The Kids Are Gonna Ask

by Gretchen Anthony

  Savannah came up behind him. “Hey, let’s go. Hurry.”

  “What’s happening?” Thomas turned, looking past her in the direction she’d come. He saw Carrie Westlund, along with Trigg. “Ugh.”

  “Just go, dummy.” Savannah was shoving him toward the parking lot with her shoulder.

  “Van!”

  Carrie and Trigg caught up anyway. “So, you two are famous. First Insta, now a podcast.”

  “Hey, Carrie,” said Thomas. He eyed her shirt, which read #Famous in glitter-gold lettering. “Looks like you’re the famous one, though.”

  “Crazy, right?” She held up her phone, mock-posing for the camera. “The company just sent it to me hoping I’d post some selfies.”

  Thomas turned and started walking again. Running into Nico and the whole track team had been enough. Now, Savannah was going to obsess about Carrie and Trigg the whole drive home.

  “Sorry, guys,” Savannah called, doubling her pace to catch up to him. “We’ve got to run. We have an appointment.”

  He remembered that was true. A phone call for the podcast with their mom’s best friend, Elise. They were hoping to get her advice on how to break through to the third woman on the ski trip, Brynn, who still refused to talk to them.

  “Bye, Van!” chirped Trigg. “Text you later!”

  “I can’t believe Trigg is hanging out with her,” Savannah said, once they were out of earshot. “She knows how mortified I am.”

  Thomas kept walking. They weren’t even to the car, and Savannah was already starting in.

  “If it were just the Insta hashtag, I could ignore it. But Parker White asked me in class today if we’d ever held a séance. A séance! He said it all hush-hush with this look of phony concern on his face. As if he wasn’t just being an ass.”

  “I told you, Parker White has always been an ass.”

  “Yeah, but why does he have to do it in my face?”

  They reached the car and Savannah threw the keys over the top of the roof to Thomas. “You drive. I’m too pissed off.”

  They switched sides and got in.

  “Did I tell you I got called into the guidance counselor’s office yesterday? Mrs. Adams wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting cyber bullied.”

  “Well, you sort of are, right?”

  “Of course I am, but what’s Mrs. Adams going to do about it? She can’t even remember her login half the time. I’ll be in her office like, Are there any film schools coming to the college fair next fall? And she has to pull out this Post-it note she keeps in her top drawer with all her passwords written on it. Then she can never find her reading glasses... It’s a whole thing.”

  They were five minutes from home and Savannah could go on about her hashtag drama for hours, if he let her. Thomas changed the subject to focus on the call they were about to make.

  “Do you think Elise will be willing to help?” They’d left several unreturned messages on Brynn’s voice mail and even sent her another handwritten note. So far, none of it worked. Now they were calling their mom’s other friends, asking if they might be willing to intervene on their behalf.

  “Hope so. Working the friends angle was effective for the White Lies reporters, at least.” They’d been bingeing investigative reporting podcasts. In a mutual favorite, White Lies, two reporters for National Public Radio investigated the 1965 murder of Reverend James Reeb who’d been down in Selma, Alabama, registering voters when he was attacked on the street and killed. Three local men were tried for the crime soon after, but their acquittal had long been considered a sham. Fifty years later, when the two NPR reporters took up the case, they worked the tight-knit Selma community person-by-person for three years and, thanks to their tenacity, identified a fourth man who’d been there for the attack that night. They were even able to record the man discussing his involvement in Reeb’s attack on tape—just a week or so before he died. It was an extreme example, Thomas had to admit. But if those reporters could find their guy, he and Savannah ought to be able to find their father.

  “All right,” Thomas said, “so the plan is to ask Elise to appeal to Brynn on our behalf. Try and convince her to at least take our phone call?”

  “Right. With the hope that once she gets to know us, she’ll be willing to talk.”

  “I mean, it’s not like we murdered someone. Or our father did.”

  “No,” Savannah agreed. “Unless he did. And then that’s a whole other podcast.”

  When they got home, they dialed Elise. She picked up right away and got to the point.

  “Look, guys. Brynn is a good person. Smart, committed, the whole bit. It’s just—”

  She was obviously weighing her words carefully.

  “So, you know how your mom was always like, People are just who they are! Bess never got too bent out of shape about anything. But Brynn, she’s your mom’s exact opposite. She has an opinion about everything. She’s black-and-white, right versus wrong. Which isn’t always bad. I mean, we choose our friends for a reason, right? If your mom and I had been left to plan that trip to Colorado, we might have flown out there without even knowing where we were going to stay when we landed. But Brynn’s a planner. And that’s good sometimes. She likes things done right and she has high expectations. Kristen and I still go with her on girls’ weekends every year. She can be a total pain in—” She caught herself. “Well, let’s just say, she knows all the great places to eat, stay and shop. Last year, we got an entire four-course meal in Sonoma comped because one of the dishes was overcooked.”

  “Do you think it’s even worth us trying to talk to her?” The more Thomas heard, the less he was sure.

  “Absolutely!” Elise’s answer came quickly. “Kristen and I remember the highlights about the trip, but if anyone remembers the details, it’ll be Brynn.”

  <>

  The Kids Are Gonna Ask

  A Guava Media Podcast

  Season01—Episode03

  Tuesday, June 09

  SAVANNAH

  So, Kristen and Elise. You both remember our mom meeting and spending at least one night with the guy Elise told us she called “the hunky bartender.”

  KRISTEN

  [laughter] Yes! Is that what you called him, Elise? That’s too funny. He was super cute, though. Oh my gosh. We laughed because Bess came all the way out to Colorado and hooked up with a guy who looked like he was straight out of a Minnesota catalog. You know—tall, blond, cheekbones. The Nordic god. Which fit—oh, yeah, I should mention this—because he had one of those stereotypical Scandinavian names. Bjorn or Thor or whatever.

  THOMAS

  Loki?

  ELISE

  Ha! God no, thankfully it wasn’t Loki. I remember that much.

  SAVANNAH

  But you don’t remember his name?

  KRISTEN

  No, sorry. Wish I did.

  ELISE

  Me, either.

  SAVANNAH

  All right, so we’ve got this guy you both remember as a Nordic god bartender with a name to match. You both remember that Mom spent at least one night with him. Can you tell us more about how they met? Was she flirting with him for free drinks? Did he ask her to stay around until his shift was over?

  KRISTEN

  No, we all met him, like, one of the first nights we were there. He was the bartender at one of the smaller places in town. I don’t know how we wandered in there—I think it was close to our condo or something. God, it was so long ago, sorry.

  ELISE

  Remember? The bar he worked at was on the street level, just below our condo. Like, storefronts all along the street and condos above that. You could only get into our place by going up those awful wooden stairs in the back alley.

  KRISTEN

  Yes! The stairs were always covered in ice. Didn’t Bess totally wipe out on th
ose stairs? Or was it me?

  ELISE

  We all wiped out on those stairs. I’m surprised Brynn didn’t file a lawsuit. Probably would these days.

  KRISTEN

  Ha! She probably would...

  SAVANNAH

  So, the bar. The place our dad worked was on the same street as the condo you stayed in? Or even just below it?

  KRISTEN

  That’s right. And anyway, the first time we went in there, I don’t think it was very busy, so we were all just chatting with him, the bartender. You know, where should we go when we’re in town, how’s the skiing been this year, how to avoid the lift lines—that sort of thing. And I remember because the next night, we walked into this other place and he was there with some friends of his. Not townies, exactly, but guys who worked at the resorts all season long.

  ELISE

  Not tourists, like us.

  THOMAS

  This was a different bar?

  KRISTEN

  Yeah. He was just there with friends. Having a beer. And Bess, your mom, was like, Oh, hey! Must be fate! And then they talked forever. They definitely were into each other. They clicked. They laughed and talked and it seemed really easy—I mean, god, not easy, easy—

  ELISE

  Kristen!

  THOMAS

  We get it. They clicked.

  KRISTEN

  Exactly!

  SAVANNAH

  And they went home together?

  ELISE

  Not that night. He came skiing with us the next day. Didn’t we tell you that?

  THOMAS

  No.

  SAVANNAH

  No!

  KRISTEN

  Oh yeah! I forgot that part.

  ELISE

  He was really good. Of course, being a Norse god and all. Bess was, too, and so after a few runs they just went off on their own. Kristen, you were a good skier but not as good as Bess...sorry. Brynn and I were both just lucky to keep up.

  KRISTEN

  Right...they went off and we didn’t really see them again until Bess came sneaking into the condo the next morning.

  THOMAS

  Did she see him again, do you know? That week, at least?

  KRISTEN

  Um, maybe? Elise, do you remember?

  ELISE

  No, sorry. But I guess, probably? She really liked him. And we should say, too, that he didn’t seem like one of those resort guys who just hits on all the out-of-town women. I mean, maybe he was, what do I know, but he didn’t seem that way to me.

  SAVANNAH

  So you finish your trip, you fly home, you get back to school. When did you find out Mom was pregnant?

  KRISTEN

  A few months later. At least, that’s when I found out. It was spring by then, I remember. It was our senior year and we had so much work to do but the weather was finally nice, and I kept asking your mom if she wanted to come study outside. On the hill behind the library. I remember looking at her and she was so pale, and I was teasing her and said, “You could use some sun on that pale face of yours, at least.” And she was like, “Yeah, pale because I can’t stop puking.” And I remember thinking, Oh my god, when do you possibly find time to party with finals coming up, and she blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”

  SAVANNAH

  Morning sickness, in other words?

  KRISTEN

  And then some, from the look of her.

  THOMAS

  You must have been surprised, right?

  KRISTEN

  Uh, yeah!

  ELISE

  Your mom had boyfriends, but she didn’t sleep around. And she didn’t have a boyfriend when we graduated. I remember because I did and all we did was fight about what was going to happen to us after school ended.

  KRISTEN

  So, anyway, I was confused. I said, “How did you get pregnant?” And she said, “Remember that guy in Colorado?” And I said, “What are you going to do?” Because, that was just a fling. If she was keeping in touch with him, I had no clue. I couldn’t even imagine being in her position. And she didn’t know what she was going to do yet. But I do remember her saying, “I’m going to graduate. Then I’ll figure out what comes next.” Because that was totally Bess, right? First things first.

  ELISE

  Like, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

  SAVANNAH

  Did she say anything more about the father? Do you know if she even told him about us?

  KRISTEN

  I don’t know for sure. It was so crazy at that point with finals and graduation. Plus, she said she didn’t want to talk about it, so we didn’t. But at some point—I don’t remember if this was before we graduated or after—she was conflicted. She used to say she had a honey jar stuck on her nose, you know, like Winnie the Pooh? It was her way of saying she had a problem she didn’t know how to handle.

  SAVANNAH

  She used to say the same thing to us.

  THOMAS

  But she posed it as a question. She’d ask, “Got a honey jar stuck on your nose, Thomas?”

  KRISTEN

  Exactly. I remember thinking, um, appropriate comparison? Winnie the Pooh and not knowing what to do about a pregnancy? Anyway. We got to talking about the father, you know, could she expect anything from him? And if I remember right, I thought she ought to tell him. He had a right to know. But her point was sort of, I don’t expect anything of him, and I really don’t want to have to consult a stranger on how to raise this kid. Plus, I think he had plans to big-time travel to like South America or Australia or something for a long time. I don’t know exactly what, but I do know she thought it was complicated enough to be single and pregnant, let alone with a guy she didn’t really know and who was about to be halfway around the world—

  ELISE

  New Zealand! That’s where he was going! We talked about it that first day at the bar. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just remembered that. He was going backpacking in New Zealand. Which I guess makes sense since half of the lift operators at the resort that winter were from Australia and New Zealand ’cuz, you know, their seasons are the opposite of ours.

  KRISTEN

  Yeah...everyone called them the Kiwi Crew—

  SAVANNAH

  Okay, stop. So what you’re telling us is that, one, we’re looking for a guy who—at least seventeen years ago—looked like a Norse god and, two, had a name to match. Three, he worked at a bar in Breckenridge in 2002. Four, he spent a few months backpacking in New Zealand, and five, he may or may not know about us?

  ELISE

  Mmm-hmm.

  KRISTEN

  [audible sigh] That about sums it up, yeah. Dollars to doughnuts, that guy’s your biodad.

  <>

  Eleven

  Maggie

  “Are you all right?”

  Maggie was in a state, sitting on a park bench with Katherine Mansfield at her feet, sweat pouring from every surface and a hand pressed to her heart. Strangers had good reason to wonder if she was okay, but so far, only one of them had stopped—the woman bobbing from foot to foot in front of her now, dressed in the sort of running gear reserved for the young and very fit.

  “Yes, I’m fine—”

  “Are you sure? I saw you clutching your chest. My granddad died of a heart attack and it freaks me out.”

  Nothing more reassuring to a woman in distress than to be compared to the elderly and dead.

  “I think I’ve simply overheated,” Maggie said. “I forget that I shouldn’t leave the house past eighty-five degrees.” Which was true. George used to accuse her of being part earthworm—always making her way into the sun but forgetting how easily she wilted. “What am I going to do the day I come home to find you all shriveled u
p on the sidewalk?” he’d say. Then he died and left her on her own to never find out.

  “Here,” the jogger said. “You need to drink something.” She pulled a water bottle from the belt around her waist and wiped the mouthpiece with her shirt. “I’m not sick. I promise.”

  Maggie reached for the bottle and realized, to her surprise, her hand was shaking. “Oh—”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” The woman plopped down on the bench and urged the bottle to Maggie’s lips. She took several long sips.

  Maggie hadn’t been able to stay in the house, not even one more minute. Nothing was happening, and that nothingness was a problem. Chef Bart hadn’t arrived yet and she’d hardly seen her grandkids at all recently—they’d either been at school or locked away in their rooms studying for finals, and when all that was done, they stomped downstairs like a herd of elephants into the basement studio and shut the door behind them.

  The house was too quiet.

  Ever since the podcast began, Maggie’s head had been swimming—with the questions Savannah and Thomas wanted answers to, as well as the questions she kept asking herself. And the question she’d been asking her daughter for the past four years: Why, Bess? Why?

  She felt her breathing go shallow and she forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths.

  Her heart was on her mind lately, too. The odd instance at the launch party hadn’t been a onetime hiccup. Last night her heartbeat matched itself to the pressing rhythms of the evening news theme song and the day before that, to All Things Considered on NPR. It had also taken to jumping out of her chest every time the doorbell rang, which meant that now she had a full-on conundrum: How could she fill the house with happy noise and people if she couldn’t handle the sound of the bell at their arrival?

  “Thank you for the water.” Maggie tried to hand the bottle back to her young jogger friend, but the woman refused to take it.

  “May I?” She took Maggie by the wrist and found her pulse. She counted, timing the seconds on her watch. “Your pulse is all over the place. I can’t even get a heart rate.”

  “I’m dehydrated. That happens.”

  “Maybe, but if I leave you here and you keel over—no offense—I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”