by Aria Ford
I washed my face, showered and dressed. Did makeup. Ate breakfast. As I ate my muesli my stomach gave a queasy lurch and I thought I might be sick again, but I kept it down.
At work, things were as they usually were. The teachers handed me the list of referrals and I saw the students, one after the other in my small, anonymous office. It was tough work. Most of them came from families who could have been textbook examples for what not to do—their stories wiped me out completely.
I was feeling particularly exhausted that day and, when lunchtime came along I dragged myself to the tearoom feeling finished.
“Hey,” Barbara, one of the teachers, called. “You okay?”
“I’m fine…” I murmured. “Actually, I don’t know.” My head was throbbing and I closed my eyes, feeling myself sway back. Dammit, what was wrong with me? “Coffee,” I murmured. “I need some.”
Barbara chuckled, then took my arm, looking into my face with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay, Jackie?” she asked. “You look finished.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just seem to have caught some stomach thing or something.”
“Hell, Jacks—you probably should have taken the day off. That sounds serious.”
“No,” I murmured, sitting down with my coffee cradled between my palms. I felt cold and shaky and the coffee, mercifully, was helping. “I think I’m okay. I don’t know what this is. It’s just that, when I wake up, I’ve been feeling sick just lately. Probably something that disagrees with me. Maybe I should cut out dairy or something.”
“Maybe,” Barbara said. She was looking at me shrewdly. “You feel dizzy sometimes?” she asked.
My head was pounding like a bass-player was having a go at it and I couldn’t focus. I sure was dizzy. “Yes,” I said. “Why?”
As I said it, I realized something. Feeling sick in the mornings. Dizziness. Nausea.
Oh, shit.
I really thought it wasn’t possible. I thought I had a cycle as regular as clockwork and there was no way in hell anything could happen in the first week of the month. But apparently not.
“What is it?” Barbara asked.
“N…nothing,” I murmured. “I think I’ll just go lie down a bit. See you.”
“See you.”
As I dragged myself off towards the sick room, my head still aching, I found myself shaking, only this time it wasn’t fever or longing. It was concern.
I couldn’t possibly be pregnant, could I?
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I should—since I was quite regular—get my period tomorrow or thereabouts. But I hadn’t had any of the usual signs. I thought about it more and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was probably right. I was expecting a child.
Scott West’s child.
I made a note to buy a pregnancy-testing kit on the way home—before I got myself all stressed out about this, I might as well make sure of my facts.
I bought a kit when the day finally ended. Took it home. Used it. I thought I might actually faint.
The result was positive.
“Oh, my…” I closed my eyes, feeling a strange sensation in my chest that was mostly panic and horror, but a tiny, jewel-bright thread of wonder.
What was I going to do?
I thought about my options. I didn’t really have many. I had seen too many unwanted children to be entirely against termination—though myself, for personal reasons, I didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to think about it. Already, this tiny life below my hands—tentative, a month in the growing—felt precious to me. If I closed my eyes to imagine him or her, I could almost see the little face before me. A face that was part, Scott, part me. My heart ached.
I do have some maternity benefits, I told myself, thinking about my options. It wasn’t as if I had no way to support myself. I was state paid, which meant I wasn’t paid extremely well, but there was leave and compensation and I could afford medical care. As far as the short term—the next five years—I would be okay. By the time my kid needed to be educated, I would have to have a better income.
That’s in the future, I told myself determinedly. I am going to focus on the present and the next five years first.
I knew perhaps it was bad not to take a longer view. Maybe if I did, I would consider other options. Termination, adoption. Fostering. But for now, all I knew was that I wanted it to be possible to keep her. I wanted my child.
Scott’s child.
I sat on the bed, leaned back on the pillows. Recalled his face to my mind. I hadn’t seen it for a few weeks but I could still remember it clearly—the smooth planes of it, the chiseled bones, the eyes. I felt a tear run down my cheek. I wished I could tell him. Wished I could share this with him. Yeah, he might have used me and walked out without a goodbye, but I felt close to him. Something had happened between us that night, something I couldn’t forget.
I cuffed away the tears, feeling angry and impatient with myself. I should forget him. He had used me.
Scott West, you are an asshole. I repeated the phrase that kept me upright. Kept me hating him and forgetting about him.
I needed to hate him. I needed to forget. Because, deep inside, I knew I felt more strongly about him than I had felt about anyone else in my life before.
And now I was carrying his child.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Scott
The sound of water tinkling into crystal glasses chimed in my head, a delicate counterpoint to the burr of conversation. I looked up. My father was looking across the table at me. We were at the Halston, one of the finest restaurants in town, the wonderful view from the rooftop spread out below us. It was sunset and the sky was deep blue touched with orange and pink fire—a late summer sunset.
“We’re very grateful for your collaboration, Howard.”
That was my father’s voice breaking through my reverie—and he was speaking to the man on his right—a well-built, glossy-haired fifty-year-old in an impeccable business suit. Nevertheless, he was looking at me. I frowned, trying to bring my mind back to the present. Had I missed something? Probably.
It was months since I’d seen Jackie, and I really thought I’d forgotten, but today, more than ever, she was back in my mind. I had been watching the evening sky, lost in thoughts and memories of her.
“Yes,” I murmured. “It’s good to see eye-to-eye.”
The man laughed. I seemed to guess the right thing to say. Which was good. This was not a man I wanted to offend. Father would never forgive me.
He was my father’s main competitor and recently, through considerable effort and entertaining bills that would even have turned my dad’s hair white—not that it could turn whiter—we’d won him round. He had agreed to cede the field of short distance trucking to us, in exchange for partnership in our new shipping venture. It was an occasion worth celebrating.
In fact, we were celebrating, I reminded myself. Which was why I found myself in a suit sitting at the rooftop restaurant on a summer evening, with the sound of clinking glasses and muted conversation in my ears, the scent of spice and perfume in my nose.
Perfume. Alexa.
I turned to my right, where Alexa Jones sat. The daughter of Howard; in fact, his only child, Alexa was elegant, refined and pretty in a cool, indifferent way. She could have been a magazine come to life, from the tips of red-painted nails to her immaculate hair. She was also as quiet as if she were the cover of a magazine.
“Enjoying the salad?” I asked politely.
“Mm,” she nodded coolly. She lifted a glass of sparkling wine and sipped it indifferently, her vermillion-bright lipstick leaving a tiny smudge on the edge. Under normal circumstances, I would have felt my loins tense at that. Weirdly, nothing happened.
But then, it wasn’t so weird. Not only had something happened inside me that left me searching in every face for the soft, gentle lines of Jackie Jefferson. Dad was putting pressure on me and Alexa.
He wanted me to marry her.
&
nbsp; “You read the latest book by Stiglitz?”
“Yes,” I nodded. I had, a bit. Mr. Jones looked surprised by my answer. I could almost hear the machinery in his head ranking me up a level. Man can read books. Ten points.
I shuddered and reached for my water. I wasn’t drinking—since my playboy days I avoided drink when I could, afraid to kick-start another cycle of madness in my life. Mr. Jones frowned.
“You going to have some of this Champagne?”
I moved my head to one side, a small shake. “Pass, thanks.”
Raised brows. In Mr. Jones’ world, apparently not drinking was anathema. The machinery ratcheted and I moved down a level. Alexa coughed delicately beside me.
“You went to Hawaii for your holiday this year?”
“I did,” I nodded. “It was nice. You enjoy Hawaii?”
“Oh yes,” she smiled, inclining her pretty head in a dainty nod. “I do.”
“Alexa likes to water ski,” her father put in encouragingly. If she was embarrassed by the paternal intervention, she gave no sign. Just looked at her hands and giggled prettily. I found myself feeling sorry for her.
What would it be like to be a caged bird? To have everything, even your likes and dislikes, in the common domain as Alexa seemed to? She wasn’t free to make any choices of her own: she even had someone’s hand so firmly on your future that she didn’t even get to decide who to marry.
I shuddered again. I was largely in the same situation, though the bars were less obvious. My father wouldn’t have actually stooped to making conversation on my behalf, but he was nonetheless pushing me along, trying to make me do as he wished. And he wanted Alexa for me. He had said so.
Make her like you, son. I expect great things…having Jones on our side will make us golden. You know that and I do. So make a good impression. We need an alliance—I’m counting on you.
Anyone else saying that would have been being obscure. Knowing my father, it was as good as an edict from the highest lawmaker that I had to marry Alexa. He needed it of me.
“I tried to water ski once,” I said to her with a grin, trying to make conversation. “It didn’t work out too well.”
As it had happened, I had been so drunk as to be incapable of an upright posture on land, never mind at speed on the surface of the water. The experience was one I was lucky to survive. It made me question my friends and the breadth of their friendship. I could have died and all they would have done was cheer me on as they pretended to cheer all my actions, no matter how ill-advised.
She snorted. “It’s easy,” she said lightly. “Maybe you just weren’t shown how.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I said nothing. Just lifted my glass and drank some water and looked out over the magnificent view and the sun sinking slowly across the way.
“Alexa, you should tell Scott about your first skiing lesson.”
Alexa colored. “Oh, Dad. I couldn’t possibly tell him that!”
As Mr. Jones proceeded to tell the story, I watched Alexa swallow her discomfort and giggle along with the rest of us. My father raised a brow at me across the table, as if to say, “this is going well, isn’t it?”
I looked at my plate. The remains of an inordinately expensive dinner looked back at me. I wished myself away from this moment, away from this place.
“Right,” my father said. “I think dessert is coming shortly, so while we’ve got the champagne to hand, I want to make a final toast. To us. The future. Our strong ties strengthening.”
“To the future!” Mr. Jones was enthusiastic. As we all murmured, “the future,” and clinked glasses politely, I found myself wishing I could get up and walk away. I also found my mind straying, as it had been all that day, to the woman I had shared a bed with months ago.
I wonder what Jackie would think of all this? I tried to imagine where she was right now, what she might be doing. It was around nine in the evening, on a Saturday. What did she do on Saturday evenings? What had she cooked for supper? Or had she gone out for a meal, maybe with a new guy, someone who would make her smile the way she had that night beside me?
I didn’t want to imagine her out with another guy, so I abruptly cut off those thoughts, surprising myself. I had slept with her once. It shouldn’t matter to me if she had fifty guys between me and now. I didn’t even know how long it had been since I saw her, though I guessed I could have counted it up.
“Scott?”
“Yes?” I looked up into the brown eyes of Alexa, thick lashes fringing them beautifully. She was lovely, I had to admit. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t simulate some kind of feeling for her. I just couldn’t.
“I wanted to ask you about your travels,” she said. “My father mentioned you were in Singapore last year?”
“I was,” I nodded. “It’s a great place.” I had found it inspiring: clean, technological, organized.
“I don’t know how you do all this traveling,” she said and her lip wrinkled in distaste. “Foreign countries are so…foreign.” she sounded scandalized. I laughed.
“I guess they are. But our way isn’t the only way, right?”
She frowned, as if I’d suddenly spoken Martian. I saw my father make a face across the table, as if to tell me to change topic. I did so.
“What’s your favorite holiday destination?” I asked.
“Oh! The Hamptons…”
As she told me about her most recent vacation, I found my thoughts drifting again to Jackie. I wondered what she would like to talk about. I had a feeling that engines would be part of it. I found myself wishing she was here.
This is stupid. I told myself the same thing stubbornly again. You spent a night with her. You can’t go comparing every girl you meet to her.
But I couldn’t help it.
The supper wore on. After a while, my plate was cleared away and I found myself presented with a trio of amazing desserts in delicate glassware. I sampled them—each was perhaps the size of an egg cup, but intensely flavorful—and watched Alexa tasting hers.
Under any other circumstances, the combination of a pretty girl in a red dress and sweet dessert would have got me going. But something was different today. I was almost impatient with myself. It felt as if my spark plugs needed replacing.
The thought made me grin. I imagined myself in the car, turning the key and turning it and the engine coughing and rattling and dying again. That was how I felt. No matter how much I tried to make myself ignite interest in this girl, nothing happened.
I guess the pressure from Dad would kill just about anything stone dead. I felt his eyes on me as I ate, almost as if he was willing me to do something, say something. I breathed in the scent of rich, exquisite coffee—the coffee had come around with the dessert—and ignored him.
Dinner ended at around ten that evening. I was tired and I followed Dad down to the car, Alexa on my arm. She was walking close, but not too close, keeping a polite distance between her knee and my leg. Her hand was linked to my elbow, her red-painted nails dark against the black of my blazer. I felt sorry for her and I felt sorry for me. We were both trapped.
“Goodnight, Scott,” she said softly. She looked up into my eyes. This close I could smell the sweet floral of her perfume and I could see the moist red lips up close. I bent down and pressed my cheek to hers, first one side, then the other, politely.
“Goodnight, Alexa.”
She looked up into my eyes and I looked down into hers. Our fathers were somewhere else—I could just make out their voices, the soft burr of them as they talked together about something or other. I knew I should kiss her.
I bent down and pressed my lips to hers, a brief contact.
Then she was waving at me and going to join her dad, who had just stepped away from mine and came crunching over the gravel to find her.
When they had gone, roaring off in their car together, I was left facing my dad.
“A successful evening,” he said. He looked up into my eyes. He was tired. I could se
e that. His face was lined and weary and he looked badly in need of sleep.
“It was,” I said softly.
“Son, you really must do me proud,” he said. “I need that guy to like us…so badly.”
I sighed. I nodded. “I know, dad.”
He sighed too. “You could at least kiss her next time.”
“What?” I felt a stab of surprise, of betrayal, in my heart. Had he really watched me? Rated my kissing? What was wrong with this guy? I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what to say and besides, he was walking back across the drive towards the waiting car. It was too late.
I stood where I was, breathing the cool, fragrant evening air and sighed.
I was stuck. I had lost my chance to make a good impression on the one girl who insisted on haunting me. And now I was failing to make a good impression on the one my father chose for me. The one, I thought, with a sinking feeling, he wanted for my wife.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jackie
The local Aldi brought me joy when it first opened—close, well-stocked and convenient, it made grocery shopping so much easier. And there couldn’t have been a time at which I appreciated it more. If I had to drive across town for groceries, I don’t know what I’d do. Getting stuck in traffic with a baby would be unpleasant, to say the least. And more so for them than for me, I reckoned, which wouldn’t be fair.
