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Scheduled for Friday
by Anton M.
34: Too Much Dragon
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Thursday, February 2 (cont.)
Mom and I arrived home on autopilot, not sharing a word as we changed into comfy clothes and prepared Chinese stir fry for dinner. Mom put hot ginger-lemon tea in front of me as I chopped vegetables in all kinds of untalented, impractical sizes. Still adjusting to the news of the morning, we found comfort in the companionable silence, and I did not remind her that I had a geometry test tomorrow I hadn't studied for. It wasn't the time or the place, and handling this together with mom was more important than not flunking math.
I'd spent the morning recording voice-overs with Mike in my near-normal voice but the afternoon as a dragon, and by the end of the day, my real voice began to sound like a dragon, too. Katie sent a few recordings to Tanya and our Sound Director Keaton Esmond. Both were over the moon with the results, but my vocal chords were not having the abuse. At four thirty, when my hoarseness began to worry her, mom had a word with Katie and convinced her to push the rest of my monologue to Saturday afternoon.
Katie told me to have as many liquids (preferably in warmish room temperature) as I could stomach. My mom, even as a true ice-filled sweet tea enthusiast who did not consider herbal tea as real tea, made me a hot cup, so I knew she must've been extra worried for my voice (and incredibly absent-minded to forget that Katie didn't actually suggest hot tea).
But it didn't matter. I added cold water to my tea and made it annoyingly lukewarm.
Edward messaged me through the day, filling my heart with cute banter and giddiness and updates on how hilariously frustrated Jasper was, but I had to postpone our call (yes, Edward wanted to call, like an annoying adult) due to the discussion mom and I needed to have with dad. And my voice, of course. But mostly the discussion.
Mom and I did not agree to avoid the topic without my dad, it just kind of happened that way, but my insides still clenched when the door slammed shut and dad appeared in his dirty work gear. Exhaustion written in his eyes, dad walked up to mom, wrapped his arms around her from behind and snuggled against her.
It was telling that mom didn't scold dad for hugging her with his dirty construction clothes like she usually would've.
"My favorite girls cooking my favorite food," dad said. "What's the occasion?"
"We love you." Mom put her arms on top of dad's.
"The best occasion," dad replied, kissing mom's shoulder before he let go of her. "Let me just jump in the shower and I'll be right with you."
"No rush, dad," I whispered in my dragon voice.
"Aw, honey." Dad stopped walking, assessing me curled up on a chair with my tea. "You got a cold?"
"No," I rasped, clearing my throat even though Katie specifically told me not to. "Too much dragon."
Dad grinned. "Title of your autobiography?"
"Title of my first single," I quipped back with my hoarse, quiet voice. "As the dragon."
Dad gave me a gentle smile but his eyes twinkled. "And how was your first day having a boyfriend?"
The word boyfriend filled me with dragon-sounding giggles.
"Not my boyfriend yet, dad."
"I'll make sure to call him your boyfriend in front of him to see if he agrees with you."
I wanted to hate dad for teasing me but I would've lied if the idea didn't sound tempting. Edward hadn't wanted to label anything, but was that because he didn't want to label us so soon or because he was afraid I wouldn't?
Mom and I took the food and plates in the living room but didn't touch any of it as we waited for dad. Mom sat with her fingers in her gray hair, scratching her scalp as she did when she had to start an extremely difficult conversation, and she attempted to tear out her hair before I scooted closer to her.
"Let me tell him," I whispered.
Mom clenched her fingers around a handful of hair, her clear blue eyes torn and agitated. "Sweetie, you don't even have a voice."
"I'm fine." I drank my tea. "Please. I'd rather dad heard it from me. I'm the one he'll be worried about."
Mom hesitated but her fingers relaxed in her hair. "Only if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
"Sure about what?" dad asked, plopping down next to me in his ratty pajama pants and T-shirt, grabbing a plate and piling half of the rice onto it.
Mom and I locked eyes but kept the conversation away from the topic until we were all done with dinner. I refilled my teacup. Mom and I were both distracted enough that dad called us out on it, looking back and forth between us with worried eyes when he finished his food.
"I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
"No, dad." I put down my cup, turned towards dad on the couch and folded my legs underneath myself. Real concern seeped into his eyes when I took his hand between both of mine.
"Garrett Kamwanga is scheduled to read for the part of Nala's father the Friday after the next one. February 17th."
Dad let out a sharp laugh. "You're joking."
I continued to stare at him, unblinking.
"Right?" he repeated in disbelief.
I gave him a sad smile, reaching for my tea so that my voice wouldn't be quite so dragon-y. "That's not the worst part. It's a chemistry read, so—I have to read with him."
Dad's lips parted in surprise.
"But I, you—what?"
He snapped back his hand, turning to mom, looking for the joke that wasn't there. Mom tore at her hair, reaching for dad's hand, but dad ran his palm over his bald head, agitated.
"Dad…"
He slumped, resting his elbows on his knees and interlocking his fingers behind his neck. Avoiding our eyes, he squeezed his neck and released a slow breath.
"Okay," he whispered, his tone carefully controlled. "Okay," he repeated. "This is—soon. But, we knew it would happen. I just thought—I thought we'd have more time. But… okay. What's our plan?" He tilted his head back, locking eyes with mom. "I have to call in sick from work for the day so that you wouldn't have to meet him?"
"I'm sorry," mom muttered, barely audible.
Dad tore his eyes from mom's to look at me. "Unless you—unless you want to tell him?"
"I—what?"
Dad pressed his lips into a tight line. "Do you want to tell him?"
I couldn't tell if my insides twisted from nausea or excitement. "I… don't know."
Mom stood up before joining us on the couch on the other side of me, mirroring dad's posture as she slid her fingers into her hair again. "Bella, honey… you can't tell him."
"I'm… not saying I'd do it, but why not?"
Mom searched my eyes, looking sheepish and nervous. She clenched her fingers into a fist in her hair. "He might sue us."
"Why would he—? What's he going to say, 'I didn't pay child support for sixteen years? I had sex with a minor?' What?"
"No, sweetie, he…" Mom made eye contact with dad, hesitating. A tight vice squeezed my ribcage at her guilty-looking blue eyes.
"What did you do, mom?" I asked, breathless, my voice hoarse.
"We… sweetie, we were so young, and…"
"What did you do?"
"I'm sorry, honey," mom whispered, taking a painful-looking breath. "Adopting without parental consent is… tricky. You can only do it according to certain rules, and I… pretended I didn't know who the biological father was."
"Mom!"
"I'm sorry. I know, technically, we should've proven that he couldn't be found after a diligent search was made to find him, but—sweetie, he'd made it big at that point, and we didn't want to risk—losing you. We couldn't. We wanted—we wanted little… screaming, pooping, adorable you."
I leaned against the back of the couch, unable to tear eyes off of my mom. It was one thing to know my biological father didn't know I existed, it was another to know that my mom broke the law to make sure dad could legally adopt me.
"Garrett's initial feelings were clear when I first got pregnant, but what if he'd changed his mind if he knew you existed? What if he wanted you? Statutory rape or not, we couldn't have fought that. Believe me, I never thought—I never, ever thought you'd enter the same industry, or that you'd casually have to work opposite him."
I crossed my arms, my mind whirling. It wasn't fair that mom took this decision (to tell him or not to tell him) away from me. It wasn't fair that dad now had to watch me play daddy with my biological father.
Mom put her hand on my knee, her eyes torn and full of fear. "I'm sorry, sweetie."
"You're forgetting that it might not be under our control," dad said, voice hollow. "He might step into a room, take a single look at you, and see the truth. There might not be any hiding it however much we may want to, if we want to."
"I don't—we don't look that similar, do we?"
My mom's face twisted in an odd smiling grimace. "You got his dimples."
"And the nose, the shape of your eyes, your hair. Most of all—"
"His laugh," mom finished. "He has this contagious, deep laugh—you've seen it in interviews. It's… it's uncanny how much of that is you."
"But what if he doesn't recognize me? What if all of this is obvious to us because we're looking for it? Plenty of actors and actresses accidentally look similar with no relation."
"Yeah, but sweetie, this is not Isla Fisher and Amy Adams discovering they could play twins if they wore contacts. This is a man who used to live in Atlanta who has a history here. If he suspects anything at all, a simple discovery of my name and your age would be enough to make him suspect the truth."
Dad kept running his palm over his bald head.
"We're going to have to tell him, aren't we," he said, voice void of emotion but all the more scary for it. He turned his head and looked at mom, his chest rising and falling with his shallow breaths. "What if he sues us?"
Pale as a ghost, mom ran her fingers through her hair and distractedly collected her hairs in a pile on the armrest. "We couldn't fight it if he did," she replied, her voice equally strangled.
"Stop freaking out, both of you. He's not going to sue you. He can't."
"Sweetie, I hate to break it to you, but I'm sure he has—hundreds of millions of net worth." Dad gave me a flimsy smile. "He could sue us all the way to Mars if he wanted to."
"Theoretically, yes. In practice, you're forgetting—me."
"What, you're going to fight him?"
"Don't be stupid." I drank my tea not to sound quite so raspy. "I'd tell him he can't have a relationship with me if he sues you. Zero. That might stop him, right? Unless he sues you for the sake of being vicious, that should work."
"But what if he just wants revenge?"
Dad's voice was so desolate I couldn't help but lean my cheek against his shoulder. I locked eyes with mom and squeezed her elbow, giving her a nod. Getting my message, mom kissed the top of my head, the top of dad's head, and gave me a bittersweet smile as she got up. Dad didn't react to her leaving. My cheek rose and fell with his breaths, and I brought his hand down from his neck, squeezing his wrist.
"Dad, he's not going to take me away from you."
He didn't lift his eyes. His shoulders were tense. "You don't know that."
"I know that. He's too famous to kidnap teenagers without consequences."
The corner of dad's mouth rose, but he didn't laugh. "That's not what I'm worried about." His chest rumbled when he cleared his throat. "What if you meet him, and—you just, you feel that instant bond with him? What if he's everything you ever wanted in a dad? He's rich. He's charming. He'd have connections in the acting world we could only dream of. What if… what if he doesn't have to sue us for us to lose you?"
"Dad," I rasped, nudging him to hug me. He shut his eyes and complied, wrapping me up so tight in his arms that his beard poked through my shirt.
"I don't want to—lose you, sweetie," dad whispered, his voice raw and interrupted by his shaky breaths. I could feel him swallow. "I don't want to lose you. I'd rather die."
"You won't ever lose me, dad." My throat felt hot and tight. "Even if they voided the adoption papers tomorrow, you'd never lose me. You changed my diapers and taught me how to poke mom with chopsticks until she gave me a fork. You're my dad. You're going to walk me down the aisle one day, and everyone will talk about what an antiquated ritual that is but I want you to do it anyway. Because I love you. I want to make fun of your fear of daddy-long-legs in my Oscar speech and I want you to fight with me when I get so famous that I want to name my babies something stupid like Marshmallow Parachute and Cucumber Bubble."
Dad's sharp, snotty laugh almost broke my eardrum, but he let out a shaky breath and squeezed me tighter.
"You're my dad," I whispered in my hoarse voice. "I might have Garrett's eyes and his hair and his laugh but I have your heart, dad. Nothing will ever change that."
…
