirmed the answer without anyone having to say a word.

  I pushed Marco’s hand off the back of my neck and asked his brother, “Are you, in fact, on the spectrum? Do you have Asperger’s?”

  Go
looked to the side. Once. Twice—as if my question was taking extra computational power on his part.

  “It’s a very long answer,” he finally said. “But the short answer is maybe no. From what a team of professionals was able to assess a couple of years ago, I’m just an asshole with poor social skills and some sensory processing issues.”

  “Rodrigo!” Maria admonished.

  “Sorry,” Go said to her before he continued, “But as you most likely know, the line is thin. Especially when people my age get assessed.”

  Now it was my turn to process the information he’d just given me. And I came to same conclusion I would have either way. “They really need to stop calling you Berger. I mean, there’s not even a ‘b’ in that word.”

  A small smile flitted across Go’s lips. “Yes, I’ve tried to tell them that as well, but they don’t care about the misspelling. And I don’t…” He looked down at his plate. Then back up at me again. “I don’t care what they call me. My family loves me, and they’re good people. The best people. They loved me before my money. When I was a kid and at my worst. They loved me.”

  “Okay,” I answered with a shrug. “Now they have the chance to be even better people and stop fucking calling you that.”

  For once, the language card didn’t get thrown out. I think because everyone but Go was staring at me in horror.

  Go, however, just studied me for a moment or two, his gaze almost a blank of feeling, before saying, “I don’t need defending, Nyla. Not from my family.”

  Then without giving me a chance to answer, he shifted his gaze to Cat and said, “I’ll take you for a test drive in your new Tesla after dinner. But there are a few things we should go over first…”

  Soon after, Marco made a joke about the time Phoebe backed their dad’s car into a pole during her very first driving lesson, and the table was off and laughing once more. No one called him Berger again, I noted. But no one really spoke to me again either.