“Let me see your toes,” JJ said.
“My toes?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Just let me see them.”
Hollis pulled off her socks and propped her feet on the desk in front of the computer.
JJ squinted. “Mm-hmm.”
“What?”
“See how your second toe is shorter than your big toe?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Look at mine.”
JJ disappeared from view for a minute. Then his freakishly large feet appeared and completely filled the screen.
Hollis laughed. “All I can see is your heels.”
“Hang on.” He backed up. “Can you see them now?”
“Yeah.”
“See how my second toe is longer than my big toe?”
“Yeah.”
“Genetics, baby. Longer second toe is dominant. Shorter second toe is recessive.”
“Huh.” She stared at JJ’s feet. “What size are those bad boys?”
“Fourteens.”
“Do you have to shop in a special store? Do you have to have your own team of elf shoemakers?”
“You know what they say about men with big feet…”
“Don’t even—”
“Big hearts.”
Hollis tried not to smile but couldn’t help herself.
It was Wednesday afternoon and they were FaceTiming. It wasn’t their first time. They’d tried it a few nights ago, in the middle of one of their marathon phone calls. “I want to see your face,” JJ had said. And Hollis said, “Why?” And he said, “Because I do.” So they’d FaceTimed each other from their separate bedrooms, which somehow felt way more intimate than talking on the phone. They toured each other around. They showed each other their stuff. Like JJ’s vintage hockey posters (chosen by his mother’s decorator, which Hollis thought was weird) and his solar system mobile (built by JJ during his fourth-grade astronaut phase, which Hollis thought was cute).
Hollis told him about the books she loved. He told her about the TV shows he was hooked on. (How had she not seen a single episode of Breaking Bad? Blasphemy!)
Hollis didn’t know why talking to JJ was so easy. Was it his lack of pretention? His goofiness? His angst? My mother gave me away. I was an ugly baby. Whatever it was—whatever walls had been knocked down over the past week to allow them to confide in each other—it was a tender thing. Like a newly hatched butterfly or a mung bean sprout. Hollis had a distinct memory of sprouting mung beans with Pam. It had taken a long time. There were many steps. It involved some kind of a cloth bag.
“Agh, my legs are cramping.” JJ lifted his feet and lowered them to the ground. “I have the flexibility of a ninety-year-old.”
“You should do yoga.”
“Do you do yoga?”
“No. But I am extremely flexible.” Hollis was about to demonstrate her flexibility by pulling a foot behind her head when her cell phone pinged. She picked it up.
Did u c the email?
“Tell me that’s not Gunnar Mott,” JJ said.
Hollis shook her head. “It’s Milo. He wants to know if I saw the email.”
“What email?”
“I don’t know.”
What email? Hollis texted. Her stomach felt funny. Had Milo heard back from William Bardo? Was this actually happening? Crap. She wasn’t ready.
Her phone pinged almost immediately. Abby’s.
Abby’s. Hollis exhaled. Didn’t c it. Sup?
She found where he works. There’s a bio on the site.
Hollis took another breath.
“Everything okay?” JJ said.
“Abby found where he works.” She hated the tremulous note in her voice.
“Your donor?”
Hollis nodded. “Milo says there’s a bio.”
“Did Abby send a link?” JJ said.
“I don’t know.”
Is there a link? she texted.
Yup, Milo texted back. Check it out.
Hollis’s chest felt tight, like someone was sitting on it.
“Are you okay?” JJ said.
“Yes.”
“Breathe.”
“I am.”
“Do you want to check your email?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to check your email?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t we call Milo?” JJ suggested. “He can fill us in.”
Hollis closed her eyes. She tried to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
“Or I could go … and you could call him yourself. Maybe it’s better if you two—”
“No!” Her eyes snapped open. “Stay. Call him.”
“Okay.” JJ picked up his phone and tapped the screen. “Hey,” he said as soon as Milo answered. “I’m FaceTiming with Hollis. She got your text and she’s wondering if you could tell her about Abby’s email…” Silence for a second. “Because she seems to be having a little trouble breathing.”
“I can breathe fine,” Hollis said sharply.
“She says she can breathe fine. Hang on—” JJ said. “I’m putting you on speaker … okay, you’re good.”
“Can you hear me?”
Hollis could hear Milo’s voice coming out of JJ’s phone, which JJ was holding up to the computer screen like a lighter at a rock concert. It was bizarre. This whole thing was bizarre.
“Hollis?” Milo said.
“I can hear you.”
“Okay, so he’s a teacher.”
A teacher. It felt as though her insides were being squeezed through a very tiny hole.
“He works at a Montessori school,” Milo continued. “The Eden Prairie Cooperative Learning Center. Abby found the website … Do you want me to read you his bio?”
“Yes,” Hollis said with more conviction than she felt.
JJ nodded encouragingly from the computer screen. He looked warm and rumpled in his plaid shirt: Paul Bunyan relaxing after a day of log rolling. Even though he wasn’t actually here, Hollis was glad she had him to look at while she listened.
“‘Hi. I’m Will,’” Milo began.
“Will?” JJ cut in. “What kind of a school—”
“Shhh,” Hollis said.
“Sorry.”
“‘I’m Will,’” Milo repeated. “‘This is my eighth year teaching Language Arts at the EPCLC. I grew up in a small town outside Indianapolis, Indiana, and received my BA in English from Macalester College in Minnesota. I have an MA in Education from Minnesota State University, Mankato. Before I went into teaching, I was an Outward Bound instructor at Colorado Outward Bound in Denver, which is where I met my wife, Gwen—’”
“He’s married?” Hollis blurted.
“He called her his wife,” Milo said, “so yeah.”
Hollis didn’t know why this surprised her. Maybe because, ever since she saw the Macalester yearbook, she’d been picturing William Bardo as a college student. But of course, that was sixteen years ago. He’d be—what? Thirty-eight by now? Thirty-eight wasn’t an unreasonable age to be married.
“Can I keep going?” Milo said.
“Yes.”
“Okay … ‘which is where I met my wife, Gwen, who teaches biology and outdoor ed right down the hall. We both love it here. The Eden Prairie Cooperative is a lovely learning community, both environmentally and socially conscious…’”
Hollis almost snorted. Lovely learning community? But somehow she managed to contain herself and let Milo finish.
“‘… which meshes with our philosophy that a teacher’s job is not just to teach children how to read and write and solve equations, but also how to make the world a more humane and sustainable place. Gwen and I have a little house just a few miles from the school, with a yard big enough for three Nigerian Dwarf goats, a dozen chickens, and a wolfhound named Max. In my spare time I like to read, mountain bike, noodle around on my saxophone, and play Ultimate Frisbee. I look forward to getting to know you this year and learning what makes you tick. Sincerely, Will.’”
“He actually sounds it,” JJ said.
“What?” Hollis said.
“Sincere.”
“Yeah,” Milo said. “He seems like a decent guy.”
Sincere? Decent? Hollis was at a loss. She knew what the words meant, obviously, but how was she supposed to feel? Hollis had spent the better part of her life hating this man. She spontaneously combusted just thinking about him—how he’d profited from her conception while taking zero responsibility for her life. He was a bad guy. A careless person. And now … what? He was some sincere and decent Montessori-teaching, Nigerian-Dwarf-goat-raising husband with a social conscience? This was bullshit! It was too late! He couldn’t just suddenly change his story and expect Hollis to forgive him. It didn’t work that way!
“You should check out his page,” Milo said. “There’s a picture of him in his backyard.”
“Nigerian Dwarf goats?” Hollis said weakly. “Really?”
* * *
“He sounds like a cool cat,” Abby said.
“Define cool cat,” Hollis said.
It was her second FaceTime of the day. Hollis needed perspective, and she was hoping that Abby Fenn—sperm sister, aspiring memoirist—could provide some. Abby Fenn of the shiny hair and the gold cross necklace, lounging on a frilly canopy bed, eating a container of yogurt with a fork. Abby Fenn of the smoker’s voice and the disturbingly familiar eyebrows, who seemed unfazed by Hollis’s face popping up on her computer in real time.
“Cool cat,” Abby said. “Noun. One who enjoys noodling around on his saxophone.”
“Noodling.” Hollis snorted. “Who says that?”
“Jazz musicians. Wordsmiths.”
“Pfff,” Hollis said.
“You’re aware, I assume, that the proverbial apple does not fall far from the tree? Noah’s trombone? My writing? You and Milo and your billions of books? Hellooo. He loves to read!”
Hollis gave a noncommittal grunt.
“You have to admit,” Abby said. “This is pretty wild.”
“What is?”
“This.” Abby waved her hands in front of the computer. “All of it. Us finding each other. All these crazy little connections.”
Hollis couldn’t decide whether to agree with Abby—because on some level she did—or whether to confess that everything she’d assumed about her existence was suddenly being called into question. And it was freaking. Her. Out.
“Hollis?” Abby said.
“Yeah?”
“I think your phone just pinged.”
Hollis looked down at her desk. Crap, she thought.
“Maybe it’s Milo,” Abby said. “With news.”
Crap, crap, crap. Hollis closed her eyes. I’m not ready.
She made herself pick up her cell. She made herself look.
Bitchslut. Stop hooking up w/ other girls boyfriends.
“Ha!” Relief washed over her.
“What?” Abby said. “Is it Milo?”
Hollis shook her head.
“Noah?”
“No.”
“Why ‘ha’?”
“It’s a funny text.” Bitchslut. It was pretty funny. A compound insult.
“What does it say?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes,” Abby said. “I do.”
It took Hollis a long time to tell the Malory Keener story. It took her all the way back to second grade. Back to the monkey bars. Back to My mom says your mom’s lifestyle is an abomination. Hollis told the whole thing, and Abby listened. Hollis described how it felt to see the expression on Malory’s face at the Snowflake Formal when she and Gunnar exited the science lab. And the expression on Malory’s face outside the auditorium when Hollis called herself an abomination. And the rush she felt every time she pressed her body up against Gunnar’s, her lips on his lips.
“That’s not okay,” Abby said when Hollis finished.
“I know,” Hollis said. “I can’t explain it. I just like hooking up.” Numbing, JJ had called it. As though making out in the janitor’s closet was anything close to smoking pot in the basement.
“I’m not talking about hooking up,” Abby said. “That’s just hormones. I’m talking about what those girls are doing.”
“What?”
“They’re slut shaming you.”
“Well. I did hook up with Malory’s boyfriend.”
“That’s no excuse.”
Hollis shrugged.
“Are they slut shaming him?”
“I don’t think boys get slut shamed.”
“You’re making my point,” Abby said. “Calling in the middle of the night? Posting those things on Instagram? That’s harassment.”
“I don’t feel harassed.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I don’t want to dignify their behavior with my outrage. Besides…” Hollis hesitated.
Abby cocked her head, waiting.
“I kind of like messing with Malory. Every time I see her I remember what she said about Pam in second grade and I get mad all over again.”
“Hollis.”
“Yeah?”
“Second grade?”
“Yeah. So?”
Abby removed the fork from her yogurt and stabbed the air. “You know what you need, Hollis?”
“What?”
“A resolution to this story.”
“You know what you need, Abby?”
“What?”
“A spoon.”
* * *
It was five o’clock by the time Hollis logged off the computer. Her mother wouldn’t be home for another hour, so Hollis pulled her bike out of the garage. It was too cold for a bike ride, but the frigid air felt right for the occasion. Like when you’re crying hysterically and what you really need is a slap in the face.
I am on the Arctic tundra, Hollis thought as she pedaled. I feel nothing. Feeling nothing is good.
And it was good. Until she turned onto Reeder Street and there was Gunnar Mott, shooting baskets in Fitzy’s driveway.
The universe, Hollis thought as she pedaled, is messing with me.
Hollis wanted to avoid Gunnar, but she also wanted him to notice her. Just like she wanted the bitchslut messages to stop, but she also enjoyed getting under Malory’s skin. She knew it made no sense. These stupid, weird, needy, competing urges that she justified with Malory’s comment about Pam from a million years ago.
Let’s make a deal, JJ had said. Let’s break our self-destructive habits together. Hollis had agreed, more for JJ’s sake than for her own. She wasn’t sure she bought JJ’s theory that Gunnar was her drug of choice. Hollis just liked hooking up. Hooking up made her feel good. Was that really so bad?
Whatever. Her legs were tired. She had been pumping hard. She wouldn’t look over. She wouldn’t call his name.
But now he was calling hers. “Yo, Hollis!”
She slowed down.
“Hollis!”
He was running now, dribbling the basketball down the street toward her.
“Hey,” she said, stopping the bike and putting one foot on the ground.
“Where’ve you been?” He was sweating a little, even in the cold. His hair stood up in tufts.
“Around.”
He spun the basketball on one finger. “Cool.”
Cool that she’d been around, or cool that he could spin a basketball on one finger?
“I’ve been FaceTiming,” she blurted. She didn’t plan to; it just slipped out. “With my half siblings. We just found out our donor’s a teacher.”
Gunnar slapped the ball, keeping it moving.
“You know, the father I’ve never met? He works for some hippie school. And he’s married.”
“Cool.”
Hollis stared at Gunnar. Cool?
Gunnar caught the ball. “You wanna…?” He cocked his head in the direction of a thicket of trees.
“What?”
He smiled. Great teeth. So white. “You know.”
“Do I want to hook up with you in that thicket of trees?”
He shrugged, still smiling.
God, that smile. Part of Hollis wanted to grab him and kiss him right here on the street. But the other part of her was still talking. “Did you not hear what I just said?”
“What?”
“My father. We sent him a letter. Like five days ago. We could hear back from him at any second. I’m trying to decide how I feel.” Hollis was on a roll. The words were just pouring out of her. More words than she had ever spoken to Gunnar Mott.
“I know how you feel,” he said, tossing his basketball onto the grass.
“You do?”
Gunnar pulled Hollis toward him, bike and all. “Mm-hmm.” His lips were on her lips. “You feel soft.”
Hollis pulled away. “That’s not what I—”
“And warm.” His hands were under her shirt. “You feel really warm.”
“Hey,” Hollis said sharply. This wasn’t making her feel good. This was pissing her off.
“What?”
“I was telling you something,” Hollis said. “If you want to listen, great. If you want to give me advice, great. But if all you want to do is stick your hands up my shirt … well … I think I’m going to keep riding my bike.”
“Oh.” Gunnar stepped back. He looked embarrassed—for her or for himself, she couldn’t tell.
Lucky for him, this was the moment when Fitzy hollered down the street, “Yo, Mott! We playin’ or what?”
“So, listen,” Gunnar said, bending to retrieve his basketball. “I should go.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Hollis said. “See you around.”