Reunion (38 page)

Wouldn’t he have known if he’d had a half-brother? Sensed it, somehow?

Blue’s child, and his father’s. It could be true. It could be true that his instincts were so sucky that he’d fallen for his own half-brother’s mom.

What he wouldn’t give, just now, for a hot shower.

A hot shower, and the answer to how much of Blue’s generosity toward his father—if any—stemmed from guilt over the secret she’d kept all this time. He took out his BlackBerry and pulled up his father’s number.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

Nothing I want.
“Captain Morgan’s, double.”

He hoped Blue had something at hand to smooth the edges from her day, too. What must she be doing, locked up, all alone? Would she call someone? Her mom? Marcy? She shouldn’t be trying to deal with this all on her own, but she obviously didn’t want to let the privilege fall to him.

He called his father, listened to the line ring. When his father answered, Julian had no preamble, he simply said, “Blue had a kid back in the eighties. Is it yours?”

“Wait. What?”

Julian filled in the details, then said, “I need to know.”

“Good God. No. She had a
child?”

“Apparently.”

“I never imagined … But no, J, it’s not mine.”

“How can you be so sure?” Julian asked, taking his glass from the bartender.

“We never, you know, we didn’t get that far.”

“Come on.”

“I’m completely sincere. What’s happening there? Is she all right?”

“I wish I knew. I’ll talk to you later.” Julian ended the call, then downed his drink all at once.

“Set me up,” he told the bartender. One more, for clarity, or courage, or something.

So the kid wasn’t related to him; that at least was clear. Everything else, though? Not so much. Twenty minutes ago he’d been convinced he should tell Blue about his feelings, that the timing was right, that everything was converging into a moment of truth and, if nothing else, he’d walk away knowing he’d done the right thing.

Then he’d walked away and now had no idea if he’d done the right thing.

Daniel and Lynn would be wondering what had become of him. He knew he should call, but had no answer to give them. What
had
become of him since he’d left Iraq eighteen hours earlier? What would?

Eventually he would have to step back into his life, figure it all out, make some choices. Soon, he would have to make some plans, some decisions more difficult than whether to have a third drink when the one the bartender was pouring was gone.

The bartender set his drink in front of him, then a moment later laid a Green Parrot T-shirt next to it. “From the ladies at the pool table.” He inclined his head, and Julian looked that way. Two twenty-somethings, with over-dyed hair and enough extra cleavage exposed by their bikini tops to make another woman or two. The women waved and smiled.

SLICE OF LIFE
, read a banner painted across the beam above them. An American flag hung from the beam’s center.

One of them called, “We don’t want you to catch cold!”

He raised his glass in a salute, then turned back and rested his elbows on the bar. He thought again of how he’d felt sitting next to Blue on her
porch, the fear and wonder of possibility. Maybe it wasn’t rational, but it was real. He’d thought it was real. Wasn’t it possible that it had been real?

“Nah,” he said.

The bartender, who was stowing clean glasses nearby, asked, “Did you say something?”

“I said my imagination’s running away with me.”

“Happens to a lot of guys when those sorts of girls are around. Looks to me like your two might be happy to oblige you.”

Julian nodded as though they were talking about the same things. The bartender continued to look at the girls and grin.

Even after draining his second glass of rum, Julian felt short of answers to the hard questions. He tried one more, then put money on the bar, stopped in the bathroom, and left for today’s version of home.

The rum that had seemed to have no effect while he was sitting on the bar stool became a little more effective as he’d made his way through dark streets in rain that had slowed again. Traffic was light, owing to the rain and it being too early for the crank-up of Duval Street’s revelry. His main danger, while walking along some of the alleyway cut-throughs, was that he would fail to see a chicken or a dog or a tabloid reporter in his path, and fall facefirst into the dirt.

His feet and his pant legs were soaked when he got to the house, entering through the back door. Daniel set down the book he’d been reading. Lynn did the same, and got up from her seat at the table, where a loaf of French bread and a cutting board full of cheese said they’d waited dinner for him. He put a hand against the kitchen door for balance and attempted to take off his shoes, saying as he did, “I have some news.” He had to tell them what was going on; his photo and the Forrester name was about to be everywhere times ten.

Lynn went toward the hallway saying, “There will be no dissemination of news until you’re dry. Wait there.”

He concentrated on pulling free the knot in his left shoelace and thought about the word
dissemination.
It had a vague sexual quality, like, taking away semen—castration would be a synonym …

“Julian?”

He was drifting. “Hmm?”

“Where ya been?”

“Oh. Well, I wanted to take a walk, you know, after spending all day in coach class. I had a window seat from Berlin to Miami—”

“Here you go.” Lynn brought him a warm towel—what a wonder she was!—and draped it over his shoulders, then shooed him out, saying, “Daniel already put your things out in your room. Come right back, and then you can share your news while we have dinner.”

Inside the guest cottage was a wall of photographs he’d made in the first few years after Daniel got him started with a 35mm point-and-shoot. Everything that moved, and most things that didn’t, had been targets for his enthusiasm. There were pictures, here, of tree trunks and bike tires and clouds; there was a collage of feet photos, every kind of footwear imaginable. His first bird photos were here: gulls, herons, and one of his favorites, an Oystercatcher, vivid in its black and white plumage and orange beak.

This was a bird to admire; it didn’t take the easy route the way the other birds did, surviving opportunistically on bugs and worms and fish. No, it was named for its habit, and to see it living up to its name was to witness an impressive feat.

He dried off and changed clothes, thinking about it. Alec had said he was like the loners of the aviary world, and he had been. Now, though, he would rather be like the Oystercatcher, engaged, purposeful.

Simple, elegant nature … It was so much easier for the birds, which simply were what they were, no effort, no forethought, no second-guessing involved. No deliberate cruelty, no artifice.

If God
had
created mankind, he’d done it on an off day and was now simply waiting for the species to give way.

ight hardly traveled faster than sensational news. As Marcy would soon report, the story of the ambush was all over the Internet before Blue had risen from the middle of the parlor floor and finally answered Marcy’s panicked call—her seventh attempt, according to the cell phone display. Blue had heard the phone ringing again and again, had noticed the day growing dark, but only vaguely. She could not recall how she’d gotten inside the house, or what had become of Julian. She recalled only that feeling, that strange yank to the edge of the abyss, and the relief she felt when going over—and, once in, how vast and empty it was.

Marcy was saying, “Oh thank God,
there
you are.”

“Yes, I’m here.” The sound of voices outside drew her to the window. A sea of umbrellas was outside the wall. Where had they all come from? It must have been a race from all points north the minute Drudge began banging his drum.

“So it’s out, like, everywhere, as you know.” Marcy sighed. “God damn it all. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay …”

“You don’t sound okay. Hey, did you tell a reporter that Julian was your boyfriend?”

“Did I what? No.”

“I couldn’t imagine, although the pictures on
TMZ—
”

“What pictures?”

“Of you holding hands—these people work
fast…
And there’s one
of him behind you on the porch; he’s holding on to your arm. What’s up with that?” Bastards.

Blue said, “Any names—you know,
his
name, parents, anything?” “Nothing. No, here, I’ll read you the statement from the site where this all started. It’s that woman, Meredith’s daughter. She found the picture of you, and then I guess busted a gasket. Listen:

“Oh for God’s sake,” Blue said.

“Exactly. Wait, this is the thing:

“Peter called Masterson and tried to get it yanked. No surprise, he got nowhere.” Marcy added, “So there you have it: Another happy
TBRS
viewer, another happy
TBRS
guest.”

“I can fix this,” Blue said. Her voice sounded stony, seemed to echo inside her head.

“How do you mean?” Marcy’s voice grew cautious. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” She flipped the switch for the overhead light. “I’m going to figure things out.”

“Blue, the networks are calling, the paparazzi are swarming … And God, the website headlines … they’re making it look like you’re sleeping with Mitch and Julian at the same time. What
are
you doing with Julian?
TMZ
says he tried to attack the reporter—the pictures they posted—Christ, what a nightmare. It’s too late, we’re sunk on this one.”

Julian. Mitch. The Forresters. She blinked away the images. There was nothing to be salvaged there.

She would think only about the show. She said, “No, not sunk, I won’t let that happen.” They were all depending on her, everyone at
TBRS
, Marcy, Peter, Todd, Elena, Marcus, Shawn—whose wife was about to have triplets, she couldn’t let them down. “I can fix it…” Somehow. Ideas streamed through her mind. “I’ll put things right and the show will be okay, it’ll be safe … I … let’s see … Okay, I know: I just need a small crew to go with me to Provence.”

“To go
where?
You’re not making sense.”

“I am.” She began pacing the room’s perimeter, treading a single
plank like a balance beam as she walked toward the windows, then, when she turned right, avoiding the cracks until she was across and could take a single plank again. “I’ll say … I’ll say I asked Julian here to discuss his work on
Lions.
Then I’ll… I’ll make a statement about my giving up a child for adoption, and then I’ll go to Provence, to, you know, talk to Angelina Jolie about how adoption’s good for some kids. Will that work? I think they’re still in France. Get Peter on it. When I’m back we’ll do a whole week just on, on, on teen pregnancy and desperation and adoption. Do I need to get a visa before I go, or—”

“Even if all this was possible, you can’t just run off to France. Your mother’s about to get married.”

“Not until next weekend.”

Blue heard some rustling and a voice, someone talking to Marcy. Then Marcy said, “Where are you right now?”

“In my house.” She wiped her nose on her shirt hem and went to the kitchen to check her purse for her passport. “Why?”

“Stand still.”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re doing, just stop and stand still and listen.”

“We don’t have time to debate this, Marcy.” She began to dig through her purse. “I need you to find out if I can get into the country without a visa. Then I need you to charter a plane—wait, do that first, and get me a car to the airport, and then check on the visa, and then—” okay, there was her passport, good—“get in touch with Angelina’s publicist and—”