Twisted Proposal (3 page)

“So what do you think of him?” she asked as the car defrosted.

“I don’t.”
There was nothing to think about. He was nothing to me.

“He seems nice.”

“I don’t feel like talking right now.” Shutting my eyes to the world seemed like the best decision for now. Nothing was going to be the same anymore.
Why did mom have to tell him I even existed?
She should have just taken the secret of me to the grave.
Who was I kidding?
This was mom’s last dose of drama. 

The car moved forward, and we rolled past a bus stop. Last year at this time mom was arrested in a bar fight, and I spent all the money I had saved for bills to get her out. We stood in that bus shelter for over an hour. It was snowing, and I remember her trying to make me laugh. She claimed I frowned too much. I did my best to ignore her, but eventually cracked.
Why wasn’t I nicer to her?
Why did she have to make it so hard?

“We’re at the hospital,” Sandy announced. I opened my eyes.

Was this some kind of sick joke?
We were in the exact parking spot in the parking garage as yesterday, when Sandy brought me here to say goodbye to Mom. She’d been in the hospital for over a week and the doctors said it was just a matter of time. If Sandy remembered, she didn’t say anything as we exited the car.
Maybe she was testing me or something.

A strange numbness took over as we made our way inside. Memories of mom’s final moments replayed over and over in my head like a bad movie. Sandy checked me in.

Ten minutes later, a nurse called my name, and I was taken to a small room behind the desk and a curtain drawn.  She told me to sit in a dark maroon plastic chair.
This was just a really bad dream, and I would wake up soon. Mom would be getting ready for another night at the bar while I started my homework.
I pinched myself.
Nope, this was real.

“I’m Tracie,” announced a woman in bright green scrubs.

Quit smiling.
“Addison Solomon.” 

She tried to make conversation, but I didn’t engage with her. It was taxing enough just not to break down.
I wonder if mom was still in the morgue.
I shivered the thought away and watched my blood fill the glass vial that would determine my fate. She released the tourniquet, and it was done. Now it was mere hours until the truth was confirmed.  The nurse led me back to Sandy, and we left.

Back in the car, I reviewed my conversation with Stuart again in my head.
There was something about him that I didn’t trust. But what?

“We’re here,” Sandy said.

Sleet had replaced the cold rain as we went inside Family Services.  I’d been here a few times when I needed a place to stay and couldn’t find mom. So I made my way to the family room that was furnished with a couple of sagging sofas, T.V., and a big plastic box of toys that had been shoved into the corner. Thankfully there were no other kids. I sat on a lumpy couch and slid my shoes off.

I had a father. He was alive.
I lay on my side, and rested my head on a flat cushion, blinked a few times, and drifted off to asleep.

Chapter Three

“Addison, honey, wake up.”
Mom
? My eyes shot open and I came face to face with the blue-green eyes of my father. I jerked away from his touch.

“You were having a bad dream.” He took a seat at the end of the couch, careful to give me space. The lamps in the room had been turned on, and the television was on low. 

“What time is it?”

“About 7:00 p.m. You slept a while. Feel better?”

“I guess.”
No
. Rubbing my neck, I noticed a blanket half on me.
Did he cover me up, or was it Sandy?

“Okay, so now what?” He faced me, his arm draped on the back of the couch, relaxed.

“Uh...I don’t know.”
Like I know how this works.

“Sandy told me everything.”

“Whatever that means.” I focused my eyes on the brown carpet.
Everything, what did that entail? The last sixteen years of my existence? There wasn’t enough time in the day.

“I’m sorry about your mother. I assumed she would have given you up or something…”

I lifted my eyes to his. “But she didn’t. Get over it. I did.”

“Can I ask you a question without you flipping out?”

“Maybe.”

“What happened to your eye? You and your boyfriend get in a fight or something?” he asked.

Did I hear him wrong?
“I can’t believe you asked me that.”

“I‘m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, but I can only imagine what ‘home life’ was like.” He shrugged.

“You have no clue what my home life was like. Why would you?”
This was never going to work.
Pushing off the couch, I rose and paced the floor. “Look if you must know, my mom’s ex-boyfriend stopped by and wanted some money. When I told him I didn’t have any, he attacked me.”

“Did you stop him?”

“How? It’s not like I’m a black belt in karate. I mean, even if I was, it’s hard to overpower someone who’s tweaking, but I don’t expect you to understand anything like that.”
This guy has some nerve.

“True. But I’ve dealt with drug addicts; remember, I dated your aunt. What did you do?”

I paused and sat down. “The only logical thing to do at that time, I dropped a cement brick on his head as he was leaving the building. That jerk wasn’t taking my hard earned money.”

“A brick?”

“Uh, yeah. One of those breeze blocks. Mom used it to prop up the window in the kitchen. So after he stole my money and left, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed it. Then returned to the living room window, busted the screen out, and waited for the front door to open. It was merely by chance that it actually hit him.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No, that would have made things worse. Besides, I’m fine.”

“Excuse me, but have you looked in the mirror? You’re anything but fine. Besides that, he assaulted you. The man belongs behind bars.” 

“Yeah well, calling the police wasn’t the first thing on my mind. Besides, we don’t have a phone at home.”
Why did he care? He was probably going to be leaving in a few days anyway.

“Okay, so you don’t have a house phone, but you have a cell phone right? I mean everyone has at least a cell phone these days.”

“No, apparently not everyone.”

“Oh,” he said and we sat in silence for a few minutes. On the TV, the weatherman predicted more snow.
Great.

“Well.” He stood, stretched, and moseyed over to the archway of the room. “It was nice meeting you, Addison. I’m going back to my hotel; I have a lot to do. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Did I say something wrong? Why was he leaving?
I didn’t respond and rested my head back on the pillow.
If he was smart, he would get in his car and run back to his family and leave me. Please.

I must have fallen asleep again, because when Sandy woke me up it was after ten according to the clock on the wall.

“You’re spending the night with me. I hope you don’t mind.” She had my bags with her.

Shaking my head no, I slipped on my shoes and coat.
At least I didn’t have to spend another night in jail. 

Outside, the snow-covered sleet made a crunching noise as we walked to her car in silence. I glanced around. There was no sign of Stuart’s gas guzzler anywhere. He was probably at his five-star hotel drinking a whiskey sour, trying to figure out how to tell his wife about me.
I wished he would just leave me alone.

Sandy cranked on the heat and an old love song came on the radio. It brought back a memory of mom dancing around the kitchen. I flipped the radio off. I didn’t want any more reminders. Instead of speaking, Sandy turned the radio back on but switched the channel as the car began to move.

Most social workers I had been assigned to disappeared after a month or so, which is what I expected would happen to Sandy. She couldn’t have been older than thirty, and I knew she was doing the job to make a difference, it radiated off her like a bad smell. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that there were too many kids that needed help and not enough resources.
Who was I to shatter someone’s dream?

It was well after eleven when she parked her car and got out. I grabbed my bags and followed her into a high-rise building and up a flight of stairs to Apartment 204.

“Just ignore the mess,” she said, stepping aside to let me into a cluttered front room.
If I thought my apartment was tiny, this place was a shoebox.
I faced her.
Now what?

“Let me show you to where you’ll be sleeping.” She led me down a narrow hallway to a bedroom with a bed, dresser, and a few unpacked boxes that rested against a wall.
At least I had my own room and it was warm.
I eased past her, deposited my things on the twin bed, and sat down. “Thanks.”

“It would mean a lot to me if you didn’t try to run away.” she said leaning against the doorjamb.

Instead of answering, I focused my eyes on the dark wooden dresser near the window. I wasn’t going to run anymore.
What would have been the point?
My mother had been lying to me my whole life and the only way to find out answers was to stick around and see how the blood test panned out.

“I’ll be in the other room if you need anything.” She left the door open.

I shut the door and sighed.
Alone at last.
I took off my shoes and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, which had a small crack near the light fixture. Never in a million years did I think my father was alive. There was no reason to. When I turned twelve, I stopped visiting the grave mom had taken me to, and began to blame everything on her. She made it so easy because she screwed up so often.
Why would she call him? What did she think he could do for me? It just didn’t make sense.

Getting up, I emptied the contents of my bags on the floor in front of me.
Time to take inventory.
I had to see what I needed in case the opportunity to run came up again. First, I pulled Mom’s signature jean jacket out of the pile of clothes. She had it on the day she went into the hospital. I could smell her when I brought the jacket close to my nose:
sunflowers and cheap cigarettes.
I sniffled and brushed away tears.
Stupid to start crying now.

My second bag held other personal treasures. I removed my school books first and hid them under the bed. It wasn’t like they were useful to me now. Besides, I could use the space they were taking. Then I lifted out a wooden box wrapped in a plastic bag. These were Mom’s keepsakes.
Maybe looking through her things would make me feel better.
Without removing the covering, I imagined the stack of papers inside, held together with a purple rubber band, the newspaper clippings from when Elizabeth killed herself, and the tiny bag of knickknacks.
Maybe Mom had hidden a clue in the papers.

I ripped the black trash bag off and unrolled the tee shirt I used for padding, exposing the familiar amber-colored chest. When I turned it over in my hands, I stopped in horror.

This wasn’t her box!
Instead of a pink rose painted on the lid, a blue lily graced the top.
Where was Mom’s keepsakes?
Standing, I dropped the box and swiveled in a circle, staring down in disbelief at all my stuff.
How could I have grabbed the wrong one? There’d always been one, not two.
I had to get home
.
I had to find Mom’s box before something happened to it.

“Are you hungry?” Sandy asked from the door, disrupting my thoughts.

Shoot!
I shuffled everything around and quickly answered the thin door,
“A little.” I stepped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind me.
Maybe I could sneak out when she went to bed.
 

“How about a grilled cheese sandwich?”

My stomach answered for me by growling. “Sounds great.” I followed her back to the crammed family room. As I stared around the room, one thing was abundantly clear, this woman was a pack rack. The only place that wasn’t covered in papers, file folders, books, and magazines was the computer and television.

A large pink breast cancer ribbon graced the computer screen. The least I could do was see what kind of information the Internet had about Stuart. “Can I use the computer?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said from the kitchen.

              I sat down and wiggled the mouse, bringing the computer to life. Thankfully she didn’t have it locked. I clicked on the giant blue "e" for the Internet and waited.

“Let me know if you need any help.” She added seconds later.

“This won’t take long,” I replied, not looking up. I Googled Stuart first, and it yielded over three thousand results. There was no way I had enough time to look through all of these tonight.

Stumped.
I leaned back. The Internet had to have something out there about him. He was lawyer, for crying out loud. I guess it depended on how I searched for him. So I typed in Van Buren and Associates and specified California. That didn’t help either. It brought up a few news articles but nothing specific. My gaze drifted to a side ad promoting a website that looked up lawyers in your area.

Clicking on it, I filled out what little information I knew and waited. Sure enough, it brought up Van Buren and Associates. There were seven offices in California alone, with the largest located in Beverly Hills. So I started there.

Stuart’s picture pulled up, along with five other lawyers on the homepage. It was weird to see him again, this time dressed in a three-piece suit. He looked like one of those uptight business man.

Part of me hoped he wasn’t who he said he was. That he was some sort of imposter. He had a smug grin on his face, and the picture looked more like an ad for Dockers, not a business, let alone lawyers. I scanned the page for any pertinent information.

“Everything alright?” Sandy asked, coming up behind me. I minimized the screen so she wouldn’t know what I was doing.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay. Well, dinner’s almost done.” She left, humming.

Maximizing the screen, I skimmed his biography. He’d graduated top of his class from Stanford Law and had been working for the Van Buren Firm for the last 18 years. He specialized in Corporate Fraud and Bankruptcy, which explained why he didn’t know much about paternity tests.

I opened up a new window and went to SocialBook, a social networking site and logged in.  After bypassing all the spam, I was allowed to search.

It didn’t take long to find Stuart. In his profile picture, he was holding a golf club. HIs page listed his kids as Lexus Anne McDaniel and Zach Harper McDaniel. Then I clicked “more information,” and to my dismay, his profile was locked.

So I moved on, researching his daughter first, by clicking on her name. Her profile picture was of a group of girls making peace signs at the camera. I hovered my mouse above each of the girls until her name popped up. She had long brown hair that hung straight over her thin shoulders. The photo must have been taken at a Halloween party because they were all dressed up in vintage sixties clothes.

From the looks of it, she over-tanned, which cast an orange hue to her skin, making her eyes look yellow.
Creepy.
Skimming her information, I noticed that her birthday fell only a few days after mine, less than week. Not only did Stuart cheat, but he impregnated his wife and my mom at the same time.
What a jerk.

I researched Zach next, a shaggy brown-haired pre-teen with the same eyes as Lexus popped up. He was standing near a giant in-ground pool with a mischievous grin on his face. I could just imagine him doing a cannon ball into the water and splashing everyone. It made me smile.
Cute kid.

His kids seemed happy.
Normal.
There was no way I was ever going to fit in. Fear washed over me as I clicked back to Stuart’s page and noticed that Petra, his wife, even had a profile.

A picture of her in a kitchen holding two martinis and dressed in a short pink cocktail dress pulled up. I enlarged the image to get a better look at her.