Both young women were beautiful, a testimony to the beauty of their mother. The younger woman, Jackie, had light brown skin. Her hair was a mass of brown curls, so light it was almost blonde but you can buy hair dye. Her eyes, on the other hand were deep green and those weren't contacts, that was her natural eye color. Her older sister, Rain, was a few shades darker, a few inches taller, and you could see the Asian influence in the shape of her eyes and the glossy black hair. She was wearing her hair exactly the same way she wore it when he saw her years ago, a single braid hanging down her back.
An advantage to being a famous choreographer was the abundance of lackeys. He'd told one of his assistants to get these general admission tickets, and another to stand in line to get these front row center seats. He'd read interviews they'd given but this was their first live appearance on a national show.
Jackie was turning her guitar, Rain was adjusting her microphone stand. The two women were surrounded by a children's chorus. Jackie nodded to Rain and they both smiled at the children.
"Ready?" Rain asked them. The children stopped wriggling and stood up straight.
"Joined today by the Elm Street Children's Chorus, we're proud to introduce, Those Evans Girls." And then Rain's clear voice filled the room.
Good morning starshine, the earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below
Good morning starshine, you lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song
The children joined in.
Gliddy glup gloopy nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba nooby abba nabba le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla nooby abba nabba
Early morning singing song
Jackie sang the second verse.
Good morning starshine
so happy to be
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song
Then the two women and the children sang.
Can you hear me?
Singing a song, humming a song, singing a song
Loving a song, laughing a song, singing the song
Sing the song, song the sing
Song song song sing sing sing sing song
He'd first heard her singing this song 17 years ago, that day in the park. He didn't recognize it at the time because they had been singing that nonsense verse in the middle. This was their signature piece, Those Evans Girls, and they were on the edge of fame. Strange, these two indie-rock women had a signature song that was 50 years old. The rest of their material was originals they had written, but this song was special to them. The audience full of twenty-somethings applauded wildly. The children left and stage and the women sat down, prepared to be interviewed.
"Congratulations on your new album. I see it's doing well in the charts." the interviewer said.
"Thank you." they said at the same time.
"So tell us something about yourselves."
"Well, we're Navy brats." Rain started. "Our dad, Sam Evans, is in the Navy Medical Corps so we moved around a lot. Our mom, Mercedes Evans, is a photojournalist -"
"A Pulitzer prize winning photojournalist!" Jackie inserted.
"Damned right, a Pulitzer prize winner!" Rain said proudly. "She was just notified last week. Anyway both our mom and dad are great singers. They won a National competition back in high school. That was in Memphis, where we're from. Good Morning Starshine was the first song I ever heard, my dad sang it to me the day I was born."
"Same with me." Jackie added. "We'd sing it at home every morning. Evans family tradition, his mom sang it to him, he sang it to us. If dad was on a tour of duty mom would sing it. If mom had to travel dad would sing it. At least one of them was always home. And when they were both home? You should hear them, they sound so good together!"
"Now, about your father." the interviewer turned his attention to Rain. Both women stiffened noticeable.
"Lieutenant Sam Evans is our father." she emphasized 'our'. "What would you like to know?"
"I mean your real father, the famous choreographer Mike Chang."
Jackie squeezed her hand and Rain sighed. How many times did she have to answer this question? "Mike Chang is my biological father, that's true. My mom lived in Ohio at the time. She left Ohio to live with our Aunt Cecilia in Memphis, and just happened to enroll in the same high school my dad went to. Memphis is where I was born and my dad Sam was there when I was born. He's been there for me every day ever since, which is more important, don't you think? He's my father in every sense of the word. Physically, emotionally, financially. Sam Evans is the only father I'll ever have."
That's pretty much what Mercedes said during their last conversation, 16 years ago. It had taken him a while to track her down. Mercedes Jones is a common enough name. Mercedes Evans isn't that rare either. Once he tracked Sam down to Memphis, TN he'd found her working as a staff photographer at the daily paper.
"Memphis Sun, Mercedes Evans speaking. How may I help you?" she said in a warm and professional tone.
"Hi Mercedes. It's Mike. Mike Chang." She waited for him to say something else. He could hear voices in the room, this must be a shared office.
"And how can I help you?" She finally asked. She sounded cold, but still professional.
"I want to talk to you, about Rain." She must have caller id because she knew he was calling from the lobby.
"There's a Starbucks down the street. I'll meet you there in 5 minutes."
She was prettier than he remembered, and thinner. Of course she'd been pregnant the last two times he'd seen her. She sat down across from him, putting a folder on the table and her camera on top of it. She ignored his outstretched hand. "So what do you want?"
"I want to see my daughter."
"You don't have a daughter." Not angrily, but like she was correcting a factual error.
"I know I do. I saw her. Her name is Rain."
"I'm not denying Rain exists. I'm just telling you she's not your daughter except in the sperm donor sense." she noticed he flinched so she added "Sorry to have to put it that way." She slid the folder across the table towards him. "Here's the birth certificate. See, your name is on it. Here's the notification in the Lima paper. You were notified, legally that's all I had to do. Now, this is the notification that your parental rights are being terminated due to abandonment and lack of financial support. I claimed abandonment because you made no effort to find us. You knew where my parents lived, you could have asked them. Anyway, you had ninety days to contest this. Maybe you'd left Lima by then but I was only obligated to publish this in your last known location. Here's the adoption petition when Sam adopted Rain. Here's the amended Birth Certificate. It's legal and water-tight."
Mike looked at the folder, stunned that she'd done all that, just to keep him out of Rain's life. Not that he'd made much effort to be part of Rain's life up to this point. Until that day in the park he considered the whole thing a mistake he'd walked away from. Yes, he had stopped by her house once, after he realized he hadn't seen her in a couple of weeks. Okay, more like two months. He told her mother he was a friend from McKinley. Her mother looked at him as if 'friend' and 'McKinley' didn't belong in the same sentence. She offered to give a message to Mercedes but that was as much information as she was willing to divulge. He declined the offer.
"It's nothing personal Mike, just like what happened at Nationals wasn't personal." She paused for a few seconds. "Rachel Berry had a biological parent who felt she could drop in and out of Rachel's life when she felt like it. I'm not going to let that happen to Rain. She knows your name. If she wants to find you later she can. If you try to contact her without our permission before she's 18 I'll take out a restraining order. As far as the courts as concerned you're a perfect stranger."
"But I'm her father, I'm responsible for her being here." She was right, Nationals hadn't been personal. They both were drunk and Mercedes was available. She could have been any random girl.
"Van Morrison was singing Moondance. Is he responsible too? You had nine months to be responsible, you made your decision back then." She looked out the window at the light drizzle. "Rain. You know why I choose that name? Rain always comes at an inconvenient time but you can't live without it. That's what she's like. It's too bad you're missing that." She stood up. "I have to get back to work."
And that's what he was, a stranger watching from afar, instead of a loving parent watching from the green room.
Good Morning Starshine – Hair (musical)
This really is the end of this story! I don't have anywhere else to go with it.
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