Father Knows Best

by Lynda Sandoval

  “How?”

  “The father could try to take her, and trust me”—she shook her head—“I wouldn’t want her raised by any of the possible suspects.”

  I wondered why she hadn’t thought about that before she’d had unprotected sex with these disreputable yokels, but then I remembered, oh yeah, she’d been on a one-way trip down the drunk-and-irresponsible road when the whole thing occurred.

  “Every time I think about keeping the baby, my chest tightens up and I panic,” Jennifer said. “But I can’t imagine two better adoptive parents than Reese and Kelly. If they want her. I’m not saying they’re perfect, but they’re pretty darn close, as far as adults go.”

  I glugged my joe, taking all this info in. “What will your own parents think, though? I mean, aren’t they card-carrying members of the anti-gay movement, or something?”

  “Screw them.” She flicked her hand, her expression hardening. “I’ll be eighteen on August third. After that, I can make my own decisions.”

  True again. Side note: my birthday is in early September. Weird that she and I were born right around the same time yet share utterly no defining personality characteristics whatsoever (please, God, make that true). “Will they fight it, though? As the biological grandparents?”

  “Truthfully? They’re so worried about their image, I think they just want the baby to be gone.”

  I nailed her with a stare. “This isn’t the decision you would’ve made a year ago,” I pointed out. “I mean, I’m just saying.”

  She huffed. “A year ago, I wouldn’t have had to make it, because I wasn’t a totally irresponsible dumbass who slept around with scumbags.”

  My glance slid away and I flipped my coffee stir stick between my fingers, index to pinky and back. “Well, no offense again, but you were kind of a dumbass.”

  A pregnant—no pun intended—pause ensued.

  “I’m really sorry, Lila,” she said, sounding sincere. “I know I ridiculed you and Meryl and Caressa, even when you didn’t deserve it.”

  Cue astonishment background music again.

  I eyed her as unsuspiciously as possible, which was difficult. “Apology accepted. As long as you acknowledge the fact.”

  “I do. Believe me.” She blew out a breath. “I’ve done a lot of soul searching in the past few months. I’ve had to. Plus, Meryl’s amazing.”

  “Which you would’ve realized long ago if you weren’t so into image.”

  “I know. I get that.”

  I nodded once, deciding maybe she truly did.

  “Anyway, you’re right, I wouldn’t have had to make these difficult plans last year.” She squared her shoulders. “But now I do. So be it. It happened for a reason, and I’m going to learn from it. If I have a choice—and why shouldn’t I?—I want Reese and Kelly to be the little goober’s moms.”

  I blurted a short laugh at the use of the word goober. I swear, I don’t care what Jennifer or Reese or Kelly or who-the-heck-ever named her, she’d always be Goob to me.

  Dude! I was pet-naming Jennifer’s baby!

  What the hell?!

  Clueless to my inner turmoil, she continued with, “I just don’t know how private adoptions are set up, or I’d get the ball rolling right away. And I don’t know if Reese and Kelly being gay is going to be a roadblock.”

  “I don’t know either.” Frankly, none of this had ever crossed my mind. Why would it? I was barely into year one of my first boyfriend ever and the extent of my sexual experience included some excellent making out and a little groping here and there. Weird how Jennifer’s pregnancy was forcing all of us to grow up more quickly.

  “Do you think your dad would know?” she asked, chewing the corner of her lip and watching me with hopeful eyes.

  I jolted. “You seriously want me to discuss this with my dad?”

  Her face paled. “You think he’d go to my parents?”

  “No. It’s not that. But…he’s my dad.” I crinkled my nose. “You know?” I was still trying to recover from the heinous shopping-for-my-first-bra-with-Dad debacle that had happened years earlier, not that I planned on explaining that whole traumatic incident to her, thankyouverymuch. I didn’t want to launch into the sex-and-pregnancy realm with the dude.

  “Just think about it.” She glanced at her watch. “Your twenty minutes are up, Cinderella.”

  I blinked at my own watch, surprised by how quickly the time had passed. Unreal. We’d actually had stuff to talk about. Hellsp—I mean, Jennifer and moi. Who’da thunk? “Crap, you’re right. Gotta blaze.” I stood and downed the rest of my coffee, then clunked the mug on the table.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said. “Truly.”

  “Sure. See ya.” I turned to leave, but something cosmic affected both my brain waves and my ability to just keep walking. Swiveling back, I met her curious gaze. I can’t explain what came over me, even now. Planetary whiz-bang. Tectonic plate shifting. Early onset stroke. Something. But I actually opened my trap and asked “the artist formerly known as Hellspawn,” “Um, would you ever be interested in having a girls’ night at my house? Just me, you, and Meryl? Maybe we could do it for your birthday if you don’t have plans?”

  Her eyes goggled. “You’re not pimping me, are you?”

  Was I? Uh…

  I gulped. Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. “No. We can’t watch movies or anything, because of Meryl’s family thing—”

  “I know all about that. It’s cool how she’s never watched television or movies, even though I can’t imagine it.”

  “I know. Well?”

  She smiled. Like, a really bright smile. She positively beamed, truth be told, as if she were auditioning for one of those whitening toothpaste commercials. “We could just talk or do each other’s toenails or something. I can’t really reach my own toenails very well anymore, thanks to the gigantic gut, and I’m sure they look horrible.”

  “Yeah, okay. Something like that.”

  “We could even learn to knit,” she offered, all glowy and excited-like.

  Baffled by her conversational one-eighty, I said, “Huh?”

  “Oh.” A chuckle. “Kelly knits to relieve stress, and she’s been teaching me how to do it. It’s actually kind of cool and relaxing, and it would be fun to make stuff for the baby.”

  Jennifer Hamilton.

  Knitting.

  Does. Not. Compute.

  I blinked. Maybe twice. “That would be…sort of…interesting.” I was having one of those out-of-body experiences, right? Right?! Inviting Jennifer to my house, for one thing, but agreeing to knit baby stuff?

  I do not knit!

  I took a deep, cleansing breath. “Anyway, okay. So. I’ll figure out a time and let Meryl know. She can pass it on to you. It might not be exactly on your birthday.”

  “Whenever. I can’t wait. Thank you. For including me.”

  “I…well…sure. It wouldn’t exactly be a logical birthday thing without you.” Dang it, I was trying, but the bonding / trusting part just wasn’t there for me yet, nor was the talking-without-sounding-challenged part. However, I’d taken a huge Meryl-esque step toward being a more forgiving person, and surprisingly, a sense of pride ballooned inside my chest.

  When I caught my last glimpse of Jennifer as I left the coffee shop, I could swear her eyes glistened with tears, and that blew my mind. Mostly because it made me feel good.

  Freakin’ weird, huh?

  *

  Two full weeks passed before I garnered the courage to (1) set into motion the insane girls’ night I’d impulsively suggested, or (2) talk to anyone about the whole private adoption process. Why I was inserting myself into this baby fiasco, I don’t know. No explanation. No excuses. But there you have it, people, absolute proof that something wiggy was going around in White Peaks that summer. Demonic possession, maybe. It was seriously as if we’d fallen into some weird “it takes a village to gestate a fetus” mode.

  Stephen
King could kick ass with the screenplay on this one.

  And, oh, by the way, I didn’t discuss the adoption thing with my dad. Just too ick, ya know?

  Instead…I asked Chloe.

  Yep, Chloe. I know! What the—?

  In my defense, it happened spur-of-the-moment one morning while we were restocking the brochure racks, before I’d had caffeine so I was’t actually thinking straight. I’d left the house late, counting on a cup of joe at the travel agency, but alas, our office coffee machine had gone to that great big kitchen in the sky sometime during the night, may it rest in peace.

  So, no java. Sucked.

  Caffeine-deprived or not, morning sunlight angled in through the front windows, all golden, shining on the crisp brochures and lulling me into a sense of safety.

  And the question just popped out.

  “Do you know anything about setting up a private adoption?” I asked, instantly shocked and chastising myself for the blurt. Oh well. Too late for a retraction.

  “Private adoption?” One corner of her mouth quivered up. “I didn’t know you and my son were so serious.”

  “Please,” I said, rolling my eyes. She’d quickly caught on to the whole snark-joke mode, which she regularly used against me. “I’m asking for a friend. Or…someone, an acquaintance. Whatever.”

  Chloe laid a finger alongside her chin and looked upward. “Hmm, let me guess. Jennifer?”

  I widened my eyes at her in surprise, but quickly realized, of course she’d know. Duh. It’s not like we’d had a pandemic of teenage pregnancies in White Peaks, which was one point in the town’s favor, I guess. “You can’t tell her parents. She’s just looking into options, and they’re being…well—”

  “Jerks?”

  I barked a laugh. “From what I’ve heard, yes.”

  “I’ve met the Hamiltons,” she said, ruefully. “I can only imagine what that girl’s going through.”

  Just so you know, I did want to grill her about the Evil Hamiltons, about Jennifer, about all of it from start to finish, but I held back. “I just promised I wouldn’t tell anyone who would run to her parents,” I explained, starting to relax. “That’s all.”

  She handed me a stack of leaflets for Ibiza, Spain, which I’ve since learned is pronounced Ih-BEE-tha. Turns out there was some Spanish king back in the day who spoke with a lisp, and in order not to offend his royal highness (or highneth—snarf!), the whole freakin’ country started speaking with a lisp.

  No, I am not lying, and I know it’s insane.

  Anyway, it stuck to their native tongue like peanut butter to the roof of the mouth. That’s why Spanish Spanish and Mexican Spanish sound very different, just in case you were wondering (and I’m sure you were).

  I swear, the crap people do to suck up to their royals.

  After I’d slipped “Ibeetha” into its proper “thlot,” Chloe said, “Looking into adoption is a responsible thing, so I don’t see why I’d have reason to go to her parents. It’s not as if you’re telling me she’s doing Ecstasy or huffing paint. Something irresponsible and dangerous.”

  No, that would have been the whole drinking and sleeping around thing, which was “game over” for Jennifer. She’d been there, done that, hence my question. “Okay. So? Private adoption?” Nudge, nudge. And people said I got off track.

  “As a matter of fact, I do know a bit about it.”

  “You do?” I asked, both thrilled and surprised that I’d hit pay dirt right away. “How?”

  “I have a close friend who went through one. It was an open adoption, too,” she said, as if I would fully understand.

  Um, yeah. Seventeen here! Clueless! “Meaning?”

  “That they still have regular contact with the B-mom. Birth mother,” she explained, when I obviously looked confused. She handed me a stack of Phuket brochures.

  Shut up, okay? I mean, I snort-laughed until I almost peed my pants, too, the first time I saw it, too, but it’s a really popular resort in Thailand and it’s not even pronounced like that. (Makes for some excellent travel comedy, though: “Where do you want to go on vacation?” “I don’t know, Phuket.” “Fine! We won’t go anywhere!” Har!)

  Phuket—read: Poo-khet, not Fuk-it (if you want to, that is—I certainly pronounce it Fuk-it in my own head)—was devastated by that giant tsunami a while back, but it’s rebuilding its tourism trade.

  Anywhoo, I slipped Phuket (shut up) into its place as excitement bubbled inside me that I’d found a viable adoption source in Chloe. Maybe she should change her name to Google.

  Google Sebring.

  Uh, never mind. Sounds like a clown, and sorry, but clowns are kill-you-in-your-sleep creepy to me.

  “That’s exactly the kind of stuff Jennifer needs to know. I’m pretty sure she’d want that, too. An open adoption.” I leaned closer and lowered my volume. “She knows the potential parents very well.”

  Chloe stood, grimacing as if she were sore.

  No way was I going to ask her what whazzup, because—as had become a semi-regular, back-and-forth habit—she had spent the night at our house last night. Get my drift?

  She saw me watching her, though. “Spinning class yesterday,” she explained, thankfully evicting the evil parental sex thoughts from my brain.

  “Ah. I’ve always wanted to try spinning.” I stood, too.

  “You should come with me some time. We can groan and complain together.”

  I’d walked right into that one, huh? Dude, I was just making conversation! I didn’t comment on her invitation.

  She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and leaned in. “I think you’re an amazing girl to be helping Jennifer, all things considered—”

  “I’m not really helping her.”

  “Oh,” Chloe said, with a small smile, “you’d be surprised.”

  Again, no comment from me, because I couldn’t think of what to say. Why was I regressing into such a big “duh” communicator? I used to have a quippy comment at the ready at all times, locked and loaded, like an old-timey gunslinger.

  “Tell you what,” Chloe said. “I’m on the brink of a raging caffeine headache, and I suspect you are, too.”

  “I fell over the brink twenty minutes ago.”

  “Perfect. Let’s head down to the Mountain Lion and get a latte. I’ll tell you everything I know about private adoption, and you can pass it on. Of course, I’d be happy to talk to Jennifer, too.”

  “Really?” Excellent insta-plan. Hook Jennifer up with Chloe, and back my way out of the picture completely. Plus, an espresso jolt right at that moment sounded like the best thing ev-er. Let’s face it, I’d maintained my composure through Ih-BEE-tha and Fuk-it, but if Chloe handed me those new quilting tour brochures from Intercourse, Pennsylvania, I was going to lose it for sure. My maturity level had a definite time limit, and—oh yeah—it had been reached. “Sweet,” I said. “Let me get my purse.”

  “No need. This one’s on me.” Chloe smiled.

  “Oh. Thanks,” I said, suddenly feeling shy. But then a brilliant idea struck me. “Hey!” I aimed my thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of Inner Power. “Why don’t I just go get Jennifer and she can come with us?”

  Chloe looked confused for a second, then said, “Oh, that’s right. She’s been hanging out with Meryl at the shop.”

  I nodded eagerly.

  Odd how that fact didn’t even bother me anymore.

  Chloe hesitated. “Do you think you should wait to see if she wants to speak to me directly? I don’t want to put her on the spot.”

  “Trust me, she’s eager for info. But I’ll ask her. If she’s not down with coming, she doesn’t have to.”

  She considered this, then nodded. “Okay. You run ahead. I’m going to let Alan know where we’re going and take their drink orders. We’ll bring everyone something back.”

  I smiled. Genuinely.

  See? That’s the kind of boss Chloe is.

  No,
that’s the kind of person she is.

  Dang it all, I was liking her more and more, despite the fact she’s my boyfriend’s mother and my dad’s main squeeze, which, in a perfect world, would be diametrically opposed identities. “Meet you there,” I said, bolting out the door.

  Two seconds later, it seemed, I busted my way into Inner Power, totally jacking up the Zen of the place, I might add.

  Meryl must’ve been restocking displays. I heard a clunk as if she’d dropped something. She peered wide-eyed around the corner of a shelf, saw it was me, then blew out a breath. “Lila, geez. You scared me. No one ever bursts in here that way. I thought we were getting robbed.”

  “Right,” I said, wryly, then lowered my tone to something allegedly menacing and held out my index finger gun-style. “Give me all your meditation supplies and some patchouli incense, and no one gets hurt.”

  Meryl giggled. “Very funny. What’s up, smart aleck?”

  “I need to talk to Jennifer.”

  Holding up one hand, Meryl smirked. “Wait. I’m replaying this surreal moment in my head.”

  “Shut up.” I craned my neck. “Is she here?”

  She angled her head toward the corner with the chairs.

  I nodded once, lowered my tone, and said, “I’ll tell you all about it later. Promise.”

  “Can’t wait,” she replied, going back to her work.

  I found Jennifer in a chair, engrossed in a book, and let me just say, sitting cross-legged while sporting short-shorts is just an eek!-producing pose, what with the protruding preggo belly and the even more disturbing watermelonous boobs. Jennifer seemed bigger than she should be at her stage, but Meryl told me that Jennifer had told her the women in her family carry large for some reason. Divine justice?

  Stop it, Lila. SO hard to rein in the snark.

  “Hey,” I said, silently thanking God for bestowing me with minimal boobage. I’d never whine about being flat again.

  She blinked up, obviously surprised. “Oh. Hey.” She closed the book and set it aside. “What’s up?”

  “Come to the Mountain Lion with me,” I said without preface. “I found you a source who knows all about private adoption.”