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Chapter Four / Nick


AJ and I ushered Lemon back to the SUV for privacy. This hardly seemed like the kinda thing to be talking about on the porch in front of a cafe with people going in and out of the little shop all around us every five seconds or so. Lemon sat in the back while we sat in the front, turned in our seats. AJ clutched his mostly empty cup, my shirt still speckled with coffee-spit-stains. “Okay, back right the fuck up,” he said as he slammed his passenger side door, “Who the fuck are you, Lime?”

“Lemon,” she corrected.

“Whatever – it was some kind of citrus fruit...” he muttered.

“It's Lemon Chambers,” she said.

“Chambers -” I muttered, “Chambers...” Where had I heard that name?

AJ seemed to be thinking the same thing, then his eyebrows raised. “Wait. Samantha Chambers. That chick in that photo,” he looked at me, “The one he had last week. The dorky one.”

“He showed a picture of my mother on The Talk last week,” Lemon nodded, “From Homecoming.” The picture flashed through my mind – the one I'd made him share on that talk show. He'd been so pissed at me for that, despite the fact that Kris couldn't have cared less that he had it in his pocket when he called her all apologies about it after the show. He really had looked like a dork in it, all dressed up and carrying around a football helmet like a doofus, though. I looked at Lemon uncertainly. “I was watching The Talk… See I've gotten myself into the habit of watching the most mind-numbing bullshit available on TV because it makes my brain stop repeatedly fixing on the fact that my mother's dead.”

AJ's eyebrows shot up at the abrupt way Lemon had just said it.

“The apartment's quiet in an unnerving way, now because she's not there, you know? Like even times when she might've been quiet anyway, it's still like there's an essence gone.” Lemon's eyes clouded, “There's no sound of the treadmill scraping at five o'clock every morning, no smells of country-fried steak or homemade applesauce on the stove, no shouting during Grey's Anatomy. She's gone and all those little things that had annoyed me about her are, too, and it's awful when the apartment's quiet, so I turn on whatever is on TV and just let it kind of play while I zone out. I hate TV usually, I never really actually watch it much...” She looked between us and realized she was ridiculously off topic and her face flushed a little bit in the apples of her cheeks. “Then you guys were on there and at first, I thought I was dreaming when I saw her face on the screen. I mean, why the hell would my mother's picture ever be on The Talk? But she was.”

AJ said, “Are you sure it's your mother?”

Lemon nodded, “Oh yes, absolutely. I've seen that same picture a hundred thousand times. Here, look.” She reached down into a purse at her side and withdrew a page torn from an old highschool year book, ragged at the edge and a bit yellowed from time. On the page was a picture, but with one very notable exception… It was only Samantha Chambers, no Kevin, only his phantom hand on Samantha's shoulder and the slight shadow of where he was to the side. “See?” she asked.

I looked at AJ and we shared a doubtful expression. I turned back to Lemon. “This came from a year book.” I pointed at the bottom where there was a page number and a part of the name of the school. Lemon nodded. “So how do we know you didn't just tear this out of a random year book?” I asked.

“My mother did,” Lemon said. “She tore it out of hers for me once when I was a kid and I was scared to go to school without her and I wanted her to go with me. She gave me this picture to bring.”

“How does this make Kevin your father?” AJ asked, confused. “Just 'cos your mum was Samantha Chambers – if she was Samantha Chambers - doesn't mean --”

“Because she said that's my father,” she said, reaching over to jab at the hand on her mother's shoulder in the photo. “She said that was him but that he'd left and wasn't a part of our lives and wouldn't ever tell me who it was. Then I saw the whole picture on The Talk and now I know my father is Kevin.”

“Jesus fuckin' Christ,” AJ muttered and he turned around to face forward. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Dude you can't smoke in here,” I protested, “Lauren will fuckin' slice my balls off if she smells that shit. She'll think it's me that's been smoking.” AJ glared at me as he got out and slammed the car door, taking a few paces away and lighting his cigarette. I turned back to look at Lemon. “Your mother had to have had it wrong,” I said. But even as I said it, my eyes were kind of going over her features and my stomach was kinda turning a little bit as I realized that I'd thought fleetingly that she had looked familiar and… and there was a little bit of Kevin's nose in her nose and his cheekbones… Luckily for Lemon, not his eyebrows, though.

Lemon shook her head, “I don't think she was because after I saw the picture on The Talk, I went online and I found out that Kevin's from Irvine, Kentucky, which is where my mother grew up, and that's where my grandparents lived before they died and everything. He moved away the same year my mother had me. About seven months before she had me.”

I didn't want to admit it, but the story didn't sound completely impossible. My mouth felt dry and my brain was overloaded and stuff. I turned away for a second, putting my hands on the wheel, trying to let my head catch up with all the new information that was being put into it.

Kevin was going to shit bricks.

I watched as AJ was pacing, alternating between smoking and drinking his coffee, glancing at the SUV as though it contained some sort of devil, his mouth moving as he muttered to himself.

“That's why I want to meet Kevin,” Lemon said, “I've always wondered about my father, my whole life, and I never knew and I really, really want to know. I need to know. I'm all alone and I'm going crazy.”

I couldn't imagine that she had very far to go.

She leaned forward so her face was resting against the side of the passenger seat. “I have like no family and no friends and if there was ever a time to find my father it's now because I can't be alone, I'll die if I'm alone.” Her voice was pleading.

I didn't know what to say.

AJ came back, his cigarette spent, and he patted himself off to diffuse the scent of smoke before opening the passenger side door and getting back in. He put the coffee down in the cup holder and took a deep breath, as though preparing for battle, and swiveled in his seat. “Alright,” he said, sounding zen, “Now. Let's try this again. How the fuck old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“So you were born in 1989?”

“1990.”

AJ took a deep breath. “Okay, so Kev's been back to Kentucky since then, why didn't he find out about you then?”

“My mother moved to Iowa when she was pregnant,” said Lemon with a shrug.

I was still holding the cut out from the year book, staring down at it with a sick feeling growing in my stomach. I could see it. I could see it in the picture, the features of Samantha Chambers and Kevin blending together to create this weirdo in the backseat. I didn't know how or when or why or what the hell went down but it didn't seem like that far of a stretch of the imagination for me that Kevin, at some point in time, had banged his homecoming date and produced a Lemon.