“You’ve tried to steal her away from me before.”
“I’m not denying that I’ve behaved poorly in the past, but you can either trust me to have learned my lesson or leave Richard on the beach in Belize and come back to Chicago.”
During the silence that followed, Miles leaned back in his office chair and kicked his feet up on the desk. “I’m sorry,” Cathy said finally. “I just don’t think it’s healthy for a teenager to have coffee all the time.”
No. You’re worried you’ve been gone so long Sarah will forget that she loves us both. You can’t yell at Sarah and you don’t want to yell at Richard, but your ex-husband is a convenient punching bag. “I’m just making sure she’s nice and hyper for when you return. Consider a hyper then crashing and headachey teenager your reward for a long honeymoon.”
“I know you had a scheme going.”
“Cathy, go play in the ocean with your new husband. Sarah and I will be all right.”
“I’ll be home in a week.”
“I know, and Sarah will be bored silly by then.” They said their awkward goodbyes and Miles hung up the phone.
“Were you and Mom fighting again?” Sarah was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed.
He looked at the phone and thought about the woman who had been his wife and best friend before Richard. Being betrayed—and striking back in anger to wound—were things that took a long time to get over. The habit of hurting each other was hard to break, even if they were both happier now.
“She doesn’t want you to have so much coffee.” Sarah was probably old enough to begin to understand the emotions that bound him and Cathy together—for better or worse—but he didn’t feel like talking with her about them.
“I’m not a child. I know when you’ve been fighting.”
Of course, he might not have much of a choice. “Okay. We were arguing. A little. We’ll probably argue about you until one of us is dead and then maybe the survivor will yell at the dead one’s gravestone.”
Sarah raised her eyebrow, not mollified by his answer. “Both of you should stop treating me like a child. I’m sixteen. I can drop out of school and even get married in some states.”
“Yup. And your mom and I would argue if you did those things, too. We’re divorced, but you still tie us together.”
Sarah harrumphed, a noise Cathy made when she was upset.
“Your mom didn’t tell me anything about Belize. Is she having fun?”
“Too busy arguing to ask about her honeymoon?” Sarah uncrossed her arms and stepped into his office, the fight gone from her. “She sent me pictures. Do you want to see?”
No. He was happy being divorced and happy for Cathy that she had remarried the man of her dreams, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see her tromping around on the beach in a bikini. “Of course. Pull up a chair and we’ll look at them.”
* * *
RENIA SAT AT the desk in her studio and stared at baby Harrison, but didn’t do anything with the image. All she needed to do was cut Harrison out of one photograph and put him in the other. Then she had twenty images to process before she could present the proofs to Ebony, who was paying her extra to rush the finished product. But instead of finishing these two tasks, she was thinking about the birth mothers’ support group.
I got married to prove to the world I could be a good mother. Words of a birth mother echoed through her head. We had kids immediately, but they never replaced my first.
Then another. I couldn’t get married at all. Lyle failed me, and I just never learned to trust again. Now I’m seventy-five years old and wish there had been support groups when I was eighteen.
Renia knew she didn’t let men, or women for that matter, get close to her. Her one friendship with Amy and her closeness with Tilly were the only intimate relationships she had. Was she punishing herself for giving up her daughter?
“Ridiculous,” she said to the computer. She wasn’t the only thirty-four-year-old unmarried woman in this world.
Did you ever think about why you ditch a guy the instant you begin to have feelings for him?
Emotion pounded in her ears, too loud and overwhelming for her to think. She clicked away from Harrison’s scrunched, sleeping face and opened her browser. Before she could psychoanalyze herself further, she looked up salsa lessons Chicago. Sorting through her results, she found a studio with a beginners salsa class starting tonight. The dance studio wasn’t far from her apartment and they still had openings. Plural.
The white arrow hovered over the smiling faces of dancing men and women. Partners. Maybe they weren’t couples, but they were working together, trusting one another to have fun. She let out a puff of breath and clicked the back button. Salsa wasn’t the only type of dancing out there. She could learn tap or ballet. Neither dance would be as social as learning salsa, but she would be in a class, with other people.
She bit on her lower lip and clicked the dance studio’s link again. Miles’s business card was sitting on her desk. No more questions. Just act. She dialed the number.
“Brislenn.”
“Hi, uh, Miles. This is Renia.” She closed her eyes. She could do this.
“Rey,” he said with a smile in his voice, “how nice to hear from you.”
“I, uh, maybe was wrong on Friday night.”
“Oh?”
She pulled the phone cord straight and watched it snap back into a spiral. Opening herself up was going to be hard, maybe embarrassing. But a rejection couldn’t be any harder than plodding through life, worried the wrong kind of smile would give away a secret she’d hidden for eighteen years. She rushed the words out before she could stop them. “I had a good time on Friday night and want to learn how to salsa dance. There is a studio offering beginning classes on Mondays, tonight, and I’d like to go with a partner. Would you be interested?”
“You want me to take dancing lessons with you?”
There was the rejection. This wasn’t so bad. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere. There was no physical pain. “I understand if you don’t want to. I mean, we didn’t part so well on Friday.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I just wanted to clarify what you were asking.”
Oh. “I’d like to take dance classes and I’d like it if you would come with me. I’ll pay.”
He barked a short laugh. “You’re asking me out on a date and offering to pay for more dance lessons. How could I turn you down?”
I tried to turn you down several times and abandoned you on the sidewalk without even a goodbye. I can easily imagine why you would say no. “Several dates. The class is five weeks. And since you already know how to dance, it probably wouldn’t be interesting for you.”
“You don’t give a man firm ground to stand on, calling to ask me out on a date and then trying to talk me out of it.”
“Well, I’m not sure we should call them dates.” She was looking for a dance partner, a friendship, not a romantic relationship.
“Okay.”
“Okay not calling them dates or okay to the dance lessons?” Stupid question. If he was okay not calling them dates, it was probably a yes to the dance lessons. Her heart clamped and her stomach rolled over her intestines. Dealing with men was so much easier when you didn’t care about the results.
“Okay to both. Only...”
Of course there was going to be a catch. This had been far too easy, besides her panic.
“...Sarah doesn’t star
t school until after Labor Day and all her summer activities are over. She’s bored and keeping me from working.”
“Uh, okay.” Where was this going?
“Is there something at your studio she can help you with for a couple hours a day? Cleaning, organizing? She seemed interested in photography and this would give her a good opportunity to understand the work. I’ll still take dancing lessons with you if you say no, but I’d like Sarah to have something to keep her busy for the rest of the summer.”
“You want me to babysit your daughter?” Had he not been paying attention when she hung up on her own daughter and confessed to getting pregnant at fifteen?
“Not babysit. She’s sixteen—she doesn’t need a sitter, she needs something to do. Maybe she could answer your phone when you’re with clients, in case your daughter calls.”
Apparently he had been paying attention. And he didn’t seem to think she was unsuitable company for Sarah.
“If she would be in your way, just let me know and I’ll think of something else. Or I can be prepared to get no work done until Cathy returns from her honeymoon.”
Renia leaned back in her chair to think about the suggestion. August had been busy with a lot of newborn sessions and late summer weddings. Busy was good, but she and Amy were both overwhelmed with the work. An extra set of hands to get her props organized and her budget up-to-date would be useful.
“I actually do have some jobs I need done. Sarah’s your daughter, but this is my business. How good of a worker is she?”
“Sarah gets good grades and her teachers say she’s a hard worker. I have to bug her to do her chores, but I’m her father. The rules for me are different.”
“Have you asked her if she wants to do this?”
“The idea only occurred to me when you called. She’s bored enough—spending all day in front of the TV—that she’d probably appreciate the work.”
Renia turned in her chair and looked through her studio into the black hole of her storage closet. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the baskets hung properly, the fake flowers organized into their vases and books and other random props on their shelves. The image was a mirage, of course—the reality was a disaster. Her mental space felt better when her physical space was neat and, right now, both spaces needed all the help they could get.
She shrugged. She could always send Sarah back home if she didn’t work out.
“Okay. If she wants to come, I’ll take her. I expect good work, and I’ll pay her for it.”
* * *
AFTER A SLOW day of editing the images of Harrison and with Sarah cleaning up the storage closet, Renia finally got a phone call she wanted. It wasn’t her daughter, but the lawyer who had handled the adoption.
“Ms. Milek, Patricia Cooper here. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to contact the couple who adopted my daughter.” Sarah was looking at her with wide, curious eyes, and all Renia wanted was privacy.
“If I recall the situation correctly, eighteen years ago you were adamant about not wanting to be able to contact your daughter. When your aunt tried to include the possibility into the adoption contract, you threw a temper tantrum.”
Renia dug in her purse for some cash and sent Sarah out for coffee. “The situation has changed. My daughter tried to contact me.”
Patricia responded with an uncomfortable silence before saying, “Tell me more.”
“I expected my daughter to call on August third, or the day after, but she didn’t.” Renia bit her lip. The rest of the story was harder to admit to, especially after the lawyer had reminded her of the “temper tantrum.” But finding her daughter was more important than her pride. She swallowed and told the rest of the story.
More silence. “Do you have any proof of her phone call?”
She’d never liked the lawyer. The increase in teen mothers, and decrease in available babies, had given birth mothers more rights during adoption, but never seemed to improve the negative impression people had of young mothers who relinquished their children. Considering she was an adoption lawyer, Patricia Cooper had seemed to have a very difficult time understanding why women gave up their children.
Spots appeared in Rey’s vision and her heart burned. It didn’t matter if she liked the lawyer or not. She had to deal with her.
“Next time you get a phone call from a young woman claiming to be your daughter, let me know if you have the presence of mind to get a tape recorder.”
The lawyer huffed and Renia could imagine her thoughts—I was never reckless enough to get myself in that situation. What the woman said was, “I want to make sure I have all the information before I approach the family. I won’t give you their contact information, but they can contact you if they choose to. Nothing in the contract says they can’t.”
“Please tell them I’m sorry.” Renia could be contrite for the adoptive parents. Finding her daughter would affect their lives, as well as hers. “I didn’t expect her to call then.”
“You can hope to tell them yourself. Goodbye.” Click.
Renia slowly set the handset back into the receiver and hugged herself. She breathed in deeply through her nose and let the air trickle out through pursed lips. Patricia Cooper’s opinion of her hadn’t changed.
But the lawyer’s opinion of a pregnant sixteen-year-old, or her thirty-four-year-old self, didn’t matter. The woman would contact the adoptive parents and, as promised, tell them the story and ask them to call. Whether or not she liked Renia, Patricia Cooper believed adopted children should have the opportunity to know their birth parents.
That thought was enough of a relief that Renia could get back to work.
She wiggled the mouse and pulled up images of Cathy and Richard, ignoring baby Harrison for the moment. The couple would be back from their honeymoon soon and wanting to look at proofs. In one photo, Cathy held hands with her mother and her new husband, standing between them and looking up at Richard with shining eyes. The photograph made Renia laugh, despite the stress of her conversation with the lawyer. All through the reception, she had looked at the woman in white trying to feed the photographer and the band and thought of Madonna paintings, but the look in the bride’s eyes was anything but virginal. This picture promised Cathy and Richard were having a good time on their honeymoon.
The next image was one of Cathy, Sarah and Miles, all cheerful and celebratory. He looked at his ex-wife with the indulgent affection of a brother.
Renia’s relationship with her mother was uncomfortable at best and she had hung up on her long-lost daughter, but the Brislenn family, or former Brislenns, had seemed to have a smooth relationship, even at a wedding that should have been uncomfortable. How did they let the past be the past and embrace the future?
Her mistakes continued to haunt her, long after she had made them. She’d not had a single sip of alcohol, a puff of a cigarette or a satisfying relationship with a man in eighteen years, nine months. Hell, I’ve never had a satisfying relationship with a man. Sex didn’t count. She wanted companionship, someone to rest against when weary and someone who would rest against her.
When she’d gotten pregnant, she’d been looking for an escape, not a relationship, and nothing about sex as a teenager had been satisfying. Since graduating from high school, she’d never been comfortable around her boyfriends. She’d always been looking over her shoulder, waiting for her past to finish catching up with her and wondering what the man would say when it did. Some of her f
ailed relationships were the man’s fault, but she had to place blame on herself for an equal—if not greater—number of them. How many good men had she scared away with the bad?
If she hadn’t sworn off alcohol, her past would be enough to drive her to drink.
Coffee doesn’t count as an addiction, she thought as Sarah came through the door holding two cups. Renia accepted hers and the change that Sarah handed her.
“What are you doing?”
“Going over your mother’s wedding photos.” She minimized the screen before taking the lid off her cup and setting it on the desk.
“Can I see?”
“No. Cathy and Richard get to see them first, not you.” Curiosity got the better of her. “How long have your parents been divorced?”
“Are you interested in my dad?” Sarah cocked her head.
“That’s not the reason I’m asking.” It wasn’t, was it? She sipped foam from the top of her coffee. “Your parents seem to get along so well for a divorced couple.”
Sarah pursed her lips, clearly not trusting Renia’s motivations for asking, but she didn’t press the issue. “Four years.”
Only four? Renia would’ve guessed more, given the ease in their relationship. Of course, staying angry at Cathy would require serious effort and she didn’t seem the type to stay angry at someone.
“My dad says he knew you in high school.”
“He did.” She took a sip of her coffee, this time allowing some of the milky liquid through the foam. Only a little, in case it was still too hot.
“What was he like?”
“Your dad? I actually don’t remember him at all.”
Sarah blinked several times as she processed this piece of news. “He wasn’t cool enough for you?”
“What would give you that idea?”
“I’ve seen pictures of him from high school. His eyebrows were too big for his face and his cheekbones stuck out, but not in a hot Robert Pattinson way. Plus he was in the math club. My dad was a dork.”
The First Move Page 9