“Unbelievable.” Manda Smith shook her head.
“Yeah.” Jasmyn shook her head.
They had not said much beyond those two words since meeting out on the sidewalk. The woman—her sister, there was no doubt about it—had chuckled. Well, we don’t need name tags. Jasmyn had smiled. They shook hands.
Which had felt odd to Jasmyn. Wouldn’t sisters— She swallowed the lump in her throat. She was making too much of things.
Now, seated at the table, ignoring their coffee, they stared at each other.
“Wow.” Manda chuckled again, a quick humming sound from her throat, her mouth closed. Her voice was lower than Jasmyn’s, almost raspy. “I seem to have lost my vocabulary.”
“Yeah.” Jasmyn smiled. “Me too.”
“You have dimples.”
“My mom’s. You have brown eyes.”
Her smile was smaller too, a barely noticeable stretch of lips. “My dad’s. Unfortunately, I look like him. I mean, he wasn’t pretty. At least I don’t have his shoulders. Is your mom still around?”
The lump rolled up again in Jasmyn’s throat. Manda didn’t have a clue.
Quinn had kept mum with Manda about the possibility that her father might have met Jasmyn’s mother at the restaurant where she worked. Still, given the timing of his presence in Illinois, on the interstate that ran past Jasmyn’s hometown, hadn’t Manda begun to put two and two together?
Jasmyn said, “She died three years ago. I never knew my dad. Not even his name.”
“That’s a tough one.”
“It was okay. Kids teased, though. You know how that goes. I survived. So, you grew up in San Diego?” Jasmyn backpedaled, away from the topic of parents. “It’s totally amazing here.”
It was Manda’s age. If she had appeared years younger than Jasmyn, then she might have introduced the subject. But she guessed they were around the same age, too close. Jasmyn lost her nerve. She simply could not say point-blank that Manda’s father must have cheated on Manda’s mother thirty-six years ago.
“I’ve seen a lot of the States, especially west of the Mississippi, but San Diego is still my favorite place. Actually, when I was a teenager, I hung out at Seaside Village beach. My husband and I used to come here before kids. That’s why I knew Jitters. Is the ice-cream shop still around?”
“Nonna’s Ice Cream Parlor. It’s past the library.”
“That’s it. Quinn said you’re on vacation. How did you land in Seaside Village? It’s kind of out of the way.”
Jasmyn dove into the details of how she had arrived. The verbal fire hydrant switched on. She covered her work, her mother’s death, the tornado, car theft, and Casa de Vida. Her throat kept closing up. Her voice warbled, but she pressed on, wanting to avoid what was uppermost in her mind and yet wanting to know more.
Manda listened politely. Her eyes were spaced further apart than Jasmyn’s. Her nose was slightly wider. Her teeth were the straight version produced only by braces. She gestured a lot when she talked, tapped her nails on the table and mug when not talking. Her nails were salon manicured, painted the color Piper had put on Inez’s nails. What was it? Burnt sienna. The in shade for fall.
Overall, Manda seemed more…finished than Jasmyn. It showed in her appearance, but more in airy things like confidence and contentment. She would have handled a tornado better. She wouldn’t have chosen a studio apartment. She wouldn’t have run away.
Jasmyn asked Manda about her work and family. Manda talked about tuna fishing. About driving a semi. That she was an only child. About how her husband was better with business details and such a great Mr. Mom with their two kids, a boy, six, and a girl, four. They had hired another driver so Mr. Mom could work in the office and be with the kids when Manda was out of town.
Jasmyn could not get enough. She was dying of thirst, and Manda offered only a trickle of water.
Manda checked her watch. “I have to deliver a load of office furniture in Las Vegas by six. I should go.” She moved her cup aside and folded her hands on top of the table. “Look, Jasmyn. You seem like a nice person. You’re probably thinking my dad could be your dad because we look alike and he stopped in a restaurant twenty miles from your hometown X number of years ago, but I’m not going down that road. Sorry. Too many potholes.”
Jasmyn opened her mouth and closed it. She nodded. “I just…” Her voice croaked. Nothing else came out.
“I mean, maybe it’s possible. But he’s dead and this would kill my mother. How old are you?”
She cleared her throat. “Thirty-five. Thirty-six in January.”
“I’ll be thirty-six next week. Which would mean— Well, you do the math. If he was cheating on Mom while she was pregnant—” She inhaled sharply. Her jaw set as if she gritted her teeth.
Jasmyn realized that Manda had indeed begun to put two and two together. And she had come up with four.
It was Jasmyn’s last chance.
She swallowed the lump. “I’m sorry, Manda, but what he did is not my fault. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just wish I could fill in the blanks of my heritage.”
“And what would you do with that information?”
“Nothing except feel like I wasn’t such a freak. I don’t look like my mom except for the dimples and eye color. She was tall and blond. She worked in that truck stop you tried to find. My middle name is Annabelle.”
Manda stared, apparently speechless.
“My boss saw the name on your truck.”
She shut her eyes now.
“My mother claimed she did not know his name, but I think that was a lie. It was easier to pretend he was not a real person. She could simply move on. We all could.”
“Okay.” Her tone revealed nothing.
She gawked at her now. “You don’t know his name?”
“No.”
“Any search engine would have taken you there with ‘Anibal Cargo.’ ” She pronounced it ah-na-ble. “You didn’t look online?”
“No. I didn’t want to fill my head with things that might not be true.”
Manda’s jaw slackened. She exhaled. “Carlos Anibal.”
Carlos Anibal. Carlos Anibal. The sound was more exotic than Jasmyn had imagined. She always figured he would be a Joe or Bob or Dan, a Jones or Miller or Wilson. “And did you know his parents?”
“Yeah. They were around until after I got married. Joaquin and Lorena.”
Joaquin and Lorena. Her grandparents!
“Joaquin’s parents emigrated from Portugal, around 1918 I think. I don’t remember exactly. Carlos and Roselo.”
Great-grandparents. Jasmyn smiled to herself, deep inside where it wouldn’t scare Manda off. “What was your dad like?”
Manda looked out the window, quiet for a moment. “He was confident. A hard worker. He started driving a truck when he was seventeen. He grew the company into a huge success, and not because he was a nice guy. He was fair with clients but a royal pain as a boss. He hated fishing.” She turned toward Jasmyn. “He was unfaithful to my mother when I was thirteen. They almost divorced. I doubt that was the only time. I mean, he did long hauls for twenty-five years. Pretty easy to hook up with someone else when you’re basically gone four out of every six weeks.”
“When did he stop driving?”
“After that incident. She gave him an ultimatum. He hired more drivers and worked in the office.”
“He drove to Chicago all those years?”
“No. He built up a territory on the coast and gave up that run.”
“When?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was before I was born.”
“So…” Jasmyn hadn’t felt the bubble of hope until now, as it popped. “Then he might not have known that Jerri Albright was pregnant.”
“Or he did and he bailed.” She sighed. “I loved my father. We were friends. He taught me everything about the business. I’m a good driver because he was a good driver. But given his history, I don’t know what he would have done if he had known.”
“When you drove to Chicago, you were following a diary of his?”
“It’s more of a list. He liked to keep track of places he visited. A quirk of his.”
“Are there dates in it? Like exactly when before you were born he was last in Chicago?”
“That would be in the manifest.” She paused, lost in thought. “I think we still have them from back then, buried somewhere in the garage. I can’t promise when I’ll get to them— I’m sorry, but I have to say this. My mom is taking Dad’s death badly. I hope you won’t contact her?”
Jasmyn sat back, surprised. “I wouldn’t do that.”
They stared at each other.
“No, I believe you wouldn’t. Thank you.” Manda scooted her chair from the table. “I really have to go. Maybe someday we can…” She shrugged.
Jasmyn stood with her and smiled. “Maybe.”
Manda returned her smile and they shook hands.
“Did you ever want a brother or a sister?” Jasmyn asked.
“Nope. Guess I was having too good a time being the one and only. Take care.”
“You too.”
As Manda hurried to the door, Jasmyn sank back into her chair. Her legs weren’t quite ready to carry her to the door, let alone down the street.
Well, she had wanted a brother or a sister. Not that it mattered now. She had one and did not even know her phone number or email address. They hadn’t been offered, and after Manda told her not to contact her mother, Jasmyn wasn’t asking. It was clear they were going nowhere.
That last smile of Manda’s? The tip of her nose had tilted, her brows rose up just a bit. It was the same smile Jasmyn gave customers who changed their order umpteen times and then asked for the moon.
Sure. No problem. Maybe someday we can… Do what? Exchange contact information? Send Christmas cards—
“Hey.” Manda stood beside her. “I just wanted to tell you something about my dad. For all his macho posturing, he liked gardening. He spent a lot of time taking care of our yard.” She paused, as if deciding whether to go on or not, and then she took a breath. “The whole back fence was lined with jasmine.” With a quick nod, she scurried off again.
Jasmyn’s chest felt as if a whole rack of barbecued ribs had gone down the wrong pipe.