by Paula Garner
“I have to get out of here,” I whispered to Gab, reaching for my purse.
She grabbed me. “What are you talking about? You have to see him.”
“No. I changed my mind. Please. I want to go, Gab.” The idea of his looking at me in confusion or maybe even annoyance was too much. He had friends, he had a life — and I was just a fawning pest. One who didn’t even have the courtesy of checking with him before showing up at his recital.
“Jules Davis.” She turned me toward her, and I could feel the tough love coming. “We came all this way to see him. He just gave an un-fucking-believable performance. You go talk to him.”
I shook my head. “I can’t, Gab. He’s amazing and I’m just this idiot kid.”
“This idiot kid he’s cared about and missed and wished for all these years — almost your whole life!”
I shook my head, glancing up toward the front. At least a dozen people were waiting to talk to him. “He’ll be mad. He didn’t invite me. I didn’t even tell him I was coming!”
“He’ll be thrilled to see you.” She held up her phone and wiggled it at me. “I am one text away. Talk to him.”
I grabbed her arm. “No! Where are you going?” I didn’t want to be left alone.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be far.” Her smile had mischief in it.
“Plantz Hall?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I’m going to check it out.” She reached over, gave me a quick hug, then turned and gave a pointed look in Luke’s direction. “Go. Live your life, Jules.”
And with that, she was gone.
I cowered in the back. Luke was accepting congratulations from people, if his humble demeanor was any indication. It amazed me that he could be that talented without one whit of arrogance.
I pulled out a compact and looked at myself. Not too bad, other than the slightly pink hue in my eyes. I put on some lip gloss and tiptoed up toward the front.
When the line had petered out and the place was almost empty, I crept closer. He was gesturing and laughing with a group of people — students, it looked like. He glanced up in my direction and did a double take. He stared for a moment, then looked back and forth between me and his friends. He held up a hand to them and walked my way.
“Jules?” He looked incredulous.
“I — I thought I’d surprise you.” I started to shake, I was so worried that he wouldn’t be happy I was there.
“Oh, I’m surprised all right.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You saw the recital?”
I nodded. “Pardon my French, but you are fucking amazing.”
That ridiculous, staggering smile — there it was. Relief rushed through me as I tumbled into his flecked, mossy eyes.
“Thanks. I screwed up a little on the Chopin, but . . .”
“If you did, I couldn’t tell.”
He stared at me, shaking his head, still apparently working on the fact of my presence. “Well, come here.” He pulled me into a hug, and I let myself squeeze him back a little. He smelled the way I remembered, which, for better or worse, I liked an awful lot.
When he pulled back, he said, “So how did you get here? Did you come alone?”
“I came with Gab. She’s here somewhere.” I gestured vaguely.
He glanced around, perhaps assuming I meant more “here” than I actually did. “Well, do you have to rush off?”
“No!” I was so relieved and happy I couldn’t help smiling. “No, I have time.”
He chewed his lip, thinking. “We could go for some coffee or get something to eat, but . . .”
I started to deflate. Of course he probably had plans.
He gestured at his suit. “I’d kind of like to change. Is it okay if we stop by my apartment first?”
My heart lifted — he did want to spend time with me. “Sure.”
“Just give me a second to grab my coat.”
He turned back and ran almost headlong into a tall redhead who grabbed him in a tight hug. “You were brilliant,” she said softly. I turned slightly away and busied myself pulling on my coat and zipping it.
“But you’re always brilliant,” I heard her say. And then I heard a kiss.
He thanked her and said that he had to run, but that he’d see her later. He’d see her later because . . . She was his roommate? His lab tutor? His boss? The idea that she might be his girlfriend brought a stab of something uncomfortable.
She passed me on her way out without even noticing me. She was tall enough to make me feel short, thin enough to make me feel fat, beautiful enough to make me feel plain, vibrant enough to make me feel dull.
Luke came back, pulling his coat on. “My apartment is off campus, just a few minutes from here. I have my car. Should we find your friend?”
“Oh — she’s hanging out somewhere. She met some people.”
His eyebrows rose as he smiled. “Great — so we can really catch up.”
As he ushered me out the doors, I filled with the excitement over this step into the past — and the future. A new world was opening its doors to me.
Luke’s apartment was the finished attic of a beautiful old house in town. It was a little shabby and a little messy, but I couldn’t help falling in love with it. It had slanty ceilings, leaded-glass windows, and a bathroom with a claw-foot tub, its exterior painted a seafoam green.
The floor in the living area was covered in a red Oriental rug, unraveling on one side. I imagined a family cat, decades ago, spending long afternoons playing with the tassels on the edge.
Off to the side sat a nubby brown love seat, and in front of it, a small trunk, covered in old travel stickers, served as a coffee table. An upright piano stood against the wall opposite the door. Sheet music covered nearly every surface in the room.
“Make yourself at home,” he called out to me as he went to change.
His bedroom had just a curtain — no door. He slipped behind it, but I could hear everything: the unzipping of his pants, the crumple of fabric, the slide of a dresser drawer . . . My stomach fluttered at those sounds, just a few feet away. I was just nervous, I told myself — and excited about the idea of spending time with him, getting to know him better. I loved the way he made me feel — the way he was always excited to see me, always interested in everything I thought or said. Talking to him was so easy, and he was so sweet and talented and funny. I was silly to have worried he’d find me dull or immature. I sat down at the piano. “Are you going be, like, a concert pianist?” I asked, picking up a sheet of music.
“That’s the dream,” he said, coming back into the living room. He wore faded jeans and a lightweight hoodie in a washed-out shade of once-red, now almost a dusty mauve. He picked up a few mugs from the coffee table and moved them to the kitchen. “I’ll probably end up teaching talentless six-year-olds and flipping burgers on the overnight shift at Wendy’s.”
“Ha-ha,” I said, leaning so I could see him in the kitchen. “You have way too much talent not to be successful.” I looked at the keys in front of me, thinking how many millions of times his hands had passed over them.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge. “You want something to drink?”
Did he mean a beer? I would take one if he was offering. But what if he just meant a soda or something? I took the safe way out and said, “No thanks, I’m fine.”
He reappeared, sipping his beer. “You play?” he asked, nodding at the keys.
“Not a note,” I said, turning toward him. His hair was sticking up. I wished I could smooth it into place. Maybe if we had been raised together, I could do something like that without it being weird. Would we ever develop that kind of easy closeness now? Or was that a ship that had sailed, never to return to port?
He sat down next to me, set his beer on a stack of music on the piano, and picked up one of my hands. “Look how small. You probably can’t even reach an octave.” He stretched my hand over the keyboard, pulling my thumb and pinkie as far as they could go, then laughed. “Barely a seventh.”
&n
bsp; “Another career out the window,” I joked. His hands were warm, and I was sorry when he let go.
He smiled. “You sure you don’t want something to drink? I have ginger ale.”
“Uh, sure, that sounds good,” I said, but I cringed inwardly. Relegated to the kiddie-beverage category . . .
He jumped up. “I’ll even give you a glass, if I have a clean one.”
“Rolling out the red carpet, I see.”
He returned moments later and handed me a drink in a Doctor Who TARDIS cup.
“Thank you,” I said, taking it from him and examining it. “So how much did you put in here? I assume it’s bigger on the inside?”
He laughed and put his hand to his forehead. “Oh my God. You just get more and more perfect.”
I sipped the drink, hoping to disguise my smile, the fact that his words thrilled me to the core. I loved it that he found me funny, that I amused him. The way we seemed to click astonished me. Maybe it didn’t matter that I didn’t play an instrument or wasn’t very worldly. Maybe it would be enough if I took an interest, if I could demonstrate an appreciation.
He sat back down, put his hands over the keys, hesitated for a moment, then played a few measures of something pretty.
“Hey,” I said, my eyebrows furrowing, “what is that?”
“Why, is it familiar?” he asked, glancing at me as he continued to play.
“Yeah! I feel like I know it from somewhere, but I can’t think where.”
He watched me, silent for so long that I started to get a nervous stomach. “I think you know,” he said softly.
“Did you . . .” I took a breath. “Did you play that when I was little?”
He nodded.
“Could I remember something from that long ago?” I asked.
He shrugged, smiling. “I don’t know.”
I sighed. “I’d give anything to be able to access those memories.”
He stood up. “Let me go get something.”
He disappeared behind the curtain, then came back a moment later holding a photograph. “It’s not the same as a memory, I know, but . . .” He slid in next to me and handed the picture to me.
It was of the two of us, as kids. He must have been five or six, and he was holding me. His hair was lighter — blond, and straighter than it was now. I was a chubby, dark-haired thing with big brown eyes, dressed in just a diaper. He was puckered up to kiss me, but I was laughing, leaning back, one arm around his neck and the other clutching a light blue stuffed lamb.
My stuffed lamb. I still had it, thanks to my dramatic protest when my mother, on one of her ruthless purges, had suggested it was time to cut it loose. Hard-won victory, that. I wondered if my subconscious remembered the significance of that lamb.
I examined the picture closely, greedy for details. This had been my bedroom. The crib we were standing next to had been my crib, the fabric letters on the wall spelled out my name. I thought again of my scarf — or Luke’s scarf, really — whose label just read Jules.
“You guys put my name up,” I said, turning my eyes to him. “That . . .” I was having trouble with words. Surely I was reading too much into things, and yet . . . “That just seems kind of . . . permanent.”
He watched me for a moment, his forehead creasing. “Jules. The thing is . . . we thought it would be permanent.”
My breath caught. “What do you mean?”
Time seemed to stand still as I waited for his answer. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet mine. “We were hoping to adopt you.”
Questions ricocheted in my head like Ping-Pong balls. How could this be true? I might have been adopted? Almost actually a member of another family? Almost Jules Margolis?
He spoke softly. “You know your mom had problems.”
I nodded, thinking about all my mom’s meetings lately. I had no idea what her struggle was like. It was a distant, foreign thought, my mother’s addiction. It almost had a whisper of myth — I had never seen evidence of it. And she refused to talk about any of it.
He nodded. “So . . . after the first weeks, and then months . . . it started to seem like she wasn’t going to get her act together. And we wanted you. We loved you — my parents loved you like their own.” He grinned sheepishly. “Sometimes when I was being a little shit, I accused them of loving you more.”
I stood up, unable to think, to process. I went over to the window. A family was strolling down the street, a mom and a dad swinging their toddler by the hands every few steps. An entire parallel life unfolded before my eyes, and the fact that I couldn’t remember or feel anything to validate it only made me feel more resentful of my mother.
The bench scraped on the floor as he stood up. A moment later, his voice came from right next to me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“No.” I didn’t know what I was, but “okay” was definitely not a descriptor I would have chosen.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t —”
“No,” I said, turning to him. “I want to know. I need to know. You’re the only person who’ll tell me the truth.”
He watched me for a second, then reached into his back pocket. “This is the only other picture I have with me,” he said apologetically, and pulled a weathered photo out of his wallet. “We have tons more at the house in Milwaukee, though.” He smiled. “I’ve been carrying this around since the day they took you away. It was the whole reason I got my first wallet. At first I wanted a locket. I thought they were kind of cool, with the pictures inside. But my dad suggested a wallet instead.”
I couldn’t help laughing. I took the picture from him and held it up to the light.
“My dad took it,” Luke said softly.
My heart pounded as I took a closer look. Luke and I were outside building a snowman. But we weren’t alone. Luke’s mother held me in her arms, leaning me over to attach the snowman’s carrot nose. She wore sunglasses and a light blue ski jacket, and her smile was enormous, warm. Luke grinned cheesily at the camera, arms gesturing toward our masterpiece. My face was mostly turned away, focused as I was on my task, but peeking out through my fluffy white hat and my many-times wrapped blue scarf, my rosy cheeks and happy grin were unmistakable.
“We’re wearing our scarves,” I commented.
“My mom knitted them for us for Chanukah.”
“For Chanukah?” I asked, turning to him. “You’re Jewish?”
He nodded. “Well, mostly. My dad was half-Jewish and wasn’t raised with any religion. But my mom’s super Jewish. Well, in certain ways. She’s weird. She calls herself ‘an intense secular.’”
I would be Jewish if they had adopted me? I would have been raised Jewish! With a “super Jewish” mom. Wait till Gab heard this.
“People thought you were ours. You have eyes like my mom’s.” He shifted his eyes to the floor. “She never got over losing you. None of us did, really.”
I stared at a shaft of sunlight lighting a patch of the Oriental rug, working on what he was saying. It was too unreal. All the love I’d always longed for, had always envied about my friends’ families . . . Here it was. I’d had it. I’d had it.
“You guys really loved me?” I asked. It was a wondrous thought. “Your mom loved me?” Questions bounced to the fore. What was she like? What did I call her? Did she really think of me as her daughter?
“Oh my God.” He sank onto the futon and tipped his head back, smiling. “You were the sun and the moon.” He turned his gaze to me. His eyes, caught in the late afternoon light, were a bright green, and I thought maybe I felt a tug of the familiar. Somewhere in the recesses of myself, I knew and trusted this person. “She couldn’t have more kids after me,” he said. “And then we got you. And we fell in love with you — how could we not?”
I shivered at his words. I wanted to hear more. I sat down beside him. “What was I like?” My voice came out a whisper.
He hesitated. “You weren’t in great shape at first. You were kind of fearful, and you cried a lot.” He s
hook his head, laughing a little. “I was afraid you’d never like me.”
I felt weak, numb. What in God’s name had I been through to be a fearful baby?
“But then you just blossomed. You started to smile. And laugh — I could make you laugh! It was the most amazing thing. The way you loved me? And trusted me? I felt like the most important person in the world.” He hesitated, then said softly, “I felt like a big brother.”
“I must have been heartbroken when they took me away from you,” I said quietly. “It’s probably a blessing I can’t remember it.”
“On the day the social worker came for you, I tried to hide you. I mean, how was I supposed to let them take my sister away? So I took you out to the shed behind the garage, and we hid there together. You were too little to understand what was happening. You thought it was a game.”
He tried to smile, but he couldn’t pull it off. “I brought snacks to keep you happy. Peanut butter cookies — the ones with the peanut butter filling? You loved those.”
I still did. “Tookies,” I said.
His eyes widened, but then he laughed. “Tookies. Yes.” He shook his head, watching me. “It’s really you.”
Joy surged through me to know how much I meant to him. “So what happened?”
“Hm? Oh.” He sighed. “My dad finally found us there.”
“Was he mad?”
Luke shook his head, eyes fixed on his lap. “He cried. I’d never seen my dad cry before.”
My head swam with too many truths that were too difficult to assimilate.
“You were screaming when they took you away. I can still hear it.”
My eyes filled. It was incomprehensible that we had this history, that I’d been so important to him.
“Man. I was one fucked-up kid for a while. And my poor mom . . . she just — fell apart.”
“I’ve been thinking about her,” I said softly, discreetly wiping my eyes. “I wish there were something I could do to help — besides just visiting her when she’s up for it, I mean. You’d tell me, right, if there was anything I could do?”