The Other F-Word

by Natasha Friend

  “Milo’s a hobbit?” Noah said.

  “Yes he is,” Hollis said. “And tomorrow he will lead us to Smaug the dragon, whom we will observe in his natural habitat.”

  “You’re welcome,” Milo said.

  It was almost one a.m. In a matter of hours, they would see Will Bardo for the first time. They would watch him throw a Frisbee.

  “Oh my God!” Abby suddenly exclaimed. “I almost forgot. I brought you guys something!” She rifled through her duffel and came up with a paper bag, the contents of which she dumped on the floor. Plastic noses and hats and glasses and what appeared to be a pile of furry caterpillars.

  “What is all that?” Hollis said.

  “Disguises!”

  “Disguises,” Milo repeated.

  “So we can go incognito tomorrow.” Abby picked up one of the furry caterpillars and held it to her lip. “We’ve got mustaches.” She sifted through the pile. “Beards … dark glasses … fake teeth.”

  “Let me see those,” JJ said. He stuck the teeth—yellow and rotting—into his mouth and leered at everyone.

  Hollis laughed. She grabbed a platinum-blond wig from the pile and tucked her curls inside. “Do I look like Lady Gaga?”

  “Better,” JJ said.

  “Milo.” Abby was trying to get his attention. She was holding something up, waving it in the air.

  “What?”

  “Try this on.”

  Milo did as instructed. The beard was long and bushy and made him look like an Amish farmer. “You realize,” he said, “that we’re just going to draw more attention to ourselves if we wear these.”

  “Where’s your sense of dramatic irony?” Abby said.

  “It’s actually not dramatic irony. If it were, the audience would get the joke, but the players would not.”

  “Yes, but in this case, we’re the audience. Will’s the player.”

  “We look like a bunch of weirdos.”

  “We are a bunch of weirdos,” Noah said.

  “Speak for yourselves,” Hollis said, fluffing her wig. “I’m Lady Gaga.”

  * * *

  It was four in the morning when JJ woke Hollis up by whispering in her ear. “Hollis Darby.” He had pulled his sleeping bag next to hers, so his head was just inches away.

  “JJ Rabinowitz,” she whispered back.

  “You awake?” His breath was warm—a little sour, but not awful.

  “I am now.”

  “I need to tell you something,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “I wanted to kiss you in the airport.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I was nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “There were a lot of people looking … and I wasn’t sure you’d want me to. So I grabbed your thumbs instead.”

  “Ah.”

  They lay there in silence, looking at each other. There was just enough moonlight shining through the basement window for Hollis to see JJ’s face. The plane of his cheekbones, the curve of his chin. Hollis studied him for a long moment. She thought about the phone call where he’d gotten choked up talking about his birth mother, and she thought about him shaking everyone’s hands at the airport. She thought about what Milo had said—how JJ was just looking for an excuse to come see her. She knew that boys were mostly after one thing and would say anything to get it, but if Hollis was really honest she would announce to the world, I like hooking up, too, so sue me.

  “No one’s looking now,” Hollis said softly.

  “What are you saying?”

  “What do you think I’m saying?”

  JJ smiled. “Come here.”

  His arms, big and warm, pulled her closer, and she could feel the heat from his mouth as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. Her head! It was a tender, unexpected gesture.

  “That’s sweet,” Hollis murmured.

  “You’re sweet.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “What are you then?”

  Hollis smiled and pulled his face down to meet hers.

  JJ’s kiss was softer than she expected—not that she’d been expecting him to kiss her at all, necessarily, although he had mentioned being jealous of Gunnar hooking up with her, and that had been weeks ago, when she and JJ first started talking on the phone, so really, what did she think would happen this weekend? It was a little weird that they were kissing here, on the basement floor, with her three half siblings sleeping just feet away. But it was fairly innocent. No clothing was removed. No body parts were touched except for lips and tongues and chins and cheeks and ears and necks.

  “I like you, Hollis Darby,” JJ whispered when they finally came up for air.

  She felt that familiar ache in her chest. “Barnes,” she whispered back.

  “What?”

  She asked JJ to come upstairs with her. She asked him to sit on the couch in front of the fireplace. “JJ Rabinowitz,” she said, gesturing to the wall, “Pam Barnes. Pam, this is JJ.” Then she sat on the couch and told him about Pam. How, the minute Pam woke up, she would make herself a cup of hot water with lemon. How she could stand on her head for ages. How she loved the Beatles, and the taste of real butter, and walking around barefoot. The memories tumbled out of Hollis’s mouth, one after the other. A few times, she could feel the tears well up, but they never actually dropped. Mostly what she felt was JJ’s hand, warm and sure on top of hers. And when she finished talking, that hand pulled her off the couch and led her back down to the basement, where they kissed some more.

  MILO

  He woke up with a jolt of energy, like he’d just chugged a can of Red Bull. Today was the day!

  Milo looked around the basement. Hollis and JJ were curled up next to each other like puppies. When had this happened? Hadn’t they gone to sleep on opposite sides of the room? Abby was a lump inside her sleeping bag. Noah was snoring. Milo thought about waking them all. Rise and shine, kids! It’s Donor Day! But this, he decided, was a bad idea. It would be better for everyone to be rested. Besides, they had time. The Indoor Hat Tournament lasted all day.

  Milo crept upstairs, closing the basement door behind him. Hollis’s mom was sitting alone at the kitchen table, holding a flowered coffee mug.

  “Good morning,” Milo said.

  “Good morning.” Leigh smiled. She looked better than she had when she and Hollis came to Brooklyn. Milo wasn’t sure what the difference was. A haircut, maybe? Makeup? “Anyone else awake down there?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Milo said, taking a seat.

  “Can I get you some tea? The water’s still hot.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Not much of a tea drinker?”

  “Not much of a tea drinker.”

  “Are you hungry? I picked up some rice-flour waffles that your moms said were okay for you. And there’s fruit…”

  “Thanks,” Milo said. “I think I’ll wait until everyone gets up.”

  Leigh nodded and took a sip from her mug. Milo glanced around the kitchen. The walls were painted a soft, buttery yellow. The curtains on the window had little red checks. The counters shone. It was basically the opposite of Hollis’s bedroom, which looked like a Tim Burton movie set with its tapestries and gargoyles and black light. Even the soap in Hollis’s bathroom was Goth. Milo had noticed it yesterday when she gave them the tour. Hollis washed her hands with black raven-wing soap.

  “Thank you,” Leigh said suddenly.

  Milo looked at her.

  “Hollis would never tell you this herself, and she would probably hate me for saying it … but this weekend … all of you being here … it means a lot to her.”

  He nodded. “It means a lot to me, too.”

  * * *

  There were truths and there were half-truths. Everyone ate breakfast together (truth). The rice-flour waffles were delicious (half-truth). Abby’s pre-blow-dryer hair was even crazier than Hollis’s (truth). The s
iblings wanted to take a “bonding trip” after they ate (half-truth).

  “A bonding trip?” Suzanne said, looking at Milo across the table.

  “Uh-huh.” He took a sip of apple juice.

  “Quality sibling time,” Abby said.

  And Hollis said, “I thought I’d show them the sights.” She turned to her mom. “You know … the Peanuts characters in Rice Park. Find the Elf at Lake Harriet. Maybe the Mall of America for lunch.”

  “Sounds great,” Frankie said, starting to rise. “I’ll just go brush my teeth—”

  “Ma,” Milo said.

  “What?”

  “Babe,” Suzanne said, putting a hand on Frankie’s arm. “The kids want to go off on their own.”

  “On their own?” Frankie said. “But … how will they get around?”

  “I have my driver’s license,” Noah said (truth). Then, “I have a clean driving record” (half-truth). Last night in the basement, Noah had told them about backing his mom’s Volvo out of his driveway and into a lamppost, denting the rear fender.

  Frankie shook her head. Of course she shook her head. “The only people who can drive the rental car are Suzanne and myself. It’s not that we don’t trust you, Noah, but if there were an accident…”

  Right, Milo thought. Go directly to the worst-case scenario.

  “They can take my car,” Hollis’s mom said.

  Hollis’s mom saved the day (truth).

  * * *

  As the five of them walked through the front doors of the Recreational Sports Dome at the University of Minnesota, preparing to see Will Bardo for the first time, Milo could have had any number of thoughts, but for some reason he was thinking about Hayley Christenson. Probably because—just as they were walking in—a pair of girls was walking out, and one of them had long, blond hair. And great legs. And a killer smile. All of which reminded Milo of Hayley and made him temporarily forget that he was wearing a bushy gray beard. Which was obviously why the girl smiled at him: because he looked ridiculous.

  They all looked ridiculous.

  Hollis in her platinum wig. Noah in his Groucho Marx glasses. Abby in her porkpie hat and prosthetic nose that made her sound like she had a sinus infection. Even JJ, who had no reason to disguise himself, insisted on wearing the rotten teeth, which looked even more disgusting inside the dome, under the fluorescent lighting.

  “Huh,” Hollis said, looking around when they got inside. “This place is weird.”

  It was weird. They’d walked into a big, white bubble—an alternate universe. The turf was an unnatural shade of green. There was a huge maroon-and-gold M painted in the middle of the field. Men of all shapes and sizes were running every which way, and Frisbees were flying, so Milo assumed that the Indoor Hat Tournament was in full swing, but the dome was not exactly packed with spectators.

  “So much for blending in with the crowd,” Noah murmured, as they made their way around the edges of the bubble, as inconspicuously as possible, until they were standing in a corner with a handful of other people.

  “What color do you think they are?” Abby asked.

  Milo shook his head. “I don’t know. I just know they’re the Floppy Discs.”

  “Are you looking for the Floppy Discs?” a woman said. She was wearing a blue bandana and holding a squirmy toddler on her hip.

  “Yeah,” Noah said.

  “Over there.” She pointed to the other end of the bubble. “Field four. The tie-dyed shirts. My husband’s team just played them.”

  “Thanks,” Milo said.

  The woman smiled. “Is this some kind of fraternity/sorority thing?”

  “Pardon?” Milo said.

  “The costumes. My sorority sisters used to make me wear all sorts of crazy getups.”

  “Yes,” JJ interjected with his rotten teeth. “We’re being initiated.”

  “Well.” The woman shifted the toddler to her other hip. “Enjoy it! These are the best years of your life.”

  They all nodded like doofuses in their disguises.

  As soon as the woman walked away, Milo turned to Hollis and Abby and Noah and JJ. “What do you guys think? Do we go over or watch from here?”

  “We go over,” Abby said.

  And Noah said, “Let’s do this thing.”

  HOLLIS

  Field four. Tie-dyed shirts. Was that him—the tall guy in the yellow shorts? She squinted as they made their way in the other direction, feeling her pulse quicken. Or was it the guy in the sweatpants?

  What, Hollis wondered suddenly, would this moment mean to her in twenty years? Would it become just one more chapter in her crazy story—something to share at dinner parties or to tell her own kids someday? Your grandfather was a hippie Frisbee player.

  “You okay?” JJ whispered.

  Hollis nodded, assuming the look of someone who wasn’t about to pass out. JJ reached over and grabbed her thumb. She felt her nerves settle slightly.

  But now here they were, standing at field four, just yards from the Floppy Discs. Hollis closed her eyes, as though this would make her invisible. She listened. Everyone was whispering.

  “I don’t see him.” (Abby)

  “The guy in the yellow shorts?” (Noah)

  “Nah.” (Abby) “His hair’s too straight.”

  “He could have gotten a haircut.” (Milo) “My hair looks straighter after a haircut.”

  “Mine, too.” (Noah)

  “Yeah, but look at his nose.” (Abby) “It’s way too big.”

  “What about the guy in the sweatpants?” (Milo)

  “He has no eyebrows.” (Noah)

  “Really?” (Milo) “I can’t tell.”

  “He has eyebrows.” (JJ) “They’re just sparse.”

  “There.” (Abby)

  “Oh my God.” (Milo)

  Hollis felt someone grab her elbow. Her eyes flew open. The light made her blink. “What?”

  “That’s him,” Abby said. “Coming out of the bathroom.”

  Hollis squinted. Jogging toward them, red-cheeked and sweaty, was a man. She sucked in a breath. That was him, wasn’t it? But lots of men had thick eyebrows. Lots of men had dark, curly hair. So what if he was wearing a tie-dyed shirt. They were all wearing tie-dyed—

  “Yo, Bardo!” someone hollered. “Sub!”

  Yo, Bardo.

  Hollis’s legs were Jell-O. She could feel her heart thump against her throat. He was here, ten feet in front of her, running onto the field. If she had a Frisbee, she could bean him in the head.

  “Oh my God,” Milo murmured again.

  Hollis felt Abby’s hand, damp and hot against her skin, and she saw that Noah was crying a little, and Milo’s mouth was hanging open, and the only one who wasn’t having any kind of fight-or-flight response was JJ, who had taken out his camera and was casually clicking away. While JJ moved into open space, the rest of them unconsciously inched closer together and were now standing motionless, like a family of deer in the road. Silently breathing in and out, watching their sperm donor lurch and trip around the field. How preposterous he looked. Hollis would laugh about this later. Hollis would laugh about all of this, just as soon as she got out of here.

  “Wow,” Noah said finally, shaking his head. “He’s really uncoordinated.”

  “And yet surprisingly effective,” Milo said.

  “You think?” Abby said.

  “Watch. He’s going out for a pass…”

  Hollis watched as Will Bardo clomped the Frisbee between both hands, then pitched his whole body forward to make a remarkably wobbly but accurate pass up the field to the guy in the yellow shorts before he stumbled, then quickly righted himself.

  “Every time,” Milo said, “he looks like he’s going down like a ton of bricks.”

  “But he doesn’t,” Noah said. “He defies gravity.”

  “He’s a Weeble,” Abby said.

  Hollis found her voice. “A what?”

  “A Weeble. Remember Weebles? You could push them over as hard as you wanted,
but they rolled right back up.”

  “Well.” Noah half smiled. “I see where I got my athleticism.”

  Who knows how much time went by. Two minutes? Twenty? But they were still standing there, and Hollis was just getting used to the idea that she was related to this Weeble-like man, staggering and heaving his way around the field, when Milo dropped a bomb.

  “I want to talk to him.”

  MILO

  “What?” Hollis was staring at Milo.

  “I want to talk to him,” he repeated quietly. “When the game ends. I want to go over and introduce myself.”

  Noah shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wasn’t the plan.”

  “Plans change.”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Abby said.

  And Hollis said, “You just want writing material.”

  “I don’t just want writing material.”

  “No one else has to come,” Milo said. “I’ll do it alone if I have to.” And he realized, as he spoke the words, that he meant them. He was feeling a surge of courage—of resolve. Will Bardo was his father. He deserved to meet his father, and he would do it with or without approval.

  “Don’t,” Noah said.

  “Why not?” Milo persisted. “Give me one good reason.”

  “I think it will backfire.”

  “How?”

  “He said he wasn’t ready.”

  “And I quote,” Hollis said, “‘I’m going to let this marinate for a bit.’”

  “Yeah,” Abby said, “but he was happy to hear from us.” She scratched quote marks in the air with her fingers. “‘I’m glad that you guys reached out.’”

  “We haven’t heard from him in eleven days,” Noah countered. “If he wanted to ‘be in touch,’ he would ‘be in touch.’”

  “More ‘family stuff,’ no doubt,” Hollis said.

  “We all have family stuff.” Milo kept his voice low but gestured for emphasis. “This is family stuff.”

  “Okay,” Noah said. “I’m just saying … what if he gets mad? He could cut ties completely.”

  “What if he has a heart attack tomorrow?” Abby said. “This could be our only chance to meet him.”