Year of Mistaken Discoveries (8 page)

“You’re a photographer?”

Brody shrugged. “I try.”

“What kind of pictures?”

“A bit of everything.” He licked a smear of chocolate off the side of his finger. “Sounds vague, doesn’t it? I’m not trying to be secretive; I just don’t know how to explain it. The camera lets me see things in a different way. It’s like I finally have perspective. I can’t always say stuff right in words. Pictures are easier.”

“I like writing,” I said. My mouth clicked shut. I wasn’t sure where that had come from.

“I know.” He must have seen the surprise in my eyes. “Nora told me. She said you guys used to write stuff together, but you were the good one.”

I waved away his compliment. “We wrote stupid stuff, for laughs.”

“I don’t know. Being able to make people laugh doesn’t seem stupid to me.”

I looked away. I was embarrassed that he knew I wrote. It felt like I had accidentally shown him naked pictures of myself. “It’s just a hobby. It’s not like it’s something I could do as a job.”

“People do. I mean, it’s not easy, but if it’s what you really wanted to do, you could find a way.”

“It’s not what I want to do.” My voice came out harsher than I intended.

Brody’s eyebrows went up. “Okay. I wasn’t planning to force you into the life of a starving author or anything.”

There was nothing I couldn’t screw up lately. I couldn’t even let people be nice to me. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re most likely a bit unstable these days. You should expect to have your feelings go up and down a lot over the next few weeks.”

I looked up at Brody, and he was doing the Bradshaw guppy face again.

“He gave you the same talk, huh?” I guessed.

“He’s probably got a manual that contains heart-to-heart talks for all these types of situations. I think you should be disappointed he didn’t tell you how you could be Batman. Sort of sexist, really.” Brody shook his head sadly.

“He might have been telling me that I could be Wonder Woman, but I was distracted by the faces you were making.”

“My turn to be sorry.” He tipped back the milk and finished it off in one go. “You okay with the idea of being partners for the project?”

Did he want to get out of it? “I guess. You?”

“Sure. I mean, if you do. What were you and Colton doing?”

I thought about asking what he’d heard about Colton and me, but maybe not knowing how the rest of Northside’s student body was dissecting my social life was a good thing. “We were planning to do an analysis on school reform.” Brody raised a single eyebrow, and I felt a flush of irritation. “It’s very topical. There’s all sorts of stuff in the news about it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’m applying to Duke. I need to have an impressive project.” Northside required everyone to do a senior project, from those who were college bound, to seniors who were already majoring in smoking weed and underperforming. Because everyone had to do them, some of the projects were fairly lame. As long as you picked a topic, did at least some research, and stood up and talked about what you learned for the required
ten minutes, you passed. “Nora told me you guys were looking for her mom for your project.”

“Her idea.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Looking for her mom has been a project of Nora’s for a long time.” I realized what I’d said. “Had been a project.”

“She’s a hard person to think about in the past tense.”

Both of us were quiet for a moment. I finished my cookie. “How were you helping her? In addition to your Batman crime-solving skills, do you also hunt down missing persons?”

“Batman was always more than mere brawn,” Brody pointed out. “Nora did most of the investigating. She wrote everything down in this notebook. It was like she was preparing for battle. I was more of a sounding board. I was taking pictures as we went. Sort of documentary style. Stuff that would hopefully show different kinds of families. Something we could show for the talk in case we didn’t find her mom.”

“She must have been over the moon when she thought she had.” I tried to imagine how happy she must have been before it all went downhill.

“I knew something about the whole thing was off. I’m the one who convinced her it could be a con and to check it out before things went any further. I knew it would upset her, but I didn’t think—” He didn’t finish his sentence.

“How did you figure it out? That Carla was a con, I mean.”

He tossed his milk carton into the trash can across the hall.
It went in with a swoosh. “I never thought we’d find her mom. There wasn’t enough to go on. She didn’t have a name or anything. There wasn’t any formal paperwork that had any clues. She didn’t even know her exact birthday. The convent that took her in as a baby guessed she was a couple of weeks old and just picked a date. They picked May thirtieth because it was Joan of Arc’s feast day.” He shook his head. “Then when this woman showed up, Carla, it all fit together too neat. I didn’t buy it.”

“If you knew you wouldn’t find her mom, why did you agree to do the project?”

“Nora wanted to,” Brody said simply.

I took a deep breath. “So, looking for her mom is out, and I’m guessing Colton’s going to want to keep the education topic to himself, so that’s a non-option. What do you think we should do?”

“Screw Colton. He doesn’t get to choose. Do you want to do education as our project?”

I flushed. I liked the way he pushed Colton’s wants out of the picture without even worrying about it. “Do
you
?”

He looked appalled. “God, no. Nothing personal, but it sounds boring as shit.”

I laughed. “It was kind of boring.”

Brody broke into a smile. “Perfect. Education reform is out. Opens up all sorts of ideas.”

“Like?”

“Zombies. History of Batman.” His eyes sparkled. “We
could toss in Wonder Woman too, but if you want my opinion, there are more interesting superheroes to choose from. Iron Man is very trendy at the moment. Aquaman is vastly overlooked—one of the founders of the Justice League, you know.”

“Can’t say I did. Nothing against Aquaman, but I’m not sure Duke would be impressed. They already turned me down once, so I need to make this project good.” My stomach tightened just thinking about it. Somewhere in North Carolina there was an admissions counselor with the ability to give me my life back or hurl me under a bus.

“Why do you want them if they don’t want you? If you ask me, they’re a waste of your energy.”

His comment threw me and for a beat I didn’t answer. “They’re the best. I need to go there. It’s not an option.”

Brody didn’t look convinced. “Whatever.”

The bell rang, and classroom doors flew open and people thundered out. Brody stood and pulled me up onto my feet. He took my empty milk carton from me and dumped it in the trash.

I saw Lydia and Shannon making a beeline for me so they could resume their security patrol. “We don’t need to pick a topic now,” I said. “I’ll call you.”

Brody listed off his number while I put it in my cell. “I’ll wait to hear from you.” He held out his fist and gave me an ironic smile. “Until then: Strength, Power, Courage.” He must
have seen my confusion. “Justice League motto, also not bad for surviving high school.”

I fist-bumped him back. “Strength, Power, Courage.”

I watched him disappear into the crowd of people.

“What did
he
want?” Shannon asked when she reached my side.

“Bradshaw partnered us up for the senior project.”

Shannon and Lydia exchanged a look. “Maybe we can see if you can join us. There are a few other groups of three.”

As much as I like my two best friends, the idea of working on their project gave me hives. Part of it was their topic—Fat: Friend or Foe—on the difference between healthy and unhealthy fats. Spending months making a presentation that showed smiling avocados and salmon and evil greasy-looking bags of chips seemed like a punishment. Not to mention I didn’t think knowing the exact fat count of a single Wheat Thin was going to convince Duke they needed to sign me up. Then there was the fact that there was something about Brody that made me feel relaxed. I wanted to do the project with him.

“You know how Bradshaw is.” I shook my head like I couldn’t get over how annoying he could be. “I’m pretty much stuck with Brody.”

“What are you guys going to do for a project?”

“I don’t know.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the idea came to me, and I jolted like I’d been poked with a live wire. It was perfect.

chapter eleven

I
didn’t tell Brody my idea right away, although I wanted to. The idea was like this expanding balloon inside of me that was swelling every second, and soon I wouldn’t be able to contain it. I practically was bouncing off the walls by the time school was over and I could get home. Lydia and Shannon wanted me to go out with them, but I begged off, telling them I was still pretty wiped from everything. As soon as I got home, I pounded up the stairs and shut my bedroom door behind me, even though I was home alone and the chance of anyone busting in on me was pretty much impossible.

I pulled open the desk drawer and carefully slid out Nora’s notebook as if it might bite. The paper cover was so worn that it felt soft, almost like fabric. My fingers traced the words on the front:
Field Guide to Finding Your Family
. I suddenly had
an image that the inside of the notebook would be blank, the words I’d seen earlier at the party gone, like she’d written the entire thing in disappearing ink. I opened the cover and almost dropped it when I saw my name. I had a hard time focusing at first, but then I realized it was because my hands were shaking, making it hard to read.

Hi Avery,

Remember in sixth grade when we had to read “The Diary of Anne Frank” in English class and we decided we wanted to have our own diaries? Both of us quit after a few weeks because it turned out we really didn’t have much happening in our lives worth writing down. I couldn’t imagine that generations of readers would be riveted to know what we had for dinner, or that I was pretty sure that Ryan in my science class had looked at my butt. This was the downside to not living through a war as a refugee hiding out from Nazis. Nothing to write about. The upsides of a Nazi-free life are more obvious.

One thing our buddy Anne did was to write to Kitty in her diary. Seemed more personal that way, less cheesy than saying “Dear Diary.” I doubt you’ll ever see this, but somehow writing it to you feels right. We always planned to find our moms together. Maybe once I’ve done it you’ll decide to try it too—then you can use this as a guide.
Make things easier for you. Seems like that is the least I could do, after all our years of being friends. Even if you never do, including you in this project seems like the right thing. So let’s get started!

Tip #1: If you want to find your family, start with figuring out what you already know.

I closed the book and let out a shaky breath. This would work. It was going to be better than just working. It was perfect. It was exactly the kind of project that would make the Duke admissions counselors sit up and take notice. Adopted girl searches for her birth mom to complete the promise she made to her former best friend who died too young. It was the kind of senior project that made people choke up. They’d see me as more than just a bunch of test scores that weren’t quite up to snuff. Nora had always wanted me to join her on the great birth-mom quest. Doing this was a way to make it up to her for blowing her off. It was like finishing her business. Brody had to agree. I picked up the phone to call him and then put it back down. It would be harder for him to say no to me face-to-face. I was going to have to sell him on the idea. I couldn’t let him know how I was sure Duke would like the project, and how I was willing to do almost anything in order to get in. It was pretty clear he wasn’t that impressed by Duke. He needed to think I was doing it because it was the right thing and that it was good for Nora.

I looked at the clock. There was still time before I expected my mom home. No time like the present to get started, and Nora had even given me the first step.

I slid open the hall closet door. I stood on my tiptoes and slipped the scrapbook out from under the odds and ends that had been stacked on top of it, extra lightbulbs and a bulk package of paper towels.

AVERY’S STORY
was written on top in raised pink-and-blue plaid letters. You wouldn’t think my mom would be crafty. She looked like she would be way more comfortable with a briefcase and law textbooks than with markers or pinking shears, but she could bust out a glue gun like no one else. The scrapbook was mine. It had my name right across the cover, but it still felt a bit like stealing. I stuffed the book under my arm and went back into my room.

The first few pages of the scrapbook had pictures of my parents, looking impossibly young. My dad had a beard that made him resemble a reject from a hippie commune, and my mom had a weird spiky haircut. My mom had drawn thought bubbles coming out of their heads that said things like
Dreaming of Babies
or
New Daddy to Be
.

The next page was dedicated to a giant eight-by-ten baby picture of me. The caption below read
Avery: Two Hours Old
. I looked way older than two hours old. My face was all wrinkled and red. I looked like a six-pound ninety-year-old woman. My head was also strangely cone shaped. No wonder they put a
knitted hat on it; I was practically deformed. I was lucky anyone had wanted me, looking like that. There was also a picture of my parents holding me. They’d bought me an outfit to come home in that looked like it was about three sizes too big. My parents both looked dazed in the picture, as if they couldn’t quite believe someone had just handed them an actual baby.

I flipped to the next page, where there was an envelope taped down and the caption read
Welcome to the World Letter from Avery’s Birth Mom
. I’d read the letter before. I’d been through the entire scrapbook many times, but I was hesitant to open it now, in case there might be something new there.