Chapter 9
REED
After a soak in the outdoor spa and a shower, I slip into a fresh pair of briefs and my favorite crop top with the cut-off sleeves before making myself an egg-white omelet from the ingredients in the upstairs fridge.
The whole time I cook, I pretend I’m a high-profile chef in a prestige TV series barking orders at my sous chefs that everything has to be perfect for the fancy food critic seated at our finest table.
Anything to distract myself from the paternity results hanging over my head.
Yesterday, I booked a pickup time with the fastest and cheapest package delivery service.
I met the truck driver down at the wrought-iron gate.
We exchanged smiles and the package. I texted Carson on the long walk—it’s an eleven-and-a-half-acre property—back up the curving drive to let him know the samples were on their way.
This morning, he sent me a selfie of him holding up the mailer with a text.
Let’s see if this is your bio dad or a future Daddyyyyyyy.
Gross
But also, thanks!!!
I didn’t tell Carson whose toothbrush head I sent him. All I said was that I’d come across some old photos and letters of my mom’s, and I had an idea of who my father might be, but I needed to be sure.
“Is he hot?” Carson had asked.
“Is that important?” I’d asked. “He’s in his sixties.”
“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Carson said. I rolled my eyes at him. “I don’t know. I guess if I only knew where half my genes came from, I’d be scrutinizing this guy to see what I might look like in forty years.”
While he had a point, I was more concerned with Wendell Blitz’s pedigree than his looks—though I am slightly mourning the inevitable loss of my hair…
I’d grown up believing I was born trailer trash and bound to stay that way.
That my lot in life was sealed, always left being that kid reading hand-me-down comics in the schoolyard by himself.
Wishing he were Nova Ranger fighting the intergalactic villain Dr. Nebula and his army of space cyborgs.
Anyone but the son of Mindy Thompson. But a relation to Wendell Blitz made me feel like maybe I had the power to change my fate.
I’ve spent the entire day on pins and needles.
I’ve watered the plants, checked the security cameras, which go in and out depending on the wind, and even snooped around in Wendell’s home office, which isn’t fully furnished yet.
Nothing held my attention long enough. Even the outdoor spa with its perfect temperature and massaging jets couldn’t settle my frazzled nerves.
When I sit at the massive butcherblock dining table with my cooked eggs, a side salad, and a tall glass of water surrounded by eleven empty chairs, the loneliness and worry set in with an even fiercer vengeance.
For all of my childhood, the only person I had was my mom, a food service worker at the University of Wyoming with a love of the Home Shopping Network, fresh peonies, and hard liquor.
Alcohol inflamed my mom’s bad temper, which always sizzled beneath the surface even when she was sober, which became more of a rarity with each passing day.
It wasn’t until I turned nine or ten that I realized the reason we had no extended family—why we didn’t take trips to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Casper—was because everyone in her life had served her an ultimatum: get sober or get lost.
Lost was an accurate way to describe my mom while she was alive.
Some nights, she’d go out and get so drunk and turned around that she’d walk into someone else’s trailer at Mountainview Mobile Park.
Nobody locked their doors in those days.
The next morning, a disgruntled neighbor would scrape her off their couch and deliver her to our front door as if she were the child and I were the adult meant to scold and ground her for her behavior. I couldn’t have been more than twelve.
At her hungover worst, she’d hit me and blame me for what she’d done and how she felt. “If not for you,” she’d hiss, “I’d be sitting pretty. Never have to work a day in my life.”
When I’d ask what she meant—if she was referring to my dad and some success he may have been having—she’d hit me again and harder.
That’s how I knew, after she died and I began combing through the debris of her life, that Wendell Blitz was likely my dad.
Why else would she have saved newspaper clippings and magazine profiles of his ascent to e-commerce ubiquity?
Why would she have such a well-loved copy of his memoir when I’d never seen her read a book?
The longer I looked at the photos of him online, especially photos of him in his early twenties, like I am now, the more similarities I saw, and the easier it was for me to make the connections.
So yeah, the paternity test is mostly about kickstarting my career because right now, I’m barely scraping by and not getting any interviews.
But it’s also about potentially forging a relationship with this man, who I’m certain doesn’t even know of my existence.
I’m not expecting us to go out in the yard to play catch, or for him to teach me how to drive stick shift on one of his impressive cars, or anything like that.
Making up for lost time isn’t of importance to me.
I’d just like to have at least one person I can call family in my phone contacts.
Someone to check in on and have the occasional dinner with.
I pull out my phone for a distraction. Still no word from Carson, and it’s been hours. I decide not to send a third text and risk getting on Carson’s nerves. I’m paying him, but not as much as I should be for the rush job I’m asking him for.
In a separate folder on my home screen, I have a smattering of GPS-based hookup apps. A few dings, beeps, and whirs signal new messages from men I’ve been keeping up chats with. For the most part, I’m uninterested in linking up with any of them.
I scroll through the nude photos I took outside, and my fingers long to share them.
I like the exposure and the admiration I get from others.
But most of the guys on these apps are looking for action right now, and it’s not like I can casually invite a guy over to my maybe-dad’s house for a quickie.
It’s not only wrong, it also violates the lengthy rules I agreed to when I took this job.
I swipe open my messages without reading half of them and decide to save the pictures for another time. I’d rather not be branded a cock tease by a bunch of headless torsos tonight. Besides, there’s only one man I’d really like to send these photos to—Hank—but he’s obviously over me.
I wish I knew what I did to turn him off.
Ever since I was young, I’ve calibrated my personality to anticipate the needs of others.
Early on, I learned that if I followed orders, played by the rules, and exceeded expectations, then things would be calm and people would like me.
That must not have been what Hank was looking for in a partner—sexual or otherwise.
The silence in the house has a ring to it that chimes every few seconds like an out-of-whack cuckoo clock.
Hair stands on the back of my neck as I eat.
Wendell Blitz’s painted eyes over the fireplace take on a piercing quality as if he’s looking over my shoulder, breathing down my neck.
I lock my phone and push it across the table.
I always thought it was old, creaky houses that were scary. Turns out new, modern ones can hold just as much menace.
I quell my unease by counting my chews and relishing the flavors of garlic, onion, peppers, and zucchini. All the ingredients are of much higher quality than any of the produce I can afford at my local grocery store.
Outside, dusk continues descending over the Teton Range.
I have a front-row seat for blue hour. Hues of cobalt, steel, and Egyptian blue interplay with smidgens of light purple and vibrant pink.
The mountains cast dramatic shadows over the land below.
An owl hoots in the distance, and a bat twirls past the windows on its way to search for food of its own.
After cleaning up the kitchen, I pad downstairs. My first instinct is to hit the home gym again after my morning pump, but I don’t want to overdo it, and I don’t want to shower again.
I flop down on the couch in the media room.
The massive 4k TV is logged in to every streaming service there is.
I’m overwhelmed by the sheer choice of what to watch, so I search for a classic comfort movie to relax with: Nova Ranger: The Battle for the Galaxy.
Even the space-themed movie poster with its bold blocky text hits me with a straight shot of nostalgia.
I’ve always been drawn to superheroes. At first, it was because I had trouble reading as a kid, and my mom was rarely around to help me.
When our neighbor started giving us boxes of old toys and books her boys had outgrown, I was drawn to the crinkled Nova Ranger comics stuffed into the bottom.
The punchy, colorful full-page illustrations got me excited about reading.
I was hungry to know what happened to golden-haired Nova Ranger, who saved Earth from space threats, so even though I struggled, I worked hard to learn.
As I did, I absorbed valuable lessons about responsibility, standing up for what’s right, and good versus evil. Not to mention Nova Ranger wore a skin-tight suit that showed off his big pecs and sizable bulge that made me tingle in all types of ways.