What Came First (21 page)

“Oh. Right.” He shakes his head. “No.”

“So, if you didn’t, uh . . . what career path did you choose? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I left med school to pursue my music.”

“Really? That’s so interesting because Ian—his piano teacher, she can’t get over his natural talent. I always wondered if maybe you were . . . So now you’re a professional . . . what do you play?”

“I played guitar. I don’t anymore.”

The waitress passes by, and Ian catches her eye. “Can I have a hamburger instead of chicken fingers?”

“Of course.” She takes out her electronic pad and presses a button.

My head is buzzing. He dropped out of medical school. He abandoned his music. What does he do, exactly? I don’t have to ask. When he sees my expression, he fills in the blank.

“I work at Costco.”

“Are hamburgers made from ham?” Ian asks.

I say, “By Costco, you mean something like . . . branding? Or corporate management?”

“Cows,” Eric tells Ian.

Ian yelps.

“Checkout,” Eric tells me. He holds my eyes as he speaks, challenging me to disparage his career. His job.

“You knew hamburger came from cows,” I tell Ian, my eyes still locked with Eric’s.

“Sometimes I work the door,” Eric adds. “Checking cards on the way in or receipts on the way out. But mostly I’m at the registers.”

He knows what I’m thinking. I can tell by the way he holds my eyes and tightens his mouth. He’s waiting for me to ask what happened, why he threw away such a promising future. He expects me to challenge him.

I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. DNA is all about potential, not execution. He did, after all, get in to medical school, which means he excelled at college and aced his MCATs. So I know he’s bright. I’m sorry for whatever life circumstances pushed him off track, but it doesn’t affect me or my son.

Unless, of course . . .

“What can you tell me about your medical history?” I ask Eric.

“There’s nothing much to tell.” He takes a drink of water.

“Does it hurt the cows?” Ian asks. “When they die?”

“Any mental health or substance abuse issues?” I try to keep my tone matter-of-fact. Who goes from medical school to Costco?

“It can’t feel good to the cows,” Eric tells Ian. And then, to me: “Hard to say, really. I mean, did the hallucinogenic drugs spark my psychotic episodes? Or do schizophrenics seek out controlled substances in an attempt at self-medication?”

For a moment, the whole world goes still as a hundred horrid scenarios play out in my brain.

Seeing my expression, Eric Fergus bursts out laughing. “Kidding.”

“So you didn’t . . . there weren’t any issues with . . .”

“No,” he says. “I’m sane and sober. Always have been, more or less. Really.”

“Oh my God. I can’t . . .” Suddenly, realizing how ridiculous my reaction was, I burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny that cows die!” Ian wails.

I reach across the table and ruffle his hair. “You’re right, sweetie. It’s not funny at all.”

A busboy comes to refill our waters. I wipe a tear from under my eye. Eric is grinning. He is not at all what I expected, but I suddenly realize that I like him very much.

I say, “I wasn’t just . . . by medical issues, I mainly meant anything genetic. You know, something to look out for in my son. So, I’d also be curious to hear about any diseases that run in your family.”

He takes a drink of water, sets the glass on the table, and gazes at the ocean. “My father had a heart attack at fifty-seven.”

“Was he okay?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry. Was it . . .”

“Hypertension. High cholesterol. He was on blood pressure meds and antistatins. Even had an angiogram scheduled for the next month. But . . .” He shakes his head again. “He smoked for forty years, plus he was overweight. So I don’t know how much is genetic, though his father died of a heart attack too. My cholesterol was fine, last I checked.”

“What about your mother?”

“Mild osteoporosis. Cataracts. Both pretty common at her age. Plus she’s got pretty significant hearing loss, though sometimes I think she hears more than she lets on but just doesn’t want to deal with it.” He half smiles.

“I prepared a list of questions. I hope you don’t mind if I . . .?”

“Of course not. That’s what we’re here for, right?”

Well, not exactly. We’re here so I can score more sperm, but I’d like the information too.

I reach into my bag and pull out two sheets of paper and a pen. We go through his dental history (a few cavities in childhood; orthodontia; all four wisdom teeth extracted). He details his ethnic background (Scottish, Irish, German). He provides an honest assessment of his athleticism (average at best, but he’s always been active). He says that he reached his current height of five foot eight at nineteen, and that his tallest brother is five eleven.

“Any allergies?”

“I have a little hay fever,” Eric tells me. “That’s about it.”

“And no behavior issues as a child? I wouldn’t ask, but . . .”

He raises his eyebrows and then nods slightly, sensing that I don’t want to discuss Wendy Winder in front of Ian.

He rests his chin on his hand and takes a moment to consider. “Every time I ask my mother what I was like as a child, she says she can’t remember. So I guess I was pretty easy.”

“She doesn’t remember?”

“Middle child,” he says. “Third of four. Half the time, she still gets my name wrong.”

The waitress arrives with paper-lined brown baskets and sets one in front of each of us. Ian leans back from his burger as if he’d been served a platter of worms.

“Would you like more Sprite?” the waitress asks.

“Yes, please.” He continues to look repulsed by his lunch.

When the waitress leaves, Eric looks toward the stairway. Oh, right: the fiancée. I’d actually forgotten about her.

“Do you think everything is okay?” I ask.

“Um . . .” He pulls out his cell phone, hits a couple of buttons, and holds it to his ear. After a pause, he shakes his head. “Voice mail.”

“You want me to check the ladies’ room?”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, it’s fine.”

It’s not until the bathroom door has shut behind me that I realize that I’ve left my son with a complete stranger, genetics and good vibes be damned. What if the girlfriend’s disappearance is all part of an elaborate kidnapping plot?

The bathroom is empty. Heart racing, I hurry back through the bar and up the stairs. Eric and Ian are still at our table on the patio. Of course they are. Ian’s hamburger has been pushed to the side, replaced with a torn-off piece of Eric’s grilled cheese sandwich.

Eric is on the phone. As I approach the table, he closes it and puts it in his pocket.

“She wasn’t in the bathroom,” I tell him.

“I know. She’s . . . she had to . . .” He sighs. “She’s fine.”

“Is she like a total cougar?” Melva asks. We’re getting some static on the line.

“Not really. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I bet she is,” Melva says. “What is she, like fifty?”

“Not that old. Forty maybe. She’s pretty. Tall. Skinny. Kind of blondish.”

“Cougar.”

The sun glints so sharply on the water, it hurts my eyes. After I called Melva from the restroom, I snuck out of the restaurant and came over to the beach. I was really careful: no way was I going to sit down someplace where Eric (that scum) and the baby mother (the cougar) and the little kid (Eric’s
son
) could see from their nice little table.

Even though it’s cold, there are people on the beach. There’s a family next to me—I’m counting on their big umbrella to hide me—three little kids with a really fat mom in a bikini and a dad with a shaved head and a tattooed neck. He wears a white T-shirt and black shorts that fall below his knees, tall white socks, and black sneakers. The oldest kid—he’s seven, maybe—holds out his hand. The father reaches into a pocket and gives him a few crumpled bills. The little boy takes it and runs toward the promenade with his younger brother.

“How long till you can come?” I ask Melva.

“I dunno. I’ll leave as soon as Brent gets here.” Melva is stuck at a Little League game in Torrance. Her oldest kid is playing T-ball. When I called her the first time, she said the game had just started, which meant Brent would be there any second and she’d leave right away. That’s why I was kind of surprised, a half hour later, when she wasn’t here. I figured she was stuck in traffic, but it turns out she hadn’t left yet.

“Did Brent say when he’d be there?” I ask.

“He’s not answering his phone. Asshole. He did this last week too. Said he forgot.”

My eyes sting. I don’t say anything.

“I’m really sorry, Nessa,” Melva says—and I know she means it. “Brent promised he’d make the game. But lately he’s just—shit. You want me to call Pammy? See if she can get you?”

“Her and Dave were going to the River this weekend.”

“That’s right. Shit. Dr. Sanchez lives in Manhattan Beach . . .”

I laugh, sort of. “No way I’m calling Dr. Sanchez.”

“I bet he’d come.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Well, if Brent doesn’t show—and I think he will, seriously, he promised—I’ll come as soon as the game’s over.”

“How long is that?”

“I dunno. An hour? Could be longer. These games are friggin’ endless.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll be here.”

When I was crying in the bathroom, escape seemed like the perfect plan. Melva would come get me before Eric even noticed I was missing. We’d find a bar and order margaritas (well, I would, anyway), and I’d pour out my heart: how it felt to see Eric with this woman and her kid, how they looked like a family and I was just the trashy girlfriend who didn’t belong and didn’t even know what to wear to a restaurant. How all my life I’ve felt like I don’t belong, but with Eric it felt like I could finally build a life. At last I could have someone all to myself. But it’s too late. That little boy with Eric’s smile—Eric already belongs more to him than he ever will to me.

Instead of pouring out my heart to Melva, I’m all alone on a cold beach, watching a gangbanger with his three kids. Even gangbangers have families. What is wrong with me?

My phone rings. I answer, thinking it’s Melva, hoping she’ll say that Brent has arrived and she’s on her way.

“Where are you?” It’s Eric.

“I’m, uh . . .”

In the distance, a dolphin jumps. The gangbanger’s kids squeal.

“Are you okay?”

“I just had to get out of there,” I say.

“. . . You mean you
left
?”

“I just said that.”

He is quiet.

“Eric?”

“Did you take the car?”

“Of course not. Melva’s giving me a ride.” I thought maybe he’d be upset that I’d left. Instead, he’s just thinking of how he’s going to get home.

He is silent.

“See you at home.” I hang up fast so I don’t have to listen to him not saying anything.

Next to me, the little boys return with their hands full of Popsicles, one for everyone.

When I was a little kid, I thought ice cream meant happiness. But not just any ice cream. It had to be one of those Popsicles that has a chocolate shell over vanilla ice cream and a solid hunk of dark chocolate inside. The first time I ate one, I was six years old and it was like a hundred and ten degrees outside. In Redondo, it hardly ever gets hot, but summers in Riverside were foul.

I was playing at my friend Julie’s house, down the street. Julie’s family was at least as poor as mine, so when I heard the ice cream truck roll by, bells playing “Pop Goes the Weasel,” I couldn’t believe that she asked her mother for money. I really, really couldn’t believe that her mother gave her enough for both of us.

The van stopped as soon as the driver saw us.

“You can have anything,” Julie told me.

The side of the truck was covered with colored pictures of ice cream: bars and Popsicles and cones. How could I pick just one?

“I’ll have the same as you,” I said.

When I unwrapped the Popsicle, I was bummed. It looked just like regular, boring chocolate over vanilla. But after I nibbled the brittle shell and licked the creamy vanilla, my teeth hit the chocolate hunk inside. To this day, when someone says, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” I think of that Popsicle.

The next time I heard the ice cream truck playing “Pop Goes the Weasel,” I was home with my mother and Aurora. The living room had an air conditioner in the window, so that’s pretty much where me and Aurora spent our summers, lying on the worn brown carpet and watching TV.

My father must have been at work. He always had at least two jobs, changing oil or tires at an in-and-out auto place during the day and busing tables or doing dishes at some chain family restaurant at night. I hated that he was gone so much. When he was home, as tired as he was, he would hold me on his lap and tell stories about Mexico. He would slip me dimes and candies from his pockets. He would tell me he loved me. And then he’d slip off to bed, and when I got up the next morning, he’d be gone.