Autofocus (11 page)

“Hi,” I say meekly, and he looks over at me.

“You don't look like one of my students. Can I help you with something?” he asks casually.

“Um, I have an odd question for you,” I say, shifting my weight from foot to foot. “Were you, or are you, the Key Club sponsor?”

Mr. Wayne puts down the eraser and walks over to his desk. He sits on the edge and crosses his arms. “I was, a long time ago. We haven't had Key Club in . . . I don't know, ten years or so,” he says, looking like he's mentally calculating the answer. “Did you want to start it up again?”

“Oh, no, I don't go here,” I say, then realize what I admitted. His eyes grow large and he starts to stand up, so I continue quickly. “But I have a pass,” I lie. “I just . . .” Okay, breathe. “My mother was in your Key Club, and I've been trying to get information on her. So I was hoping you might remember her.”

“Who was your mother?” he asks, still looking skeptically at me.

“Claire Fullman. She would have been in it around 1997.”

“Claire . . . Fullman . . .” he muses, scratching his beard. “I think I remember the name. Hold on.” He gets off his desk, then rummages in one of the drawers. He pulls out a folder, and flips through a few pages. My heart is in my throat, hoping he'll pull out something, anything, that could help.

“This her?” he asks, showing me the same photo from the yearbook.

“Oh my gosh, yes! That's her!” I say excitedly, pointing to her. “Do you remember her?”

“Sort of,” he says, sitting back on the edge of his desk. “I've had a lot of students over the years. I try to remember them all, but this was, what, seventeen years ago?”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding, and still hoping.

He looks down at the photo, then back at me. “If you don't mind me asking, why are you looking for information on her?”

“She was, is, my mother.” And I tell him my story, honestly and openly. He seems like someone who wouldn't mind hearing it.

“I'm sorry to hear what happened,” he says, shaking his head. “So how'd you find me?”

“Yearbook,” I answer. “I saw she was in the Key Club, saw your name, and then took a guess.”

“I see,” he says, looking back down at the photo, then up
at me. “She went by Clarabelle, I'm pretty sure.”

“Clarabelle?” I ask.

“Yeah. I think it started because someone called her it as a nickname—reference to a cartoon cow way before your time. I don't remember, really, but that's what she went by. I guess what I remember most about her is that she knew who she was. Or, who Clarabelle was. She was confident.”

I make a mental note to look up Clarabelle when I can, and think about exactly what he said. How she was confident. How she was Clarabelle.

“She was kind of hippie-ish, if you will. We studied the decade and she was all over it. I think I was her tenth-grade history teacher. I don't recall what year. But whenever it was, she really took to the decade for some reason, and went with it.”

“I can tell by the outfits,” I say.

“Right,” he says. “She wanted to have class outside a lot and wore flowers in her hair. Girls copied her, which was great for Key Club. She got more people to join that way.”

I take in everything he says greedily, overindulging on every sentence. I can't help but smile at the vision I'm having of this free-spirited person. She was real, with real thoughts and emotions and passions. She had friends.

“She did get into a lot of trouble, though,” he laughs, and I jerk my head up. “She was a little
too
liberal, if you will. She skipped class a lot, and wasn't the best of influences on her friends. I remember some sort of trouble—”

“How do you know?” I ask defensively.

“I remember she was suspended a few times, which was the downfall of the club that year—it was hard to run a club without a leader.”

“She was the leader?” I ask.

“The president, yeah.”

“So . . .” I start, but don't know what to say. I didn't expect my mother to be perfect, but I guess I didn't think she'd get in trouble a lot.

“I am sorry to hear she's no longer around, though,” Mr. Wayne says, lines forming on his forehead. “I never like hearing that one of my students is gone. It's never easy. Never.”

“Do you think . . . her friends would remember her?”

“I would imagine so, yes,” Mr. Wayne says, and I silently agree. This is just a teacher's side of the story—I'm sure there's more.

“Thank you so much,” I say, and he nods.

“I'm sorry I couldn't be any more help, but hopefully that was a start. Good luck finding out more. Your mother, she deserves to be remembered.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I think so, too.”

When I get out of the school, the sun beats down and I have to cover my eyes. It's like walking out from a movie theater; I've been in the dark for so long.

Bennett's sitting on a ledge and he jumps down when he sees me.

“How'd it go?”

“Okay,” I say. I want to keep thinking about everything, going over it in my mind to process it all.

As if he understands, he asks, “Where to now?” Instead of answering, I unlock my bike and fill him in on some of what I found out, showing him the pictures. Some I want to keep to myself until I understand it all more.

“I'd like to look up those people I found,” I say, and then feel my stomach rumble. “And I'm kind of hungry. . . .”

“Well, it's a good thing you promised to indulge in my obsession with food. We're going to this cool sandwich place a few blocks away, back toward campus. Care for sandwiches?”

“I do enjoy a good sandwich,” I say, and then get on my bike. Before leaving, I turn around and take a picture of the school. There's my photo for the day. That's part of this story.

I follow Bennett down the street, past the quaint houses of my mother's past, and onto the main road. Ten minutes later, we find an empty booth in the back of Mimi's Sandwich Shop, a '50s-themed diner. We slide into a booth with red pleather seats, a white chrome-edged table, and a mini jukebox. I order a chocolate malt and the Turkey Twist, and Bennett orders the Cha-cha Chicken. I have no idea why the sandwiches are dance themed, and I'm not even sure if the dances are
from
the '50s, but it's cute.

Bennett pulls out his laptop while we wait for our food. “Let's look up the people from the photo,” he says, loading Google. “Did you try looking up any relatives yet?”

“Yeah.” I nod. “A few years ago. I just searched the last name a few times. There are a lot of Fullmans.” I pause, then admit, “And they're not really nice. I actually tried calling them when I was younger.”

“All of them?” he asks.

“All of them,” I admit. “I was . . . really curious.”

“I could imagine. I ask my mom about that a lot—if
people ever contact her about info on their parents.”

“Do they?”

“Sometimes, yeah. She can't provide the information—sometimes it's a closed adoption, so the records are sealed. And sometimes it's open and she's able to give them names.”

“We tried that, but after my birth mother died, no one from the family would talk to us. The adoption agency couldn't force them to, so that was that. I still don't know why . . . I guess my mother was more okay with keeping up contact with me, but my grandparents weren't. So, I don't know.”

“Gotcha,” he says uncomfortably. A waitress in a high ponytail and a poodle skirt delivers our food and we fill the awkwardness with eating and passing ketchup. The food is good, but I'm more interested in researching.

“Lisa Winger,” I say, pointing to the name under the photo. A lot of search results pop up, all for ones from different areas, and mostly from those sketchy websites that ask for you to pay to get people's personal information. “Facebook? I know my parents are on it, so she could be,” I suggest, and he nods. I pull the computer toward me and log in to my account. There are a few results again, so he narrows it down to just Floridians.

“Maybe that's her?” he asks, pointing to a woman who looks to be in her thirties and lives in Tallahassee.

“Check her high school,” I say, to make sure.

“Yep, same one. Man, she should make her info private,”
he says, scratching his head.

“Or not. For us, it's good that she didn't,” I say excitedly, pulling the laptop back toward me. “I guess I'll send her a message?” He nods and I breathe in, not nearly as nervous as I was earlier.

I read aloud as I type so Bennett is included.

Lisa, hi, my name is Maude and you don't know me, but you might have known my mother, Claire Fullman. She died when I was born, and I'm trying to get any information on her, since I've never met her. If you have a chance, I'd love to hear from you. Sorry if this is out of the blue. Thanks, Maude.

I turn to Bennett. “Good?”

“Great, send,” he says. I click Send, and look up the next name.

“Jessica Cally.” There's no Jessica Cally on Facebook, so we try Google. A few mentions of a person with either “Jessica” or “Cally” in their name, but not her. Nowhere. We try a Boolean search my mom taught me, but still nothing. “Huh.”

“I didn't know it was possible to be invisible from the internet nowadays.”

“Right?” I say. “How are
you
Google-able?”

“Ha,” he says, messing up his hair, and then looking back at me. “In high school I made a computer-animated short that got some attention.”

“Some?”

“It got me a place at summer camp.”

“That's really cool,” I answer.

“Yeah, it's kind of dorky. What about you?”

“Photography exhibit at a local gallery.”

“Now
that's
cool. How many high school students get into a gallery?”

“More than you think,” I say with a shrug. “But it was cool, seeing my photos hung up.” More than cool. It was amazing. It was, I hoped, a vision of my future.

“Did you have a theme?”

“Childhood,” I say, and the reality that my birth mother wasn't around to see it feels off all of a sudden. I shake it off. “Your film?”

“Superheroes.” He smiles.

“What about them?”

“It was stupid,” he says, trying to downplay it.

“Details . . .”

“Okay, okay, it was about an ordinary dog who became Superdog.”

“That's really cute.”

“The characters had these alliterative names like Brave Beagle, Champion Chihuahua, and Wonder . . . Weiner Dog.”

“Weiner dog?”

“I couldn't think of a W, give me a break.”

I smile at him, at his enthusiasm. He looks at me and
crinkles his eyes, as if trying to figure me out. As if he's trying to read me. I look down, not used to being looked at like that.

“Who's next?”

“Okay, um,” I say, shaking off a feeling of . . . something. “Bee Trenton.” When he goes to type her name in, his hand brushes mine, and I pull back quickly from him. It's not a bad touch; in fact I'd like my hand to stay there longer. And as my cheeks blush, I realize that wanting to stay there is the exact reason why I should move my hand away. I can't get distracted.

“On Facebook as well,” he says, pointing to her. “I mean, I think that's her—she has that name listed, along with another last name—Shrayer. Guess she's married? She looks just like she did in the picture, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, looking at an older version of the same girl we've just seen—long blond hair, big blue eyes, the tiniest nose. She just needs the shell necklace. I click the Message button and send the same note. “I guess we'll see what happens.”

“Are you nervous?” he asks.

I shrug. “Not really,” I admit, and realize it's true. I was terrified yesterday, but today it's become more normal, less surreal. “I mean, the worst that can happen is they won't get back to me. And the best . . .”

“Yeah . . .” he says. “How do you feel now? After learning all that stuff?”

I think about it for a second. “Honestly, I don't know,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, any information is new information, so everything is . . . shocking, I guess.” I twist my napkin on my lap and try to put my thoughts into words. It's weird knowing I'm so different from her, which makes me wonder how I would have turned out were I raised by her.

I start, and then realize I don't want to discuss my insecurities with him. “Anyway, we have one more person to look up.”

He looks at me for a second, then looks back at his computer. “Okay, last person, the guy. What was his name again?”

“Chad Glickman.” I type it in. “And there he is,” I say, as he's the only one to pop up. He's still in Tallahassee, too, and looks like he rarely updates his page. He's posed in front of a tractor, wearing a camouflage outfit. He's the exact opposite of the bleached-tips, all-American-looking guy from the photo. “Guess we'll try,” I say, and send the same message again. Then I close the laptop without taking another look at his picture. I don't want the question of
who
he is brought up again.

I'm taking a sip of my chocolate malted when my phone buzzes with a text.

   
Meet me @ FAB @ 3. Bennett knows where.

“Huh,” I say, putting my phone away.

“What's up?” he asks, finishing his sandwich with a triumphant bite.

“Treena wants me to meet her at FAB at three. Do you know what that is?”

“Ohhh,” he says with a knowing smile. “I do.”

“And it is . . .”

“I guess you'll see.”

“This isn't some other sort of initiation, is it? I don't know if I can take—”

“No, no, you'll like this. Promise.”

“Okay . . .” I say, then ask, “Hey, Trey is an okay guy, right?”

“Yeah,” Bennett says, leaning back and meeting my eyes. “I've known him since middle school. He's an okay guy. He's not, like, my best friend or anything, but he's never done anything mean to me.”

“Except getting you arrested for breaking into a building.”

“Right, except that.”

“But should I be worried?” I ask. “For Treena? She really likes him.”

“You . . .” He looks up at the ceiling, then back at me. “. . . should be wary. I'm breaking about seven thousand guy codes in saying this, but as I said, we're not best friends. I don't think he's done anything to hurt her, but he gets a lot of, um, female attention. And he can be kind of douchey
sometimes, like he was last night, but that's only when his soccer friends are around. Normally he's pretty cool.”

“I see,” I say, biting my nail. She's worried she's not good enough for him, when really it's the other way around completely. No wonder she's so paranoid about him leaving—he could, easily, with so much attention. The protective part of me snaps into action, and I start to distrust him even more. “If he has so many ‘girls,'” I say, using air quotes, “why is he spending so much time with Treena? Not that I don't want him to, but, like, why not, I don't know, play the field or something. Isn't that what you guys do?”

“Us guys?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Well, not
all
of you,” I correct myself.

“Just the majority of us.”

“Exactly,” I say, smiling. “How many girlfriends do
you
have?”

“At least sixteen.” He stretches his arms out and flexes. “There's a lot of Bennett to go around.”

“You're ridiculous.” I laugh and take a bite of my sandwich. “But, really, why's he with Treena?”

“Um. Have you seen your friend? She's kind of hot,” he says, scratching the back of his neck, and jealousy hits me lightning fast. I always knew Tree was beautiful, but it's new to hear all the guys think she's hot. I mean, awesome and all, but still surprising.

“Ah,” I say. “She is, isn't she.”

“Very.”

“Did you like her, too?” I can't help but ask.

“Nah,” he says, turning a bit pink. “I mean, I never thought of her like that. I had a girlfriend when I came to college, and, um, we recently broke up, so yeah,” he says, looking away.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“Distance is hard,” he says with a shrug. “At least it was for her. Anyway, I'll keep an eye on Trey if you'd like.”

“I would, thanks.” I nod, wondering more about this ex-girlfriend, but not wanting to push. I'll find out later, maybe. “And what about you? You're cool, right?”

“I am the coolest,” he says with a smile, stretching his arms to the sky.

“Eh, you're all right,” I say.

“All right?” he answers, and pokes me in the side until I laugh. “I'm so much better than all right.”

“You're better than all right!” I gasp, and he stops. I look up at him and he's grinning this wicked smile at me, so I nudge him back. I turn away, feeling flushed, and see an older woman smiling at us. Embarrassed, I clear my throat and sit up taller. “We should get going, right?”

“Yeah, right,” he says, and I can almost detect a bit of sadness in his voice.

We bike around campus a bit to kill time—Bennett shows me all of his favorite sights, including the ice-cream shop that I'll have to try later—until it's time to meet up with Treena.

“Hey!” she says a bit awkwardly when Bennett and I bike
up. She's sitting on a bench outside this round building, legs crossed, with a book on her lap.

“Hey,” I say, getting off the bike. All of the information swirls in my mind—about her, about Trey. I don't want to say anything, not yet, so I'll keep it inside. Plus, I'm still a bit pissed about last night's events. “What's up?”

“Surprise. Lock up the bike,” she responds. I glance back at Bennett and he shrugs.

“I'll leave you guys to your . . . surprise,” Bennett says, spinning his pedals around while he stays in place.

“Okay, see you back at the dorm,” Treena says, waving good-bye. I haven't broken eye contact with him yet, and feel conflicted about him leaving. Which is insane because I still barely know him. It's just—we've done a lot today.

“Hey, thanks for everything” is all I can say, though.

“No problem,” he answers with half a smile, then looks down, turns his bike around, and pedals away.

“You okay?” Treena asks from my side. I jump, seeing her so close when, before, she was a few feet away.

“Yeah, fine,” I say, then roll Treena's bike over to the rack.