There was one that caught my eye and had me sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor, ready to get up once I’d finished reading it. The age of the mother added onto the year of conception test. My first problem was that I didn’t know her age. I could guess at twenty-two because of our conversation all those weeks ago, or I could be totally wrong and she’d either been an early blossomer or a late bloomer – so I needed to find her driving license to get the exact age. After that, you then added the year onto it, and if the resulting number was an even one, it was a girl. If it was an odd one, it was a boy. This was a Mayan belief, then again so was the end of the world and everyone had held their breath on December 12, 2012, and nothing had happened then had it? Maybe this was right though? They couldn’t be that wrong twice, could they?
Quietly padding out the door, I went into the living room and saw two purses on the couch. Picking the first one up, I took out the wallet and checked it for a license. Pulling it out, I saw Beau’s photo on it and then noticed her real name. Silver Isabeau Albright? Now, we’d known each other vaguely when we were at school, but I’d always just assumed her name was Beau Albright, how did I miss the fact her name was technically Silver Al-bright?
“In case you’re wondering,” a voice said right beside my ear, making me squeak out a goose honk and jump just as the light went on beside me, “I made the school swear that I’d be known as Beau or Isabeau the day my parents registered me there.”
As I’d jumped, her license had gone flying over the couch and landed the other side somewhere, so she walked around and picked it up before turning to look at me, flicking the card between her fingers.
I needed to get some control of my sphincter after that, so I did what any man trying to get some dignity back would do – I glossed over my reaction by deflecting. “Your parents called you Silver Al-bright?”
“Your parents called you Taint.”
That made the smile drop off my face faster than someone clapping their hands with my balls between them would have. “No, they called me Tate. My cousin’s irritating wife calls me Taint.”
Shrugging, she grinned at me smugly. “Know what’s even worse?” She waited until I shook my head before continuing. “My sister’s name is Diamond.”
That was…
“Wait, you have a sister?” How didn’t I know this? Then again, I’d walked around school and the world with my head up my ass, I guess.
“Vivi Albright.”
Now that made sense given the last name and all, but if I wasn’t mistaken…
“Oh shit, she went out with Archer.”
She’d been a great girl, but Archer had been running away from something for a long time and he’d gone through girlfriend after girlfriend. Not that he was a slut who went around fucking every woman he found, far from it and even his exes said the same thing. It was like he was a male Goldilocks and the women were his porridge. This one’s too tall, this one’s too short, this one supports the Cowboys, this one has blonde hair… that kind of thing.
You know when you’re searching for the one and you don’t want them to pass you by, so you give attention to certain people and take them on dates to see if it could possibly be them? Yeah, Archer was that dumbass, because we all knew who it was that he was looking for, and so did he. He just didn’t want to admit it.
But Vivi had been one of them and if memory served me right, she’d introduced him to all of her friends and family on her dad’s birthday – and we’re talking over a hundred people at a party where she stood up in front of them all and broke the news – and he’d ended it with her as soon as they’d cut the cake.
“We don’t hold it against him,” she chuckled, seeing it all drop into place for me. “But your expression is awesome. Vivi can be… intense,” she explained, putting the license back in its place in her wallet now. “Not one of us was surprised when he ended it, including her, she just didn’t like that he was eating the last piece of cake when he did it.”
I could get that, I loved cake, and he always ate the last fucking piece.
Desperate to change the subject away from my dumbass of a brother, I looked at the other bag. “I need to know how old Lily is.”