Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (11 page)

Yes! “Great,” Gemma said. Her pen was poised to write. She sat up straight, any vestiges of her earlier pregnancy-related tiredness gone in a flash. She was on pure adrenaline right now.

Claire regarded her for a moment and took another sip of her coffee. “There’s a home for pregnant teenagers on the outskirts of town. Hope Home’s fiftieth anniversary is at the end of July, and I’d like to do a full-coverage story on the place—what the home provides, the girls there, past residents, a where-are-they-now type thing, what it was like to be a pregnant teen fifty years ago, twenty-five years ago, and today. I want statistics on all the angles, candid quotes, townspeople reflections, the whole shebang.”

Gemma’s heart sank. A story about pregnant teenagers? Pregnant anyones? This wasn’t a subject Gemma wanted to focus on. The skin of her arms felt . . . tight. “Claire, I—”

Claire held up a hand. “Gemma, the fact that you’re pregnant, and—well, I’ll be honest—in a state of flux, not sure of anything, is the main reason why I want you doing this story. You—questions that you’ll ask, the perspective that you have, or need—will bring something to the piece that none of my other reporters could right now.”

Gemma sat back. “But—”

“Three thousand words. Front page of the Life & People section.”

Three thousand words. Front page. That was big. Hope Home. Pregnant teenagers. Would she encounter a bunch of fifteen-year-olds who were giving their babies up for adoption? Keeping them? This assignment—from their stories to Hope Home’s history and past residents, the adoptive parents, and the circle of it all—would be emotionally intense, to say the least. “You know I appreciate this opportunity, Claire. It’s just . . . unexpected.”

“Like most things,” her friend said.

Gemma went back to the inn and took her laptop to the parlor, where Isabel had set up a noon tea for guests. It was so cozy that Gemma could stay in this sweet parlor with its overstuffed couches and chairs, mohair throws and soft pillows, forever. She helped herself to chamomile tea in a pretty cup and a small slice of the best Key lime pie Gemma had ever had, then got busy reading through the information on the Hope Home website.

The website was pretty basic, informative, but gently written, about what the home provided—a safe haven for pregnant teenagers, room and board, counseling, a resident nurse, and help with adoptive services. “Since 1963” was written under the Hope Home logo. What had it been like to be a pregnant teenager, sent to a home, in 1963? Gemma pulled out her notebook and wrote some notes about research she needed to do today—statistics on the number of pregnant teenagers in the United
States in the sixties and today, what percentage of babies given up for adoption were born to teenagers versus adult women. What percentage of pregnant teens kept their babies and what percentage put them up for adoption. As she jotted down questions, she found herself writing two full pages of notes.

Did they all want to keep their babies? Did some know right away that adoption was their answer? There were some harder questions that Gemma would delve into once she learned the basics, questions that even she didn’t want to think about.

There was a photograph of the home on the main page of the website. It sure looked nice. A sprawling white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. And a plaque:
BUILT IN 1883
. There were flowerpots lining the porch, and under a huge shade tree were several chaise lounges in a semicircle. Group meetings, Gemma figured. She finished her tea and craved another piece of that incredible pie but forced herself to get off the gorgeous mahogany love seat, its soft cushion printed with glittery sea stars, like the quilt in her room.

Out on the porch, Gemma sat on the swing, pulled out her phone, and pressed in the number for Hope Home. Five minutes later, Gemma had a noon appointment with the director for an interview and a tour; the woman said she’d have to talk to a few of her residents to see if they’d like to participate in the article and share their stories, and she could discuss the possibility of giving contact information for former residents, both recent and from decades ago, at their meeting.

As Gemma opened her notebook to jot down more questions, her phone rang. Alexander.

“I’m on my way to court so just have a few minutes, but
wanted to check in,” he said. “All that fresh Maine air and small-town niceness make you want to move to Dobbs Ferry yet?”

He was relentless.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at the listing yet, Alex. I have an assignment for the
Boothbay Gazette
and—”

“Gemma, you promised to look. You’re being unfair. I almost got hit by a taxi this morning. I’m sick of this city. I want out.”

“Alex, I really can’t talk about this right now. I’m on assignment. And my time here is limited, so I have to do some research right now.”

“Look, Gemma, I lost out on that house I put the offer on because I underbid and then felt like I couldn’t up the offer because you flipped out. We’re moving. You don’t have a job holding you to New York City. There’s no reason to live there. We’ve been here since we graduated from high school, eleven years. Enough already.”

She sighed. “For you, not for me.”

“So I’ll just be miserable, is that what you’re saying?”

“No, I’m saying that I’d be more miserable in Dobbs Ferry. You wanted to live in New York, it was your dream. At least you have that. But if I moved to Dobbs Ferry, I’d be miserable. I’d feel like my soul was being sucked right out of me, every day. I wouldn’t know who I was there, Alex.”

New York City, where he’d gone to college and law school, had stopped being his dream long ago, though, and she knew it. When they’d been married about three years, they’d started having a good-natured argument about New York, Gemma listing its wonders, and Alex its many downsides, which Gemma barely ever noticed. She’d told him how as a kid, she’d take the
elevator to the roof of her parents’ fancy building on the Upper West Side and go out and stare at the twinkling lights, and she’d feel lit up by possibility, by how much was out there in the world for her to dream about, to hope for. When she was upset about her family life, which was often, she’d go up to the roof and fill herself up with all that wonder.

On the evening of her and Alex’s third wedding anniversary, he’d told her he had a surprise for her, put a makeshift blindfold around her eyes, and then led her out of their apartment to the elevator. Only when he took the blindfold off did she realize they’d gone up and not down and were on the roof of their building. She’d gasped. He’d set up a table covered with a lace tablecloth, a bouquet of flowers, and two covered plates, which turned out to be his one specialty, chicken Parmesan over linguini. A space heater was plugged in since it was October and chilly at night, and his old boom box was playing their wedding song. “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen.

He’d done all that for her, then sat her down, told her she was stunningly beautiful and he was grateful as hell that she was his wife, that as long as he had her, he would be happy anywhere. They ate and drank Champagne and had one slow dance in which they barely moved, then went downstairs and made love more passionately, more tenderly than Gemma could remember.

That was just two years ago. Her dear Alex, her best friend, her husband, had created that beautiful night for her. He’d been telling her that no matter what their marriage was like at the moment, full of arguments about where to live or when to start a family, their marriage would always be her New York City, her rock, her wonder, her possibilities. They would find a way.

Two years later, everything had gotten so terribly out of hand, so strained and tied in knots.

“You’ve never even given the suburbs a chance, Gemma,” he barked into the phone. “You just claim to hate it because it’s not New York and because you think you have any idea what it’s like to live there. You have no idea.”

Gemma closed her eyes, wishing she could wave a magic wand and just fix this. That Alex would want what she wanted. That she would want what he wanted. If only they could just agree.

They could go back and forth on this forever. Neither was wrong, but Dobbs Ferry was wrong for her—it would be the death of her. She knew that. But New York City had become the same for him. Maybe she was being as selfish as she thought he was being.

She said she had to go and heard his sigh, and pictured him, on the streets of New York City, grabbing a coffee on his way to court, taxicabs screeching by him, crowds of people, bus exhausts blowing in his face in the humid Manhattan air. For a moment, Gemma did feel selfish. If only she could find the middle ground, the answer for both of them.

She lifted her face to the sunshine and tried to put the conversation out of her mind. June’s Subaru turned into the drive, and she had her baby niece, Isabel’s daughter, in the backseat in a rear-facing pink baby carrier. June waved and in moments had the baby in her arms, and again, Gemma tried to look at the baby and feel like most people seemed to feel when they looked at babies, a squeeze of the heart, an
awww
, an oh, can I hold her, smell her sweet baby smell, the yearning to have one of her own.

But Gemma felt none of that. All she felt was fear, deep inside.

She gave June a warm smile and then escaped in her car to Harbor View Coffee to work on her interview questions. But there was a Mommy and Me kind of get-together in the back, babies everywhere she looked. Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something. Gemma just wasn’t sure what.

Bea could barely turn around in the narrow shower of her crummy budget motel across the bay from downtown Boothbay Harbor. But at least the water was hot, the shampoo smelled good, and on the bathroom counter was a mini–hot plate, a mug, and a packet of instant coffee with nondairy creamer and sugar. Even more important, the motel was cheap. Bea had gotten her last half week’s paycheck from Crazy Burger, but she’d spent a fortune on gas to drive up to Maine, and had already racked up two nights at the motel—with no idea when she’d be checking out. The motel—the cheapest she’d found in the middle of the summer in this bustling tourist town—was sixty-nine bucks a night. She could afford one more night, but even that would be pushing it. If she wanted to stick around for a week or two, get her bearings before she introduced herself to her birth mother, she’d have to get some kind of temporary job. Given that it was summer, she was sure one of the zillion restaurants needed kitchen help. After she visited the hospital, she’d look around for “Help Wanted” signs or check the local paper.

Bea blew dry her shoulder-length blond hair with the tiny, tinny hair dryer attached to the wall, put on a little makeup—a little brown eyeliner and mascara and a quick swipe of pinky-red lip gloss—then headed back into the small room to get her bag.
On the bedside table she’d put a photograph of herself and her mother at her graduation, to remind herself who she was, that this crazy deathbed secret didn’t change the fact that she was Bea Crane, daughter of Cora and Keith Crane. They’d raised her, they’d loved her.

They’d lied to her.

Bea dropped down on the edge of the bed, that sick feeling hitting her in the stomach again whenever her thoughts went to that fact. Omission. And a big one. The past couple of nights, she’d lain in bed going over pieces of her childhood, instances when her parents might have told her the truth. Like when she’d had to do a second-grade class project called About My Family, complete with photographs and a few sentences about each family member, and a classmate had said: “You don’t look anything like your mom or dad. Maybe you’re a Martian.”

By the time Bea was thirteen, she was three inches taller than her father, who was five feet seven.

Maybe once a certain amount of time passed and the words were never said—we adopted you, we chose you, we picked you—you couldn’t just come out and say them when a kid was older, when it might be devastating to a seven-year-old, a twelve-year-old. Grow up with the knowledge from before your earliest memory and it was just a part of you. Bea supposed she could understand why her parents had never told her. They’d probably wanted to over the years, but once she’d gotten beyond a certain age, they just couldn’t bring themselves to shatter her world, her identity, her image of herself.