Joe picked up where he left off. "So I doubt Monica and Rachel are his kids, but I might be. Dad tried to 'cure himself' a few times, I guess."
It was too dark to tell, but from the look on his face, I was sure Joe's cheeks were pink, he looked pretty embarrassed. He must have gathered from my expression that I wanted him to keep talking, because he continued. "I don't know if he's your dad or not. But he likes you, Barbie, and that's more than I can say for the rest of them, even Phoebe, the one he knows is his."
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at Joe stony-eyed, but stayed silent.
Joe took his hands out of his pockets and started to walk away, toward the trailer.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I'm going to help Dad. Now that everything's out in the open, I'm moving in with him." Joe turned and looked over his shoulder at me. "Think about giving him a chance, Barbie." He walked the rest of the way to the trailer, opened the door, and stepped across the threshold. The sounds of my mother's screaming cut through the night until he closed the door.
I buried my face in my hands. What the hell was I going to do now? I might have asked Mrs. Dutton if I could stay at her place, but it had to be three in the morning. I wasn't going to pound on her door in the middle of the night. Sighing, I lifted my head and reluctantly made my way back over to Kaia's car. I guess I could just drive around until the sun came up, or until I ran the car out of gas, whichever came first.
I had my hand on the driver's door and was about to climb in when Mrs. Dutton's front door cracked open, shedding warm light onto the stoop. "Barbie," she said in a loud whisper that carried across her small lawn, "where are you going?"
I hadn't realized how depressed I was by this whole night until I saw Joanna's concerned but friendly face peeking out her door. She waved me over and ushered me inside, shutting the door firmly behind me.
"I've been waiting for you to come knock on my door all night," she said, pulling me into a quick hug. "I thought you were trapped in that awful trailer until I saw you pull up in your cousin's car. Were you honestly going to leave without asking me for help?" She kept talking, not waiting for my response. "I've been listening to your mother scream all night, but your father's been yelling too. To tell you the truth, up to now I thought he was mute."
I laughed shakily. "It's been a rough night."
Joanna clucked sympathetically and smoothed a stray strand of my hair behind my ear, a move that brought tears to my eyes. "Can I get you something? Water? Some coffee? Anything?"
I shook my head. "Honestly Joanna, I'm totally beat. Would it be okay if I crashed here tonight?"
"Of course, of course. You can stay in Rose's room."
"Rose?"
Joanna laughed lightly, then covered a huge yawn. She was obviously pretty tired too, and once again I couldn't believe she'd waited up for me. "Oh, it's just an old habit. Todd and I, we always wanted a little girl. If we'd had one, we would have named her Rose, and this room would have been her room, so I always just think of it as Rose's room."
Dread filled my stomach as we walked down the hall. I was sure that she was going to open the door and I'd walk into some dusty shrine to the baby who never existed, with a creepy empty crib and dead eyed teddy bears lining the walls.
I nearly wept with relief when instead the room was filled with craft supplies, a sewing machine, and a bunch of half finished jewelry projects. She motioned me to a cushy looking sofa crammed into the corner of the room. "It's not much, but it's comfortable. My sister sleeps there whenever she comes to visit, she says it's better than her own bed. I'll get you a pillow and blanket."
She bustled off and I sank down onto the couch, laying my head on the soft cushion and pulling my knees up to my chest in the fetal position. I was so, so tired.
Mrs. Dutton returned and clucked again when she saw me. I watched her, bleary-eyed, as she plugged in a nightlight, placed a pillow under my head, and laid a blanket over me, tenderly tucking it around my shoulders. "Goodnight, sweetheart," she whispered, pecking a light kiss on my temple.
She turned out the lights and shut the door. Fat tears rolled down my face. It was the first time I'd ever been tucked in. I cried myself to sleep. In a good way.
* * *
Daylight was pouring in the windows when I finally woke up the next morning. Afternoon, I realized, when I stumbled out to the kitchen and looked at the clock on the microwave. It was nearly one o'clock.
There was coffee in a carafe and a note on the table.
Dear Barbie,
I have to work today, and I'm driving to my sister's place in Oregon tonight. Sorry, can't get out of it. You're welcome to anything you want or need, and I hope that you'll feel free to stay here as long as you'd like.
She'd drawn a smiley face at the bottom of the page and written her name underneath. Under that was a house key, which I took and slipped into my pocket.
I sat at the Formica table in the sunny kitchen for a long time, brooding and nursing my coffee. I stared for a while at the framed wedding photo Joanna had hanging on the wall across from the kitchen table. Todd's hands rested lightly on her waist, his blue eyes laughing at the camera. Joanna smiled radiantly, her hands on top of his. I was glad to see that her fingernails were a light pink instead of the bright green she always wore now. They looked so young. So happy. It was totally unfair. And I was sick of unfair.
I could see the front of my trailer from the kitchen's side window. There was zero activity over there. Finally coming to a decision, I rose and headed back to the craft room. I rummaged around in the sewing table's drawers until I found exactly what I needed.
I was pretty sure my mom would be zonked out all day after her long night of shrieking. When I got there, the trailer had a deserted feel. It looked like my sisters had cleared out for the time being. Even the dogs were unusually quiet.
I let myself into the shed behind the trailer and eyed the tubs and tubs of unopened mail. I knew exactly which one had held my social security card and birth certificate, and I went straight to it. Using the seam ripper I'd grabbed from Mrs. Dutton's sewing supplies, I tore through every official looking envelope I saw, until I finally found what I was looking for. I put the envelope in my back pocket.
I was just about to leave, but then I remembered Grandma's twenty-five dollar check. Why not?
I turned back to the tubs, but this time, instead of looking for envelopes with the state seal on them, I searched for anything shaped like a card. And I didn't just look in the tub from my year. I went through them all. There was so much mail piled up, I worried that the slightest shift could bury me alive, but I kept going. By the time I was done, the shed was a rats’ nest of paper and I'd found nearly nine-hundred dollars in congratulatory cash. That was a hell of a lot of money in fives and tens to stuff in my pockets, but I managed.
I tiptoed back across the yard to Mrs. Dutton's and told myself not to feel guilty for stealing. Beyond the fact that I'd earned it through years of abuse, a lot of it had been addressed to me. Well, Grandma had addressed it to Frances Anderson, but I knew who she meant.
I sat down at Mrs. Dutton's table and my stomach growled. It was nearly five and I was famished, but I had so much to do. I sorted the money into stacks of bills. I thought briefly about hiding most of it under the couch, but instead I put it in a drawer in the sewing table. I didn't have to hide things here. I tucked a few twenties in my front pocket and returned to the kitchen table.
I pulled the envelope out of my back pocket and removed the paperwork. I spread it out on the table and examined it carefully. I looked to see if there was an expiration date or anything, but it didn't seem like there was. All I had to do was fill out my name. Whatever I wanted it to be. I drummed my fingers against the tabletop, staring off into space for about five minutes. Barbie, Mary, Tawny, even Athena and all the other silly nicknames Kaia had tried on me, they all churned through my head. But nothing was right. Nothing was me. I rested my chin in m
y hand and stared at the blank boxes for another minute before I finally folded up the paperwork and put it away.
NINETEEN
I drove Kaia's car to the mall, and I didn't kill it even once. I was practically an expert. I parked where we always parked, on the side furthest from Forever 21. This time, I wasn't there to drool over the guy at Baskin Robbins. I was there to talk to him.
Grady always worked Saturdays behind the counter at the ice cream shop, and even with everything that had happened, today was no exception.
He noticed me as soon as I walked in. He smiled at me, but it wasn't one of his thousand watt jobs. He looked tired. I waited until the line cleared out before I approached the counter.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi. Did everything go okay last night? How's Kaia?"
Of course he would ask about my problems first. "She's fine. Well, she's going to be fine. She'll have a monster hangover, but she'll be okay."
Grady didn't need to know the sordid details.
He nodded. "I remember her when she was in seventh grade and I was in ninth. She was a real sweet kid."
"She still is." A crafty thought stole into my brain. "You know, Grady…"
"Yeah?" he prompted me.
"I think after this weekend, she's going to want to give up drinking. For good. You said you do some Alateen meetings, right?"
Grady nodded, and I swear I actually saw a gleam in his eyes, but maybe that was only the fluorescent mall lights hitting them just right as he angled his head at me.
"Do you think maybe you could give her a call? Maybe see if you could get her to join you one of these times? I think she could use the support, and actually, I think you'd really like her. Way down deep, she's much nicer than me."
He laughed, a short, tired chuckle. "Yeah, I'll give her a call."
I leaned against the countertop. "Thanks. How about you? Are you doing okay? You look kind of…not so good."
"It was a long night," he replied. "Dad and I stayed up talking until six. Turns out he knew about you guys."
"I know, Joe told me."
"Joe knew?" Grady's shoulders slumped. "Great. I know I should be mad at them for not telling me, but…" he shrugged half-heartedly. "I'm just not. My dad came out of the closet when I was little, so I never experienced how hard it was for him. But I've seen some of the stuff he's gone through since then, and let me tell you, there've been some rough times."
I nodded silently.
Grady folded his arms on the top of the freezer case and leaned his chin on them. "Your dad was popular in high school. Mentally, he's kind of stuck there. He's still worried about what his high school friends think of him."
I sniffed. "That's pathetic."
"Is it?" Grady said. "I care what people think about me. I don't think that's ever going to change. Twenty years from now, I'll still care what you think about me."
"But that's different. We're friends."
"Those people were your dad's friends." Grady straightened up. "I've made my peace with it, and I'm going to move forward. Geoff and my dad love each other, and I love both of them, and that's what matters."
I pursed my lips. "Maybe."
"Give him a chance."
I sighed, sounding more aggravated than I felt. Grady's words were settling into my brain, and the longer they stayed there, the more reasonable they sounded. "Give me his address."
I let Grady get back to work, but I didn't leave the mall immediately. I bought a new outfit at Forever 21 and wore it out of the store, my old clothes from last night in a shiny plastic bag that I slipped around my wrist. It had taken a lot of willpower to not spend every cent I had on cute stuff, but I was determined that I was going to put some freaking gas in Kaia's car now that I had a little cash in my pocket.
It's a good thing I did, because the car was almost on empty and it turned out my dad's apartment was all the way across town.
He didn't seem surprised to see me. Maybe Grady had given him a heads up. Or maybe it was Joe who told him I might be stopping by. Or maybe, he figured we'd had such a connection over the shrimp buffet he'd offered me last night that he knew I would let bygones be bygones. I don't know.
As soon as I sat down on a barstool in the kitchenette, he started talking, his words coming out faster than I'd heard him speak in years. "I'm sorry for everything, Baby," he said. "I know I didn't treat you well. But being in that house, I felt like I was suffocating every time I stepped through the door. I didn't function well there. At all."
I stared at the hardwood floor, then took a sip of my Coke and raised my eyes to his. "Why did you stay?"
He shifted uneasily in his chair. "Your mother, she was in contact with everyone. She said if I paid the bills and stayed married to her, she wouldn't tell anyone about me being gay. But she kept sleeping around and getting pregnant. Even after Joe was born and I put my foot down-"
I swallowed some of my soda wrong. "You what?"
Dad rubbed his eyes angrily. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"Well, it's out there now," I said grumpily. "You might not have wanted kids but you really, really never wanted me, did you?"
Dad put his hand overtop mine. "I might not have been jazzed about it when you came along, but you turned out pretty great."
I blinked my eyes a couple times, fighting the stinging sensation.
"I know I can't take any credit for the person you've become." Dad's voice got really quiet. "But I'm proud to call you my daughter."
This seemed as good a time as any to bring up a totally awkward subject. "Are you?" I swallowed. "My father, I mean? Like, my actual father?"
Dad closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead hard. "No," he said softly, his eyes remaining closed. "I'm not."
I swallowed again. "Did you have a paternity test or something?"
He opened his eyes and shook his head. "Baby, I hadn't slept with your mother for more than a year when she became pregnant with you. She tried to get me to a couple of times, but I just…"
I held up my hand. "No, stop. I don't want to hear about it. Seriously."
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's not that. It's just…ew." I shuddered and criss-crossed my arms across my chest, hugging my body. I raised one foot up so that it rested on a peg near the top of the barstool, and I laid my folded arms on my knee. "Um…do you happen to know who is?"
Dad shook his head. "Your mother wouldn't tell me. Honestly, I didn't try too hard to find out. I was trapped, and I was angry."
"Yeah, I get that. But, you know, I kind of want to know."
Dad pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling, obviously thinking. Finally, he locked his gaze to mine. "I had suspicions, of course. But I don't know anything for sure."
"I'd take suspicions. They're better than nothing."
He sighed. "Your mother and your Aunt Laura used to be fairly close, you know."
I stopped breathing. "No, I didn't know that," I whispered, using all the air I still had in my body to get those words out.
Dad nodded. "They didn't always hate each other. Laura, she would watch the kids, your older sisters and Joey, sometimes Mark and I would go fishing. Seems like a million years ago."
"What happened?"
Dad shrugged and held out his hands, palms up. "I don't know. Not for sure. One day when I got home from work, the word 'whore' was spray painted in three-foot letters on the front of our trailer. I never saw Laura or Mark again, outside of the occasional awkward run in at the grocery store."
"Didn't you ask Mom what happened?"
"No. That was the same day she told me she was pregnant. I had other things on my mind."
I laced my fingers together and stuffed my hands between my knees. I couldn't get any words out, but I nodded, and Dad seemed to accept that. He stayed quiet for a couple of minutes, and finally I cleared my throat. "Well, I guess I'd better go."
"Joe's moving in here with me," Dad said, before I could rise from my barstool. "It's a three bedro
om apartment, and I don't really need a home office. I could shuffle some stuff around. What I'm saying is, you're welcome to stay here too, if you'd like."
I smiled at him, as genuine a smile as I could muster. "Thanks. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do, I've got some options. But really…thanks."
It was dark out when I walked outside. I knew I had to take Kaia's car back. I wanted her to see that full gas gauge, damn it. And I needed to see Uncle Mark. I needed to look him in the face. If I stared at him hard enough, maybe I could see all the way into his DNA. Was he my father? How do you just casually ask something like that?
By the time I parked the car in Kaia's driveway, I'd totally chickened out. I locked the car up and went to the front door, intending to slip the keys through the gold mail flap in the bottom of the door. The porch light was on though, which kind of ruined my whole stealth plan. As I tiptoed up to the front step, the door opened and Uncle Mark stepped onto the front porch. Obviously he'd been watching for me. His eyes locked on mine.
"I'm sorry I took the car," I mumbled, pressing the keys into his hand. I whirled around but before I'd taken two steps, he halted me with his voice.
"Wait."
I stopped, but I didn't turn around.
"Here."
I looked over my shoulder. He was holding the keys out to me. I stared at them, wondering if my eyes actually bulged out of my head the way it felt like they did.
"Kaia's grounded. Indefinitely." Her dad grimaced. "But she remembers bits and pieces of what happened last night, and…I'm sorry. About the way my wife and I treated you. Thank you for being there for Kaia. She could use a sister like you to keep her out of trouble."
I turned to face him fully. "Good thing she's got me for a cousin then," I said. I tried to catch his eyes. Were they mine? Is that where the amber flecks in my brown eyes came from? Or were they from my mother's side? Kaia had them too. But she could have gotten them from Aunt Laura. No, she couldn't. Aunt Laura's eyes were as blue as my mom's.
But Uncle Mark's gaze was shifty, and the light was bad. I couldn't tell anything. He glanced at the closed door behind him, and from the look on his face I suspected that Aunt Laura was probably hovering just inside the door and maybe she wasn't feeling as charitable towards me as he was. That or my staring was making him really uncomfortable. Probably both.
No Use For A Name Page 15
