Finding Colin Firth: A Novel

by March, Mia

  She hadn’t expected that. She’d always figured both pregnancies had been surprises. But her mother had planned the “interruption” to her life and career. “I’m pregnant. I’m due in January. I guess I’m just thinking about how I’m going to handle everything.”

  “There’s no need to be all dramatic about it, Gemma. You’ll hire a well-vetted nanny and you’ll do what you need to do. I’m surprised at the news, though. I thought you wanted to focus on your career for a few more years yet. You’re not even thirty. I was thirty-four when Lisa was born. Thirty-nine with you.”

  God, is this what she sounded like to Alexander? Probably. Where were the congratulations? Where was the “I’m going to be a grandmother”? What did you expect? she reminded herself. Your mother suddenly being different when you’re not?

  Except Gemma was different now—if just a little.

  “Well, I’m pregnant now.”

  “Yes, indeed!” her mother said, finally injecting a note of excitement in her voice. “And congratulations. If you’re thinking of names already, you can consider Frederick, after my father.”

  “Actually, Alex likes Alexander Jr. or Gemma Jr.”

  Silence. “Are you kidding? I never know when you’re kidding.”

  “I’m not sure,” Gemma said, smiling to herself. She was amazed that the sweetness of the memory of Alexander trailing a finger over her cheek while suggesting Gemma Jr. as a name, telling her she was beautiful and whip-smart, overrode her mother’s flat, cold demeanor. “Well, I just wanted you to know the news. I’d better get going.”

  When she hung up, it wasn’t with the usual hole in her heart, wishing that her mother were different, though, yes, it would be nice. Her mother was who she was. Gemma was who she was. Alexander was who he was. All she knew was that she felt fuller where there used to be empty space, and not anywhere near her belly, either. Was it the pregnancy? Not wanting it, then almost losing it and realizing that she did feel something for the little burst of life inside her? Maybe it was these past weeks, working on a story about women, about family, about pregnancy, about interruption, about hope, about despair, about dreams—a story that had ensnared her, heart, soul, and mind.

  Chapter 19

  BEA

  “I can understand how you feel,” Patrick said as he sat down across from Bea at the little round table on the balcony of his hotel. Even the view of the lit-up harbor, the incredible dinner he’d ordered them from room service, and her attractive date couldn’t get Bea’s mind off all Veronica had told her, showed her.

  Bea sipped her wine, her appetite for her grilled salmon gone. “But was it mean of me to say it to her? That I don’t know what she’s supposed to mean to me?”

  She was so damned confused. Last night when she’d called Veronica for Timothy’s contact information, Veronica had sounded so strained. But this morning, she found an envelope with her name on it slipped under her door. Inside there was a photograph and a note. Her biological father. Thought you might want to have this. Timothy Macintosh, March 1991.

  Bea had stared at the picture for a long time. She looked a lot like the teenage boy standing there in the leather jacket. But despite how long she looked at it, she felt no connection to the person in the picture at all. Probably because of all Veronica had told her. Timothy Macintosh had never felt any connection to her. But Veronica had.

  Bea hadn’t done anything with that contact information. The piece of paper on which she’d jotted down his name and address and telephone number lay under one of the seashells on her dresser in her room at the inn. Last night, when she’d hung up with Veronica, she’d picked up a shell and asked it her burning question: Should I call Timothy Macintosh?

  There was the usual whoosh, but nothing else. No yes. No no. Just . . . nothing. She’d wait a couple of days and let it all settle inside her—that she had his address and phone number, that she could contact him when she was ready.

  “This relationship is new to both of you,” Patrick said, taking the last bite of his swordfish. “It’s okay to have some speed bumps. To figure things out, how you feel, what you’re comfortable with. For both of you.”

  Bea nodded. That made sense. There was no rush, and she couldn’t feel something out of nothing. She would have to feel her way with Veronica. Just as Veronica would need to do the same with her.

  Patrick stood up and moved behind her, and she felt warm, strong hands massaging her shoulders.

  “Thank you for talking me through it,” she said. “And thank you for dinner. It was great. The whole evening was great.”

  “You’re welcome. And I had a great time too.” He sat back down and scooched his chair closer to her. “Tomorrow’s insanely busy at the set, and we’re going to be setting up shop at a diner in town for a few days, but maybe you could come by around five to say hi? I don’t want the whole day to go by without seeing you.”

  “I’d love to, but I’ve got a tutoring gig at five. With Tyler’s sister, Maddy.”

  “Tyler Echols, the PA?” he asked. Was that concern on his face?

  Bea nodded. “He’s paying me fifty bucks an hour. I can definitely use it.”

  “I probably shouldn’t say anything,” Patrick said. “But given what you’re going through with your own birth mother . . .”

  Bea stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Patrick seemed to be weighing whether or not he should tell her. “Look, I don’t know Tyler too well and maybe I misheard him, but I don’t think so. About a month ago when we were filming in New York, I overheard him talking to another PA buddy of his about a documentary film he did an internship on, about adoption. Anyway, Tyler was telling this guy that his sister was adopted and that he found her birth mother for her—and shook her up for money. He was just out of college and broke and figured she’d feel guilty and give him whatever he wanted to arrange a meeting between them. To his credit, he did seem to have real interest in helping his sister, but I got the sense he figured he’d kill two birds with one stone, you know? Set up contact—and line his pockets.”

  “God,” Bea said. “That’s vile.”

  “If he wasn’t so good at his job, I’d fire him. And who knows—maybe he was just talking smack. I don’t know. But I just figured I’d tell you in case he tries to get out of paying you for tutoring his sister.”

  She’d be on red alert. “I appreciate it. Duly warned. So did he get money out of the birth mother?” She remembered Tyler saying the experience was disappointing, so clearly not. And no wonder Tyler had said not to bring up the subject with his sister. Maybe they were both grifters. Or maybe his sister didn’t know what Tyler had tried to do.

  “I don’t know,” Patrick said. “Just make sure he pays you fair and square, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, liking that someone cared. She missed that, someone looking out for her.

  She’d give the tutoring one session and get a feel for Maddy. If she seemed shady, Bea would quit. But she wouldn’t spite Maddy just because her brother was a class-A jerk.

  “I love this view,” Patrick said, and this time, his face and the lights and the boats worked their magic. They sipped their wine, and then he took hers and put it down and kissed her.

  All thoughts of birth mothers and birth fathers and shady production assistants went out of her head; she could only think about Patrick’s lips, the beautiful sensations running up and down her spine. How long had it been since she’d been kissed? Almost a year. Too long.

  His hand went to the zipper of her jeans.

  She covered his hand. “I really like you, Patrick. But let’s take this a little slower, okay? In fact, I should get going. But thank you for tonight.”

  “You sure I can’t convince you to stay?” he asked, running a hand down her back.

  “I should go,” she said. “See you soon?”

  “Can’t be soon enough,” he said, and gave her a kiss good-bye to remember.

  Maddy Echols was ten minutes late for
her first tutoring session. Bea would give her twenty minutes, then leave. She sat at a square table in the Quiet Room of the Boothbay Harbor library, trying not to think about what she’d learned about Tyler—and possibly Maddy. Shaking down Maddy’s biological mother for money? Could it be true? Tyler did seem to care about Maddy, but he’d also shown himself to be a jerk who couldn’t bother to be civil.

  A minute later, Maddy poked her head in, and Bea could see she was annoyed that Bea was there.

  “You were hoping I’d given up on you, huh?” Bea asked.

  Maddy smiled. “Kinda.”

  “Well, I need the money. And you need to pass this class. So sit your tush down and let’s talk To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  Maddy noisily sighed, dropped her backpack on the table, and sat down.

  “You have to write an essay?” Bea asked.

  Maddy nodded. “I have to pick one of four quotations from the book that supposedly means something to me and write a five-page typed essay on what the quote means, using more quotes from the book, at least five.” She started writing her name in pen on her palm.

  Bea halted the pen. “Let’s see the four quotes.”

  “I already picked one, actually. That was the easy part.”

  “That’s great. Read it to me.” If she’d chosen a quote, Bea’s job wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d feared. Often the students she tutored at the Writing Center didn’t look at the assignment until they were forced to by her.

  Maddy pulled a sheet of paper from her binder. “This is from Atticus Finch. I think he’s the father of the kid who narrates the book? Okay, here it is. ‘I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.’ It’s the longest quote of the four and I totally get it.”

  Bea was encouraged. “Tell me what it means to you, since that’s part of the assignment—to choose a quote that means something to you.”

  “Well, when I first read all the quotes, I was, like, boring, boring, bor-ing. And then I got to this one, and it reminded me of something that happened last year.”

  “Can you tell me about it?” Bea asked.

  Maddy bit her lip and looked away, glancing at Bea every now and then. “I’m adopted, and my brother—Tyler—helped me look up my birth mother, but she wrote back that she didn’t want contact and that it was her right and please not to contact her again. But I wrote her another letter anyway, telling her I just wanted to maybe see her once and see if I looked like her.” Maddy’s eyes started getting watery. “So when I read that quote, that’s what I thought of. I was totally licked before I began, but I wrote her again anyway because I had to.”

  It took everything in Bea not to reach out and hug this girl.

  “She wrote back again to say sorry, she didn’t want contact and that was final,” Maddy said, “but she enclosed a picture of herself. Want to see it?”

  “Sure,” Bea said, trying to imagine herself—at fifteen, no less—getting that kind of response from Veronica. How disappointing—crushing—that must have been for Maddy.

  Maddy handed her the picture. The woman looked rough around the edges.

  “I was adopted too,” Bea said. “In fact, the whole reason I’m in Boothbay Harbor is because I came to meet my own biological mother.”

  Maddy’s jaw almost dropped open. “Seriously? What happened?”

  “Well, she seems like a wonderful person, but I just don’t know who she’s supposed to be in my life. We got together twice, she answered all my burning questions—and then some—and now I just don’t know where we go from here. I’ve backed away, I guess.”

  “I can’t relate at all. I can’t imagine not wanting my birth mother in my life, especially if she’s nice. You’re so lucky.”

  Bea reached over and squeezed Maddy’s hand.

  “Since you’re still here, though,” Maddy said, “maybe the quote applies to you too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re the one who kind of got licked by your own self—being unsure, I mean. But you’re still here. It’s not like you went back home.”

  Bea smiled. “I think you might be onto something there. I give you an A plus,” she added, and Maddy beamed at her. “Have you read more of the book? What that quote—which you understand very well—means in the book is really, really interesting. Heartbreaking, but interesting.”

  “I can’t get past the second page. Like I care about the details of the town? It’s so boring.”

  “Well, those details help explain what life was like then, when the book takes place. It would be like you explaining your life here in Maine to someone a hundred years from now.”

  “What was it like then?”

  Bea gave Maddy a quick lesson on the 1930s and the Depression, on what race relations were like in the South. “Then comes Atticus Finch, a very honest, honorable lawyer, a widow with two young kids, whose job it is to defend an African-American man accused of raping a white woman. No one thinks the black man deserves a trial to begin with. They just think he’s guilty and should hang. Atticus knows a jury won’t believe his word over hers.”

  “So . . . that’s what the quote means—the lawyer knows he is going to lose but he defends the guy anyway?”

  Bea nodded. “And against a lot of ill will in town too. He ends up opening a lot of people’s eyes. But most of all, he teaches his children something very, very important.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to find out for yourself,” Bea said. “You know, since we’re alone in here, I’m gonna shut the door and read the first chapter to you. When you go home tonight, you read the next two chapters. Then the next two the following night. Keep doing that, two chapters a night, and we’ll discuss what you’re up to at our next session.”

  “Okay,” Maddy said, and Bea knew she had her. The girl’s ears were open.

  Tyler was right on time to pick up Maddy an hour later. He looked different without his clipboard and production company ID hanging around his neck. Less . . . jerkish.

  “I’m going to ace this class,” she said to her brother, then put her earphones in and dropped down on a stately leather chair in the main room with To Kill a Mockingbird.

  “I can see this went well,” he said. “I’m surprised.” He pulled out two twenties and a ten and handed the bills to her. “Thanks.”

  Well, at least he didn’t try to get out of paying, as Patrick had warned he might.

  “We’re headed to Harbor Heaven, Maddy’s favorite restaurant, for dinner. You could come, if you’re free. She seems to like you.”

  Bea wasn’t a cynical person in general, but she couldn’t help thinking that Tyler had only invited her so he could steer the conversation back to To Kill a Mockingbird and get Maddy an extra hour of free tutoring. “I have a date with Patrick, but thanks.”

  He made his trademark move of rolling his eyes. “I hope you’re not pinning your hopes on him. I’m telling you, he’s a notorious womanizer.”

  “He seems great to me.”

  “Right. He probably promised your biological mother a speaking role, right?”

  “He doesn’t even know which extra is my biological mother.”

  “You know why? Because he doesn’t care. You’re just some pretty young thing to him. Just be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Now it was Bea’s turn to roll her eyes. Patrick had spent a lot of time showing Bea he did care, by listening. “Thanks for the unsolicited advice.” She walked over to Maddy and tapped on her shoulder. Maddy removed one earbud. “Remember, read two chapters every night this week. We’ll meet again next Wednesday. Promise you’ll do the reading?”

  “I promise, I promise. The Trevi Fountain is waiting for me.”

  Bea liked Maddy Echols and there was no way she’d let her fail the class. She hoped like hell that Tyler’s bribe of Italy
and the Trevi Fountain wasn’t all hot air and that he’d actually take her.

  When she got back to her room at the inn, Bea slid the shell aside, picked up the piece of paper with Timothy Macintosh’s contact information, and stared at it.

  Maddy’s words came back to her. I can’t imagine not wanting my birth mother in my life, especially if she’s nice. You’re so lucky.

  Bea didn’t know how lucky she’d be when it came to her birth father. He’d denied being her father twenty-two years ago. He’d walked away from Veronica completely. Veronica had never heard from him the entire time she’d been at Hope Home.

  Maybe he’d really believed what he’d told Veronica. That he wasn’t the father, that he couldn’t be. Maybe he wasn’t a bad guy.

  Bea picked up the shell and put it to her ear. “Should I call him? Right now?”

  The whoosh in her ear told her nothing. It was like a Magic 8 Ball saying Ask Again Later.

  She could pick up the phone right now and call. Just as she’d done with Veronica. But she’d had the advantage of knowing Veronica wanted to be contacted. Timothy Macintosh truly was a stranger. And given the way he had walked away from Veronica, he likely would not be open to hearing from Bea at all.

  She stared out the window, at the stars, at the treetops. This was something she had to do, had to finish.

  She took a sheet of Three Captains’ Inn stationery and wrote:

  Dear Mr. Macintosh,

  I hope you won’t find this letter terribly intrusive. My name is Bea Crane, and I’m the biological daughter of Veronica Russo, who has named you as my biological father. I was born on October 12, 1991, in Boothbay Harbor. I understand from Veronica that you denied being the father of her baby, and I understand that you might not be my biological father. I am writing because I’m here in Boothbay Harbor, and have recently met Veronica for the first time, after having found out, also very recently, that I was adopted. I’m interested in meeting you, if you’re open to it, and would be open to taking a DNA test, if you’d like to go that route. I’d love to know about my biological father’s family background. That’s all I’m interested in, by the way—I just want to assure you of that.