When You Least Expect It

by Whitney Gaskell

  “Hi,” Lainey said flatly.

  “Staying with you?” Mimi turned to look at India for further explanation. India looked from Mimi to Lainey, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

  “They’re adopting my baby,” Lainey announced. But this didn’t seem to clarify matters for Mimi and Leo. They gaped at her with twin expressions of incomprehension.

  “You’re having a baby?” Mimi finally asked.

  “I’m pregnant,” Lainey clarified. “They’re going to adopt it after it’s born.”

  Mimi gasped, spun around, and pulled India into a hug. “You didn’t tell me you’d found a birth mother!”

  “It all happened very quickly. Just today,” India said.

  “No wonder you forgot about dinner!” Mimi turned to look at Lainey again. “And you’re staying here? For the duration of your pregnancy?”

  Lainey wasn’t sure what Mimi meant. “Until I have the baby,” she said.

  “Is that common? For the birth mother to live with the adoptive parents, I mean,” Mimi asked India.

  Jeremy shook his head. “No. Highly unusual, in fact.”

  “It’s a creative solution,” India said. “Lainey needed someplace to live, and we have the guesthouse.”

  “I thought you work back there?” Leo asked Jeremy.

  “Worked. Past tense,” Jeremy said.

  “Ah,” Leo said. “Sore subject?”

  “Of course not,” India interjected. “Anyway, why are we all standing at the door? Come in, have a drink.”

  “Why don’t we go, and we’ll just do this another night,” Mimi offered. “You have enough on your plate at the moment without having to feed us.”

  “Absolutely not,” India said. “I’ll just send Jeremy out for some extra steaks. We have more than enough of everything else. Besides, we should celebrate having Lainey here with us!”

  Lainey had never been to a dinner party before. There had been some family barbecues over the years, where everyone drank too much and someone always ended up starting a fight.

  Dinner that first night at the Halloways’ house couldn’t have been more different. They ate in the dining room, used cloth napkins, and wine was served with the meal. The wine actually caused a tense standoff, when Jeremy offered Lainey a glass and India sharply reminded him that Lainey couldn’t drink. Mimi chipped in that she’d indulged in the occasional glass of wine while pregnant, until Leo caught her eye and shook his head slightly. Lainey rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t want any wine. I don’t drink,” Lainey announced.

  “What, never?” Mimi asked. She leaned forward, intrigued.

  “Never. It makes you bloat,” Lainey explained.

  “Lainey’s planning to go into the entertainment industry,” India explained. “She’s saving up to move to Los Angeles.”

  “Really? What are you going to do there?” Mimi asked.

  “I’m going to star in a reality television show,” Lainey said.

  Mimi looked impressed. “Wow! Which one?”

  Lainey immediately regretted announcing her plans. She felt stupid now, having to admit, “I don’t know yet. I’m going to audition once I get there.”

  Mimi studied her. “I could definitely see you on one of those shows,” she said, twirling her wineglass.

  This was the first time anyone had ever said this to Lainey. “Really?”

  “Absolutely. I bet you’re really photogenic. You have great features. Very well defined.”

  “Thanks,” Lainey said. She suddenly realized that everyone was looking at her. She stared down at her plate, feeling like she couldn’t catch her breath.

  Her dining companions seemed to sense her discomfort. Mimi spooned a dollop of mashed potatoes on her plate and said, “We went to the movies last weekend.”

  “What did you see?” Jeremy asked, obviously eager to change the subject.

  “Some weird French film. It was called La Dame en Bleu.”

  “You didn’t like it?” India asked.

  “No, it was terrible. It had subtitles, and, as you know, I have a very strict rule against subtitles,” Mimi said, waving her fork in emphasis. “I don’t go to the movies to read.”

  “Philistine,” Leo said, smiling at his wife. “I liked it better than Mimi. It was French, so of course it ended in madness and death.”

  “This is one of those areas where Leo and I will never agree. He likes depressing films. I prefer my movies to have happy endings,” Mimi said.

  “Mimi likes car chases and explosions,” Leo added.

  Mimi nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right. And lots of sex, too.”

  “I like anything from the eighties. That was the golden era of Hollywood moviemaking,” India said.

  “What are you talking about? Isn’t that when Porky’s came out?” Leo asked, laughing at her.

  “Okay, that was a terrible movie,” India admitted. “I was thinking more along the lines of Heathers and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

  “Oh, I love Ferris!” Mimi agreed. “The eighties are also when all of those great Tom Cruise movies came out: All the Right Moves, Risky Business, Top Gun.”

  “I’m going to have to stop you there,” Jeremy cut in. “Top Gun? Terrible movie.”

  “And totally gay,” Leo said.

  “Gay? How is Top Gun gay?” Mimi demanded. “It had that yummy scene between Tom Cruise and what’s-her-name.”

  “Kelly McGillis,” India said.

  Mimi pointed at her. “Yes! Thank you.”

  “Totally gay,” Leo said. “Right, Jeremy?”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with your husband on this one,” Jeremy said.

  “Are you serious?” Mimi exclaimed.

  “The locker room scene with Maverick and Iceman,” Leo said. “You could tell they were about thirty seconds away from dropping their towels,” Leo said. “And Kelly McGillis was a virtual man.”

  “Actually, I read a theory somewhere,” Jeremy began.

  “Somewhere?” India repeated.

  “Fine. I read it on the Internet,” Jeremy admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Anyway, this—” he cleared his throat, “—source theorized that Top Gun is actually an allegory about Maverick choosing between a heterosexual path, symbolized by Kelly McGillis’s character, and a homosexual life, symbolized by Iceman and Goose.”

  “You are totally ruining this movie for me,” Mimi complained.

  Jeremy and Leo sniggered, but India continued with her thesis. “Anyway, the eighties was the era of John Hughes. Weird Science. Uncle Buck. And, most importantly of all, the Molly Trilogy.”

  Lainey had no idea what any of them were talking about. At least she’d heard of Tom Cruise and Top Gun, although she’d never seen the movie. But who was John Hughes? And what was the Molly Trilogy? Not that she was about to ask. Instead, she forked another piece of steak in her mouth, even though her appetite had vanished, replaced by another wave of nausea.

  “The Molly Trilogy!” Mimi repeated in rapturous tones. “Those were the best movies.”

  “Chick flicks,” Jeremy said.

  “Trilogy?” Leo frowned. “Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink … what was the third?”

  “Isn’t she … pretty in pink,” Jeremy sang, while pouring himself another glass of wine.

  Lainey glanced sideways and caught India studying her. India smiled encouragingly. Lainey stared back down at her plate. The steak was oozing bloody red juices onto the plate. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly.

  “The Breakfast Club, of course,” Mimi said.

  “The Breakfast Club,” Leo repeated. His thick eyebrows drew down. “But that wasn’t really a Molly Ringwald movie. It was more of an ensemble cast.”

  “She was one of the leads,” Mimi said.

  “The greatest movie of the eighties is not in dispute,” Jeremy announced.

  “He’s going to say This Is Spinal Tap,” India muttered to Mimi, who rolled her eyes.

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nbsp; “This Is Spinal Tap,” Jeremy said, raising his wineglass in a toast to the table.

  “See?” India said.

  “Boy movie,” Mimi said. “If a girl movie is a chick flick, what do they call boy movies? Dick flicks?”

  “My high school boyfriend made me watch Spinal Tap fifteen times,” India said.

  “One time is too many,” Mimi said. She smiled at Lainey. “Don’t you agree, Lainey? Boy movie, right?”

  “I never heard of it,” Lainey said.

  Her four dining companions stared at her.

  “Are you serious?” Leo asked.

  India quickly came to Lainey’s defense. “It was way before her time.”

  “If you’re going to live here, we’re going to have to remedy this deficiency in your education immediately,” Jeremy said.

  “The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the—” Leo began singing. He stopped abruptly. “Ow! Did you just kick me?” he asked Mimi, affronted.

  Mimi raised her eyebrows and tilted her head toward Lainey. “Considering we’ve just met Lainey, I think now is not the time to sing pornographic lyrics in front of her, honey.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Leo said to Lainey.

  Lainey nodded and shrugged. She still had no idea what they were talking about. And the pressure of trying to keep up, to make some sense out of the conversation, was exhausting.

  “Not that my wife will believe this—she thinks that I like only foreign movies with subtitles,” Leo began.

  “Depressing foreign movies,” Mimi interrupted. “Particularly ones that are meant to be deeply profound, but really just don’t make any sense at all. They’re cinematic versions of those modern paintings that are just a blank canvas with a black dot in the middle and everyone thinks that this somehow makes them deep.”

  Leo continued, ignoring her. “But I’ve always been partial to Bill Murray’s earlier work: Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack.”

  India and Mimi both groaned and began to argue with the men. But Lainey couldn’t take it anymore. She stood abruptly. All conversation came to a sudden halt as the Halloways and Carreras stared up at her.

  “I’m tired. I’m going to go back to my room,” Lainey said.

  “Of course,” India said quickly.

  “I was the same way during my pregnancies. I could never stay awake past eight o’clock,” Mimi sympathized.

  “Do you need anything? Do you want to take a brownie back with you?” India asked, also standing.

  Lainey wondered if India was planning on escorting her back to the guesthouse. “No, I’m fine. I just want to go to sleep.” Her stomach gave another queasy shift.

  “Good night,” everyone chorused.

  “Nice to meet you,” Mimi said.

  Lainey, turning to leave, didn’t respond. She was fairly sure that if she opened her mouth, she’d throw up right there, in the middle of the living room.

  Six

  JEREMY

  I hated working in the dining room. It was too open, too exposed. Every time India walked by, or Lainey went into the kitchen to scrounge around for snacks, or Otis scratched himself, I was interrupted. Writing fiction requires a suspension of reality—you have to submerge yourself in your made-up world in order to create it. It was impossible to do this with the constant distractions.

  So I did the only thing I really could do under the circumstances: I spent most of my time surfing the Internet. I was particularly fascinated to discover a sci-fi fan site that had a message board dedicated to my series, Future Race. The board was called FutureRaceFanatics, and had two dozen posters, including at least five who seemed to be regular commentators. They discussed all manner of Future Race lore—characters, plotlines, speculation on future books. The amazing thing was that these readers had found all sorts of symbolism in the books that I hadn’t consciously placed there.

  My favorite poster went by the handle HippyChick and had a grinning skull with a bowtie as her avatar. She posted things like:

  HippyChick: Book Four just proves what a GENIUS Jeremy Halloway really is!!!! I especially loved how Acton turned out to be the killer! I actually gasped out loud when I read that, because I was sure that Yael—the guy with three arms—was going to turn out to be the bad guy! I also loved how it foreshadowed the Griff/Juliet romance of Book Five. I’m so hoping that they’ll stay together, even though their differential DNA means that they won’t be able to have kids.

  She also defended me from detractors. One poster—Xerxon—posted the message board equivalent of a drive-by shooting, calling Book Five—The Battle at Quad Vector-Nine—“a derivative, wholly unoriginal series that rips off both X-Men and The Terminator and yet isn’t half as interesting as either.” HippyChick took him out with a flamethrower:

  HippyChick: Only a COMPLETE MORON could read these BRILLIANT books and call them UNORIGINAL!!!! Obviously you don’t have the BRAINS to grasp the complexities of a series like Future Race!!!! Ugh, I won’t even waste my time on you. Go back to your comic books, and stay off our boards, you TROLL!!!!!!!

  I liked her spunk. I considered posting on the boards, and thanking them for their kind words and support, but decided against it. I didn’t want to be caught Googling myself. It lacked dignity.

  The phone ringing interrupted my cyber-sneaking. I made sure to close the browser before answering, in case India or Lainey came in and saw what I was reading. It was yet another downside to working in the dining room—my computer screen was in full view for anyone passing by to see. It wasn’t like I spent my time surfing porn sites, but it reminded me unpleasantly of what it had been like to work in an office—always having to be on edge that your boss would walk in at any moment and catch you goofing off. The whole point of being self-employed was the freedom to slack without censure.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hey, yourself,” a familiar voice said. It was my brother, Peter. He was two years older, worked in the thrilling field of podiatry, and lived in Jacksonville, less than a mile away from our parents’ house. Whenever I spoke to Peter, and he brought up his new car, or flat-screen television, or the trip he was taking with his dimwitted wife, Stacey, I tried to remind myself of how I, too, had once had a lucrative job—soul-sucking, it was true, but lucrative, or at least more lucrative than my current career—and had given it up to live my dream of being a writer. It always made me feel a bit better, at least right up until my monthly mortgage statement arrived.

  “What’s up with you? Anything new?” Peter asked. And then, without waiting for a response, he continued, “Stacy and I have some big news!”

  I knew what he was going to say even before he completed his announcement.

  “Break out the cigars, little bro! Stacey’s pregnant!”

  “Wow. Congratulations,” I said, wondering if there was any possible way I could hide my sister-in-law’s pregnancy, along with the future child, from India.

  “It’s crazy, isn’t it? Can you believe it? Me, a dad,” Peter said. “Mom’s ecstatic. She’s already going crazy buying crap for the baby, and we don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl yet.”

  So our mother knew. That meant it would only be a matter of time—days, certainly, maybe even hours—until India found out. I sighed. I was going to have to break the news to her before my mother got to her first.

  ———

  When India arrived home, I followed her into our bedroom, where she was swapping her black knit top and khakis for a T-shirt and faded denim cutoffs. I sat down on the edge of the bed, watching her change.

  “I had the most amazing idea today. It just came to me while I was doing a shoot at the beach,” India said, as she pulled a T-shirt with the caption THAT’S HOW I ROLL screen printed across the chest. “It was a mom-and-daughter portrait. The little girl was about three, and her mom was pregnant. It was pretty cute. The girl was wearing a pink and green sundress, and the mom was wearing green jeans with a pink polo,” India said. “It gave me the most amazing idea for a show.”
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br />   “Portraits of people wearing color-coordinated outfits?” I asked. “Preppies on the beach?”

  “Pregnant women!” India said. “I’m going to do a series of tummy portraits.”

  “Tummy portraits?” I repeated, suddenly picturing photos of naked women with swollen stomachs and heavy, pendulous breasts.

  “A lot of photographers are doing them. Ever since Demi Moore posed pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair, it’s become popular among women, even regular suburban moms, to have a pregnancy portrait taken. I haven’t done a lot of them myself, but I was thinking it would be a great area to branch into. I could do a whole series and then have a show at my studio. Who knows, maybe I’ll become the go-to person in West Palm, in all of South Florida, even, for maternity portraiture.”

  She was bright-eyed and pink-cheeked in her enthusiasm. Even her hair seemed to crackle with energy as it danced and bounced off her shoulders.

  I looked at her, nonplussed.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re not seriously considering this,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Um, because it’s a terrible idea?”

  India fisted her hands against her hips and frowned at me. “That’s pretty much the opposite of supportive,” she said.

  “India.” I sighed. “Just last month, we had to leave the Palm Beach Grill before we’d even had dinner because there was a woman with a newborn baby sitting at the next table. The month before that, you refused to go to that baby shower for your friend Mona.”

  “Not friend,” India qualified. “She’s a distant acquaintance. And really, it’s tacky to invite people you hardly know to your shower just to get extra presents.”

  “My point is that you—understandably—have a hard time being around pregnant women. So why voluntarily put yourself in a position where you’re photographing their pregnant stomachs?”

  “I photograph babies all the time,” India countered.

  “Pregnant stomachs are different. It’s almost like … well, fetishizing them.”

  “It is not.” India rolled her eyes, grabbed a stack of laundry off the bed, and walked into the closet to put them away. “I’m just thinking of creative ways to expand my business. You’re the one who’s always saying we need to make more money.”