18. Jake
Chapter 18
Jake
O ne of my dad’s favorite plays was to convince some rich guy that I was his kid. He’d ask for some kind of finder’s fee, and then, like the little liar I was, after Dad got it, and after I’d convinced the poor man that I was his perfect, shining star, I’d escape out a window and he’d never find me again.
I’ve always worried that now that I’ve ‘made it,’ someone might recognize me and come after me for my part in the duplicity.
Thankfully, our faces change a lot in adolescence.
In fact, sometimes people I knew in junior high come shrieking up to me and I don’t recognize them at all. I always try to be as nice as possible, because I’m hoping all the karma I didn’t earn as a kid might be replaced by my generosity as an adult.
I’m not sure that donating a large chunk of my paycheck will really make up for the kinds of things Dad and I did, but it can’t hurt. I suppose today’s the day I find out what kind of life is possible. If the best people I’ve met are all liars, then maybe goodness is just unattainable. Now that I’ve reached the inn, Octavia by my side, I’m absurdly nervous.
“What will you do if Seren’s here?” Octavia asks.
“That’s why we’re here at exactly seven-fifteen,” I say. “She’s always leading the staff meeting right now—the few night shift workers are leaving, very few people are stupid enough to be checking out now, and the day shift people are just showing up to clean. As they change over the front desk tasks, Seren meets with everyone.”
I’m just lifting my hand to knock when Octavia asks, “How many employees do the Fansees have?”
I freeze. “Really? That’s what you want to know right now?”
She slides her arm through the space between my body and my elbow. “You look like you’re marching to the town square to stand in front of a gun-squad.” She bumps me with her hip. “You need to relax. So yes, how many employees do your parents have?”
“Dave and Seren had fifteen, last I checked,” I say. “But one or two of those only comes on weekends.” Before I can knock, Dave whips the door open.
He’s smiling his enormous, eye-sparkling smile. “Jake!” He hugs me immediately, dragging my body against his.
“How’d you know I was here?” I barely manage to gasp.
“We got the new Ring doorbell.” Dave points. “I can’t believe you came early—of your own volition.” He turns immediately toward Octavia. “I really, really hope you’re here to tell me that you and this stunning beauty are getting married or something.”
Poor Octavia’s face blanches. “We—we just started dating.”
Dave shrugs. “I mean, crazier things have happened. Love’s a leap.” He slaps me on the back. “Come on in and tell me why you came while Seren’s busy.”
I swear under my breath. Sometimes I forget how freaking smart he is, because he’s so darn happy and kind. “Um, well.”
Octavia’s head tilts. “How did you know?—”
Dave’s laughing. “We have five kids, you know, and they’re all as different as they can be. But Jake? His excellent timing is never an accident.”
“Oh.” Octavia’s looking around intently, as if she’s going to be quizzed on the contents of the Fansee’s small cottage. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Same.” He grins again. “Even if you’re here as a buffer for my son who knew Killian would be sleeping, Seren would be busy, and I’d be right here, going over numbers.” He turns to catch my eye, daring me to correct him.
“Can we sit?” I start walking across the family room to the breakfast table.
“Of course.” Dave trots ahead of me and closes his laptop, sliding it away from him. He stacks his crazy, tracking notebook in which he scrawls a bunch of numbers every day on top of the laptop and sits, leaning on his elbows.
Octavia waits for me to sit down and takes a chair behind me. She really didn’t want to come, but when I told her I needed her with me, she didn’t argue. She just agreed. I don’t want to evaluate why I wanted her here so badly, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m scared this is going to go badly.
“So, the thing is, a few years ago, my dad started sending me letters through?—”
“His old partner Quintin?” Dave nods. “Go on.”
“Wait, you knew that?” I swallow.
Dave chuckles. “You were a kid, Jake. Give us some credit for paying attention to the people you met.”
I’m shocked. I was so careful to make sure. . . Dave’s an easy guy to underestimate, but that makes me nervous. Could he have been cheating on Seren all this time, and no one even knew because he looks so trustworthy? “Did you read all the letters he sent me?”
Dave shakes his head. “We wouldn’t have read them even if they came through the system. We tried to give you the chance to learn to make your own choices, even ones we disagreed with.”
“Well, the thing is, one of the things Dad told me after his letters started coming through. . .” I clear my throat. “He told me that you. . .”
I can’t say it.
There’s a reason I’ve never asked him about this. Now that we’re down to it, I don’t want to know. I’m about to make something up and get out of here.
Octavia drops her hand on my knee under the table. Her voice is soft and even. I’ve come to expect that from her. Most girls get shrill or demanding or acerbic in times of stress, but not Octavia. “Maybe it’s easier if you text him an image of what your dad sent.”
Dave’s eyes rise. “What did he send you? Is it something about me?” In spite of his curiosity, he doesn’t look the slightest bit guilty or nervous. That calms me down some. One thing I’m very good at doing is reading people in the moment. It’s probably the thing Dad drilled into me the most. Dave’s either a complete sociopath, or he’s not worried in the slightest.
“I—I’ll text you the image. Octavia’s right. That’s best.” My hands are fumblier than they’ve ever been, but I do manage to pull up one of the images and text it to him. Then I swallow, inhale slowly, and force myself to look up as he pulls it up on his phone.
His eyes widen. He zooms in, and then his mouth drops open. “How did he get this?”
Not, “What on earth is this fake photo?” Or “That’s not me!” Just “How?” My stomach sinks.
“My dad’s very, very good at data mining,” I say. “He used to train other people how to live like us.” I clear my throat. “For a fee, of course.”
“Okay, so one of his people somehow dug this up?” Dave sets his phone down and looks at me. “And why did this upset you so much?”
I can hardly believe what he’s saying. “I mean, well, I know you and Seren aren’t my real parents, but I do think?—”
“Are you religious?” Dave’s eyebrows rise. “I didn’t realize that.”
I blink.
“I think what Jake’s trying to say is that he was disappointed when his father told him you were unfaithful to your wife. His dad used this as leverage to force Jake into doing things he didn’t want to do, I believe. He threatened to send this to your wife if Jake didn’t listen to him, and now he’s out of prison, so you can see how that’s become more dangerous. He could send this or other images like it to Seren at any moment.”
The front door opens, and Seren darts through, her eyes wide.
Shoot.
“Oh, hey.” I stand up. “We were just?—”
“David Fansee, what on earth did I just see?” She waves a paper at him, and I realize with horror that it’s the photo I just sent. It’s Dave, leaning back against the headboard of a bed, clearly naked, with just a sheet covering things no one should see, smiling. There’s a woman’s head in the bottom part of the image, and it’s clearly not Seren’s.
“I am so sorry,” I whisper. “I was actually trying to avoid this exact situation.”
Dave hops to his feet, but he doesn’t look upset. He’s smiling. “Jake’s dad sent him that.”
Seren starts laughing. “I’ve been telling you to take that hard drive in to recover our honeymoon photos. If you’d done it, I wouldn’t have to use this one, with another woman in it .” She waves it at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll crop her out before I tape it to the fridge.”
“I told you, it’s not that I don’t have motivation.” He snatches the printed image out of her hand. “It’s that you make such good treats that they always overwhelm my desire to rediscover my six pack.”
She laughs and grabs the paper back, balling it into a wad and tossing it at the trash can. She misses and it bounces across the tile floor, coming to rest by my foot.
Seren’s eyes followed its trajectory, and now she’s staring at me and Octavia. “Oh, you didn’t tell me we had company.”
“Are you kidding? Jake’s car must be parked outside,” Dave says. “It’s so obnoxious that it’s hard to miss.”
I stand up, too freaked out by their bizarre reaction to know what to do. Are they in some kind of open relationship? Why does Seren think it’s funny?
“We parked on the street,” Octavia says. “There was a truck unloading something. . .”
“Sit back down.” Dave points. “We can explain this.” But he’s smiling like it’s all no big deal.
“Do you not care that he cheated on you?” I need to be looking at Seren when I ask. If she’s faking, I’ll see the signs.
Seren’s smile is a knowing one. “Just listen to your dad.”
I sit back down with a sigh. Octavia immediately takes my hand. I knew I was right to bring her.
“But how did Seren get the picture?” Octavia asks. “Did you accidentally group text it?” She’s looking at me.
I whip my phone out, but no, just Dave.
“There’s some kind of weird glitch with our phones,” Dave says. “We managed to disconnect them, but anything you send through iMessage to me goes to her laptop, too. She probably got it the second you sent it. They pop up whenever she’s using her laptop.”
“I did run out of that meeting pretty quickly,” Seren says. “But they’re probably relieved. They were getting a little annoyed with me talking about the cost savings of installing more energy efficient fixtures.”
“I’m confused, too. You thought this was evidence that I was having an affair?” Dave reaches down and grabs the wadded-up paper off the ground and slowly smooths it out. He points at his shoulder. “This happened before I ever met your mom.”
I frown. “You look?—”
“He’s gained some weight,” Seren says, “but the Fansees are like Keanu Reeves.” She shrugs. “They never age.” She slugs his shoulder. “The jerk.”
“If you make me lose a lot of weight, I might be all saggy and baggy.” He sighs.
“It’s not me making you lose weight,” she says. “It’s your doctor.” She turns toward me. “At his last appointment they told him he’s prediabetic.”
Dave unbuttons his shirt and yanks one shoulder down, showing me a tattoo. “We really should have gone swimming more often. I blame the New York weather. You haven’t seen my shoulder?”
I lean closer, squinting. There’s some kind of tree tattoo. Or is it a shamrock? “What is that?”
“It’s our family symbol,” Seren says. “I got one too, on our honeymoon.”
Dave points at his shoulder in the image. “See? No tattoo. Pre-Seren Dave did all kinds of stupid things.” He shakes his shirt back into place and wraps his arm around Seren. “She knew I wasn’t a saint before, though.”
“I mean, are you really a saint now?” She leans her head on his shoulder.
“What were the little red blobs?” Octavia asks.
“For our symbol, we chose a tree,” Dave says. “To represent that we’re growing our own family now, but we gave the tree a four-leaf-clover shape, because we believe that we make our own luck.” The look he gives Seren is almost disgusting, it’s so sweet. “And the blobs , as you phrased it, are small, red, apple-hearts. Each of them has a single letter printed beside them. The first had an E. Then a B. The next was a J, an A, and a K.” Dave looks at me.
“Our names?”
Octavia says, “Aw, that’s so sweet. I love it.”
“Except Seren only has the tree with one heart,” Dave mutters.
“Tattoos hurt a lot more than I expected.” She taps her fingers on the table. “I went to get the other apple-hearts added two different times, but I had to wait for a while for my turn, and I always chickened out before they were ready for me and left.”
“She does love you guys,” Dave says. “Just not as much as she hates needles.”
“To be fair, if I’d known how much it would hurt before I got the first one, I’d have backed out on the matching tattoos entirely.”
“I’ve never seen yours either,” I say.
Dave clears his throat. “It’s in a place you’d be unlikely to see.”
Ew.
“Which is good,” Seren says, “because otherwise, the kids would probably be upset I only have Emerson listed on the heart. He was the only one of you I’d met when we got it done.”
“But how did you have those photos to begin with?” Octavia asks all the great questions.
“Did you want to tell the story, or should I?” Seren’s lip’s twitching.
Dave scowls. “There isn’t a story. My stupid friend Bernie asked me to housesit and didn’t tell me he’d installed security cameras.”
“Wait,” I say. “You didn’t mean to take these?”
The expression of irritation on Dave’s face is hilarious. “Of course not. I’m not a weirdo.”
“Hey, I’m not ready to rule that out yet,” I say. “You vacuum out the utensil drawer once a month.”
“That’s just good hygiene,” Dave says.
“And I’m not sure photos—if both people want them— are weird,” Octavia says.
“Really?” I turn toward her. “You don’t say.”
Seren’s got her fingers stuffed in her ears and she’s saying, “Lalala.”
Dave grabs her arms and tugs them down with a smile. “Anyway, when Bernie was checking the surveillance feed, it told him when there was. . .” He coughs. “Motion at an unexpected time. He saw what I did at his place, and he took issue with it. To make his point, he took some still shots and did more or less what your mom just did, shoving them at me.”
“And you never got to housesit again,” Seren says.
“That was a real trial for me,” Dave says. “Bernie’s stupid yorkie wouldn’t go outside to potty if it was raining. Do you know how much pee I had to clean up that weekend?” He shakes his head. “He deserved what he got, snooping around on what I did while I kept his house clean and his tiny, cricket-of-a-dog alive.”
The next half hour is one of my favorite breakfasts of my life. Octavia slides right into the conversation like she’s always been a part of the family. She makes jokes, she laughs at theirs, and she even manages to make a reference back to both Bernie’s video camera and Seren’s fear of needles before we finish eating the eggs, turkey bacon, and cinnamon toast Seren makes.
And when we’re done, Octavia insists on loading the dishwasher, which wins her lots of points with Dave since that’s usually his job. Even though we’re not supposed to get together to celebrate my party until much later, Killian rolls out of bed at the end of breakfast, his nose turned up and sniffing. He rubs his eyes. “Is that bacon?”
Seren laughs. “I saved you some.”
He wraps his blanket a little tighter, but I notice that he’s not wearing a shirt underneath.
I stand up. “Please tell me you have pants on, at least,” I say. “I brought my girlfriend.”
“Wait, you brought a dirty little tramp home to meet Mom and Dad?” Killian’s eyes widen.
“She’s not a tramp.” I slug his shoulder.
Which makes him drop his blanket.
Seren starts shouting, because, in fact, he was not wearing pants.
“Ew,” Dave says. “Tighty whities? Really?” He groans. “A son of mine.”
Before Killian has even finished the breakfast Seren saved for him, and just after Octavia finishes the dishes, Ardath shows up. She looks pretty tired. “You okay?” I ask. She’s always been the least talkative of my siblings, but when she’s tired, she barely says a word.
“I’m fine.” She yawns. “Stuck with an overnight. Couldn’t sleep at home—they’re doing construction next door.” She points at the hall. “Can I?”
Seren waves her back. “You need your beauty rest.”
“Sick burn,” Killian shouts at Ardath’s retreating form. “Mom says you’re an ug-oh.” Then he freezes and turns slowly toward Octavia. “I’m sorry. Should I not have said burn?”
Octavia’s eyes widen, and she half-smiles. “No, I’d say my traumatic reaction to that word has sufficiently healed. You can use it with impunity.”
“Does that mean it’s fine?” he hisses at me.
I just roll my eyes.
But Ardath laughs. “Educated people need to scale things back a few levels when they’re here.” She shakes her head in commiseration, clearly talking to Octavia. “You get used to it.”
“I guess when you save people as part of your job, you get used to adjusting the vocabulary you use,” I say.
Ardath’s still smirking as she ducks into my old room to sleep. It was turned into a spare bedroom about eight minutes after I moved out. I guess I should be grateful they didn’t take the opportunity of the vacancy to adopt another kid.
Not that any of us were ever formally adopted, but you know.
“Hey, does anyone want to play a game?” Dave asks.
“Dad and his games.” Killian scrunches his nose. “No, thanks.”
“I love games,” Octavia says. When Dave practically sprints across the room, she smiles, and I realize she might have been serious.
“You don’t have to,” I hiss. “He’ll get over it.”
“I really do love games,” she says. “I was an only child, so when I was a kid, I’d make my brown bear and my giraffe each pretend to pick a game piece—and we’d play Monopoly.”
“That may be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Killian says.
Octavia sticks out her lower lip. “Oh, no. Do you feel sorry enough for me that you’d like to let me beat you?”
Killian frowns. “I know you’re baiting me, but I still find myself saying yes.”
I slap his back, and this time, no clothing falls to the ground. “Good man.”
In the end, we all get roped into playing a bizarre, 3D printed version of Settlers of Catan. When Easton and Bea show up, arms full of wedding samples they want us to evaluate, they get roped into joining us, too.
The party isn’t anything special.
Seren makes my favorite pie while we all argue over resources and something called a development card. I don’t win, but to my surprise—and Dave’s—Octavia does.
“It’s because she was so nice,” Dave says. “Everyone kept making trades they shouldn’t have made.”
“And no one was watching her road length,” Killian says. “Jake, your girlfriend’s a bigger snake than you.” But he’s smiling, and so is she.
It’s funny, but somehow, even with all these people who care about me, I never really felt like I fit. I didn’t think that would ever change, but by bringing an outsider, I finally feel like I belong. That makes me think. . .
Maybe they haven’t changed.
Maybe it was me all along.
As everyone jokes and chats around me, Octavia zinging Killian as much as he goes after her, I wonder what might have changed me. Octavia told me to trust Dave and Seren. She made me tell them what’s been bothering me—scaring me—for the past few years, and she was right.
It wasn’t the horrible threat I worried it was.
My dark view of the world, my experience with so very many dishonest, untrustworthy people had colored my view. My dad must have counted on that when he sent me the photos. For the first time, I know the truth, and now I feel like there’s nothing in the world that can ruin this day.
Until I hear Killian going head to head with Bea.
She trots out the same threat she’s used for years. “I’ll tell them about the funnel.” She scowls. “Unless you apologize.”
I consider coming clean to everyone. I’m tired of her holding it over our heads. But before I can say anything, Ardath walks into the room. “You will not tell them about the funnel, or I’ll tell them about your thing.” Ardath never jokes.
She’s the strangest person in our family, hands down.
I’m a little bit terrified of her, honestly. She’s a good person, but she’s weird. All she does is work, and when she’s not working, she’s sleeping. When she’s not sleeping, she does and says as little as she can, and then she leaves.
If someone told me she was a drone, I’d believe them.
Thankfully, Emerson gets there then, and Elizabeth immediately starts complaining about how she’s so hungry she could eat an elephant. It’s not as shocking, since she’s been married for. . .I do the math.
“So, are you pregnant yet?”
Elizabeth blinks. Then she rounds on Emerson. “I’m going to kill you.”
Emerson swears. “I swear, I didn’t say a word, and it’s Jake. A hundred bucks says he was testing you.”
“He wouldn’t—” Elizabeth freezes. “You got me, didn’t you?”
Seren shrieks then, and some kind of massive family hug-fest follows. Octavia, Ardath, and I retreat slowly.
“You’re not about to hug me, are you?” Ardath asks. “I’m not a very touchy-feely person.”
“It’s one of the few things we have in common,” I say.
“Please,” Ardath says. “If I told your girlfriend about all the girls you touched and felt, she’d be sick to her stomach.”
Octavia laughs, and I realize. . .Ardath just made a joke. Is it the first one she’s made? Or have I missed the others?
Once people finally calm down, or at least, as much as they’re going to, Seren pulls out a massive chocolate cake.
“I know cheesecake’s your favorite, Jake,” she says. “But everyone else likes this better.”
“Seriously?” Bea asks. “On his birthday, you make what we want?” She shakes her head.
Octavia looks genuinely upset on my behalf.
“She’s got a cheesecake in there, too,” I whisper. “She’ll let them fall on this like locusts, and then she’ll pull it out. They all know it, but they play along. She does this for literally every party. At first, I thought it was kinda corny, but it grows on you.” Actually, I’ve always thought it was dumb. But, tonight, explaining it to Octavia, I feel like I’m in on the silliness.
So when everyone has a slice of cake and I ask for one, Seren gets a sly look on her face and says, “Actually. . .” Then she shoves my hand away, stands up, and pulls the cherry cheesecake out of the fridge. “That cake was just to keep them away from this so you’d have leftovers.”
“Oh, ho, I can eat that, too,” Dave says.
Seren points at the fridge door, and I realize she really did tape a cropped photo up there.
“Oh, gross.” Ardath’s shaking her head. “Why are we all staring at a naked picture of Dad right now?”
Seren laughs. “It’s inspirational. That Dave got a lot more hot women than this one does.”
Before I can even get my slice of cheesecake, Dave’s crossed the room, wrapped his arms around Seren, and he’s dipping and kissing her. We all groan and shout our protests right on cue, but like the cake gag, it feels different this time. It feels. . .corny, yes, but also good.
On the plane the next morning, Octavia takes my hand. “Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“Last night—actually, the whole day yesterday was one of the best days I’ve ever had. Your family’s kind of my dream.”
“Your dream? I don’t understand.”
“They’re so. . .” She sighs. “They’re just, I don’t know. Yes, they’re a little cheesy, and they can be loud, and Killian’s a mess. Ardath is a little. . .different. But they all love each other so much, and it feels like you’ve stepped into some kind of hokey Christmas film when you sit down in Seren’s kitchen.”
I actually get it. “I think that’s what I didn’t like about it when I was growing up.”
“The Christmas movie thing?”
I shake my head. “It felt unreal. Sometimes it felt like they were all acting, like they were trying to deliver lines or something.”
“Are you sure you weren’t the one who felt like he had to deliver lines?” Her eyes are soft.
I lean over as people pass us in the aisle, and I kiss her right on the mouth. “You are brilliant,” I whisper against her mouth. “That’s exactly true. This weekend, for maybe the first time, I felt like I fit right in, and it’s because of you. You brought me into the warm, happy, bright circle.”
After I drop her off, I can’t help thinking that this is the goal. My whole life, I’ve loved Bea. She makes me a better version of the person I already was, but she and I didn’t fit. Octavia’s different. She’s as shiny and warm as Bea, but she fits. She gets me without even trying. It’s like she has the key to unlocking my brain. Or maybe it’s my heart.
She makes me the best version of Jake.
When I open my own front door, I’m still smiling. It was a very quick trip, and I have to report back on set in two hours, on a Sunday afternoon, but it was totally worth it.
“So you do come back here occasionally.” Dad’s lying on the sofa, but he sits up. “Thank goodness.” He swings his legs over the edge and drops his elbows on them. “I’m ready, finally, to repay Dave and Seren for their heroic efforts over a decade ago, and you’re going to help me.”