OhmyGod. OhmyGod. OhmyGod. This was Hollis’s brain in the middle of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport baggage claim, where she and her mother stood side by side, holding up a ridiculous piece of poster board that read Robinson, Clark, Resnick, Fenn in black Sharpie.
This was actually happening. She had agreed to this. She, Hollis Darby-Barnes, had made this weekend possible. What had she been thinking?
Hollis reminded herself that she was doing this out of half-sisterly love for Milo. That seeing their donor in person could lead to meeting him, to developing a relationship, to genetic testing, which—down the line—might, in some convoluted way Hollis didn’t fully understand, help Milo find a cure for his allergies. She told herself she was doing a good thing. She told herself to breathe.
“Are you nervous?”
Hollis looked at her mother. “Why would I be nervous?”
“You’re scowling.”
“So?”
“You scowl when you’re nervous.”
“I scowl when people ask me stupid questions.”
Her mother smiled. Smiled! “You’ll be fine.”
Hollis did not think she would be fine. But then planes started arriving and swells of people filled the escalator, and suddenly, she was swept up in it all. Everything happened at once. Abby—Hollis knew it was Abby because her shirt read Careful what you say, or I’ll put you in my memoir—ran over and hugged her, then whipped out a small, spiral-bound notebook and said, “Tell me what you’re feeling, right now, in this moment.”
Noah, who seemed to arrive nearly simultaneously, was a taller, wider, shorter-haired version of Milo, a fact that Hollis’s mother commented on immediately.
“You’re smaller than I thought you’d be,” Noah said, hooking an arm around Hollis’s neck. He smelled like cologne.
“You’re bigger than I thought you’d be.”
“Nice shirt,” Noah said to Abby, giving her the same elbow-neck hug, but with his other arm.
“Careful what you say,” Abby said. “I’ll put you in my memoir.”
Leigh introduced herself to Noah and Abby. Abby offered everyone Dubble Bubble. Leigh asked after Noah’s and Abby’s parents, with whom she had spoken several times on the phone, and whom she now wanted Noah and Abby to call, to let them know they’d arrived safely.
At some point a whistle pierced the air. When Hollis looked up there was Suzanne at the top of the escalator, waving. Frizzy hair, long crocheted sweater. She was flanked by Milo and Frankie—jeans, beat-up leather jacket—and they were working their way down, which of course meant teary-eyed mom hugs and exclamations about facial features. “Look at the eyebrows! Look at the jawlines!”
Suddenly, Hollis was surrounded on all sides. Noah and Milo were fist bumping and back slapping. Frankie was squeezing Hollis’s arm. Suzanne was kissing her cheek. Hollis was just trying to breathe, lifting her chin for a little oxygen, when she saw JJ working his way through the bodies.
“JJ Rabinowitz,” he said, pumping Noah’s hand up and down. “No relation to anyone.”
Hollis watched him move from Noah to Abby to Leigh, plaid arm pumping, hair flopping in his eyes. “JJ Rabinowitz, honorary sperm sibling.” “JJ Rabinowitz, event photographer.” God, he was weird. Hollis watched him introduce himself and she thought about how he didn’t have any of this, how he didn’t know who his birth parents were, or where they lived, or whether they were even alive. He didn’t know if he had brothers or sisters, or, if he did, whether he would ever meet them, and how it must feel even weirder for him to be here than for anyone else. And she heard herself saying, “Look what the cat dragged in.”
When he turned around and saw her, he grinned, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Like, what were the odds he would run into her in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport on February 12? “Hollis Darby,” he said.
“JJ Rabinowitz.”
“I’m here to take a picture of your clover tongue.”
“Oh, really.”
“And your hitchhiker’s thumbs.”
“I don’t have hitchhiker’s thumbs.”
“Prove it.”
Hollis gave him two thumbs-up and he grabbed both of them in his big warm hands and squeezed. “It’s good to see you,” he said.
“It’s good to see you, too.”
And they stood there, grinning like idiots, thumb-holding in the baggage claim until Milo came over and thumped Hollis on the back. “How do you feel?”
Hollis thought for a moment. “I feel okay.”
“Good.” He thumped her again. “We’re going to pick up the rental car.”
* * *
It was weird having all these people in her house. Perched on chairs, leaning against counters, nibbling on the snacks Hollis’s mother had put out. But it could have been weirder, Hollis reminded herself as Suzanne walked around the kitchen taking drink orders. Abby and Noah could have brought along their parents and siblings. Meeting Becca and Josh—Hollis’s half-siblings-in-law, or half siblings once removed, or whatever they were? That would be weird. When Hollis thought about it, she was impressed that Noah and Abby came alone. The only time Hollis had traveled anywhere alone was to sleep-away camp in Iowa. She was eleven. She’d hated it—a fact that her mother seemed to have forgotten because this very morning, while she was unrolling sleeping bags in the basement in anticipation of everyone’s arrival, Leigh exclaimed, “This will be just like camp!” Suzanne and Frankie would have Hollis’s room, and the five kids would get the basement all to themselves. Their own bunk! What could be better?
“I hated camp,” Hollis felt free to remind her mother. “I didn’t have any friends.”
“This will be different,” her mother said. “The friends are built in.”
The friends are built in.
Until her mother had said that, Hollis hadn’t really thought of her half siblings as friends. But she supposed they were. In the past month, she’d talked to Milo and Abby and Noah more than she’d talked to Shay and Gianna. Which begged the question … was JJ Rabinowitz, honorary sperm sibling, a friend, too? The thought of JJ sleeping in the same room filled Hollis with … what? She didn’t know. She and JJ had been talking on the phone—and FaceTiming and texting—for nearly four weeks. They had never hooked up. They had never even hugged. But that didn’t mean nothing was happening between them.
“What do you think?” Leigh called out in the middle of the hubbub. “Should we order some pizza?” She had found—in consultation with Suzanne and Frankie—a restaurant in Saint Paul that made a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free pizza, so Milo could have his own pie.
Yes! They all agreed. Pizza!
Pizza was ordered. Pizza was delivered. Pizza was consumed. JJ ate five slices of Hawaiian. Five!
“Where do you put it all?” Hollis asked.
“Right here,” JJ said, tapping his thigh. “My hollow leg.”
Milo, who was sitting on JJ’s other side, knocked on JJ’s head. “What about in here? Isn’t this hollow, too?”
“Hardy har har.”
“Why don’t we play a board game?” Hollis’s mother suggested.
A board game? Hollis nearly groaned. But Noah had Trivia Crack on his iPad and Abby said she was unbeatable in Trivia Crack.
“Is that so?” Noah said.
And Abby said, “Try me.”
They gathered around the coffee table. It was the Darby-Resnick-Rabinowitzes versus the Robinson-Clark-Fenns. The competition was fierce. At some point, Abby busted Noah in the kitchen, texting his brother Josh for an answer to some obscure basketball question. “Cheater!” she cried, dragging Noah by his elbow back into the living room. “I call for a disqualification!”
“In my defense,” Noah said. “If Josh had agreed to come here and support his brother, he would be on my team.”
“Oh no,” Abby said. “You are not going to pull on our heartstrings right now.”
* * *
Later, when the lights were out and the five of them were scattered around the basement in their separate sleeping bags, but no one was actually sleeping, the subject came up again. Noah texted Josh one of the pictures JJ had taken of the four half siblings on the couch. Josh didn’t text back.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” Abby said.
“He’s not asleep,” Noah said. “He’s conflicted.”
“Do you think he wishes he came?” Milo said.
“Part of him. Yeah.”
“Does he know what we’re doing tomorrow?” Milo said.
“He knows.”
“What does he think?” Abby said.
“He thinks we’re crazy.”
“He has a point,” Hollis said. “Who stakes out their sperm donor at an Ultimate Frisbee tournament?”
“Crazy people,” Noah said.
And Abby said, “I’m not going to be able to sleep.”
“Me neither,” Milo said.
They agreed that they were too wired to sleep. Hollis turned on the lights. She passed around the snacks again.
“This floor,” Milo said, propping himself on one elbow and taking a few baby carrots from a bowl, “is harder than it appears.”
“Surprisingly hard,” JJ agreed, chomping on a handful of potato chips.
“Should I be drinking this Mountain Dew with its fifty-five milligrams of caffeine?” Abby said. “Probably not.”
“Are there potato chip shards all over my sleeping bag?” Noah said. “Making the likelihood of a good night’s sleep even less likely? Yes there are.”
“Mine too,” JJ said. “Shards everywhere.”
“Who should we blame for this sad state of affairs?” Abby said.
“I blame Milo,” Hollis said.
“Hey.” Milo chucked a baby carrot at Hollis. “I didn’t bring the potato chips. I’m allergic to potato chips.”
Hollis chucked the carrot back. “We wouldn’t be here eating potato chips if it weren’t for you, Bilbo Baggins.”
“Milo’s a hobbit?” Noah said.
“Yes he is,” Hollis said. “And tomorrow he will lead us to Smaug the dragon, whom we will observe in his natural habitat.”
“You’re welcome,” Milo said.
It was almost one a.m. In a matter of hours, they would see Will Bardo for the first time. They would watch him throw a Frisbee.
“Oh my God!” Abby suddenly exclaimed. “I almost forgot. I brought you guys something!” She rifled through her duffel and came up with a paper bag, the contents of which she dumped on the floor. Plastic noses and hats and glasses and what appeared to be a pile of furry caterpillars.
“What is all that?” Hollis said.
“Disguises!”
“Disguises,” Milo repeated.
“So we can go incognito tomorrow.” Abby picked up one of the furry caterpillars and held it to her lip. “We’ve got mustaches.” She sifted through the pile. “Beards … dark glasses … fake teeth.”
“Let me see those,” JJ said. He stuck the teeth—yellow and rotting—into his mouth and leered at everyone.
Hollis laughed. She grabbed a platinum-blond wig from the pile and tucked her curls inside. “Do I look like Lady Gaga?”
“Better,” JJ said.
“Milo.” Abby was trying to get his attention. She was holding something up, waving it in the air.
“What?”
“Try this on.”
Milo did as instructed. The beard was long and bushy and made him look like an Amish farmer. “You realize,” he said, “that we’re just going to draw more attention to ourselves if we wear these.”
“Where’s your sense of dramatic irony?” Abby said.
“It’s actually not dramatic irony. If it were, the audience would get the joke, but the players would not.”
“Yes, but in this case, we’re the audience. Will’s the player.”
“We look like a bunch of weirdos.”
“We are a bunch of weirdos,” Noah said.
“Speak for yourselves,” Hollis said, fluffing her wig. “I’m Lady Gaga.”
* * *
It was four in the morning when JJ woke Hollis up by whispering in her ear. “Hollis Darby.” He had pulled his sleeping bag next to hers, so his head was just inches away.
“JJ Rabinowitz,” she whispered back.
“You awake?” His breath was warm—a little sour, but not awful.
“I am now.”
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
“Okay.”
“I wanted to kiss you in the airport.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I was nervous.”
“Why?”
“There were a lot of people looking … and I wasn’t sure you’d want me to. So I grabbed your thumbs instead.”
“Ah.”
They lay there in silence, looking at each other. There was just enough moonlight shining through the basement window for Hollis to see JJ’s face. The plane of his cheekbones, the curve of his chin. Hollis studied him for a long moment. She thought about the phone call where he’d gotten choked up talking about his birth mother, and she thought about him shaking everyone’s hands at the airport. She thought about what Milo had said—how JJ was just looking for an excuse to come see her. She knew that boys were mostly after one thing and would say anything to get it, but if Hollis was really honest she would announce to the world, I like hooking up, too, so sue me.
“No one’s looking now,” Hollis said softly.
“What are you saying?”
“What do you think I’m saying?”
JJ smiled. “Come here.”
His arms, big and warm, pulled her closer, and she could feel the heat from his mouth as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. Her head! It was a tender, unexpected gesture.
“That’s sweet,” Hollis murmured.
“You’re sweet.”
“No I’m not.”
“What are you then?”
Hollis smiled and pulled his face down to meet hers.
JJ’s kiss was softer than she expected—not that she’d been expecting him to kiss her at all, necessarily, although he had mentioned being jealous of Gunnar hooking up with her, and that had been weeks ago, when she and JJ first started talking on the phone, so really, what did she think would happen this weekend? It was a little weird that they were kissing here, on the basement floor, with her three half siblings sleeping just feet away. But it was fairly innocent. No clothing was removed. No body parts were touched except for lips and tongues and chins and cheeks and ears and necks.
“I like you, Hollis Darby,” JJ whispered when they finally came up for air.
She felt that familiar ache in her chest. “Barnes,” she whispered back.
“What?”
She asked JJ to come upstairs with her. She asked him to sit on the couch in front of the fireplace. “JJ Rabinowitz,” she said, gesturing to the wall, “Pam Barnes. Pam, this is JJ.” Then she sat on the couch and told him about Pam. How, the minute Pam woke up, she would make herself a cup of hot water with lemon. How she could stand on her head for ages. How she loved the Beatles, and the taste of real butter, and walking around barefoot. The memories tumbled out of Hollis’s mouth, one after the other. A few times, she could feel the tears well up, but they never actually dropped. Mostly what she felt was JJ’s hand, warm and sure on top of hers. And when she finished talking, that hand pulled her off the couch and led her back down to the basement, where they kissed some more.