Marian nods, her eyes glued to the table, as he looks at me and says, “Nice to meet you, Kirby.”
“You, too,” I say, on the verge of tears. I know this is her fault, but I’m still hurt that he doesn’t want to stay and talk to me longer. The whole thing feels like a disaster. I watch as he stands, walks away from the table, then out the door, disappearing around the corner. Gone.
I am filled with crushing disappointment but tell myself it isn’t personal; he doesn’t even know me. And besides, rejection is just part of the adoption territory. What did I expect? I was lucky not to have two doors slammed in my face.
“Well,” I say as I sip green tea that tastes as bitter as I feel. “That went really well.”
* * *
We return home to find Marian’s parents in the kitchen with another gourmet spread. Apparently aware of our mission, they ask a few tentative questions, but quickly determine that the meeting was far from a rousing success.
Marian’s mom looks annoyingly pleased by this, uttering some version of “I told you so” and “It’s for the best” while Marian’s dad seems to understand that it actually isn’t for the best. At least not for me. As he crosses the kitchen to the icemaker, he pauses to put his hand on my shoulder, gently squeezing.
“Give him a chance to catch his breath,” he says to me. “It’s a lot to take in at once. He’ll come around.”
Marian looks as skeptical as I feel, but neither of us says what I’m thinking: No chance he comes around. He hates her, and by extension, me. It’s not his fault, I keep telling myself. I mean, it’s one thing to warm up to a kid you never met but, at the very least, knew existed. It’s another to meet me the way he did. An emotional ambush.
Although I haven’t lost sight of the fact that all of this is Marian’s fault, I can’t help feeling sorry for her. She’s clearly suffering. Besides, I have to give her some credit for manning up and going with me. She could have written him a letter (which, with hindsight, might have been the better plan). She could have dropped me off and hidden around the corner (also probably a better idea). She could have delivered the news with arrogance or indifference. I mean, in a way, all her stammering and hemming and hawing showed me how much she cares—and that she knows she screwed up bad.
Thirty minutes of small talk later, none of which I can focus on, my phone vibrates with an incoming text. I look down at my lap, hoping to see a message from Philip. Instead it is a 312 number I don’t recognize. Before I can speculate, I click on the text and read: Kirby. Was caught off guard today. I know this isn’t your fault. Conrad.
I stare down at the words, realizing Marian’s dad was right—exactly right—and I feel awash with relief and hope as the phone buzzes again and a second text comes in. Would like to talk more. Call or come by if you can. Zelda’s on Rush. Live music, decent food. Will be here all night.
My face must give me away because Marian stares at me and says, “What?”
“It’s from him,” I say. “Conrad.”
“What … did he say?” Marian asks.
Marian’s mom purses her lips and gets up from the table.
I hand Marian the phone and she reads, expressionless, then looks at me and says, “Do you want to go?”
“Go where?” Marian’s mom says from the sink. “We have dinner plans tonight.”
Marian gives her mother a stern look, signaling her to stay out of this one, then returns her gaze to me. “Don’t worry about dinner. Do exactly what you want to do.”
I nod.
“Do you want to go?” she says.
I lower my eyes and whisper, “Yes.”
Because I do. More than anything.
“Okay,” Marian says. “I’ll take you.”
I look at her, wondering what she means by this. Will she be my chauffeur or escort?
“Thanks,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “But could you just … drop me off? I think maybe I should try it alone this time.”
“Yes, of course,” she says, nodding as if she understands completely. But there is an unmistakable flicker of disappointment in her eyes, which she overcompensates for by saying a little too loudly and happily that this is an excellent idea. “You two should be alone. Definitely. Now that he knows about you, Conrad and I have nothing left to talk about.”
“Nothing at all,” her mother echoes.
* * *
At dusk, Marian drops me off at the nondescript, red-brick building on Rush Street, easy to miss but for a small, orange neon sign that says ZELDA’S—LIVE MUSIC 365 DAYS A YEAR.
“I’ll be back at eleven,” she says as I’m halfway out of the car. She looks skittish, and I wonder if it has more to do with the thought of Conrad on the other side of the door, or because I’m headed into a bar and she knows my parents would kill her for it. “Unless you want me to come sooner. Just call if you do.”
I nod, thinking there is no chance I’ll want to leave before eleven, if only because of the thrilling sound of live music pulsing its way onto the street. “Eleven is good.”
“And you have money for dinner?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m good. All set.”
“And you’re not … going to drink … alcohol?”
“No, Marian,” I say, rolling my eyes.
When she doesn’t drive away, I give her a purposeful wave and turn away from her car, stepping onto the curb, crossing the crumbling sidewalk, then walking down a short flight of steps to the garden-level entrance. I pull open the heavy metal door and walk into a long narrow room, instantly falling in love with the warm, intimate atmosphere made even cozier by the low ceilings and the sheer mass of bodies crammed into the room. Stubby candles dripping with knotted wax fill the room with a flickering light, and white Christmas lights are strung behind an old, oak bar.
There is hardly a free seat anywhere, many people standing at the bar, others clustered on risers running along the side of the room, still others sitting at round tables surrounding the small stage in the back of the room. Some young guy just finished a pretty cool rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Tin Pan Alley” and now the stage is empty except for an ebony baby grand piano and a glittering white drum set. Clusters of guitar cases, amplifiers, and other equipment fill one darkened corner adjacent to the stage. The crowd is eclectic, multiracial, and multigenerational, but mostly older, bohemian, and very chill, with zero cheese factor. I have the feeling that most are regulars, here for the music rather than the pickup potential so prevalent in the few bars Belinda and I have sneaked into in St. Louis.
I scan the room, looking for Conrad, and when I don’t find him, I make my way to the bar as he instructed in his final text, our meeting place. A lady bartender with a Bettie Page hairdo, muscular arms tattooed with Japanese characters, and an absurdly flat stomach exposed between a cropped tank and low-riding jeans, asks me what I’d like to drink. I consider ordering a vodka tonic or at least a beer, having the feeling she won’t card me, but decide not to try my luck. Instead I ask for a Coke and hand her a five-dollar bill.
She refuses it, saying it’s on the house, filling it from a tap at the bar. “You’re here to see the boss, right?” she asks, handing me my Coke.
“Um, I’m here to see Conrad?” I say.
“Yeah. He’s the owner.”
“Oh,” I say, wondering why he hadn’t told Marian that he owned the bar.
An old black guy sitting two stools down from me signals her with a nod, and she acknowledges him with one of her own. “Ready for another?”
He nods, and she mixes a bourbon with water, sliding it toward him. Then she walks back to me and points toward the stage. “Conrad’s back there somewhere. Sometimes open mic night starts out a little slow so he’s gotta encourage them a bit … Otherwise, he knows he’s gonna wind up on stage all night.”
“Does he still sing?” I ask, now even more excited.
“Does he still sing?” she says with a friendly chuckle. “Hell, yeah, he still sings. And he
still plays the bass and the guitar and the horn and the piano. You ever heard him?”
I shake my head, bursting to tell her he’s my father, that we just met today, especially as I see him approaching us, fielding hellos every few steps, looking rock-and-roll cool in the same jeans he was wearing earlier, only now in a black T-shirt and a green John Deere baseball cap, the brim frayed and curved. My heart is pounding as he settles onto the bar stool beside me, looks at me, and says, “I’m glad you came.” His expression is relaxed, with no trace of the tension I saw earlier.
“Thank you for inviting me,” I say as a woman in a purple dress and black patent heels takes a seat at the piano and starts singing a hauntingly beautiful version of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”
Conrad watches her for a moment, nodding his approval, then raises his voice one drop, although the din is just low enough that nobody needs to yell to be heard. The same girl bartender hands him a Coors Light as he thanks her and then says to me, “You met Steph?”
“Yes,” I say, looking at her. “I’m Kirby.”
She nods and says, “Yeah. I was telling her open mic night’s hit or miss…”
Conrad shakes his head. “There’s seldom a miss. Even our amateurs are good. And that includes our bartenders.” He smiles at her.
“Hey. Who you callin’ amateur? I got paid fifty bucks for my last gig.”
“Oh, yeah? And where was that?”
“My niece’s graduation party. So technically, I’ve turned pro.”
Conrad barely smiles, then says, “We’re all about the love of live music here. No karaoke bullshit. Just the real deal, whether it’s rock, soul, funk, jazz, or the blues.”
I nod and try to think of some way to show him that I know music—good music—and that he’s not dealing with, say, a Charlotte or Belinda. “Yeah, I can see that. You go from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Joni Mitchell on open mic night? Not bad.”
He raises his eyebrows, smiles, and says, “You know your stuff.”
I nod.
“Do you play?”
“Yeah. I sing some—and play a little guitar. But mostly, I drum.” It is more than I’ve ever come out and admitted to anyone, at least right out of the gate. I think of Philip and how he had to see my drums on Facebook before the subject came up. I’m making progress.
“You’re a drummer?” he says, looking less surprised and more respectful than most.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling like I have to pinch myself. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation in a place like this with my father.
“That’s impressive.”
“Why? Because I’m a girl?” I ask, only pretending to be offended, secretly relishing his attention and obvious approval.
“Because drummers always impress me. And yeah, partly because you’re a girl.” He gives me a teasing look. “An itty-bitty girl. What are you? A buck five soaking wet?”
“Maybe. But I can play,” I say. “I’m no light hitter.”
He flashes me a huge smile. “What do you listen to?” he asks.
“A little bit of everything. Rock, folk, R & B, even rap,” I say. “Everything but country. My family is big into country. They think Alan Jackson did the original ‘Summertime Blues.’”
He throws his head back and laughs a deep belly laugh. Then he gives me a serious look and says, “Top five bands?”
“Wow. That’s hard,” I say. “Maybe Wilco, Radiohead, Van Morrison, R.E.M., and the Velvets,” I say, counting them off on my fingers. “Maureen Tucker is my hero. Bar none. Though Yael comes close.”
“Damn. You really are my daughter.”
“Yeah,” I say, getting goose bumps. “I am.” I take a long drink of my Coke, ditching the straw on the bar, then say, “What about you? Marian told me that you used to play in a grunge band?”
He visibly bristles at the mention of her and says, “That was a long time ago. But yeah, I used to live in flannel shirts and loved that sludgy guitar sound with all the fuzz and feedback. I played all that stuff.”
“Like what?” I say.
“Nirvana. Pearl Jam. Alice in Chains. Mudhoney.” He looks fleetingly wistful, then shakes his head and says, “That was a long time ago. I’ve diversified since then.”
“Diversified to what?” I say, still trying hard to be cool, still mystified over how handsome my father is. It is a little unsettling actually.
“A little bit of everything. Like you. From Mike & the Mechanics to Bo Diddley to the Violent Femmes. I love classic rock. The Stones, the Beatles, Bob Dylan. Hell, I even listen to country. You get a little older and you might appreciate the simplicity of those lyrics. It’s authentic. No pretense. I mean—Waylon Jennings? Hank Williams? You gotta like those guys.”
I think of Philip’s T-shirt and say, “Yeah. But they’re not really country.”
“The hell!” He laughs. “How do you figure?”
“They’re from the Golden Age.”
“The Golden Age, huh?” he says. “How old are you again?”
“Eighteen,” I say, and his face changes again, as I wonder whether he’s thinking about her. Eighteen years ago. That’s when I blurt out, “So how pissed are you at her?”
I expect him to look surprised, or play it off, but instead he shakes his head, the answer clear even before he replies, “Pretty damn pissed.”
I nod, looking down at my cardboard coaster.
“Let’s be clear here, though. I’m pissed at her. Not you,” he says, which might seem like it should be a given by now, but still fills me with joy to hear him confirm it. “What she did was really…” He starts to say “fucked up,” but changes it to “messed up.”
“I know it was,” I say, looking into his eyes. “She knows it, too.”
“Yeah. Well.” He shrugs then cracks his knuckles.
“She was scared,” I say. “Too scared to keep me.”
“She didn’t have to keep you to tell me.”
“I don’t think she wanted you to keep me, either.”
“That’s pretty obvious.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“But you know,” he says, “that really wasn’t up to her.”
I say, “If you kept me, everyone would have known. She didn’t want that.”
“Again,” he says, folding a napkin in half, then quarters. “That wasn’t up to her. Even if she ultimately made the right decision for you—and it sounds like she did—she still had no right not to tell me about my own kid.”
“I know.”
We are both quiet for a second until he finally speaks.
“Well. She got her ivory-tower life. So that’s all good. For her.”
I know what he’s getting at—that neither of us was part of her grand plan for her grand life on Fifth Avenue. And although I know I should resent her, too, I can’t help feeling sorry for her, especially because I think she would change things if she could.
“Her life’s not perfect,” I say, a sudden revelation to me. “I don’t even know if she’s that happy. With all her success and money. I mean … she has this ridiculous apartment in New York—and a rich boyfriend who is probably going to propose any day now, and owns, like, the whole network…”
Conrad holds up his hand and says, “Yeah. It’s cool. But I don’t really need to know the details.”
“Right,” I say. “Sorry.”
“It’s cool,” he says again. “Look. It’s no big deal … It’s just … Marian and I are different. Very different. We always were.”
“Are you married?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nah … But I was. For about three years.”
“Did you have kids?” I ask, nervously awaiting his answer, although I’m not sure what I want it to be. It would be pretty neat to have a half sibling with him as our father—and I have the feeling that any kid of his would be okay with me, and probably a whole lot more like me than Charlotte. Then again, it’d be pretty awesome to have him all to myself, too.
“No ki
ds,” he says. “She didn’t want them.”
“But you did?”
“Very much so.” He smiles at me, and I feel a chill run up my spine, thrilled to hear him say this, so much more unequivocally than Marian ever has.
“Is that why you split up with her?” I ask, thinking it’d be ironic if having a baby factored into his one breakup and not having one factored into the other.
He laughs, exchanging a look with the bartender who seems to be eavesdropping on our conversation, or at least keeping very diligent tabs on our drinks. “Not exactly.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I know that’s really none of my business.”
“No. That’s okay,” he says. “But you might as well ask her.” He points at Stephanie and says, “She’s the ex. Hell of a bartender. Shitty wife.”
Stephanie throws a lime wedge at him that he bats back over the bar. “Hey! Check yourself. I wasn’t that bad.”
“Yeah. If you hadn’t been pretending to be straight, you would have been the perfect wife.”
They both laugh, clearly no hard feelings between them. “I’m bi. Get that straight. And you weren’t exactly easy to live with, babe…” Stephanie laughs some more, then migrates to the other end of the bar to make a margarita. As I watch her grinding the top of the glass into a dish of salt, I say, “Does she know who I am?”
Conrad shakes his head. “Nope. I haven’t told anyone yet.” He looks at me, starts to say something, then thinks better of it.
“What?” I say.
He glances back over his shoulder toward the stage and says, “I was just going to tell you that she does know who your mother is.”
“How?” I ask, wondering if she went to school with them.
“Because,” he says, shrugging.
I don’t let him off the hook, but keep staring at him until he says, “Because Marian was the love of my life. For a long time. And that’s the kind of information you share when you’re young and stupid and hoping that you’re in something that is going to be even bigger and better than what you once lost. It’s the kind of shit you waste your time thinking about. Lemme tell you—it does no good. Remember that, okay? Things are what they are and there’s no point dwelling in the past or wondering what could have been.”