“Oh, I have a magnificent career. I wait tables in a shitty diner. I was going to school to study photojournalism but didn’t have enough money for the tuition. My mom chipped in what she could but she’s not exactly swimming in cash. If I had any money, you think I’d be driving a 1977 Pacer?”
Todd glanced out the window into the parking lot at Chloe’s car, which looked more like a rusted fishbowl than something someone might drive.
“When I have time,” she said, “I go to the old folks home where my grandfather lives.”
“Oh?” The comment got Todd’s attention. “Like, to visit?”
“Yeah, and also, I’ve been interviewing him. About his life, like I was just doing with you. There’s been this, I don’t know, void, not knowing who I really am. So I try to find out as much as I can about the stuff I am able to find out about. Does that make sense?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t you wonder about your biological father? Like, WhatsMyStory was able to connect us, but now we have this shared mystery. Who’s our daddy?”
That made Todd laugh. “Who’s your daddy?” he said quickly, as though it were a rap lyric. “Who’s my daddy? Ever-body wants to know, who’s your daddy?”
“But seriously, don’t you wonder?”
Todd shrugged. “I guess. But even if I knew, what difference would it make?”
“Doesn’t it make a difference knowing about me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but you’re, like, pretty much my own age. My dad, whoever it is, would just be some old guy.”
Chloe drove the heel of her hand into her forehead. “Well, duh. Parents are always older.”
He pointed to her head. “You did it again. So, tell me some more about your grandfather.”
“He’s a veteran. Served in Vietnam. He wrote a book about his time there that he self-published. It’s really good. I mean, I’m no book critic, but I thought it was terrific. And he saw some awful shit, you know? Came back from that, got a job at Sears, spent the rest of his working life there. But talking to him, learning his story, it’s got me interested in talking to the other residents. They’ve all got stories. You think they’re these old people just sitting around waiting to die, but they’ve done things. They’ve seen things. Attention must be paid.”
“Attention what?”
“‘Attention must be paid.’ It’s from Death of a Salesman.”
Todd looked at her blankly.
“The play? Death of a Salesman?”
“I don’t go to a lot of plays. Concerts, sometimes. I saw Metallica one time. They were awesome.”
“I haven’t seen the actual play, either,” Chloe said. “But I read it. In school. And it’s been made into a movie a few times.”
“I like the Avengers movies. All the Marvel ones.”
A brief look of disappointment crossed Chloe’s face. Just because you were related to someone didn’t necessarily mean you were going to have similar interests. But she wasn’t going to stop looking for common ground.
“You still got grandparents?”
“They’ve passed. I never really got to know them. They all died before I was, like, five years old. My mom’s got an old aunt. We used to visit her every year. My mom still does, but when I got a bit older I found some excuse to get out of it. And now, well, I moved out a couple of years ago. I’ve got a trailer, which sounds kind of shitty, but it’s nice. I like having my own place.” He grinned. “And I’m right next to the fire station, so if it blows up or anything, they’ll be there in no time.”
“You in one of those parks, with a bunch of retired people?”
“No, I got my trailer on its own lot. Just me. No old people.”
“Oh.”
Todd sensed some disapproval in Chloe’s tone, so he added, “But I talk to them on the phone.”
“Who?”
“Old people.” He forced a grin. “Sort of like sales calls. Talk to them all the time.”
Nine
Seattle, WA
Marissa Pritkin thought her brother would be excited about her news. Instead, he lost his shit.
After all, it wasn’t every day you discovered new relatives. Wasn’t that something to celebrate? Or, at the very least, be somewhat curious about? He didn’t even ask her who she’d connected with.
Maybe, she told herself, she’d caught him at a bad time. He did tell her he was in the middle of throwing a party. For anybody else, that would be like interrupting someone when they were watching TV. Her brother was always hosting one event or another. Some fundraiser with Bill Gates to fight malaria, an opening-night celebration for a Broadway show he’d invested in, or a bash to raise money for some political candidate — didn’t matter which party; her brother was always looking to make friends on both sides of the aisle. Jeremy always had something going on. She Googled him about once a week to see what he’d been up to, what TV show he might have appeared on, what think piece he might have written for the Times or the Post.
They’d kept in touch, Marissa and Jeremy, even if they didn’t see each other all that often. If work took him to Seattle, he might invite her and Walter, her husband, out to an expensive dinner, if time allowed. He did all the talking, dropping names like geese dropped turds. There wasn’t a president, prime minister, king or queen, or famous entertainer Jeremy hadn’t met at some point.
Marissa would wait all through dinner, wondering, will he ask me even one question about our lives? How we’re doing? Where we went on vacation last year? What show we’re binge-watching these days?
The closest Jeremy got to being inquisitive about their lives was when he asked how their portfolio was doing. Because that was really a question about himself, and whether all the insider tips he’d passed along to them had paid off.
Of course, they almost always had. Often, big-time. Marissa had to admit she and Walter wouldn’t be in the house they were in now, in Seattle’s North Beach neighborhood with a drop-dead-amazing view of Puget Sound, if it weren’t for some of the tips Jeremy had passed along. And, to be fair, he had been more than generous where she and Walter and the kids were concerned. Not that Marissa and her husband didn’t do okay. She ran an insurance brokerage and Walter was an orthodontist. But even with a good income, sometimes your children’s interests could cost you more than you’d budgeted for, like when their son Zachary became obsessed with everything horse related.
Well, Jeremy had always loved horses, too, so what did he do? Bought Zachary a horse, paid to board it at a stable, and even covered the cost of all the riding lessons. You didn’t have to ask Zachary who his favorite uncle was.
So, when Marissa got her results back from WhatsMyStory, she felt she owed it to her brother to call him first with the news.
“According to this,” she said, “I share about 25 percent of my DNA with this other person, which suggests it’s a niece or a nephew. Now this other person and I just have to agree to disclose our identities and we can connect. A niece or nephew? How is that even possible?”
Of course, Marissa had already considered the fact that Jeremy might have gotten someone pregnant years ago and that this person had never disclosed this fact to him. All the more reason to tell him, she figured, and all the more reason why she figured he would be curious.
Jeremy had not responded well.
Accused his sister of meddling in his affairs. How could she do something like this without consulting him first?