BFF* (37 page)

“Here are the facts,” Charles said quietly to Alison, as he sat beside her on my bed. “I'm one-eighth Korean, one-eighth Native American, one-quarter Irish, one-quarter Eastern European, and one-quarter Cuban.”

“How would you know all that if you were adopted?” I asked.

“I've seen the papers.”

Alison was confused and so was I. “Get out of my room!” I shouted at Charles, holding the door open. “Now!”

“Goodnight, California,” Charles sang as he left. “Until next time …” He blew her a kiss.

I slammed the door after him. “I'm sorry,” I said to Alison. “He's so obnoxious.”

“No … it's okay,” she said.

“It's not okay! He's playing with your mind.”

“Maybe he is adopted.”

“He's not!”

“You're younger,” she said. “Maybe you just don't know. Some people don't talk about it.”

“It's not possible!” I said, feeling lost. “Grandpa Robinson said—” I stopped in midsentence. “I mean, he looks like my father … don't you think?”

“Not really,” she said.

But Mom and Dad would never keep such a secret, would they? No, they believe in honesty. On the other hand, Mom is a very private person. She holds everything inside.

As soon as Alison left, I went directly to my parents' room and knocked on their door.

Dad called, “Enter ….” He was grading papers at his desk. I heard water running in the bathroom. Mom was probably taking a shower.

I pulled a small chair over to Dad's desk and waited for him to look up from his work. When he did, he said, “What can I do for you?”

“I have a very important question,” I said.

“Okay … shoot.”

There was no easy way to do this. I focused on Mom's collection of glass bottles. There are eleven
of them sitting on top of her dresser, each with a silver top.

“Rachel …” Dad said.

I looked at him, then back at Mom's bottles. Finally I managed to say, “Is Charles adopted?”

Dad didn't answer right away. He reached for my hand. “I know it must feel that way to you …”

“It doesn't feel that way to me,” I said, “but that's what he just told Alison! He told her he's one-eighth Native American, one-eighth Korean, one-quarter Irish and …”

Dad started laughing.

“I don't find it funny at all!”

“He's not adopted,” Dad said. “He probably just feels that would explain things.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” I asked.

Dad stroked my arm. “I was there at his birth, honey. I held him in my arms, same as I held Jessica and you when you were born. Not that I wouldn't love any of you just as much if you were adopted …”

“It's cruel to lie to someone who really is adopted, trying to make her think they have something in common.”

“I'm not excusing him,” Dad said, “but maybe he likes Alison and is trying to impress her.”

“What do you mean by
likes?”

Dad kind of smiled and said, “You know … boy meets girl …”

“You mean likes her
that
way!” I didn't give Dad a chance to respond. I jumped up. “That's out of the question. She's my friend. My friends are off-limits to him. You've got to do something, Dad! You've got to get him out of my life!”

“Rachel, honey …” Dad stood, too, and wrapped me in his arms. “It's going to be all right. I know these are difficult times …”

“So were the Crusades!” Mom said, coming out of the bathroom in her purple robe.

C
harles has a tutor. His name is Paul Medeiros and he's tall, about six feet, with dark hair and dark eyes. He wears rimless glasses. He's Dad's student teacher. He's going to come to our house every afternoon for two hours. This means Charles will
not
be finishing ninth grade at my school. What a relief!

When I met Paul a few days ago, he was wearing jeans and a black pocket T-shirt. He had a pencil smudge on the side of his face. He said, “So you're Charles's older sister.”

“No,” Charles told him, “this is my
baby
sister.” Charles was wearing a T-shirt that said A
LL
S
TRESSED
U
P AND
No O
NE TO
C
HOKE
. I felt like choking him!

“She doesn't look like a baby,” Paul said.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Charles said. “She's just thirteen.” He said
thirteen
as if it were the plague.

I could see the surprise on Paul's face. But I liked
him for not making a big thing out of it. “Then you're the musician?” Paul asked.

“Well, I love music but I'm not that good,” I told him.

“She's only a child prodigy,” Charles said.

“Charles … I am not!” I wish he would stop calling me that! I've met real prodigies at music camp. Some of them are only ten or eleven and they're already studying at Juilliard. It was a shock when I realized I'll never be as good as they are, no matter how much I practice.

Paul gave me an understanding smile, then playfully shoved Charles back toward his room. “Okay, time to hit the books.” He turned for a moment and said, “Nice to meet you, Rachel.”

When he said my name, I felt incredibly warm inside. At first I thought I was having what Mom and her friends call a
hot flash
. But I don't think you get them till you're older. I'm not sure if what I feel for Paul is pure animal attraction or not. Either way, from now on I'll have to be very careful because if Charles ever finds out—or even
suspects
—I have an interest in Paul, he will deliberately humiliate me in front of him. Not that I think Paul would let him get away with it. Still, the damage would be done.

That night I lay on my bed reading sonnets to the cats. I imagined I was onstage and the entire audience, including Paul, was mesmerized by my voice.

Suddenly I had the feeling I wasn't alone and when I looked up, Charles was standing in my doorway. “You read Shakespeare to the cats?” he asked.

“They're very good listeners,” I told him. “Now please leave!”

“You know, Rachel … when people start reading to their animals …”

“Out!” I said again. “Right now!”

I could hear him chuckling even after he'd closed my door.

I began to think of Paul every night when I went to bed. Thinking about him is very relaxing. It's better than anything I've read in
Psychology Today
. My jaw hasn't hurt at all since Paul started coming to our house. But whether that's due to my new dental appliance or to Paul himself, I really can't say.

I wonder if Tarren knows him since he's graduating from the same college where she is a junior. Next time I see her I'll have to ask.

B
ut the next time Tarren came over, she pressed a screaming baby into my arms and said, “Where's your mother?” Her eyes were red and swollen, her hair damp and matted around her face.

Mom was at the dining room table, working on what could be her last big jury trial before she is appointed a judge. “Tarren, what is it?” Mom asked, pushing back her chair.

Tarren threw her arms around Mom and cried, “Aunt Nell … my life is just one big mess! I don't think I can take it anymore.”

Roddy continued to scream. Mom said, “Rachel, take the baby into the kitchen and give him a bottle or something.”

Tarren pulled off her shoulder bag and passed it to me. “There's a bottle inside.”

I took Roddy into the kitchen, but since there's no door between the kitchen and the dining room I could still hear everything.

“All right,” Mom said to Tarren. “Now calm down and tell me what's going on.”

Tarren sobbed, “I got another ticket … for speeding. I was only doing sixty-seven, but they gave me points.” She blew her nose. “If I lose my license I won't be able to get to school and if I can't get to school I'll never graduate, and if I don't graduate and get a teaching job I'll never be able to support myself and Roddy and I'll never get out of my parents' house, or have my own life, or …” She was crying again.

Mom sounded firm. “Listen to me, Tarren. We've been through this before. You are responsible for your own actions.”

“But it was a mistake,” Tarren cried. “I didn't know I was going over the speed limit.”

“We all make mistakes,” Mom told her. “The point
is, you can't fall apart every time something goes wrong. You've got to learn to be strong!”

“I don't know how to be strong, Aunt Nell. I want to be like you … you know I do … but I just don't know how.”

“Then you're going to learn, right now,” Mom said. “You're going to start by telling yourself, This is not a life-threatening situation. This is not a serious problem.”

“It's not?” Tarren asked.

“No, it's not!” Mom said.

Roddy lay in my arms, sucking on his bottle, his fingers playing with my hair. I love Roddy. I love the way he smells and feels. I love his sweetness.

“And I don't want to hear you sounding like your father, Tarren,” Mom continued. “Your father still hasn't learned to be strong, and he's forty …” Mom hesitated.

“Forty-four,” Tarren said.

“Yes, forty-four,” Mom repeated. Mom says Uncle Carter takes after Grandfather Babcock, who drank too much and wasted his money on get-rich-quick schemes. I never knew Grandfather Babcock. He died when Mom was just nineteen. I think she worries that Charles will turn out like him or Uncle Carter.

“Life is an obstacle course,” Mom said.

I know Mom's obstacle speech by heart.
We all have to make decisions. I'm not saying it's easy. But you don't
have to collapse every time you come face-to-face with an obstacle
.

“An obstacle …” Tarren repeated, her voice trailing off.

As Mom and Tarren were talking, Charles breezed into the kitchen. “Hey, Roddy, baby … how's it going?” He lifted Roddy off my lap and held him high over his head. Roddy shrieked, loving it.

“He just finished a …” I began to say, but by then it was too late. Roddy spit up half of what I'd just fed him, right on Charles's head.

Charles shoved Roddy back at me and ran for the sink. He turned on the faucet full blast and stuck his head under it. When he'd had enough, he turned off the water and shook his head like a dog who's been for a swim. Roddy clapped his hands and laughed. Then Charles laughed, too. “Very funny, Roddy,” he said. “Ha-ha-ha.”

“Aa-aa-aa,” Roddy sang back.

“So what's tonight's catastrophe?” Charles asked, with a nod in Tarren's direction. He grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped his face.

“A speeding ticket,” I said.

“She thinks Mom can fix it?”

“I don't know.”

“Lots of luck,” Charles said. Then he waved at Roddy and left.

This is what it must be like to have a regular brother,
I thought. Someone you can laugh with, someone who talks to you naturally, without being sarcastic or cruel. Someone you can face every day without feeling you are walking on eggs. Why can't Charles be that kind of brother all the time?

Tarren looked less anxious when she came back into the kitchen. “I don't know what I'd do without you, Aunt Nell.” She hugged Mom. “You're the most supportive person in my life. I hope someday I'll be more like you.”

“You'll be fine,” Mom said. “You can handle whatever life throws your way. Remember … obstacles, not problems.”

“Right,” Tarren said. “Obstacles.” She reached for Roddy.

“You are about the luckiest girl alive,” she told me. “You have the most wonderful mother in the entire universe!”

It's funny how people think life would be perfect if only they had different parents.