Torrid Exposure

by Carla Coxwell

  “Ah, Spencer’s sister,” she says to me. “I’m Jessica.”

  I hold out my hand, “April.”

  She shakes it feebly. Her skin is thin and looks as if it could tear at any moment. She gestures for me to follow her. Emily stays put, entranced by a small handmade teddy bear. I swear by the time we get out of here, she will have purchased half the store for herself.

  Jessica leads me to the back room. There is a small table with two chairs. A lone paperback book is on the table. Across the room are tons of boxes of merchandise to be sorted. She gestures for me to sit down. Jessica sits down slowly next to me and lets out a sigh of relief when she is fully seated.

  “I thought I might see you again,” she says to me.

  “Why is that?”

  “You looked so surprised when I thought you were Spencer. Just a hunch.” She pauses to cough for a minute or so and waves me off when I ask if she needs water. “I’m fine, dear. I just assumed you’d be back because Spencer would have told you she needed something from us. She used to come here all the time. I never saw any of her family, however. But when you looked so surprised, I thought ‘oh, she’ll tell Spencer she saw me and maybe Spencer will give her a list of things she wanted’.”

  “Sorry, I don’t have a list of anything,” I say slowly, not wanting to upset her. “Did Spencer come here often?”

  “Yes, for a while. She was a fan of the dolls we had. She liked buying the small ones.”

  I try to remember if I have seen Spencer with any dolls but I draw a blank.

  Jessica goes on, “She had us deliver the purchases, however, to her address off of Willow Drive.”

  That brings me up short. Address off Willow Drive? Here? I cannot recall Spencer ever buying property anywhere in the world. What would she be doing here, buying property and sending dolls to the house?

  “Did anyone ever come with her when she’d buy the dolls?” I ask, hoping that the question sounds casual.

  “Ah, yes, yes. A man. Older gentlemen.” Jessica looks as if she is trying to remember his name. “I can’t recall his name though.”

  I pull my phone out of my purse and search Kevin’s name. A photograph of him pops up in the search engine and I show it to Jessica. She peers at it. I let her hold my phone so she can look at it even closer.

  “Oh, yes, that’s him. That’s the man,” she finally proclaims and hands me the phone.

  My heart is beating quickly now as I look down at the photo of Kevin. “His name is Kevin.”

  “Ah, yes! That’s it. Kevin. Yes, he came with her a few times. He never looked happy about it though. Complained often. Said he had more important things to do than look at dolls.”

  “You said the address was off Willow Drive, right?”

  “Yes, yes. I can’t remember the number though. Had a red roof, I think.” She crinkles up her nose. “Haven’t you been there, dear?”

  “No. Spencer owns a few places,” I lie. “Haven’t been to this one.”

  “Is she in trouble?”

  “Trouble?”

  Jessica clicks her tongue against the roof her mouth and her eyes go glassy as she grows lost in memories. “She always seemed as if she was very sad and tired. I always felt so bad for the poor girl. Trying to make it through like that. I always wondered if there was more to the story.”

  “More to the story?”

  “About how she ended up in the situation. Tell me, how is she doing?”

  “Spencer?” I ask, slightly confused.

  “No,” Jessica said, sounding a little impatient. “Not Spencer. The baby, silly. Spencer’s daughter.”

  Chapter Eleven

  For a second, the world feels as if it is tilting on its axis. I grip the chair so tightly that my fingers go numb from the pressure.

  “What?” I say but my voice sounds very far away.

  “Her daughter. How old would she be now? I only ever saw her once. It was one of the first times that Spencer came in here. I remember thinking how she didn’t look like a happy mother at all. She looked sickly. I offered her some tea but she refused. Just said she was tired because she was a single mother.”

  Spencer with a daughter. My brain tries to make sense of it but all I can do is stare at Jessica as she recounts seeing Spencer’s child.

  “Anyway, I didn’t see the child again but she told me that the deliveries were to be made directly to her home on Willow Drive for the baby to get her toys. The baby is doing quite all right, I assume?”

  “Yes,” I say, my voice hollow. “Baby is fine.”

  “That’s great,” Jessica says but then she begins to cough again.

  This time the coughing is more intense and Lee comes in from the storefront with a bottle of water. She hands it to her mother and looks over at me.

  “I’m sorry. I think it is best if my mother heads home for the day.”

  “I understand. Thank you for everything.”

  “Let me ring up your purchase,” Lee says, not wanting to lose a sale.

  I trail out to the storefront. Emily has only bought one thing – the teddy bear she was admiring earlier. Lee rings up my purchase for the wooden figure and bids us good-bye. Before I know it, I am back out on the street.

  “Hey, are you okay? What did that lady say? April, you look like you’re going to faint.”

  “Yeah, I’m just…”

  I find a bench nearby and sit down. Emily sits down next to me, looking concerned. I don’t even know how to tell her that Spencer has a daughter. I’m trying to play catch-up with this information myself.

  “April?”

  “I – that woman said… that Spencer has a daughter.”

  The words hang in the air. Emily’s eyes widen. They look like saucers.

  “What?” she finally says.

  “That’s what she said.” I can’t bear to repeat it.

  Emily looks off in the distance, frowning, “When – oh.”

  “What?”

  “She went to study abroad right? For like six months? What if she was pregnant then?”

  “That has to be when it happened,” I reply, glad at least Emily’s brain is working, “But who is the father? You don’t think…”

  “No way. It can’t be Kevin,” Emily says, echoing what I am thinking.

  I want to dismiss it as well. But if the two of them were involved and Spencer was pregnant, there was no way that Kevin would tolerate having a love child with her. It would destroy his marriage and how he looked to his business partners.

  “She said Spencer owns a house here in town.”

  “What, really?”

  “I don’t know. Red roof. Off Willow Drive.”

  “Come on.” Emily stands up. “Let’s see if we can find it.”

  We take off toward the car. I am anxious to see if I can find this so-called house Spencer owns. I don’t know what I am expecting to find there. Probably nothing. But finding the house is a welcome distraction from focusing on the fact that Spencer has a daughter.

  Emily pulls up the street on her GPS and we find it after about ten minutes. I move slowly down the street. Both of us are looking for a house with a red roof. Emily practically has her nose shoved against the glass.

  “This is crazy,” she says. “Seriously, I know I made a joke about it being like a soap opera. But for your sister to have a secret love child with Kevin of all people…”

  “We don’t know if it is Kevin’s,” I say but it doesn’t sound convincing to my own ears.

  “Wait, there!”

  I break hard and Emily lurches forward. Still, she points to a house with a red roof.

  “Now what?” she asks me as we stare at the house.

  “I should not leave my car in the middle of the street,” I say aloud, mostly to remind myself. “Let me pull over.”

  I pull over and park my car. Another car passes me by with a man on the phone. I watch him drive down the end of the street and turn right. Emily is staring at the red house. There is a
Lexus in the driveway. The lawn is well-tended to. The most striking feature, besides the red roof, is the fact that there are children’s toys on the lawn.

  “What are we—” Emily begins to say as I open the car door. “What are you doing?”

  “Going up and knocking on the door.”

  “And say what?” she protests.

  I look back at her, still in the car, and shrug, “I don’t know. I’ll make it up as I go along.”

  I cut across the street and make my way to the front door of the house. As I walk past the car, I can hear people inside. Children making a lot of noise. I don’t know what I am going to say when I knock on the door. I don’t know if Spencer owns this house or Jessica is just old and forgetful. I still can’t quite believe that Spencer even has a kid of her own. It has to be some sort of mistake.

  There are potted flowers around the front door. One is knocked over, with dirt spilling in front of the door. I find myself staring at the spilled dirt for a few seconds before taking a breath and knocking on the door.

  There is a chorus of noise after my knock. I can hear children talking inside. Then there is a solid thump, followed by a child crying. Then the door opens. I am expecting an adult. Instead I am looking in the face of a boy that appears to be not much older than ten.

  “Hello!” he says to me.

  “Hi,” I say, scrambling for something to say. “Is Spencer here?”

  He scrunches up his face in fierce concentration before shaking his head, “Nope!”

  “Is she uh… usually here?”

  “Billy!” a woman’s voice cries out and the boy turns around. “Who is at the door?”

  “A woman!” he yells back.

  The woman comes into view now. She is Asian, with her black hair tied in a ponytail, and her clothes baggy on her. She also looks exhausted. There is a child clinging to her leg and another child in her arms, with her face away from me.

  “I’m sorry,” she says to me as she makes it to the front door. “My son is having his friends over. Billy is a guest and shouldn’t be opening doors,” she says this final bit to Billy, who scampers off quickly.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I think I have the wrong house.”

  “The streets are confusing around here,” the woman says to me.

  That is when the girl in her arms turns her head to me and my breath catches. It feels as if ice water is being dumped on me. My entire body goes cold.

  The child is a mirror image of Spencer at that age.

  “Are you okay?” the woman asks me.

  “Yes,” I say, overwhelmed. “Sorry to bother you.”

  I turn around quickly and head across the lawn. I can feel the woman still staring at me but it feels as if the world is closing in on me. I make it to the car and see the woman is still looking at me. Did she recognize me? Does she think I look like Spencer? I told that Billy kid I was looking for Spencer.

  “What happened?” Emily asks me.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” I say.

  Before Emily can say anything else, I turn on the radio and drive down the street, leaving the house behind.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Tilt your face upright,” I say to the model. “There you go. Catches the light better.”

  The model smiles at me and then goes back to posing. Behind me, Anderson is typing on his tablet. It’s been a day since I found out about Spencer’s child but all I am doing is trying to focus on the job at hand. Anderson has fallen hard for this model and thought if he paid for her to get some photos taken, he might be able to woo her for a date.

  “Model” is a stretch, however. The girl clearly doesn’t know the first thing about modeling. Not like I am an expert. But I’ve had to do my fair share of modeling shoots, both paid and for free, and this girl didn’t seem to know what to do with her body.

  Anderson leans over to me and whispers, “How is she?”

  “Great!” I say, loud enough for her to hear. “Lots of talent.”

  Anderson knows I am full of it but he doesn’t care either. He’s keen to woo this woman so might as well help him out. After all, he has chatted me up with all of his friends, resulting in tons of jobs for me. The least I can do is repay the favor.

  “Can we take a break?” she suddenly asks. “I am very thirsty.” Her accent is heavy and sounds European. Anderson acts like a schoolboy whenever she talks.

  “Yeah, sure thing,” I reply.

  The model heads off to go grab something to drink and Anderson looks at me, “Cute, right?”

  “Adorable,” I say.

  “I appreciate the help.”

  “No problem,” I tell him.

  “How are things with you?” he asks.

  “Oh, good,” I lie. “Great, even.”

  Anderson nods, “Same here! Dad loved my yacht. We made sales on it after the launch party. Great, great.” He rubs his hands together. “He wants me to come up with the next big idea. He trusts me more now.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I say to him, meaning it.

  Anderson’s phone goes off then and he glances at it, “It’s my dad.”

  I watch him take the call. Anderson and Bennett – both of them wanting so hard to make a positive impression on their fathers. I look at my own phone, bringing it out of my pocket. I have a missed call from Bennett.

  It is wrong to be avoiding him. But since I have found out about Spencer’s daughter, I am unsure what to say to him. How do I tell him that I think his dad is the father of Spencer’s child? I still didn’t have all the answers. Did Spencer own that house? Did the woman adopt the child? Was she just the babysitter?

  I have no doubt in my mind that Kevin and Spencer were involved. Maybe they still are involved. I feel it in my gut that Kevin didn’t want to deal with a child.

  I know that I need to contact Spencer as well. I have been holding off because I am still trying to let everything sink in. Spencer having a child was the greatest shock in the entire world. If I don’t focus completely at the task at hand, I could still see her daughter looking right at me.

  “Sorry about that,” Anderson says, coming back. “Nothing exciting to report. Dad wants to head out of town next week.”

  “That’s exciting.”

  “It’s good that he’s taking me seriously,” Anderson says as the model comes out of the house. “I want to make sure I know everything I can about the company.”

  “Of course.”

  Anderson looks at me and smiles a little. It is a different smile than usual. There isn’t anything professional about it. It is the smile of someone who is a friend.

  “I’m ready,” the model trills, getting back into a stiff position.

  I turn away from Anderson but I can still feel his eyes on me.

  ***

  I am pacing the living room floor when finally, my phone goes off. I snatch it off the table. It is a text. I had tried calling Spencer earlier and have been waiting to hear from her.

  The text gives me an address and a time – 9:00pm tonight. That gives me an hour or so to get ready and head out to find the place. It isn’t a place I know off the top of my head. Searching it online shows it is a small diner on the outskirts of town in a seedier place than I could ever picture Spencer visiting.

  I dress quickly and then take off. The fact that she wants to meet in person gives me some hope that things will be resolved between us. I want to resolve them – for us and for my promise to my father. I think of him now and try not to let the grief overwhelm me. He would want me to go to Spencer and talk to her.

  There is a small summer storm starting by the time I get in my car. It is drizzling gently as I pull out of my apartment complex. The streetlights cast an eerie glow over everything. In my purse, I see my phone light up. I still haven’t called Bennett back. I tell myself I will after I talk to Spencer.

  By the time I get to the place in town where she wants to meet, the rain is steadily coming down. I try to recall if I have ever
been in this part of town before but I am drawing a blank. Everything is run down here. Most of the shop fronts have signs indicating they are out of business. When my head lights illuminate an alleyway as I make a turn, a group of people flee.

  I finally see the diner. Half of the sign indicating its name – Breakfast Hut – is burnt out, showing the name to be Break Hu. The parking lot is almost empty. I park the car and try to see if I can see Spencer inside but it is raining too heavily to tell who is in there.

  I get out of the car and hurry over to the front door. There is a homeless man out front, asleep on the bench. I shut the door behind me and look around. The diner once had a 50’s theme but now it is so rundown that it looks almost comical. A broken jukebox is in one corner. The flooring is peeling up in some places and is cracked in others. The menu on the wall has gone yellow with age. Somewhere, a radio blares out a tinny sounding Top 40 song.

  There is a group of teenagers in the back, taking up two tables and loudly ordering breakfast food. At the counter there is an old man wearing a large jacket, hunched over and sipping a coffee. A woman who looks as if she is having the worst day of her life is at another booth by herself, her nose in a book as she drinks some tea.

  Finally, I see Spencer. She is in a booth, sipping something and looking at a newspaper. I walk over to her and she looks up when she hears my footsteps.

  “Hey. Can’t even remember the last time I saw you reading a newspaper,” I remark as I sit down across from her.

  “No way was I going to bring my phone or tablet out in this place,” Spencer replies. “I’d get mugged in less than a minute after I leave.”

  She slides me a menu and asks the waitress for another cup of coffee. I study her, letting the new information I have try to sink in. Tonight, Spencer clearly doesn’t care about appearances. Her skin is pale and she has bags under her eyes. Her blonde hair is swept up underneath a cap and she is wearing a dark blue t-shirt and jeans. There isn’t a speck of make-up on her.