Darling, All at Once (The Fairfields Book 1)

by Piper Lennox

  The fertility specialist’s office is in an old bank at the edge of the city—domed ceiling over the check-in desk, marble pillars, and restored wood everywhere I turn. The air conditioner cranks to full-blast as soon as I step inside, trying to tame the rising heat of the morning.

  Breathe. It’s just a few tests. No decisions yet.

  Viola and Marco arrive seconds after me, dressed to the nines. Like it’s a special occasion. Maybe, to them, it is.

  She can’t stop smiling, and Marco hugs me tighter than usual. It gives me the immediate urge to blurt, “Remember, this is just to check if I can get pregnant at all. It’ll help me make the decision, but—but I’m still not sure.”

  “Totally,” Vi nods, but there’s that face again: not waiting for the yes, because she’s so sure it’s coming. She’s just waiting to celebrate out loud.

  The staff puts me in a room down the hall, where I undress and get into a paper gown. After stats, blood and urine samples, and a highly personal questionnaire, the nurse leaves me alone to wait for the doctor.

  The room has a buzzing silence to it, like a hospital; the air even has that same electric-but-cold feeling. I put my heels in the stirrups at the end of the table before deciding this isn’t how I want to greet the doctor. Sitting is best.

  My heart’s drilling its way through my ribcage. Maybe Abby was right. I have no idea which outcome I’m hoping for today: the easiest “no” possible, or a green light.

  Yes, this is huge. I’d be giving my sister much more than a child. My body would change. My entire life would change. I’d have to endure the pain of pregnancy and labor, without taking the end result of all that hard work and sacrifice home.

  I’d produce milk for a child I can’t feed. Rub lotion on stretched skin, housing a baby that isn’t mine. Feel tiny feet kicking inside me and know their first steps won’t be across my floor.

  But, I think, and my brain circles back to that first part. I’d be giving my sister a child.

  All those things I won’t have, Viola won’t have, either, if I say no. And she actually knows she wants them. I’m not sure I ever will.

  She said the thought of motherhood makes her miss our mom less. I may not understand it, but I want to. Isn’t that why I’ve said yes to her—to both my sisters—so many times? To try and lessen their pain? Now I have the chance to do exactly that, in a way that will last forever. Not just one fairytale-perfect day.

  The knock on the door snaps me out of my thoughts. It shushes open, and a man about my father’s age steps through. “Hi, Ms. Brooks, I’m Dr. Myerly.”

  We shake. “Nice to meet you.”

  He smiles, but it looks painted on; his brow furrows as he laughs. “We’ve, uh...we’ve got a conundrum, here.”

  I sit straight up, gathering my gown. “Conundrum? You mean a problem?”

  Dr. Myerly scratches his jaw and studies whatever’s on the clipboard. My test results. My answer. Fate. “Depends on your definition of ‘problem,’ I suppose.”

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper. The tears hit before I even realize I’m sad.

  Crushed, in fact. I guess I wanted to do this, after all. This automatic, fate-decided “no” suddenly doesn’t seem so easy.

  I force a breath into my lungs. “I can’t get pregnant, can I?”

  “No, no, you definitely can.” He looks up at me over the rim of his glasses. “You already are.”

  9

  Birthday parties are hell when you’re staff.

  “Are you sure this is the right size? I could have sworn I told the guy there were twenty children coming.”

  “We’ve only got this size, ma’am,” I smile. This client’s been a piece of work from the second my van pulled into her gated, cobblestoned (no, seriously) driveway. She looked nice: short-sleeved cardigan and low ponytail, almost no makeup. I pegged her for a quiet librarian type. I was wrong.

  “There’s just no way this is the right size. I’m calling your manager.”

  Please do, I think. Out loud, I ask, “Should I take this one back, then? Cancel the order?”

  This makes her back down a little, phone in hand. The party’s set to start in twenty minutes. “I guess it’s better than nothing,” she sighs angrily. She puts the phone away. “How many children can get in this thing at once?”

  “I’d say ten.”

  “Ten,” she repeats, huffing all over again. She even stomps her foot. “And what do you do? What do you get paid for, since it’s apparently not fulfilling orders properly?”

  Whatever I do, I sure as shit don’t get paid enough.

  “I’m the bounce house bouncer,” I tell her, and keep my face completely straight just to piss her off. “As soon as Kid Number Eleven tries to get in, I give ’em the bum’s rush.”

  Her stare could melt me to the spot, if I actually gave a shit what she thought. Not that I’m letting my perfect customer service façade slip, even a little. Levi thinks I’m not professional enough, but if he saw me in action on days like this? That promotion would be mine in a heartbeat.

  “I guess ten at a time is safer, anyway,” she mutters.

  Not long after, the yard is filled with kids and parents, the air pump’s humming perfectly, and the bounce house is a resounding success—wait time and all. I probably didn’t diffuse the situation the way Levi would have, but at least the client’s stopped scowling at me.

  “Cohen?”

  When I turn, I expect to see a former client. We operate mostly on recommendations, so it’s not unusual for the same people to show up at the same events. Most of them like me, so most of them remember my name.

  Instead, I find Juliet.

  “Hey! Wow, small world. You know these people?”

  Her smile’s a shaky, much smaller reflection of mine. “Uh...no,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. It’s only been about a month since the wedding, but she looks different to me. No hideous bridesmaid dress, for one—but a nervous, jittery kind of energy, too. “I saw your van downtown.”

  I raise my eyebrow. “You followed me?”

  Her blush is exactly as cute as I remembered.

  “You could’ve called me, instead,” I remind her. “Unless you threw my business card out the window, doing eighty on the highway.”

  “No, I still have it. I just...wanted to talk in person. I didn’t want to interrupt you working, though, so I was sitting in my car down there, by the hill....” She takes a breath, pulling her teeth across her lip. “I’m rambling.”

  “You are rambling.” I smile, hoping to see that blush again, but realize she never really stopped. “Well, I’m currently on bounce house duty for another two hours. You want to stick around?”

  She starts to answer, when a suction sound and high-pitched squeal cut her off; the air pump’s come loose from the inflatable.

  “Shit. Hang on.” I step around and fix it back into place. It’s loose—Levi got these things used from another party supplier, years ago—but that’s why duct tape exists. I slap on a piece and jump to my feet.

  “Almost as impressive as your cotton candy spinning,” she teases. It’s weird, though: she doesn’t seem as happy to see me as I am to see her.

  I offer her the fold-out chair Levi doesn’t want me using that I always use anyway, but she declines. “How’ve you been?”

  “Can’t complain. We’ve had five weddings since your sister’s, though, so I’m running on fumes right now.”

  “Wow, five?”

  I nod, then motion to the crowd in front of us. The birthday boy is tearing into gifts with so much gusto, I’m surprised he isn’t using teeth. “Makes a birthday party seem like a walk in the park.”

  Her smile brightens a little. I think of the last wedding I worked, where the flower girl spent most of the night twirling on the dance floor, laughing at the trail of glitter that flew off her dress. It reminded me of that single speck of glitter on Juliet’s nose, the night we met.

  “What about you?” I ask, when s
he doesn’t comment. We’re standing just close enough for me to elbow her, so I do. I’m going for flirty. This is far from a date, but I’ll work with what she gives me.

  “Same. Working a lot.”

  “What do you do?”

  The look she gives me is strange. It’s like she’s offended I don’t remember, but then surprised, when she realizes she never told me. There’s so much we still don’t know.

  “I’m an administrative assistant for an ad agency. So kind of a clerk, P.A. and receptionist, all rolled into one.”

  “That sounds...” I search for a polite answer. No go. “...boring as hell.”

  “It probably would be, to you,” she says, laughing a little. “It involves sitting still.”

  “Then yes. I would hate it.” My watch beeps. I clear the current crop of kids out and invite the next group in. A couple bratty ones purposely ignore the rule about no shoes, but I let it slide. My focus is nowhere near this party, right now.

  “So.” I turn back to her. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here. Not that I’m not happy to see you. Just wondering.”

  She bites her lip again. “Okay, uh...before I tell you—”

  Suddenly, another pop and hiss erupt. I curse again and bend down to fix it. “Sorry. Can you hand me that duct tape by your foot?”

  “I think you need a new bounce house.”

  “Try telling that to my brother.” I tear a length of tape with my teeth, slap it into place, and let another string of curses fly: this thing needs way more, and I’m all out. Levi’s scold is practically printed in front of my eyes. Always check your van’s inventory before a job.

  “Excuse me,” I call into the crowd, “does anyone have duct tape?”

  The hostess’s head appears, parting guests like the Red Sea. “Duct tape?” she asks incredulously.

  I nod. “I mean, it’d be fun to crouch here and hold the pump in place for another two hours—but tape would do a much better job of keeping this thing inflated.”

  Yet again, my joke doesn’t amuse her. Juliet and I watch her stalk inside.

  “Can I help?” She starts to kneel beside me, but I shake my head.

  “I’ve got a decent hold on it—it won’t deflate as long as I can keep this pump here.” I wipe the sweat off my face with my shoulder and nod at her. “You were saying?”

  “I, uh...I lost my place.”

  “Well, you said, ‘Before I tell you,’ and then all hell broke loose.”

  She nods, not even smiling. Finally, I feel mine fade, too.

  Juliet swallows, folds her arms, and locks her eyes on mine. “I’m pregnant.”

  10

  Cohen’s expression tells me absolutely nothing about what he’s thinking. His hands, however, do.

  “Pregnant,” he repeats, just as he lets go of the air pump. A much louder hiss than before—more like a leaf blower—fills the air as the pump shoots out of the opening to the bounce house altogether, skittering back on the lawn.

  Kids start screaming, half in joy, the other half terrified, as the house dents into itself and begins to sink around them.

  Cohen’s still staring at me, blank-faced.

  “Shouldn’t you, uh—get them out?” I sputter, flailing my arms at the deflating mess of vinyl and kids.

  He blinks and inhales as a curse. Just a sip of air, and “Fuck.”

  I grab the air pump while he lifts the flaps of the house. “Everybody out! Come on, come on, it’s broken!” When a few kids refuse to leave, he dives inside.

  “Juliet, grab the pump!” he shouts.

  “I’m trying!” This thing feels like a fishing motor; all I can do is drag it, inch-by-inch, scarring this pristine yard to hell.

  Parents start to notice. Some hug their kids like they’ve just left a bomb shelter. The ones whose kids are still inside yell at Cohen to get them out. One mom yells at me to fix the damn thing.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t work for him!”

  “Leave her alone, she doesn’t work for me!” From the wreckage, Cohen’s voice booms across the crowd, then weakens: “She’s my…. Oh, God, she’s pregnant.”

  Finally, the pump is close enough to wedge back into the opening. Not that it does much good: the house is almost completely flat, wobbling and wedging inward whenever Cohen moves. Soon he’s the only one left, hefting the roof like an out-of-breath pillar.

  “What the hell happened?” The hostess explodes from the crowd, a roll of duct tape on her wrist. “First you bring me the wrong size, and then it doesn’t even work? I’m calling your manager. This is unacceptable, these children could have been injured....”

  Anger swells in my chest. As if Cohen isn’t embarrassed enough having to crawl out of a droopy, Technicolor castle, now he’s got to endure harassment from some Martha Stewart wannabe?

  “It’s not his fault.”

  The woman’s mouth snaps shut when I walk over. “Who are you?”

  “It’s not his fault,” I say again. “He was fixing the air pump, and—and I kind of knocked it out of his hands, by accident. Don’t be mad at him.” I actually want to cuss her out to oblivion, which isn’t like me.

  Then again, I haven’t felt like me since the doctor’s appointment last week.

  Either way, I know calling this bitch a bitch won’t do Cohen any favors, so I keep my voice smooth and sweet, the way I talk to clients at the ad agency. “The important part is no one got hurt. He prioritized getting the kids out so they’d be safe, instead of getting the pump back into place. I think that counts for a lot, don’t you?”

  While the other parents nod, the woman glances around and realizes she’s outnumbered. Throwing a hissy fit now would only make her look bad, not Cohen.

  She turns back to him and takes a breath, but doesn’t speak.

  “I apologize deeply, ma’am,” Cohen adds solemnly. His hair’s staticky and mussed. One shoe is gone, swallowed by the bounce house. The castle droops and wheezes behind him.

  In short, he looks ridiculous. Mostly because he looks so serious.

  The woman takes a long blink and hands him the duct tape. “Can you just fix it, please?”

  “Absolutely. And I’ll call my manager right away, see if we can arrange a partial refund for you, if you’d like.”

  She nods. Her mouth is so tense, I almost can’t see her lips. “Yes. Thank you.”

  The party disperses to the patio. Cohen looks at me, breathing hard. Two bright streaks of red stain his cheeks.

  “Well,” he exhales, “I’m guessing that wasn’t how you envisioned me taking the news.”

  I restrain my laugh. “Still better than my sister’s reaction.”

  The day of the exam, after I’d dressed and returned to the fertility center’s waiting room, I found Viola and Marco whispering, sneaking kisses. They looked so excited.

  I didn’t know how to tell her—except, like with Cohen, to just blurt it.

  “Pregnant,” she’d repeated, smile still on her face. “Wh— I don’t....” She looked at Marco, like he could explain it to her.

  “I’m sorry, Vi...I didn’t know.” I knotted my purse strap up in my hands. She was pacing the waiting room now, hand over her mouth. “Please, just...just say something.”

  “What’s there to say?” she asked, laughing. “My surrogate is pregnant with not my baby. That’s that, isn’t it?”

  Marco jumped in, the knight in shining armor, putting his arm around her shoulders. I thought about reminding her I hadn’t agreed to be her surrogate yet—that the appointment was, after all, just to make sure I could do it. We knew there was a chance I couldn’t.

  But to be fair, none of us expected that to be the reason why.

  “There’s the girl from Drexelwood,” Marco whispered, pulling her away. They were standing in the corner, like a football huddle. “And that one with the engineering degree? You really liked her.”

  “I wanted Juliet.” Viola’s voice sat in my bones like a chill, and I wante
d to cry all over again. I probably would have, if I hadn’t already wept myself sick in the examination room.

  I’d let her down, in the worst way possible. It didn’t matter that it was an accident, or that I’d never officially said yes in the first place.

  “But you don’t even want kids.” Viola spun on her heel, closing the gap between us. “Right? That’s what you told me and Abby. So...so this might not be a problem.”

  Marco put his hand on her arm. His groom’s gift, that shining new Rolex, caught the light. “Vi, stop.”

  “No, Marco, that’s what she said. She said it.” Viola looked at me, her eyes watery and huge. “Right, Jules?”

  It wasn’t until that night—after Marco had finally corralled Viola into the Jaguar while she wept and argued, and I was lying in bed at the loft listening to my roommate’s jazz through the partition—that I understood.

  “So your sister,” I say slowly, after Juliet’s finished explaining the surrogacy situation in full, “wants you to...what, terminate the pregnancy, so you can carry her kid?”

  The party’s almost over; after the bounce house disaster was rectified, I called Levi about the partial refund. He chewed me out for at least ten minutes before relenting. Not like he had much of a choice: this party is filled with former and potentially future clients, though I’m pretty sure I’ve blown that chance like the fucking air pump blew itself across the grass.

  Now, while the last batch of kids go crazy and I keep an eagle eye on the duct tape (about a mile of it, encasing the pump opening), Juliet sits on the chair. “No. My brother-in-law is super against abortion, so my sister wouldn’t have even suggested that.” She stares at a ladybug on my shoe before I brush it away. “Not that it’s their decision to make either way, obviously.”

  “What, then,” I laugh, “she wants you to give her your kid?”

  Her silence answers for her.