by Kris Ripper
He and Lisa had been the negative ends of two magnets, repelling each other so completely they hardly ever crossed paths.
“Anyway.” Jake settled lower in the bed. “I’m glad she’s safe. Even Frankie’s glad she’s safe, which is saying something.”
“I always wondered why Frankie hated her so much. I don’t remember her bothering to hate anyone as much as she hated Lisa.”
“Oh. Uh.”
Jake’s tone made him raise his head. “What?”
“So probably I could tell you, and it’d be fine, but do me a favor and ask her yourself. Is that okay?”
Singer blinked. “Of course. Is there— Did Lisa do something—”
“No, no. It’s all Frankie. But it’s, I don’t know, kind of a thing. Or maybe it’s not and I’m making it a big deal, but anyway, let her tell you why she hates Lisa. And I’m not sure it’s hate as much as Lisa was that girl, in school, who lived like every day was her own personal Dawson’s Creek, or something. And Frankie was Daria.”
“Frankie was Daria. I can’t believe I never made that connection before! Only her hair was very Jane.”
“Oh my god, Singer, did you watch Daria?”
“Didn’t you? Come on, Jane’s brother was hot.”
“Emery kind of looks like him. With the soul patch or whatever.”
“And the ‘I’m so hot I don’t even have to try’ deal he has going with his hair.”
“It’s shiny.”
They grinned at each other.
For the most part, they kept affection locked down in the presence of other people. Jake was a little more relaxed around Frankie, who’d lived in the guesthouse for a while, but otherwise he never touched Singer if anyone else was near them. It might have felt stilted, or worrisome, if it weren’t for how intense it made the moments when they were finally alone.
“You ready for bed?”
“Unless you have better ideas.”
Ever since the beginning, since the first early dates after they met again seven years ago on a street corner, even before Jake was out to his family—this part had always made sense. The two of them alone in the dark, communicating through fingertips and murmurs and pleasure.
There was nowhere else in the world Singer would rather be.
1
Singer
7 hours until Miles
Singer’s phone rang as he was staring deeply into his empty coffee pot. Every now and then his eyes slid to the note hastily held in place with the sticker from the side of an avocado:
No coffee. My bad. Will stop on the way home. SORRY.
The SORRY was appropriately retraced in order to signify contrition.
Damn. The phone. He really needed his coffee.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Singer, it’s Brandi Leone from Social Services. Is Jake with you?”
Everything stopped.
“He’s at work.”
“Rats, I was hoping he’d be there. Listen, I have a foster placement and you’re the first family I’m calling, but I need a commitment from you right away. Ten-month-old African American boy named Miles, drug exposed at birth, but developmentally on target. I’m really looking for a permanent placement for him. Reunification with Mom was terminated a month ago and his recent placement had some complications, so I’m only looking at adoptive placements right now. I need an answer from you, ASAP.”
All the websites, all the books talked about this. Don’t let them rush you. Don’t let them pressure you. Singer, heart pounding, forced himself to be reasonable.
Termination of reunification. “So is Mom out of the picture? There’s a TPR?” Questions. Ask questions.
“Mom didn’t follow through with her plan, and she’s missed more visits than she’s showed up for. We’ve still got one or two scheduled, so hopefully she’ll make it.” Brandi didn’t sound all that hopeful, but Singer cautioned himself not to read into her tone. “It’s still too soon for the Termination of Parental Rights, and I’d like to have him nice and settled well before then. I completely understand if the risk feels too high, Singer, but I need a yes or no.”
Singer and Jake didn’t want foster placements. They wanted an adoptive placement with a TPR on file. Singer closed his eyes.
Nine months. This was the first call in nine months for a kid less than a year old. And it had hurt to say no to the three calls they’d gotten for older kids.
“Can I have fifteen minutes?” he asked.
“Fifteen, okay. Then I start calling other families because I need a home for this kid pronto.”
“I understand. I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks, Singer.”
His “No, thank you” was lost to the click of the line disconnecting.
Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god. With shaking fingers he hit Jake’s number and waited. Please pick up, come on, I know you’re in the office somewhere, pick up.
Voicemail.
He dialed again.
Ten-month-old boy. Ten months. Not talking, but maybe crawling? He’d have to look it up.
Voicemail.
No, don’t look it up. Don’t get attached to the idea. It’s a bad call. Wait for a kid with a TPR, or at least with a permanency order. Wait for a kid who’s available for adoption. Except what if one never came? What if the people who fostered those kids snapped them up the second they could?
Jesus, it wasn’t like foster kids were limited-edition flat-screen televisions on Black Friday, available while supplies last, except everything in the adoption process made him feel like they were. The system was sick. Or maybe that was Singer.
If Jake were here, he’d be jittery and freaked out, but he’d probably want to go for it. If Brandi had called Jake instead of Singer, Jake would have said yes.
He tried one more time and left a fourth voicemail message. Then he dialed Brandi back.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
“We’ll do it. We’ll take him.” Singer braced one hand on the counter and tried to breathe slowly.
“Great. I was hoping you’d say that. Now I need you to have a crib and a car seat on hand, obviously.”
Brandi kept talking for a few minutes, but Singer lost track of what she was saying while he scrambled for something to write with. He ended up with a whiteboard marker and the glass carafe of the coffee maker: crib, car seat. What else had she said?
“Fantastic. I’ll see you around four.”
“Wait. Did you say there are visits scheduled?”
“One, next week. Um, Tuesday at 10 a.m. here at Social Services.”
Singer added that note to the carafe. “Okay. So, what happens now?”
“Now you get ready to meet Miles. I’ll see you at four.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Brandi laughed. “Thank you. This is exciting!”
Click.
Singer bent all the way over and fought a wave of nausea.
Exciting. Terrifying. Oh my god.
He tried Jake again, left another voicemail, then contemplated taking a shower. But no. He had to actually say this to someone or it wasn’t real.
He’d be thinking so much more clearly if he had coffee. He could run to the store. No. He couldn’t possibly. Certainly not without showering.
He should shower. Then buy coffee. Then make coffee. And at some point in all that, surely, surely Jake would get his damn voicemail messages.
A thump somewhere in the house abruptly reminded him he wasn’t actually alone. Lisa was here. And he’d have to tell her eventually, considering this would impact her, too.
Singer walked down the hall and stopped outside his sister’s childhood room. They’d never been close. He knew he was her last choice of refuge. Still. She was here.
He knocked. “Lisa?”<
br />
“Singer?”
Like they were neighbors who barely knew each other.
“Yeah. Hi.” Was she going to open her door? In the three weeks she’d been in the house, he’d only seen her a couple of times, when he surprised her in the kitchen, or when they had the bad timing to pass through the hallway at the same moment.
Rustling. The drag of something heavy on the ground. The doorknob turned and he could see half of her face. Not the makeup-shielded face she’d had as a teenager, before the cult. An older, longer face. No makeup, no defenses.
“Hey, so, I just got a call. It looks like our worker at Social Services found a placement for us. For Jake and me.”
“A placement? Is that like a kid?”
He winced. “Sorry. Yes, a kid. A little boy. He’ll be here this afternoon.” Oh my god, he’ll be here this afternoon.
“Huh.” Lisa pushed her hair out of her face, eyes landing somewhere on the pictures lining the wall behind him. “Then … congratulations. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Yeah. We’ve been waiting for months.”
“Okay. Well, good. That’s … good.”
Another awkward beat passed, and Singer shifted on his feet, wishing she’d at least look at him, or smile, or do something that answered the intense swirl of his own emotions.
“Yeah. It’s good.”
“That’s cool, Singer. So, I’ll see you later.” She pulled back into the room, and the door slid shut. The sound of dragging furniture again. A slight thump. Then nothing.
I’m going to go crazy if someone doesn’t get excited about this really fucking soon. Singer walked back to the master bedroom, already dialing Alice. In a world where the Derrie brothers were inclined to get married, Alice would be his sister-in-law.
In this world, they pretended.
“We got a call,” he said when she answered.
And Alice, being Alice, jumped right in. “Oh my god. Is this happening?”
“It’s happening.” Relief flooded him. “I can’t get Jake on the phone. I just did this whole thing by myself and I keep leaving him messages. Oh my god, Alice.”
“I’m coming over. You want me to leave Care and Emery here?”
“No, bring them. And coffee. We’re out.”
“You’re out of coffee? Sweet bleeding Jesus, why didn’t you say something? We’ll be over in a minute, and then you’ll tell me everything.”
“Nothing much to—”
Click.
Between the hanging up in his ear and the door shutting in his face, Singer was going to get a complex. Were parents allowed to get complexes about silly things? Probably not. They had to be responsible. They had to be adult. Parental.
He braced himself on the bathroom mirror and stared at his reflection. He’d apparently slept on his right side, facing Jake, judging by his hair. Also, his eyes were a little wild. He looked as freaked out as he felt. Was that a bad thing? He smoothed his hair down, but there was nothing he could do about the crazy expression in his eyes.
It took roughly ten minutes for Carey and Alice to drive from their new place. A quick shower, then. One of the advantages of being enmeshed with Derries was that you only had to deliver big news to one person, and soon everyone would know. Of course, that was the downside as well. Still, the entire network would know that he and Jake were about to be foster parents without Singer having to make another phone call.
Parents. Oh my god.
Nine months of waiting. It was as if he’d been staring at a locked door for nine months and now he’d heard the key turn, the lock disengage, but he was suddenly afraid to open the door.
He and Jake were going to be foster parents. This was happening.
Of all the days to be out of coffee.
2
Frankie
49 days before coming clean
Frankie was just leaving the bookstore when the text came in. It was shocking enough for her to stop at the front.
Logan, anticipating her, had already found some books to shuffle beside the cash register. “You around later?”
“Apparently not.” She held the phone out so he could see Carey’s message: Baby news. Hit Thurman House after work.
“Whoa. That means Jake and Singer…?”
“You know everything I know.”
“Listen, if they get a little Asian baby, can I be the kid’s fake godfather? I’m just saying, I could be helpful.”
She made her voice deadpan. “Because you’re Chinese.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t be racist about it. I’d godfather a Japanese or Korean baby. Or any Asian Pacific Islander kid. Look, I’m just saying, I know from being raised by white people and there are some tricks the kid should learn.” He smiled, and Frankie steeled herself against it, but they’d known each other too long, and he knew he’d gotten to her. His smile expanded in an irritating way.
“You’re bugging me,” she muttered.
“If you want to come over later to tell me the baby news, I’m off at six.”
“I made your schedule. I know when you’re off.”
“I’m hearing that you memorize my schedule because you need to know when I’m available to nonsexually date you. And that is totally cool with me, FYI.”
Frankie picked up the closest hardcover and threatened him with it. “Can it, bub.” She glanced toward the back of the shop and called, “Izzy, I’m taking off! Fire Logan if you want, I don’t care!”
“She didn’t hear you,” he said helpfully. “She’s in the office.”
“I swear to all the gods, I will fire your ass for insubordination.”
“That might make our dates awkward.”
“You mean more awkward.”
“Oh, Frankie.” This time he leaned over the counter. “I don’t find our dates the least bit awkward. Anyway, if you want to stop by, you can.”
She wanted to punch him. She also wanted to spend more evenings curled up on his couch watching anime with him. It was unsettling. “I can’t believe this is my life.” The book hit the top of the stack with a thud. “Shelve this. And everything else. I’m leaving.”
“Bye! Remember to ask Jake if I can—”
“Totally not doing that!”
His laughter was cut off by the heavy glass door swishing shut. The thing about leaving Logan was that it always felt like an open loop. As if they should hug. Or wave. Or do … something to resolve the chord progression that always seemed to play in her mind when they were talking.
Frankie marched determinedly to her car. Screw all of it. Stop thinking about stupid-ass Logan.
There were more important things to think about. Like what qualified as “baby news”? Was there an actual kid? Or was this “maybe there will be a baby next month” news?
She pulled in behind Carey’s car and did a mental roll call of who was likely to be inside. Only Carey’s and Singer’s cars, and it was just after noon. So: Singer, Carey, Alice, and probably Emery, who was kind of Alice’s brother. Oh, right, and let’s not forget Lisa fuckin’ Thurman, emerged from the grave, or the cult, or Southern California, anyway. It was all basically the same.
Frankie headed for the door, wondering if she should have brought food. Did vague baby news have a traditional gift associated with it? Liquor, maybe? A stuffed bear holding a bottle of Xanax?
She knocked once and let herself in. “Hello? Is there a baby here right now, because I’m not changing fucking diapers!”
“No baby!” That was Carey’s voice. Coming from the kitchen.
The living room looked normal enough, but when she pushed through the swinging door to the eat-in kitchen, it was clear that all hell had broken loose. The counters were covered in dishes and a seemingly random assortment of food and cleaning supplies. Every lower cabinet was standing open. She looked a lit
tle closer.
“Hey, is that door supposed to be hanging there like that?”
Singer turned from where he was affixing some sort of … plastic strap thing to the refrigerator. His normally combed hair was frizzy on one side like he’d been running his hand through it, and his eyes were wide. “If you don’t have a way to fix it, your observation is useless to me.”
“Whoa, nellie.” She glanced at Carey, who minutely shook his head. Don’t fuck with Singer right now. Got it. “What can I do?”
“I need Alice’s help with that cabinet. She brought her toolbox. Can you—” He waved toward the rest of the house.
“Sure, I’ll grab her.”
“Thank you, Frankie.”
She saluted.
Alice and Emery were attaching some sort of brightly colored mobile to the ceiling right in front of the window of the nursery. Alice had attained honorary Derrie status by hooking up semipermanently with Carey; Emery seemed to have … followed them all the way from New York.
“This ladder was not made for fat girls,” she was mumbling as Frankie walked in. “Oh, Frankie, thank god. Will you stabilize me?”
Emery shifted the foot that was currently braced on the windowsill. “I could—”
“No, I need you right where you are, Em. Frankie has it.”
“I got it.” The ladder was dusty and cobwebbed; she tightened her grip. “Damn, where’d you dig this out from?”
“It was in the rafters in the garage. No black widows so far.”
Frankie froze, torn between her stabilization responsibilities and jumping back.
The ladder shuddered when Alice laughed. “Shit! Sorry, no, I swear, no spiders at all. Only webs.”
Emery shook his head. “You’re such a jerk.”
“I really am. Okay, let’s finish up.”
Frankie peered around the ladder to make sure no spiders were lurking. “Singer broke the kitchen, so he needs you.”
“Got it. Just have to—” The drill hummed, stopped, hummed, stopped, hummed again. “There. This is never coming down.”
“Isn’t the mobile supposed to be over the crib?”