Baby Daddy (4 page)

I turned my attention to
the young man sitting to my left.  He was very attractive with longish dark brown hair, so perfectly tousled that I suspected he styled it to look that way.  Tall and thin, his body was muscular and tanned.  He had a nice face, angular with high cheek bones and a square jawline that sported the trendy stubble look, sort of like Adam Lambert but without the guy-liner.  There was a tattoo on his right forearm with the name
Houdini
spelled out.  It had an antique-looking open red padlock hanging off the “
o”
.

But what I
had noticed first were his ice-blue eyes, exactly the same color as mine.  In fact, all the people in the room except Harlan had eyes in that unusual shade of blue.

The thought crossed my mind that i
f I wasn’t in my current situation with the kid and all, I could be attracted to him.  I immediately dismissed that idea, reminding myself that I was in this delicate condition because of men.

“Well, Harlan’s already done the great reveal here...I’m Reno Marks.  I’ll be twenty-four on November 20th.  I’m a magician’s assistant in Las Vegas and in between magic gigs and kid’s birthday parties, I customize motorcycles.  Oh yeah, and I tend bar in my spare time.”

“What kind of magic do you do?”  The blond
guy asked.

“Close-up
…sleight-of-hand kind of stuff.  I like to watch people really study what I’m doing and then trick ‘em.  Besides I don’t have the coin to make airplanes disappear or feed tigers.”

“
Thank you Reno.  Liberty?”  Harlan smiled in the direction of a thin girl with really long straight blond hair that hung in a thick braid down her back.  She was dressed in a skirt and peasant blouse that looked sort of old-fashioned, like someone out of the Sixties or a sister wife.  Her face was pretty and completely make-up free.  I was immediately envious of her perfect complexion that seemed to glow with good health.

“Hi.  I’m Liberty Hernandez,” she
looked around the room.  “My mom and I live on a commune outside of Waco, Texas.  I raise alpacas and my mom bakes bread.  Oh yeah…I’m a vegan.”  She blushed and ducked her head.

“Thanks Liberty.  John
knows about your preference, and he’ll make sure you have something special tonight at dinner.  Tulsa?”

Tulsa looked interesting.  Her jet black hair
was short and spiky with vivid streaks of dark blue and purple throughout.  She was thin with delicate facial features. Heavy black liner circled her eyes, making her skin look even more pale than it was.  There was something sort of sad and maybe a little hardened, like she had seen a lot of unhappiness in her short life.

“I’m Tulsa Wiggins.”  She shifted nervously in her chair.  “I work in an IT call center at night and am going to
Oklahoma City Community College for internet and computer security.  That’s about it...all I do is work and school.”  I noticed her slender fingers looked even longer because her nails were filed to a point, painted black and stenciled with the letters of F1 through F10 in white, like on a keyboard.

“That’s a great field to get into Tulsa
.  I think my network has been hacked twice in the last year.  Dallas?”  Harlan gestured in the direction of the blond guy across from me.

His hair was neatly
cut and conservatively styled. His facial features were strong and square like Reno’s, but he was clean shaven.  Even his polo shirt and Dockers screamed Young Republican.

“I’m Dallas Smith.  I live in Austin with my parents.  I’m a senior at UT
, pre-law, and I’m missing out on an internship to be here, so let’s get to it.”

“Patience,” Harlan said with a calm smile and turned to me.  “
And last, but not least, Killeen.”

I took a deep breath.  There was a lot of tension in the room as all eyes focused on me.  “My name is Killeen Ames and I’m a junior at Arizona State University on a softball scholarship.  I haven’t declared a major yet, but it’ll probably be in sports medicine or therapy
…maybe even teaching.  I was kinda hoping to make it to the Olympics…but the Olympic committee, in all its wisdom, eliminated it from the program and re-instated wrestling instead.  I’m twenty now, and I’ll probably be too old in 2020…so I guess I’m screwed.” 
Yeah, in more ways than one
, I thought.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Harlan said with genuine sympathy
. “Now that you all have met each other, I’m sure you’re wondering why you were called here today. As you know, I am Harlan Gooding and for the last twenty years I have practiced family law here in Austin.  I say that so you know that what you’re about to hear is highly unusual.  In fact, this is a first for me.  And you know what they say about never forgetting your first time.”

Everyone laughed nervously
even though it was a lame attempt at a joke.  He continued, “Allow me a few minutes to tell you why you’re here.  My client’s name is…
was
Roger Elliot.  Roger passed on about two months ago, which is relevant because…” he paused dramatically, “Roger was your biological father.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The news was met with stunned silence.  We all looked around, even more uncomfortable with each other than we had been before the startling announcement.

“That can’t be possible,” Dallas spoke up first.  “I have a
dad.”

Harlan sighed.  “I’m sure he’s a nice man, but he is not your biological
father.  Your eyes are a unique shade of blue, just like Roger’s.”

“Lots of people have blue eyes,” Dallas protested.  “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“No, but the DNA tests did…with a 99.99% accuracy rate.”

Reno and Tulsa both stood and went to opposite sides of the room as if they were trying to find their own space in which they could try to deal with the news.  He started to pace restlessly while she went to the window and stared out, rocking back and forth with her arms crossed in front of her body.

Liberty’s expression was totally blank, so I couldn’t read her reaction.  As for me, I was shocked, but not horrified.  My mom had always been completely honest with me that Mike was my step-dad.  They had gotten married when I was three.  I was even a flower girl in their wedding, although I don’t remember any of it.  She had never told me anything about my real father, and I hadn’t pressed the issue because it hadn’t mattered.  Mike had been a wonderful dad, and I grieved when he died.  I didn’t need another dad in my life, but it was interesting to find out I had one.

Now it all sort of made
sense.  The ice-blue eye thing.  The DNA test.  But how sick was this?  What kind of man would sire so many children and apparently abandon them, then bring us all together and pop this on us after he was already in the grave?  Kind of a cowardly way to deal with it, if you asked me.

No one spoke a word to anyone else.  Everyone seemed to be absorbing the revelation differently
and personally.

Finally,
Tulsa turned around and said, her voice ragged with emotion.  “Are you telling me that all this time I had a father…a real father, and yet I spent my whole life moving from foster home to foster home every year? I went through hell and here he was, living in a mansion, doing God knows what and fucking every woman he met…apparently. This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it?  Isn’t it?”  Her voice rose hysterically.

Reno was now circling the room, staring up at the light fixture and on top of the bookcases.  “Tulsa’s right.  This is all a big
scam.  We’re on some kind of reality show, aren’t we?  Where are the cameras?”  He started picking up items on the bookcases, studying them, then putting them back and moving on to the next.

“This is not a joke
…or a TV show.”  Harlan looked around the room.  “I can assure you that this is very real.  I didn’t contact you until I was almost positive of your relationship.  The DNA tests confirmed it.”  He opened his briefcase, pulled out the computer reports and set them out on the table, face up.  “Here, take yours.  The results are simple to read.  Don’t take my word for it.”  Harlan sat down.  “Anyone who had this news dumped on them would react with disbelief and then anger.  That’s normal.  Use this time to express your feelings…to start to come to terms with this revelation.  What Roger did was inexcusable.  But he did it.  You are all innocent victims, and starting now, you’ll be the beneficiaries…finally.”

“If this guy Roger really cared, he would have shared himself
, not just sprayed his sperm around.  His money doesn’t fucking matter now.  There’s no way this dude…if he’s even real, would do that to one kid, let alone five,” Tulsa shouted.

Harlan stood and walked over to an easel that was covered by a blue velvet cloth.  “I should have uncovered this earlier.”  He pulled the material off, revealing an oil painting of a ruggedly handsome man, wearing a battered gray cowboy hat, smiling out as if he didn’t have a care in the world.  His eyes almost looked alive
...his very blue eyes.

I shivered.  It felt like he was watching all of us
…and enjoying our confusion.

“I recognize him,” I stated with surprise.  “My mom had some of his CDs.”

“That’s right, Roger was a singer.  Pretty popular, in his heyday,” Harlan explained.  “We were pretty young back then and were on the road a lot.”

“You were in the same band?” Reno asked.

“Yes.  Roger was the lead singer and played guitar.  I was on keyboard and we had a drummer and another guitarist.”

“Scandals
…now I remember,” I said.  “That was the name of the band, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.  I dropped out of it
to finish my degree, and Roger carried on for a few more years.  Then he, too, got tired of it.  A couple of people he’d met who were in the entertainment business were having legal problems and needed some confidential help.  It sort of started out as a favor, but he turned it into a career when he started the Scandals Investigations agency.”

Reno frowned.  “So how did he die?  He wasn’t all that old, was he?”

Harlan’s eyes reflected his sadness at the loss of his friend.  “He was only forty-eight.”  He returned to his chair and sat.  “You’ve got to remember that when we were at the height of our popularity, we were young and stupid.  Drugs and groupies were everything and easy to get.  I’m afraid Roger participated a little more than he should have.”

“He was a druggie?” Dallas asked with disgust.

“No, just recreational.  But once the band broke up, he eventually cleaned up his act.  He’d been sober for about ten years,” Harlan explained, then sighed.

We all waited for him to continue.  This was obviously painful for him.

“The night he died,” Harlan’s voice was so low I had to strain to hear it, “Roger fell off the wagon.  They found him in the bathroom in a bar downtown, dead from an overdose.”

We all looked at the painting of Roger with new insight.  I suspected none of us were feeling particularly generous toward him or sympathetic about his ignoble death, but he had sort of become real to us.

Reno again glanced around the room.  “This sure has all the elements of a reality show.  Are you sure we’re not getting punked?”

“I wish you all could have met Roger under different circumstance
s,” Harlan told us.  “Once he grew up, he was a really nice guy.  Smart, funny and generous.”

“Except with his children,” Tulsa muttered.

“He hated not being a part of your lives, but he didn’t want to just show up on your doorstep and disrupt your family,” Harlan explained.  “As soon as he got his agency established, he spent several years tracking all of you down.”

“Like he cared,” Tulsa commented bitterly.

“In his own way, he loved all of you and felt responsible.  Once he found out where each of you were, he sent money to your mothers regularly.”

That caught us all by surprise.

“I had no idea,” I sputtered.

“Didn’t you ever wonder where that full scholarship came from?” Harlan asked.

“Yes, but I thought…” I was stunned.  “Does that mean I wasn’t recruited for my softball skills?”  This was eroding everything I thought I knew to be true.

“Of course you were,” Harlan rushed to add.  “You got a legitimate scholarship, but it covered
just your tuition.  Roger made sure you had room and board, books and incidentals paid for.”

I sat back in my chair, needing some time to digest that information.

“He funded your alpaca herd,” Harlan said to Liberty.  “And he paid for your law school,” he told Dallas.

“
That’s bullshit.  He will never be my father!” Dallas exclaimed.  “We’ve all been rejected by a guy whose only goal in life twenty years ago was to fuck every groupie in every town where his band played.”

“What about me?”  Tulsa’s voice was shaky.  To cover her pain, she lifted her chin as if it didn’t matter.

“Reno and Tulsa, I’m sorry to hear you were both estranged from your mothers,” Harlan said.  “Apparently, they didn’t use the money that was sent to them to help you.”

“I haven’t seen my mother since I was five years old
when she left me on the doorstep of the fire department in Oklahoma City,” Tulsa said.  “I’d like to know how Roger found her, because I sure as hell couldn’t.”

“I ran away from home when I was eighteen,” Reno said.  “The last time I saw my mother, she was passed out on the couch.  She missed my graduation, and that was the last straw for me.  I hitchhiked to Vegas and never looked back.”

I was struck with how lucky I had been to have a mother who had taken excellent care of me until she died two years ago and a step-father who had loved me as if I was his real daughter.  I couldn’t even imagine how horrible it must be to never have had a family or even a home.  I was sure she wouldn’t welcome it, but my feelings toward Tulsa had changed.  Beneath that crusty exterior, she felt abandoned and unloved.  I didn’t know what I could do to help, but I would try harder to make her feel comfortable.

Harlan shuffled through some paperwork in a folder.  “As of today, all payments will be stopped.  You five are named as Roger’s heirs for his estate.  That is the next item o
n the agenda.”

Reno walked back to his chair and sat down.  “Fuck Roger and if this is a pilot for a reality show, fuck the producers.  I don’t mean to sound cynical, but I’ve got bills to pay and no income.  If this whole Roger story is for real, I’m ready to take my share of the cash and head back to Vegas.”

“Yeah, I’ve got to get ready for law school,” Dallas spoke up.  “I’ll never accept that Roger was my father, and I’m not interested in anything he or his estate has to offer.”

The room grew quiet.  Harlan waited to see if there were any other comments or steam to be released.  “Please just give me a few more minutes to explain.  I know this has been quite a shock to you all.  I, too, was unaware of your existence until a few months before Roger’s death.  He wanted to make things right without any drama.  Apparently, that’s no longer possible.  But he truly wanted you young men and women to have good lives and be happy.”

No one interrupted, so Harlan continued, “We met in elementary school and we remained friends his entire life.  When we were about your age, we became very famous very quickly, and we didn’t handle it as well as we should have.  We made some bad choices.  There were temptations we weren’t mature enough to resist.  No excuses.  We all did things we weren’t proud of…and there have been consequences.”

“Yeah, like us,” Reno snorted.

“Unexpected pregnancies, yes, but none of you were unwanted,” Harlan added.  “From what I’ve learned about each of you, you are strong, intelligent young people who will make good decisions, once you’ve accepted this unusual situation.”

That comment struck a nerve with me.  I knew all about an unexpected pregnancy.  And I knew the dilemma of how to deal with it.  Maybe Roger
…I still couldn’t quite think of him as my father…had gone through the same feelings of guilt and regret as I was.  Had he tried to talk my mother into aborting me?  Had he urged her to put me up for adoption?  Or had he cared…even a little…for her and liked the idea that they had, together, created a child?  My own condition gave me a unique perspective on the situation.  I realized Harlan was still talking, and I forced myself to focus on what he was saying.

“
…don’t condone Roger’s behavior or morality.  I am committed to you five to do whatever I can to ensure that you get as much as you can legally get out of his estate.”

“So we’re past the
revelation that we’re all half-brothers and sisters here?”  Dallas asked rhetorically.  All of us exchanged awkward glances as if considering our newfound relationship for the first time.

I groaned silently, remembering that I had sort of been attracted to Reno.  Ick
…

“Let’s get going,”
he said.

“So one of the reasons I asked that you set aside two weeks of your summer is to begin to deal with the fact that now you’ve just learned you have half-brothers and half-sisters you didn’t know you had before.”  Harlan managed a rueful smile.

He stood and pushed a button that dropped a large white board from the ceiling.  He picked up a black marker and tested it out on the empty board.  “So, here’s the mile-high view of Roger’s possessions and the reasons you guys are here.”

Tulsa returned to her chair and sat
with her feet tucked under her.  Reno swung one leather-clad leg over the arm of his chair and relaxed.  None of the rest of us felt that comfortable as we all moved our chairs to get an unobstructed view of the board.

Harlan wrote down a column of dollar amounts without any explanation or discussion.  It kept
my interest.  $1, $250,000, $1,000,000 with one line drawn through it and $5,000,000 with a big “X” on it.  Harlan turned around and faced us.  “These four items are very important to you.  First the $1.  This is the annual rent Roger paid a famous rock star every year to rent this house.  I’ve spoken with his business manager and they won’t make a decision for several months about the future of that agreement.”

Reno raised his hand.  “Who’s the rock star?”

“He’s very popular and very rich, but part of the deal is that he remain anonymous.  I’m sure you would recognize his name.”  Harlan waited to see if there were other questions.  Hearing none, he continued, “The second number is $250,000.  That’s the amount of cash and stock, after legal expenses that you will be sharing…equally.”