Stay With Me 2

by Jessica Aniston

  Karin panics a little and looks at Declan who is still clutching the doll and shrugs, completely unhelpful. She growls at him in frustration and then improvises. It’s a standard lock, like the ones in her ballet school - the one every last one of the students eventually learned how to pick in order to get in there after hours and get some extra time at the barre in. Of course, it would be better to have something better to pick it with, but as it is, she has to make do with her bra and improvise. She feels Declan’s eyes on her even in the dim light as she unclasps the bra at her back underneath her sleep shirt, and then plucks the straps from her shoulders, enabling her to pull the whole thing from underneath her shirt. He’s still watching as she turns it over in her hands, brings one of the cups to her mouth and starts biting at the fabric to create a hole big enough to get the underwire out through.

  “Yes!” she hisses in sharp triumph when it works, and she’s much quicker getting the second wire out. “Hold this,” she says to Declan and shoves the now ruined bra into his hands without looking to see if he even catches it.

  She’s got a job to do. She bites off the plastic endings on each of the wires and bends down to get to work. It’s difficult to see in the dim light and the carpet they’re standing on smells like feet, which is a bit distracting, but Karin does her best, putting her back into it as she works one of the wires as her tension wrench into the biggest part of the hole in the lock. Next she bends it diligently into an L-shape, just like she’d learned so many years ago, when the only thing standing between her and being the best damn ballerina in school had been the stubbornly locked door to the studio. Once inside, she would diligently re-do all of her lessons by herself while the competition was sleeping. She’d always went very early in the morning, like at three, four a.m., because by five, she’d always get company.

  She puts the wrench into her mouth while she rhythmically bends the other one in half, from one side to the other, until it snaps and is content with the pick she’s just fashioned as the spare bit of it drops onto the fluffy carpet with no sound. Next, she shoves the tension wrench back into the keyway, pulls on it a little bit until she’s felt out the pressure points inside the lock and where it gives way. Then she keeps it in there and adds the pick, gingerly trying to unlock the door and failing to the first two tries because it’s so damn gloomy down there. She curses under her breath and then falls completely silent when she hears footsteps passing by the landing, but after an eternal moment, they fade. Thank God.

  Finally, on the third try, she manages to slide the pick all the way into the lock and then starts feeling for the stiff pins inside, wiggling the metal between her thumb and index finger until she has pushed them down one by one and all five of them are set. She takes the pick out, careful to not set a pin back accidentally and then takes a deep breath before turning the tension wrench and like the sweetest song, the lock clicks open and so does the door.

  “Keep on the lookout,” she whispers, turning around to Declan.

  The way he stares back at her is priceless. She instantly wishes she could frame it and keep it forever.

  “What the hell, Rinny?” he asks her, looking five and not just because of the doll in his clasp. “I can’t believe this. Why did you never tell me you know how to do that?”

  “It never came up,” she shrugs and tries to mask her smug joy at dumbfounding him by being the cooler one of them for once in her life as cocky nonchalance, shrugs like it’s nothing, and ducks into the now unlocked room.

  Inside its stuffy and smells musty, like old air and for some reason old paper too, even if there is none. The monitors of the security cameras all show the de-saturated live footage of the various angles in the house and it doesn’t take long until Karin has spotted the one that’s trained on their bed. She bends over the table the monitors are stacked on and goes to fiddle with the little buttons on the small TV. She has not a single clue how to work this thing but she tries anyway, pushing on the controls until apparently, she’s found the rewind button. She watches the lines appear on the video as it goes back in time, after a while coming up on just now, when they left the room after Karin stormed in.

  Then a hilarious amount of time that Declan plays with their fake baby like it’s a stuffed animal and the favorite one he owns at that. She’d like to watch that back just to cackle about it but she doesn’t. There’s no time. On the screen, it keeps going backward. Back until Karin left, her getting out of bed, then her waking up. Then after a few seconds, Karin does pause, freezes the frame to make sure she isn’t imagining things when she sees Declan perk up onto his elbow beside her, obviously awake while she is asleep and watching her. Is that what he’s doing?

  She is tempted to investigate further, so very tempted, and she bites the inside of her cheeks regretfully when she decides that there’s no time. She makes a mental note to come back to this but after some more time rewinding and Declan handling the doll on his own, it slips her mind. There it is, the time when they talked in the middle of the night. She rewinds the tape a couple of seconds more and then hits play.

  She exhales, long and hard, a breath she didn’t know she had been holding in all this time. Yes, she thinks triumphantly. There’s no audio. She checks every last button again to make sure but when she finds the sound on/sound off-button, it does nothing. These cameras just record images, not sound. So they’re fine. All it shows is Declan comforting her, leaning against her frame to rub her back while she cradles their plastic child against her chest. Huh, she thinks, pausing. Grainy and tiny as they look their on their bed in the dark, it’s not really obvious that the creature she’s holding is made of rubber and airbrush paint. Like this, it looks like they’re a real family. It really does feel like she and Declan have a baby.

  It takes her a good five seconds to deal with that image, and even after, she just sits there and stares at how Declan on the monitor keeps his hands on her and then looks at her. Then her breath stalls even now, even if they’re just tiny dots on a screen. She can feel the way his eyes burned into hers, just from watching it back. Huh, indeed.

  “Rinny?” comes a whisper from outside, ripping her out of her daze. “Are you about done?”

  “Yes,” she whispers back, regretfully hitting some of the buttons until the feed snaps back to the live feed - how, she really has no idea, but she doesn’t wait to question it - and then tiptoes back out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Glad for her foresight, she retrieves the pieces of her bra that she threw down on the floor and then nods at Declan to start moving.

  “So?” he asks her as they make their way back, sure-footed now that their eyes are used to the dark.

  “We’re in the clear,” she says. “The cameras record without audio.”

  “Alright, good,” Declan breathes and sounds about as relieved as she does, if not more so. “That’s really, really good.”

  “Yes,” Karin nods. “It also looks like we’ve still got fifteen minutes till Marietta and company get here. It’s very good for our first covert mission if I do say so myself.”

  “Absolutely,” he agrees. “Enough time for me to take a shower, but you have to get the baby when she cried. I’ll be a while, watching you pick that lock is definitely the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I need a minute.”

  “Shut up,” she says and doesn’t need to see his face to know that he’s pulling her leg. “You idiot.”

  By the time their production team gets in, Karin is still all smiles and excited, riding the high of a heist-movie style intermezzo gone completely right and when Declan re-joins her, running late as per usual, he smells like body wash and conditioner and it only adds to her high spirits. When they finally film the lift of the fake baby curse and collect the dolls, she’s actually almost sad to let Josh go. Although she guesses its better they take her away now until Declan starts having pretend tea parties with his pretend baby.

  The other couples seem to have mixed feelings about the departure of their dolls as well
, all except for Grace and Mimi, who look like they would have loved to tossed theirs from where they’re standing under the gazebo into the pool, if they could.

  “Couples,” Tag starts once they have set up for him to announce the second part of the week’s challenge - and they haven’t been told beforehand what it is, much like yesterday, because the execs are looking for genuine reactions. “We have another surprise waiting for you. If you would kindly like to turn around and face the house, you’ll see why it was very good that you had a whole twenty-four hours to practice parenthood.”

  They all turn on cue, as if it was choreography and there, in front of the house are five other couples, each one of them with a kid either on their arms or in their arms, and Karin gasps.

  “These parents are here today to get a couple of hours of quality-time together on their holiday while you babysit their adorable offspring! You’ll be doing these Moms and Dads a big favor by taking their little ones off their hands for a while. I hope you’re up to the task because each of these couples will later evaluate your performance and also get a vote tomorrow at the elimination.”

  Someone in the periphery yells “Cut!” and then the chattering starts. Kaidan and Kaelan start babbling to each other all excited immediately, Courtney coos and Mimi groans, sounding like it comes from the very bottom of her soul. On autopilot, Karin grabs Declan’s hand. Now, that’s a surprise indeed. How on earth did they find five couples willing to put their babies on a reality show for strangers to watch?

  “They made a post on their social media pages,” Naeomi, the mother that has been assigned to Karin and Declan tells them a little while later, after they’ve all been paired up and introduced. “It all worked out quite well and it’s a little more money for the vacation fund.” Her husband Dale shakes Declan’s hand and then adjusts the toddler he’s holding on his hip to give them a better view of his adorable daughter and says: “This is Averi, she’s two and a half.”

  “Hi, Averi!” Karin says, leaning forward a little so that the child can see her better. “We’re going to be friends today, aren’t we?” The girl lowers her head a little, shyly turns into her Dad’s shoulder and she’s so cute, it nearly makes Karin’s eyes wet. “Oh my God, she’s so precious,” she says to no one in particular.

  “Very,” Naeomi agrees proudly. “But also very active. Once she’s used to you, she’ll run circles around you. I don’t really think we’ve caught a break in a year, right, honey?”

  “Oh yes, that’s right,” her husband agrees, bouncing the little girl. “She’s a handful.”

  “Yes, have fun with her! Bye!” Naeomi hollers, plucking the kid from her husband’s arms and pushing her into Karin’s. She then turns on her heels, dramatically mock-walking away and everyone laughs while Gorman captures the moment for eternity, standing in front of them.

  To Karin’s great relief, they don’t actually leave right away but stay for another half hour with the cameras off, so that the kid can warm up to Declan and her and not get too fussy when her parents do leave. ‘Leave’ is a strong word. They’re all basically just moving up the beach a little bit, their phones at the ready if anything should go awry. Karin is glad for that, too. It’s not like Karin has never babysat before, because she has and she knows Declan certainly has, but it’s still something entirely different to get filmed doing it, her under-developed parenting skills on display for the whole world to see and comment on.

  Karin watches the other couples get moved to different sets around the villa, splitting into groups by units. As per usual, they’re getting Gorman, who collects them shortly after Declan finishes reading to Averi from a picture book her parents left them with, and walks them to the beach in front of the villa. There's an umbrella set up for them and a ridiculous amount of beach toys for the kid scattered around beneath it. Declan is walking briskly ahead, the toddler snug on his hip, like he’s never done anything in his life other than carry babies around and Karin falls behind a little bit, weakened to tardiness by the view. He looks so natural, so at ease. He looks so damn good with a child in his arms. Of course she’s seen him with his nieces and nephews, when they were just tiny little babies that fit on the length of forearm, and that had been nearly unbearable to watch, too. Suffice it to say, she could have done without the reminder.

  I want to have your babies, her brain whispers and for someone who just last night said she was sure she didn’t want kids for a while, she suddenly feels like she could see herself with Declan’s by tomorrow at the latest. Oh god, she’s done for. How will she ever get through this day? Even if it was kind of comical seeing him mother a plastic baby all of yesterday, it was still cute. But this: sitting down with him in the sand overlooking the ocean, watching him tug the toddler’s little yellow shirt in so her pale, chubby belly isn’t exposed to the sun? Cute is really not the word that applies here anymore. He grins at her, pointing out Averi’s adorable little fingers as they grab for his arms and Karin could climb him like a tree instantly. She thinks her uterus might be swelling to twice its size, ready to grow a football-team-worth of his babies.

  Karin is practically leering at him as he starts playing peek a boo with the little girl, raising a beach towel to his face and tugging it down to pull faces at the kid. He chuckles along every time Averi giggles in reply. It feels like a century passes - in which Karin dies a slow, painful death of longing - until Averi gets bored with the game and starts whimpering, saying “Momma” pitifully. Then Declan thinks on his feet. Better than Karin ever could, because she can’t think of anything at all. Her whole focus is on Declan and the child, interacting like he was born to be a dad. She can see the baby fall in love with him, too, in real time, and the bright wonder on her little face is a look she knows by heart from what it feels like on her own features.

  “No more of that, alright?” Declan asks and puts the towel aside, squinting into the sun as he scrambles for an alternative to entertain the child. There is a soft breeze carrying the salty smell of the sea over to them but pervasive through all of it is the scent of baby that makes her want to reach out and bury her nose in Averi’s wispy hair. It’s all a little bit much.

  “Look, Averi,” Declan coos, high-pitched and freaking adorable when his eyes have caught on something to present to the toddler. “How about we build a tower?”

  “Oh, yes!” Karin agrees, following his gaze. “Look, we’ve got all those blocks here.”

  “Tower!” Averi repeats cheerily, her slight unhappiness forgotten in an instant. Karin empties the big box full of building blocks into the sand between her and Averi.

  “Exactly,” Declan says excitedly. “Which one do you want to start with?”

  “Wed,” says Averi, sounding like a small woodland creature.

  “The red one?” Declan asks her, beaming. “Alright, let’s go with the red one.”

  He picks it up and hands it to the child, and then adds more, one by one as she points them out, helping her to stack them on top of each other. Karin helps to raise it up, too. They go on and on until it’s so big Averi has to stand up on her baby feet in order to build it even higher, until she can’t reach the top anymore.

  Then she knocks it down with a shrill, gleeful shriek and giggles. She starts to build another one. All this time Gorman is nearby, filming, but Karin barely notices him anymore, too enraptured by the game, by watching the little girl look all grown up in her concentration and determination to keep raising towers and then knocking them down, not getting bored of it for a long, long time.

  The last time she completes one, she gets so into the subsequent knock-down that she tumbles over her own feet, into the tower, and falls flat on her face. Karin knows that moment before the wail comes from every time she has ever been around small children, so she reacts like a shot, proud of herself for the presence of mind to do so. She plucks the girl from the fine, white sand right as she starts to cry, startled to fear by the fall, and immediately rocks her, cooing soft reassurances and pluckin
g a strand of hair out of her own messy top knot to dangle in front of the little girl’s face. Averi, thankfully, takes the distraction and pulls at Karin’s hair, the tears and the fussing stopping short, replaced by cheery little giggles.

  “Oh, she likes you,” Declan says, sitting cross-legged beside her and brings his hand up to run his index finger up and down the meaty toddler arm, soft and painfully sweet to witness.

  “I think she’s getting a little tired,” she says to him and then turns her head to the baby again. “Do you want to go look at the water a bit, Averi?”

  The child nods, bobbing her head up and down with vigor.

  Springing into action before she can, Declan plops the sun hat that Averi had taken off some time before the rise and fall of tower number four back on her head, and offers Karin his hand to pull her and Averi up a moment later. When she is standing, he doesn’t move for a second, just trails his hand from her elbow to her hand, squeezing it tightly while he adjusts the hat on Averi’s head, keeping his eyes on Karin.

  “You look good,” he murmurs, his eyebrows arching up in the most incredible way, making his whole face light up into devotion. “We might need to keep her.”

  Karin can’t move, and thoughtlessly walks after Declan when he takes her by the hand. She’s trying to process the tightness in her chest at the creeping revelation that she is, despite her best efforts, still madly and irrevocably in love with him and tries not to drop the child from her hips. She follows dumbly, a bit overwhelmed and not at all conscious of Gorman, who trails behind them. Declan pulls them all the way to the shoreline, wading into the ocean until their feet get washed over by the soft waves. The view of the endless sea stretching as wide as the eye can see in front of her is just slightly less breathtaking and beautiful than Declan is right now.