by Cat Carmine
I reach over to my nightstand and slide open the sleek drawer. From inside, I pull out a picture, still in the same ivory frame. I wipe off the thin layer of dust.
Heather’s berated me several times for not keeping any photos of Laura around, but I always tell her the reminder is too painful. Which is true. But she’s wrong that I didn’t keep any pictures. I kept this one. Just the one. Just enough to occasionally pull out and torture myself.
The picture is from a ski vacation we took to Colorado one Christmas. In it, we’re both red-cheeked and grinning at the camera. Laura’s wearing a blue hat, her curly brown hair poking out from underneath. Her eyes look happy. I’m in a blue hat, too, and I’m smiling, but I’m still wearing my ski goggles. The lenses reflect yellow. I can’t see my eyes.
I was happy then. That’s how I remember it. Laura and I were about a month away from being engaged, and I remember originally planning to ask her on that trip. I put it off, for some reason. The ring wasn’t ready yet, or maybe I wasn’t. But it was a given that we’d get engaged — our families had already sanctioned it. Mother was already discreetly phoning florists.
I was happy then. I must have been. I stare down at the picture again, trying to see through the yellow reflection on the glasses, trying to see into the Logan I was then. I was happy. I’m sure of it.
Yet I don’t remember ever feeling like this. I remember feeling … satisfied. Pleased. That life was shaping up the way it was meant to.
But that stomach whooshing sensation I get when Blake walks into the room? The tightening I get in my chest when she walks out of it again? I must have felt that with Laura, too. I wouldn’t have wanted to marry her, otherwise. Right? I wouldn’t have gone so crazy after she died. Right?
The dark room offers no answers. The picture in my hand remains unchanged.
Laura, smiling. Her eyes happy.
Me, smiling. My eyes?
A mystery.
Sixteen
“Come on, lazy bones. I thought we were going to go to the farmers’ market this morning.” Lucy pounds on my bedroom door, but I just pull the pillow over my head and roll over. Why did I ever agree to this farmers’ market trip? Lucy’s the one who gets excited about produce and weird organic teas. Give me an extra hour of sleep any day. Especially on a Saturday.
But Lucy is relentless. She pounds on my door again. “If you don’t get up in the next five minutes, I’m coming in there and dragging you out of that bed.”
Something in her voice tells me she’s serious. I throw the blankets off and plant my feet on the old hardwood floors. A wave of nausea comes over me. I rest my elbows on my knees and take a few deep breaths, then force myself to stand up. The nausea gets worse. I stumble to the door and wrench it open.
Lucy is on the other side. She’s just about to knock again, but she grins when she sees me. “Good. I was just about to barge in there and whack you with a pillow, and then we were going to be in a frat boy fantasy and it might have got weird.” She pauses, pursing her lips as she studies my face. “Wow, you don’t look so good. Are you okay?”
“No.” I cup my hand over my mouth just as the nausea gets unbearable. I make it to the bathroom just in time. I don’t even get to close the door, and when I look up, Lucy is hovering there. There’s a smug smile on her face.
“Fun night last night?”
“No!” I wipe my mouth with toilet paper. Heat flushes my neck, despite the fact that I just threw up. Okay, so maybe I did have a fun night last night. Just not the way she’s thinking. No way is this a hangover — I didn’t even end up drinking the wine Logan had poured me. “I must have eaten something that was off yesterday.”
“What did you eat?”
“Hmm...” I think back. “Chicken fingers, fries, pizza, oh, and a milkshake.”
Lucy laughs. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Want to take something?” She’s already opening the medicine cabinet, rustling up a bottle of Pepto that may or may not be expired. I reach for it gratefully. She helps me up and walks me to the bedroom, then magically reappears with a sleeve of salted crackers. I blink back a thankful tear.
“I just need a few minutes,” I assure her. I shove a couple of crackers into my mouth and pull my hair back into a ponytail.
Lucy shakes her head. “No way. You should take it easy. If you have food poisoning, you’re going to be miserable.”
“But I promised you.”
She waves her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call my friend Tess and see if she wants to go. And I’ll pick us up something nice for dinner, how about that? Hopefully, you’ll be feeling better by then.”
“I definitely will be.” God, why did I have to eat all that crap yesterday? That’s what happens when you spend the day with an six-year-old and a four-year-old. You end up eating like them.
Then again, maybe this is just the universe’s way of punishing me for indulging in something else yesterday. Maybe I didn’t have a bad milkshake — maybe I’m just being schooled for letting my boss get me off in his kitchen.
And if that’s the case, I deserve everything I get.
“Are you going to throw up again?” Lucy asks worriedly. “You look like you’re going to throw up again.”
I bite back a laugh. “No. I think the worst has passed. I’m just going to go back to sleep for a bit.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” Lucy disappears out of my bedroom, softly closing the door behind her.
By the time I wake up, Lucy is back home, and I can smell something baking. My appetite seems to have returned, because whatever she’s making makes my stomach growl. I wrap a light pink cardigan around my shoulders and shuffle out into the kitchen to join her.
“Feeling better?” she asks when she sees me.
I nod. “Is there anything to eat?”
“I’m making scones right now, if you can wait another half hour or so. They had the most beautiful blueberries at the market.”
“Sounds delicious.” I pour a glass of water and grab an apple out of the fridge to tide me over, then slip into a chair at our small dining set. “Get anything else?”
“Tons of stuff. Some organic basil, and heirloom tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. I thought we could have caprese salads for dinner.”
“Man, how did I get lucky enough to have a roommate who likes cooking?”
“Baking, yes,” she laughs. “But cooking, no. Caprese salad is easy because it’s pretty much just assembly. No actual cooking required.”
“Well, then how did I get lucky enough to have a roommate who likes ... assembling?”
“Just your lucky year, I guess.” She opens the oven door to check on the scones, then closes it again in satisfaction. “Want to go see a movie or something later?”
The thought of leaving the apartment exhausts me. I shake my head. “Maybe we can just watch a movie here? I kind of want to just chill this weekend.”
“Still feeling crappy?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what it is.” Except, you know, karma. I wander over to the fridge and rummage through it, trying to find something else to snack on while the scones finish baking. Why had I gone into Logan’s penthouse last night? That was the major mistake. Spending a day with him and his niece and nephew was fine. With Jack and Daisy around, nothing was going to happen, and I had a surprisingly good time. But damn my tiny bladder. If I hadn’t had to use the bathroom, none of this would have happened.
I open the cupboard and pull out a box of muesli, then shove a dry handful of it into my mouth. Lucy raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. I shrug and eat another handful. I usually don’t like the stuff, but for some reason it’s really hitting the spot right now.
“Come on,” Lucy says, handing me a bowl. “Let’s go put in a movie now, while the scones finish up.”
I spend the rest of the weekend alternating between my bed and the couch. No matter how much I sleep, the fatigue won’t leave me. I feel worn out, wrung out, like I just ran
a marathon or climbed a mountain or something. On Sunday, I throw up again. It’s that damn milkshake. I’m sure it is. I wonder if Logan and the kids got sick, too? I think about texting him, but decide that’s just asking for trouble.
It’s not until Sunday night that Lucy’s offhand comment changes everything.
I’m sprawled on the couch, and we’re watching reruns of Criminal Minds, funnily enough. She comes in from the kitchen and hands me a can of Diet Coke.
“Maybe you’re pregnant,” she teases.
“Ha. Don’t even joke about that. Definitely not possible.” But ice water starts to run through my veins. Because certain details are lining up in my mind. That night with Logan, in his office, when we’d been too caught up in the moment to remember to use a condom. That was … how long ago now? Two weeks? Three? And my period is due ... when? God, I don’t even know. Why don’t I keep better track of these things? Why am I so irresponsible about everything? My ribs clench around my pounding heart.
“Move your feet,” Lucy says, nudging my legs over so she can sit on the couch with me. She flicks the television over to Netflix and starts scrolling through the comedies.
“We need something more cheerful than this gore-fest, don’t you think? Geez, how many weird ways are there to murder people?”
“You can peel them like a grape,” I mumble.
Lucy looks over, her eyebrows raised. “Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
I can barely focus on the screen. On her. Because that single word is echoing over and over in the chamber of my mind. Pregnant. Pregnant.
Pregnant.
I crack open the can of Diet Coke that I’m still holding, startling at the loud sound it makes. I take a sip, but the sweet liquid tastes like battery acid.
This is ... it can’t be. It just can’t. I’m on the pill. I’ve been on the pill since I was sixteen and Mom found out I was dating an eighteen-year-old security guard who was named Scott and who worked at the mall. He used to bring me Orange Julius’ after his shift, in an attempt to get into my pants, which, at sixteen, I thought was the height of romance. Mom said she wasn’t wild about the idea of me having sex, but that if I was going to do it, I had better be safe about it. I never did sleep with Scott, though I did drink a lot of orange smoothies and got into a religious life-long habit of taking my pill every morning, like clockwork.
So no, I’m definitely not pregnant.
Lucy laughs at something on the television while I sneak a look at the clock. It’s too late to go to the pharmacy, and I’m not going to rush out to find a twenty-four-hour place, because, after all, I’m definitely not pregnant. But I’ll go tomorrow and pick one up, I decide, just to be sure. Just to put the horrible notion out of my mind for good.
Pregnant. Nope, definitely not.
The next day, I force myself to get up and get dressed like a normal person. Like a non-pregnant person. This is just another Monday, after all. Nothing to see here, people.
I ride the subway like a normal person, and a get a coffee and a muffin from Rocky Road Cafe like a normal person, and throw up in the coffee shop bathroom like a normal person. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror afterwards. I just rinse my mouth out with tap water and pop a couple of TicTacs and go on my merry and totally not-pregnant way.
I also don’t go anywhere near Logan’s office once I get in. I drop his coffee off at Kath’s desk and ask her to bring it to him, feigning an urgent meeting I can’t get out of. She grumbles about it, but I just leave her with the coffee, and I know she’ll take it to him rather than risk pissing him off.
I throw myself into my work for the morning, like a completely normal person. I definitely don’t keep one eye on the clock, counting down the minutes until noon, when I’ve decided I’ll walk over to the pharmacy down the block and just pick up a few things including maybe, possibly, a pregnancy test.
At 11:59, I grab my purse and practically run out the door.
It feels like I don’t even breathe properly until I’m under the fluorescent lights of the pharmacy, with the elevator jazz pumping through the speakers and the fake marble linoleum shining under my feet. I grab a basket and wander the aisles, throwing in shampoo and bandaids and a can of air freshener that smells like palm trees wearing perfume.
Finally, I make my way over to the discreetly-titled family planning section. Condoms, lube, and pregnancy tests, oh my.
I scan over the light pink and blue boxes, but there are so many options that I have no idea what to choose. What’s the difference, even? This one promises it can give you an answer before your period is even due; this other one claims it’s the most accurate on the market. What if I want both those things? Maybe I should just get two tests, to be sure.
“Blake, I thought that was you!”
I spin around. “Oh, Georgia! Hi!” Fuck. The HR woman who I’d checked in with on the first day. What are the freaking odds? “I’m just, uh, you know, buying some condoms!”
I frantically stuff the pregnancy test back on the shelf and dramatically throw a half dozen boxes of Magnum extra-larges into my basket to distract her. Georgia’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t say anything. I can feel the flush of embarrassment creeping up my neck and into my cheeks. The lights in this place are way too hot.
“How’s the job going so far?” she asks. She’s got a basket looped over her arm, and of course, it has nothing embarrassing in it, just vitamins and gum and cough drops.
“Oh, it’s pretty good. Actually, I should probably be getting back. You know Mr. Cartwright...” I try to fake a laugh, and she grins.
“I do. I was just heading to the check-out; I’ll walk out with you.”
“Great.” I grit my teeth. We walk to the front of the store together. I let her go ahead of me, hoping she’ll leave after she’s paid, but instead she stands there waiting for me as I put box after box of condoms on the counter. I have to pay with my credit card — that many condoms are surprisingly expensive — and then we walk back to the office together.
By the time I drop my load of condoms off at my desk, I’m so anxious that I can barely breathe. I wait until Kath is away from her desk, and then I dart into the elevator and head back down to the street. I have to get back to the pharmacy — now.
This time, I’m a robot of efficiency. I grab four different tests — better safe than sorry — and get the clerk to double bag it for me so that there’s no chance of anyone seeing what’s inside. I also get a big bottle of water and chug it as I rush down the street, back towards the office. I don’t even bother going to my desk, because going there only increases the chances of someone coming by and interrupting me.
Instead, I go straight to the bathroom, locking myself in the extra-wide stall at the end.
I rustle through the bags as quietly as possible, pulling out the test that promises to give the earliest results. I scan the instructions, and it all seems pretty straightforward. Open, pee, wait, rejoice. It’s a bit awkward trying to angle myself so that I can pee on the stick and not, you know, all over my hand, but I manage it. Mostly.
I want to wash my hands after, so even though it’s safer to stay locked into the stall, I venture out into the main part of the bathroom. I keep one eye fixed to the test the entire time. I know it hasn’t been three minutes yet, but you never know. Maybe I’ll be so not pregnant that it’ll show up early.
I’m just grabbing some paper towels out of the machine when the washroom door swings open. A Viking comes inside.
Fuck. Kath.
I freeze. Like a criminal. Kath looks me up and down, tucking her strawberry blonde ringlets behind an ear that’s roughly the size of my palm. I barely dare to breathe. Except, stupid me, I flick my gaze to the pregnancy test, which is still sitting on the edge of the sink. Kath’s eyes follow mine. For a second, I stay frozen. Then I snatch up the test and shove it into my purse, and grab the shopping bag and the rest of my stuff, too.
“Hello,” I say, hastily, “and goodb
ye. Sorry, late for another meeting!”
I brush past her before she can say anything. My heart doesn’t stop racing until I’m back at my desk, and even then, it keeps up a steady tattoo. I flop down into my chair and fish around in my purse for the test. A lance of panic runs through me when I don’t find it. I scrounge and scrounge, but it isn’t there. It has to be there.
I dump the entire contents of my purse onto the desk, and breathe a sigh of relief when I see the now familiar white plastic. I snatch it up.
“Blake! There you are. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for almost an hour now. I expect you to monitor your calls, you know, especially when they’re from me.”
Fuck. Logan. Without thinking, I drop the test into the half-drunk cup of tea that’s sitting on my desk. I casually stir it around, as if it was a stir-stick and not a pregnancy test and as if this was a perfectly normal thing to do. All I can do is pray Logan has no idea what he’s looking at.
“Right, sorry,” I mutter. “I had an errand to run. What do you need me to do?”
Logan squints, considering me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I cross my legs, but as I do, I knock over the bag from the first trip to the pharmacy. Eight boxes of extra-large condoms come spilling out on the floor around my feet.
Logan’s eyes widen, and then a slow grin spreads over his face. “Stocking up, are we?”
Heat colors my face. “My roommate asked me to pick them up,” I stammer. “For, um, an art project.”
“An art project?”
“Mmhmm.” God, why won’t he just tell me what he wants and go away? This is excruciating.
“What kind of art project?”
“Oh, I really couldn’t say. I don’t really understand art. Sorry, what was it you said you needed me to do?”
Logan is still studying me, but now he shakes his head. “Right. I need you to set up a meeting with the head of SynthGem. And whoever he wants to bring with him. For next week. Here at the office. And keep your own schedule clear, please. I’d like you to sit in on the meeting with me.”
