by H. L. Logan
I’d never bothered to come to one of these events before. I liked the idea that these people knew Jaz and I as a couple. That in their eyes, we were a solid unit.
At that particular moment, it felt as if they were right.
17
Jaz
“Did you hear that?” Faye asked.
I spun my computer chair to face her. I’d set up a mini-office in her living room when I moved in, really a sliver of a desk crammed into a corner—but it was large enough for me to work there while Faye typed on her laptop on the couch. This way, we could both get our stuff done while being close to each other.
“Hear what?”
“Gretchen.”
We both got up and peered into Gretchen’s crib, which took up another corner of the room. The baby was on shaky feet, holding onto the sides to keep herself upright. “Buh.”
My jaw dropping, I stared at Faye. “Did she just say book?”
“Say it again, kid.” Faye had her phone out, the camera pointed at her. “Tell us what you just said.”
Gretchen’s face scrunched up, and she shook the crib’s sides with all her might—which wasn’t much, but she made her best effort. “Buh!”
“This is when you usually read to her, isn’t it?” Faye said. “She’s asking for a book.”
“Holy shit. Her first word was book.” I grabbed Faye’s hand and jumped in the air. “She’s talking! And she’s going to be a nerd like us!”
“Nurture wins over nature.” Faye grinned.
“Did you get a good picture? This is going straight in the scrapbook.”
Standing in her crib, Gretchen let out a cry. “Bu-u-u-uh!” The sound turned into a wail by the time she’d finished stretching it out to four syllables.
“She’s going to be a demanding nerd.” I scooped her up and grabbed a picture book. “How do you feel about Robert Munsch, kid? The Paper Bag Princess?”
Faye followed us with the camera, taking shot after shot of her on my knee, her red face slowly fading to its normal color as she listened to the lines of the story.
At the end, where the dragon insulted the princess and the princess danced off into the sunset without her, Gretchen clapped and cheered.
“You think she actually understands this stuff?” I asked, setting the book aside.
“More than we think.” The phone beeped as Faye stopped recording. “That’s why we’re immersing her in feminist literature from day one.”
“Obviously it’s a straight line from The Paper Bag Princess to Adrienne Rich.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’ll find out how right I was in a few years.”
The allusion to the future made my heart jump. At this point, we were a pretty solid thing. We’d been together officially for almost six months, and sleeping together unofficially for another six before that.
Two months ago, I’d packed up my meager possessions and brought them over to her place. I was over here all the time anyway. It should’ve been a pretty big step. And it was… but I wasn’t on the lease.
Just like I wasn’t on Gretchen’s birth certificate.
Not that it was a big deal or anything. I wasn’t her mom. Wasn’t even blood-related, like Faye was.
Except if we ever did break up in the future, I’d have nothing to tie me to her. Not that I had any intentions of breaking up with Faye. Are you kidding? She was only the best thing to ever happen to me, including but not limited to libraries, oral sex, and being born.
“What?” Faye asked.
“Nothing.”
All right, I didn’t always communicate what was on my mind. But seriously, where do you even begin to bring up something like that? Oh, I’ve been thinking, and I want a permanent bind to this baby. A legal one, to be specific.
Sure, I’d been here for the first year of her existence. And yeah, I’d spent a ton of time with her.
It wasn’t like she’d actually remember me if I were to disappear. Babies changed nannies all the time, and as far as I knew, it had no negative effect on them. They just went on their merry little way, eating and crying and pooping as if nothing had ever changed. If anything were to happen to this relationship, it’d be me missing Gretchen, not the other way around.
Faye flipped through her camera roll. “Let’s pick the best picture and print it for the scrapbook.”
“Sure. Sounds great.”
The little hole in my heart was growing a little every day.
And Faye was completely oblivious.
* * *
At our meeting, Dr. O’Neill was full of suggestions on how to polish my thesis. I thanked him profusely as I packed up my things and slid them into my backpack.
He’d been more than understanding of the extra time it was taking me to finish. Theoretically I would’ve been done last spring. Now it’d been almost a year since I’d started, which meant I wouldn’t be able to defend the thesis until the end of the fall term.
I tried not to be too hard on myself about it. I’d basically been working two jobs, and there simply hadn’t been time. If anything, Faye was more disappointed about the delay than I was. She said her expert help should’ve had me finished in less time than usual rather than more.
Of course, that ignored the fact that her “expert help” always ended up with us falling into bed together.
I drove home to find Faye slumped on the couch, phone in hand. Gretchen was crawling around on the floor, so I thought at first that she was taping her. She wasn’t.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, scratching Gretchen on the head as I passed.
“Oh. It’s just a stupid message from my ex. Here.”
>BRENDA: I miss you. How are you?
My jaw clenched as I read further up the history. There was a series of messages like that, sometimes days apart, sometimes weeks or months. I scrolled up to the time our relationship had began. Faye had never responded.
“Why don’t you tell this chick to go fuck herself?”
“Jaz!” Faye gestured at Gretchen. “She’s learning to talk, remember?”
The baby fell onto her heels and giggled at us. “F-f-f…”
“Oh, dammit.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Seriously, why haven’t you told her to get bent?”
“I used to.” Faye tossed the phone onto the coffee table. “I gave her a piece of my mind, several times, and it didn’t do a thing to stop her. Eventually I figured I was better off ignoring her, and that she’d take a hint eventually.”
I grabbed the phone and checked the dates again. Brenda’s last message had come almost three months earlier. Apparently this girl was never going to take a hint.
“You haven’t had any more issues with Craigslist people, have you?”
Faye winced. “There was one time when you were out with your friends…”
“All right, fuck this. Sorry, Gretchen.” The baby flopped onto her stomach, and I continued. “I’m going to tell this person off for you. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.”
>ME: Hi, Brenda. I’m great. I’m in a loving, happy relationship of nearly a year. Needless to say, I have no intentions of getting back with you, now or ever, nor do I plan on being in touch with you. As you may have noticed, I haven’t been replying to your messages for months. Please stop contacting me and stop sending strangers to my home, or I’ll be forced to take this to the authorities and pursue a restraining order.
I showed the message to Faye for her approval. She nodded, and I hit send.
“I feel like such a fool for ever caring about that woman,” she mumbled. “How did I not realize what a piece of shit she was?”
“Hey, we all make mistakes. Hopefully she’ll get the picture now.”
I kept an eye on her phone, certain that Brenda would react in some way. Surely the threat of a restraining order would get to her. But as we went back to a normal conversation and started getting ready to make dinner, the phone didn’t make a sound.
Pretty quickly, Faye caught me
looking. I was probably being pretty obvious about it.
“She’s not going to respond,” she said, balancing Gretchen on her hip. “That’s not her style.”
I set down my cutting knife. “What is?”
“She takes a couple days to mull over my response, or lack of one. Or maybe it takes her that long to line up an anonymous hook-up for a fake ad. I don’t know. Either way, just be on your guard for someone showing up here.”
“Got it.” I gave her a kiss and kept it in the back of my mind.
* * *
Although the steep flights of stairs to her apartment always left us flushed and sweaty, Faye and I were still laughing as we reached the top. Today’s trip to the park with Gretchen had left us with a heap of new inside jokes.
“So if you’re not quite ready to try swinging, we’ll try the slide next time.”
I cut myself off as we rounded the top of the stairs and a man I’d never seen before came into sight. Faye stopped laughing half a second later.
The guy had a different vibe than the woman Brenda had sent early on. Whereas that one was older and unkempt, this one was around our age and clean-cut, dressed in a business suit and shoes that probably cost more than six months of our rent.
And yeah, the gender was different too… but still, there was no question as to who he might be.
Understanding crossed Faye’s face, and I stepped between her and the stranger before the man could see her. Faye had dealt with this her way plenty of times. Now it was my turn to try.
And if I failed, I’d follow through on that promise of a restraining order. I’d drag Faye down to the police station if I needed to. Enough was enough!
“Faye,” I said, “go stand on the landing.”
She looked at me, wordless, her hands moving instinctively to Gretchen in her sling.
“Take her and go.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she went a floor down. She’d be able to hear the conversation from here, but hopefully Gretchen wouldn’t catch on that something was wrong. Her getting upset was the exact opposite of what we needed.
I gave the stranger a grim smile, daring him to act before he could even open her mouth.
None of this was his fault, of course—he was just a pawn for this Brenda person—but I wasn’t too fond of him anyway. He’d had the nerve to think about having sex with Faye—my Faye. That alone was a good enough reason to dislike him.
“Hi,” the man said, actually offering his hand. “I’m Derek.”
I stared at Derek’s hand like it was a dead fish. Did he really think I was going to shake his hand? Introduce myself?
“Give me your phone,” I demanded instead.
“Excuse me?”
“Your phone, buddy-boy. Hand it over.”
The “buddy-boy” had slipped out of me unplanned. I kind of liked the way it sounded. Maybe I wasn’t just a babysitter-book nerd. Maybe I’d secretly had a badass hiding inside me all along!
Except Derek showed no inclination to hand his phone over, regardless of how tough I was being. “Why in God’s name would I do that?”
“Look, the woman you came here to fuck isn’t going to fuck you.”
Derek stared at me as if I’d just started speaking Greek.
“I know you got your hopes up, and maybe you came a long way. Clearly she’s hot. I mean, she’s my girlfriend.” That didn’t seem to scare Derek off, so I repeated myself. “Mine.”
A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
So he wasn’t just trying to get with my woman, he was a liar too. “Open up your Craigslist profile so I can tell the girl who sent you here exactly where to shove her little revenge fantasies.”
After blinking a few times, Derek paused and scratched his head. “Do you mind explaining what you’re talking about?” He tipped his head as if trying to make sense of me from a new angle. “What exactly do you think I’m doing here?”
“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing here, seeing as I’m not even the girl you were supposed to be meeting. What, you think I’m going to bring you in and introduce you to her? Got your hopes up for some kind of threeway porno orgy?”
“Look, I’m pretty sure we’ve had some kind of miscommunication. Slow down and tell me what’s going on from the start.”
I glared at him. Derek. What kind of douchebag name even was that? “You spoke to someone on Craigslist. A website where people can meet anonymously, since you insist on pretending not to know anything.”
Derek’s eyes widened. “No. You’re already wrong.”
Given his white-collar all-American looks, I wasn’t surprised he’d deny being on the app. “Sure, buddy. How did I get this wrong? Let me guess, you’re not on Craigslist. You’re not here for sex at all. Is that it?” I rolled my eyes. “I can keep a secret. Wouldn’t want your wife to find out.”
Now Derek sighed, sounding like he was exasperated with this whole conversation. “No, actually. You have me all wrong.”
I sneered. “And how’s that?”
“I’m not here about any… hook-up… with your woman.” He stood straighter. “I came here to get my daughter. Gretchen.”
18
Faye
I shuffled Gretchen in my arms, weighed down by the bag I’d slung over my right shoulder. This kid had so much stuff we had to drag with us everywhere, and the amount only seemed to grow. Exponentially, at that.
“You want to talk again?” I asked her. “Maybe apologize for turning a grown adult woman into your packhorse?”
She gurgled and smiled.
The voices from upstairs were indistinct, just loud enough for me to figure out they weren’t happy. I wondered why Jaz was so sure she could take care of this when I’d been unable to stop it. Of course, I’d been unwilling to get the police involved.
I was fairly sure Brenda was breaking one law or another by doing this. Some last clinging remnant of affection had stopped me from taking legal action. Now that Jaz was in the picture, Brenda’s bad behavior seemed more serious than it had before. Not to mention that while women were unlikely to get violent, her sending men could put me in actual danger. It was probably time to put this to a stop once and for all.
“If Jaz doesn’t get through to Brenda today, I’ll take this to the cops,” I told Gretchen.
Slow footsteps on the stairs made me turn. I took in Jaz’s face, about three shades paler than it’d been a minute before.
“You… you’ll want to talk to this guy.”
“Why? What is it?” I moved to go up the stairs, but Jaz stood there frozen. I touched her arm. “What’s wrong? Is he not taking no for an answer?”
“He’s not from Craigslist. He’s…” Jaz shook her head and came into motion, taking the steps two at a time as if she was in a race.
I followed her as fast as I could, weighed down by the baby and the bag. My second look at the man told me nothing I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t know the guy, didn’t see why Jaz was acting all weird about this. I turned to her in confusion.
“He’s Gretchen’s father,” she said.
“Derek.” The man extended a hand.
My arms wrapped instinctively around Gretchen, and I took a step back. An inch further and I would’ve fallen down the damn stairs, but at the moment, I wasn’t overly concerned with minor things like making sure my feet were on solid ground.
“Gretchen’s father?” I squeaked.
“Yeah.” Derek stood taller, glaring at me now. “I assume you’re Amanda’s sister, Faye. And this must be your… lesbian… lover.”
He shot Jaz a glance people would normally reserve for pieces of crud under their shoes. I had half a mind to punch him in the nose just for that.
“I don’t know what kind of situation you’ve been raising her in,” Derek said, turning that same look on me. “Bringing random Internet men over for drug-fueled orgies…”
“There were never any drugs,” I said.<
br />
“Or orgies!” Jaz waved her hands. “None of that was what it sounded like.”
“Regardless, that’s my daughter you have there.” Derek reached for Gretchen, attempting to touch her cheek.
I yanked her away. “How are we supposed to know that’s true? We don’t know you from Adam.”
Derek glanced at the door. “As much as I hate to ask for an invitation to your sex den, that might make this easier.”
I swallowed, looking at Jaz for agreement before opening the door. “Fine.”
The apartment pretty much was a sex den. We’d banged each other’s brains out on every surface in the place… and a few outside it.
Hey, doing it on the balcony was perfectly normal.
And the windowsill, well… sometimes we got a little overexcited.
Luckily, the dildos and vibrators and other assorted paraphernalia were stashed away for now. I didn’t like the way this Derek guy was speaking to us. We were raising Gretchen perfectly fine. And who was he to barge in here acting like he even had any claim on her?
If he was really her father, where the hell had he been for the past year?
In the kitchen, I pointed Derek to a chair. I didn’t offer him water, or anything else. Hospitality be damned, I wasn’t giving jack shit to this man until I understood who he was and where he was coming from.
“I ran into Amanda at the nightclub where I first met her,” Derek said without preamble. “She seemed different from before, more serious. She used to be the one dancing on the tables. This time she only sat with her friends, barely touching her drink.”
“So you went up to her?”
Derek nodded. “After we talked for a while, she admitted she’d had a child. My child. I never knew she was pregnant, or I would’ve never let her go through it alone. Or let Gretchen live… here.” He looked around, his nose wrinkling. “She told me where to find you.”
My heart beat unsteadily at his story. It sounded plausible enough, except for one thing. “Amanda told me she didn’t know who the father was. Why would you assume it’d be you?”