CHAPTER 13
Surprisingly, we all sleep deeply, and late. In the morning, Flynn claims to have a stiff neck because of the limp pillows, but I think he might be imagining it, because once he’s been awake for a few minutes, he stops wincing every time he moves his head.
None of us wants to step inside the questionable shower, so we just check out (the total cost of our stay is forty dollars, which causes Flynn’s mood to improve drastically) and then pile into the van. It’s my turn to sit shotgun. I’d just as soon stay in the back, but I don’t want Flynn to think I’m avoiding him, so I climb into the front seat.
As we cross the river on the way out of Reedley, it occurs to me that if I’m going to find my birth parents this week, or even find a clue as to where they might be, then today is my last chance. Maybe someday I could hire a private investigator. There’s an ex-cop named Frank Haines who advertises detective services on a lot of the adoptee discussion forums. Supposedly, he has a pretty high solve rate. He’s also expensive. And who knows what will happen to Martin and Teresa by the time I’ve saved up enough? Who knows what’s already happened? For all I know, they’re both dead, or have moved to Australia, or have joined a cult and are permanently off the grid. Maybe I’m chasing ghosts.
The drive to Watsonville goes by in a blur. After we check into our hotel (Daniel follows me into room 309 without comment), we head to the address I already found for the defunct Croft’s Confections. Last night, we tried searching for the whereabouts of a Martin Croft of Watsonville, but we didn’t find anything promising—no social media profiles, no white pages entries. Croft’s Confections is our only lead, and as far as I can tell it went out of business years ago. Its space in the strip mall is currently occupied by a nail salon called Princess Nails, whose windows are decorated with a disorderly mishmash of cartoon decals. When we get there, there’s a tattered sign hanging from the door that says Come on in! We’re open!
We pause outside. “You guys don’t have to do this with me,” I say. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for.”
“Are you kidding?” Cameron says. “You’ve given us a quest. Who doesn’t love a quest?”
“Most bands would love to have a quest,” Daniel adds. He leans against one of the brick posts supporting the awning of the building. “Once this is over, we should record a concept album about it.”
Flynn tears his eyes away from a garishly cheerful kitten decal to look at me. “What do we ask here?”
“Whether or not they knew the previous tenants?” I say.
“Or if they know if the previous tenants were named Martin or Teresa?” Cameron says.
“Or if they know someone named Martin or Teresa who lives or used to live in Watsonville?” Daniel says. The three of us look at him. He shrugs. “It would be better than nothing.”
Suddenly, the hopelessness of this task lands on my chest, crushing out all my air. I can almost hear violin strings snapping with a twang inside my rib cage. “This is a waste of time,” I say. “I’m sorry we’re spending all this money to stay in—” I gesture at the characterless strip mall. “In nowhere. But we’re not going to find my birth parents in Watsonville. Just like I was never going to find them in Santa Barbara or Reedley. Maybe I should just”—I sit on the curb—“stop.” As I cross my arms over my knees, I mutter, “I mean, what’s in a gene pool, anyway?”
“Hey,” Daniel says. He sits on my left, and Cameron sits on my right. “I’m supposed to be the emotional train wreck in this band.”
Flynn moves in front of us and says, “That’s true.”
Cameron says, “Dan’s right. You’re supposed to be the stoic badass.”
“I thought I was the stoic one,” Flynn says.
“No, you’re the anal-retentive one,” Daniel says.
I squeeze my eyes shut, wipe away the twin tears that leak down my cheeks, then sit up. “I’m serious, you guys.” I gesture to the storefront. “My biological parents are not going to be inside Princess Nails.”
“Well, obviously,” Cameron says. “Because that would be a literal miracle from God.”
“But we might find someone who can point us toward whatever dead end we’re chasing, so we can cross this off your list,” Daniel says. He’s resting his chin on his knees, looking at me sideways. It’s hard not to feel better when he’s looking at me like this. “If we don’t find your biological parents in the next twenty-four hours, it’s not like we have to stop looking.”
“Well, you can stop looking if you want,” Cameron says, squeezing my shoulder. “But I need to know now. I’m invested.”
Flynn looks behind him at the rapidly sinking sun. “Are we going to ask the Princess Nails people about Croft’s Confections or not?”
“Dude,” Daniel says, looking at him. “We’re having a moment.”
Flynn exhales through his nose, then walks around us and disappears inside the salon.
“He’s also the efficient one,” Cameron says. “Without him, we might never get anything done.”
“I know that,” Daniel says. “But don’t tell him. His ego would never recover.”
I stand and follow Flynn into Princess Nails. As I open the door, it warbles and chirps at me; as in, instead of a bell, there’s a brief sound bite of singing birds. Flynn is already talking to the woman at the front desk, which is decorated with patches of fake moss in an obvious attempt to give it a woodland vibe. The walls of the salon are plastered with the same cheesy decals that decorate the front window. The effect in here is no more aesthetically pleasing than the effect out there.
The woman herself looks young, though she’s wearing thick makeup that makes it difficult to tell for certain. Her hair’s been bleached and then highlighted with bold streaks of cotton-candy pink. When I walk in, Flynn’s saying, “. . . Confections. This was their address, though we’re not sure when they closed.”
The woman shrugs. Then, in a voice that’s so high-pitched and sweet I almost feel myself developing diabetes, she says, “Sorry. I don’t know. We’ve only been here a year.”
I look at the empty stations, wondering if they’ll make it through year two. “Do you know what business was in here before you?”
The door warbles again, and Cameron and Daniel join us.
“Welcome to Princess Nails!” the woman says.
“Wow.” Daniel eyes the décor. “Is this your shop?”
“It sure is,” the woman says. “Did you want a mani, a pedi, or a mani/pedi?”
“None of the above,” Daniel says. “We’re with—” He points at us.
The woman doesn’t seem too put out. She directs her attention back to Flynn. “Before I moved in, this was Abracadabra Comics.” She shakes her head. “But they were only here six months.”
I’m surprised she’s able to stay so upbeat when her shop is empty and the lineage of this location does not suggest business longevity.
“Can you remember any previous owners named Teresa?” Cameron says.
The woman shakes her head. “Sorry. I wish I could help.”
“Have you ever heard of someone in Watsonville named Teresa Croft?” This is my last-ditch effort, and I can see that she’s about to apologize again, but then Cameron says, “Or Martin Croft?” and her expression freezes.
“My mechanic’s name is M. J. Croft,” she says. “I think his initials might stand for Martin John, but I couldn’t swear to it. I’m friends with Julie, his office manager.”
The guys look at me. I told them my adoption papers say my biological father was a mechanic.
I ask, “Do you know if M. J. was ever married to someone named Teresa?”
The woman nods, as if this makes some kind of sense. “I know he was married, but I heard it ended badly.”
“In what way?” I say.
“That’s all I know,” she says. “I heard it from Julie. Poor girl’s been trying to get him to ask her out for a decade. I assumed he was gay, but she said she thought he was married before, thought he might even have a kid.”
Flynn seems to intuit that I’ve lost the ability to speak, because he takes the lead and asks her where we might find this M. J. Croft.
“He works at Tito’s,” she says. “Tito’s Auto Repair.” She looks at the clock behind her. “He’s probably there now.”
“Thank you so much,” I say. “And, you know, good luck with your business. I hope things pick up.”
“Oh, I’m not worried,” she says.
This seems like such an irrational response that I wonder about her sanity. Then I wonder about my sanity. Then I decide it’s time to leave.
Flynn reaches across the desk to shake her hand. I notice her nails, which are thickly painted in graded shades of pink. “What was your name?” he says.
She looks confused. “Princess,” she says, as if the answer should have been obvious. And I guess it should have been.
Flynn recovers first and says, “Thank you for your help, Princess.”
And then we get the hell out of there.
We pile into the van, but then discover that the shop is just a couple blocks away, so we get back out and walk. It’s almost 6:00 p.m., and I worry that we’ll have missed him. But as we turn the corner, I see the sign for Tito’s Auto Repair illuminated above an entire edge of the strip mall. There’s a light on in the office, and I hear a grinding sound coming from the shop in back.
I stop walking, but Cameron nudges me forward, and I only lose one step. Flynn reaches the door first and holds it open for us, so I’m the first to step through into the unadorned office, which smells faintly of cinnamon potpourri. Through the door that leads to the shop, I hear the song “Virtual Insanity” by Jamiroquai. I love that song.
The woman sitting behind the desk is a round-faced brunette. Like Princess, her age is difficult to determine, but not because of an excess of makeup; her skin is just uniformly pale and unlined, like a new bar of Dove soap. She looks at us curiously, waiting for one of us to speak. But it’s not going to be me.
“Are you Julie?” Flynn says. I’ve never been so grateful for his ability to take charge even when it’s completely not his place to do so.
“That’s me. What can I do for you?”
“We were sent here by Princess,” Flynn says.
Her eyes brighten. “Oh, there’s only one Princess,” she says. “I’ll thank her for the referral.”
“We’re actually not here with a car issue,” Flynn says. He squares his shoulders, adopts his best adult voice, and says, “We’d like to talk to Martin—or M. J.—Croft.”
I look at Flynn, and I get a sudden flash of who he’s going to be when he grows up—someone responsible, well dressed, organized. He’ll be somebody’s dad, and he’ll be good at it.
The woman tilts her head to the side, then says, “Who should I tell him is here?”
But before Flynn can respond, the door to the shop swings open, and a short, muscular man with thick hair streaked with gray, and a more-gray-than-not beard, steps into the office. He pokes at Julie’s cheek with a greasy finger, and she swats him away. I guess she got her wish after all.
“Martin?”
It takes me a second to realize that I’m the one who said his name.
He’s smiling broadly at the woman at the desk, and he’s still smiling when he looks up. His eyes are almost iridescently blue, crinkled at the edges. His skin is deeply tanned. He doesn’t seem like the Jamiroquai type. But I always thought that Jamiroquai doesn’t look a whole lot like their sound. What’s a book to its cover, anyway? Or a band’s look to its sound? Or a mechanic to his taste in music?
“No one’s called me that since the sixth grade,” he says. His voice is resonant and gravelly. “I’m M. J. to everyone but the IRS. What can I do ya for?”
There are no more words inside me.
After a way-too-long pause, Flynn reaches across the top of the desk to shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, sir,” he says.
I sense more than see Daniel raise his eyebrows at Flynn’s use of the title.
Flynn places his hand on my shoulder and says, “This is Nora.” I’m shaking my head. “What?” Flynn says, looking down at me.
But my mind is still blank. Or, it’s not blank, exactly. It’s more like the connection between my brain and my mouth has been severed. My brain, in fact, is going a million places at once. First, I’m thinking that my eyes aren’t blue, and didn’t we learn in biology that blue is recessive? So, if this man were my father, wouldn’t I have blue eyes? Well, not if Teresa’s eyes are brown. Then my eyes would probably be brown, which they are.
But he’s short. I might be half an inch taller than him.
His features are blunt, where mine are rounded. His cheeks seem to be permanently blushed.
We look nothing alike.
Then again, Cameron is taller than both his parents. And Daniel’s older brother, who I’ve only met once, has hair so dark it’s almost black, the opposite of Daniel’s dirty blondness. Flynn looks exactly like his dad, which surprises no one. But still, genes can express themselves in strange ways.
Daniel steps forward and says, “Her biological parents named her Summer, but the couple that adopted her changed her name to Nora.”
M. J.’s smile falters. This is not the expression of a father who wanted to be found.
The walls of this office will crush me if I don’t get outside right now. Without another word, I turn around and head toward the door. I’m already outside, but the door is suspended at the apex of its arc.
Behind me, M. J. says, “You’re Tessa’s kid, aren’t you?”
I turn and look at him as the door swings shut behind me.