None of them has answers other than leave the box alone and please forgive me. None of them can give me the comfort or solace or calm that I’ve found on the field. They did once. But not anymore.
I’m solely responsible for obtaining that now. It’s all on me.
As I make my way out of her study, my phone pings in my back pocket. I pull it out as I ascend the stairs to my room, hoping this isn’t Siah forgetting to loop me out of this week’s practice emails.
I hold my thumb against the home button to unlock it and it opens up right to my Gmail app—the last app I used.
It’s from him. Merrick.
He finally emailed me back.
Chapter Nine
M.DAQUIN: Lynn, thanks for reaching out to me about a piece of music for your film. I’m happy to chat with you more in order to find out if something I already have in my catalog would suffice or if I can create something new for you.
L.STRANGE: Mr. D’Aquin. I do believe I would like to commission something new from you …
L.STRANGE: Are you, by chance, a Los Angeles local? I prefer to meet with artists in person to assess for myself whether or not their style is right for my projects.
M.DAQUIN: Understandable. I am local. It’s not something I normally do—meet with my clients before they’re officially my clients—but if you’re fairly local to the San Fernando Valley, we can meet to discuss prospects.
L.STRANGE: That would be ideal.
L.STRANGE: I am local. How soon can you meet?
M.DAQUIN: How’s tomorrow afternoon, around 1 p.m.?
L.STRANGE: 15045 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
L.STRANGE: I’ll see you at the address above at 1 p.m..
L.STRANGE HAS LEFT THE CONVERSATION.
Game. Set. Match.
Chapter Ten
Blu Jam Café is packed when I arrive, box tucked under my arm like a football. A secret football.
Someone bumps me just as I enter the swinging door. Even though it’s a weekday afternoon, there are moms meeting for coffee, having arranged a “play date” where their bad-ass kids can yell about having to poop as they pick apart their gluten-free banana nut muffins.
That’s essentially Blu Jam’s weekday aesthetic. It’s partially why I chose it to meet him.
Kids my age who use the Internet aren’t dumb about it. Not like our parents think we are. We don’t meet strangers in their homes—even if there’s a good chance for some kind of parental lineage there—and we don’t give out personal information to adults or whatever.
The point is, I go into this meeting carefully. Full-on knowing Mamma and Daddy would tan my hide if they knew I’d left the house to do this when, in actuality, I’m supposed to be home, resting, recovering from a concussion.
But I had to. And I had to do it alone.
And Merrick … if he’s not the one who sent the box, why should he continue to be kept in the dark about this? How is that fair?
Admittedly, my curiosity is a much larger force for why I want to find him than anything else. I don’t do much of anything altruistically.
It takes me all of thirty seconds to spot him, sitting at a relatively small table for two, manspreading as he reads the paper.
He’s got shoulder-length hair, much shorter than what it looked to be in the Polaroid. Half of it’s up, the other half down. He’s wearing a jacket-style flannel, dingy-looking, paint-splattered jeans, and a lazy brow.
He is still very much the same as the guy in that photo. I’m not sure how that makes me feel, but as I walk over to him, I crack my chest open and let all feelings go.
I stand in front of him for just a moment too long before he glances up from the paper and says, “What—you need this space for the outlet or something?”
Holy crap, he didn’t send the box. He’d have recognized me from the photos if he had. He didn’t send this box.
Oh, God.
I hadn’t realized before now that I was hanging on to him being the one to have sent it. I mean, it was the only logical conclusion. I had hoped it wasn’t his doing, but it would have given me answers. It would’ve also meant Merrick was a manipulative jerk, but I want some understanding right now. That feels more necessary than whatever I’d get from his having nothing to do with any of this.
But I’m spinning and I don’t know which way is up anymore.
Jesus, here come the nerves—a sort of vibrating, tickling sensation settling into my skin.
“N-no, I … uh. I’m Lynn. Kinda.” I clear my throat, heft my backpack higher up on my shoulder.
He pauses. I can see the confusion spreading across his face. The brows soften just a little, enough to creep up his forehead. Both his nearly nonexistent lips and eyes stretch thinly. He tucks his chin down just as he asks, “You’re Lynn?”
I nod. Shrug.
“Lynn Strange?”
I nod again. “Listen,” I say, pulling the empty chair out and sitting. I lean in toward him. “I am Lynn insofar as I am the one who sent you that message about buying your music or whatever.”
He nods like I do. Slow. Measured. “So you … do or do not want to discuss working with me?”
“Uh, no. Sorry. I probably can’t afford you and also I am not a director.”
“You lied.”
“I lied.”
He reclines in his chair further, his legs stretching into my space. “What is this, kid?”
I exhale. Just say it, Tasia. Just get it out. I set the box on the table. He glances down at it. “I have good reason to believe I’m your kid and also maybe you know who sent me this box and, like, if you don’t know, then maybe you’d be down to help me figure out who did?”
He laughs.
He laughs in my face.
“Is this a joke? My sister put you up to this?” He lifts the lid of the box, barely glances inside, and then drops it. He doesn’t even close the lid properly. “Halfway across the globe, and she’s pulling childish pranks on me?”
“No,” I say firmly. “No. My mother is Sloane Newark. Or, was. She’s married now. Sloane Quirk. B-but her maiden name is—”
“Sloane is your mom?” His eyes search my face, like there’s some understanding to be found. Too bad, buddy. No answers here. Trust me.
The look on his face is, like, equal parts confusion and … elation? He takes a slow, deep breath in and doesn’t release it.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. And I think I’m your kid and I didn’t even know, and that weird ‘I ate something bad’ look on your face seems to indicate you didn’t know either, and here’s this pic of you two”—I pull the Polaroid from the box—“and somebody sent me this box in the mail a few days ago, and I had hoped it was you because clearly someone’s been watching me all these years, which should probably creep me out more than it does and—”
“Christ, please, stop talking,” he says. He’s got his eyes shut tight and I hold my breath, waiting for him to open them again. “How old are you?” he says.
“Eighteen.”
“Jesus. Are you supposed to be in school right now?”
“Wow, that is such a dad thing to say—”
“Please.” He holds up a hand.
“Sorry. Yes, I’m supposed to be in school. I mean, I would be if I weren’t home for the week with a medical-grade concussion.”
“I—What?”
“I got a concussion after I—”
He holds up a hand like he just can’t bear to hear any more. “Please. Stop. So this means your mom doesn’t know you’re here.”
“No.”
“And your … dad? He doesn’t know either? You said your mom’s married.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t know.”
“Okay.” He stands. Then sits. Then stands again before glancing at me and sitting down. “Okay. Sloane knows about the box?”
“She tried to hide it from me.”
It sounds accusatory. It is, a little bit. I don’t intend it that way—to soun
d like I’m tattling on her. But it comes out and I guess I’m expecting him to be on my side. To look me in the eye and agree that yeah, she messed up.
When did this thing even morph into sides?
Merrick shakes his head. I wish he’d give me more than that. I need to know he’s taking me seriously. To know that maybe he’ll help me the way Mamma and Daddy so far haven’t.
“She thinks I’m your dad too? Why wouldn’t she have told me? What’s your name?”
I pull a corner of his newspaper toward me, begin to fold the edge. Give my hands some busywork. “That was a lot of questions. She knows. Maybe you wanna talk to her? My name’s Tasia. Tasia Lynn Quirk.”
He nods. “Tasia.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re my kid.”
I nod. “Think so.”
“I have a daughter.”
I nod. “Think so.”
The laugh—a cackle, really—that he lets loose is loud enough to cover the entirety of this ridiculously crowded café.
Chapter Eleven
He sobers.
And the look on his face quickly morphs from mild intrigue to complete elation. Like a kid finding a shiny quarter on the ground, and then going all Dr. Jekyll, cackling over a new experiment. I am his new experiment. It’s basically the most insulting kind of amusement possible.
I think that’s going to be the worst of it until he laughs in my face. Again.
Loud, raucous laughter that comes from deep in his belly and basically climbs out of his mouth.
It’s less easy to see him not taking me seriously than I thought it’d be. The reaction I almost expected was a little bit of anger. For him to be on my side. But this? This is different. This makes the skin under my arms prickle. This feeling is a hot comb too close to the scalp.
He sobers, suddenly. “My daughter,” he says. And I brighten.
Okay! Yes! We can work with this.
“Yep,” I say.
“I don’t know how much of this I’m buying.”
Okay, wait, wait. No.
No.
There is this need to move welling up in the balls of my feet. To walk or run or, I don’t know, do lunges or drugs or something. Coach’d be so proud. About the lunges. Not the drugs.
“I know, I know,” I say, holding my hands up in front of me. “I just really think—”
“I mean, what were you thinking was going to happen?” His voice is sharp and hard. It’s alive. I want him go back to laughing at me. He explodes out of his chair. I’m actually pretty amazed it doesn’t fall over or melt into the ground. “You’re Sloane’s kid?”
I nod. I don’t know exactly how we went from “my daughter” to “Sloane’s kid” before I could blink twice, but I nod again anyway.
“Call her,” he says. “Call her right now.”
“This isn’t some elaborate joke.”
He’s drawing the attention of fellow coffee drinkers now. Generally, whenever an adult is screaming at a teen girl in public, it’s cause for concern.
So it probably doesn’t help that Merrick is white.
My phone has been pulled out even though I have no intention of calling my mamma. She’d be furious. More than furious. She’d lock me in the basement for the rest of my life.
And we don’t even have a basement.
Problem is, my other options aren’t much better. They’re significantly worse, depending on how you look at it. Call Slim. Call Trist. Call Daddy.
Jesus.
So, of course, I make it worse. “You could follow me to my house? Talking in person would be better.”
He seems to be mulling it over, mouth scrunched up tight, lips jumping from side to side. I can almost hear him thinking through every possible scenario in which this might be a sick prank.
Finally, with much more ease than I imagine, he says, “You drive?”
I nod.
“What do you drive?”
“A ‘ninety-six Jeep.”
He whistles. “And you’re sure this is smart?”
No. “Oh, yeah.”
“The responsible thing would be to schedule a time to discuss this with your parents.”
“Uhh, or,” I say, “or, you could follow me to my house, and we could get this all out of the way sooner rather than later.”
Merrick rubs his hand along his stubbly jaw. I wonder, ridiculously, how often he shaves. “What’s the rush?” he says.
The box. This stupid box and whoever sent it is the rush. “Look, maybe I just want some answers. Maybe I just want someone to tell me the fu—fricking truth for once. So what if I’m eager to know more about you? More about me. I’d think you might feel the same.”
I see it reflected in his face, the moment my words land. His resolve. He’s throwing a couple bills on the table and heading out the door ahead of me a moment later, without a word.
I have to run to catch up. “Wait! I’m parked, like, a million blocks from here!”
His Benz pulls up behind my Jeep, headlights flashing up the white and red-bricked drive and Mamma’s heritage rose garden.
Merrick whistles as he gets out of the car, rounding the front of his beat-to-shit Mercedes to stand next to me. My own eyes follow his gaze as it takes in the monstrosity. The McMansion I call home.
“Yeah, I know.” There’s really nothing more to say about it. To me, it’s just … home. It’s the place where I brush my teeth before bed at night and where Tammy and I binge-watch episodes of Toddlers & Tiaras. It’s the place where Tristan’s lists can be found in every secret nook and cranny. It’s the place where Daddy spends his entire Sunday if he can’t seem to drag himself into the office, reading what is presumably the same section of the LA Times. It’s the place where Mamma loves us all best.
Merrick knocks on the door once we’ve made our way up the drive and across the porch. I look at him like he’s nuts. “You don’t have to knock. I live here—”
Mamma swings the door open. I’m a little shocked she’s home this early; it’s three in the afternoon. And all that is rendered irrelevant anyway when she takes one scathing, blistering look at Merrick, snatches my arm to pull me into the house, and points at him with the other.
A ripe “fuck you” leaves her lips.
She kicks the door shut with whatever appendages she hasn’t used to tell my birth father how unwelcome he is here.
Before I can say anything she beats me there. “No.”
“Mamma—”
“No, Tasia. I cannot believe you would do something like this. How did you even find him?” She’s walking away from me, and the farther she gets, the louder her voice echoes against the walls of the foyer.
I follow, knowing very well that she doesn’t want an answer to her question, but that I should be right behind her regardless, if only so I don’t do anything else this dumb. Like letting Merrick into the house.
“Mamma, please.”
She rounds on me so fast, I almost miss it. “‘Mamma, please’?” she says. “‘Mamma, please’ what? This wasn’t some mystery game with a riddle you needed to solve. What would possess you, Tasia Lynn Quirk.”
“d’Aquin,” I say, arms folded now. The point is to emphasize how done I am with all this. But mostly the arms I’ve got so tightly folded up against my chest are just to hold my lungs and heart in place, to prevent my ribs from falling onto the floor, right in front of Mamma’s Jimmy Choos.
“What?”
“Technically, it’s d’Aquin, isn’t it?”
“Tasia—”
I back up a few steps, like Simone Biles making space for her running start. I feel infinitely less badass, but distance from Mamma … it helps some.
“I need this. You owe me this, at the very least. Some answers. Some truth. Mamma, why won’t you give me this?”
She’s quiet for a beat, and then opens her mouth to speak again right as I notice Daddy standing in the entryway, a few feet from her. I don’t know at what point he walked in. It doesn’t se
em relevant until he says, “I’m going to let him inside, Sloane.”
Mamma turns to him, stumbling backwards a single step. Seems I wasn’t the only one who didn’t realize we’d become a party of three.
“Solomon, I …” but she doesn’t say anything beyond that. And I don’t think she will.
Daddy walks past us both and the whiff of his cologne I get is so strong, so much more pronounced, I wonder how it took me until now to notice all the rose and amber, all the peach nectar and patchouli.
I look at Mamma while Daddy’s and Merrick’s voices hum in the background, seeming much more quaint and warm than this situation probably warrants.
Suddenly, I feel very small. Like this decision was too big for me to have made myself. My heart beats a little faster in my chest, fast enough that I can feel it pulsing in my neck as I struggle to swallow.
I messed up. I shouldn’t have done this. Why did I do this?
I’m caught up in the whirl of my decision when it hits me that I know why I did this. Answers are why I did this.
And then we’re all at the edge of the foyer, very nearly into the den when Daddy says, “Let’s all sit down. Talk.”
And no one else moves.
Not until I do.
Chapter Twelve
He opens with the worst possible line. “You look fuckin’ great, Slo.”
“Language,” Mamma says. And I already know how most of this talk is about to go. Trash. It’s going to go in the trash.
“It’s not like I haven’t heard you and Daddy say the word ‘fuck’ before,” I add helpfully.
“Tasia Lynn.”
I hold my hands up. There’s not much room for me to push right now. “Sorry.”
Still, though I shouldn’t push much verbally—not where I don’t have to—I can’t help liking the fact that Merrick is … misplaced in our den, with his tattered shoes on Mamma’s probably antique rug. I want him to track mud everywhere, because I’m awful. Want traces of who he is to stain this space so no one forgets who he is. Why he’s here. Who I am. I want his presence to pull on this place like marionette strings, long after this puppet show is over.
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