Year of Mistaken Discoveries (19 page)

I raised my hands in the air like a boxer after a victory and everyone let out a cheer. I wove through the crowd to the built-in bar at the back of the room. Karl’s younger sister, Wendy, was serving up punch. She was a sophomore and still a bit gawky. Any coordination genes in their family had all gone to Karl. She was really smart, but she wore glasses that were that borderline between hipster and just dorky. She also tended to dress sort of frumpy, but given her mom it was amazing she had any idea what to wear. She was flushed and thrilled to be at a party with a bunch of seniors. She passed me a glass.

“Love your sweater,” I said to her.

She flushed even darker and mumbled her thanks. I should talk to Lydia and have her take Wendy out for a shopping trip. With a bit of direction she could be really cute.

“Careful,” Lydia warned. “There’s enough sugar in that stuff to put us all in a diabetic coma.”

I sipped it and then put the glass back down.

“Warned you.” Lydia pushed me back a step so she could look me over. “You look great.”

“New jeans,” I said. It was more than that. It was that everything was clicking into place. For the first time since things fell apart I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Brody and I were going to put the next stage of Operation Find My Birth Mom into action. Brody had told me he was going to run down another idea when I had talked to him this afternoon. He’d taken the pages I’d gotten from the school and was going to see what he could find out online. He’d wanted to get together tonight for dinner, but I’d begged off, saying Shannon, Lydia, and I had a girls’ night planned.

“Hey.”

I turned around and Colton was standing there. “Hey,” I said back. It was clear this wasn’t going to win either of us the conversationalist of the year award.

“Heard you’ve got the interview at Duke. Good luck with it,” Colton said.

“Thanks.”

We stood looking at each other, nodding. No wonder our relationship went nowhere when we were going out. We had zero to talk about. I couldn’t even remember why I’d wanted to go out with him so badly last year.

“I’m glad things are, you know, good,” Colton said. He fidgeted in place. A piece of his hair was curling up around his collar, and I felt a huge wave of affection for him.

I squeezed his shoulder. “You and Shannon make a great couple.”

He smiled and then forced his face back into a neutral expression, trying to play it cool. Well, well, well. The mighty Colton, class president, Harvard bound, planned US senator by thirty and president by forty-five had it bad. Colton was not the type to be distracted by a crush, but it had happened. “Yeah. Shannon’s great,” he said. “So, see you around?”

“Sure.”

As soon as he was gone from my side, Lydia slid into his place. “That looked like it went well.”

“Yes. Don’t think I didn’t figure out that you engineered him talking to me. I swear, if the government hired you, we could fix this whole Middle East problem in weeks.” I flung an arm over her shoulders. “I’m glad you talked me into coming.”

Lydia smiled and waved at someone behind me. “Look who’s here.”

My stomach iced over. Brody was standing on the stairs, looking around the room.

“I caught him in the hall today and told him how bummed I was he couldn’t come because of his dad, and he said his plans had changed.” She poked me in the side. “He told me not to tell you, that he wanted to surprise you.”

I swallowed and watched Brody move through the room.

“Surprise,” he said.

I smiled weakly. I wished I hadn’t had that punch. I wanted to throw up.

“I can’t stay,” he said. He smiled at Lydia. “Turns out my dad came into town after all, but since I said I was coming, I wanted to at least stop by.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Lydia said. When he shook his head, she jumped off the barstool. “Well, I’ll let you guys celebrate Avery’s interview before you go.” She smiled. “I know the project you guys did is going to be what gets her into Duke. She finally told us about it. I saw your pictures and they’re amazing. At first I wasn’t sure, but the more I heard about it the better it sounded.”

I winced. Brody was staring at me. “You did the project to get into Duke. Lydia told me all about how you’re pulling out all the stops to get in.”

“The admissions reps are going to love it,” Lydia said. “How can you go wrong? Finding Avery’s birth mom, keeping a promise to a friend who’s died.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t get over how brilliant my plan had been. “Avery, you’re a genius. It’s perfect.”

“Sure is,” Brody said. He watched her walk away.

“I can explain,” I said.

“Really? Because this doesn’t look like a girls’ night.” His eyes swept over the room stuffed with people from our class.

“I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable. I know this isn’t your crowd,” I said in a low voice. I peeked over my shoulder to
see if people were staring at us, but everyone seemed fascinated by the game.

“Is it that you didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable, or that
you
didn’t want to feel uncomfortable?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Hiding me from your friends because you’re embarrassed isn’t fair. You told her I was seeing my dad.” I could hear the annoyance mixed with hurt in his voice.

“It’s not that. Look, come here.” I dragged him into the laundry room. As soon as we pushed through the door, the volume level dropped. I ran my hands through my hair and tried to organize my thoughts. “I am not embarrassed by you. You’re amazing.”

“So the reason our relationship is in the witness protection program is . . . ?”

“I’ve told them we’re dating. I’m not keeping it a secret. It’s that who I am with you isn’t the same as who I am when I’m with them,” I explained.

“And you don’t see that as a problem? That you can’t be the same person? You’re acting one way for your parents, another for your friends. Who are you, really?”

“I’m me,” I said. My hands were balled into fists.

“And who is that, Avery?”

The door flew open and Stacey poked her head in. “Oops. Sorry. I wanted to grab some ice.” She motioned at the cooler on the floor. Brody leaned over and pulled a bag out for her. “Thanks!” She ducked back out.

“I came over to give you this.” Brody handed me a couple of pages. “I found your birth mom online. She has her Facebook profile left open to the public.”

I stared down at the pages. “It has where she works.”

“Should make finding her pretty easy for you.”

“For me?”

“What? Now you’re going to act like it was something we were doing together? I was so unimportant that you didn’t even need to tell me why we were doing it. The whole thing was so you could get into Duke.”

“That’s not true.” I scrambled to explain. “That was part of it, and I admit when I started, it was a big part of why I was doing this, but it’s more than that now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He slapped the side of his head. “Oh right, because the Avery you are with me doesn’t even know why she’s going to Duke except to make her parents happy. You might as well tell me what you think will work. What’s the story again? That you wanted to make it up to Nora. Good angle. Knowing that she and I used to be friends, that was bound to get me to do what you wanted.”

My eyes started to fill with tears. “Duke is what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s what my parents expect me to do. You don’t understand that.”

“You’re right. I don’t. Course, my parents don’t give a shit what I do as long as I stay out of the way.”

“Don’t act like you’ve got it all together. You don’t always
have to be the tortured artist,” I shot back. “You say you want to be a photographer, but you don’t tell anyone. Not even your parents. You don’t do anything to make it happen. How can you judge me for trying to make what I want come true? We can’t all wander around Europe trying to sort it out.”

Brody shook his head. “You know, Nora was right about you.”

His words hit me like a punch. “What does that mean?”

“I asked her once why you guys weren’t friends anymore, and she said the Avery she knew didn’t exist. That you were just a cutout who walked and talked and did all the right things, but might as well have been a puppet.” His stare pinned me in place. “When I got to know you, I thought how sad it was that she was wrong, that she didn’t know you. That you weren’t like that at all. That she hadn’t bothered to get to know who you were becoming. You’re wrong when you say I act like I’ve got it together. I know I don’t, but at least I’ll admit it. I don’t go around being whoever I think people want me to be.”

My heart was in a cobralike vise, all the warmth in my body being slowly squeezed out. “I don’t want to fight with you. I’m so sorry, for all of it. Everything’s confused and I’m trying to sort it out.”

“Well, I’ll make it easier for you. You don’t need to figure out where I fit in when you sort it out.” He started to walk away.

I grabbed his shirt. “Don’t go. Not like this. Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“About what?” His voice cracked. “Is it the project? Don’t worry. I won’t leave you in the lurch. I’ll drop off a CD with my photos on it. I’ll stand up and do the presentation with you. You’ll get into Duke and then you can go down there and be whoever you want.”

He walked out and the door stayed open behind him, the music pulsing in like waves.

chapter twenty-six

M
y eyes felt like they’d been rolled in ground glass and then popped back into my head. I left the party right after Brody, making excuses that I was pretty sure no one believed. I wanted to text Brody when I got home, but I knew he wouldn’t answer and that would somehow be worse. I cried, smothering the sound in my pillow so my parents wouldn’t wake up. I must have slept, but it didn’t feel like it. When the alarm went off, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out if I still had the energy to do this. If I gave up trying to find her now, then everything I’d done was for nothing. I pulled out Nora’s field guide and looked for inspiration.

Anything worth doing is hard. If it weren’t hard, then everyone would do it. I don’t know if I’ll ever find my birth mom. There’s every reason to believe I won’t. What I know for absolute sure is that if I stop looking, then there’s a 100% chance that I never will—so even if it’s only a small chance, it’s still a chance.

I forced myself out of bed and into the shower. I had to do this. If I quit now, then what was the point? My parents had already left for work. My mom had scribbled a note with some suggestions of things I could do around the house. I was still technically grounded as far as she was concerned. I wrote on the bottom of her note that I was going to do some Christmas shopping. That should cover me if I was late. Hopefully by the time I came home, I would have found Lisa, and that would be the important thing. I’d have to do double the chore list tomorrow to make it up. Before I could second-guess myself, I went outside, the cold air stabbing my lungs.

There weren’t many cars on I-69. I pressed on the gas. Now that I’d made the decision, I wanted to be there already.

I pulled over at a gas station to double-check the directions. I stared at Lisa’s profile in the printout of her Facebook page Brody had given me, my finger outlining the shape of her face. There wasn’t much. She’d gone to college at Michigan State. We would have been in the same town for years. We could have passed each other on the street or in the mall. Did she know where I lived? Had she walked around looking at every baby carriage and every toddler, wondering if it was me?

I looked like her. My tenth-grade biology teacher would be relieved to know I now had proof that genetics worked. Lisa was married and had two kids. There was a photo of the whole family at the table for Thanksgiving. Her kids looked young, maybe nine and five. I swallowed. They would be my half brother and sister. I had siblings. I could hear the blood rushing in my head. I always wanted a brother or sister, and now I had one of each.

I’d searched the pages Brody had printed out, looking for some comment about how she’d had another kid and put her up for adoption, but there was nothing, although even if she liked to over-share, that might be going too far. I guessed I wanted her to have it listed so I knew it mattered. On her list of activities and interests there was nothing even remotely adoption related. She thought it was important to share with the world that she loved mystery novels and horror movies, and even what she was making for dinner most days, but she didn’t seem to think the fact she had another kid merited an entry.

The important thing was that it listed where she worked. She was the education coordinator for the Beier Museum. I checked the directions from the highway one more time. I went into the grungy bathroom and caught myself in the mirror. I’d pulled on jeans and my dad’s old washed-out Duke sweatshirt. Maybe I should have dressed up, but I supposed if she wasn’t happy to be seeing her kid after all this time, wearing a pair of pantyhose wasn’t going to make a difference. I bought a cup
of coffee and a plastic-wrapped doughnut for energy and then headed back out.

It took only an hour to get to the museum, even accounting for the wrong turn off the highway. I’d wondered why the parking lot was nearly empty, until I tried the door. The place wasn’t open yet and wouldn’t be for another thirty minutes. I trudged back to the car. With my luck I was going to freeze to death while I waited. I could have driven around looking for someplace to go, but now that I was here, I didn’t want to leave. I sipped the now-cold coffee and finished off the doughnut. It tasted like it was made out of old cotton fiber, dry and tasteless. There was an expiration date stamped on the side of the plastic, but I was afraid to look. I was willing to bet the doughnut was meant to be consumed during the previous presidential administration and had lain unclaimed on that shelf until now.

I made myself wait until the museum had been open for at least ten minutes. I thought it might look a bit odd if I was waiting outside the instant they unlocked the front door. I couldn’t think they had a lot of people beating down the door, even if they did have some big special dinosaur exhibit. I didn’t want to stand out. I was hoping that if I acted casual, there would be a way to spot her without announcing what I wanted.