Spirit Level (6 page)

I shake my head. “Nope,” I say.

She looks up from the gigantic tome she’s reading and raises an eyebrow at me. “It’s not like you to be so mysterious, Harry.”

“Just a friend,” I mumble, pulling my feet off her lap and standing up.

She nods and goes back to her book. In a way, I wish she would pry a bit, worm it out of me. Make me talk. At this point, I’m not even sure why I’m keeping it a secret. Maybe I’ll tell her after I meet Meredith.

I don’t know why I suggested the Pike Place Starbucks. It’s crowded and noisy and full of tourists. I find Lucy at a table in a corner, and she asks how we’re going to recognize Meredith. “No idea,” I say. “Her emails weren’t exactly chatty. I told her to look for a tiny Asian girl with long hair and a tall girl wearing a red Pearl Jam T-shirt.”

Lucy and I sit and watch the crowd. Two o’clock comes and goes, and I’m beginning to think we’ve been stood up when a girl and a guy come in and start looking around instead of ordering coffee. The girl, who is shorter than me but not as short as Lucy, is very pale and thin. She’s wearing a black-and-white-striped boat-neck top with black capris and black ballet flats. Très chic. A small black leather pack is slung over one shoulder. Everything about her is sharp: her nose, her chin, the bones of her wrists, her shoulder blades. Her hair is black and
aggressively short, shorter than a pixie cut. Her eyebrows are heavy—Audrey Hepburn heavy, not unibrow heavy.

The guy she’s with is about my height and slim, almost skinny, with a haircut like hers—as if they went to a salon and had their heads shaved at the same time, and now it’s growing back. His hair is blond and curly, though, which makes it look as if he has a halo.

They spot us, and I wave as they walk over to our table. I stand up and say, “Meredith?”

She nods and smiles with her lips closed, as if she’s afraid she has poppy seeds stuck between her teeth. “I’m so pleased to meet you,” she says. “Hope you don’t mind—I brought my friend, Alex.”

“Hi, Alex,” Lucy and I chorus. Alex shakes our hands. His palm is cool and dry, his grip firm. He’s wearing a wrinkled pale-blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, gray plaid shorts and checkered Vans. No socks.

Meredith turns to him and says, “I’d love an iced soy chai tea latte.”

“Coming right up,” Alex says. “You guys good?” he asks Lucy and me. When he smiles, I can see that his front teeth are crooked. Not snaggletooth crooked but noticeable.

Lucy and I nod and hold up our drinks. Meredith grabs a chair, pulls it over to our table and sits down. After she stares at us for a few moments, she says, “You’d never know, would you? That we were related.”

“It’s the Japanese thing,” Lucy says. “But Harry looks a lot like my brother Adam. Same donor, different moms.”

Meredith’s gaze darts back and forth between Lucy and me. Her eyes are a very pale blue—like acid-washed denim. “So your moms are gay?”

“Mine are,” Lucy says.

“Mine’s not,” I say. “She’s a single mom by choice. What about yours?”

“Standard-issue suburban parents. I don’t talk to them anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be,” Meredith replies. “I’m here now, meeting my sisters. That’s what’s important.” She smiles. Her lips are thin, and it looks as if she never lost her baby teeth or, if she did, her adult teeth came in very small. I can understand if she doesn’t smile a lot.

Alex comes back to the table with Meredith’s drink and a lemonade for himself. He sits down between me and Meredith, who thanks him for the drink and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

“So, how many sibs have you found so far?” she asks. “Other than Adam.”

“One more that I know of,” Lucy says. “Ben, in Australia. He’s awesome.”

“And some Mormon guy—James something-or-other,” I add.

“You didn’t tell me about him.” Lucy frowns at me.

“Mormons are so strange,” Meredith says. “All those wives.”

I stop myself before I launch into Mom’s
not all Mormons are polygamists
speech. “He seems nice enough,” I say instead, even though I never replied to his email and he hasn’t tried to contact me again. For some reason, I feel like defending him. “Anyway, he lives in Florida somewhere. He just came back from Argentina.”

“Probably trying to convert the heathen,” Meredith says with a breathy laugh.

Alex says, “I lived next door to a Mormon family when I was little. Super nice people. Generous, kind. I spent a lot of time at their house.”

A look passes between Alex and Meredith that I can’t quite decipher. I think maybe he’s telling her to back off about Mormons, but I could be wrong.

“Was that in Montana?” Lucy asks.

Alex shakes his head. “Texas. Montana came later, when I was six. That’s where I met Meredith—in first grade.”

“He puked Cream of Wheat all over the teacher’s shoes on the first day of class. Miss Oakley, remember?”

Alex grimaces. “You never let me forget. I was so nervous. New city. New school. Meredith rescued me. Took me to the nurse’s office. We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Best friends,” Meredith says, as if one of us has challenged her.

“So how’d you end up in Seattle?” I ask.

“We both needed to get out of Missoula, and I wanted to find my dad, so we headed west and ended up here.”

“Wasn’t your dad in Missoula?” Lucy says.

“I’m talking about my real dad. You know, our father. I’m eighteen now. I can look for him legally. Don’t you want to meet him?”

I shake my head. So does Lucy.

“You sure?” Meredith says. “I mean, he’s our father.” Her eyebrows draw together.

“No he isn’t,” Lucy says. “He’s our
donor
. There’s a difference.”

Meredith shrugs. “Suit yourself. But I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. I’ve even got a picture. Wanna see it?” She starts to reach into her bag, and I put my hand on her arm to stop her. She flinches as if I have hurt her, which I’m sure I haven’t.

“I’m sorry, Meredith,” I say as she rubs her arm. “I’m just not ready.”

“Me either,” Lucy says. “I don’t think my moms ever saw a picture. Did yours?” she asks me.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “If she did, she hasn’t shown me. Seeing a picture changes things, don’t you think? Makes it so much more personal, when really, it wasn’t personal at all.”

“I have to disagree,” Meredith says. “It’s deeply personal. When did you guys find out you were donor kids?”

“I don’t remember,” I say. “I’ve always known. So I must have been really little.”

“Angela and Nori told me they started talking about my donor the minute I was born,” Lucy adds. “Not that I understood until I was older, but it was never, like, announced. It was just part of who I was.”

“I didn’t find out until I was twelve,” Meredith says. “I grew up believing a lie.”

“Whoa,” Lucy says. “That’s rough.”

“But you loved your dad—the man who raised you—didn’t you?” I ask.

Meredith glares at me. “That’s not the point. He betrayed me. My mom betrayed me. When they told me, all I could think about was finding my real dad. And now I can. I was hoping you’d want to share my journey. It would mean so much to me. To do this with my sisters.”

Tears form in her pale eyes and hang on her thick black lashes. She grabs Lucy’s hand in both of hers as a single tear makes its way down one pale cheek. “I feel like we’ve known each other forever.” She turns to me. “And you too, Harry.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t feel that way at all. She’s a stranger. A stranger with some of my
DNA
.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says. “It’s just such a new idea. But maybe you’re right. Can I think about it? Talk to my moms?”

“Of course,” Meredith says, letting go of Lucy’s hand. “It’s an important decision. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years. I guess I should give you more than a couple of minutes to decide!” She laughs. “Alex says I’m
like a steamroller once I get going, don’t you, sweetie?” She reaches over and pats his cheek. Am I imagining it, or does he look a bit uncomfortable?

“How long have you been in Seattle?” I ask. It’s a lame segue, I know, but I don’t want to talk any more about finding our donor.

“Almost a year,” Alex says. “You?”

“Born and raised. Lucy too.”

“Lucky you,” he says. “Noticeably short on rednecks out here. Compared to Texas and Montana. You don’t see a lot of pickup trucks with gun racks outside the Whole Foods market.”

“More like Smart cars with
Things Go Better With Kale
bumper stickers,” I say.

Lucy giggles and Alex smiles—a wide, genuine, eye-crinkling smile—and I notice that his eyes are a very deep, dark blue, the color of the lapis lazuli stone in my favorite ring.

“Funny,” he says to me, and I’m sure I blush.

“We should go, Alex.” Meredith gets up from the table. “I need to get to work.”

“Where do you work?” Lucy asks.

“I’ve got two jobs,” Meredith says. “One at a dance store and one at a health-food store.”

“A dance store?” Lucy says. “Which one?”

“Pirouette.”

“I love that store! Nori says we’ve spent enough money there to buy a new car.”

“You dance?”

“Every day since I was, like, three.”

Meredith links arms with Lucy and they leave the coffee shop, heads together, laughing.

“After you,” Alex says with a small bow, and we head up the hill.

“She’s a good person,” he says as we walk. “A good friend.” Is he a mind reader? How else could he know that I haven’t exactly warmed to Meredith?

“Do you think she’ll find him?” I ask. “Our donor?”

“I don’t know. She’s sure he’s here. He went to med school here, but he could be anywhere. She’s reached out through the
DSR
but hasn’t had any response, I guess. Now all we can do is wait.”

We
. I wonder if they’re more than best friends. He seems like a nice guy. Smart, funny, considerate. She seems—odd, for want of a better word.

When we get to the top of the hill, Lucy is waiting for us, but Meredith is nowhere in sight. I can tell by the way Alex’s head swivels that he is looking for her.

“Looks like she ditched us,” I say.

“She said she had a bus to catch,” Lucy tells us. “She didn’t want to be late for work.”

“And neither do I,” Alex says. “The dogs hate to wait.”

“What dogs?” Lucy asks. “You have dogs?”

“No, not right now. I volunteer at an animal shelter. When I’m not bussing tables. Guess which job I prefer.” He laughs.

“That’s so cool,” Lucy says.

“Bussing tables?”

Lucy punches him lightly on the arm. “No, silly. Working at a shelter.”

“It is,” Alex says. “Wish I got paid for it.” He pauses. “You know, Meredith was really nervous about meeting you guys today. Finding you means a lot to her. I’m sure she’ll be in touch. Or I will, if you give me your numbers.”

We nod like bobblehead dolls, give him our numbers and then watch him walk away.

Beside me, Lucy exhales loudly. “That was…intense.”

“Very.”

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Meredith. Alex.”

I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

We trudge up Pike Street in silence. When we get close to my bus stop, Lucy asks, “Are you going to tell your mom now?”

I stop walking and look over at her—my little sister—and realize that I’m glad she’s here with me, glad that we met Meredith together, glad that she’s in my life. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am.”

WHEN I GET HOME,
Verna is sitting on the couch, crocheting. Mom is in her office, but she comes out when she hears me.

“There you are,” she says. “Verna’s staying for dinner and some Scrabble. There’s chicken in the oven. Could you make a salad?”

“Sure,” I say. Verna eats dinner with us quite often, but there’s something about the atmosphere in the room—some tension between them, maybe—that makes me wonder if they’re staging some kind of intervention. If so, they’re in for a big surprise.

I wash my hands, then chop up tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers for a Greek salad, all the while trying to formulate a graceful way of introducing the fact that I have searched for, and found, some half-siblings.
When we sit down for dinner, we talk about the usual stuff—the Sunday ladies (Bonnie is in detox again), Mom’s work (one of her girls has been arrested, another has returned home), how many more squares Verna has to crochet before she has enough for an afghan (seventeen). After dinner, I clear off the dishes to make room for Scrabble at the table, and when we’re all sitting again, Mom fires the opening salvo. “Verna and I are worried about you, Harry.”

Verna nods and holds the bag of tiles out to me. “You’ve been very distant lately,” she says. “You still mooning over Byron?”

I shake my head. Now is not the time to tell Verna that
mooning
has more than one meaning.

“Then what is it?” Mom asks. “You know I don’t like to pry, but it’s just not like you.”

“What isn’t like me?”

“Being secretive. Disappearing without telling anyone where you’re going. Texting all the time. Shutting us out. Does it have anything to do with the card that’s gone from the fridge?”