Just for Clicks

by Kara McDowell

  Unknown number

  What’s your biggest hesitation?

  Me

  All of it?

  Unknown number

  Poppy told me you want to go away to school. We’re currently planning to rent you a home in Tempe and film near ASU, but we can certainly discuss other locations.

  Me

  I want to be a normal college student.

  Unknown number

  Oh honey, I think that ship has sailed.

  Me

  Can Poppy do it without me?

  Unknown number

  Absolutely not! We want you both and won’t settle for anything less!

  Keep thinking! I’ll be in touch soon!

  I wake up on Saturday morning to a steady drumming sound. It takes me several seconds to identify it as rain against my window. I stay in bed and listen with my eyes closed. This is the first rain we’ve gotten since monsoon season ended in September. Autumn in Arizona doesn’t involve a lot of rain. When I was little, I used to wish for a rainy birthday the way most kids wish for a white Christmas. It never happened though. Arizona always gives me clear skies for my birthday.

  My eyes fly open. I grab my phone and check the date, just to make sure I’m not wrong. Saturday, November 22. According to the Proof of Birth document I found, today is my birthday. I’m eighteen years old. Officially an adult. I glance at my panda-print pajama bottoms and feel the opposite of mature.

  I wonder what my birth certificate says. It must say November 23, because that’s what my driver’s license says. How did my parents convince the court to change my birthday? Is that even legal? I’m overcome by a sick feeling that the blog paid not only for this house and everything in it, but also for some kind of bribe that convinced a judge to change my actual birthday on a legal document.

  Despite the pounding rain, the house feels unnaturally quiet. I investigate and discover a note taped to the milk in the refrigerator.

  Claire Bear,

  State Swimming Championships today!

  You should come cheer for your sister! (Bring an extra umbrella if you do.)

  We’ll be home late.

  Love you!

  —Mom

  Outside, a gray blanket of clouds covers Gilbert. Poor Poppy. Swimming in the rain isn’t so bad, but sitting in the rain for hours while waiting for your next race is a nightmare. Swim meets are long and unbearable even in the best weather. I love my sister, but I’m not about to spend my birthday hunched under an umbrella for her.

  My birthday. I shake my head, unable to wrap my mind around the thought. I wonder if Mom remembers she had my birthday changed, or if she tucked that information neatly away in a box of things she doesn’t think about anymore.

  I collapse on the couch and turn on the TV. As I mindlessly flip through the channels, I can’t help but think this is a really pathetic way to celebrate my eighteenth. No cake. No party. No presents. No friends. I won’t even get those insincere birthday wishes on my social media page that I roll my eyes at but secretly love, because no one knows that today is the day they’re supposed to write them.

  It’s too bad my biological mother doesn’t have a social media page of her own, because she would know why today is special. I’d send her a private message, and she’d know just the right thing to say. She’d understand me in a way Ashley Dixon never could.

  That’s when it hits me, and I know exactly how to celebrate. I’m going to see the one person who might know and care that I was born eighteen years ago today.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Rafael asks as he ducks into the passenger seat. He shakes his hair and rain splatters the inside of my car. It reminds me of a golden retriever after a bath—in an adorable, I-want-to-snuggle-him sort of way. “You sounded a little frantic on the phone.”

  “Birthday road trip.” I put my foot on the gas and retrace my way out of his neighborhood.

  “Road trip? Should I have brought a change of clothes? A toothbrush? Left my dad a note?”

  He bends forward to tie his shoe, and I can’t see his expression. A toothbrush? Did he really think I’d take him on an overnight road trip? I lean my head from side to side to crack my neck and shake the tension out of my body. He was joking. He had to be.

  “We’ll be home by tonight.” I take the nearest freeway ramp and head east. “Turns out today’s my birthday. Surprise!” I’m breathless and nervous as I push harder on the gas pedal. Now that I’ve made up my mind to go, I can’t get there fast enough. I look sideways at Rafael and see him eyeing the speedometer. I’m going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit.

  “Oops.” I back off the gas pedal. “Sorry.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To meet my mom.”

  Rafael closes his eyes and leans back against the head rest. It reminds me so much of the night in his car at the zoo that the knot in my stomach pulls itself tighter. My foot feels antsy again, but I resist the urge to slam on the gas. The roads are wet, and I don’t want to do something dangerous.

  “I was afraid of this.” Rafael opens his eyes and looks at me.

  “What?” I check the speedometer again. “I’m only going sixty-five now, I swear.”

  “Not that. I was afraid of you going to meet your birth mom.”

  “You don’t think I should?”

  “I don’t think you’re ready.”

  “Why not?” I can’t believe that he’s trying to tell me that I’m not ready to meet my own mother.

  “I don’t think you’re going for the right reasons.”

  My hands clench the steering wheel. “What does that mean?”

  “I think you’re going because you’re mad at your family. And you have every right to be. But that doesn’t mean you should rush off and try to find some replacement family without talking to them about it first.”

  “I tried to talk to Poppy,” I say, remembering the time I told her about Mom’s journal. “She doesn’t want to hear it.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “I can’t talk to her.”

  “How do you know if you’ve never tried?”

  I pause, trying to conjure up Mom’s reaction to an honest conversation about my adoption. I don’t know if she would deny it, or if she would listen to me. Should I have tried to talk to her before leaving? I push the thought aside. I just want to go. There has to be a way I can make Rafael understand that.

  “Are you telling me that if you discovered that your mom lived less than fifty miles away, you wouldn’t want to find her?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You have a family that loves you so insanely much. I don’t. I have a mom who left and a dad who’s never around. But I can’t say anything bad about him, not really, because he spends all of his time saving lives and doing charity work. When I complain about that taking priority over me, I sound like a dick.” Rafael’s angry voice fills my car, and it startles me to realize that I’ve never seen him like this before. I can’t help but smile.

  “You look pleased.” He accuses.

  “I’ve never seen The Unflappable Rafael Luna get upset before. It’s kind of nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “Yeah, it makes me feel less bonkers.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Glad to be of service.”

  I sigh and try again. “My life is weird. My family has literally depended on likes and pageviews since I can remember. It’s always been an inescapable fact of life. Some people are born in Russia, some people are born to billionaires, I was born into the Dixon Family. I don’t know if it’s fair or not, but I’ve always assumed God or the Universe or whoever chose me for this life before I was born. And so I’ve played along. But now I find out that I wasn’t chosen for this life. It was chosen for me by regular people who made regular mistakes. And that means maybe I can choose something else, you know? Mayb
e I don’t have to schedule my life around photo shoots and sell my soul to a reality show.

  “But how am I supposed to know where I’m going if I don’t know where I came from? I’ve watched from a distance as Mom told my story for my entire life and I’m sick of it. I want to tell my own story. But I can’t tell it unless I know how it started.”

  When Rafael doesn’t respond, I glance over to see his reaction. “Now you look pleased.”

  “The first time I saw you reading a graphic design book in the cafeteria, wearing a t-shirt I still don’t understand, I had to get to know you. I knew you had something to say, and I was right.” He grins at me. “I like being right.”

  The clouds thin as we head east, revealing the brown and red hues of the Superstition Mountains. Miles of creosote bushes and cholla cacti dot the desert landscape outside the windows. By the time we pass a sign that says “Superior 10 Miles,” the sky is blue in every direction and the sun is shining again. That’s the way it is with rare Arizona rainstorms; they pass as quickly as they come. We roll down our windows and breathe in the smell of wet earth.

  “Have you visited Superior before?” Rafael asks.

  “Superior is not a place you visit. It’s a place you drive through on your way to somewhere else.”

  “That bad?”

  “That small. It’s an old mining town that has all but been abandoned. The town is less than two square miles, and the population is less than three thousand.”

  “Thanks for the info, Wiki.”

  “I’ve been called worse,” I say, and Rafael laughs. It sounds even better than rain on my window.

  The mountains close in on us as we get closer, the cholla making way for dense patches of saguaros. I slow down when I see the “Entering Superior” sign. The small town is nestled in a valley at the base of a mesa butte.

  “What are we looking for?” Rafael asks.

  “Six twenty-three, Copper Street. Directions are saved on my phone.” I nod to my phone in the center console.

  Rafael picks it up and finds the directions. “What if she’s not home?”

  I hesitate, realizing this address might be a dead end.

  “If we can’t find her, we’ll do the tourist thing. Then our trip won’t be a total waste.” He gestures to the right where a red shed sits in the parking lot of an old café. The sign out front reads “World’s Smallest Museum.”

  “Artifacts of Ordinary Life,” Rafael reads. “What do you think that means?”

  “Toothbrushes?”

  “Dirty dishes?”

  “Socks,” I reply in a strained voice. He’s obviously trying to keep the mood light but the knot in my stomach is so big I feel it knocking my lungs aside as it moves into my chest. We both quiet down as we roll slowly through the nearly empty town. I turn left when I see a sign that says “Historic Superior.” It’s a convenient way to avoid my own history a little longer.

  Historic Superior isn’t much of a detour. It’s one road, maybe half a mile long. Cafés, kitschy shops, and buildings with boarded-up windows line the street. Colorful murals adorn the brick walls. Some appear to be inspired by Native American culture, and the others are paintings of Jesus and Our Lady of Guadalupe. They have more life in them than the rest of the town put together.

  The road ends with a government building at the top of the hill. I turn the car around and drive toward the main stretch of town, where a small turnoff leads to residential houses.

  “Well. Here goes nothing.” I spin the steering wheel and the car obeys.

  I drive slowly through the neighborhood as Rafael uses my phone to direct me to Copper Street. The houses are old, with chain-linked fences and dirt yards displaying broken-down cars. The entire feel of this town is neglect. Like everyone who cared about it left or died, and now all that’s left are the people who don’t know how to leave. People like my birth mother.

  Would I have ended up here if things had been different? If she hadn’t wheeled me into Mom’s hospital room and run? I try to picture life in one of these ramshackle houses. Driving to the small, red-brick schoolhouse that wouldn’t hold a quarter of my graduating class. I can’t fathom what it would be like.

  Who would I be, if I wasn’t Ashley Dixon’s daughter, Poppy Dixon’s sister?

  Maybe my weird internet life isn’t as bad as I make it out to be.

  Sooner than I expect, Rafael nods toward a street sign. “There. On the left.”

  I turn and pull over to the side of the road, in front of the first house on the corner. My hands automatically reach for my phone, but instead of slipping it in my pocket, I turn it off. I don’t want to be distracted by comments from fans or emails from people who are offended by my very existence. Not now. Not during something this important.

  “Do you want me to stay in the car?”

  I shake my head. “Please, come with me.”

  He reaches over the center console to squeeze my hand. We get out of the car and walk toward my future and my fate. Swaying in the breeze, a tire swing hangs from an old tree in the front yard. A scooter is lying on its side in the dirt, sending me into a panic that I’m about to meet a half sibling. One long-lost family member is all I can handle for today—if that. But before I can change my mind, Rafael reaches out his long arm and knocks.

  A young boy with shaggy brown hair answers the door while holding an Xbox controller. “Who are you?”

  “I’m looking for Brittany Dewitt.” I clench my hands at my sides to keep them from shaking, but my voice is surprisingly loud and steady.

  “She lives in the apartment over the garage.” He turns around and looks at the TV screen, clearly itching to get back to his game.

  “Can we see her?” I try to step inside, but he pushes the door forward, nudging my foot back outside.

  “There’s an entrance around back.” He shuts the door in our faces.

  Rafael looks at me with raised eyebrows, indicating that the next move is my decision. I nod to his unspoken question, and we walk around to the side of the house. The chain link fence is open. We push our way through and into the backyard, where a rickety set of wooden steps leads up to a door above the garage. We take them carefully, and when we reach the top, I’m the one who knocks.

  Inside, feet shuffle across the floor. The door creaks open. A familiar face appears in the doorframe, although it’s older and thinner than the one in my nightmares.

  It’s the woman who tried to kidnap me nine years ago.

  My vision blurs. I fight by the urge to vomit on the doorstep. I grip the railing until my knuckles turn white. Once my head stops spinning, and I’m positive I’m not going to collapse, I’m able to focus on her face.

  The first thing I notice is the freckles, although they’re faded. That must be how people feel when they meet me. First, they see the freckles; then, everything else. On my birth mother, everything else includes sallow-tinted skin, sunken eyes, and bones sticking out of her chest. Her dirty blonde hair hangs limply around her shoulders, begging for a wash. All of her could use a good wash, actually.

  Her eyes dart back and forth as she looks at me, then Rafael, then back at me again. Without warning, she bursts into tears and pulls me into a hug.

  “I knew you’d come.” She squeezes me with a surprisingly strong grip, given how frail she appears. I look at Rafael. His eyes are as wide as mine feel, and I can tell he has no idea what to do. My natural instinct is to push myself as far from her as possible, but instead, I pat her awkwardly on the back as she sobs the same words over and over into my shoulder. “I knew you’d come.”

  Really? Cause I sure didn’t. If I’d know what I’d be walking in to, I probably wouldn’t be here at all.

  After an unbearable length of time, she releases her hold on me and wipes the tears with her sleeve. Before I can move, she puts her hands on my shoulders and tugs me over the threshold. “I knew it was you the whole time. I swear, I knew it was you.”

>   My attempt at a smile feels like a grimace. The apartment is dark and dirty. Cigarette butts, clothes, and food wrappers litter the floor.

  Don’t judge her, I scold myself. You don’t know what’s she’s been through.

  Rafael walks further into the apartment, stopping in the makeshift kitchen with his back toward us. A portable refrigerator sits next to a folding table and two chairs. He picks up a picture frame from the top of the refrigerator and studies it for a long time before setting it back in its place.

  Brittany’s hands are still on my shoulders. I try to shrug away, but she puts them on my face and leans close. “I always knew it was you.” The scent of smoke is suffocating. Dread scatters across my skin. I wrap my arms around my stomach in a pathetic attempt to hold myself together.

  Rafael turns, alarm written all over his face. I shake my head, warning him not to say anything. Brittany fixes her pleading eyes on mine. “I tried to take you first. You have to know that.”

  Either she’s completely rewritten history, or she’s a liar. “That’s not true. You grabbed Poppy.” My voice is defiant, because she’s wrong. I still hear her scratchy voice calling Poppy’s name when I lie in bed at night. She didn’t want me. Like everyone else, she wanted my sister.

  “No!” Her face falls. The toxic smell of her breath wafts over me, causing my stomach to swirl in angry protest. “I called for you, but you ignored me. Poppy was curious. She wanted to come. I knew if I took her, you’d follow. You have to believe me.” Her eyes lock on mine and there’s a glimmer of something that clashes with the rest of her appearance.

  Life. Hope. Affection?

  Half of my life. That’s how long I’ve been clutching this memory in tight fists. It’s not possible something slipped through my fingers. Is it?

  Rafael crosses the room to my side. “What’s going on?”

  Brittany’s shoulders slump in defeat. I can’t bring myself to say the words.

  He steps in front of her, forcing me to look at him. “Who is she?”

  “I’m her mother.” The words are a whisper, stitched together with heartbreak and regret.