Remarkably Bright Creatures(30)

This guy is a big deal. A big, fat, extremely rich deal.

Cameron lets out a short laugh and pumps his fist.

Simon Brinks. Cameron wanders into the living room, sinks into Brad and Elizabeth’s pristine couch, and studies the picture that was wrapped around the ring. Could that really be his father? It’s just a photo, but it’s more than he’s ever had to go on. He studies his mother’s image, her carefree grin, her windswept hair. She’s tall and thin, of course, almost taller than Brinks, who himself looks like a decent-sized guy. But the thing he can’t stop looking at is her cheeks, which are plump and healthy, almost chubby like a baby’s. It’s not the Daphne Cassmore of his memories, who he can’t recall as anything other than bony and sunken.

He studies the background of the photo: a huge planter overflowing with flowers. Daffodils and tulips. It’s April, then. Possibly March, possibly May, but with those things blooming, the odds are very high that the photo was taken in April.

Cameron was born February 2. He runs the math. Could he be in this picture, too?

Gestationally, it adds up.

“Hey,” Elizabeth calls from the hallway. “How’d it go at Dell’s?”

Cameron stands and follows her into the kitchen, recounting his failure to convince Old Al to rent him the apartment and his discovery of Simon Brinks and his Ferrari.

“You’re sure he’s your father?” Elizabeth starts to dice a red pepper. Fajitas on the menu. She’s annihilating the pile of little red bits, not even bothering to watch the blade, alarmingly close to her fingertips each time it slashes down. Cameron would kill for such confidence.

“Who else could it be?” Cameron holds up the photo. “Look at this picture and tell me these two weren’t banging.”

Elizabeth raises an eyebrow. “Well, lots of people are banging. That doesn’t prove anything.”

“But the timing. It’s exactly right.”

“Does he look like you, though?”

Cameron tilts his head at the picture. “Hard to tell with that eighties haircut.”

“Didn’t you just spend the afternoon stalking him online?”

“Yeah, but now he just looks like some middle-aged guy. Like a dad.”

“Because all dads look the same.” Elizabeth rolls her eyes.

“Here’s the thing, though. Does it matter? I mean, if he believes he’s my dad . . .”

“You can’t just shake down some random person because he was in a picture with your mom.” Elizabeth dumps the peppers into a skillet, where they release a puff of sizzling steam. “Besides, don’t you want to know if this guy’s the real deal? Don’t you want a relationship, too?”

“Relationships are overrated.” He pops a left-behind pepper from the cutting board into his mouth. It’s surprisingly sweet.

“So you’re going to . . . what, exactly? Go up to Washington and find him?”

“Hell yeah. Why shouldn’t I?” Cameron hopes she takes this as rhetorical, because there are a million reasons why he shouldn’t. For one thing, how’s he going to get there? He doesn’t see Brad offering to loan out his truck for a thousand-mile road trip.

“Well, that’ll be an adventure.”

“Yeah, it will.”

Elizabeth leans into the fridge over her belly and pulls out a package of ground turkey, which she tears open and dumps into the skillet. “If I weren’t incubating this alien spawn, Brad and I would totally go with you.” She stirs the pan, causing the meat to hiss. “Remember when we were really little, we’d make up stories about finding your dad? I mean, to be fair we thought he would be, like, a pirate or a movie star or something. God, we were ridiculous!”

“Simon Brinks is definitely not a movie star, but he might be a pirate. I don’t care either way. He can stay a mystery as long as he agrees to pay up for eighteen years of missed child support.”

“Well, if all else fails, I’ve heard Seattle is really pretty.”

“Yeah, sure,” Cameron says with a nod. Pretty. Lots of trees. Who cares? Western Washington is the wettest place in America, and Simon Brinks is about to make it rain cash money.

Elizabeth grabs a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and pours two glasses, sliding one across the counter to him before raising the other. “Well, Camel-tron. Here’s to unsolved mysteries.”

“To unsolved mysteries.” He clinks her glass.

IN THE WEE hours of his last night in California, Cameron lies awake yet again, bathed in his phone screen’s cold light.

Two clicks to download some travel app he saw a commercial about, with some schtick about guaranteeing rock-bottom prices. But it works. The JoyJet flight to Seattle leaves Sacramento International at five a.m., which is in three hours. He’ll make it if he leaves . . . well, now.

Hastily, he empties out his green duffel and sifts through the contents, then tosses in every pair of boxers he owns, along with the rest of his clothes and the little bag of jewelry.

Once his bag is packed, he returns to his phone screen. Crossing his fingers his credit card clears the transaction, he clicks the button to book it.

Simon Brinks, if he really is Cameron’s father, is going to pay for every precious second of fatherhood he’s missed over the last thirty years.