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  “I don’t know yet, but the answer will find us,” he answered. “Let’s see what’s gonna happen.”

  “What’s gonna happen is that they’re gonna throw us out of here,” I told him.

  “Hey, you guys,” said Gabe. “Enemy at nine o’clock.”

  “This isn’t a war movie,” I grumbled. “Speak normally.”

  “Look over there at the nurses’ station,” he whispered.

  Jesse and I looked over, and there, talking to a cute nurse, was our nemesis from the lobby, Mr. Bowling Ball Biceps, the hospital guard.

  “Holy expletive deleted!” I gasped. “We gotta get out of here.”

  We were passing a door marked HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES ONLY, so we ducked in. It was a little lounge where the doctors and nurses probably sacked out or grabbed a cigarette during their time off. It reeked from tobacco, and there was a set of bunk beds with pillows and blankets.

  “Grab a bed,” Gabe ordered. “If anyone comes in, pull the blanket over your head. We gotta try to find a way to get Jimmy’s room number, just in case the answer doesn’t find us.”

  I turned out the light, and we each dove into a bed. I ended up with the bunk on top, but whatever.

  “Maybe Jesse could call the hospital and say he’s Jimmy’s manager and he wants to know what room Jimmy’s in,” he went on.

  “That won’t work. He’s probably got a code name or something, and we don’t know it,” I told him.

  “We could wait until the middle of the night when there aren’t as many nurses and peek in every room until we find . . .”

  “Shhh,” I whispered. I could hear the door opening.

  “Hey, babycakes,” a familiar voice crooned. “You got a fifteen-minute break and I’m a ten-minute man. We could definitely make this work.”

  It was the guard and one of the nurses. I heard the sound of someone being slammed up against the wall and then kissing and heavy breathing.

  Oh my god! I thought. They’re going to do it here and now, right in this room, and we’re going to have to listen.

  “Not now, honey bunch,” Babycakes protested. “You never know who’s gonna walk in.”

  “Or who’s here,” I wanted to shout.

  “But that just makes it more fun, shorty,” Biceps told her. There was more moaning and awful slurpy sounds.

  Please don’t let there be a reason for this to happen, I prayed.

  Someone must have heard me, because just then the door opened.

  “Hey, Rachel,” said a female voice, “they want you in room 1212, stat.”

  “That’s Jimmy Savage’s room,” the guard said. “Now don’t you go falling in love.”

  Rachel giggled, and they both exited.

  “You see,” said Jesse, “the answer found us.”

  “If I remember correctly from when my mom had her appendix out,” I told him, “the nurses usually change shifts at four. That means they’re not in the patient’s rooms, so I suggest we lay low for another hour and then head for Jimmy.”

  “Cool,” Gabe commented. “Twelve-twelve isn’t that far from here.”

  “We can do it,” said Jesse. “Can you believe it? In an hour we’ll be with our bio dad.”

  Promptly at four we walked out of the doctors’ lounge and strolled down the hallway. The nurses’ station was abuzz with the shift change. Gabe and I let Jesse walk ahead of us, counting on his smile to diffuse approaching trouble, but we didn’t run into anyone. We opened the door to 1212 as silently as we could, slid inside, and closed it behind us.

  It looked like a really nice hotel room. The hospital bed was huge and had a headboard and a dust ruffle. Jimmy was laying there with his eyes closed. He had an ice pack on top of his head, and it was impossible to tell if he was sleeping or still unconscious. He was snoring, though, a little like Gabe, but his snore had a cute little whistling echo.

  We all leaned over the bed and looked at him intently.

  “Damn if that’s not my nose and chin,” whispered Jesse. “Yours too, KT. And he’s got a cowlick just like mine.”

  “And his hair’s the exact color of ours,” I added.

  “And he’s got a lot of it. I was worried about what that bandana was hiding,” Jess said. “What a relief!”

  Suddenly we heard the door handle turning. We looked at each other, totally panicked, and dove under the dust ruffle as if we were one person. I peeked out to see two sets of nurses’ shoes entering.

  “We’re here to take your vitals, Mr. Savage,” one of them said in that cheery nurse voice. “Your CT scan was clear, and you’ll be feeling better in no time.”

  They bustled around, taking Jimmy’s blood pressure and temperature and announcing the results. There wasn’t a peep out of him.

  “We’ll be back later,” the other one announced, and we heard the door close.

  We slithered out from under the bed and gathered around Jimmy again. Suddenly he moaned a little. We all jumped. Then his eyelids started fluttering, and Jesse leaned over so that his face would be directly in Jimmy’s line of vision. Jimmy’s eyes opened. He stared blankly for a few seconds, and then we could see him beginning to remember. His wheels turned slowly, and then he stared at Jesse.

  “You’re the kid who said he’s my son,” he murmured weakly.

  “I’m that kid,” Jessie responded softly. “I got my files from Cryosperm, and my biological father was Donor 908.”

  “Then you really are my son,” Jimmy whispered. “Wow!”

  “Yes, sir, and I’m not alone,” Jesse replied as Gabe moved in next to him.

  “Me, too,” Gabe asserted. “I’m your son, too.”

  A faint smile flickered over Jimmy’s face. “Two sons,” he whispered.

  Then I moved into his view. “And you have a daughter, too,” I told him.

  Jimmy smiled even more broadly. “I love triplets. I’ll be a great father, I promise. Don’t do drugs, and don’t call me sir.”

  And with that, he closed his eyes and either passed out or went back to sleep. The three of us hugged like crazy. We were all sniffling and pulling tissues out of the box on the nightstand. Then we stood there and watched Jimmy sleep for the longest time. When we heard someone coming, we crawled back under his bed to spend the night. I never knew sleeping on the floor could feel that good, but then again, I had never slept under my bio dad’s bed before.

  chapter twenty-five

  The nurses kept coming in all through the night, checking on Jimmy and taking his vital signs. Then at six forty-five in the morning, his doctor showed up. I lifted the dust ruffle a smidge and saw an extremely cool pair of sandals topped with faded jeans standing next to the bed.

  “Hey, Jim,” a voice said gently, “how are you feeling?”

  “I don’t know, Doc,” Jimmy said. “I’m sleeping.”

  I turned over on my back and looked up to see a doctor who looked just the way you’d want your doctor to look. He had thick white hair and a handsome, kindly face.

  “Well, you’re cleared to go home this afternoon, my man. No sports for the next week, and let me know if you have any dizziness, vomiting, or headaches. Anything weird, give me a call.”

  “I really want to go home, but something weird did happen last night, Doc,” Jimmy whispered. “These teenagers were in my room, two boys and a girl, and they said they were my kids, which is crazy, and what’s even crazier is that I knew they were telling the truth. They were wearing doctor coats, and no kid of mine would be old enough to be a doctor. Am I going nuts?”

  “Sometimes people have very vivid dreams after a blow to the head,” the doctor assured him. “It’s nothing to worry about.” And with that, the doc and his cool sandals turned and exited the room.

  “Damn,” said Jimmy out loud to himself. “It was so real.”

  We didn’t know quite what to do. We didn’t want to just jump out and scare him to death. So from under the bed I said, “You weren’t dreaming. We’re really here.”

  “You
are?” Jimmy croaked, his voice a little shaky. “Where is ‘here’?”

  With that, we slithered out from under the bed and stood up. Jimmy’s face lit up as if he had just won a Grammy.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” he marveled. “You’re my donor kids, and you’re here. I’m so glad you’re real, and you all must be geniuses. How else could you be doctors at your age?”

  He patted the bed. “Get on board and give your old man a hug.” We were more than happy to oblige.

  Jimmy wanted to know all about us and how we found him. So we told him our individual stories and the story of our journey to track down our biological father. He listened intently to every word and asked really good questions. Every time a nurse or doctor would come in to see him, he’d introduce us proudly, and everyone would look at us like we were really special. He even had them run a blood typing on him so we could see he was Type A. I insisted they do a DNA test, as well, so he would know we were his kids, although with Jess and me, you just had to look at us. Jimmy was all for it and told them to “put it on his tab.”

  “I hope you’ll come home with me,” Jimmy said. “Spend at least a few days with your dad.”

  “We’d really like to do that,” Gabe said.

  “More than anything in the world,” I added.

  “I love the beach,” Jesse chimed in.

  “How’d you know I live in Malibu?” Jimmy asked. “You read Rolling Stone?”

  “No,” I said, “he just knows things.”

  “Cool,” said Jimmy, and that was that.

  While Jimmy was getting dressed, Jesse and I called our moms. I told my mom that I would be staying at Sasha’s for a few extra days, that her folks were cool with it, and not to worry. It sounded as if she was busy with Ben and work, so it was easy to pull off, but I had to put a lot of effort into being my usual snarky self because I felt so incredibly happy. I didn’t want to sound too different and set off a maternal alarm.

  Jesse carried on to his moms about how delicious the dinners that they had left him were, and how he was having a great time laying low at home. He made up some good stuff about calling the plumber so everything wouldn’t sound too perfect.

  When Jimmy came out of the bathroom, all dressed and ready to go, he gave our car keys to someone who brought the Jeep around to a secret celebrity exit so we could avoid the paparazzi who were waiting out front.

  Jimmy took one look at the jumble of luggage in the Jeep and immediately rearranged all of it so that there was more room. “It’s my roadie experience,” he explained.

  Jesse took the wheel, and we all piled in. It was kind of amazing to me that Jimmy didn’t mind riding in our old wreck. He seemed to get a kick out of it, and we talked and sang and carried on like the happy, nutty family I never thought I would have. That ecstatic mood lasted for the whole ride.

  After about an hour, we got to this place called The Colony on Malibu Beach. We passed a guardhouse, and the guards looked shocked that a junk heap like ours would be trying to get in. But when Jimmy gave them a smile and a wave, they let us roll right through.

  Jimmy’s house didn’t look like much from the outside, but when you walked into it, it was like walking into another world. One whole wall of the living room was made of sliding glass doors that opened onto a deck jutting out over the beach. Surfers were riding waves, people were running along the water line, others were throwing sticks for their dogs, and kids were building sand castles. It was like paradise.

  The house was super modern and open, and the huge living room was filled with big boy toys. There were pinball and popcorn machines, video games, a pool table, a gigantic flat screen TV on a wall surrounded by six other smaller screens, and every high-tech gadget known to man. You could even open the glass doors just by pushing a button.

  The kitchen was separated from the living room by a wide counter with comfy stools in front of it, and every available surface was filled with bowls of fruit, jars of candy, and plates of cookies. There was a restaurant style stove and a refrigerator the size of our apartment back in St. Louis. The three of us must have looked the way Dorothy did when she found herself in the Land of Oz.

  As we stood there, a good-looking, twenty-something guy with a BlackBerry in his hand came racing toward us and began babbling to Jimmy.

  “Thank god you’re here! Your manager called, your agent called, your publicist called, your record company called, your nutritionist emailed, your masseuse left a message, everyone—” Jimmy held up his hand, signaling “Hold it.”

  “This is Alex, my assistant,” he told us. “Alex, this is my daughter, KT, and my sons, Jesse and Gabe. I was a sperm donor back in the day, and these are my kids.”

  Alex’s mouth fell open. Jimmy went on. “Cancel everything until my concert, except rehearsals. I’m spending quality time with my children.” He put his arms around our shoulders. “Your daddy’s gonna make it all up to you.”

  We just stood there grinning like idiots when suddenly a voice yelled, “Jimmykins!” and a redheaded model-actress type, in the shortest cutoff jeans I’ve ever seen, came running into the room and threw her arms around Jimmy.

  Jimmy unwrapped her arms. “Hey, baby,” he said, “I want you to meet my kids from when I was a sperm donor. This is KT and Jesse and Gabe. Kids, this is Brandy. She does my makeup, among other things.”

  “I do him, too,” Brandy informed us. “Don’t I, baby?”

  “Hey, Bran, cool it. These are my kids,” said Jimmy. He playfully put his hands over my ears and turned to Brandy. “So listen, darlin’, you know I’m seriously nuts about you, but you’re gonna have to excuse me for the next little while, ’cause these three are gonna be my priority.”

  “Of course they are,” Brandy agreed. “They should be.” Still, she didn’t look very happy about it.

  Jimmy gave her a cute, loud smooch on the cheek. “She’s the one, my children. After a lot of years of looking, I finally found true love.”

  “You are the sweetest,” Brandy gushed.

  “Have Maria fix us some lunch, Bran, and then . . .” Jimmy paused and then announced dramatically, “let the spoiling begin.”

  For some reason I still don’t understand, we all jumped up and down and clapped our hands like preschoolers. We could tell that Jimmy thought that was adorable, but Brandy? Well, not so much.

  chapter twenty-six

  When we came out after lunch, the Jeep had been completely unloaded.

  “Your stuff’s in the guesthouse,” Jimmy told us.

  “You sure you want to drive this heap?” I asked him.

  “Yeah,” he said, “it’s perfect. The paps would never guess I’d be driving something like this. We’re undercover for real. Today is gonna be all for you, my children, and don’t ask me where we’re going. It’s going to be a surprise.”

  “Hang for just a second,” Gabe said. “I gotta go back for my nasal spray.”

  “Don’t forget your Breathe-Rites,” I called after him. When Gabe came back out, Jimmy jumped behind the wheel. We piled in and hit the road.

  Our first stop was this place called Griffith Park. Jimmy scooted through the park, head down so no one would recognize him, and we trailed after him like he was the Pied Piper.

  “There’s a great observatory here,” Gabe told me. “Maybe that’s where we’re going.” But it wasn’t.

  We pulled up in front of an old-fashioned merry-go-round, the kind with big painted horses from the olden days. A huge organ was piping out songs from Mary Poppins. We didn’t know what to say, so we didn’t say anything.

  Jimmy was positively glowing. “I always wanted to have a reason to go on this,” he crowed.

  None of us wanted to rain on his parade, so we each climbed on a horse, as did he. We rode around for what seemed like forever, ’round and ’round and up and down, and on and on and on. When it finally stopped, Jimmy jumped off and went dashing across the park again with us in tow. We had to run to keep up with him. We had no chanc
e to talk to each other, but we communicated with various levels of eye rolling. We understood each other so well that words weren’t necessary.

  The next stop was the pony rides. Thankfully, Jimmy let us ride the faster ponies for age seven and over, but even so, the stirrups were so short that Jesse’s knees were up around his shoulders. Jimmy stood behind the fence with the other parents and glowed with pride as we trotted by. He was the only one who didn’t notice that everyone was laughing at us.

  After that it was the zoo. Not the real zoo, which might have been fun (even though I don’t approve of zoos unless it’s the new kind where the animals have natural habitats). We were taken to the petting zoo, where we were surrounded by goats, sheep, and pigs. It was like Willard’s, but not as nice. Jimmy even paid extra so that we could get brushes to brush the animals.

  “What do you think is going on in his head?” I asked Gabe as we crouched near each other, brushing the goats.

  “I think Jimmy is making up for the years he missed by starting at the beginning,” Gabe whispered. His nose was beginning to stuff up, but he was hanging in there.

  “Can we say something?” I asked.

  “Look at him,” Gabe said. “What do you think?”

  I looked over at Jimmy. He was happily brushing a sheep next to Jesse, who wore a sweet, contented look on his face. Our dad was smiling and singing to the sheep, and Jesse was saying to him: “You really should consider not eating anything with a face. It will enhance your aura and ratchet up your energy.”

  “I get your message, my boy child,” Jimmy replied solemnly.

  After an hour there, Jimmy gathered us together. “Our next stop is just for my little girl,” he told us, grinning at me tenderly. “You’re gonna love it.”

  “I can’t wait,” I told him. What else could I say? He looked so damn sweet.

  We drove to a shopping mall called The Grove, and Jimmy gave Jesse and Gabe money for snacks and told them to wait for us while he and I went inside the American Girl Shop. I couldn’t believe that place. I guess I would have loved it when I was eight, but now it looked to me like a training ground for preteen terrorist consumerism. There were dolls of all ethnicities, and you could even have a doll made to look like you. Jimmy insisted that we have that done. There were doll books, doll accessories, doll hair salons, and a photo shop where you could have a picture taken with your doll (Jimmy insisted on that one, too). We walked out to meet Gabe and Jesse, loaded with more dolls than we could carry. Jimmy was beaming proudly and showing off the photo of me with my look-alike doll.