Finding Cassidy (11 page)

Jason said I wasn’t going to the prom. And he hadn’t even asked me.

Something wasn’t right between Jason and me. I needed him more than ever now, and I felt him pulling away.

A robin flew to the ground near my feet. Maybe we were growing apart because we weren’t together enough. Maybe it was because I was too preoccupied with the donor thing.

The robin’s pale yellow beak poked furiously at the earth, its mousy brown feathers quivering with the effort. Hoisting a floppy, pink worm, the bird strutted forward, its red chest thrust out, proud of its catch. Robins were as common as dirt in the Pacific Northwest. I’d long taken them for granted. But suddenly I was seeing the bird’s
robinness.
Its uniqueness.
I realized it was more than a bird to write on a list. It was more than just a number.

And Jason was more than just another guy.

He was mine. I was his. Our relationship was worth fighting for.

If I could only figure out how.

I got home and found Grandpa reclining in Frank’s chair, with the newspaper scattered on his knees. He peered at me over his bifocals. “Hope you’re not too hungry?” I shook my head. “Dinner’s at seven. Grandma just ran out to get more sour cream.”

“It smells like pot roast.” I had zero appetite, but I faked enthusiasm.

“A nice big one. Plenty there for leftovers.” He hesitated. “Any word on who broke the window?”

I sank into the leather couch. “Yvonne. She gave me a cheque for eight hundred dollars.”

“Good.” He nodded approvingly. “It’s nice to see a young person taking responsibility for their actions.”

I rolled my eyes. “More like her dad taking responsibility. Besides, I’d give her the money back if I could get her to stop bugging me.”

“She’s giving you a hard time?”

“Yeah.”

Big Mac flipped the chair upright with a kerchunk of gears. “Kids can be cruel. I’m sure they’ll come around eventually.”

Did I care? “Maybe.”

“In the meantime, you got a phone call, and I know this is a friend.”

Jason. Please let it be Jason.

“It was Quinn.” He fumbled for the message pad on the coffee table.

My heart slowed to a crawl. If Jason didn’t call me, I’d call him. Whether his mother agreed to it or not.

“She left a message,” Grandpa continued. “She said, ‘It’s not too late, you can meet me at eight.’” He looked up and grinned. “She’s a poet and she don’t know it.” He settled back into the chair, his legs a long, gangly tangle on the floor in front of him.

After the thing with Jason, I’d forgotten all about Quinn’s note. I pulled it out and skimmed it.
Meet me tonight at the native plant garden at Circle Lake. I’ll tell you about my plan, plus I found something important online.

Forget it. I tucked the note away. I was staying by the phone tonight in case Jason called. “Where’s Frank?” If I was home, I’d talk to him about my search.

Grandpa lifted an eyebrow. “Frank?”

When I didn’t respond, Big Mac sighed, removed his glasses and rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Take it easy on him, Dee Dee Bird. He’s had a rough day. The mayor wants him to step down from the deputy position, take immediate medical leave. They had words, and your father came home completely tuckered out. He’s in a fragile state, Cassidy. Stress isn’t good for him.”

Stress as in
Hey, Frank, I’m searching for my real dad.
“But everybody says he has lots of good years left.”
Doesn’t he?
Though the question begged to be asked, I couldn’t bring myself to voice it.

“We can hope,” Grandpa said. “But I’ve seen him slide even in the few days I’ve been here. Your dad’s known for over a year that something’s wrong. Now that he’s been diagnosed, I think he’s relieved he doesn’t have to pretend anymore.”

He didn’t have to pretend to be my dad anymore, either.
“But he can still work.” I pushed aside images of blank, vacant stares and shaking hands. “I can’t believe Mayor Callaghan would try to push him out before he has to leave.”

Grandpa shrugged philosophically. “There’s a by-election coming. By the sounds of it, Mr. Mayor’s afraid your dad won’t be able to handle things and he’ll have to pick up the slack.”

“That’s unfair!”

“Nothing about this is fair,” Big Mac said. “It’s not fair that your dad has Huntington’s, it’s not fair that eventually he’ll be paralyzed…that he won’t recognize us. Life’s often not fair,” he added pointedly.

“Amen to that.” I thought of the latest unfair revelation—the confidentiality agreement.

“Wallowing in the unfairness of life won’t do one bit of good,” Big Mac said. “You get a rotten apple, you gotta make applesauce.”

I smiled. “I think it’s lemons make good lemonade.”

His eyes twinkled. “I thought it was rotten bananas make good banana bread.”

My smile slipped. No wonder I felt close to Grandpa. We shared the same goofy sense of humour, and we were both kind of like outsiders in the family. “I want to search for him.” The words came out in the merest of whispers. “My real father. Only Mom signed this…this agreement that lets him stay anonymous.”

“Ah.” A myriad of emotions flitted across his face; I didn’t recognize one of them.

“The counsellor says I should tell Frank.”

“Telling him would be the kind thing to do.” Big Mac smoothed down his thin, white hair. Seconds later, it sprang back into its usual upright tufts. “You know, Dee Dee Bird,” he finally said, “Frank couldn’t be any
more my son if he were my own flesh and blood. And you’re as much my grandchild as Colleen’s kids are.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t believe that. I
know
that.”

“But you never hid the fact that you adopted Frank. You didn’t lie about it for years.”

“True. And in my mind, your parents messed up not telling you the truth years ago.” His eyes were direct, his tone forceful. “Like I said, it’s not fair. And you have every right to be angry. But how long will you carry that anger around? How long do you plan to punish them?”

“Looking for my real father isn’t punishing them!”

“Maybe not,” he admitted slowly, “but it’s just another wrench in this whole monkey business. You’ve never been one to go looking for trouble, Cassidy, why do it now?”

If he wanted me to feel guilty, it worked. “He might have a disease like…Frank. I need to know.”

“If that’s all you’re looking for, then that’s one thing.” Grandpa’s wise old eyes studied me carefully. “But something tells me there’s more to it than that.”

He wasn’t judging; he wasn’t angry. He was simply stating a fact. And he was right. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered thickly. “If I meet him, maybe I can figure it out.”

“You won’t find yourself in someone else, Cassidy.”

I didn’t need to find my whole self, just my missing part.

“You’re my granddaughter. You’re Grace and Frank’s daughter. Belonging is about love, not genetics.” Big Mac paused. When I didn’t respond, he said, “Here’s something else to think about. That donor might be your father, but he’s not your dad. You’ve already got one of those.” His knees cracked as he pulled himself out of the chair. “And consider yourself lucky, Dee Dee Bird, because he’s the finest dad I’ve ever had the privilege to know.”

Doves are the most peacefull and loving of all the birds in the world. They kiss and get merried and share food and always take care of each other.

Cassidy MacLaughlin, Grade Four Science Project

A
fter considering what Big Mac said, I came to one conclusion: he felt the way he did because he had adopted my father. My father was his son through love, not genetics. To Big Mac, it was all pretty simple.

But nothing about my life was simple. I wasn’t adopted. I wasn’t biologically related to the man I called Dad. That led to another thought: Frank didn’t know
his
biological father, either. All he knew was the guy had Huntington’s.

My biological father could have something equally disturbing.

My silence at dinner drew worried glances from
Mom. She called Jason’s mother before the dishes were cleared away. One long phone conversation, and Mom convinced Mrs. Perdue to lighten up. I was over at Jason’s house thirty minutes later.

“So I didn’t say you weren’t going to the prom,” Jason explained. “I said you weren’t going with
them.
” He put his soda on the coffee table, settled back on the couch. “I didn’t think you’d want to be in the same limo as Yvonne and Max.”

Yvonne was such a
bitch.
I unwrapped the lemon tarts Mom had sent for our dessert. “I guess I overreacted.” I took one and offered the other to Jason.

“Hey, it’s no big deal. You’ve got a lot happening right now.”

I didn’t want to talk about it. We had at least two hours before Mrs. Perdue and Pete came home from his school concert. Two hours to be alone together.

“I’ve missed you.” I licked a stray piece of pastry from my fingers and snuggled into his arms. We were curled up on the old plaid couch in his family room, with the stereo tuned to some mellow jazz station. Floaty piano music made me feel like a couple in a Hallmark card commercial.

“I’ve missed you, too.” Jason’s kiss landed somewhere near my ear. A warm whoosh invaded my stomach. Then he kissed me on the mouth, and his
breath tasted like lemon and sugar and I felt like I could lift off and fly. I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to forget about being Cassidy the Separate Anonymous One and become Jason’s girlfriend in every possible sense of the word.

So when he pulled back I was stunned.

“I’ve been thinking.” Jason hesitated. “About…the prom and stuff.” He stopped.

So did my heart.

Smashing cymbals drowned out the piano.

“I’m just wondering. You are going with me, right? Even if we have to go in my car?”

The music receded. My heart started up again. I resisted the urge to punch him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He swallowed; his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Well, you know…I just thought…and Yvonne sort of said—” He paused, flicked his hair nervously from his eyes.

Yvonne again.

“Yvonne said what?” I asked.

“Yvonne said you might not want to go because…you know…of what’s happened.”

Trust Yvonne. “And you believed her?”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought she had a point. With your dad’s illness and the donor thing…I thought…you might want to pass.”

Here was my guy, sitting there in his football jersey being all gorgeously, deliciously male—big shoulders, blond hair and the most wonderful smile this side of a
GQ
ad—with my luscious, warm, oh-so-attractive body invitingly draped all over him—and he looked crestfallen. Worried.
Afraid.

I was loving it.

So sue me. There hadn’t been a lot to celebrate lately. And this was worth celebrating.

Jason Perdue was as crazy-in-lusty-love with me as I was with him. So he hadn’t verbalized. What did I expect? He’s male.

“Weeell.” I stretched the word out as long as I dared, watching the emotions ripple across his face like storm clouds pushed by a swift wind. Feeling a huge amount of female power—so this was what
Cosmo
was talking about?—I faked a frown. “Did you ask me to go?”

He ran a finger under the collar of his jersey, and then half grinned. “I am now.”

Slowly I grinned back. “Then I guess I’m saying yes.”

I expected a kiss then. But Jason surprised me a second time. He went all quiet. Flicked his hair off his forehead. Once, twice, three times. Cleared his throat.
I thought maybe he was working up the nerve to say the
L
word, but no.

Instead, he reached out and gently touched my wrist. A brush of finger against skin. A silky shiver rippled down my spine. “I care about you, Cass. You know that, right?”

“I know.” And I knew the subtext of what he was trying to say.
I’m in lusty-love and I want your body but not just your body I want the you of you and thank God you’ll come to the prom with me.

I gazed into those familiar blue eyes, tender-hot and glowing, and I saw my own reflection. Me. Not separate. Not anonymous. I saw Cassidy, Jason’s Girlfriend. I saw a question there, too. And I answered it. “We don’t have to stop, Jase. It’s okay.”

He responded with a kiss. A kiss that erased any doubts I’d ever had about giving myself to him. Jason was a virgin, too; he’d joked about being one of the last guys he knew to do it. And he was as nervous as I was. But he was also slow and gentle, and in a weird sort of way his awkwardness made it easier for me to relax. Then after a while the awkwardness and nervousness dissolved and we both forgot ourselves.

And it was better than okay.

It was the most awesome wonderful awkward scary
natural thing I have ever done. And I’m glad I waited for the right guy. For Jason.

Afterward, he whispered, “You didn’t get chocolates and champagne.”

I wove my fingers through his hair. “I got you. That’s enough for me.”

He kissed the tip of my nose, straightened my shirt, settled me against him. “You know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, don’t you?”

I giggled, poked him lightly in the chest. “Don’t forget it, okay?”

“Never.” He kissed me again. I slid under that Jason-spell and we were quiet for a long time. When we finally surfaced, he said, “I’m sorry I got so uptight at school earlier.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal.” I didn’t want to spoil our time together, but he’d started me thinking about things again. “Except, what if he has a genetic illness like Frank?”

He gave me a hug, brushed aside my concerns. “You worry too much. The chance of him having a genetic illness is a statistical longshot. Besides, I couldn’t pick my old man out of a crowd, and you don’t see me worrying.”

I gazed up at him, trying to gauge if he was joking or not. He gazed back, an unreadable expression in
his blue eyes. “You hardly recognized Pete after he got back from two weeks at camp last summer,” I finally said.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Well. I have a bad memory. What can I say?”

“But you know what your real father looks like, right? You know his genetic history and stuff?”

“I don’t care about genetic history.” He nuzzled my neck. “I only care about you.”

If anyone could make me forget about Cassidy the Separate Anonymous One, it was Jason. And he did. For quite a while. “I should go,” I eventually said, straightening my clothes for the millionth time.

“Yeah, probably.” He glanced at the clock. “Mom and Pete’ll be home soon.”

Tonight had been so special, I didn’t want to leave. I grabbed Jason’s hand, fiddled with his thumb and his baby finger, traced the lines on his palm. “I saw this guy at the lake today. It was so weird. He had the same fingers as me. The
very same.
Weird knuckles and everything.”

“How old was he?” he asked suspiciously.

I laughed. Jason was
jealous.
It was the second
Cosmo
moment of my life. “Old enough to be my father,” I confided. “And that’s the other weird thing. I was sure he was. He had blue eyes just like me and
he was tall and there was something about him that was so familiar. I figured for sure he was the donor. But he’d never been to West Vancouver, so he isn’t the guy.” After being so close physically, it felt good—
right
—to share this, too.

He shifted and sat up. “You thought a stranger was your father? Man, that’s bizarre.”

“Some stranger
is
my father.”

“That’s weird,” Jason repeated. He wouldn’t look at me.

Suddenly cold, I reached for my sweater and pulled it on. “Don’t you see? I’m going to be looking at everyone, wondering if he’s the one.” I did up my buttons. “I can’t live like this. I have to find him. The counsellor says I should tell Frank I’m searching.”

Jason grabbed his jersey and yanked it over his head. “I wouldn’t.”

“No?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know.” He snatched his wallet from the coffee table and shoved it into his jeans. “Can’t you let this thing go even for an hour?” he muttered. “It’s the only thing you talk about when we’re together, and we’ve hardly been together at all lately.”

We just were together. Way close together.
“I don’t talk about it all the time.”

“To me, you do.”

Because you’re supposed to understand.
My stomach clenched. “Lots has been happening, and when I see you, I want to tell you about it.”

“You don’t have to be so obsessive.”

Obsessive?
Mom was obsessive. I was so not.

“So you were conceived by insemination.” He glowered. “Big deal.”

How could he not get it?
“It may not be a big deal to you,” I said hotly, “but it’s a big deal to me.” I dropped my eyes to pick at a piece of lint that had suddenly—miraculously—appeared on my jeans. “And apparently to everybody else.”

“Only to Yvonne.” His voice was laced with sarcasm. “Big surprise there.”

And to Jasmine. And Max. And Prissy. And Tom.

“You’ve got to stop worrying about what people think,” Jason added. “They tease everybody. They bug me about my job and about having no money. About where my mother works. You know that.” His voice softened. “Come here.” All my hard edges melted when he pulled me close. “You know what, Cass? I don’t care what your parents did seventeen years ago. It doesn’t change who you are.”

“Except I don’t know who
I
am anymore,” I
whispered into the crease of his jersey. There was a big, black hole of nothingness deep inside, and I desperately wanted him to understand.

But he didn’t. “Oh, man.” He barely suppressed a groan. “Let it go already. Quit being so melodramatic. Lighten up.”

My tears were way, way too close.
Melodramatic?
I jerked away, momentarily blindsided by his insensitivity. Then self-preservation took over. I retrieved my purse. Grabbed my jacket. Picked up the empty Tupperware dish with the remains of our lemon tarts. Squeezed it in my fist.

Jason reached for me; I dodged his arm. “We’ll talk later,” he said.

I shrugged, refused to look at him.

“I’ll call,” he promised.

Jason had been so loving and so kind. I guess I expected his loving-kindness to grow into a bigger understanding of me. I mean, I’d crossed a line; I was forever different. I expected things to be different between us, too.

But they weren’t.

I was still me, and Jason still didn’t get my need to figure out who that was.

“Cass? I’ll call,” he repeated.

“What
ever.
” Jason hated indifference. He absolutely
hated it. But one word was all I could manage.

“Fine.” His single word was like a cold slice through my heart. “Be like that.”

I didn’t answer. I just walked out of Jason’s house, slammed the door behind me and didn’t look back.

I thought about going shopping. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I mean, who cares about clothes when you’ve just given your boyfriend the most priceless gift in the world but you feel empty? Like the body you’re in is a bunch of foreign particles covered by skin.

Going to Circle Lake was out of the question, too. It was after eight. Quinn would be long gone. And even if I did find her, what could I say?

I just slept with Jason and we had a fight and he thinks I’m too obsessive and melodramatic because I can’t stop talking about this donor thing so I walked out without talking it through and now I’m afraid he’s going to dump me. Which will turn me into the cliché I don’t want to be.

I couldn’t tell her all that.

Quinn had no time for guys. She wouldn’t understand.

Jason didn’t understand either and he was
my guy.
Now more than ever. But he wanted the old Cassidy back.

Except the old Cassidy had dissolved, and nothing would bring her back.

Not even Jason.

I went home, got undressed and crawled under the covers. I expected Jason to call. I
hoped
Jason would call. He didn’t. Okay, so I could have phoned and apologized for walking out, but I still smarted from his accusations. Melodramatic. Obsessive.

I tossed and turned until sometime after 1 a.m., when I fell into a restless sleep filled with nightmares that Frank disowned me and that Jason had broken up with me. I even dreamt Jason took out an ad in the
Victoria Mirror: “I am no longer going out with Cassidy the Separate Anonymous Melodramatic One. I do not date needy, no-name-brand women.”

That one woke me up.

Fortunately, the ad wasn’t in the morning paper, but that didn’t exactly reassure me. Maybe it would be in tomorrow’s paper.

Determined to get the day off to a positive start, I decided to talk to Frank at breakfast and tell him about my search. Unfortunately, he had an early-morning meeting and wasn’t around.

By the time I drove into the school lot, I’d worked myself into a major state. I figured for sure my dream was true—that Jason and I were over.
Finito.
I had
to find him, reassure myself I was just being…not exactly melodramatic, but…

Well, okay. Maybe a little.

But this was
Jason
we were talking about.

Hurrying inside, I was so intent on my search that it took me a while to notice there was something in the air. And it wasn’t just spring.

Kids clustered, as they always did, in the foyer, outside the band room, blocking the entrance to the cafeteria. But they gave me only the briefest of glances. And no nasty, vaguely sexual names floated out to embarrass me. Clearly, I was no longer the flavour of the week.