Chapter 18
I checked in with Thom during the cab ride, which, I was pleased but not overly surprised to see, was prepaid. All I had to do was sign a voucher.
“We're fine,” Thom said. “As usual.”
There was not exactly a tacit criticism in her voice, just a stoic heroism.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I ran into Grant, and we got to talking.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” she said. “You need someone outside here, and if it was up to me, you wouldn't even
be
here for a while, after what you saw.”
“Be that as it mayâ”
“It ain't
may,
Gwen, honey. It's fact.”
“Okay. I'll still be back soon. I have one more stop to make.”
“You'll be back when you're back. I gotta go.”
“Dani doing all right?”
“Dani is doin' fine, considerin' she went to Luke's soiree after the Reid party last night and let on that she's a little hungover.”
“I thought she seemed a little off,” I remarked.
“I suspect she has hidden such things before,” Thom said. “I only found out when I saw her chuggin' OJ with a side of pickles.”
I made a face. “Let me guess. Online remedies?”
“Separate ones, but she went for the double dose.”
“Gotta love her.”
“Or somethin',” Thom said noncommittally. Drinking and her religious beliefs did not go well together. “Got lunch crowd startin' in. Goin' now, hon.”
Thom hung up. We were a block from our destination. I felt as though I could use a few drinks myself.
It was nearly noon. The light but steady rain had emptied the streets of their usual Monday morning foot traffic. I had no idea when Stacie took lunch. I wasn't even sure I wanted to talk to her. But I did want to see her, just lay eyes on her. Maybe it was a way to get in touch with a part of my father I'd never known.
A sucky part,
I thought,
but even bad news is information
. The torn-up feelings I had for him needed a push one way or the other.
The cab stopped in front of Blinn Day Care. I got out and stood under the awning of the pet shop next door. I looked through the window.
There were cribs, floor mats, plastic and rubber toys, and Sammi Blinn, a very attractive and sweet young woman I knew from chats at the deli. Then there was a younger woman tending to a crying little girl. The woman was taller than Lydia, about five-eight, but had her strong cheekbones and graceful movements. When she happened to look up, I saw that she also had her mother's eyes. Her long brown hair was worn in a ponytail. There was a small engagement ring on her left hand and a tattoo on her bare right arm. It looked like a football. It was pretty low on her arm, well below the biceps. If I used a tape measure, I'd probably find it was in the exact center.
A sweet tribute to the football career of her affianced.
I waited there, admiring the gentle way she handled the kids. I couldn't imagine the things she felt when she did that. Remembering Thomasina? Imagining a time when she would have her own kids? Wanting them to have a life of comfort and attention, not like the life she hadânot the life that Scott Ferguson could offer?
Maybe she doesn't really think about any of that,
I thought.
I have a decade on her and New York jadedness on top of that. Maybe her thoughts are more innocent, purer.
It occurred to me then that meeting her, I might actually poison the poor thing with something worse than she already had.
I had just about made up my mind to go when she looked up, happened to see me, and snapped her gaze back after it had already passed. She put the girl in front of a music box of some kind, went over to Sammi, said a few words, and pulled a slicker from the coatrack. I'd been made. There was no sneaking off now.
She came out the door, the bell tingling, and stepped under the awning. It was like looking into the face of Lydia before life and probably some long swims through a bottle had beaten the hell out of her.
“Gwen,” she said rather than asked.
“Hi,” I said.
We looked at each otherâjust looked. I couldn't read what she was thinking. I was aware of my heart beating a little faster, driven by uncertainty and a little fear. I was about to say something, anythingâI had no idea what would come outâwhen she put her arms around me and hugged me tighter than I could ever remember being held. It was a grip of desperation. Not self-pity. She didn't cry, didn't clutch. She just held. As though cementing, in tangible form, the unspoken thing we shared.
Her ear was near mine. “Had lunch yet?” I asked.
“Why? Do you know a place?”
That made me laugh. She laughed. She stepped back, looked in my face, and we both laughed a little, then cried, then hugged again like long-lost sisters.
“Shit,” she said.
It wasn't much, but it said a lot.
She said she'd be right back and ran into the day-care center. I peeked. I saw Sammi nod. I didn't want this to be traumatic for Stacie
and
get her fired. She came back out, took my arm, and said through a big smile, “So where's this place?”
Actually, it was a dark tavern down the street called the Bar Bar. It said only Bar, but it was written on a musical bar. It was pretty much a nightspot, but it was open for lunch. We took a booth in the back. We both ordered an iced tea.
“Not too weird,” she said in a strong, sweetly accented voice.
“This, or the fact that we both ordered the same drink?”
“Both, I guess,” she said. Then added another “Shit” for good measure.
“Yeah, I know.”
What do you say to a sibling you've never met, who you didn't even know existed until a few days before?
“So . . . how's life?” I asked.
She laughed again, I laughed again, but this time she stopped short of crying. Our drinks arrived, and we didn't bother looking at the menu. She ordered a lunch salad. I ordered a hamburger.
“Not big on healthy eatin'?” she asked.
“Tough to do where I work.”
“I eat a lot of salads 'cause that's what Thomasina fed me growin' up.”
“Eat your greens,” I said. “Her own kids told me she said that to them all the time.”
“Would it get her in trouble if I told you I see her now and then?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I don't blame you.”
Stacie laughed. “She still tells me to eat greens, and she still makes me pray. Did you ever pray with her?”
“Not willingly,” I said.
“You should. It helps.”
I still couldn't believe Thom had kept this from me. But the kind of love she gave to this girl made it impossible to be upset.
Stacie's mood sobered. “My mother came to see you.”
“Yes.”
“Scott too.”
“Scott too.”
“I'm sorry,” she said.
I reached across the table and took her hand. “Don't be. They brought me to you.”
She smiled tightly.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
She sighed and absently stirred her iced tea with a straw. “I wish I knew.” The tears returned, just a few. It was sadness, not histrionics. “I'm angry at Mom. You know about the adoption?”
“Yes.”
“I know I shouldn't blame her, she said she only wanted what was best for me, but it's no fun to find out your mother wanted to
sell
you.”
“People do things when they're confused,” I said. “Sometimes not the smartest things.”
She laughed humorlessly. “That's almost what Scott said to me last night.”
“Why?”
“He knows I've been seeing this guy. . . . It's a stupid thing, doesn't really mean anything, but he's real generous.”
“He gives you money?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“'Cause he knows I need it,” she said.
“Do youâ”
“Have sex with him? Yeah. But it's not like it sounds. I was doin' that before he started givin' me a hundred here and there.”
“You said it doesn't really mean anythingâ”
“That's true. When I'm with him, in his big ole house, in a bed with silk sheets, I feel good about myself. The money is just somethin' extra. I keep it in a box in the bank. And when it's done one day, when one of us is tired of the other, then it's done. At least I'll have had that feelin' of bein' a queen.”
“What about Scott?”
She looked off, as though she were seeing his face in the distance. “Scott . . . is like a whole other world. He's the guy I watch Jason Statham with. He's the guy who brings home
pakoras
and naan. You ever feel that way about a guy, that he's mostly a good buddy?”
“Sort of,” I told her. “I've got a little of that going on right now.”
“It's not a bad thing, is it? A friend you have sex with.”
“Not bad,” I agreed. “Though it'd be nicer if I loved the guy.”
“Oh, I guess I love Scott. But Stephen is like this king. I don't love him, but he's handsome and he sure rocks my chair. You ever have
that?
”
“I did, and frankly, I would argue against it.”
“Against a man boy toy?”
“No, against . . . God, I'm not even sure what to call it.”
“What happened?”
“When I was your age, I was dating a professor who was way older than me. I felt special when I was with him, like I was smart enough for this genius PhD to hang around with. Even if it was just for sex.”
“And then you'd go back to your real world, right?”
“Right.”
“Like the other one didn't truly exist.”
“Pretty much.”
“Which is what I do,” Stacie said.
“Except what happened after that ended was I kept trying to find it again. I kept failing. I tried to go cold turkey by marrying someone my own age. He was a jerk. When that ended, I realized I hadn't really dealt with the issues that made me want the professor in the first place.”
“What issues?”
“Not feeling good about myself, not feeling smart enough.”
“But you went to
college!
”
“Where I worked my ass off. I became an accountant. And do you want to know what I learned in the time I've been down here, running a restaurant? That I could've been anything. Anything! I picked this up easily. I'll bet if it had been a baseball team or a movie studio, I could've kicked that ass, too! That's what I needed to feel good and smart enough.”
Stacie was thoughtful as our food arrived. My mouth was dry and my throat was raw from all the talking and yelling I'd done. I drank half my iced tea.
“You're lucky you had those experiences,” she said. “You got that knowledge.”
“Stacie, the knowledge I got was that I didn't know anything about myself.” I waited. “And then there were the other issues that sent me looking for a professor in the first place. The father issues.”
Stacie's pensive mood went black again.
“We don't have to talk about that,” I said.
“No, I want to,” she told me. “I think we probably got a lot of the same scars.”
“I'm sure. The question is, do I let them heal and forget about them, or do we keep staring at them and picking at them?”
“You just said we've gotta understand things. I don't see how you can do that without thinkin' about 'em.”
“It depends on
how
we think about them. I'm mad about what Dad did to our mothers.” It sounded strange to say “Dad” in the collective, probably as strange as it was for her to hear it. But it was also nice. “The man was selfish, and that brings out our righteous indignation as women.”
She laughed, but I wasn't sure she understood that.
“What I mean is, I loved him, but even when he was alive, I was angry about how he lived his life. And I'm coming to realize that what I've been doing is beating up the men around me because I'm mad at our old man.”
“Don't men ever do things that deserve a beatin' on their own?”