by Sarina Bowen
His hand is fine.
He turns weary eyes to me. I’ve always assumed his life is nothing but fun. Music and adoration all day and all night.
Today he doesn’t look like a guy who’s having fun.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “How was the weekend?”
“Okay. I finished with pre-calculus. I did the laundry.”
He gives me a weary grin. “Par-tay.”
“It was pretty wild. I have a killer hangover.” I watch his reaction. As far as he knows, I might have a killer hangover.
He doesn’t even blink. “Hey, I thought up a word for you. Inferior.”
“Uh, what?” Did he just call me inferior?
“A negative without a positive. You can’t be ferior, right?”
“Oh!” I laugh nervously. “Actually, in my case you can. I’m very ferior. Ask anyone.”
I get a tired smile before his phone buzzes again. He looks at the display and then shoves it in his pocket.
* * *
“The movie on the plane was the last Harry Potter,” Frederick says as we walk the grounds at his fancy hotel. “Have you seen those?”
“Sure. But the books are better.”
“Right? The Hobbit movies were better, though. Even though they didn’t stick to the book.”
“Yeah?” I wonder what he thinks of the song Ed Sheeran wrote for The Hobbit, and whether he’s as impressed as I am that Sheeran played every instrument on the recording, except for the cello.
But I’m not ready to out myself as a music nerd, not to a man who hasn’t said a single thing about his music to me. “How was New Orleans?” I try. On my new phone, I’ve already scoped out the music festival where he played over the weekend. His Instagram account has new photographs on it, one of him with his arm around a legendary blues guitar player, and one of a po’ boy sandwich. Hashtag: ILoveNOLA.
“It was hot,” he grumbles. “With mosquitoes the size of your head.”
So the concert was outdoors? I swallow back the question. I don’t want to sound like a fan girl. And he never brings up his job. Or his life. The silence makes me feel as if he’s still trying to figure out if I’m worthy of his inner circle.
The phone in his pocket begins to do its angry buzzing thing again, and he plucks it out to glance at the screen. “Aw, Christ,” he curses, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I have to take this one.” He holds the phone to his ear. What he says next makes something go wrong in my stomach.
“Hey, Dad.”
Wow.
In the first place, I’ve never said those words to anybody. And…my grandfather is on the phone? It had occurred to me before that I might have a living grandparent or two. But since Richards is a common name, Google didn’t help when I tried searching.
“You saw that headline, huh?” My father chuckles. “Dad, there’s nothing wrong with my hand. If I were having surgery, I’d tell you.” He steps off the path and into the scrubby trees nearby.
He obviously wants privacy, so I hang back a little. But I can still hear him.
“Dad, listen. There’s nothing wrong with me. That was just an excuse to free up my calendar. I’ve got some things to deal with, and I can’t really talk about it right now.” My father looks over his shoulder, catching me snooping. “Tell Mom I’m fine. I’ll call her soon.” He drifts farther ahead. “I’m fine, I swear. Could you please convince Mom? And I’ll tell you the whole tale as soon as I can.”
He ends the call and then turns around with an expression I can’t read. “You have grandparents,” he says in a quiet voice. “They’re going to want to meet you. There’s, um…” He looks out across the fake lake, where an egret is flying past, its long legs trailing in the air. “There’s too much going on right now. But we’ll make that happen sometime soon.”
I felt a little unsteady on my feet just imagining it. And I realize something. “They don’t know about me,” I blurt out. His own parents don’t know he has a kid?
Frederick pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers and gives his head a slow shake.
“Wow.” I can’t keep the dismay out of my voice. I’m his deepest, darkest secret. We just stand there for a moment, staring at each other. A golf cart passes us, with two guys inside laughing together.
Do not cry, I order myself as I turn around. I can’t look at him right now. I’ve always felt invisible to him. I’m used to being ignored. But hiding me from his parents feels bigger than that. Like he’s ashamed. Of me.
Breathing carefully through my nose, I walk slowly back toward the hotel. He falls into step with me. Grandparents. I don’t have any of those. My mom’s mother died when I was four, and I barely remember her. Mom’s father had passed before I was born.
Wondering what they might look like, I risk a glance at Frederick. His jaw is set, his mouth in a grim line. If ever there was a moment he regretted coming to Florida to meet me, this is it.
When I think I can speak, I ask a question. It’s not the biggest one in my heart, but it’s a start. “Why did you lie about your hand?”
“Because canceling concerts makes people angry. I needed a good reason.”
“And I’m not a good reason?”
He stops walking. “Of course you’re the reason. But I just submitted a petition for custody. If both our faces end up on the US Weekly website, I don’t think it helps my case.”
“Oh,” I say stupidly.
We walk the rest of the way back to the hotel in silence. As we enter the lobby, Frederick casts a grumpy look toward the hotel restaurant. “What if we got takeout food tonight? I sent Carlos to UPS for a package.”
“Sure, thanks.”
Frederick pushes the elevator button. I follow him up to the fourth floor and down a corridor. Are we going to his room? That’s a little too much togetherness if he’s in such a dark mood.
But when he opens the door, the place is palatial. There’s a big living and dining room, and a kitchen area that looks like nobody has ever cooked anything there. The bedroom is through a doorway at the other end of the room.
“There’s a balcony,” Frederick grunts. “If you want a quiet place for homework.”
I hightail it out there with my English take-home exam, leaving the door ajar. I take a seat in one of the two patio chairs pulled up to a glass table.
As I sit, thinking about how to answer an essay question about Kafka’s Metamorphosis, I hear a knock on Frederick’s hotel room door.
“Hey! You found it! This is what I need tonight. Let’s see if she survived.” I swivel around to watch him take a big box from Carlos and carry it over to the gleaming dining table. Carlos hands him a pocket knife, and Frederick slits the tape on the box.
“Quieres burritos?” Carlos asks. “I found this place downtown. If I go now, we can make it.”
“Hey, Rachel?” Frederick calls. “How do you feel about burritos?”
I stand up and poke my head into the room. “Si, yo quiero.”
Carlos chuckles. “Carne? Cerdo? Pollo?”
“Pork,” I choose.
“Surprise me,” Frederick says. “I just hope it tastes like L.A.”
“Let’s not ask for a miracle.” Carlos turns for the door.
“Carlos?” my father calls after him. “Text Henry and tell him the guitar he lost is found again.”
“Already done,” the driver says on his way out.
Frederick bends over his package. “Every time we ship a guitar, I wonder why I thought it was a good idea. So much can go wrong.” Inside the box is a black guitar case, and inside the case is a surprising quantity of packing material. From the depths, he pulls a handsome wooden instrument. He turns it over in his hands with the smile of a kid on Christmas.
I watch him dance over to the sofa and sit down with the guitar in his lap. And then he says to the guitar, in his warmest voice, “Come to Daddy.”
His odd choice of words propels me back out onto the balcony, where the pages of
my English exam are fluttering against the staple. I smooth them down with my hand. From inside comes the sound of strings plucked one at a time as they’re tuned.
Then the warm tones of a guitar chord float out the door behind me. The sound raises the hair on the back of my neck. I’ve heard him play the guitar—both acoustic and electric—on countless recordings. But the strings vibrating at close range send shivers up my spine. I hold my breath while the chords progress and the strumming becomes more elaborate.
The music stops abruptly, but after some small adjustment, it begins again, crashing over me like a wave.
My mother died two weeks ago. I have gotten through each day since with the combined assistance of total numbness, a complete lack of privacy, and the distraction of each strange new thing that’s happened. But Frederick’s guitar seems to stop time. As he plays, I am confronted by the warm night and the gentle rhythm of a guitar I’ve been listening for my whole life.
I have to push my school work away and put my face in my hands. The song is unfamiliar. Even so, it begins to shred my heart into little bits. I manage to hold out until he starts humming to himself, his reedy baritone scaling up and down with the melody. Then my tears run down my face and over my hands. I am drowning in them, shuddering silently until the song reaches its end.
In the stillness that follows, I clamp my lips together. I’m a dribbling wreck, trying not to sniff. I hear Frederick moving around in the room behind me, and the sound of water running in the kitchenette. After a minute, he steps out on the balcony and sets a glass of water and a box of hotel tissues on the table. I can’t look up.
One warm hand lands on top of my head. It stays there for two beats, then retreats. Frederick goes back inside.
I press my fingers to my eyes, willing them to stop leaking. Behind me, Frederick is cleaning up all the packing paper that came with his guitar. He hums to himself while I dig my fingernails into my palms and count the leaves on a banana tree in the courtyard below.
* * *
Eventually, Carlos drops off the food. Frederick comes to the balcony’s threshold with two white paper bags. “Do you think you’re ready to find out whether a decent burrito can be had in Orlando?”
“Sure,” I say in a small voice.
He sits down in the other chair and passes me a bag. “Rachel,” is scrawled on it.
We make ourselves busy unwrapping the foil. It smells good, actually. My appetite has been so finicky. Sometimes I can’t eat a thing, and other times I’m famished. I take a big bite and chew.
“What do you think?” he asks. He wipes his mouth with a takeout napkin.
The question seems enormous until I realize he’s only asking about the burrito. “Pretty good.” And it is. The shredded pork mingles with beans and herbs. “Oh!” I make a sound of dismay. “This is full of cilantro!”
The surprise on Frederick’s face makes me realize my mistake. He sets down his burrito. Then he takes one of the plastic knives that came with our order and cuts it in half. He picks up one piece and shows it to me. There’s not a trace of cilantro inside. “Carlos knows,” he says quietly.
“Well. That’s handy.” My voice is shaky. “He reads Spin too.”
“Rolling Stone,” he says. “Hard to forget which reporter you swell up in front of.”
There is another minute of silent chewing. I feel drained.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asks.
“Okay?”
He sets down his food. “How long have you known I was your father?”
That’s an easy one. “Forever.”
His eyes widen. “What did she say about me?”
“Nothing. But whenever your songs came on the radio, she changed the channel. By fourth grade, I knew all of them.”
He stands up quickly and slides through the open door. As he reaches for a beer, the refrigerator illuminates him, and I see the look on his face. Like he’s been punched.
I don’t feel the least bit guilty, either.
Chapter Seven
I’m sitting in a study hall when Frederick texts me. New driver today. His car is silver. Don’t look for Carlos after school.
You’re picking me up from school? I tap back. Haze will not be pleased. He wants to go for ice cream.
I hope so.
Well, that’s just a weird response. Where is Carlos? I ask.
He was just here with me as a favor. Had to go home to his family.
Why don’t you just rent a car? I ask, hearing echoes of Haze in the question.
I don’t drive.
Ever?
Nope. Don’t want to. Old dog. New tricks. Not that people don’t rib me about it incessantly. Hey—isn’t that one of your weird negatives? Because cessantly isn’t a word.
But ceasing is, I reply.
Thirty minutes pass without a reply, and like a dope I worry that I’ve offended him. But then finally my phone vibrates again. Only Frederick’s next message makes no sense. It reads: Motion for Custody Approved.
Wait. What?
The no-phone-calls-in-school rule means that I have to run out of the building to call him. “What does that mean?” I ask him the second he answers.
“It means I win!” he hollers. “The judge just granted me something called temporary emergency custody. And since you turn eighteen in three weeks, you’re done. It’s over.”
“But…how did that happen?”
“I’ll tell you how—Hannah Reeves. She stood there in front of that judge, and told him the way it should be. And he rolled right over. I wanted to give her a big, sloppy kiss.”
“Wait… I didn’t know about a hearing.”
“I didn’t tell you about it because I thought I could lose. My lawyer warned me that plain old logic doesn’t always prevail. As it turns out, a hot young social worker in a blue suit is what it takes. Meet me in front of school in twenty minutes. Let’s spring you from that place.”
“Um, technically my school day isn’t over for another forty-five minutes.”
He laughs in my ear. “It is now legal for me to teach you my slovenly ways. Come out whenever you want, but I’ll be there in fifteen. Oh, and Rachel?”
“Yeah?”
“This means we can leave for California just as soon as you take that last test. See you outside.” He disconnects.
I don’t bother going back inside. I stand there in the sunshine for a while, phone in hand, trying to figure out what just happened. Frederick went before a judge to claim me. He’d told the judge—or at least his lawyer said it for him—“She belongs to me.”
It’s all I’d ever wanted him to do.
Then he invited me to California. No—he didn’t invite me. He’d informed me that we’re going, as if it’s totally up to him.
Which it is, legally.
I can’t get my head around it. Did that just happen?
My phone buzzes with a new text, this time from Haze. Where R U?
Outside the east door.
Haze comes out five minutes later. “What’s the matter? You never cut out early.”
My grin is a foot wide, because the good news is finally sinking in. “I’m done with the Parson’s Home, Haze! Forever. Frederick is picking me up.”
He frowns. “To go where?”
“Well…” My heart thumps in my chest. “When I’m done with school, he wants to take me to California.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders, his face deathly serious. “Please don’t leave with him. You don’t have to.”
My stomach dives. “Haze, I can’t stay with you.”
“Why not?”
There are about a hundred reasons, and he won’t like a single one of them. “I want to see California,” I say instead.
At first, the words just echo between us. I’m a little shocked that I’ve made the decision so quickly. But I’ve waited my whole life for that invitation. Seventeen years of curiosity cannot be denied. This is my chance to finally understand how Frederick came to b
e my father.
“No, Rae,” Haze whispers. And then he does something I’ve never seen him do before. He tears up. “You can’t just leave.”
My throat begins to close up. “I have to,” I say. But it’s just an excuse. Going to California with Frederick is a choice I’m making, and we both know it.
“You really don’t have to.” His eyes glitter.
I hear the honk of a car horn and turn to look. Frederick has arrived.
“Fuck!” Haze shouts at the asphalt between us. “What I would like to do to that man!” He kicks his gym bag into the school wall.
“Haze,” I snap, hating this. “Stop it, okay? I was always going away. You know that, right? I was always leaving in the fall.”
He shakes his head. “That’s bullshit, Rachel. You would have come back sometimes. Now you never will.”
The car honks again.
“You know what?” I say, and my voice gets all high and weird. “It would be really nice if you could be happy for me. When everything went wrong, you were there for me. But when something goes right for a change…” I’m too tired to finish the sentence. And I didn’t want to fight. There are things he wants that I can’t give, and I don’t know the right words to explain it.
I duck from behind Haze’s body. Pointing my feet toward the parking lot, I begin to walk.
“Rachel, wait.” He hurries to keep up. “Don’t walk away like this. Don’t choose that asshole over me.”
I stop walking, but I’m too upset to look him in the eye. “That is so not fair. Don’t put it like that.”
He crosses his arms. “Is there any other way to put it?”
“I’m going to California, and you’re not going to be nice about it. Are you?”
He hangs his head. With my heart pounding, I walk to the car. An unfamiliar driver opens the door for me. I slide in next to Frederick, who is all dressed up in a suit and tie.
