5 p.m., 31 Hours…
Gwen
A frosty shower later, I pulled on dark jeans and a white tank top, ready to meet my friends for a drink. Not continue obsessing over a certain someone who’d be joining me. I would not admit to modeling five different outfits beforehand, when I should have been analyzing my mother’s journal. I had not applied two different shades of lipstick before settling on a rosy gloss. I also hadn’t performed these neurotic acts while listening to August’s latest album.
Nope. Not me.
God, I was pathetic.
Looking in the mirror now, I barely recognized myself. My ruffled bangs swept to the side like usual, my chestnut waves as ordered as I could get them. My cheekbones still stood out, my right eye slightly rounder than the left, and the rock climbing scrape on my forearm still lingered. Put the facts together, and I hadn’t changed one iota. But since adulthood, I’d never lost my mind over a man.
Here I was, cracked out over August.
Before this year’s dating hiatus, I’d made an effort when meeting men, trying to look pretty, putting my best foot forward and all that jazz. Never had my efforts involved a frustrating fashion show and clothes-littered floor. It was time to get my act together.
I used my last half hour to curl on my couch and pore over my mother’s journal, the analytical work more calming than I’d have thought. It was methodical. It gave my mind something to latch onto, other than the fact that August had saved a photo of me. Did he look at it often? Had it haunted him the way my keepsakes of him had haunted me?
I growled into my empty apartment, annoyed August had thwarted my focus again.
I focused harder and flipped more journal pages, frustrated when some stuck together, causing me to miss sections. Not that all my mother’s random entries were gems. Her “I hate my mom” rant could have been written by me and most kids during their teen years, but Mary Hamilton’s malice had stemmed from forced church attendance, a strict dress code, curfew, and TV limitations.
Partway through, a cutout of a ballerina stopped my flipping. A quick browse showed more dance pictures and corresponding entries, my mother writing things like:
Dancing is everything.
The music makes me feel alive.
I would rather die than not dance.
Those jazz shoes must have been her prized possession. I suddenly wished I hadn’t left the suitcase at her house. I wanted to wear her shoes, experience that passion. The possibility puckered my mouth. There was no point searching for something that had died long ago. There was only the here and now. This reality.
Journal in my lap, I glanced around my small apartment. It was generally neat, the open kitchen and living area decorated in shades of blue and gray. My leather couch was comfy, the closets big enough to store my rock climbing equipment and diving gear. The slate walls were bare except for the surfboard and mountain bike taking up real estate. There were no family photos. No snapshots of birthdays or weddings or celebrations. My mother had only ever visited my place once, because I’d asked her over. That painful hour had involved both of us checking the time repeatedly.
Mary Hamilton may have had interests and passions as a teen, but that wasn’t the woman she’d become. The only thing I wanted to find in these pages were clues to the man she’d slept with, a visual that turned my insides to ick.
Eye on the time, I studied the dance pages for a hint. A partner she’d waltzed with? A boy who’d picked her up from class? Assuming she’d taken classes. That part wasn’t clear. What did repeat was the acronym TASC.
Tucking my legs under me on the couch, I searched my phone for the term and gawked at the landing page.
Tenderloin Arts and Spiritual Center: a community space in the Tenderloin district where art and culture and spirituality come together.
Spirituality? If I’d sipped the water on my coffee table before reading that, I’d have done a spit take. It was easier picturing my mother as a tattooed biker than getting spiritual in the Tenderloin—San Francisco’s seedy epicenter. Granted the area was changing, theaters and music venues drawing different crowds, but those streets had crawled with drug dealers and prostitutes back then.
Oh, crap…prostitutes.
Visions of spitting water vanished as my mouth dried.
What if young Mary Hamilton had worked the street? What if she’d run away from her controlling parents, only to wind up knocked up and devastated?
Be careful what you wish for.
I toyed with the journal’s edges, debated closing it, choosing ignorance over truths better left unknown. It would mean giving up, and I didn’t give up. I worked harder, did more reps, lifted heavier weights. All to reach my potential.
I’d set a goal for myself last year, and this journal was my chance to reach that target. Giving up was losing. Giving up meant failure. Giving up meant I’d have nothing to focus on besides August Cruz.
Nose back in the book, I scanned a few more pages and noticed a “him.” No names or specific descriptions, just:
He watched me dance today.
I saw him at TASC.
When I spotted the intimate tidbit: I’m dying to kiss him, my hands shook. This was my first clue. A real lead, not the stupid window washer business cards I’d stolen from my mother’s purse. There had been a boy at this TASC place.
Possibly my father.
Part of me wanted to keep reading, but the reality of August and these clues tumbling into my life so suddenly had my head ready to pop. What would I say if I met my father tonight? How was I supposed to act around August later?
Thank God I’d made plans to meet the girls, a reprieve I desperately needed. A chance to find my equilibrium and unload this drama before it intensified, even though August would be there, too.
Soon, he’d be sitting with us, possibly flirting with me and going on about his saved photo and pole like the two of us could forget our past. Even worse was the possibility of him not flirting with me and going on about his saved photo and pole like the two of us could forget our past.
I wasn’t sure which option stressed me more.
Journal left in my car, I crossed the street to Sweet Pea, a cute bistro/bar we frequented. The barn-board walls and cramped wooden tables created a casual-chic vibe. I normally found the place relaxing, the country tunes not too loud. This afternoon I scanned the room as though a jack-in-the-box might spring from the floor.
My friends were at a table, drinks in hand, no August in sight. I breathed easier. It was also nice having space from the journal and the possibilities it might hold. “I hope this is for me.” I nodded to the white wine near one of two empty chairs.
Rachel squinted at me. “Should I have ordered you a bottle?”
“Do I look that bad?”
“You don’t look like you.”
Even my best friend sensed I was an imposter. “Things have happened.”
My mother things. Finding my father things. August things. Unsure where to begin, I sat in the seat beside Rachel. Ainsley was on her right, their boyfriends across from them. They all watched me, waiting. I sipped my wine, stalling. I tried to remember that I wasn’t alone in the complicated-relationship department.
Owen was the strong silent type, the tiniest twang to his baritone, a rugged man who’d look at home corralling sheep and saying ma’am. Here he was, smitten with Ainsley, a blond bombshell whose closet rivaled a Bloomingdale’s display. Rachel’s freckled innocence was a sharp contrast to Jimmy’s inked skin and biker style, but they’d fallen cupid stupid in love with each other.
I’d watched both girls the past year, falling in love, then not falling, then falling harder, then hurting before eventually zooming to cloud nine. I was thrilled for them. They deserved the world. Watching them find their other had also torn at me, on a fundamental level.
My dating hiatus the past year had been necessary. The only way to break a habit was by going cold turkey, and my asshole dependency had become a problem. Part of me had believed I didn’t deserve more; a girl who slept with her first love’s brother wasn’t high on Santa’s Nice List. Part of me was just plain tired of no man ever measuring up to the one who owned my heart.
I did want my other, though. I dreamed of it. Yearned for that and more.
A family of my own.
If it didn’t happen one day, I’d toss my name in the adoption pool, find a baby who needed a loving mother, someone who would support her, rub her back when sick, celebrate the highs and commiserate for the lows. I would do it, on my own if need be. It wasn’t my first choice. I wanted the whole package, but there was only one man I’d ever imagined in that role. A virtual impossibility, no matter our earlier flirtations.
I sighed into my wine.
Ainsley nudged Rachel, the two of them striking up conversation as though I wasn’t there. “Is this because of the soccer guy? Her old crush?”
“Considering he showed up at her mother’s house unannounced, I’d go with yes.”
“I need details.”
“Do you ever.” Rachel looked as bewildered as when I’d confessed my WTF. “But it’s not my bedtime story to tell.”
I glared at the girls, who chose an inopportune time to play our Make Her Squeal game. If two of us ignored the third while hanging out, and talked about her in front of her face, the ignored friend eventually caved and spilled her stockpiled gossip. Which was what I wanted to do, break this dam holding my August and lost-luggage drama hostage.
Unfortunately, explaining it was easier in my head.
“Is he as hot up close?” Ainsley went on.
Rachel fanned her face. “Hotter.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly.”
Jimmy lifted his wineglass, studying its garnet color through the light. A sophisticated move for such a rough guy. “If this is how you guys talk while we’re at the table, what do you say when you’re alone?”
“Nothing,” Rachel blurted.
Ainsley tipped up her chin. “We’ll never tell.”
I snickered. I doubted he’d want to hear how we’d discussed his cock in detail, a fun topic we brought up with Rachel as often as possible. Anything to make our friend blush.
“Anyhoo.” Ainsley was on a roll, intent on making me crack. “What’s soccer man’s name again?”
“August.” Owen took a healthy pull on his beer. “We played with him, weekends and evenings in the California Regional League. Went to different schools, but we hung out plenty.”
The soccer guys. The coincidence still astounded me.
Jealousy would sting me every time August would go out and have fun with his friends, while I’d break my brain over calculus and science. My mother’s strict rules had also included a curfew. Another barrier to tagging along with August. I’d never ask for details about his nights, hadn’t wanted to know who he’d seen, what he’d done. Hearing about his fun would only have enflamed my envy.
But I had attended his odd soccer match, would watch from the sidelines with his family. Back then, I’d only had eyes for him. Hadn’t paid the other players a lick of attention.
Now we were all friends.
“Right. August.” Ainsley nodded at Owen like she’d forgotten the only guy I’d ever mooned to them about. The actress was being a sneak. “Was he as hot back then?”
She also had a one-track mind.
Owen’s brown eyes swirled with amusement. “Emmett asked him out once. No. Wait…” He shook his head and smiled. “Twice. It was definitely twice.”
Ainsley hitched her shoulders, hands clutched together excitedly. “Does that mean August’s gay? Is that why he and Gwen never hooked up?”
Owen’s brother was in a relationship now, but I’d heard stories about his rampant dating prior, how much of a player Emmett had been. Learning he’d hit on August when younger wasn’t a surprise. August’s hot factor had been just as high back then.
What was a surprise was having August turn up right as Ainsley asked that mortifying question.
“I’m not gay,” August said, sidling up to our table. His eyes were trained on me, skewering me with enough heat to spark a wildfire.
My breath stalled as I attempted to douse those rising flames, because wow, did he clean up well.
His worn jeans hugged his narrow hips, a few threads at the seams escaping. His plain black T-shirt accentuated his wide shoulders and sinewy arms. His dark hair was still damp, my favorite cowlick swimming against the current. A hint of minty aftershave wafted from his clean-shaven cheeks, and I ached to run my nose along that smooth jawline.
Until he answered the latter of Ainsley’s questions. “Gwen and I didn’t hook up because we had a misunderstanding in college, and she slept with my brother.”
Owen and Jimmy froze. Rachel and Ainsley’s eyes filled half their faces. My world tipped upside down, like I’d bungee jumped, my stomach remaining sky high while the rest of me plunged.
Ignoring the statue game going on around the table, August leisurely pulled out the chair opposite me. He slid my wineglass toward him and took a sip, licking his lips as he swallowed. He grinned at me.
Grinned.
At me.
If he were closer, I’d twist his nipple so hard, he’d see the Milky Way.
“Glad you could make it and turn my friends into stone,” I told him, my voice rising in pitch and aggravation. “The girls and I are going to the bathroom now. Together. Like girls do. We might be a while.”
My chair screeched on the concrete floor as I used my head and thumbs to gesture toward the back of the bar. Rachel and Ainsley picked up on my game of charades lickety-split and followed my hurried strides into the bathroom.
The space was decorated like a country porch, complete with cushioned seat, barn-style stalls, and sunflowers. “He’s insane,” I said as I fell onto the yellow cushion.
Rachel covered her mouth with her hand. “I can’t believe he blurted that.”
“He must want to torture me, slowly and painfully. It’s his form of retribution.” It was probably why he’d agreed to come out. To humiliate me. Make me look bad in front of my friends. Our friends. Whatever.
Ainsley’s eyebrows finally descended from her hairline. “I can’t weigh in on what went down until you fill me in.”
I contemplated putting her off, not reliving my teenage stupidity again, but there was no point. It was easier this time. The confession still shamed me, but the more often I spoke about it—to Rachel, with August, now Ainsley—the easier it got. “Do you think that’s why he aired our dirty laundry?”
Ainsley cocked her head. “What’s why? I don’t follow.”
“When he showed up, that ambush of his seemed—”
“Technically,” Rachel cut in, “it wasn’t an ambush. He was answering Ainsley’s question.”
I glowered at Ainsley. “Remind me to thank you for that later.”
She plucked a sunflower from a sink vase and offered it to me. “A token for my peccadillo.”
I accepted her gift and spun the massive flower. “Have you been playing crosswords again?”
“Yes, but I cheated for that word, which means a small transgression. Like August’s fumble now. But isn’t everything better out in the open?”
“Which brings me to the point I was trying to make.” This conversation was tangling as quickly as my thoughts. “I hadn’t spoken with anyone about that night for nine years, and I get the impression August hadn’t either. Even thinking about it before made me feel like I’d eaten one of Ainsley’s vegan desserts.” I mimed an upset stomach. Served her right for the accidental ambush.
She rolled her eyes. “You guys love my baking.”
We did not, but we ate the horrible efforts anyway.
“What about now?” Rachel asked me, avoiding the vegan discussion like the good friend she was. “Do you feel less pukey about the whole thing?”
“If I stop and relive the fiasco, I start to spiral, but it’s easier. So either August wants to torment me in front of you guys, or he’s trying to lighten our history, make it less of a big deal.”
Option A meant this reunion of ours would end shortly, no friendship maintained. Option B meant he might truly want to put our past to bed. He might want me in that bed with him.
The possibility excited and terrified me in equal measure.
Ainsley looked over my head, at the mirror behind me. Her purple wrap dress hugged her generous curves, her small stature elevated by matching stilettos. She adjusted the tie that hung at her side. “Judging by the way he looked at you, I’d say the only tormenting he wants to do involves ropes, hot wax, and silk sheets.”
That visual had heat flooding my neck. “How was he looking at me?” I fanned my face with the massive flower.
“Like you’re a supermodel, and he’s had your picture on his wall forever, like the skimpy bikini kind, and he just realized he gets to sex you up.”
I choked on air. “That was specific.”
Ainsley gestured toward the door, as though August was there. “So was his extensive eye-fucking. He wants bikini-poster sex.”
Too frazzled to compute that, I stroked the sunflower’s petals. “I’m in deep water here. The shark-infested kind. I mean, August is, without a doubt, the one who got away. If I had another chance with him, I’d jump at it.” Pole vault, to be precise. “But there’s been another development.”
More drama to unload, because I was living in soap opera central. Once I finished outlining the arrival of my mother’s lost luggage, the time gap between its contents and it going missing, the journal, and the first clue I’d found, the girls had sat on either side of me, scooched close in a love sandwich.
Rachel gathered my hand in hers. “Are you nervous about searching for your dad?”
Terrified. Nauseated. Overwhelmed. “Definitely.” I tried dissecting the million and one thoughts boxing my brain. “I believe we get what we get in the family department. We don’t choose our parents or siblings or relatives. I got short-strawed and made it through, but I spent a lot of years resenting my mother, and resenting myself in the process. It’s part of the reason I pushed August away back then—my shitty self-worth. And I’m worried searching for my father now could take me back to that place, but I also see finding him as a brand new chance, my last-ditch effort to have family. I have so many questions for him.”
Did he seek adrenaline rushes, too?
Had he chosen to leave me, or had Mary never told him I existed?
Did he hate mayonnaise?
Was he afraid of spiders?
When he looked out the window at the moon, did he sometimes wonder what it would be like to float through space?
I had a journal full of questions, some silly, some scary, and I wanted to ask them all. Not at once, obviously. No sense scaring the man stiff. But the questions had built up over my teen and adult years, so many it was hard to breathe at times. Like the pressure against my breastbone would rupture if I never sat face-to-face with the man and found out who he was.
Ainsley pressed her hand to my knee. “What if he’s awful? You don’t know anything about him. Maybe there’s a good reason your mother never told you his name.”
She could be right, but the more I thought about meeting him, the greater my curiosity grew. Exactly why I’d needed to talk this out. “I think I’d rather know. I’d rather meet him and see for myself he’s an asshole. Without that, I’ll drive myself nuts.”
When families came to me, desperate to adopt, I’d warn them how long and grueling the process could be, how emotionally draining. Little good that did. Each phone call and meeting, nerves and fear would invade their voices. Wisps of hope. Nothing beat giving good news to prospective parents. I wouldn’t trade those joyful tears and hugs for anything. Letting others down often led to Ben & Jerry sessions with the girls, where we’d heckle bad reality TV and commiserate.
Still, I preferred it to the limbo of the parents not knowing. Answers, good or bad, meant they could move on. Make another choice. Reevaluate their lives. Like I had after I’d tracked down my grandparents.
That shit show had involved my grandmother asking if I’d found God, then listing all the ways young girls sinned. Instead of the cookies and tea and hugs I’d dreamed of, I’d gotten a fanatic only interested in preaching at me. The confrontation had been upsetting, but it had allowed me to quit obsessing over something I’d never have. I moved on.
Exactly what I needed to do with my dad.
Until I knew unequivocally, one way or another, if my father was a good or bad man, a drunk or a saint, funny or mean, warm or cold, I’d exist in a perpetual state of uncertainty, those wisps of hope to one day meet him never letting me close that door to my past.
“I think knowing is better than limbo. If he’s a dick, so be it.” I rubbed my eyes, forgetting I’d applied more eyeliner than usual. Raccoon eyes weren’t sexy.
Ainsley patted my thigh. “Then we’re here for you, for whatever you need. But back to the August issue.” She peered at me intently, getting up in my face. “You said you asked him to help find your father. Did he answer?”
I squirmed, remembering the solidness of him as he’d held me on his very firm lap. How I’d panicked afterward. “He flirted instead. And when I confronted him later, asked why he came by, he said he wasn’t sure anymore.”
“Your past is pretty intense,” Ainsley said.
“Maybe he showed up wanting closure.” Rachel’s soft voice was more soothing than her words. “He could’ve been surprised how much he still felt for you.”
That prospect was preferable. “But why now? My mom dying, the luggage, August—it all feels too coincidental. I’m not sure it’s smart to deal with August with all this other…stuff going on.”
Rachel rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. “You guys remember the blackout when we made our wish? Last year?”
It was impossible to forget that crazy night: the three of us with our eyes closed, holding hands as midnight struck, making our resolutions as a blackout had pitched the bar into darkness.
Crazy with a side of loop-dee-loo.
“Well,” Rachel went on, “I kind of thought something larger was going on that night. Something bigger guiding our choices. It was part of the reason I worked so hard to realize my resolution. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with believing in the impossible. In us being connected to unseen forces that impact our lives. You wished to find your father because it was important to you, and now you have your mother’s diary and your first love giving you sexy eyes, all before your chosen deadline. If it were me, I’d stop trying to figure out why. I’d take the breadcrumbs offered and follow their trail. Maybe August turned up for a reason.”
“Aside from embarrassing me in front of my friends?”
She pinched my side. “Aside from that. But we’ll laugh about it eventually.”
In her dark jeans and cream blouse, adorably freckled Rachel appeared sweet and levelheaded, not like a flake who believed in crystal balls and fairy godmothers. But she was insisting August was a sign, the lost luggage fate, the diary my destiny.
The notion was wild and impossible. Or was it?
Today’s strange happenings were precisely what made it hard to dismiss her hypothesis. There was no point fighting something unexplainable, especially when the mystery brought with it a certain dark-haired musician.
I’d had it bad for August since the sweltering summer day he’d invited me to run, screaming and laughing, through his sprinklers. I’d been nine years old and struck dumb by a boy with a smile big enough to brighten my somber world.
I glanced at the exit, shaky and apprehensive, knowing he was out there. “He never answered when I asked him to help me find my father. What if he says no?”
Ainsley stood and smoothed her dress. “After the comment he made, and those fuck-me eyes, there’s no way he’ll say no. I guarantee he’s out there right now, dishing to the guys about you. Which means I need to fix your eyeliner before we go back out.”
“Oh!” Rachel clapped. “It’s like you guys are performing a remake of Grease—us girls in here, the boys out there, gossiping about your lost love. It’s so romantic.”
Clearly Rachel was as delusional as me, but I pictured the silly scene and smiled as my friends fussed over my smudged face.