We clung to each other for several minutes. We sank to the ground and cuddled at the trunk of the tree. Between long stretches of kissing, I told him everything that had happened.
He tightened his arms around me. "You're lucky to be alive." Kissing me again, his fingertips trailed down the side of my neck. "We should get you a tattoo too," he murmured.
"No thanks," I said. "I'm not Irish
…
at least, I don't think I am. I guess anything's possible though, huh?"
Derek laughed and kissed my throat. "Yes, anything is possible. Hey, speaking of, I watched you cheering at the game on Friday. JV's never cheered a game before that I know of. Pretty crazy, the whole varsity cheer squad getting food poisoning at the same time."
"I know, right?"
Food poisoning? More like actual poisoning.
But I wasn't going to correct Derek.
"You guys were awesome. Better than last year's varsity squad for sure. I couldn't keep my eyes off you. How did it feel?"
My eyes lit up. "Do you know how when you imagine that something is going to be unbelievably amazing and incredible and then it actually happens and it's like, a thousand times better than you thought it would be?"
Derek's eyes grew dark and his lips parted. He drew my face to his again and slid his hands inside my shirt. My breath caught in my throat as shivers raced up and down my spine.
His voice was a husky whisper, his lips a millimeter from mine. "Ask me that again in a couple hours."
It was a long time before we were capable of talking again.
I lay with my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "So what should I call you?" he asked me.
I was pretty sure I must have missed a word or two over the thudding of his heart. "I don't have a cell phone, and I don't even know the number at my dad's apartment."
"No," he grinned. "Not
can
I call you. Cause I kind of assumed I could. You know, if you had a phone. For now, we'll have to talk at school." His grin got a little wider, sexier. "Or here."
I gestured at the carpet of leaves at the base of the tree that we'd just rolled around in. "I don't foresee a lot of talking happening here."
"You don't give me enough credit."
"Probably not." I sat up and fingered the ends of my hair. "So, what were you asking me then, if it wasn't for my number, which I don't have?"
Derek put his hands on my waist and drew me to him. "I was asking what I should call you. I know Barbie's not your real name, and Baby's not really a name."
I looked into his eyes and considered his question seriously for a second. "You know what's funny?" I said slowly.
"What?"
"Even when my name was supposedly Barbie, you called me Baby most of the time."
"Did I?"
"Yeah. I noticed it, since that was, you know, my actual name."
"I'm sorry." Derek gave me a rueful smile, which I was compelled to kiss away. I pressed my lips to his until I could feel his mouth turning upwards into a grin. His lips parted and our tongues touched for just a moment before I pulled back.
"That's the thing," I whispered. "My name had never felt right to me, until I heard you say it. When you call me Baby, it
…
it just fits. No matter what, I want you to keep calling me that, okay?"
Derek kissed me again, smiling. "Okay." He pulled me close, and our kisses got more urgent.
It was at least another hour before we got around to going anywhere.
* * *
I spent one more night at my dad's. Now that I knew he wasn't my biological father, I was experimenting in my mind with calling him Geoff, but it still felt weird, so I thought of him as 'Dad' most of the time.
I went back to school on Friday. It was our normal day to have actual cheer practice—not just paint school spirit signs and stuff like that—so I really didn't want to miss it.
Even though Derek and I didn't have any classes together anymore, he still managed to meet me outside my classroom after every class and walk with me to my next one. We held hands in the hallways, and there was, um,
a lot
of kissing involved each time he dropped me off. I might have heard some whispering and hissing behind my back, I know Ashley and Hannah walked past at one point, but I honestly didn't care. Derek was mine, I was his, and nothing was going to change that. They'd figure that out soon enough.
Derek had football practice after school. I wanted to drive Kaia home, but part of her restriction was no rides with friends. We'd done all our catching up this morning in first period, and now she was looking pretty glum as I walked with her to the bus circle. Until she saw who was waiting outside bus 48, arms crossed over his chest, million-watt smile on his face.
"My dad borrowed my wheels at lunch. Care for some company?" Grady said.
Kaia remembered to say goodbye to me over her shoulder, which I gave her mental props for. Her step was so bouncy, I was half-convinced all the oxygen in her body had turned to helium at the sight of Grady waiting for her.
I waggled my finger at Grady in a tiny wave, and he tilted his head at me, his grin turning just a shade embarrassed. I changed my waggling finger to a thumbs up. He put his hand on Kaia's back before following her up into the bus. I was so happy for them.
I couldn't procrastinate any longer. I had to go see Joanna, and tell her what I'd learned.
While I drove, I thought back over the last few weeks, and how much Joanna had been there for me. How she'd given me a place to stay when I'd needed it, how she'd tucked me in and kissed me goodnight. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. My mother had slept with her husband and gotten pregnant. With me. How could she not hate me for that?
I still had the key Joanna had given me, but I rang the doorbell anyway. Using the key to let myself in felt way too presumptuous, you know, given that I was here to let her know her beloved dead husband had a dirty little secret and I was the end result.
Joanna cracked the door open, the chain catching, keeping the door from opening more than a couple of inches. She peered out, half-suspicious, half-nervous. Her face cleared when she registered me standing on her porch, and I saw a smile dawning across her face even as she was shutting the door to undo the chain.
"Baby!" she cried.
“
You don't have to ring the doorbell. I gave you a key, right? You can just come in." She cocked her head and opened the door wider. "Oh, wait, not with the chain on the door, can you? Silly me. Come in, come in."
She ushered me across the threshold and I followed her into the kitchen while she chattered happily. "I'm sorry, I can't seem to stop calling you Baby. I think it's just too much for my old brain to remember."
"That's okay." I thought about telling her she wasn't old, but I stopped myself. She had to be at least fifty. I didn't want her to think that I was trying to butter her up or anything. Instead, I tried to smile. "Actually, you can go back to calling me Baby. I'm done with the whole Barbie thing." I sat down at the table and laced my fingers together, staring at my cupped hands.
"You sure?"
"Yeah." And it was true. I didn't think I would ever talk to my mother or sisters again. The people who called me Baby now
…
Derek, Joanna, Kaia—when she wasn't trying to come up with a ridiculous nickname for me—well, when they called me Baby, it didn't bother me. It felt right, somehow.
I still stared at my hands, but I followed Joanna in my peripheral vision as she sat down across the table from me. I glanced up and immediately focused on the picture of her and Todd hanging on the wall behind her. God, why had I chosen this side of the table? Now they stared at me, their happy smiles slicing through me.
"Baby?" Joanna's voice was gentle. "You don't owe me any explanations."
Oh my god, how did she know?
"I don't know what to say," I blurted out. "I don't know how to fix it. I want to make it better, but I can't. I didn't know. I swear, I didn't know."
Joanna's brow wrinkled. "I wasn't worried, sweetheart. I knew you were okay. The firefighter who put you in the ambulance, he was an old friend of Todd's. He kept me posted, let me know you were safe and staying with Geoff in some sort of apartment. I had hoped you might choose to stay here, but I understand if you have other plans."
I couldn't have heard her right. "You would still want me to live here with you?" I whispered.
"Of course. But I do understand if you want to be with your father." Behind me, a teakettle whistled, and Joanna jumped up and hurried to the stove to remove it from the burner. "I'm just being selfish. Your father's not a bad man. It makes sense that you'd want to be with family."
She poured hot water into a mug and dunked a teabag into it. "You want a cup?" she asked.
I shook my head.
She didn't know.
My stomach deflated, and I realized I'd actually been hoping she had known, and that she was just the super-coolest person on the plant. Now I still had to tell her.
"Joanna."
Something in my voice must have signaled that I was this close to a complete mental breakdown, because she set the teakettle down on the stove with a thud and hurried over to me, crouching down so that she was eye level with me. "Baby, what's the matter? There's something you want to say, I can tell."
I couldn't stand having her so close to me, and I jumped up, shoving my chair back. I crossed to the other side of the table and stood so that my back was to the picture of her and Todd. "The night of the fire. My mom was really drunk."
"Oh Christ. Did she hurt you? What did she do to you? Oh my lord, Baby, did you start that fire?"
I felt my eyes widening with shock, and my hand flew over my heart. "No! My mom did it to herself, she spilled vodka everywhere and then dropped her cigarette in it."
Joanna buried her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry. I can't believe I said that." She looked up. "Of course you didn't start the fire. You just
…
the look on your face
…
something's eating you alive. What happened?"
"I didn't spend the last few nights with my father, Joanna." I took a deep breath. "I spent them with Geoff. My mother's husband."
A blank expression settled on Joanna's face. "I don't understand."
"The thing that my mom told me, that I have to tell you, is Geoff's not my father." My body started to shake. "My father is dead. And there's a picture of him hanging right behind me."
I sank to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest and pressing my forehead against them, but I didn't stop talking. "My mom slept with your husband. She hates me so much because I guess when she got pregnant with me she expected Todd to pay her a lot of hush money or something. But then he died, and she was stuck with me."
My shoulders shook, and I realized I'd been holding back tears, probably since the moment I walked into Joanna's house. I couldn't keep them under control any longer. Giant teardrops streamed out of my eyes and onto my knees, where I kept my face hidden.
Joanna said nothing for a few minutes as I sobbed. How long was I going to stay here, crying, before she threw me out of her house? Apparently forever. Shuddering, my breathing coming in gasps, I found the strength to raise my head. Joanna stood three feet from me, her mouth hanging open, still as a statue. As soon as she found her voice, I knew she was going to order me out.
Joanna closed her mouth. Here it comes. "Stand up, Baby," she whispered.
Oh god.
Slowly, painfully, I raised myself to my feet, holding onto the wall for support, I leaned backward and felt the frame of Joanna's wedding photo pressing into my spine.
She moved a half step toward me, her hand outstretched for a moment before it fell limply to her side. "You look so much like him. I never saw it before. But no
…
that's not true. I did see it. I knew. You have his nose. His chin. Your smile
…
look at it. It's exactly the same."
I couldn't believe I was standing here, living proof of her husband's cheating, yet she was looking at me as if I were some piece of important art on loan from the Louvre.
Her voice was almost dream like, as if she were in a trance. "In the weeks before he died, Todd said a lot of things that didn't make any sense. I remember the last words he spoke to me, because he was completely lucid for the first time in weeks, right before he passed. He said 'I will never stop loving you.' I've treasured that memory for the last sixteen years."
"And I ruined it for you."
I covered my face with my hands again, but Joanna continued to talk as if she hadn't even heard me. "I thought everything else he'd said was the tumor talking, his random babbling. But it wasn't. He talked about your mother incessantly. About how she needed to find the Bible, that everything she needed was in the Bible. He said other things too, and none of it made any sense, not then. 'I never touched her.' He would always say that, when he was talking about your mother. Over and over."
"I'm so sorry, Joanna. He must have felt so guilty. But he was lying to you."
I removed my hands from my eyes, and saw that tears were now streaming down her face, but she shook her head. "No, Baby. Todd wasn't lying. And it wasn't the tumor talking. Look at the picture, Baby. Look at the picture behind you."
I turned my head. Todd's blue eyes twinkled merrily like always. Wait.
His
blue
eyes.
There was no way he could be my father unless my mother had brown eyes. But Jessie Anderson's eyes were, if anything, bluer than Todd's. I heard Grady's voice echo in my head.
It's really rare for two blue-eyed people to have a brown-eyed baby. Either he's not your father, or she's not your mother. Can't it be that last one? I'd asked.
I turned to face Joanna again, thoughts zipping through my mind, desperately trying to add themselves up. Joanna crossed the few feet between us and reached out, her hand trembling, stopping an inch from my face. I stared into her eyes, and it all clicked. My eyes weren't Todd's. They weren't Jessie Anderson's either. They were the brown, amber-flecked eyes staring back at me. My eyes were Joanna's.