“Yes, for the movie and for humanitarian stuff. Eris was really impressed by that woman, by her acting and by the attention she got. While she was filming the tree movie, she had been pregnant the whole time but you couldn’t tell because she never gained any weight, and then she went topless at all the award ceremonies so she could breastfeed and there were blurred pictures of her everywhere.”
“I do remember that, for sure.”
“I think that Eris wanted to be just like her. She got pregnant right before she started to shoot a movie, but it was never released in theaters. She hasn’t had a lot of hits,” Everett explained, and I remembered looking at the list of acting credits that I had never heard of. “There weren’t going to be any awards shows to go to, and the topless thing wouldn’t have worked anyway. She didn’t breastfeed.”
“So, she got pregnant to have a prop? For attention?
He nodded. “She was pretty sure that it was the movie that would make her career. The baby was supposed to have been the capper.”
“Oh.” I pressed my thumbs into the bones above my eyes because this story actually made a headache start. “That really says a lot about her character. Did you know all that when you started dating her?”
“I knew that she had a son and when she introduced us, I liked him,” he answered. “I didn’t know that he was supposed to be an accessory until later and I didn’t think…I don’t know, I just thought it was kind of weird but not a moral issue. He’s a funny kid, really nice. His nanny has raised him and if I win custody, I’d want her to go to Arizona too.”
“Why would she go there?”
“That’s where I live. I rent a place up here, but I’m only around for the season. It got extended this year because of the Junior Woodsman crap, but I plan to be home for a few months before I come back for training camp. The real Woodsmen training camp this summer,” he said. “They give all the Juniors a tryout and I’m going to be there and show them that they made a mistake. I’m going to make the roster again, and I’m going to be the starter.”
It was good to have goals. “Why do you think that you would be a better parent than your wife? Your ex-wife,” I corrected myself.
“You keep saying ‘parent,’ but I’m not going to try to replace anyone. I would be the person that he lives with, not his dad,” Everett said.
“If he lives with you, then you’ll be the person who helps him go to sleep, who makes sure he eats, who sends him to theschools you’ve been asking so much about—or maybe to schools in Arizona, if that’s where you’ll be. You would help him with his problems, support him financially and emotionally, and handle almost everything until he turns eighteen. You would love him, too. I mean, I don’t know much about the law, but I assume that’s what ‘custody’ means. Right? It’s parenting.”
It was dead silent on the driver’s side.
“Isn’t that what you want?” I asked. “Those are the responsibilities that you’re asking the court to give you.”
“Yeah. Yeah, right,” he finally answered.
“What does your family think about it?”
“What do you mean?” he wondered.
“Well, didn’t you tell your parents and your siblings? They’ll be grandparents and aunts and uncles. That’s a big deal, isn’t it? I would love to be an aunt.”
“I’ll tell them. They’ll be excited. Thrilled. They’ll be overwhelmed with happiness.”
Oh, geez. He sounded just like my sister when she had talked about her ex! No, Zoey, I don’t care about Boyd at all. I don’t think about him, not ever. He never crosses my mind. He’s dead to me!
And tonight, I saw how true that was.
“Why would you be an aunt?” he asked, and that was exactly like Willow, too. Distraction was always part of her modus operandi.
“If my sister had children, then that would be my relationship to them,” I explained.
“I understand how family trees work. I’m asking why you would only be an aunt and you don’t want kids of your own,” Everett said.
“Oh. I will have them, in a way. I’m going to be a teacher so I’ll have a whole class of kids to love, even if Willow decides not to have a family. She always said that she didn’t want to get pregnant because she doesn’t want stretch marks and sag, but I guess those things don’t have to happen. Look at that woman from the cat spirit tree movie, right? She seemed to be thinner and younger after she had her baby.”
That led him to start talking about plastic surgery, which he knew a lot about due to his wife—ex-wife. I heard all about scarless rhinoplasty and fillers in various places. If I’d had the money to do that stuff and hadn’t needed to save everything for a place to live, then I might have gone for it, too—not everyone was as naturally beautiful as Eris the actress. Or even if she wasn’t exactly the same today as when she’d been born, it sure worked well on her. It was just another way that people could change, I supposed.
“You really grew up?”
Everett, who had just finished explaining the removal of cheek fat, glanced briefly at me before returning his eyes to the snowy road. “What?”
“I mean, you really matured? You think that you’re a better person now, equipped for adult responsibilities and ready to love and care for others?”
“Uh, yes. Is this a trick question?”
