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Before: Seeking Daddy Warbucks


Ashley

I had never met either of my parents, unlike half the kids at the group home where I spent a good portion of my non-fostered childhood. Most of them were orphans who had tragic stories of parent who'd done drugs or abused them until they were taken away. A couple were orphans from car wrecks or illnesses or whatever. But I was only one of two that had been simply unwanted, orphans before we were old enough to know what the term meant.

When I was little, I'd always dreamed that my parents were out there somewhere searching for me. Maybe they'd been kidnapped by pirates or the mob or something, and that's the only reason that I'd gone years without hearing from them. It was the tale that I told everyone that would listen. A lot of kids called me Little Princess because my tales were similar to that story.

It wasn't until I was older that I realized I had been telling myself a lie.

I remember the day it hit me that I really was alone in the world. Nick and I were sitting in this old drain pipe outback of the group home where we used to hang out and it was raining outside. I'd called him and asked him to meet me there and he'd pedaled his bike through the downpour to see me, bringing along Hi-C juice boxes and a bag of pretzels he'd snatched from his house before setting out. We sat there with our Electo Cooler, the rain water pooling at the mouth of our pipe, and I'd asked him, "Why don't I have parents?"

He'd said, "You can have mine if you want'em, parents stink. You should see how pissed my mom's gonna be when she figures out I took these pretzels. Totally postal, dude."

"Why doesn't anybody want me?" I asked.

Nick had shrugged, tossed his head so his shaggy bowl-cut hair flipped out of his eyes, and said, "I want you. Doesn't that count for anything?"

It wasn't the first time that I'd thought that he was perfect. It was just one of the many times he reinforced the idea.

Now, we were sitting in my kitchen, Nick at my table picking at a hot cookie sheet of tater tots I'd just pulled out of the oven, while I waited for the matron of my old group home to answer the phone. He licked salt off his fingers and blew air at the tater tot to cool it off. "What if they don't have records?" I asked.

Nick shrugged, "Then we search some other way. Isn't there like services that do this for you?"

"What if they do have the records," I said, "And I call my parents and they don't want to hear from me?" I rubbed my arm nervously.

"Then fuck'em," Nick answered. He popped the tater tot into his mouth.

"It's not that easy," I said.

Nick took a deep breath and stood up, "If they don't want you, they don't know what they're missing, okay, you're fantastic."

I smiled. Nick opened his mouth to say more when I heard the phone click and someone said, "Hello, Fellows Group Home."

"Hi," I chirped, turning away from Nick and walking John-Cusack-in-Say-Anything style around with the phone, nervously moving things around on the counters, "My name is Ashley Jackson and I used to live there at the group home and I'm looking for information about my background and I was hoping you had my records on file."

When I turned back around Nick was sulking down at the tater tots.

"Do you keep records of past... tenents?" I asked, lacking a better word.

"Yes, we just require some proof of identification and then we can provide you with documents in our file..." came the voice. "I can't provide the information to you over the phone. But you can request a copy of your documents in writing or in person. Just bring two proofs of identification."

I took the information about what sort of stuff they needed and I hung up. I turned around. Nick was rearranging the tater tots on the pan. He looked up when he realized I was staring at him. "So?" he asked.

"I have to apply in writing or in person," I replied.

Nick dusted his fingers off, sending crumbs and salt onto the table. "So... let's get the paperwork rolling." He jumped up, opened my drawer of random crap, and pulled out a notebook and a pen. It struck me how frequently Nick had been in my apartment in the past and how little it really had changed. He still knew where everything was without asking or hesitation. He flopped back down in his seat as I picked a tater tot off the pan, and shoved the paper and pen at me. "Here."

I took the pen and stared at the paper. It seemed ominous. I looked up at Nick.

"What the hell do I write?"

"Little orphan Ashley, seeking one, Daddy Warbucks..."

"Ass."

Nick grinned. "What? You got the hair."

I stuck my tongue out at him, then turned back to the paper. Nope, still ominous. I looked up at him again. "Remember when we were little... and I tried to explain to you what it was like being a foster kid?"

Nick smirked, "Yeah. I thought it was cool you got to trade in your parents every few months."

I felt my throat close up just a little bit. "Nick," I said, "What if I meet them and I wish I could trade them in like all the others? What if this image I have of my dad being like Dan on Roseann is totally offbase and he's actually... I dunno, Hannibal Lector or something?"

"He's not Hannibal Lector." Nick got back up and opened the fridge and got ketchup out and sat back down. "Besides, just think. You could look into this and find out your dad's like... Steven Tyler or something. I mean, it happened to Liv, right?"

"Steven Tyler is not my father," I said, rolling my eyes.

Nick studied me a moment. "Maybe David Spade or that guy who played that doctor on TV... the dude with the cane."

"House?"

"Yeah."

"Hugh Laurie."

"You got the nose."

I rolled my eyes.

"Seriously though, it's gonna be okay. I mean you get the information, you call them, and even if they blow you really didn't lose anything because there's nothing to lose except like a fantasy or somethin'."

"Yeah."

Nick pushed the notepad at me again, "Go ahead, write the request. I'll help you Google them when you get the information back."

And so I lowered the pen to paper and wrote out my request.




Nick

Once Ashley had accomplished writing her request down, we folded it up and I drove her to the post office to drop it off.

A part of me wanted to offer the grand gesture of flying her to Tampa Bay to drop it off, to expedite the entire process, but the idea of getting on a plane terrified the holy hell out of me. I hadn't been able to get back on one since January. Which had come in real handy considering how jet set my life typically is.

I'd attempted only once to fly, when Kevin had insisted I needed to get over my fear and all but dragged me on board a plane. I'd sat there, clutching the arm rests so hard that I'm fairly certain there were grooves in the plastic. But the moment the stewardess had asked me to buckle up I freaked out so bad that they had to have the pilot stop to let me off.

So yeah no flying to Tampa for me.

I was sitting in the car waiting for her to come back out of the post office when my phone rang. I knew by the ringtone - Gangnam Style - that it was AJ. I slid my thumb across the screen, "Sup J?"

"Wii bowling. You. Me. Ten pins and a bucket of KFC. Yes?"

"I'm kinda with Ashley right now," I said.

"Oh dawg, already? That was quick."

"What? No wait, not like that. Actually we're at the post office."

AJ was quiet for a long moment. "Nick, I thought you wanted to nail her not mail her." He laughed at his own lame ass joke. I did not. He stopped laughing rather quickly. "No seriously dude, what the hell?"

"Well she was telling me how she always dreamed her father would walk her down the aisle... So we called her old group home back in Tampa to see if they have her parents names on file..."

"You're looking for her dad?" AJ asked.

"Yeah."

"BRO!" he shouted into the phone. I pulled the thing away from my ear, he was so loud that bros in China were probably going what. "That's genius!"

"What's genius?" I heard Rochelle ask in the background.

"Nick's helping Ashley find her parents," AJ answered her.

"What?"

"Ashley's parents. Nick's finding them."

"Were they lost?" Rochelle sounded confused.

"No, babe, Ashley's like, an orphan or whatever," AJ answered.

I looked at my watch and wondered how long mailing something could possibly take. Rochelle meanwhile apparently stole the phone from AJ because the next thing I heard was, "Why did I not know this about Ashley?"

"I dunno," I answered.

AJ had picked up the other line by this point. "So you're gonna find her parents?" he asked.

"YOU ARE?" Rochelle cried out, "Oh my God."

"Well we're trying," I said.

"Genius, pure genius," AJ remarked. "The ultimate grand gesture."

"Grand gesture?" Rochelle asked.

"Yeah. Nick's trying to win her back from Chris."

"Win her back? Wait -- Nick! Oh my God!"

In retrospect, this may be when the whole bit about the Young and the Restless might've started.

That's when Ashley came out the door of the post office, also. "Okay guys look she's back out, I gotta go," I said, and I hung up before she could get to the door of the car.

Ashley opened the door and climbed in, pulling the seatbelt across her chest, "Who was that?" she gestured at the phone.

"Just AJ checking in on some plans is all," I answere semi-truthfully.

Ashley smiled. "I haven't seen him in ages."

"He's still obsessed with Ava's poop, you haven't missed much," I replied.

Ashley laughed. "I really miss the guys," she said as I started the car and slowly backed out of the parking space. "When are you guys releasing the anniversary album?" she asked, "You were so close to having it done last year."

"I dunno...we're still....we're working on it," I replied.

Ashley was quiet for a moment as I pulled into traffic and the car began the journey back to the apartment. She said quietly, "The fans aren't going to turn on you because of your scar. You know that, right?"

I gripped the wheel a little tighter.

She must've noticed, because she continued, "It's not like you're a monster now, Nick."

"You know a girl was staring at me the other day at the grocery store," I said, "And I'm used to that, I mean girls always stare at me, you know, but then I realized she was afraid of the scar. She wasn't a fan. She was just grossed out by the scar."

Ashley didn't say anything.

It felt good to talk about it with someone besides Dr. R. L. Stein, though, so I continued, "Another time, at Wal-Mart, this little kid's in this cart and he pointed it out to his mother, asked what happened to me."

"Nick, what was it you said about my worries my parents wouldn't like me? Fuck'em. They don't know what they're missing," Ashley quoted.

"And what were yours?" I asked, "It's not that easy."