by Mary McCoy
“Are you a witch?” I ask after she rings up the sale. “How did you do that?”
“That was an easy one. They talked about it on the Today show last week.”
“What’s your favorite section?” I ask.
“Music, of course.”
“I’m kind of surprised you don’t work at the record store,” I say. “If you’re this good with books, you must be a genius with music.”
She blushes. “Musicians shouldn’t work in record stores. Or at least I shouldn’t. I need more variety in my life.”
Max high-fives her and does a little dance while he sings, “Dilettante life! Best life!”
“Hey!” I say, rising to Risa’s defense. “Most people still don’t think that word is a compliment.”
“I assure you, that is how I intended it,” Max tells Risa. “We can’t all be as focused as Lee.”
“Speaking of,” Risa says, “you never answered my question. How’s the podcast?”
“Actually, I wanted to see when you were free,” I say.
“Oh yeah?”
“Max had this idea for a recurring segment, like the thing we recorded the other day at Java Cabana. Would you be up for something like that?”
“My shift ends in fifteen minutes,” Risa says, and excitement floods my senses. Not only do I get to hang out with her again—and soon—I can get back to work, too.
“Want to meet us at Java Cabana?” Max asks.
Suddenly, a twinge of worry creeps into my good feeling. It’s open mic night, so there’s a good chance Claire’s there, and it’s four in the afternoon, so there’s also a chance that my manager, Trudy, is there. I don’t want to mention this, since the last thing I want to explain to Risa is that I’m semi-banned and semi-fired due to boy drama.
“We’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes, then!” I say.
Once Max and I are outside, I turn to him and say, “I’m going to run home for the recorder. Can you scope things out next door and text me if Trudy’s there?”
“You couldn’t take one goddamn afternoon off, could you, Swan?”
I roll my eyes at him. “Are you going to text me if she’s there, or aren’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
I run back to my house, drop the bag of comics and records off in my room, and grab the recorder. There’s a text from Max: All clear, no Trudy. My nerves subside, and I run back to Java Cabana thinking about the questions I’m going to ask instead of how I’m going to keep Risa from discovering that I’m a recently disgraced mess of a human being.
When I get there, Max has commandeered the quiet table in the corner, and Claire and Risa have joined him. We have the place pretty much to ourselves. Will, one of the part-time baristas, is covering the counter, wiping syrup bottles and cleaning the steam wand in a pot of water.
The scene is just how I want it, so I turn on the recorder before I even sit down. I want to capture the sound of chair legs scraping the tile, the hiss of the espresso machine, the sound of me taking my place at the table, setting down the recorder.
“We have a passport, issued to my dad six months before I was born. His two closest friends have no idea why he got it, or where he was planning to go. So. My question to you is, what the hell is really going on?”
I can already hear how it’s going to sound in playback, and it’s perfect.
Unfortunately, that’s as far as we get.
CHAPTER 14 A Certain Amount of Reckless Abandon
I don’t know how I feel about you being here.”
That’s what Trudy says when she sees me. Risa is the one facing the door—Risa, the only one who doesn’t know that she ought to be tipping me off before Trudy is standing at our table, peering down her regal nose at me like I am a subject who has displeased her. I don’t know what I was thinking, trying to maneuver around her. Not only was it a dick move, it was doomed to fail.
“Should I leave?”
“I didn’t say that,” Trudy says, though I can tell she is not finished with me yet. “Do you remember Steven St. Cloud?”
“Who?”
“Wire Mother.”
I nod. Of course. Steve. The accountant in pleated khakis with a coffee can full of nails.
“His manager called. They’re lining up a tour for the fall, and Steve wants you to run sound for him while his band is in town.”
“They’re playing here?”
“No, they want to play at a real club this time. One with Ticketmaster and twenty-one-and-up wristbands and stuff like that.”
“Oh.”
“So that’s why I don’t know how I feel about you being here. I guess there is a part of me that is feeling a little ungracious about it at the moment.”
And I know what she means. I have lived my life surrounded by artists, some who get to do what they want to do for a living, and some who don’t. In ten years, I could be Trudy, managing a coffee shop, booking acoustic singer-songwriters, busting my ass, and throwing everything I have at my dream. And if some recent high school graduate who didn’t even take the job seriously enough not to fuck it up waltzed right into a legitimate, serious gig? If I was Trudy, I wouldn’t be half as cool about it as she’s being right now.
“What are you talking about? What’s the recorder for?” Trudy asks, sitting down at the table with us.
“Passports. We’re talking about whether my dad was planning to skip the country before I was born.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Can we record you, and can you say that again?” Max asks.
Trudy nods and Max starts recording.
TRUDY BOYD:
Are you fucking kidding me? Not only does your dad love being your dad, he’s not a skip-the-country kind of guy. A move like that takes a certain amount of reckless abandon and adventurousness. Your dad orders the same black coffee every day within the same fifteen-minute window. Once, I offered him a shot of caramel syrup and he looked at me like I was trying to poison him.
RISA:
What if he had cold feet about becoming a dad? Maybe he panicked for a second and applied for the passport.
MAX:
Even if he did that, where was he going to go?
CLAIRE:
You said he used to be a nanny. Maybe one of the families he nannied for was traveling abroad and invited him to come along. Like an au pair.
MAX:
You always suggest the most reasonable, boring things. Don’t you have any conspiracy theories in your soul?
CLAIRE:
Well, you’re the one throwing around nonsense like “Greg is Lee’s biological father.” If that was true, doesn’t the passport question become a moot point? Sorry, dude, but your conspiracy theories are at cross-purposes.
RISA:
She raises a good point, Max.
MAX:
Don’t get me started on your conspiracy theories, Risa.
LEE:
Hey! Be nice to our esteemed panel. What’s wrong with Risa’s theories? For all we know, they’re right.
MAX:
I’m just saying that if any of the rest of us suggested that your dad had cold feet about becoming a dad, you would not have been so chill about it.
LEE:
It’s different coming from her.
MAX:
I see.
RISA:
What do you mean it’s different?
MAX:
She means you’re pretty, Risa.
LEE:
Max! I mean, you are.
RISA:
Aw, thank you. You’re pretty too.
CLAIRE:
We’re all goddamn pretty.
LEE:
Before we go, let’s summarize our theories.
MAX:
My theory is Greg’s your dad.
RISA:
And my theory is your dad panicked, but he changed his mind, and he’s not answering your questions because he feels guilty about having had doubts.
&n
bsp; LEE:
He should have had doubts! My dad’s not great at noticing red flags.
TRUDY:
Speaking of…
Trudy knows her customers’ habits. She knows my dad comes in at the same time every day, right after work, orders the same thing, and here he is. When he sees us sitting around the digital recorder, he gives me a cagey look, but Will the barista gets him his black coffee and he pays for it, then comes over and sits down with us.
ARTHUR:
The past is off-limits, but other than that, you can ask me anything.
LEE:
How are you?
ARTHUR: (laughs)
I’ve been better. But in other ways, this is the best I’ve been in a while.
LEE:
Knowing what you know now… what’s the point of it?
ARTHUR:
Of getting married?
LEE:
Of getting married, of falling in love, of mixing up your life with another person’s. If it’s just going to end, why bother?
ARTHUR:
Everything ends, Lee. Should we not watch movies because of the closing credits? Not go out with our friends because the evening will be over? Not enjoy our lives because someday we’ll die? There are people on this planet I’ve already seen for the last time. Every relationship I’ll ever have will end. Even the one I have with you.
LEE:
That’s dark, Dad.
ARTHUR:
It’s dark, but I’m okay with it. Because I have to be.
LEE: (studio)
Everyone goes silent, and then he stands up like this is a nice, casual moment in the conversation to make his departure, and he says,
ARTHUR:
Welp, it was real good talking with you all. Lee, Max, come back to the house when you finish up here. I have a surprise for you.
After my dad leaves, Max goes to help Claire set up for the poetry open mic. I can hear him asking a lot of questions about the kinds of poems she writes, about the difference between a poetry slam and a poetry reading. I suspect he’s half indulging his inner dilettante and half giving me a chance to talk to Risa alone.
“What inspired you to do this?” she asks me. We’re sitting by ourselves at the table, our hands folded around coffee cups, which is the only thing keeping mine from trembling nervously while I try to talk to her.
Her hair is still doing that thing, where the piece that’s tucked behind her ear curls forward around her earlobe. It’s so cute, it totally kills me. But I also like how open she is, how willing to throw herself into the path of a situation like playing at an open mic or joining a table full of weirdos to speculate about the divorce of two people she doesn’t know. She strikes me as a person who attacks life the same way she attacks chords—confident in her moves, not even looking down to make sure her fingers are landing in the right spot.
“I wanted to tell a story about love,” I tell her. “Only not fake, not idealized. The way it really works.”
“And what is the way it really works?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Suddenly, my pleasant jangle of crush nerves turns into something churning and anxious. Across the room, I see Max and Claire watching us. It’s been months since the last time anything happened between her and me, and by the time it was over, I think we were both more relieved than anything. That’s not what I’m worried about, not exactly.
I have a hard time concentrating on what Risa’s saying. My eyes dart toward the door, like I half expect to see Ian and Vincent come ambling in together too. If Risa knew about all of them, about how I got fired, about my real reasons for making the podcast, about the feelings I still had for Vincent, would she want anything to do with me?
I could joke about it with Max, but I don’t want Risa to think of me as a messy bisexual, a cheater, a liar.
Basically, all the things I am.
I wish I could be someone better for her.
“Are you all right, Lee?”
It’s the first time I’ve heard her say my name. I like the way it sounds on her tongue, like being noticed and addressed by her, and so even though I’m thinking about all the reasons she’s going to run away when she finds out what kind of person I am, I’m grinning like an idiot.
“You seemed like you went someplace for a moment.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m right here.”
“I was just asking…” She pauses a moment, takes a too-big swig of her coffee, and immediately claps her hand over her lips, squealing before she spits the coffee back into the cup. It’s too hot, and she gasps and fans her mouth, looking around the table frantically. I jump up and grab a glass of water from Will, run back to the table with it, and slide it into her grateful hands. She takes a sip and sighs with relief.
“You were saying?” I ask.
“Do you want to hang out sometime?” she asks.
I study her face, looking for a clue whether she’s asking because she wants us to be friends, or whether she’s asking me out. I always have this problem with girls. With guys, I can tell when they’re attracted, but flirting with girls is always shrouded in so much nuance and subtext for me. Risa’s being pretty direct, and I still don’t know what’s going on.
You could ask her, I think. Or you could just answer the question she asked you, because either way, your answer would be the same.
“I’d love to hang out.”
“What’s your number?”
I give it to her, and a few seconds later, my phone buzzes and I have a message from her, a string of kitties with heart eyes.
Have you been to Shangri-La Records? I type.
Don’t ask stupid questions, Lee
I send her an eye roll emoji, then text, Why did the hipster burn her tongue? Cuz she sipped her coffee before it was cool.
She texts back a string of sobbing laughing faces, then
But I haven’t been there with YOU
Max selects this moment to drift over. “Do you think we should go back to your house and see what your dad’s surprise is?”
I do not think we should do this. I think we should stay here so I can keep texting with Risa while we’re sitting across the table from each other, but Max starts drumming his fingertips impatiently on the tabletop, so I grudgingly text Farewell to Risa.
A block away from Java Cabana, Max says, “I guess I read that wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was getting woo-woo vibes from the two of you all afternoon, so I gave you some space. But when I looked over, you were both just fucking around on your phones.”
“We’re going to hang out sometime,” I tell him.
“Like a date?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you want it to be?” he asks.
“I just got out of a two-year relationship,” I say.
“And no one has invited you to dive into another one.”
“Shouldn’t I still be in mourning, though?”
Max laughs. “Not you. You’re a love junkie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
We’re walking up my street now, and I see Harold’s car in the driveway.
“You’re in love with love. Or lust.”
“I’m a people person,” I say.
“If you say so.”
When we walk into the kitchen, my dad is cutting up a watermelon, Harold is seasoning the potato salad, Sage is opening a beer, and Greg Thurber is standing with his elbows on my kitchen counter like he belongs there, like he does it every day instead of once a decade. Like he hadn’t made me wait for him at the airport, or gone silent when we tried to find him. Like he hadn’t been in love with my mom.
He sees Max and me, gives us a big smile, and says, “Look who’s here!”I want to march right up to him and ask, So, are you my dad or what?
But my mom is right. You can’t start with questions like that. You have to put people at ease, work your way up to it. So I keep my accusations t
o myself. I don’t even bitch about the airport. Instead I wave and smile and say,
“Yep, it’s us! We’ve grown!”
CHAPTER 15 One Question
There are few things I hate more than the plot contrivance wherein people run around making one another deeply unhappy due to a misunderstanding that could have been cleared up by asking a simple question.
I refuse to fall prey to it in my own podcast.
It’s not like I’m trying to access classified FBI records. The truth is one call away, and I can put the whole thing to bed with one question. I pick up my phone and call her, and when she picks up on the first ring, I do the thing she told me not to do. I don’t work up to it with easier questions, I don’t put her at ease, I don’t even say hello.
LEE SWAN:
Mom, is Greg Thurber my biological dad?
LEE: (studio)
It is abrupt and inelegant, but it is direct. She doesn’t say hello to me either. She doesn’t ask how my heart is or gently correct my tactless interview style or ask me what I’m going to do with my one wild and precious life. She says,
MAYA SWAN:
I don’t know.
LEE: (studio)
And I hang up on her.
CHAPTER 16 Someone Whose Life Is About to Change
Immediately my phone rings. I don’t answer it. It rings again, so I turn it off, put it on my bedside table, and lie down on the floor.
My mom is a confessional poet. Up until now, this had always kind of amused me. Like, you got married and had me when you were twenty-three. What could you possibly have to confess?
And then a terrible thought occurs to me. What if this was the thing that had kicked off the whole divorce? My parents had never gotten along, but it never seemed like they’d actually do anything about it. I’d always imagined them grumpily cohabitating until they were eighty, avoiding each other around the house, lighting up only when their friends were around. But if the truth had finally come out after all these years, it might have been enough to set the wheels in motion.