Page 37 of Nanny for the Rockstars

“What about him?” Caleb asks.

“I think we found his mom.”

EIGHTEEN

JULIAN

“Fuck. This is fucked. That’s really the only way to put it at this point. Just fuck,” Caleb says as he walks back and forth along the length of the bus.

Terry is sitting on one of the couches next to Jeanette while I sit on the other couch, just as pissed off with this situation as the rest of the group. Hendrix is bouncing on Jeanette’s lap, as happy as can be since he has no idea what happened just a few hours ago, and I’m glad he’s not old enough to understand at this point how difficult adults can be.

“What do we do?” Terry asks. “I feel like when she dropped him off and ran away, she was giving up her rights to him. If she wanted him, why the fuck would she just drop him off in some dressing room backstage and leave?”

“She didn’t even leave her name, his name, anything,” I chime in. “I say if she really wanted to be found, she would have given us something to go on. Or she would have told us that she’d be back at a later date somewhere on the note.”

“We can’t forget, she didn’t even put down a name for Hendrix,” Caleb says. “I think that in itself speaks volumes about the kind of person we’re dealing with.”

“So why would she come back now? It seems to me like something has happened that brought her back, but what the fuck could that be?” I ask.

“Who the fuck is Clarissa Washington anyway?” Terry says. “I don’t remember that name.”

“Not that you spend much time getting to know any of the girls we fuck,” I tell him. “I doubt you would remember half the girls you’ve been with if you were to read out the list of names.”

“That’s fair, but with a name like that, I feel like I would remember her,” he says with a shrug. “It sounds unique enough, I can’t see just dismissing that name from the memory bank.”

“It doesn’t matter if we know her or not, does it?” Caleb asks. “I can’t see why that makes any difference considering what she did. Like, do you see those girls who leave babies on the steps of churches or in baskets on the front porch going back after the fact and asking for their kid back?”

“That’s what pisses me off here,” I say. “She abandoned Hendrix. She left the kid high and dry. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she did in the sense that we get to have Hendrix now, but I do not appreciate the fact that she thinks she can come back into his life and just have dibs. Like, that’s not how it works.”

“I’m sure if he was old enough, he would tell her to fuck off himself,” Terry says. “I know I would if I was him. Like, no, bitch, you abandoned me. I don’t know why you think you can just come back and think I’m going to be all happy to see you, because I’m not. Fuck you.”

“Exactly,” I say. “And since he’s not old enough to say this himself, I think it’s up to us to be the ones to do it for him. Like, we’re his dads, so that makes it our responsibility to make sure he’s safe. I personally don’t think it’s safe to give him to someone who just left him.”

“Where else is she going to leave him?” Caleb asks. “Does she have a habit of doing this? What if she’s got him for a weekend, say, and just decides that he’s too much for her to deal with so she just dumps him in the back of a McDonald’s or something?”

“There’s no way in hell I’m going to let her leave with him at this point,” I say. “She already fucked up on that front. If she wanted to be around him unsupervised, she should have thought about that before she dropped him off with that note.”

“It might not have anything to do with Hendrix at all,” Terry says suddenly.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean think about it, we’re rockstars,” he says as he looks around the bus at the other three adults. “Don’t you think this could just be a chance for her to cash in?”

“Fuck, you think that’s what it is?” Caleb asks. “She’s going to take us for all we’re worth in child support.”

“I don’t think she can take everything,” I say. “But she can take quite a bit. But then, how is that even fair, with her being the one who left him in the first place? I’m not seeing how that would work out in her favor, especially if we fought her in court over it.”

“I thought it was the dad’s job to pay for the child support,” Terry says.

“Not if we’re the ones taking care of the kid, idiot,” I say. “You don’t pay the mom for having the kid, you pay to raise the kid. If she gave us the kid, then why the hell would we pay her for shit?”

“That’s fair,” he acknowledges. “But still. I don’t know about you guys, but I think we’re pretty fucked with this one.”

“I think she had this planned the whole time,” I tell them. “It seems just way too convenient for her to drop off her kid with us long enough for us to really get attached to him, then all of a sudden she shows up. Are you sure she didn’t say what she wanted?” I ask Terry again. “She just told you who she was and that she’s Hendrix’s mom?”

“That was the gist of it. I mean, that was about how long it took before I blew up at her for dropping him on our laps then just showing up and expecting to be able to take him back. She didn’t really say she was planning on taking him or what she wanted. She left pretty fast after I told her what I thought about her showing up like she did,” Terry tells us. “I don’t think she was expecting that kind of reception.”

“I don’t know what kind of reception she thought she would get with the way she just showed up. I mean, how do these girls keep getting backstage anyway?” Caleb asks. “Don’t we pay security to make sure the fans can’t just walk into our space?”

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