by Sarina Bowen
“For a DNA test.” I’d been surprised that a Q-tip against the inside of my cheek was all it took. How anticlimactic.
“It was for the judge. I hired a lawyer to try to get custody.”
My heart begins to ricochet inside my chest. “But Hannah said that wouldn’t work.”
“But maybe she’s wrong. You want to get out of that place you’re staying, right?”
“Of course.”
“The lawyer I found was more than happy to try.” He reaches around to pull something out of his back pocket. A folded paper. “No surprises here, but I thought you might want to see the lab report.” He smooths the paper onto the table.
The report is titled: “Motherless Paternity Test Results.”
Motherless.
“This number here is the only one that matters,” Frederick says, pointing to the bottom of the page. Probability = 99.998. “So that means…”
“I know what a probability is.” It comes out sounding snappish.
“Of course you do,” he says softly.
I don’t need him to tell me that it’s conclusive. I don’t need the test at all. If my mother admitted, however grumpily, that Frederick was my father, then he is.
“So…” I clear my throat. “Unless you have an identical twin…” I would have added, you’re stuck with me. But of course he isn’t. He can disappear any time.
He refolds the paper and puts it away. “That’s just for court, Rachel. I never had any doubt.”
Really? How did you know? And then where have you been?
And—the biggest question in my heart—how long are you going to stick around?
Carlos appears beside our table. “Ten after seven, boss.”
I thank Frederick for dinner like a good girl.
Chapter Five
I spend the first half of Saturday studying in a Starbucks, waiting for Haze to finish a shift at the Jiffy Lube. It’s the most civilized escape from the Parson’s Home that I could come up with. Unfortunately, I had to bring along a backpack crammed full of books and a giant garbage bag full of my dirty laundry.
I’ve never felt more like a homeless person than I do right now, concealing my laundry under the cafe table. To cheer myself up, I tap out a reply to Jake’s email.
Jake,
One thing you said put me in a tailspin—that some of the many rules are followed, and some aren’t. How does someone with a good-girl complex know what to do?
R.
I’ve only read a few pages of my book when a new message appears in my inbox. When I see Jake’s name, I feel a little rush of happiness. And it’s been a pretty long time since I felt that way. After glancing out the window to make sure that Haze isn’t here yet, I read it quickly.
Rachel,
Hi again! Sorry to confuse you. But it isn’t so tricky.
The academic rules are really important and nobody breaks those. They make you sign an ethics code about cheating and plagiarism and stuff like that. Cheating is a BFD here, so people don’t do it.
But the social stuff is squishier. Lots of dorm rules are bent all the time. Example: the dorm curfew rules aren’t followed. Anyone who’s caught in someone else’s room after hours can just say they were working on a group project, because homework is sacred. :)
The rules exist (I assume) so that the flagrant and irresponsible can be punished. Like the lacrosse players last year who were dumb enough to use the school’s own messaging system to advertise their kegger in a dorm basement when their resident advisor went home to his brother’s wedding.
In my experience, you have to be an idiot to get in real trouble. Anyone who’s the least bit careful (or has a good girl streak!) will be fine. -J.
P.S. I’m jealous of your Cape Canaveral access. But Astronomy Nerd Central would be somewhere like New Mexico, with its big telescope arrays and meteorite fields. Trivia: there has never been a meteorite found in New Hampshire. Although I’ve picked up about a million rocks trying.
I adjust my mental picture of Jake on the beach. Now he’s picking up rocks, examining them, then tossing them into the waves.
His messages are like an escape hatch from my real life. They make Claiborne Prep seem like a real place. And when I read his messages, I can almost believe that the earth is still turning around the sun, and that I’m really going to a fancy new school in the fall.
At one o’clock, Haze finally pulls up outside to rescue me. I cram my laundry into his trunk and then fall into the passenger seat.
He moves fast, reaching across the center console to pull me toward him. The kiss takes me by surprise. And maybe because I’m so happy to see him, the slide of his lips over mine has a brand new effect on me—an unexpected zing through my chest.
Haze deepens the kiss, and the taste of him is warm and familiar. The longer it goes on, the more I forget to be nervous.
But then Haze makes a noise. It’s a guttural, needy sound from deep in his chest. My comfort stutters. His arms feel more like a vise than a hug, and I stiffen inside them.
Haze releases me then, and we both take a giant breath. “I smell like motor oil,” he says, looking down at the mechanic’s shirt he’s still wearing from his shift at the Jiffy Lube. “Sorry.”
Self-conscious now, I sit back and put on my seatbelt. A moment later the car pulls away from the curb.
* * *
I’d asked Haze to take me to a laundromat because I’d missed the Parson’s Home laundry day. He’s brought his own too. Side by side, we load our things into washers.
Haze strips off his shirt right there in the Kleen & Bean. And suddenly I didn’t know where to put my eyes. Haze used to be a skinny kid with the occasional zit on his chin. But somehow he’s become awfully ripped when I wasn’t paying attention. All that muscle and smooth, coppery skin.
“Where’s Daddy today?” he asks, tossing his shirt into the washer.
“I told him I was busy.” The lie just pops out. Nothing good ever comes of discussing Frederick with Haze.
“I just don’t get that guy. He’s too good for you for seventeen years. And now he wants to spend every afternoon with you? Is there some reason why he waited until Jenny was out of the way?”
“Haze! He didn’t know she was sick.”
He rolls his dark eyes at me. The lashes are incredibly long for a boy’s. “He didn’t know, because he never asked. And now you’re the center of his universe? It doesn’t smell right to me.”
“What are you saying, Haze? That Frederick is creepy? He’s not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Okay.” I slam my washer door. “In the first place, ick. Where do you get these ideas? And in the second place, it’s kind of an insult to me if you’re saying I wouldn’t notice.”
Haze puts up both hands defensively. “Easy. Nobody is smarter than you, Rachel. But from where I stand, it looks a little like taking candy from a stranger. Because he is. A stranger, I mean.”
Well, that’s depressingly true.
“I mean, he’s too good to drive his own car.” Haze laughs. “What’s up with that? What does he want from you, anyway?”
I walk over to the change machine so I won’t have to admit that I don’t know.
Haze has a poor opinion of fathers, anyway. His own had killed himself when Haze was twelve and I was eleven. One day, his dad drove his old blue car over to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, parked it, and then jumped off.
My mother cried for a week afterward. “At least he didn’t do it at home,” she said. But she also said, “Men don’t think they owe anybody anything. They leave the women to pick up the pieces.”
Haze’s mom, unfortunately, has not picked them up too carefully. The extra time Haze spent over at my house after that was directly correlated with the amount of wine his mother drank.
The old blue car waited on blocks for four years until Haze was old enough to drive it. In the glove compartment Haze keeps the note his father left for him there. It reads: Hazario—This i
sn’t your fault. Don’t ever let anybody tell you otherwise. Papa.
The change machine eats the first dollar I put into it, giving nothing in return. I plunge my thumb down on the cancel button, with no result. I stare at that machine for a full minute, wondering if it would be madness to put another dollar in. Having no obvious alternative, I try it. Somehow, four quarters come shooting into the steel cup.
While our washers and then our dryers spin, Haze and I wait on plastic chairs. My math book sits open on my lap the whole time, but my concentration is shot. Since my mother entered the hospital three weeks ago, every minute of every day demands two dollars for four quarters.
* * *
“It would be great to go swimming right now,” Haze says when our clothes are finally dry and folded. “Want to sneak into the Sheraton? I have the key card in the car.”
“I don’t have a suit.”
“Where is it?”
“At my house.”
He puts his car in gear and turns right out of the laundromat parking lot, toward our neighborhood.
I have not been down these side streets in ten days. I watch the low roofs and parched lawns slide by; they’re as familiar as breathing. But when he pulls to a stop in front of my house, I can only stare at the thing.
“You have the key, right?”
I pull it out, then look back at the little green vinyl house, which my mother had deemed “a half-step up from a trailer.” Its windows and doors are shut tight, like a tomb. There are discount fliers moldering on the porch, and the mailbox has a piece of yellow tape on it.
My throat begins to burn. The remnants of my life are waiting inside. On two hooks in the kitchen, our favorite coffee mugs still hang. I can cross the street and walk inside. But I’d be waiting for a familiar voice to call out from the kitchen. Hi, honey.
And it won’t come.
“Let’s not go swimming,” I whisper, turning away from the window. “I don’t think I want to.”
Haze’s eyes get soft. He reaches over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Come here.”
I allow myself to be pulled in. I push my face into his hot neck, and he massages my back. I lean into him, his solid frame holding me up, steeling me against all the things that are wrong.
Haze kisses me on the temple. “How about if I go inside and get your suit for you?”
“Okay. I don’t think I can do it.”
He takes the keys out of my hand. “Where is it?”
I sit up. “Top drawer of my dresser.”
“Be right back.”
* * *
The pool at the Sheraton is enormous, and I slip into one of the many bathrooms to change. Haze brought me a tiny bikini. Of course he did.
“Room 305.” Haze flashes his key card at a bored guy who hands over two towels.
“Now this is better,” Haze says, chucking the towels and his car keys onto a lounge chair. I stash my clothes under the adjacent chair and follow him to the pool’s edge. We both jump in, dunking quickly under water to emerge smiling at each other.
“Okay,” I agree. “This was a good idea.” A Nerf football floats nearby. I pick it up, then look around for its owner. Nobody seems to miss it. “Haze, go deep.”
For a solid hour, I forget about everything except playing in the water. The pool narrows in the center, where four concrete lions spit streams of water into the channel. I’ve always wondered about this design. Lions aren’t famous for spitting. When Haze gets near enough to one of them, I give his shoulder a shove at just the right moment. He gets an earful.
“You!” He laughs, splashing me.
“It’s just lion spit.” His response is to dive under the water and grab my feet out from under me.
He comes up, cradling me in both arms. He shakes the water from his hair like a dog until I laugh. “Now who’s going under the lion spit? Hmm?”
“No!” I shriek while he douses me under first one and then another lion.
Then he kisses me on the mouth, and it’s a kiss that means business. He pulls me against his chest, and his hands dig into my backside. I feel caught, and I don’t like it.
Overwhelmed, I pull away as gently as I can. “I don’t want to make a scene,” I say by way of an explanation.
He exhales. “I wouldn’t mind.”
We’re sitting on lounge chairs, drying off, when Haze clears his throat. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
“Hmm?” My attention is still on my math book.
Haze puts a hand on my knee. “Rachel, look at me.”
I look up into his brooding eyes. “What?”
He gives my knee a meaningful squeeze. “When you turn eighteen, I want you to come and stay with me.”
I blink. “Stay…where?”
“With me. Until it’s time for you to go off to school.”
I try to picture this. Haze lives in a tiny house with his drunk mother. Where would they even put me? On the couch where his mom sits all day long?
Haze’s gaze is penetrating, and his thumb strokes my knee.
No—sleeping on the couch isn’t his plan at all. “Haze, I’m not sure I can do that.”
“You can do anything you want,” he whispers.
Now there’s a terrifying idea.
“It would only be for a couple of weeks, until you go to New Hampshire.” He moves from his chair onto the edge of mine. “Please.” He takes my hand and holds it in both of his.
For a second, we just stare at each other. Nothing in my life is ever going to be the same. But he’s still here, holding my hand. “I’ll think about it,” I whisper. And you can bet I will.
And for a few beats of my heart, I get a little stuck in the bright beam of attention he’s focused on me. His eyes crinkle at the edges, as if he’s on the verge of smiling.
But instead, he leans forward and kisses me again.
* * *
When I climb into my saggy bed at the Parson’s Home Sunday night, it’s hard to sleep. My thoughts are like the Astro Orbiter ride at the Magic Kingdom—turning too fast for comfort. My mom, Frederick, Haze, and my little green house all whirled by, daring me to dwell on them.
And tomorrow is my math exam.
Across the room, Evie begins to snore, so I pull my old iPod out from beneath my pillow and press the ear buds into my ears. Setting it to Shuffle, I hit Play.
I’ve always loved the moment of anticipation before a song begins—that beat of silence that yawns with expectation. There’s an eerie intimacy that comes from plugging a song directly into two holes in the sides of your head. Sometimes I can even hear the vocalist take a breath before the first note. The effect is like being in the room with them.
Eyes closed, I wait. And when the first strummed chord charges through those fine little wires and into my ears, I’m not even surprised that it’s one of Frederick’s. I’ve been wearing a groove in this song since fifth grade. The opening riff for “Wild City” is as familiar as air.
Then his voice comes in, sad and low:
She liked to turn the amp up louder
Her hips would sway and I’d forget the chords.
Nobody else could wield that power
I drank it down and begged for more
This music has always been my only connection to him. And in a weird way, he’s never let me down. I push Play, and my father shows up every time.
And now? I don’t know what will happen. I only know that if Frederick doesn’t show up after school tomorrow, this refrain will never sound the same to me.
Late nights in the Wild City
My ears would ring for years
Bright lights in the Wild City
We paid for it in tears
Chapter Six
On Monday afternoon I ace my pre-calc exam. The relief lasts a good fifteen minutes. After that, I go outside to see whether Frederick will really turn up again as he’d promised.
I think I’ll always wonder—even if Frederick stays in my life after I leave Fl
orida. A little piece of me will always be sitting here on the bench outside school, wondering if today is the day he decides I’m not worth the trouble.
There are three cars in the pick-up circle. And none of them is a black sedan.
Okay. Carlos is probably stuck in tourist traffic.
I check my new phone again. No messages. No texts. But I find a Google news alert on “Freddy Ricks.” When I tap on it, the headline stuns me. Freddy Ricks cancels nine tour stops, including a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden.
Seriously? I click the link to the article and read:
Citing tendinitis in the thumb and two fingers of his picking hand, the singer songwriter will be refunding tickets at all locations. “He’ll have an outpatient procedure, and some therapy,” publicist Rebecca Showers told the media. “Freddy should be as good as new by October.”
That’s all it says.
In my peripheral vision, somebody waves his arms.
Looking up, I spot Carlos standing beside a tan SUV that I’d never seen before, and gesturing wildly in my direction. I get up and run toward the car.
He showed up again. Fourth time. But I won’t get used to it.
When I open the car door, I hear Frederick’s phone voice. “Henry, I would have more time to speak with you, except the lawyer you hired for me just kept me waiting an hour in his office. So make it quick.”
As I slide onto the seat, Frederick raises a hand in greeting, giving me the universal sign for just a minute. “Wouldn’t it cost just as much to fight the union contracts as it would to just pay them out? Uh-huh. Well, we knew we were going to take a hit.”
I arrange my backpack at my feet, all the while sneaking looks at his right hand. As I watch, he makes a fist and beats his own forehead.
“Honestly, Henry. All I care about is whether my Taylor is going to turn up today. No, I’m not rubbing your nose in it. I just need to know. Text Carlos the tracking number? Thanks.” With his right thumb, he ends the call and then proceeds to whack the phone against his leg in agitation.
