Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  “Do not approach her,” Whittaker had said that morning, as if she were a nuclear bomb. Teddy had been required to check in with the assistant principal in his office before he went to first hour. Things had been better when he’d never even spoken to Whittaker. Now, Teddy knew how the guy’s shampoo smelled—the same, he thought, as his dad’s. Teddy had sometimes used the brown bottle himself, though now he wouldn’t do that again.

  Teddy promised Whittaker he wouldn’t speak to Sadie either, even though she was the one who’d started it. He didn’t even want to talk to her. But then, on that very first day of his new schedule, she walked into the cafeteria just ahead of him. He thought about turning around and moving to the back of the line, but they made eye contact when Sadie looked over her shoulder. She didn’t mean to look at him. Teddy knew that. She was probably checking for one of her friends. Or for Tane.

  Teddy looked quickly away, a sourness rising in his throat. He let a few kids push in front of him, stalling near the stack of cafeteria trays, and he felt better when McCoy pulled up next to him. “Hey.” Teddy flashed a peace sign.

  McCoy slapped his shoulder, which seemed normal. He’d never said anything about the video, thank God. McCoy hadn’t even mentioned Gigi or the diapers.

  Just as Teddy was planning what to say next—should he bring up that evening’s soccer practice? Tomorrow’s math test?—he felt the tray of the person behind him dig into his back, just above the waistband of his pants. He turned, irritated, and then gasped when he made eye contact with Tane. “Avoid,” Whittaker had said about him, too.

  “God, Lagerhead,” Teddy said. Whittaker hadn’t covered what to do if Tane approached him. He couldn’t very well ignore him when he’d run into his back. “Watch it.” He glanced at Tane’s hands, looking for his nail polish, but Tane’s index fingers were tucked beneath his tray.

  Tane didn’t say anything, so Teddy turned toward the lunch lady, who deposited a fistful of mini corn dogs on his tray. “Shut up,” Tane said, quiet enough so only Teddy could hear. His response was so delayed that Teddy couldn’t even remember what he’d said to prompt it.

  He grabbed a serving of limp-looking fries from under the heat lamp next to the corn dog station. “I can’t believe you did that to me, man,” Teddy whispered. “Those things you said in that video.”

  “Are you kidding?” They’d reached the end of the serving line and Teddy could see that across the lunchroom Sadie was getting settled with the other Quiz Bowl kids. Talk about betrayals. Had Sadie totally rejected Chloe and Mikaela? Why did she like the Quiz Bowl team so much better? Teddy had seen Douglas Lim’s Finsta post the previous night about taking Sadie’s spot in the next competition.

  Teddy felt his forearms tense, and he thought again about Sadie and Tane planning the Instagram Live. They’d probably done it right there at their lunch table. She knew exactly what to say to humiliate him the most.

  “It doesn’t change anything, you know. You’re not suddenly Mr. Popular,” Teddy said, his whisper fervent. “It takes a lot more than that. One video and you’re the best? And Sadie is, like, your girlfriend? Is that what you think?” Teddy was sure that if Whittaker were here, he’d separate the two of them. The corn dogs rolled precariously on Tane’s tray, and Teddy fought the urge to hit the bottom of it and send his food flying. Not worth it, he told himself, remembering the hard plastic chairs in the office, the smell of Whittaker’s shampoo. He and Tane walked toward the condiment station.

  “You think what I did was worse than what you did?” Tane’s voice sounded choked.

  Teddy gritted his teeth. “It was so much fucking worse. You told everyone everything. And at assembly I thought you had gym shorts on under your joggers like usual. That was an accident.”

  “In some ways I should be thanking you,” Tane said. “Before that assembly, I had no shot at winning that hashtag thing, but now everyone’s on my side.” Teddy saw McCoy waiting for him near the cashier, his deli sandwich and chips in hand. Teddy pointed toward their usual table, and McCoy walked away.

  “Do you think this stupid hashtag thing means anything?” Teddy tried to sound firm, but even he had to acknowledge his uncertainty. “Remember just last year when you had to get Ms. Tierney to make us let you play football? Nobody actually likes you. You’re still you.”

  “Me, but with a girlfriend.” Tane smiled down at him as he pumped ketchup from the industrial-sized dispenser.

  “Sadie Yoshida?” Teddy shook his head.

  Tane shrugged. He licked ketchup from the tip of his thumb.

  “You can’t just say that if it’s not true. You have to prove something like that.”

  “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Like you said, I put you on the map with that assembly.” Teddy took a step away toward his friends. “If you have a girlfriend now, it’s actually all because of me.”

  “Oh my God,” Tane said to his back. “Do you have, like, the world’s tiniest dick or something? Is that why you’re such an asshole?” Teddy turned around in time to see Tane swivel his head, checking for adults that might have overheard him.

  Coward, Teddy thought. “You’re lying. I knew it. Nail polish never gets girlfriends. It just makes you totally fucking weird. Who would go out with you?” Teddy walked toward McCoy. At least four of their soccer teammates were at their usual table, a spot saved for Teddy. Things, he thought, might just be okay.

  And then suddenly Tane was next to him again. “Check your DMs,” Tane said, spit gathering at the corners of his mouth. He whipped his phone from his pocket and clicked a few times before storming away.

  Teddy felt his cell phone buzz as he sat down. They weren’t allowed to have phones in school, but the lunchroom monitors didn’t seem to care, and in any case, Teddy’s back was to them. He checked his messages.

  “Whoa,” he said aloud. “Jesus Christ.” He blinked several times at the video Tane had sent, a video of someone opening a Snapchat on an iPhone. The photo showed a girl with her top partway off. Teddy’s eyes bugged.

  “What?” asked McCoy.

  “Dude, I can’t even believe this.” Teddy beckoned him closer and held his phone under the table. Once McCoy was watching, he showed him the DM.

  “What the fuck?” McCoy breathed. “Who even is that? Where’d you get it?”

  Teddy looked over at Tane’s table. Tane stared at them, his mouth slightly open.

  “I think it’s Sadie Yoshida,” Teddy said. Actually, he knew it was her. He’d seen that rug a million times. They’d built Duplos on it as little kids.

  “Send me a screenshot,” said McCoy. “That’s freaking legendary.”

  Alice Sullivan

  Alice stared at her oily store-bought tortellini and sad-looking microwaved peas. “A starch, not a vegetable,” she knew Meredith would say about the peas. But Nadia would remind her that at least dinner wasn’t something truly terrible like Coke with a side of Doritos. Alice felt grateful for both the Nadia in her head and the one in her text messages who had responded to her apology with a heart emoji. “Thanks,” she’d written. “Onward.”

  Still, Alice had thought about throwing some baby spinach on everyone’s plates. She had a plastic tub of it in reasonably good shape in the refrigerator, but the kids wouldn’t have eaten it anyway. She put a piece of pasta in her mouth and felt the cheese ooze around the al dente noodle as she bit. “What was for hot lunch?” Alice hoped they’d had something healthy, so she could absolve herself of this five-minute meal.

  Her chin dropped when Adrian said, “Mini corn dogs.” Her daughter smiled around a mouthful of pasta. “And guess what, Mom?” Alice caught a glimpse of mashed peas mixed into the white sauce as her daughter chewed. “Guess what Nana told me when she picked me up?”

  Alice felt her shoulders tense. She hadn’t followed through on Julienne’s suggestion that she tell her mother about the
session at Green Haven. In fact, they hadn’t really spoken since Alice had promised to contact Julienne. Her mom had agreed via text to the usual Tuesday pickup. Alice could probably have escaped work early given the state of her collaborations with Ramona, but she wanted to get some of her simpler projects finished and invoiced in case she decided to leave for good. She and her mother had passed in the mudroom when Alice had arrived at home. Alice hadn’t invited her to stay for dinner. “What did Nana tell you?”

  Adrian’s smile went comically wide, her eyes bright. “I have a new aunt and cousins!”

  Alice coughed, a tortellini catching in the back of her throat.

  “What?” Teddy asked.

  Alice stood from the table, still coughing, and filled a glass with water. She faced away from the children longer than she needed to. She finally managed to choke out a question: “Nana told you that?”

  “Yeah! Is it a secret?” Adrian got up on her knees, her face alight. “When she picked me up today, she said I would be meeting my new aunt and cousins soon. Mom, can you believe it?”

  “What are you even talking about?” Teddy scowled at his sister. “And is she allowed to sit like that?”

  “Worry about yourself,” Alice said automatically. She wished Patrick were here. How could she explain the complexities of Julienne alone and on the fly? She couldn’t believe her mother hadn’t at least given her a heads-up. “Yes,” said Alice. She couldn’t very well deny it. “Well.” She glanced up at the swatches she’d painted on the dining room wall, research for the custom job she still hoped to procure. “I was waiting for the right moment to talk to you both about this, but yes, Nana has recently met a family member we never knew about.”

  Alice channeled Oprah again and simultaneously imagined shouting at Siri after dinner to dial her mother on speakerphone. “When Nana was very young—” Alice began. “Did she tell you this, Aidy?”

  “She said she had a baby when she was too young to take care of it. She said it was just like your birth mother, Mom. That’s why Nana took care of you, remember?”

  Alice felt her eyes narrow. She resisted this connection to Julienne, and she definitely didn’t want to consider their similarities in discussion with her seven-year-old daughter.

  But even as Alice imagined unloading on her mother about the inappropriateness of her revelation, she knew she’d lose the argument. After she confessed the trip to Green Haven, her mom would say that Alice had started it. Alice had been the one to leverage her own child’s well-being against her curiosity.

  “I do remember,” she said to Aidy. “And now, Nana has met her baby. She’s all grown up. She’s older than Daddy and me.” Alice watched as Teddy shoved three tortellini in his mouth at once. She’d have to tell him, eventually, that Dr. Martín was Nana’s mystery baby. She hoped by then he’d be fully invested in Milo Underhill’s nature therapy. “Do you have any questions?” Alice asked, though she hadn’t really explained anything. Listen to Me had suggested that parents only answer the questions kids actually ask, rather than to go on about things they weren’t ready for.

  “I have a question,” Teddy said. Alice swallowed a sticky bite of pasta and grabbed her water glass for a chaser. She braced herself: Teddy had a glint in his eye, a ferocity she’d seen in his bedtime negotiations and on the soccer field.

  “Go for it,” she said.

  “Why is this family always so fucked up?”

  Alice wilted. Was it true that the family was fucked up? Maybe they were—Teddy’s suspension, Aidy’s delayed reading, Nana’s secret daughter.

  “I don’t know.” She looked at Patrick’s empty seat. If he were here, he’d have dealt with the swearing.

  “Mom!” Aidy shrieked, pointing at Teddy. “He said ‘fuck’!”

  “And also”—Teddy transferred a clump of peas onto his fork with his fingers, ignoring his sister—“who’s taking me to soccer practice?”

  Evelyn Brown

  Evelyn had thought about playing off her confession to Aidy as an accident. It could have been. She was helping Alice even though she was behind on her own writing and had emails from at least four advisees in the hopper. She was distracted, and she could say she’d accidentally mentioned Julienne.

  But Alice knew Evelyn better than anyone, had watched her spin and process her life events in real time for thirty-seven years. Evelyn never divulged without premeditation.

  In reality, when Evelyn blurted the truth about Julienne to Adrian, she felt a sort of catharsis. As she claimed her firstborn daughter more and more times, as she told a few friends, a colleague, and Alice, the solidity of Julienne’s place in her life felt heavier and more. And better.

  And their upcoming Thanksgiving dinner would normalize things further. Evelyn had already imagined the family photos she’d take, how Adrian and Laura would look standing side by side. She imagined Teddy and Miguel exchanging stories from the soccer field. To think, her grandchildren had played on neighboring teams, and the boys were just eighteen months apart in age. They could have played together! The image both thrilled her and made her deeply sad. She could never get back the time she’d missed with the Martíns, a fact that made it all the more important that she integrate them as completely and immediately as possible.

  So as Adrian had sat in the back seat and sweetly asked, “How was your day, Nana?” the first and only thing Evelyn had wanted to say was, “It was a great day because I got to talk to my new daughter.”

  And that was true. Every day was great because she got to talk to her new daughter. And so she’d said it, out loud into the Camry, her declaration seeming to reverberate against the rear window.

  Evelyn had held her breath, waiting to see if Adrian would react. A couple of beats of silence went by, and Evelyn started to feel relieved. But then, Aidy asked, “Mom is your daughter?” Her face arranged itself just exactly like Alice’s always did when she felt confused, her left eyebrow cocked and her little mouth scrunched in a slight frown.

  Evelyn had weighed her options for a moment. She could have backtracked at this point, but she’d always believed in telling children the truth. “I know.” Evelyn had smiled—a real, relieved smile. “But I have another daughter, too.”

  She expected Alice’s call right when she got it, had even predicted that she’d be on speakerphone in the kitchen, listening to the sounds of Alice rinsing dishes in the background. Although she wasn’t Alice’s biological mother, she knew her on a cellular level. She’d lived her childhood, she’d been there when she’d become a mother herself. Evelyn knew her admission would set off ripples, and that was why she was already in her car. She had been driving to Alice’s neighborhood when her daughter’s call came in. She had the file she wanted to share with her ready on the front seat.

  “I hadn’t planned on telling Adrian,” Evelyn said. “But in the moment, Alice, it just seemed right.”

  “I was blindsided!” Alice yelled.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Are you suggesting I’d have this conversation in front of them?” Evelyn turned the volume down. “You’re the one who told Adrian—my seven-year-old—a secret you kept from me for thirty-seven years and then didn’t even give me a heads-up about it.”

  Evelyn parked her car in front of Alice’s house and peered through the front window into the living room. She knew Alice was standing in the adjoining kitchen, just out of view. “It seemed like we were making progress. Julienne said the two of you talked. She said you had some updates for me?”

  Evelyn had broken into an outright grin over lunch the day before when Julienne had said that she and Alice had spoken live. She’d even clapped her hands over her pine nut and prosciutto salad, imagining the two of them together in conversation. She pictured them for a moment as little kids, building something out of Legos in the house in which she’d raised Alice. That image, too, like the one of Teddy and Migu
el on the soccer field, had taken her breath away. Now, Alice was suddenly silent on the other end of the line.

  “Alice?” Evelyn turned up the volume again, now that her daughter had stopped yelling.

  “Okay,” Alice said. “So, you know how my friend Nadia recommended a therapist for Teddy?”

  “Yes. You were so smart to get right on that. I’m really proud of—”

  Alice rushed on, “Well, the therapist was Julienne at Green Haven. I took Teddy there.” The words came so fast it took Evelyn a moment to make sense of them. “Like, we saw her,” Alice said.

  Evelyn squinted at the line of houses on Alice’s block. “You what?”

  “You know,” Alice said, her voice sounding strident again over the Bluetooth, “you’re the one who kept a secret for decades. For my whole life. You could have told me at any time that Julienne existed, but you didn’t. I just needed to see her for myself, and it was a coincidence! Nadia really did suggest her, and I’d already made the appointment when you told me who she was.”

  Evelyn gripped the gear shift and squinted. “Okay, but are you telling me you risked Teddy’s mental health to, what? Like, spy?” Evelyn didn’t wait for Alice to answer. “That’s kind of crazy, Alice.”

  “You said we’re not supposed to say ‘crazy’ anymore.” Evelyn breathed in. She had told Alice to eliminate the word “crazy” from her vocabulary. She’d read new research that it reinforced mental health stigma. “You have to know, I wanted to tell you about your sister,” she said. “I wanted to tell you from the time you were a little girl.” Evelyn remembered almost spilling the news on Julienne’s birthdays in multiple years. “Your dad was the one who was always against it.”