Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (13 page)

The girls eyed each other.

“You just found out you were adopted?” Jen asked, her eyes both wide and angry. “Your adoptive parents never told you?”

Bea shook her head. “The longer they waited the more impossible it became, I suppose. Plus, my mother explained in a letter that she wanted to believe in her heart that she’d given birth to me. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” Jen said. “Try wrong. She totally cut your birth mother out of the picture.”

“Jen,” the other girl said, touching her arm.

“No,” Jen snapped, pulling her arm away. “How dare she not have told you! Will the couple who adopt my baby not tell
her she was adopted? Just pretend I don’t exist?” She paced for a moment, and Bea felt her heart start to race. What the hell had she done? Why had she told these vulnerable girls her situation at all? They were teenagers. Pregnant teenagers. Oh, Bea, you idiot, she thought, her stomach flipping over.

“So are you going to look for your birth mother?” Kim asked, darting her eyes at her upset friend.

“Well, I’m here in town—this is where she lives. I’m not sure about meeting her. I just don’t know anything.”

“God, I hate this!” Jen shouted. “You don’t even know if you want to meet the person who gave birth to you?”

“It’s . . . complicated,” Bea said. She needed to apologize to the girls for getting them upset—well, getting one of them upset—and get out of there.

“I hope my child comes looking for me one day,” Kim said. “I mean, look at you. All pretty and healthy and nice. Who wouldn’t want to know their baby turned out happy looking?”

“I wouldn’t,” Jen said, shooting her friend a glare. “I mean, I think it sucks that she doesn’t even want to meet her own birth mother, but I don’t think I want my child to come looking for me. How the hell am I supposed to get through every day knowing one day my doorbell is going to ring?”

“Isn’t that kind of a contradiction, Jen?” Kim said gently. “Anyway, Larissa—she’s the counselor here,” she added, turning to Bea for a moment, then back to Jen. “She said you just live your life and make it a piece of you, and if you want to be found, you can give that information to the registry, and if you don’t, you don’t have to.”

“I don’t know what I want!” Jen yelled. “But I don’t need to know that the baby I’m giving up is going to be a real person
one day, wanting to find me. So get out of here!” she screamed at Bea.

“Jesus, Jen. I do want to know,” Kim said, almost in a whisper. She turned to Bea. “I want to know every good thing about you. I want to know that one day my baby might love me anyway, even though I’m not keeping her. I want to know she might want to know me someday.” She started crying.

“Now look what you did, idiot!” Jen said, and threw her sandwich at Bea.

Bea gasped as a slice of bread hit her on the thigh and dropped to the ground, a piece of turkey and a little glob of mayonnaise sticking to Bea’s jeans. A lettuce leaf landed on her foot. She shook it off, her leg trembling.

“I’m sorry,” Bea said, her stomach twisting. “I’m sorry. I—”

The screen door squeaked open and three women came out, one of whom was Leslie, the director’s assistant.

“Why do we have to listen to this crap?” Jen said to her, her face turning as red as her hair. “I don’t want to know. Okay? I. Don’t. Want. To. Know.”

Kim started crying again and ran inside.

“I’m Pauline Lee,” a tall, dark-haired woman said to Bea. “The director of Hope Home. I’m sorry, but I think it’s best that you leave now,” she added kindly. She sat down in the rocker next to Jen and put her arm around her shoulder.

Bea stifled back the sob that was pushing its way up her throat. She ran to her car.

The other woman who’d come out with Pauline and Leslie hurried over to Bea as she was about to get in her car. “I have tissues, if you want to wipe off that mayo,” she said, handing Bea a pocket packet of Kleenex.

Bea took the tissues, tears stinging her eyes. “Thank you.”

“I’m Gemma Hendricks,” she said, her honey-colored hair shining in the bright sun. “I’m writing a story about Hope Home and was just finishing up a meeting with the director when we overheard the conversation you and the two girls were having. Pauline said she’d keep an ear on it, and I suppose she thought it had gone as far as the girls could handle.”

“I feel horrible,” Bea said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to upset them. I didn’t mean to say anything. One of the girls asked me why I was here, and I was honest, when I suppose I shouldn’t have been. I should have realized they were vulnerable to what I might say.” Bea shook her head and covered her face with her hands. “What the hell am I doing?”

Gemma touched Bea’s arm. “I’m a reporter, and again, I’m working on a story about Hope Home, so I don’t know if I’m the worst or the best person for you to talk to, but if you need an ear, even if it has to be off the record, I’m happy to listen.”

“So you were in a meeting with the director?” Bea asked.

Gemma nodded. “Getting some history and basic information. I’m writing an article about Hope Home’s fiftieth anniversary.”

“Can you share some of the history with me?”

“Sure. It’ll all be going in my article, so nothing I was told is confidential.”

“What I tell you about my story might be, though,” Bea said. “Not from my perspective. I mean from my birth mother’s. She doesn’t even know I’m in town.”

“I’ll be discreet. I won’t even use your real name if that’s your preference,” Gemma assured her.

Her real name. It made Bea crazy to think that if Veronica
Russo hadn’t given her up, she’d have a different name entirely, a different life.

Bea had nowhere on earth to be, and maybe talking this whole thing out with someone would help her hear herself think. “Okay.”

“Why don’t we go have lunch?” Gemma said. “On me.”

Twenty minutes later, Bea was sitting across from Gemma, a small black recorder on the table along with Gemma’s notebook and pen, at a seafood restaurant, the events of the last three weeks pouring out of her. She told Gemma about her mother’s deathbed confession, sent to her a year after her mother passed away. About calling the adoption agency. About her birth mother updating the file with every possible piece of contact information. About going to the diner to check out Veronica. Seeing her in person, a real, live, walking, breathing person. The woman who gave birth to her. Who held the answers to how she came about, who her birth father was, what Bea’s history was.

“Wow,” Gemma said, sitting back and putting down her iced tea, which she hadn’t even taken a sip of. “That’s some story. Can I share it in my article? What you’ve been through is so moving. I won’t put in identifying details about your birth mother, such as where she works. Unless, of course, if I get her permission too.”

“Well, how would that even come about?” Bea asked. “I’m not even sure I want to meet her. If I’m ready, I mean. I don’t know anything.”

“No worries,” Gemma said. “I just mean if you do meet her, and if she’d like to share her story, her history. What a beautiful story of coming full circle it would be.”

“I suppose,” Bea said. “But I have no idea if she’d be interested in making her past public. I don’t know anything about her. Except that she bakes a really good pie, apparently.”

Suddenly a male voice boomed, “Hey, folks! Colin Firth is signing autographs and taking pictures on the pier right outside!”

At least twenty people jumped out of their seats and rushed outside or crowded by the windows. A minute later they were all back, shrugging and chatting about how he was nowhere to be seen.

“I’d know Colin Firth a mile away,” Gemma said, peering out the window. “And I don’t see him.”

“That’s so weird,” Bea said. “On Saturday, when I was at the diner, someone called out a Colin Firth sighting too.”

“Maybe he got wind of it and fled. I’d love to catch a glimpse of him, I admit,” Gemma said. “He’s one of my favorite actors. ‘I like you. Very much. Just as you are,’ ” she added in a British accent.

Bea laughed. “
Bridget Jones.
I love that movie. One of the last movies my mother and I saw together was
The King’s Speech.
She was crazy about Colin Firth. We watched it in her room in the hospital on Netflix.” Tears stung Bea’s eyes. “She loved that movie so much. She’d seen it twice already but wanted to watch it again with me.”

“Maybe not being able to say what you want to say, for whatever reason, resonated with her,” Gemma said, her dark blue eyes full of compassion.

Bea almost gasped as she understood what Gemma was saying; she envisioned Colin Firth as King George VI, with his lifelong terrible stutter, thrust onto the throne and having to speak
publicly to his people in order to assure them. “I’ll bet it did. I didn’t think of that.”

“Well, you’ve had a lot to take in over the past few weeks,” Gemma said, and Bea felt herself relax; it felt so good to talk to someone who was just plain kind. Granted, Gemma Hendricks was a reporter, and maybe all she was after here was the story, but Bea had a good feeling about Gemma. She seemed true blue.

Their lunch was served, fish and chips for Bea, and the crab cakes for Gemma. When the bill came, Bea offered to pay her share, even though it would hurt her wallet to do so, but Gemma insisted.

“I said it was my treat, and I meant it.”

Relief flooded through Bea. “Actually, I really appreciate it. I’m staying at the cheapest motel in town, but I can’t afford more than one more night. I’ll have to find a job if I plan to stick around.” But what was she even sticking around for? To decide if she wanted to meet her birth mother? She could do that from home.

Which was the problem. There was no home. Bea had nowhere to go, nowhere to be. She pictured her mother’s old white rental cottage on Cape Cod, the cozy living room, the small, sweet bedroom she’d created for Bea for visits and summers. She saw her mother coming out to greet her in her cotton sundress and sandals, her hair in a loose bun, her face lit up with happiness that her girl was home for the summer. Cora Crane, her mother.

Bea glanced out the window and let out a deep breath. Suddenly, all she wanted was to really see Colin Firth out there on the pier, signing autographs and agreeing to photographs, her mother’s King George VI, working so hard to be able to say what
he wanted to say, what he needed to say, to his people. She wondered if her mother had tried in her own way, wishing she could come up with the words to make it less shocking—that she’d withheld the truth, that Bea had been adopted.

“Hey, you know what?” Gemma said, sipping her iced tea. “Yesterday I overheard the manager of the inn where I’m staying telling someone she’s looking for kitchen and cleaning help, that she was offering room and board. It’s the Three Captains’ Inn, just a couple of streets up from the harbor. It’s a gorgeous inn. After we’re done here, why don’t you go back to your motel and get changed so you don’t smell like turkey and mayo, and then come over to the inn. I’ll introduce you to Isabel and you two can set up a time to talk. Maybe you can just interview on the spot if she’s not busy.”

Bea felt herself brighten. “Kitchens are my thing. That would be great if it worked out. Looks like I owe you big now. For coming to my rescue at Hope Home, for lunch, for listening, and for this possible tip at the inn. You’re like a fairy godmother.”

Gemma laughed. “Now if only I could work the same magic on myself.”

Résumé and photographs in a manila envelope, Veronica headed out to Frog Marsh at three o’clock on Monday, figuring she’d be among the first in line to apply to be an extra in the Colin Firth movie. But there were at least a hundred people already there, holding their own manila envelopes. She recognized many folks from town and waved, sizing them up as her competition. Mostly everyone looked like what an extra was supposed to look like: a real person. Several women, though, were decked out and dolled up as though they were going out for New Year’s Eve.

Veronica had spent an indulgent couple of hours face deep in her closet that morning, trying to settle on the right look. She’d realized she was going to wait on a line, fill out a form, and hand in her résumé and photographs, none of which required “a look,” but you never knew who might be doing the collecting and what they were jotting down on your résumé after you turned it in. Trying too hard. Too old. Too young. Too much makeup. Too dull.

She’d made herself look everywomanish. The woman in the background, walking by, sitting at the next table in a restaurant, shopping at Hannaford’s supermarket, or cutting hair at the next station. Extras faded into the background. At five feet ten and slender, with a D-cup chest and thick, shiny auburn
hair to her shoulders, Veronica had never been much of a fader, so she’d put on a pair of old jeans, a pale yellow peasant top, her comfortable clogs, swept her hair into a low ponytail, and then added her Best Little Diner in Boothbay apron, as though she were heading to work afterward. She wasn’t, but how much more everywoman could a real-life waitress be? She was an old pro at walking around wordlessly with her coffeepot in the background of the Best Little Diner. Most times, all she had to do was lift up the pot with a glance at someone, who’d nod, and that was the entire conversation. She had this extra thing in the bag.