by Gow, Kailin
No thanks to you.
“Your dreams of college.”
Which we couldn't afford, thanks to you.
“It seems like you're doing very well for yourself, too, bartending at the Blue Room.”
I try not to blush.
“So what's your name, anyway?” I try not to be too rude, but my anger's coming out.
“Blake,” he says. “You can call me Blake, if you want.”
“Well, I'm not going to call you Dad, am I?” Now the anger comes out.
“Staci...”
“21 years until I was born – and you just show up now? You know how hard life has been for us? 21 years – nothing from you. Do you know what it's like to be a single mom, to have to work on your hands and knees all day every day because you got dumped by the guy who knocked you up the second he found out you were pregnant?”
He says nothing.
“Do you?”
His voice is calm. “I know, Staci. Believe me. I know how hard it's been for your mother. For both of you. And I'm trying to make this work – I am. I'm taking care of everything from now on. Hospital bills. Experimental treatments that could prolong her life – or even cure her.”
“Too little, too late.”
“Staci – listen!” His eyes are wide. “Before you shut me out – just listen to me, okay? I've always loved your mother. I never stopped loving her. I was some dumb, naïve rich kid – sure – but I loved her. I was going to drop out of Harvard to be with her. I was crazy about her. I'd never, ever have left her.”
“But then she got pregnant.”
“I didn't know,” he nearly shouts. “I didn't know she was pregnant. All I knew is that one day, she vanished. She sent me a message saying “I can't do this anymore” and that was it. It was over. Wouldn't answer my letters. Wouldn't answer my calls. Didn't even answer her doorbell. I thought she met someone else. Fell in love with someone else. It broke my heart. But I hadn't the slightest idea I had a daughter. Not until I was sitting in a bar in Los Angeles one night...and I saw you sitting at another table. I thought I was looking at your mother.”
The Blue Room. My heart sinks. My dad saw me at the Blue Room. My face flushes. Does he know what I do for a living?
“I tried to follow you, but some man led you out of there...”
Terrence...
“I tried to figure out who you were, but nobody would tell me. The whole place was on lockdown. But I did some digging. One of the bartenders – this nice guy Ben – finally gave me some information. He was trying to tell me to fuck off – he said you had enough to deal with, without guys like me bothering you. He mentioned your mother in hospice in Vegas. And I called up every single hospice before finding her. For the past two weeks, I haven't left your mother's side. I don’t know why she ran away from me all those years ago. But I'm so happy to have found her now.”
I don't know what to think. Why didn't my mother tell my father about me? Why did my mother lie to me about my father?
And – worst of all –
What was my father doing at the Blue Room?
Chapter 4
I sit with my father for the next hour, over coffee, trying to learn everything I can about him. Trying to put my thoughts together. Not an easy task, I realize. My thoughts are scattered so far across the horizon of my consciousness that it takes all the energy I have just to function like a normal human being. Smile when Blake – I can't bring myself to think of him as Dad – talks to me. Nod, like a normal human does. Ask him a couple of questions about himself. But the whole scenario feels weirdly artificial. Like it's somebody else's dad I'm talking to, not mine. Like it's somebody else sitting in that Starbucks chair, asking questions like “where were you born?” and “what do you do?” and not asking questions like “where the fuck have you been all my life?”
I swallow back the bigger questions. I'm not ready to bring up the Blue Room, yet. I'm not ready to ask this guy whether or not he knows I'm a hooker. It's not exactly Daddy's dream, is it? To turn up after twenty-plus years to find out that daughter dearest is turning tricks? I smile grimly to myself. Blame it on daddy issues, I think.
But I'm not interested in that. I'm not interested in decoding my psychology right now: figuring out whether or not the fact that I have sex for money has anything to do with the man sitting, fidgeting right in front of me.
Questions, questions.
So, my father. His name is Blake Townsend, I learn, and he's from New York City. He went to Phillips Andover for prep school, Yale for undergrad, where he was a member of the top-secret Skull and Bones society.
Hardly secret, I think, compared to the Blue Room.
Then he went to Harvard for his MBA.
What? I think. You want me to be impressed by your resume? He's giving me details about himself like he's applying for a job interview. Which I guess he is. Interviewing for the role of dad. There's something almost sweet about how hard he's trying to make me think he's a decent guy.
At the end of his first year, he went to Vegas with a few buddies for a drunken spring break. Met my mother. Fell in love. The kind of jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring love you're not supposed to feel more than once in a lifetime, if that. Well, he felt it. He wanted to give up everything for my mother: work, school, whatever it took to spend the rest of his life by her side.
Or so he says.
Then she vanished. Wouldn't take his phone calls. Wouldn't answer his texts. Changed address. And he never knew why.
“Well, did you ask her?” I cross my arms. “I mean, now. What did she say?”
My father's face falls. “I tried...” he sighs. “But – you know how she is. Your mother is a stubborn woman. And in the condition she's in – I didn't want to upset her. All she said was 'It was a long time ago, and a very difficult time in my life.'” He swallows. “And, Staci, I believe her. Whatever happened, whatever caused her disappearance – I really and truly believe it wasn't malicious. The second I saw her: the second our eyes met for the first time in twenty years. I knew. She loved me. She'd always loved me. Just as I loved her.”
“Then why keep us apart, Blake?”
“I don't know.” He sighs. “It's a mystery.”
A mystery? Like the fact that you also drink at the Blue Room?
“Well, you'd better figure it out,” I say. “Because I'm not about to just...forget the past twenty years ever happened.”
“I understand,” he says quietly. “I should have tried harder to find her. I know that now. But at the time I was hurt and angry. I thought maybe your mother had left me for another man.”
“There was never another man,” I say. “All she ever talked about was you.”
“I wish I knew why she left...” he sighs. He looks at me. “There's so much I wish I knew about your mother. And about you.” The look he gives me makes me wonder if he knows more about my secrets, about the Blue Room, than I want him to.
“There's nothing interesting about me,” I say. I almost snap.
“I'm sure that's not true,” Blake says. “You're your mother's daughter,” he says. “You really do look just like her,” he says.
“When you saw me. At that bar.” I want to fish, to find out how much he knows. At the Blue Room.
I wait to see if he looks embarrassed – like, maybe, he knows that I know he was at a hooker bar. But he betrays nothing.
“Do you...hang out there a lot?” I ask, venturing carefully.
He shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says. “I'm in LA a lot for work.”
“Your kind of place, the Blue Room?”
He flinches at the name, but only slightly.
“It's got good cocktails,” he says. “Nice music.”
Whatever he knows, he's not giving anything away.
Does he know what I do for a living? Is he going to tell my mother? I scan Blake's face. But it is as inscrutable as my own. Whatever secrets we're keeping, we're keeping from each other as well.
“Come on,” I say. “L
et's go back to Mom.”
When we arrive at the hospital bed, my mother is asleep. But it's a different kind of sleep from the sleep I remember. It's not the sick, pale sleep I'm so used to seeing. Her cheeks are rosy. On her lips is a smile. She's happy, I realize.
“It's funny,” I turn at the voice behind me. A nurse is standing in the doorway. “I've never seen a patient improve so drastically.” She smiles. “Sometimes – the will to live does make a difference.”
The will to live.
I look down at my mother, tears filling my eyes.
Whatever Blake Townsend is or isn't, whatever he does or doesn't know, he's making my mother happy in what might be her final days or months. He's keeping her alive. And that has to be enough. My anger is mixed with gratitude. Blake is making my mother happy, being there for her when I cannot be. Taking care of her as I cannot. That smile on her lips as she sleeps – it's all her.
I look down at my watch. Almost time for my flight.
“I don't want to leave her,” I whisper.
“Don't worry.” Blake – my father – pats me gently on the arm. “You can fly out again in a few days. I'll sort out your tickets. You don't have to worry about money anymore, Staci. If you want, I can move you out here to Vegas. So we can all be together – for as long as your mother has left. You don't need to work that job anymore.”
“Bartending?” My voice rises sharply.
“Yes.” His own voice is slow. Calm. Measured. “Bartending.” He swallows. “I can take care of both of you, now.”
“I'll think about it,” I whisper.
And think about it I do – all the way back to LA. Think about this new family I've discovered – and the possibility my father has presented to me. I could leave the Blue Room, I think. Right now. Leave Rita and Mr. X. and Terrence and the whole mystery behind. Be my mother's daughter again. Spend time with her. I wouldn't have to worry about money – I wouldn't have to work on my back.
But could I give up the Blue Room?
I hate the place, but it's part of me now. My work is part of me.
And I still have to find out what happened to Rita.
I think about the number written in the medical textbook. The number I still haven't called.
When I get back to the Blue Room, the first thing I do is Google the number. Finally, I think. I have some time to myself. To do the necessary research.
The number turns out to belong to the Golden Canyon Resort in Malibu.
I furrow my brow. The Golden Canyon? Something about the name sounds familiar but I can't remember why.
There's an address listed for the resort.
Is that where Rita is?
I close my eyes, thinking of her. Her long brown hair. Her dark, expressive eyes. Her beautiful lips. That face I miss so much. Every day, I think. Every day without her is a day of emptiness, of quiet torment.
Funny, I think. You never know how much you miss someone until they're gone. Did I even know how much I loved Rita at the time? She was my roommate, my best friend. My savior. The girl who took care of me as nobody else ever really did.
I think of Terrence, of Mr. X. of all the people I've come to know and care about at the Blue Room.
None of them, I think. Not one of them has anything on her.
And despite my growing feelings for Mr. X. and Terrence, I know that if either of them had anything to do with Rita's disappearance, I'd destroy them in a heartbeat. I'd do whatever it took to avenge Rita, or to get her back.
I'm not sure which one.
How can I leave the Blue Room with that mystery still unsolved?
Sure, there's a part of me that wants to leave, wants to go at once to Vegas, to spend time with my mother and get to know this man who calls himself my father. But at what cost?
They say friends are the family you choose for yourself. And if that's true, then Rita is as much family to me as Blake Townsend is. And I need to find her. I need to save her, before I can even think about taking my father up on his offer.
I dial the number into my phone. Then I hang up.
If I find Rita, it can't be on the phone. I need to see her, to hug her, to hold her, to see in her eyes that she's all right, that she's safe, that she's loved.
I have to do it in person.
I swallow. I decide.
I'm going to Malibu.
Chapter 5
Getting to Malibu proves relatively straightforward. I haven't yet told Mrs. Walters or Terrence of my return, and so I shower quickly and get changed before heading out of the hotel as quickly as possible, hoping desperately that nobody has seen me.
If I find Rita, I think to myself, this could be it. I could get out of the Blue Room once and for all. I could get to know my father for the first time in my life – and solve the new mystery which seems to have dropped into my lap. Why did my mother send my father away? Why did she lie to me about it? And does it have anything to do with the fact that my father visited the Blue Room?
That's stupid, I tell myself. The two things are totally unrelated. But deep down I'm not so sure. Things are always stranger than they appear in the Blue Room, and it seems that everyone who touches the place has more than one deep, dark secret. Does my father have one?
I don't know if he's telling the truth about my mother. Part of me refuses to believe it: why would my mother lie to me for all those years? Why would she willingly live in poverty when a rich man who loved her wanted to marry her, to take care of the child they both shared? It doesn't make any sense.
But something in my mother's smile as she slept, in my father's eyes as he gazed down at her adoringly, gives me pause. How could she look at a man like that if he was the one who betrayed her? How could he look at her like that without guilt if he had in fact left her? No, my father's behavior wasn't that of a deadbeat dad, I had to admit that much. It was the behavior of a man who at long last had found the thing he had loved, and lost, and who was now happier than he had ever known.
But this is a mystery for another time. Right now, I have to find Rita. And with it, maybe my ticket out of this sordid Blue Room life forever.
I play for my ticket to Malibu in cash. The woman at the desk looks at me in surprise. “Normally customers pay with credit cards,” she says, giving me a suspicious look, and I flush. Does everyone suspect what I do for a living? Does everyone know? I think of my father's face again when he told me I could give up my job. “Bartending.” Did he believe that? Was I becoming paranoid?
This place is making me paranoid about everything.
When at last I arrive in Malibu, I head straight to the Golden Canyon Resort. It looks like a beautiful hotel – sparkling and new, nestled between two beautiful, lush, green hilltops. Like a palace, I think. As luxurious as the Blue Room, if not more so.
What was Rita doing here?
Was this a brothel, too? My heart sinks. Granted, there's no mention of Blue in the title – which is reassuring. I get the impression Clarence Blue is egotistical enough to want everything he touches to have his name on it. But maybe it is a brothel run by someone else?
God, I hope not.
But as I come closer to the path leading into the hotel, the sign catches my eye.
For health and healing.
I furrow my brow.
Health and healing? This isn't a hospital, is it?
Then it hits me. Why the name sounds so familiar. Golden Canyon is a rehab center. I've heard the name bandied about loads of times – always in connection with the latest starlets, the latest drug and sex and drinking scandals.
Is Rita in rehab?
My heart sinks. No – that can't be it. I tell myself that's impossible. Rita never did any drugs – she barely even drank. She was a doctor, after all – she worked to keep herself healthy. To keep herself fit. She taught yoga, for goodness' sake. That's not something druggies do, is it?
No, I tell myself. Maybe she went back and finished medical school, or decided to go into substance abuse therap
y instead of being a doctor proper. She's working there – she must be! That medical textbook – it's proof, isn't it, that at some point Rita had resumed her studies?
I practically race into the lobby.
“I'm here to see Rita Malone,” I blurt it out all at once. Like nothing's wrong. Like everything's normal. “She's expecting me.”
“Rita...Malone?” The woman behind the desk looks up at me quizzically. “Never heard of her.”
“She works here.” She has to. She called Mr. X. from a number associated with this center. They wouldn't give drug addicts phones, would they? She has to be a staff member. Rita would never do drugs, I'm sure of it.
“I work here,” the woman is firm. “And I'm telling you nobody called Rita Malone works here.”
“Then...” I bite my lip. “She must be a patient.”
“Must be?” The woman doesn't look impressed. “You're telling me you don't know?”
“I know she's here,” I say. “I just...don't know why.” The words sound so stupid out loud. “Look,” I take out her photograph, slamming it down on the counter. It's a photo of the two of us together. Looking so happy. Looking so innocent. Like two girls about to take life by storm. “That's her. Have you seen this woman?”
She looks down at the photo, considering it carefully. For the first time, there's sympathy in her eyes – and a glimmer of something else. Recognition, maybe?
“Do you know her?” My voice cracks. “Please.”
“I'm sorry,” the woman says again. “I wish I could help you. I really do. But I'm telling you, this girl doesn't work here.”
“But she’s not an addict...” My voice notches higher. “She can't be. She never touched drugs – not ever! She was insane about her health – totally neurotic – she wouldn't even eat processed foods because of all the chemicals – she'd never even tried pot – she can't be....”
The woman hesitates before answering. “I'm sorry about your friend,” she says. “I can't help you. I'm not supposed to say anything at all about our patients...” she sighs. “But I'll tell you. This girl is not detoxing here.”