Margo’s insides warmed. Cameron had always been handsome, but these days, he was downright debonair. It was unfair for men to age so gracefully while Roberta was searching for the perfect lashes and Margo was scouring her closet daily for just the right outfit. Cameron had always been Cameron, a little geeky, humble, endearing, and good-looking but clueless to it.
Did she have a crush on him? Maybe? Yes? Whatever this was, the feeling was long-standing but harmless and safe. She kept it close to her heart; it was a secret she hadn’t shared with anyone. Her friendship with Cameron and Roberta was uncomplicated and perfect, and she had refused to do anything to ruin it.
She had known them for decades, all of them having grown up in Old Town, which was something special in an area that consisted of more transplants than originals these days. And Cameron and Roberta were home to Margo. They’d witnessed the stages in one another’s lives, good and bad.
“Ladies.” Cameron unslung his bag and set it on the floor, then sat between them.
Margo could guess what he would say next: I’m starving.
“I’m starving.” He echoed her thoughts, and raised his hand to their favorite server, a young woman they had seen grow from a gangly child to a beautiful older teen.
Can I have a bagel with light cream cheese and a coffee, please?
“Can I have a bagel with light cream cheese and a coffee, please?” he asked the server.
Margo shook her head in amusement.
He grinned. “What did I miss?”
“I was just saying that you keep nagging me about views.” Roberta’s lip curled up in a snarl.
“You asked me how to monetize, and I gave you my opinion.”
“But I want to tell the truth.”
“Truth comes in many forms,” he said. “In this case, truth would be better served with more enthusiasm. Don’t you think, Margo?”
“Hmm?” Margo was stuck on his statement about truth, harkening back to her conversation with Diana that morning. What she saw as truth was not how her daughter saw it at all. Diana wanted something tangible that explained things, that would change her life, while Margo saw truth as reality, the result of what had already happened.
“Yeah, I agree.” She snapped to, to Roberta’s scowl. “I mean, you only have a few minutes to capture an audience, and meh won’t keep them on.”
“Great, take his side.”
“Sorry.” She shrugged, sheepish. And, with Diana still on her mind, she unleashed her thoughts. “Though if the audience is Diana, then nothing works. She doesn’t talk about the bucket-list trip, my … our work, and though she follows me on Instagram, she never likes my photos. It drives me crazy, if I’m honest. In the past, I thought she was just a little embarrassed, and with my mother passing and Carlo leaving, I thought she was too busy and preoccupied. But now I’m actually starting to get offended.”
Roberta lips turned downward. “Have you spoken to her about it?”
“No—and in the scope of real life, it feels too petty to bring up. We’re all trying on this new normal, and I don’t want to push her.”
“Right, but how awkward has it been?” Cameron asked.
“Very.” Margo had a sudden need to give her mom a call, to ask for her advice. Leora had always been able to tap into Diana’s psyche better than Margo ever could. Neither Cameron nor Roberta had children; they both considered Diana their own, and it felt wrong for Margo to talk ill of her.
The next second, her stomach gave way. Her mother was no longer around. Not to give advice and not to set the record straight about those letters.
“You okay? Your face just fell.” Roberta silenced a text that came in and flipped the volume switch to off. “Tell us.”
Margo nodded. “Can I ask you a personal question, Roberta?”
“Margaret.” She rolled her eyes. “I have one word: shapewear.”
A laugh bubbled through her. About a year ago, Roberta had had her first date in a couple of years and was convinced that she needed shapewear underneath her dress. Margo had agreed to shop with her; it was a welcome break from taking care of her mother, and good thing because Roberta needed two extra hands to shimmy the full body Spanx up her torso. In the end, they’d decided to ignore the patriarchy and ditched the idea altogether.
“All right. That’s my cue,” Cameron said, standing. “I’m going to see about the status of my coffee.”
Roberta rolled her eyes and said to Margo, “You can ask me anything.”
Margo took a breath and told her about the letters, about Diana’s desire to seek out the truth. “And I was wondering”—she swallowed the knot in her throat—“I wanted to know how … since you had mentioned before …”
“Ah, you wanted to know about my finding my birth parents.” Roberta leaned back. Regret passed across her face, and immediately Margo wished that she hadn’t added to her friend’s pain. For Roberta, despite finding her birth parents almost three decades ago, it hadn’t ended happily.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …”
Her face opened in a sincere expression. “No, no. Please.” She touched Margo on the arm gently. “I’m okay talking about it—thanks to my therapist.” She heaved a breath. “Sometimes, when I’m feeling at my worst, that’s when it haunts me. Why did my biological parents not want me? I know we’ve never talked about it in detail, but my birth parents had lived grand old lives as grandparents. With their older children. I was the youngest born, an unwanted pregnancy they couldn’t afford. Now how’s that for some crap—knowing that the reason you were given up was because they just couldn’t handle one more baby?”
Margo reached for Roberta’s hand, then and clutched it.
“But see? Before I sought them out, I thought I was just a cast-out kid. Now, I know the details of it all. Before, I invented the circumstances of my adoption. After, it was my choice to forgive, which I admit took me a long time. Dealing with a truth like that is like facing a loss, especially since my upbringing with my adoptive parents wasn’t so pleasant. But do I regret finding out? No.” She frowned. “That is some confusing stuff, right?”
“It’s really confusing.” Margo nodded.
“As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into, Margo. That’s all I’m saying. Prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario. I don’t want us to be sitting here six months from now, or hell, in the middle of our burro ride down the Grand Canyon, with you upset at me for enabling a curiosity that you might regret later on. Diana might press you to make that decision before you’re ready, but it’s you who has to live with whichever choice you make.”
“She’s not that bad,” Margo said, then added, cackling, “Yes, she is.”
“She can be decisive, and we both love her for it.” Roberta laughed. “But somehow you have to find the balance between her right to know and your own hesitance.”
Margo bit her lip and looked beyond the windows of the cafe, to the street, at the pedestrians passing by, some with her tan skin color, not quite beige or brown. Growing up, she had always been the different one because she was never all the way anything. Not one race or the other. She was taught some of her Filipino culture from the families she met in the Fil-Am community, but by default she associated her own personality and mannerisms with the women who showed her how to live: her mother, faux aunties, her teachers, and her daughter, too. Who Margo was today was because of what she was born into, a hard-scrabble life as a latchkey kid with big dreams.