17. Seventeen
“Harlowe! Who is your baby daddy?”
“Is Zander Olsen Hendricks’s father?”
“Why hasn’t Zander ever been seen with your son?”
“Harlowe, are you that greedy you wouldn’t even share custody?”
“Why wouldn’t you want a billionaire in your life?”
“What does Knox think? Does he want to fill the shoes of an Olsen brother?”
“Who is the father?”
The questions have been non-stop and come from every direction. I’ve been asked in comments sections on my latest cooking videos, on my social media posts, in my direct message inboxes, from strangers on the street and paparazzi alike as I dropped Hendricks off at school, shielding him with my jacket and body to avoid any photos being taken. I’m going to have to arrange for someone else to do school drop-off and pick-up for my son if this continues so there aren’t photos of my child plastered all over the internet. Everyone is suddenly very interested to know about my sex life from five years ago and why I’m a single mother, and won’t give me even a moment of privacy to gather my thoughts or figure out my next move.
The front door opening startles me from scouring the comments of my latest YouTube video, my defenses high after all the unwanted attention.
“If you’re walking into my house without an invitation, you’re about to get stabbed,” I call out, clutching a large kitchen knife in my hand and tentatively peeking around the wall to the entryway.
“I tried calling you, but your phone must be broken. No other reason not to answer your mom’s calls, yes, Lolo?” returns a familiar voice with a slight lilting accent that thirty years in the United States hasn’t managed to remove.
I lower the knife as a flood of relief courses through me and feel the first genuine smile in a week split my face. “Well, look what the cat dragged in!”
I quickly set the knife down before I cross the kitchen to greet my mom. I lean down to embrace her shorter frame and inhale her familiar perfume of exotic spices.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in Singapore visiting Auntie June, Auntie Nancy, and the cousins.” I take the bag from her hand and lead her into the living room to sit down.
“I know you need me and still you didn’t call. Family first, Lolo. When have we ever weathered a storm on our own when there is absolutely no need to? You’re lucky the aunties and cousins didn’t come with me for an intervention.” She settles herself on the couch and opens her arms to me. I gratefully nestle into her side. There’s something so comforting about having your mom show up when you need her most. I could cry in relief now that she’s here, even if there is nothing she can do to stop the flood of press and accusations.
“When the storm involves the media, a billionaire, and revolves around who I’ve had sex with, I figured I would leave you out of the mix.”
She pats my hair and then pushes my head abruptly off her shoulder.
“Hey,” I say, mock indignation flashing as I sit up.
“You talk cock,” she says, slipping in a Singlish phrase for nonsense that pulls from the phrases of her past life in Singapore she must have picked up again from her recent visit. “We have to stand by one another, even if it means I have to know about who you take to bed. It’s not that unusual. You think I don’t know you have sex? How’d you get my grandbaby if not from sleeping with a man?”
“Mom, I will never feel comfortable talking about sex with you. Not after your scared straight campaign to keep me out of trouble in high school.”
I shudder, thinking of the blown-up photos of the reproductive tract, graphic illustrations of women in labor, and even regret-filled articles supposedly written by teen mothers she stuck to the refrigerator weekly from the time I turned thirteen. I knew exactly how babies were made and had intimate knowledge of anatomy and the horrors of childbirth. I wanted nothing to do with boys until I graduated and moved to Los Angeles to pursue modeling. At least I knew what to expect once I did have sex.
“You know I just wanted to protect you. Your father would have done worse things to make sure you knew the risks. And he would have been the most excited when you came back here growing that darling little boy in your belly,” Mom says, her voice resolute and reassuring.
My father died when I was twelve. He was a six-foot-five-inch Nordic giant, the kind of man wrought from Vikings. He was from Denmark originally, an architect by trade—a real white-collar job for someone so insistent on working with his hands and laboring every chance he got. He could build anything you imagined from metal, fabricating everything from custom-built bird cages to impressive iron sculptures that live on in palaces and hotels across the world even now.
He met my mother at a hotel in Singapore where she worked as the head desk clerk. She came from humble Malaysian roots, growing up rather poor in the affluent metropolis of Singapore, yet from the way she tells it, the strapping Dane who walked into the lobby looking for his meeting with the company head in order to build a new decorative iron sculpture immediately treated her like royalty. They were married six months later, and he moved her to Georgia, where the architectural firm he worked for was based. She’s been in Atlanta ever since, even after he was hurt on a job site and succumbed to his injuries.
“You didn’t seem to care who Hendricks’s father was back then. You never even asked,” I muse. Mom had opened her home, the one I now occupy, to me and my swelling belly, no questions asked. She seemed to know I needed this baby to be mine alone, and she never so much as questioned how her twenty-four-year-old daughter found herself with child and retired from an exploding modeling career.
“There are some things that don’t need answers, only intentions. You were intent on bringing a life into this world and providing for it the best you knew how. I was intent on making sure you were supported. Simple as that.”
I pull back and give her a wry smile. “Enough with your Earth mama good vibes. Where’s the Singaporean nosy nana in you? Did you show up today knowing I’ll have to start making statements and naming names?” Maybe Alicia put her up to this. She was particularly interested and got me to admit that Zander is, in fact, Hendricks’s father in a call we had about this just yesterday.
Mom slides a side-eyed glance my way and tries to hide her mischievous smile. “You have to do what is best for you and Hendricks. But you also have a reckoning coming your way. Whatever you decide to do will have consequences, whether you keep the father’s identity a secret, or tell the world. I am here to be on your side.” She looks at me fully and slides a gentle finger along my cheekbone. “And give you a break. Have you been sleeping at all? If these under-eye bags get any bigger, they’ll take up more space than what’s available in an overhead bin of an airplane.”
I let out a bark of laughter and bat her hand away. “You’re horrible, but I love you.”
“I brought back some Korean beauty eye patches from this trip. You could use them.”
“I’m not above your bribery with good beauty products.” I kiss her cheek and hop up from the couch. “I’m testing out some recipes for pad see ew and green papaya salad. Come help me chop veggies and make yourself useful if you plan on staying. The Mama suite is always made up for you, but you have to earn your keep.”
“Take my bags in there and I’ll make sure you’re not making traditional food too Western. You have to make your recipes modern for your cookbooks, but I need tradition and spice, Lolo.” She rises primly from the couch and follows me out of the living room. “Those Bulgogi tacos you posted were too spicy for your own good, but not the right kind of spice. Dirty girl, I looked up that bukkake reference and had to wash my phone after.”
I cackle like a hyena and take her bag into the room that was once my childhood bedroom. It was strange to take over the primary bedroom when she let me buy the house from her so I could raise Hendricks right where I grew up. She moved into a smaller townhouse nearby and spends much of her time traveling. She is financially secure thanks to my father’s life insurance and frugal ways that allowed him to sock away much of his earnings that kept her in the manner she had grown accustomed to, being a stay-at-home mom and housewife. That translates into travel funds now.
I sit for a moment on the plush bed and stare around at the neutral decor with large green plants giving color to the modern space. My whole house has a lush green vibe, much influenced by Mom’s life living in Singapore. She has a style of her own, and I picked up on that from a young age.
Growing up with immigrant parents and of mixed race in the South was…interesting. I was teased for my uptilted eyes and the strange lunches Mom packed for me when I was young, and then for my towering height in middle school when I shot up before all the boys hit puberty.
I hated everything that made me different. My height, my coloring, my eyes, my parents who had over a foot of height difference between them, my mom, who was often thought to be a mail-order bride, my heritage, even my name which was bastardized for sport by cruel kids, and turned into Harlot Score-nson to humiliate me. Being different made me a target, and I carried so much shame for just being me. I was never comfortable in my own skin and couldn’t embrace the things that made me unique.
Modeling didn’t change that, so much as highlighted the differences as selling points. I was ethnic enough to fit many campaigns, to be the diversity inclusion to an all-white roster, and to lend an exotic edge to an otherwise homogeneous look. It also worked against me when I couldn’t fit a pigeon-holed casting call. I also couldn’t put a toe out of line for fear of being too brazen, too scandalous, and not bookable. Heaven forbid a brand would think I was too slutty, too wild, or too loud for their target audience. I made myself meek, quiet, just the right kind of model, and played the role they wanted as often as I could, and that meant I could never just be me.
I sigh deeply and pull myself up from the bed. I pick up a framed photo of Hendricks as a baby and cradle it in my hand. No use thinking about the past, even when it has lasting repercussions like little shock waves that startle you out of complacency to be reminded of the severity of the situation. Like having a child fathered by a person of interest.
What people are focusing on and the media has so wrong, as usual, is the motive behind keeping Hendricks to myself. Zander cut off all contact with me. How was I supposed to tell him he had a son when he didn’t even want to hear from me? I did my best to talk to him and let him know. All I managed to do was get my number blocked by Zander and myself banned from Olympus International Tower. That’s not at all how I thought it would end, after the way we met.
I set the picture frame gently back on the nightstand and leave the room, hoping I can leave the memories that cling to me, the frustration that prickles even now, years after I have accepted my fate and moved forward, but maybe not completely on.
But now I have to turn around and trudge upstream into the past and perhaps make Zander care about something that happened years ago. Make him care about a kid he never wanted that connects us together when he has made it quite clear there is no future for us.
I return to the kitchen, where Mom has dutifully chopped the veggies for me and set up my bowls of spices. She helps me test the recipes and makes adjustments with me, insisting on a higher spice level while I want to caramelize the noodles more.
I get her to snap a cute photo of me slurping up the pad see ew noodles, midriff bared in a crop top, that I post to Instagram with a caption about what else I can slurp and is tasty. My posts are getting thirstier by the day and my audience is eating it up. Mom says my phone is going to burst into flames if I keep going this route, but my engagement is through the roof and Alicia is thrilled with the insights, so I’m not stopping anytime soon.