Fashionably Late

by Beth Kendrick

  I raised one eyebrow. “So. Connor.”

  “You’re no longer a Rhapsody employee after tonight. Which brings me to my next point: What are you doing this weekend?”

  I stared at him, trying to gauge his intent. Was…was he asking me out?

  “We can ditch this hole-in-the-wall and go celebrate your new career.” He looked at me expectantly.

  He was asking me out. But…

  “But you’re not interested in me that way,” I insisted.

  “Not when you’re engaged and working in my restaurant, no. But now that you’re single and quitting, it’s a whole other ball game. I was thinking we could hike Runyon Canyon…” He waited a few seconds while I considered this. “Or not.”

  Apparently, today was National Whiplash Karmic Reversal Day and no one had marked my calendar. “I’d love to.”

  “Great. Do you have hiking boots?”

  “I have running shoes. Do those count?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Hypothetical question: Did you ever sign a contract and then later wish you hadn’t?” I asked Claire two days later as we slumped into the leather couches at a plush OB/GYN office suite at the UCLA Medical Center.

  “Contracts I’ve regretted?” She balled up her fists. “Two words: marriage license.”

  “Claire, be serious.”

  “I’m dead serious,” she vowed. “Do you know what time I had to get up this morning in order to make coffee at the hell on earth that is Bullseye Business Solutions? And then I find out that it’s inventory week. According to my boss, even though I’m in my first trimester, I should be on my feet for hours on end, counting boxes of legal pads.”

  “So you don’t see this turning into your new career?”

  “What I see myself doing is filing a grievance with the Department of Labor. Forcing a pregnant woman to do manual labor all day? It’s inhuman.”

  “I’m not sure that counting boxes really qualifies as manual labor.”

  The receptionist behind the glass counter glanced over at us, then turned up the adult contemporary music on her desk-side radio while the proud mother-to-be started working herself into a classic Claire Davis hissy fit.

  “Let me explain something to you, Becca. I’m broke, none of my so-called friends will return my calls since Andrew got fired, and I’m putting on weight even though I’ve been puking my guts out every time I catch a whiff of anything food-related. Morning sickness is a bitch all day, and so am I.”

  “All righty then.” I tried to move the conversation briskly along. “Do you think the baby’s a boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t care what it is as long as it doesn’t look like Andrew. Or talk like Andrew. Or punk out on me like Andrew.”

  “You still haven’t returned his calls?”

  “Even if I wanted to call him back, I couldn’t. When I tried to use my cell phone this morning, guess what? That bastard called Sprint and canceled our service!”

  I tried to accentuate the positive. “He’s probably trying to cut down on unnecessary expenses?”

  “You take his side, you die.” Her lips thinned into a white line. “He didn’t even run it by me before cutting off my lifeline to the rest of the world.”

  “How was he supposed to run it by you when you won’t answer his calls?” I asked, raising my arms to ward off the torrent of physical blows that this question would surely elicit.

  “That’s it.” She twisted in her chair, turning her back on me. “You’re now number two on my shit list.”

  The receptionist turned up Celine Dion even louder.

  Finally, a nurse called us into the office, where Claire was pelted with questions about her diet, exercise routines, pregnancy symptoms, and family health history.

  And then, during the ultrasound, the physician asked the most important question of all:

  “Do twins run in your family, Mrs. King? Because I think I see two heartbeats.”

  15

  Okay. You know that scene toward the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where Cameron finds out the bad news about his dad’s Ferrari and goes into, like, a catatonic trance? Well, that pretty much sums up Claire’s response to the two heartbeats.

  “Get out!” I yelled. “Twins! Are you sure?”

  And Claire said…nothing.

  “Well, I’m sure there are two heartbeats,” the doctor confirmed. “Of course, at this early stage in the pregnancy, there is some risk of miscarrying one twin—there’s a phenomenon known as ‘vanishing twin syndrome’—but the chances of that happening after we see the heartbeats are extremely low.”

  And still, Claire said nothing.

  “So she should call you guys if she has any bleeding, anything like that, right?” I asked.

  “Of course. But don’t worry too much.” The doctor smiled. “Carrying multiples doesn’t always mean a more difficult pregnancy, or even more weight gain, although a lot of mothers of twins report very severe morning sickness.”

  “Well, she’s already having that,” I said. “That and bizarre food cravings, like grilled cheese when she practically invented the South Beach Diet. Right, Claire?”

  My sister’s head lolled back against the crinkly white paper covering the exam table, her eyes closed, her brow beaded with sweat.

  “Mrs. King? Are you all right?”

  We all gathered around the table and peered down at her.

  “I think she’s in shock,” I said. “She doesn’t do well with surprises, and she’s had a lot of them in the past few weeks.”

  “Mrs. King?” The doctor cleared his throat. “Do you need a few minutes alone?”

  Her eyes cracked open a fraction of an inch. Her voice, when it finally came, was a strangled whisper. “I need…”

  “What?” We crowded closer. “What do you need?”

  Her eyes popped open as she lunged at the doctor, wrapping both hands around the sleeve of his white lab coat. “I need to know what the hell I’m supposed to do with two babies!”

  The obstetrician attempted to free his sleeve, but resistance was futile. “I know it sounds overwhelming at first—”

  “It’s okay to be scared,” the assistant soothed. “Lots of women break down and cry when they find out they’re having twins. And not tears of joy.”

  “I can recommend numerous resources for information and social support. Los Angeles has several Mothers of Multiples clubs…”

  “You don’t understand!” Her voice took on a shrill note of hysteria. “I don’t have a job. I don’t have a husband. I don’t have a place to live. I cannot have twins.”

  “You do have a husband, actually,” I ventured. “And a job, sort of.”

  She released the doctor and fixed me with a venomous glare. “Shut up, Becca!”

  “Sorry.” I gulped and took a few steps back. “I was trying to make you feel better.”

  “You’re making it worse!”

  “But I only said—”

  “La la la, I’m not listening!” She clamped her hands over her ears. “Everything you say sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher.”

  The doctor, the nurse, and the ultrasound technician exchanged glances. A scant ten minutes later, Claire was dressed, given some cursory advice about avoiding saunas and strenuous exercise, and booted out of the waiting room.

  “I can’t believe how rude you were to that doctor,” she snapped as we headed down the hall to the building’s parking lot.

  “Me? You were the one who regressed to kindergarten.”

  She gasped.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset, but don’t take it all out on me. You can’t just use me as your punching bag every time you get mad at Andrew.”

  She whirled around to face me, her face puffy and red. “You have done a personality one-eighty since you broke up with Kevin and frankly, it’s not an improvement. You used to be the cutest, sweetest little sister, but you are becoming a…you are just turning into a…”

  “A woman with a spine?”
I led the way to her SUV and waited for her to unlock it.

  “No.” She opened the car doors, climbed in, and slammed her side shut. “A pain in my ass.”

  “And you’re a pain in mine. Unfortunately, we’re blood kin, so we’re stuck with each other.”

  “Don’t remind me.” She stroked her stomach. “And these poor kids’ll be stuck with me, too.” Then she fastened her seatbelt and burst into tears.

  The waterworks subsided to a mere trickle by the time we reached her house, but the melodrama ratcheted right back up when we pulled into the driveway.

  There was barely room to park behind the enormous U-Haul truck that Andrew, Connor, and a few other burly men were filling up with boxes, bulging green trash bags, and the art deco furniture Claire had so painstakingly selected from galleries and antique stores over the past six months.

  Connor, who, I couldn’t help noticing, looked good enough to do J.Crew print ads in his blue jeans and T-shirt, turned and waved at me.

  Then he got a load of Claire’s expression and his smile evaporated.

  “What is the meaning of this?” She left the driver’s side door open as she stomped over to the U-Haul.

  “We have to move and you wouldn’t call me back.” Andrew seemed completely unfazed. “So I called my buddies to help us out.”

  “Us? There is no us!”

  “Claire. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss this.”

  “Then where should we discuss it? In the cardboard box we’ll be living in on the street corner?”

  “I’ve rented us a very nice apartment in Van Nuys, and the landlord has generously agreed to let us move in before the first of next month. At least wait until you see it before you start hating it.”

  For a second, I was afraid she would pass out right there in the driveway. “You’re really going to force the mother of your children to live in Van Nuys?”

  “We’ve already discussed this.” He paused to select a bottle of beer from the six-pack resting on the truck’s back bumper. “I grew up in the Valley, and I turned out just fine.”

  “That is a matter of opinion.”

  Connor and the other moving buddies huddled by the front of the van and feigned fascination with the hedges lining the house. I hastened to join them.

  “Angry pregnant women scare the bejesus outta me,” confided a guy in khaki shorts whom I recognized as a groomsman from Claire and Andrew’s wedding.

  “This is why I’m never getting married,” whispered another guy in a Boston Red Sox cap. “Sounds just like my parents when I was a kid.”

  “Did your parents get through it?” asked Khaki Shorts guy.

  “Nah. Ugly divorce, ugly custody battle, ugly new step-parents. But the good news is, my sisters and I paid for some shrink’s summer house in Tahoe.”

  Halfway through Red Sox’s hushed deconstruction of his lingering abandonment issues, Claire broke out the heavy artillery.

  Andrew’s patience seemed to be wearing thin. “Honey, you know I love you and I want to give you the best of everything. But right now, we’re going to have to reevaluate and live within our means. So we have two choices: move into this apartment for the next few months or go live with my mom until the baby comes. Which is it going to be?”

  During the long, loaded pause that followed, Connor, Khaki Shorts, Red Sox, and I exchanged terrified glances. What should we do if she started bludgeoning him with her deactivated cell phone?

  She smiled icily. “Babies. I had my first ultrasound today.”

  “You did?” Andrew said. I winced at the raw hurt in his voice. “You went to the appointment without me?”

  “That’s right.” She didn’t sound the least bit contrite. “And guess what? There were two heartbeats. As in twins. As in double the work, double the sleep deprivation, double the financial crisis.”

  Dropped jaws, bugged-out eyes, and double takes all around on our side of the U-Haul.

  “We’re having twins! Did you hear that?” Andrew hollered over to his cowering moving team. “Twins. Who is the man?”

  There was a loud smacking sound, which must have been him planting a big wet one on Claire, because she stopped lambasting him long enough to squeal girlishly. But then she got right back to business with, “So how are we going to support all these children your manly loins produced? Your sperm are writing checks your body can’t cash.”

  “Oh, angel, come on, smile! Twins!” Andrew sounded like he was about to float away on a fluffy pink cloud. “This is great news! Money comes and goes, but family…that’s forever.”

  “Okay, if I didn’t already have morning sickness, I’d be puking my guts out from that line alone.”

  “Ooh.” Red Sox flinched. “Flashbacks to fourth grade. I’m gonna have to get back into therapy. Good-bye, new Porsche.”

  “We should celebrate!” Andrew peered around the side of the van and waved to us. “You can stop hiding and pretending you’re not hanging onto every word we say. Come on inside, I’ll open a bottle of wine. And a bottle of apple juice for my beautiful bride.”

  But the innocent bystanders were not about to be suckered into another marital maelstrom. We were shocked, we were frazzled, and at least one of us was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

  “I gotta go, man.” Red Sox practically sprinted for his car. “I can’t handle this.”

  Connor touched my elbow and tilted his head toward his car. “Want to go find something less scary to do for the rest of the afternoon?”

  “Like what? Enlist for active combat? Referee a street fight?”

  He smiled. “Grab a bite to eat? Come marvel at the wreckage that is my new house?”

  “Ah yes.” I winked. “I believe I’ve heard about this house.”

  “So my reputation precedes me.” He had a small dimple on one side when he smiled. How had I not noticed that before? “It’s a thrashed old fixer-upper by the beach. It needs a little TLC, but it has lots of character. I’m doing most of the remodeling myself.”

  “When on earth do you have time to fix up a house?” I demanded. “With all the restaurant work, side businesses, sky diving, kayaking, slacklining, et cetera?”

  “There’s always time for a quick detour to Home Depot. So what do you say? Want to come check it out?”

  “I see where this is going.” I nodded knowingly. “We’ll get to your place, you’ll invite me up to see your etchings, next thing you know, I’m a fallen woman all alone in the harsh light of day and you have mascara smeared on your pillowcases.” If I was lucky.

  He seemed very intrigued by the picture I painted. “Tell you what. Come give a clueless bachelor some free decorating advice and I’ll buy you dinner.”

  I pretended to think this over. “Well…”

  “What if I told you that you must know kung-fu because, baby, your body kicks ass?”

  “I’d say, how can I resist such chivalrous gallantry?”

  “You can’t. So let’s away, shall we? My chariot awaits.”

  “I think I preferred the kung-fu line.”

  16

  Wow,” I breathed. “Color me covetous.”

  Connor had somehow gotten his hands on a cottage in Venice Beach, an oceanside community with bohemian ambiance and sky-high property prices. Venice was where people like Julia Roberts bought a house when they wanted to feel low-key and down-to-earth. Claire would’ve loved this neighborhood.

  Aside from the occasional fetid stench wafting off the canal water when the wind changed, his house was a designer’s dream. Lots of light, lots of warm-toned wood, lots of big windows and interesting angles. It didn’t matter that some of the rooms had wires spilling out of walls, exposed studs, and a distinct lack of drywall—this place was bursting with potential. Add to that the soothing murmur of the ocean and the cool Pacific breezes and you had a recipe for raging domicile envy.

  “Just as I suspected,” I said as he ushered me into a living room featuring water-stained hardwood f
loors and a retro stone fireplace. “You lured me here to assist in some laborious Home Depot project, didn’t you? Listen, I don’t know nothing about installing no ceiling tiles. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  He snapped his fingers, foiled again. “You’re nothing but a tease.”

  “I’m an old-fashioned girl: ‘Never renovate on the first date.’ But, if you’re a gentleman, I might deign to paint a baseboard or two at the end of the night.”

  “Ooh, that’s hot.” He turned his attention back to the ceiling. “I was thinking about doing pressed copper tiles up there. What do you think?”

  “Interesting.” I studied the gaping holes in the drywall. “What colors are you planning to use for the walls and the furniture?”

  “No idea. That’s why I’m trying to cadge free advice from you.”

  “Honesty. I like that in a man.”

  “I’ll show you the rest of the house, such as it is. I’m open to any and all ideas.”

  He led me down the hall and paused with his hand on the last door on the left. “Brace yourself.”

  I nodded. “Braced.”

  The door swung open, and there it was…the bedroom. Connor’s inner sanctum. Built-in bookshelves crammed with hardcovers, two bulky leather armchairs facing off over a blue Oriental rug, a huge window offering a breathtaking view of the ocean. But the space seemed to be missing something. Specifically, the bed seemed to be missing something.

  The king-size bed with its brown leather headboard had only one pillow, and I couldn’t help noticing that the gray comforter draped on the bed had been hacked in two, with one half inexplicably missing.

  “Connor?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happened here?”

  “Meena happened.”

  “Wait. Aimee said that she went on some sort of rampage, but this is…” I stepped over to the bed and gathered up some frayed threads fringing the edge of the comforter. “Why did the Calvin Klein linens have to die?”

  “I believe she was making a point.” He looked like the traumatized witness to a twenty-car pileup whenever he discussed Meena, I’d noticed. “I let her move in a few weeks before we broke up, and I think she took that as a sign that an engagement ring was imminent. When I asked her to move out, she may have seen it as a symbolic divorce.”