Where We Belong (22 page)

“You’ll work it out,” Ben says. I study his face, feeling comforted. He has that effect. He is the sort of husband and father you imagine marrying when you’re eight years old and believe in happily ever after. All-American and handsome but not too handsome. Funny but not full of himself. Smart and ambitious but with strong family values. In fact, when Frances was born, he took a two-year leave of absence from his architectural firm to care for her full-time. “Look at Claudia and me. Sometimes it just takes time.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I’m sort of running out of that.”

Claudia rolls her eyes and tells me not to be ridiculous, but I shut her down with a reminder that she was pregnant at my age.

“I’m two years older than you,” Jess says, motioning around the table. “And I’m not at all panicked.”

I carefully avoid the sore subject of Michael, her most recent ex, their breakup still raw, and simply remind her that she has a stash of frozen eggs and plans to use a surrogate anyway.

Claudia looks thoughtful and then says, “So that’s why he’s not here tonight? Because you want a baby and he’s not sure?” It is clear by her tone that she knows I’ve left an important part of the story out—and it is one of the reasons I like her so much. She’s astute, hearing what you’re
not
saying as much as what you
are.

I hesitate, feeling my defenses crumble as I think of Kirby. Her teenage-girl, cheap-perfume scent and unskilled eye-shadow application. Her big ears and her sweet, shy smile. Her surprising rap performance in the writers’ room and wide-eyed wonder in the Guggenheim. I think of our final hug before I put her in the cab and how much I suddenly miss her and, most of all, what I missed out on by not being her mother. Aware that my friends are watching me, waiting for me to reply, I put my glass down and say, “Okay. In part, this disagreement with Peter … is about marriage. I want to have a baby. I want to be a mother…”

Claudia reaches out and touches my hand as I take a breath and find a way to continue, wondering if I’m doing this more for myself or to make a point to Peter. “And I want that especially because … well … I had a baby once. A long time ago.”

“What? When?” Jess shouts.

I stare down at the table, but stay the course. “I was eighteen. Before college. I had the baby, and then … and then gave her away.”

“For adoption?” Jess asks.

I smile and say, “Well, I didn’t put her in a basket on a church doorstep.”

“God, Marian,” Claudia says, as I think of her own sister, who adopted a baby in an open agreement, while Ben just stares at me, his face full of compassion.

“Damn,” Jess says, reaching across the empty seat for my hand.

“Heavy stuff, huh?” I say, trying to smile and lighten the mood just as the waitress arrives to give her spiel. We listen and then Jess orders two bottles of a Tuscan red and a sampling of our usual, favorite appetizers.

A few seconds later, Jess resumes the questioning. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asks, mystified, unable to grasp holding back a juicy bit of information from so much as her cabdriver.

“I never told anyone,” I say. “I kept the secret for eighteen years. From everyone but my mother. I didn’t tell my own father. I didn’t tell the baby’s father. Nobody knew. Until last Saturday … when she knocked on my door. When she found me.”

I wait for someone to speak, but when no one does—not even Jess—I keep talking, telling them about Kirby, realizing, with some panic, that I don’t know all that much about her. I think of Peter’s remarks about sightseeing and feel a wave of prickly shame.

“So wait. You didn’t tell the baby daddy?” Jess says, honing in on the most salacious part of the story. “That’s insane. And I always thought you were as square as Claudia.”

Claudia and I both ignore her. “So that’s pretty much why Peter didn’t come. He thinks I haven’t dealt with this,” I say.

The table falls silent again. “Are you upset I didn’t tell you?”

They all claim not to be, which I believe, the waitress once again giving us a break as she arrives to pour our wine.

Jess is the first to raise her glass. “To secret adoptions!”

We all laugh and shake our heads.

“There were times when I
wanted
to tell you,” I say, looking at Claudia first. “When you told me about your sister adopting Luke … when you were pregnant with Frances.” Then I look at Jess. “And every time you confided one of your gems.” I smile. “But I just decided long ago that I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I just wanted to put it in the past and move on.”

Ben asks, “So what do you think Peter’s main issue with this is?”

I shake my head. “I really don’t know. He seems to be implying that it’s an honesty issue. That I was keeping something big from him.”

Claudia turns to Ben and says, “Honey, would you feel that way?”

“It’s really hard for me to imagine that … Given your resistance to having a baby in the first place,” Ben says.

“Well, pretend that it’s another secret,” I say. “Anything that she kept from you.”

“Like a three-way lesbian tryst?” Ben says.

“Don’t pretend to be a pig,” Claudia says. “You can’t pull it off.”

Ben smiles, takes a sip of wine, and then grows serious. “I want to say that I’d understand … I feel like understanding, no strings attached, is the right, bigger-person thing to do … But honestly, I think I’d be upset. Not so much angry—but hurt.”

“You would?” I ask, a nervous pit returning to my stomach. If Ben would have a problem with it, anybody would.

He nods, then frowns and says, “And I might be a little worried, too. It sort of feels like a trust issue. I mean, don’t you want to believe that he’s told you everything? At least everything big that’s happened to him? What if he held something back like this? Something of this magnitude?”

I try to imagine that Robin is actually his second wife, rather than his first. Or even, more on point, that he has another kid out there. “Yeah. Maybe it would give me pause, too,” I say.

“But,” Ben says. “I also think that if he can’t get over this, then he doesn’t love you the way he should love you.”

I look at him, waiting for him to continue.

“This is not an unforgivable offense. Really—nothing is unforgivable if you truly love someone,” he says, glancing at Claudia.

“And what about Kirby?” Claudia asks. “Are you glad she found you?”

“Yes,” I say. “For the most part. I’m relieved that she’s okay. She seems to have a good family … and a good head on her shoulders.”

“But…?” Jess says.

“But it definitely complicates my life. Not only with Peter. But with everything … Before she showed up, it felt like my decision whether to tell anyone about her. Now I have to think about her. Does she want to know her grandfather? Then I need to tell my dad. Does she want to be part of my life? I have to show her that she is welcome in it. And.” I stop in my tracks, wondering if this part of the story will ever get easier. “And in Jess’s eloquent words, I might have to confess to the baby daddy,” I say, my stomach dropping. “I know she wants to find him. She didn’t come right out and say it—but I can feel it.”

“Do you want to find him?” Ben asks.

I try to sugarcoat it but don’t have the energy. “No,” I say. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to distance myself from this mistake. From him. From that time. The last thing I want to do is go back and unearth it all.”

“Unearth what?” Jess asks, looking jubilant. “Your
feelings
for him?”

“This isn’t a television show, Jess,” I say.

“It could be.”

“Shut up,” I say, thinking that if were a show, Peter would change the story line and Conrad, Kirby, and I would be a happy little trio.

“
You
shut up,” she snaps back at me. “Shut up and find him. You and your daughter need to go find him,
Thelma and Louise
style!” She grins and makes a ridiculous lassoing motion over her head.

15

kirby

“
We
have
to go,” Belinda says as we jog around the track during our timed mile in PE. She is referring to prom—the only topic I find more tedious than college. It is also the only topic I feel more decisive about than college. For the gazillionth time, I tell her I’m not going, my mind drifting back to Marian and Conrad. It’s been a few days since I talked to Mr. Tully, and pretty much all I’ve been doing is obsessing over finding my other parent.

“C’mon, Kirby,” she continues. “I refuse to be
that
girl—sitting home watching some rom-com and shoving my face full of popcorn.”

“So don’t watch movies or eat popcorn,” I say as Justine Lewis laps us for the second time, her long blond ponytail dancing like a kite string, her neon-pink Nikes kicking up dust in a cloud that reminds me of Pig Pen on Charlie Brown. As ridiculous as I think it is to overachieve in PE, I’m kind of jealous of stupid ol’ Justine, wishing I went out and played the drums like she runs track—proudly and for all the world to see.

“If we don’t go,” Belinda says, “we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.”

“God, I sincerely hope we aren’t thinking about prom for the rest of our lives, Belinda. Or anything about high school, for that matter,” I say.

Short of a teenage pregnancy,
I think.
And maybe not even then.

“Shit. Cramp,” she says, slowing to a walk as she limps and kneads her side.

Mrs. Tropper, our gym teacher, shakes her head in disgust as we pass her along a straightaway.

Belinda says, “It’s a rite of passage.”

“Says you.”

“Says everyone.”

“Except me.”

“Kirby. Seriously. People will ask forever, ‘Who did you go to prom with?’” she says. “And we’ll be like, ‘Uh, no one. We were total losers.’”

I tell her I’ve never heard the question posed to anyone over the age of twenty. That I have no idea if my parents went to theirs, although I seem to remember some weird story about my mother swapping dates with her best friend at the last minute.

“I bet Marian went,” Belinda says. “I bet she was prom queen.”

“It didn’t come up. Shock, surprise,” I say, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Belinda was right. I mean, buying crazy-expensive designer clothes for your newly discovered daughter seems like something a former prom queen might do. Which is another reason I can’t stomach wearing them—or even showing them to Belinda or my sister.

“Come on, Kirby.
Please.
Do it for me,” she says, pausing to tie her shoelace and catch her breath. “For once, can we just not be the two
losers
?”

I watch as she double-knots both laces. “I think we’ll be
bigger
losers if we go with each other than if we don’t go at all.”

She shakes her head. “No way. We’ll look like sexy, liberated
women
. Like we don’t need a man.”

I let out a snort of laughter and tell her I’ve never seen anyone need a man as much as she does.

Proving my point, she says, “Although I actually might have a date. I’m really feelin’ it with Jake Mahoney.”

“Who?”

“The guy I met at the mall.”

I groan.

“What?”

“The
mall
? Belinda, mall pickups are for
hoosiers,
” I say, St. Louis slang for white trash. “With femullets.”

“For your information, we were at the Galleria, shopping for sunglasses,” she says. “Hoosiers don’t shop at the Galleria.”

“Until you and Jake went there,” I say, smiling.

“Okay. Say what you will about your best friend in the world. But Jake’s
no
hoosier. He lives in Clayton. He goes to Chaminade. He plays lacrosse. He’s going to Wash U next year.”

“Please, Belinda. You know a Chaminade guy is never going to go for a DuBourg girl,” I say, referring to 101 in St. Louis high school snobbery.

“C’mon, Kirb. He really seems to like me. For real.”

“Fine. So ask him to prom. Go for it,” I say, finally breaking a sweat as we begin our fourth and final lap.

“Only if you go with us. He has this friend, Philip—”

“Philip? His name is
Philip
?”

“What’s wrong with the name Philip?”

“Nothing. If you’re a queen or duchess or something,” I say.

“It’s not like you to judge a book by its cover,” she says, skillfully hitting a hot button.

“Look, Belinda. I’m not going to prom. And I’m certainly not going on a
blind
date to prom. With a Philip.”

“He’s cute, I swear. You can check him out on Facebook.”

“Right. ’Cause people never misrepresent on Facebook. You, of all people, know that’s not the case,” I say, thinking of her many bogus status updates about all the fun she’s having at fictional parties.

“I don’t lie. I just stretch the truth. And do a lot of Photoshopping.” She laughs and says, “Why don’t you meet him? And if it goes well—”

“No, thanks,” I say, as Mrs. Tropper blows her whistle and singles us out among a half-dozen other stragglers. “Belinda! Kirby! Zip it, ladies! C’mon! C’mon! Move it!”

I flip her off as she turns to heckle someone else, but we pick up the pace ever so slightly, falling silent as I think about prom. Way deep down, maybe I am just the tiniest bit disappointed not to be going, especially after Charlotte gave me the giddy update last night that Noah invited her, followed by her half-dozen visits back to my room to show me earmarked pages of evening wear in the Macy’s mailer. Maybe, once upon a time, I, too, had a few girly visions of prom. Picking out the beautiful dress. Having a cute boy arrive at my house to pick me up. Taking a million photos with friends in the backyard. Sneaking a flask into the limo. Slow dancing at the end of the night. Kissing under a sky full of stars. All that shit.

But that just isn’t my reality. And slapping together some version of prom with Belinda, whether just the two of us or with a couple of stuck-up idiots from another school probably only looking to get laid, isn’t going to change the underlying facts about my high school experience. It isn’t going to make me any cooler or happier—nor will it fool anyone into thinking I’m cooler or happier. If anything, it’s going to make me feel worse, especially because there is a high likelihood of Belinda getting sloppy drunk and hooking up in some hotel room while I stand in the corner, with a push-up bra, a streaky orange spray tan, and some dweeb named Philip. No, thanks.