“Ha-ha, Grandpa.”
He means the rocking chair. The one I said I’d help repair and then basically sat around texting Gabby while he sanded and refinished it. I’m sorry, but it’s a rocking chair. It’s not like Parsons School of Design cares if I can use wood glue. Or, shit, what if they do?
I cough again, for effect. Guilt stirs in my chest over the way I’m lying to them—what I’m lying about—but not enough to stop me. Not even when Gran squeezes my hand.
“We’ll be home by lunchtime,” she says. “There’s homemade chicken soup on the stovetop in case you find your appetite sooner.”
“Thanks,” I croak. Okay, croaking is overkill. “Tell Pastor Thompson I’m sorry.”
“Of course, dear. And call Grandpa’s cell phone if you need anything. I forgot to charge the battery on mine.”
“I will. I promise.”
Finally—finally—they leave. As soon as they’ve pulled out of the driveway, I make a beeline for it. The fastest route to the café is down Agua Fria, but I’m feeling kind of sleuthy, so instead, I weave through side streets—a covert, Camry-driving ninja—until I end up on a long, wide street lined with touristy cowboy shops and cozy New Mexican restaurants. I find a metered spot on the road outside the café’s cobalt-blue awning and dig around for loose change with trembling hands. This is it. Time to meet my biological father. Half my DNA. The only willing link to my mother, my past, maybe my future.
No pressure.
I push through the door, combing my hair with charcoal-painted fingernails, and doubt swallows me. My eyes sweep. Every guy is on a laptop, but which one of them could be a dad-who-isn’t-really-a-dad-but-kind-of-is-a-dad? The tattooed one? The guy laughing into his webcam?
And then … there he is.
No question. It just is Robert. Rising from a table in the center of the room, surrounded by three empty sugar packets and one coffee—which either means he loves sugar, or he’s been here a while. He smiles tentatively as he pulls a baseball cap off chin-length, wavy, blond hair. My knees lock. Unfamiliar heat tightens behind my ribs.
“Johanna?”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
A goatee stretches across his chin as he grins, lips closed, brow furrowed. Warm but hesitant. It strikes me that he doesn’t look the same as most dads. Not buttoned up or balding or potbellied. Dads don’t wear bomber jackets or cool jeans, and yet this guy’s are skinny and distressed. We’re both pale. Similar hair, sort of a peachy, golden blond, but his is bushier, disheveled in a kind of rock-star way. One eyebrow is pierced. Dads do not have piercings!
“I’m so glad you came.”
I nod, inching toward the table.
Experimental jazz thumps wildly through the speakers, and we stand there. Eyes fixed and petrified. Not a standoff, exactly, but not comfortable.
“Can I get you something?” he asks.
“Oh. I can get it.”
“No. Let me. Please.”
I tell him I’ll have a chai latte, and he speeds off, relieved to have an objective, maybe. I take a seat and think about his voice, the record player warmth of it. Somehow, I’d imagined him sounding older. Gravellier.
“I’ve never had chai,” he says, resting the mug in front of me. “Is it good?”
“Yeah, I like it.”
“So.” He coughs.
“So.”
This silence could win awards for its awkwardness. A walking-on-graves kind of quiet. All around us, conversations spread their wings and take flight, but not ours. Robert and I only sit, swallowing air and shifting on rickety wooden chairs. He looks young. Not, like, young young, but the grown-ups I spend the most time with are seventy, so, yeah, young. No gray in his hair, no sagging skin. I put him somewhere in the forty zone, which is probably right. Mom was about twenty-five when she died.
Robert bites into a cheddar-and-chive scone, wiping crumbs away as they land on his cable-knit sweater. “Thanks for coming,” he says again.
I nod. Again.
“Do you want to go first?” he asks. “Or should I?”
“Oh, um, what?”
“You know, tell me about yourself? Or—”
“You. Definitely you,” I sputter, right as he’s biting into his scone again.
He chuckles, chewing faster. “Sorry. Um, let’s see. I live in Houston. But I already told you that in the letter, didn’t I? Originally, I’m from Fresno. That’s where you were born—California. My parents, too. They’re both passed now, unfortunately. What else? I went to CSU Fresno to study computer science. Actually, I’m in IT now. A systems manager. Y’know, hardware upgrades, maintenance. That sort of thing. It’s cool because I can work remotely. Hence the impromptu trip to Santa Fe.”
He’s talking like everything is normal, but I’m not sure my smile has the same vibe.
“I bet IT sounds boring to you, huh?”
“What?” I squirm. “I mean, I don’t know.”
“I’ve always been super into computers.”
“Cool.”
He launches into this long programming story, and sweat dampens my palms, my heart thumping. I mean, this is my father. My own dad sitting across from me. How am I supposed to have any chill right now?
“How about you? Do you like computers?”
“Uh, what?” I gulp. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I have a laptop. But I don’t, like, do stuff with it.”
“Right. No, totally.” He sips his coffee, and we veer toward silence again. “Um, but, yeah. Coding’s pretty fun. I could teach you sometime. See how you like it.”
A shriek wells up inside me. My dad wants to teach me coding?! But I swallow it back down with hot tea.
“How about you?” he asks. “What kind of stuff are you into?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. I don’t know.”
“Come on.” He grins playfully.
“I’m really not—”
“You must have hobbies, or—”
“I said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” I grunt. A couple of seconds go by. “Sorry. But this is a lot for me. And you’re acting like we’re taking Buzzfeed quizzes.”
He nods, letting out a tight exhale. “I’m trying too hard, aren’t I? I just figured, you’re a teenager. I thought you’d want to start off casual. Hang for a while.”
“Hang?” My jaw drops. “How can you expect me to hang when I haven’t heard one single word from you in thirteen fucking years?”
Yeah, I f-bombed. My cheeks full-on roast as several eyes whip over to me, probably wondering if they should intervene. Blink twice if you’re trapped in a hostile situation. These are definitely weird circumstances, but not abduction weird. I flash the table next to us a spring-break smile and look back at Robert.
“I have a lot to explain,” he admits. “I know that. And, believe me, I’ve wanted to reach out to you for a long time.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“It’s complicated.”
I squint at him.
“I realize that sounds like an excuse, but—”