The Big Bang

by Linda Joffe Hull

  In the meantime, she was having the most picture-perfect day ever.

  She’d woken up to wonderful, indescribable probability. Floated down the stairs to not have coffee. Opened the front door to get the paper, only to discover a loosely tied bouquet of lilies on the front steps. The thank you card, along with a check for the invoice Tim insisted be left on the desk in his office, was as gratifying as she could have imagined.

  Hope,

  Wonderful doesn’t even begin to describe the presentation that awaited us when we returned home yesterday. Paint swatches lined up and number coded with coordinating fabrics and curtain choices, accessories printed up and organized by price, totally self-explanatory design notebook, and that sample of the flowers along the baseboard blew me away. Theresa is beyond delighted.

  Thanks SO much,

  Tim

  The day only improved from there.

  After carefully watching her heart rate at muscle conditioning class and a lunch she capped off with ice cream, she headed out to check on the plant material deliveries at the various playground sites. Under the bluest of skies, replete with puffy clouds and a cool breeze, she oversaw the nursery people as they set the trees, shrubs, and larger plants exactly where they were to be planted the next morning.

  The youth group teens arrived right after school to plant the flowerbeds. Any concerns she might still have had about Will Pierce-Cohn being angry with her for getting involved with the playground or quitting the HOB because of her actions vanished when his son, Tyler, showed up with a winning smile and a willingness to do whatever she asked—especially when it meant working alongside that darling Lauren Trautman.

  Lauren had rushed over to tell her how totally adorable the nursery plans were, what an amazing surprise it was for her mother, and how her own bedroom was on the list for Hope’s next job. Frank stood beside her under the gazebo while Lauren gushed, nodding approval, but remained mesmerized with the emerging view of their soon-to-be-completed project. The rest of the afternoon was a happy blur of planting, imagining which of the teens her own someday teenage son or daughter would most resemble, and watching her plans morph into a beautiful, blooming reality.

  By six, after checking off on all the sites and sending the kids to the rec center for a pizza party, she simply stood for a few quiet minutes and admired just how beautiful all the playgrounds, but especially the one directly opposite her front door, truly were.

  A playground outside her front door.

  By six-thirty, she was at the rec center standing beside Frank once again and inhaling a slice of gooey, cheese pizza.

  Craving more as she ate.

  She gobbled her second slice trying not to count down the thirteen minutes until seven, when her urine would definitely be concentrated enough to reveal the distinct pink line. Frank patted her lightly on the back, stood beside her, and whistled to get everyone’s attention.

  The room quieted down to a rustle of chewing and soda swilling.

  “How about a round of applause to Hope for her landscaping brilliance and to the rest of us for a job well done?” Frank paused for the clapping. “I really want to thank you all for today and I want to thank you in advance for your continuing efforts for Memorial Weekend.”

  The kids clapped for themselves again.

  “I made two promises in exchange for your help. The first, extra funds for your operating budget, which have already been deposited in your account.” Over the wolf whistles, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Rec center jobs will be filled by the following youth group members: Facilities—Garrett Dines, Sports and Rec—Erin Cohen, Hannah Hunt, and for lifeguards—Heather McDaniel and Lauren Trautman.

  “What about me?” Eva Griffin asked.

  “I have one more very special announcement,” Frank said.

  Hope wasn’t sure what was more telling, his beaming smile or the expectant look on his daughter’s face.

  “I am extremely proud to announce that Eva Griffin was nominated and accepted to Young Crusaders for Christ Summer Institute, perhaps the preeminent young Christian Leaders Camp in the country.”

  ***

  “We were starting to think you ran away or something,” one of the twins said as Eva finally made her way into the girls’ bathroom.

  “Practically did to get away from my effing lame father.” Eva choked back an angry tear, dipped her finger in Hannah’s pot of Hard Candy lip-gloss, rubbed her lips together, and checked her reflection in the mirror. “I had to tell him I got my period to shut him up from going on about the honor of getting to go to that bullshit camp. Then, my mom followed me halfway down the hall babbling how everything is going to work out, as though she believes it or something.”

  “You okay?” Hannah asked.

  “He can walk all over my mom, but he’s not gonna step on me.” The fact that Lauren chose that moment to emerge from the center stall and head for the trough sink without daring to look up didn’t help matters any. “I know our next spell.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re going to get rid of my dad.”

  Libby’s eyes grew annoying huge. “Kill him?”

  “A riddance spell, not a death spell.”

  “My bad,” she said. “But isn’t that like a totally advanced spell?”

  “We’re skipping the third spell and doubling our power into the fourth.”

  “What happened to the second one?”

  “Did it myself,” Eva mumbled.

  “Tyler’s not going to go for that.” Margaret looked at Lauren for confirmation, like she was his official mouthpiece now. “Is he?”

  “He doesn’t have a choice,” Eva said before Lauren could answer.

  “What if the spell doesn’t work?”

  The door to the bathroom squealed open and next thing she knew, Hope Jordan was standing next to them looking like she’d been part of the conversation all along.

  “Cover-up.” Eva looked into Lauren’s makeup bag. “Do you have any? The lights in here make me look dead.”

  “Think so,” Lauren said, digging in her purse.

  Hope smiled, but disappeared into a stall without a word.

  Margaret flashed the Oh, shit look.

  My dad must have sent her, Eva mouthed.

  “It’s all cool. She’s cool,” Margaret whispered over the sounds of a purse zipper and the rustle of jeans coming down or whatever. “I was watching the door.”

  A pained sigh came from Hope’s stall.

  “Lauren, your eyeliner is so awesome!” Eva said quickly in her most normal, carefree voice. “What kind is it?”

  “Stila.” Lauren still looked stunned but managed to play along. “The color is…”

  “Hey,” Hope’s voice cracked as it filtered through the room, like she was super pissed or about to say she’d heard what Margaret claimed she couldn’t possibly have heard.

  “You sure?” Eva whispered to Margaret.

  “Do any of you have a spare tampon?” Hope asked.

  Part II

  DEAD

  RABBITS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  General Provision 9.6. Common Property: Certain areas are designated as common property intended for the common use and enjoyment of the owners for their recreation and other related activities.

  Hope celebrated day fourteen of her cycle and the start of Memorial Weekend with a bottle of Gatorade, a ride on her spinning bike, and an unopened ovulation predictor kit for company. Like every morning for the past two weeks, the length of her indoor journey was indefinite.

  Jim called an hour and a half into the trip.

  “Things are going amazingly well here,” he said.

  She twisted the tension knob on her bike upward.

  “The president of the company took me out for drinks and confided there are some additional issues he thinks only I can straighten out.”

  “Quite a compliment,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.” Jim
’s excitement was palpable. “Thing is, I’m going to have to push my return date out a little, so I can tour two of the distribution centers.”

  She gave the knob another half-twist higher. “What do you mean by a little?”

  “I rebooked my flight for the eighth.”

  She sighed, partly with relief. He’d still be back long before her next ovulation.

  “Honey, I know the timing of this job’s been really hard on you, but if things go the way I’m thinking, my recommendations may help this company keep from laying off anyone but obsolete employees.” He paused. “I could end up as the go-to guy for economic downturn restructuring.”

  “That’s great. Really great.” She took a calming sip of Gatorade. “It’s just—”

  “Why don’t we plan some kind of getaway together the weekend I’m back? Maybe drive up to Aspen or head down to Santa Fe? Whatever you want.”

  “Won’t you be too jet lagged to want to go anywhere else?”

  “I’ll have to run to Dallas early that next week to do some number crunching with the officers of the stateside parent company.” He paused. “So there’s no point settling in.”

  “I don’t like being apart so much,” she said.

  “You have to keep in mind how lucky we are that I even have a job with all the downsizing going on.”

  “I know,” she said, “and, I’ve been working my ass off to fill the time and keep my mind off… It’s just that once I got my period…”

  “Honey …”

  She loosened the tension knob to a flat spin. “Just come home and make me pregnant.”

  The whir of the spinning wheels beneath her filled the silence that followed.

  “Hope,” he finally said. “The job’s been extended.”

  The dreaded butterflies fluttering in her stomach mixed with the adrenaline rushing through her system and settled in her thighs.

  “I promise, this isn’t going to be as bad as it sounds. You’ll come here. I’ll be back and forth. We’ll figure it out.”

  She pulled the brake on her bike and put her head on the handlebars. “For how long?”

  “Possibly end of the year.”

  She began to cry.

  “Hope, I’m going to be home at least one week a month.”

  “Ovulation week?”

  “If not, I stipulated they have to fly you out every other month.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “Assuming I can schedule around what’s going on at the job site and the home office.”

  “You have to.”

  With his pause, a bead of sweat traveled from the nape of her neck down her spine. “Starting when?”

  “I need to be back in London on the seventeenth.”

  “But I’m not ovulating until the following week.”

  “I have no choice,” he said.

  “No, you don’t,” she said.

  “Hope,” he exhaled heavily. “I can’t make the job of getting you pregnant get me fired from my real job.”

  “Then I’ll fly back with you.”

  “I’ll be working fourteen-hour days.”

  “And I’ll be there to make sure you eat and rest and—”

  “And get you pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “One month isn’t going to change anything.”

  “Feels like everything.”

  “Damn it, Hope. Why does this have to be so damn hard?”

  “I ask myself the same thing almost every day.” The lump in her throat dissolved into another sob.

  “Can’t we do the best we can, and if nothing happens, start up again first of the year?”

  “I thought you wanted a baby, too?”

  “I want less stress about the whole thing. I’m starting to wonder if that’s the reason you’re not pregnant yet.”

  “I’m starting to wonder why you’re not more stressed.”

  “Can’t you be a little more patient?”

  “I’ve been patient for years.”

  “I want to feel like having a baby isn’t a total obsession.”

  “I want to be pregnant so badly.”

  “I want to feel like sex isn’t a job. I want to be able to enjoy it again.”

  “And I don’t want, can’t, talk about this anymore, right now.” She hung up and slid off the bike.

  She crossed the basement, stopped at the wet bar, and pulled the Gray Goose from the shelf. The phone was already ringing again before she’d finished filling her half-empty Gatorade bottle with vodka.

  ***

  Turn lemons into lemonade.

  All Frank thought while Laney, whom he’d just hung up with, raged over Randall Fowler’s last-minute ribbon cutting cancellation. He’d been looking for the right opportunity to call Hope for almost two weeks and suddenly had it.

  “I have nothing more to say to you right now,” Hope said by way of hello when he did.

  She’d shown up the morning after the pizza party and fulfilled her duty to oversee the final stages of the planting, then turned back for her house and all but disappeared. He’d called, had Maryellen stop by with candy, went so far as to question Tim Trautman, who reported getting the same vague doing fine, thanks message she’d left for him. He’d about run out of ideas for trying to connect with her until Laney called about Randall’s ribbon-cutting bailout.

  Turn lemons into lemonade.

  “But what would you say if I told you I have an offer you can’t refuse?”

  he asked.

  There was an extended pause, presumably where Hope checked her caller ID. “Frank?”

  “Sorry if I caught you at a bad time.”

  “I’m sorry. I was expecting, thought, you were Jim.”

  “I suspect I’m glad I’m not—at the moment, anyway.”

  Hope started to cry.

  “Anything I can do to help?” he asked after a respectful pause.

  “I don’t know how anyone can help,” she said through intensifying tears. “Jim’s job in London’s been extended.”

  “For how long?”

  “End of the year, maybe.”

  “I see,” he said, processing the implications and, despite her opinion to the contrary, opportunities to help.

  Her sobs sounded animalistic with pain.

  “Hope,” he said after letting her cry it out. “I know it’s hard to imagine at the moment, but the most impossible situations have a miraculous way of working out.”

  “Not if Jim doesn’t even want to try to get pregnant until his job’s over.”

  “That what he said?”

  “If I’d known this was how it was going to be, I’d probably be in L.A. or San Francisco or… maybe not even married.”

  “You are where you’re supposed to be.”

  “Waiting for nothing to happen?”

  “The Lord always has a plan,” Frank said.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  He waited until the crying that followed eased up.

  “From my experience, the more challenging the situation the more magnificent His larger plan.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “Maybe you already are.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “The timing of my call.”

  She sniffled. “How’s that?”

  “Randall Fowler had a last-minute meeting and cancelled out for this morning.”

  “Isn’t the ribbon cutting in less than two hours?”

  “An hour and forty-five, to be exact,” he said. “Which is why I called you to do the honors.”

  “You want me to ribbon cut?”

  “Considering how many compliments I’ve already gotten about the playgrounds, I should have asked you in the first place.”

  “I’m flattered,” she said.

  “Can I take that as a yes?”

  She took what sounded like another sip of whatever she was drinking. “After Jim’s news, I don’t know how I could possibly—”

&n
bsp; “Miss the chance to be recognized for your landscaping skill among appreciative neighbors, many of whom are obligated by covenant to complete their yards by summer?”

  “I’m afraid growing my business isn’t my biggest priority.”

  “If Jim has to be out of town for the rest of the year, filling unwanted down time may well be.”

  He couldn’t take her silence as agreement, but at least she seemed to be considering what he’d said. “Hope, I know The Lord guided both the timing and purpose of my call.”

  “Even if that’s true, I don’t know if I can get myself together enough to—”

  “Her sentence was interrupted by the telltale blip of a call waiting on her end of the line.

  “That’s Jim.”

  The phone blipped again.

  “Don’t you need to answer?”

  “I can’t face talking to him right now.”

  Another blip.

  “I need to get my head around things a little.”

  Instead of switching over to talk to him, she began to cry softly.

  “Will he keep calling until you answer?”

  “Most likely.”

  The call waiting tone blipped once again.

  “You won’t hear the phone if you’re across the street enjoying a calming sip or two of champagne.”

  ***

  Eva set aside one bottle of champagne, combined the partially full case with a half case of kid-friendly Martinelli’s sparkling cider, and loaded it atop the other boxes on her dolly. “Where’s Heather?”

  “Bathroom,” Libby said. “She’ll be back in a sec.”

  “Better be. We have to have all this loaded into your mom’s car and over to the playground in fifteen minutes or—”

  “Or my mom will flip,” Margaret said. “She’s been pissed off and bat shit crazy all morning.”

  Heather reappeared in the rec kitchen by her dolly.

  “Back just in time.” She glanced sideways at Tyler. “What about Lauren?”