by Julia London
“What’s the pot?” Jane asked.
“A used Starbucks gift card with an unknown amount still on it.”
Jane grinned. “I’m in!”
“Yes! Fresh meat!” Eric exclaimed. He swept by her and tried to tousle Jane’s hair, but she was too quick for him, dodging out of the way of his beefy hand. Eric laughed and picked up the waitstaff roster to make the evening’s station assignments. Jane’s younger brothers were blonde, tall, and athletic. Nicole called them Norse Vikings and proclaimed them hot. There were many times in her life when Jane had wished she’d looked like them—or at least had had their hair. She was shorter than them, with dark, curly, unruly hair. Where Matt and Eric were pale and blue-eyed, her skin had a bit of an olive tint to it. Her eyes were brown, and she had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Eric missed his shot. “Come on, Janey,” he said, handing her two creamers. “Put a little English on it.”
“I have no idea what that means.” She closed one eye, took aim—and sank her first creamer into the basket. “Two points!” she cried, earning another boisterous chorus of ooohs from the guys. She was lining up to take another shot when her cousin Vicki walked in. Vicki took one disdainful look at them and shook her head.
Jane threw her creamer at Vicki, hitting her on the shoulder.
“I refuse to play,” Vicki said, as if nailing her with the creamer had been an invitation. Vicki had brassy blonde hair, the result of the highlight touch-ups she’d done herself. Today, her hair was knotted high on her head.
“Aw, come on, Vic,” Eric said, catching her in his arms and making her dance around a tight little circle with him.
“The game is pointless,” Vicki insisted. “And furthermore, no one ever pays up the promised pot.”
“Stick in the mud,” Eric said with a grin and let her go.
“Your stick in the mud is what other people call mature!” she called over her shoulder as she continued her trek to the office, where Terri and Jim, their heads together, were going over some paperwork.
Matt stood up next on the three-point line.
“He’s going for three! The crowd goes wild!” Eric cried, then made a noise like a crowd cheering.
Matt missed and handed his creamer to Uncle Barry. “I’d love to stay and kick butt, but I’ve got to get the soup going.” He bowed out as Terri wandered into their midst, pausing to look sternly at Barry.
“What?” Barry asked innocently. There was no mistaking them for brother and sister. They were both a little round, and they both had blue eyes that crinkled in the corners from a lifetime of smiling and laughing. “Watch this, Terri,” Barry challenged her, and whizzed a creamer into the basket from the three-point line. “Champion!” he shouted, throwing his arms in the air. “Again.”
“High five,” Eric said, lifting his hand to his uncle. “And lucky you, it’s your Starbucks card.”
“When’s dinner?” Barry asked.
“As soon as Mona gets here,” Terri said. “Janey, I love your hair!” she added, reaching her daughter. She caught Jane by the arms and leaned back, studying her hair with a critical eye. Jane’s hair was unmanageable. She could remember the agony of her mother trying to run a brush through it to tame it. She’d tried a new look today, braiding it loosely, but she could now feel a bit of it trying to work its way free of the braid. “Cute,” her mom said, nodding her approval. “You always look so cute.”
“Mom.”
“Okay, I won’t gush. Hey, did Jonathan like the shirt I got him?” she asked eagerly.
She’d found western shirts on sale and bought them for all the guys. Alas, Jonathan was not a western-shirt kind of guy. “Am I really supposed to wear this?” he’d asked, bewildered, when Jane had delivered it to him.
“He loved it,” Jane assured her mother. “I think he might have worn it to his gig in Galveston tonight.” Jonathan was a computer programmer by day and a musician by night. Eric had introduced Jane and Jonathan to each other about four years ago, when he and Jonathan had been playing in the same band. They’d begun dating seriously a couple of years ago, and they were still together, in spite of Jane’s clumsy response to his marriage proposal.
“That’s so nice,” her mother said with delight. “Such a great deal, those shirts—”
“Terri? Terri!” Jane’s dad was suddenly standing beside them, papers in hand, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, and wearing his western shirt. Where Jane’s mother was soft and a little rounded with age, her father was tall and thin, with graying blonde hair. He peered at Jane over the rims of his glasses. “Hi, pumpkin,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “Did you do something to your hair?”
“Sort of.”
“Terri, I cannot read this,” he said sternly to her mother. “Where did you learn to write?”
“Overholser Elementary, same as you,” Terri said, snatching the papers out of his hand and squinting at them. “Ten pounds, Jim. It says ten pounds.”
“That’s not the only thing I can’t read. I need you to go over this with me, please.”
Jane’s father was, hands down, the best dad in all of Houston. He would do anything for anyone, and he especially loved working on the Habitat for Humanity projects. But when it came to running the restaurant, he was completely dependent on his wife. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable; he was. But Jane had the sense that they’d been together for so long—high school sweethearts—that their thoughts were almost intertwined. Dad needed Mom to think straight.
“Honey, I’ve told you a dozen times that you need new reading glasses,” Terri said. “Just go down to Walgreens and pick them out. It might cost you all of fifteen dollars.”
“Okay, okay, but I have to finish the ordering now, so please come and help me.”
“All right,” Terri said, and rolled her eyes at Jane. But she was smiling. “Oh, honey,” she said, putting her hand on Jane’s arm. “We’re having egg parm tonight. Would you mind getting a salad together and putting it in the dining room? I’ll be in to help in a bit.”
It was a running joke in the family that Jane was only allowed to prepare salads. And they came preprepared. She grabbed the salad mix from the chiller and dumped it in a serving bowl. She’d finished adding tomatoes when Aunt Mona arrived, burdened with several Target bags.
“Mona!” the guys called in unison.
Mona, a redhead, was always a little late, and they loved to greet her like a returning warrior. “You won’t believe all the great stuff I found!” she trilled, dumping the bags on one of the couches. “Vicki, I found that face cream you like, and it was twenty-five percent off!”
With a smile, Jane picked up the salad and a pair of tongs, sidestepped Uncle Barry, and made her way to the private dining room.
Originally, the restaurant had been a house, and it had been renovated to fit eight tables. Over the years, the family had added to and rebuilt sections of the restaurant, so that now it was a sprawling thing that could seat two hundred people at once. It was in the old part of town and considered by many to be quintessentially Houston.
The private dining room, where the family dined every night, was the original dining room. There was a fireplace they used in the winter and a large picture window that overlooked their kitchen and herb garden. The walls in the dining room were adorned with pictures of the restaurant taken over the years. In one picture, taken in the late thirties, Jane’s grandparents stood proudly outside. In another Uncle Greg stood behind the bar he’d tended. In another one, taken when they were kids, Vicki, Jane, Matt, Eric, and Vicki’s brother, Danny, who was in the army now, were sitting on the front porch. And a big picture from the seventies, of Terri, Jim, Barry, and Mona at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the addition of a new dining room.
There was a stack of plates at one end of the table—Jane’s mother insisted on sit-down dinners, served family style, as opposed to having waitstaff serve them. “They aren’t here to wait on us,” s
he’d say if anyone whined.
Jane set the salad down and picked up the plates. She had them laid out when her mother swept in with a cheery smile, her hair in a net, and that goofy artichoke apron. Terri Aaron always had a smile on her face; she was the most upbeat, positive person Jane had ever known.
“I was just talking to Mona,” her mother said as she gathered silver and began to set the table. “Kohl’s is having a big sale this weekend. Mona and Vicki and I are going to go. Wanna go with? I’ll buy you some sheets.”
“Ah . . .” Jane wasn’t quite ready to broach her big news. Her mother wouldn’t be surprised by it, exactly, but Jane didn’t think she’d particularly like it, either.
Her hesitation caused Terri to look at her. “What’s up? Do you and Jonathan already have plans?”
“Ah, no . . . well, sort of.” Jane drew a breath. “I was planning on moving to Cedar Springs on Saturday.”
Her mother stilled.
“I’m going to do it, Mom,” Jane said earnestly, moving closer. “I am going to Cedar Springs.” There, she’d said it.
Terri slowly put down the silver she was holding. “Cedar Springs?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a long time.”
“You’ve been thinking about what? Moving there?” she asked, her voice a little incredulous.
Jane nodded.
Her mother’s gaze flicked to the carpet a moment. “Janey, I know you want answers, but . . . to move there? Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I’m sure, Mom. It’s really been on my mind, and you know I’ve been considering it.”
“Considering it, yes, but I didn’t know you were going to . . . to do it.”
“I’m going to tell everyone today,” Jane said. “You know, so all of Vicki’s questions will be answered.” She smiled a little ruefully at her joke.
Terri’s smile was a little sad. “Okay,” she said, nodding. She crossed her arms over her chest like she was suddenly cold. “Okay.”
“Mom . . . are you okay with it?”
“Yes!” Terri said, a bit too emphatically. “But it doesn’t matter if I or anyone else is okay with it, Jane. You have to be okay with it. This is your life and your quest. I just don’t want you to get hurt,” she said. “That’s the only thing, Janey. I want you to be happy, but I can’t stand to see you hurt.”
Jane walked to where her mother stood and wrapped her arms around her. “They can’t hurt me,” she said reassuringly. At least, they couldn’t hurt her any more than they already had.
Her mother slipped her arms around Jane and held her tightly for a long moment. Jane knew she had reservations. They’d talked about this before, and while her mom had encouraged her, there was always that hint of reluctance, a glimmer of unease in her eyes.
“Well,” her mother said, pulling away. “I better get the egg parm before it burns.”
During the meal, her mother was unusually quiet. Not that anyone would have noticed, what with the running debate of Matt’s love life being waged across the dinner table. Eric thought Matt’s current girlfriend, Holly, wasn’t his type. “You know who I liked? I liked Jaime. Now that girl was great.”
“She was,” Matt agreed. “But she didn’t think I was so great, remember?”
“Then she must have been an idiot,” Mona said firmly.
“You guys have this all wrong,” Vicki announced. “Matt’s at that age where he likes anything that moves.”
“Stop right there, Vicki,” Matt said with a playful groan.
“I just don’t think we should all guilt him into anything he’s not ready for.”
“You guys have no clue,” Matt said, chuckling. “But if it’s okay with the jury here, I like Holly. She’s nice. You think so, don’t you, Jane?”
“What?” Jane asked, looking up from her plate.
“Holly,” Matt said, sketching a female shape in the air with his hands. “Blonde? Hot? Bank teller?”
“Oh. Yeah. She’s nice.” Jane tried to remember Holly. She’d only met her once, and Matt was a bit of a serial dater.
“What’s the matter, pumpkin?” her father asked. “You’ve hardly said a word tonight.”
“Who, me?” Jane looked around at their expectant faces. These were the faces of the people she loved. These were the faces that she could depend on to be with her from beginning to end. Why was it so necessary to find the other faces, the faces that looked like her? She only knew that if she didn’t at least try, she’d be stuck in this holding pattern until something broke. “Actually, I have an announcement to make.”
“What is it, honey?” her father asked, pushing his reading glasses to the top of his head.
“Okay.” Jane put down her fork and braced her hands against the table’s edge. “You guys know that I’ve been trying to find out more about who gave me up for adoption.”
“Right,” Eric said, nodding.
“Well, it’s not . . . it’s not working out. I keep running into brick walls. I’ve looked as far as I can, and I put my name on the national adoption registry, and nothing has come of it. I mean, they obviously aren’t looking for me, so I’ve decided . . .” She paused, took a breath. After much consideration . . . “I am moving to Cedar Springs,” she blurted.
“Huh?” Eric asked, confused.
“Just for the summer—at least I think it wouldn’t be longer than a summer. I’m going to move to Cedar Springs to just . . . just look around and see what I come up with.” She shrugged nervously.
Her announcement was met with silence for a moment. Her family all looked around at one another, then at her again.
“Well, well, well,” her uncle Barry said. “Well, well.”
“Isn’t anyone going to say anything besides . . . ‘well’?” Jane asked hopefully.
“Move?” her dad said, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the concept.
“I think it’s great,” Eric said. “You’ve been looking for a long time. Go for it, Janey. I hope you find them.”
“But find who?” Vicki asked. “What if she finds her birth family and they are a bunch of nutjobs?” Vicki could always be counted on to say what everyone else was thinking but was too polite to say. “They could be certifiable, you never know.”
“Have you met my sister?” Matt asked. “I think there is no question there is some nuttiness in them.” He winked at Jane. “I’m with Eric. Godspeed and good luck and hurry up and get back here as soon as you can.”
“No, seriously—what if they are lunatics or crooks or politicians?” Vicki persisted with a slight shudder. “You could be in for a very rude awakening, Janey.” She forked a healthy portion of eggplant into her mouth and pointed her fork at Jane. “I’m only going to say this because I love you, but people always think they want to know. And reality is never really what they imagined.”
“Honestly, I don’t care if they are lunatics,” Jane said. “I just want to know a few things, and then I’m done. I’m not looking for a family or friends, obviously, nothing even close to that. But I would like to have some information about my ancestry, and medical history, and . . . and talents. I want to know what my talents are. I’m only trying to understand.” Only trying to fill this hole in me.
“What’s to understand?” Vicki said. “They gave you up. You’re ours now. And even if you find them, they can’t tell you what your talents are.”
“Try and be more supportive, Vicki,” Mona said. “This is obviously very important to Jane.”
“It’s not that I’m not supportive,” Vicki protested. “But here’s the thing, Janey. You’ll go out there and find your birth family, or maybe you won’t, in which case you have wasted time you could have used to finish your master’s thesis. Or, you find them and they either surprise you or disappoint you, or even worse, they reject you again, ’cuz let’s call a dog a dog—they basically rejected you once, right? All I am saying is why put yourself through that? We care about you. We’re your family.”
“Vic
ki, eat some more pasta,” Barry suggested more firmly to his daughter.
“I know you are my family,” Jane said. “Nothing will ever change that. But there are things you guys know about yourselves that I don’t know about me, and I think I deserve the chance to know.”
“If this is what you need to do, Jane, then I think you need to just do it,” her mother said firmly. “And when you have found them, know that your real family will be waiting for you to come home where you belong.”
“Dad?” Jane asked.
“Janey, whatever your mother said. But do you have to move?”
“I think so,” she said quietly.
Vicki sighed. “I’m not trying to piss anyone off, I swear I’m not. You know what they say—be careful what you wish for. But hey, if you’re going, I support you one thousand percent.”
“Thanks, Vic,” Jane said with a smile.
“So when are you going?” Mona asked.
As Jane answered their questions as best she could—when would she go, and for how long, and what about Jonathan—Vicki’s warning kept banging around in Jane’s head.
Be careful what you wish for.
2
The alarm on his phone startled Asher Price awake; he bolted upright and blinked, trying to focus and look around, to place where he was.
A hotel room. What hotel?
He glanced to his right, groped around the nightstand for the little table tent that urged one to save the environment and not ask for clean sheets. He squinted at it; the language was German.
Munich.
Asher tossed the table tent aside and sank back into the thick goose feather pillows. He stretched his arm across the bed, felt the cool emptiness of it. It was odd, he thought sleepily, that his wife had been dead for a year and a half now—gone longer than that, really—but he’d never gotten used to sleeping alone. He missed the weight of a woman’s body in bed, the warmth of skin, the rhythm of her breath to remind him that he was in the present.
He sometimes wondered if he’d ever feel that again. He sometimes wondered if he’d ever really felt it but maybe had just imagined he had. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman who hadn’t been angry or just indifferent, and that had been his wife.