Read Online Where We Belong by Emily Giffin - Free Book Online Page B

Have you heard of the show South Second Street …?”
    “Yes!” she says with a jolt of girly enthusiasm and a huge smile. I notice that her bottom teeth are slightly crooked, the middle two overlapping. She clearly hasn’t had braces, and I wonder whether her parents can’t afford them or simply decided she didn’t need them badly enough, maybe even wanting to keep the character in her smile.
    I smile back at her. “That’s my show.”
    “I love that show. It’s so good,” she says. “I like that contractor guy. Shaba Derazi? Is that his name?”
    I nod. “Yeah. He’s a good guy.… He’s actually filming a movie in Toronto right now. With Matt Damon.”
    She looks giddy with the inside information—although not as thrilled as I am that she knows and likes my work. At the same time, I feel guilty that I know nothing about her fears or passions or dreams for the future. I don’t know whether she is left or right brained, athletic or uncoordinated, introverted or extroverted. I don’t know if she’s ever been in love or had her heart broken. And although I understand that being in the dark about these things is part of the deal with adoptions, at least closed adoptions, I still feel a sense of shame for being so clueless about my own flesh and blood. I look away, as my mind races through the last eighteen years, filling her face and name in to all the generic scenes I’ve imagined, often against my absolute determination not to think about her. Kirby swaddled in a bassinet. Kirby learning to crawl, walk, talk. Kirby climbing onto a big yellow school bus on her first day of kindergarten. Kirby losing her first tooth. Kirby waking up on Christmas morning and racing downstairs in a red flannel nightgown to find a Barbie Dream House. At least I hoped these were the visions of her life, and nothing resembling the guilty nightmares I sometimes had. Kirby, hungry, cold, lonely, abused . I look at her, overwhelmed with the relief that she is okay. At least she appears to be okay.
    “So. Tell me more. Tell me all about yourself,” I say.
    She crosses her arms, and says, “What do you want to know?”
    “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like I’m interviewing you.”
    “It’s okay,” she says, but still offers no information.
    “So. I know how old you are,” I say. “Eighteen.”
    She nods, expressionless. “Yeah. I had to be eighteen to get your name.”
    I nod, remembering the contract I signed—as well as the lie I told on the signed, sworn affidavit. I don’t know the identity of the birth father. I push him out of my brain, as I’ve done a thousand times before, and at least a dozen tonight.
    “So you’re a senior?” I say.
    She nods.
    “Are you going to college next year?”
    “I don’t know. I just got into Missouri … Last week.” She shrugs, then glances out the window overlooking a darkened Madison Avenue. “But I really don’t want to go to college.”
    Her answer disappoints me, but I pretend to be unfazed. “You can always take a year off to think about it,” I say. “That’s what I did.”
    My voice trails off. She gives me a look, and I can tell she suspects what I did during that year, but she doesn’t ask. Instead she clears her throat and says, “So I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here…”
    Without thinking or hesitating, I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine. Her fingers are cool, slender, delicate, her middle one dwarfed by a large turquoise ring that extends up to her knuckle. She tenses, but doesn’t recoil, and I return my hand to my lap. “You don’t need a reason,” I say.
    She gives me a look I can’t read and says, “I just … needed to meet you … I felt like … something was missing … you know … not knowing … where I came from and stuff…”
    I consider echoing the sentiment in a knee-jerk fashion, implying that something has been missing in my life, too, but know this isn’t true. Earlier tonight the only