by Lena Skye
It’s Jennifer Jones right there. I just about died. I nearly got sick on her floor when I saw her.” Naomi thought back to it and was surprised at how much she had disliked Jen when she got there, and how much she had grown to like her in the short time that they had spent together.
“You should have,” Eva interjected.
“Well… she and I spent some time together that day, and we talked about a lot of things, and it turns out that she is actually a really amazing woman. I really like her.” Naomi couldn’t help but smile, and Eva’s mouth fell open.
“You must be kidding me!” she insisted, leaning forward and slapping her hand down on the table top.
Naomi shook her head. “No, I’m not. She’s a really great lady. Anyway, I asked her if she was seeing Scott, and she told me that they were just friends. She said that they were never together and that they never could be. The media just paints them as a couple, and neither of them ever bothers to correct the media. So it turned out that Scott wasn’t lying to me; he was telling me the truth, but I wasn’t about to hear it from him because I was too jealous, and I was mad that he refuses to date me in public. I feel like I’m being used.”
“You are being used, and he’s a bastard for using you,” Eva grumbled, lifting her coffee to her lips as the man at the next table over scribbled furiously in his notebook.
“So when I found out about Scott getting this other woman pregnant… this blonde that he met at the party and went home in the limo with… I walked out on him again. Well, he came down to the office as I said, and he told me all about her and how she doesn’t mean anything to him. He also said that Harold, his agent, wants me to get a paternity test to prove that the baby I’m carrying is his. Can you believe that?” she scoffed.
Eva gasped. “Now I know you’re pulling my leg. He did not say that, did he? What a total jackass! How could he do that? He’s the one who has been running around sleeping with other women and causing trouble everywhere, and now he wants you to get a paternity test? My god. What kind of man is he?” She was horrified, and it couldn’t have been more obvious.
“That’s kind of how I feel about it, but he said that Harold is suspicious about the women that Scott has been sleeping with and he wants to make sure that it’s Scott’s kid before he starts paying for everything and taking care of his responsibility. I know it’s Scott’s; I haven’t been with anyone else, but he said he’ll pay for the test.
So, we’re going to go together, I’ll take the test, Harold will get the results, and then Scott won’t have any problem stepping up to his obligations as the father to this baby.” Naomi thought that it sounded much simpler when she said it all out loud. It had felt much more complicated when it was rattling around in her heart and in her head.
Eva shook her head and whistled low. “That man is too much trouble, honey. I don’t know why you’re even still talking to him. You ought to just walk away from him and let him go. We’ll all help you raise that baby, and you know that. What in the world do you need a man like that for?”
Naomi frowned and looked earnestly at Eva. “You know, I thought exactly the same thing so many times, but then… every time I’ve thought that he was so horrible, it turns out that it was just a misunderstanding, and this is his kid and he deserves at least a chance to try to do right by the baby, and to try to do right by me, at least in taking care of us both. And…” she sighed heavily, “I love him. I do. There, I said it. He’s a huge pain in my ass, but I love him.”
Eva groaned. “Oh no… you do love him. Look at your face. Well honey, there’s no getting out of that. It’s too late now. I guess you go on and get that paternity test and prove to Harold Whatshisname that you’re carrying Scott Thompson’s baby, and then we’ll see how well things go after that. I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to hold my breath, and if I ever meet him, he’s going to get a big piece of my mind. No one treats you the way that he has and gets away with it.”
Naomi smiled and chuckled a little. “That’s why I love you, Eva; you don’t put up with anything from anyone. You’re a good woman.”
“So are you, Naomi, and you deserve a good man,” Eva told her sternly.
Naomi hoped that she was right.
They finished their coffee, and neither of them noticed that the man at the table next to them didn’t leave until they both did, and Naomi didn’t notice that he followed her car when she drove away, just as he had been doing since the first time he had overheard them in the coffee shop.
Naomi was sitting in her office the next morning, sipping her coffee, when Keisha burst in and came rushing to her, waving a newspaper in her hand. Malaika walked in the door just behind her, and looked over at Keisha in surprise as she saw the younger woman excitedly talking to Naomi.
“Oh, my gawd. You are not going to believe this! I wouldn’t have believed it, except that it’s in the Times… look at this! Did you see this? Did you know about this? How on earth did this happen? Is it true? Oh please… tell me it isn’t true…” Keisha pushed the newspaper onto Naomi’s desktop and sank down into one of the chairs set before Naomi’s desk.
Malaika followed her, and sat down in the other chair beside Keisha, as she looked onto the desktop at the newspaper. Both Malaika and Naomi had not seen it, and neither one of them knew what Keisha was talking about.
There in the celebrity section, was a photograph of Naomi. It was clear to her that it had been taken the day before. She was wearing the light pink silk blouse and cream-colored skirt that she had been wearing on the prior day, and she was seated at what she knew to be the café table where she and Eva had been talking, although Eva wasn’t in the photograph.
Next to the photograph was a full article about everything that they had talked about. From her affair with Scott Thompson, to her pregnancy, to him requesting a paternity test from her, and even the one night stand with the other woman, and her pregnancy. Everything that they had said was in the article. Naomi gasped and held her hand to her mouth as her wide eyes took in every word again and again, wishing and hoping that what she was seeing wasn’t true, and knowing as she read it all over and over, that it was true, and it was there for the whole world to see.
Tears flooded her eyes and she tried to swallow, but there was a knot in her throat.
“Well that lying snake! How could he print such lies about you! My god! It sounds like a soap opera! That’s horrible! Why, you haven’t done any such a thing with Scott, and what a bad light to put him in! It’s unthinkable!” Malaika came right to her defense.
Naomi sat back slowly in her chair and raised her eyes to meet both Malaika’s and Keisha’s. “It’s true. Every word of it is true. I just… I don’t know how he got it all… I mean… I know that he took that photo while I was sitting in the café with Eva last night, and she and I were talking about all of this, but I just… I don’t know how he got it all and put it in this article for the paper today. I can’t believe this.”
Keisha and Malaika both stared at her, speechless. Naomi shrugged and nodded at them. “Yes, I had an affair with Scott. Yes, I am pregnant with his baby. Yes, he wants a paternity test and yes, he got some other woman pregnant. My life is a wreck right now. All of that is true.” She admitted miserably.
Keisha gulped. “Um… Naomi… that’s not all of it.”
Naomi looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean, that’s not all of it?”
Keisha turned the page and all three of them saw that the article continued on the next page. In explicit detail, the reporter went on to say how Naomi was an interior designer now, and that she had worked on both Scott Thompson and Jennifer Jones’ houses, but that she had started out as a stripper in college, dancing without her clothes on as she worked her way toward graduation.
There was another photo that the reporter had somehow managed to dig up. It was an image of her in her sequined bikini costume on the stage at the strip club. Her leg was wrapped around the pole and she was giving the camera a sugg
estive look in a sensual way. It was her promo shot from the strip club.
Naomi wished that the floor could open up right there and then and swallow her completely. “Oh my god,” she barely managed to get out. “I can’t believe he did that.”
“Is that true too?” Keisha asked, ignoring the photograph on the page beside the article.
“Yes… Keisha. It’s true. I was a stripper in college so I could pay my way through and not have any debt when I graduated. I did it for the money, and as soon as the debt was gone, so were my days as a dancer. Long gone. I would never do that now. I’m dedicated to my business and my future, and that was just a means to an end.” She wiped at the tears in her eyes. “I’m never going to be able to hold my head up in the business world again.”
Malaika was just finishing reading the article. “It says here that he’s looking for information on the mother of the other baby. The one night stand woman. He’s offering money to anyone who can give him her name.”
“He’s like a blood hound. I can’t believe he found all of that out and printed it. Is he trying to ruin my life?” Naomi asked, leaning back in her chair and staring upward to the ceiling.
“You could sue him…” Keisha offered helpfully.
Naomi shook her head. “No, I can’t sue him. Everything that he printed is the truth. I just can’t do anything about it.” She leaned forward and laid her arms on the desk, burying her face in them as she began to cry in earnest.
Keisha and Malaika both went around the desk to her and hugged her tightly, comforting her.
“It might be true, but you’re not going to go through it alone. We are here for you, and we’ll be here for you no matter what happens. Don’t you worry on it too much. You’re not alone,” Malaika said lovingly.
Naomi wished that none of it was true, and that she could wipe it all away, but there was no way to do that. All she could do was hide in the arms of her friends until the storm passed, if it ever did.
Chapter5
The story of Naomi that was printed in the Times went viral on Los Angeles social media in almost no time. To her surprise, the phone at the design firm began ringing off the hook with requests for her and Malaika to do design work for homes and businesses as far north as San Francisco, and as far south as San Diego. They even got calls from Las Vegas.
Most of the callers didn’t care about the fact that Naomi had been a stripper, although some of them requested that she come dance at parties and events, which she summarily turned down; the biggest portion of their callers were contacting them because Naomi had done Scott’s house and Jennifer Jones’ house, and everyone wanted to use the same decorator as the hot beautiful couple who graced the pages of the magazines and newspapers.
Other media agencies blew the phones up calling in, and they emailed almost non-stop, wanting to get an interview with the side girl who Scott had been seeing behind Jennifer’s back. Some people were angry with her, calling her a home wrecker who was trying to break up Scott and Jennifer, and some people didn’t care about the celebrity politics of it, they were more interested in her association with Scott.
Churches and organizations called about the baby, and Keisha fielded all of those calls, stopping anyone from getting in touch with Naomi who wasn’t calling about serious design job. Their calendar, which had echoed with emptiness, was suddenly overfilled and in the matter of a week, they were completely booked out six months in advance.
None of the ladies could quite believe the chaos that came in the wake of the article. The one thing that seemed almost like an anchor in the storm was Scott. He told her he had gotten an appointment for the paternity test and asked her if he could go with her to the first baby appointment, and she told him that he could. He had been more than a little excited, and she was far more than a little surprised about it.
Three days after the article was published, Scott met her at the doctor’s office, and greeted her with an enormous hug. He held her for a long while, breathing her in and losing himself in her before he let her go and looked at her sympathetically.
“I saw the article that was published in the Times,” he said quietly.
She looked down in misery. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was there. I was sitting in a café talking to my best friend… we were talking through everything, and… well, I guess he must have been listening in. I’m so very sorry.”
He nodded. “Now you know why I’m so careful with the media, with who I take with me in front of the cameras, with how I handle being a celebrity, it’s such a volatile place to exist… all of the time. I never wanted you hurt. I never wanted you to experience this.”
“It’s bad for both of us,” she told him, looking up at him into his blue eyes and finding some solace there. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through as well. Everyone is calling you a cheater, and me a home wrecker because they think I’m trying to break you and Jennifer up… it’s crazy!”
He nodded. “It is crazy. But there’s nothing that we can do about it right now. Harold is working on it as much as he can. In the meantime, let’s go find out who the father of my baby is… shall we?” He gave her a teasing smile, and she managed to smile back at him just a little bit.
Neither of them saw the reporter hidden not too far away, snapping photographs of the two of them as they entered the obstetrician’s office.
They were shown into an examination room, and Scott grew quiet and slightly withdrawn when the nurse left them for a few moments. Naomi saw the change in him and worried.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, wondering if he was bothered because it was their first time out together anywhere, and of all places, it was an obstetrician’s office. She felt her stomach tighten a little.
He looked around at the walls where pictures of babies in the womb were hung, and at a nearby counter where a small array of educational devices showing the uterus and womb with a small fetus in it were sitting.
“I just… I guess I didn’t really think about the gravity of this. You’re…. you’re really pregnant. I’m going to be a…” he swallowed hard and his eyes grew wide, “a father. It’s a little surreal,” he finished quietly.
She realized then that he was finally coming to a place of acceptance with it, and she relaxed a little more, knowing that he would probably be all right with it, once he felt more comfortable.
The doctor came into the door and looked at them both with a smile, and then did a double take as he looked back at Scott. “Oh my… you’re Scott Thompson from the Los Angeles Waves, aren’t you?” He grew giddy with delight.
Scott nodded and gave him a polite smile, shaking his hand. “Yeah, I am. Nice to meet you, Doc.”
The doctor shook Scott’s hand with elation and then visibly tried to gather himself and act with a bit more professionalism. “I’m sorry; I’m just a really big fan. I didn’t expect to see you in here. So… so you’re going to be a father! Well congratulations! That’s wonderful!”
The doctor opened the chart and looked down at the papers inside, and his old weathered cheeks turned pink. “Oh… so, you’re here for a paternity test… well, then. We may be able to congratulate you afterward…” he turned away from the couple, embarrassed.
Scott saw his awkwardness and made light of the situation. “Oh, we’re sure it’s mine, we just need this for official documentation. I’m not doubtful at all.” He gave the doctor a confident smile, and the doctor glanced at Naomi with less assurance.
He performed the paternity test, and then hooked a machine up to Naomi’s belly, so that they could all listen to the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor brightened and smiled a little more then.
“One hundred fifty-five beats per minute! That’s good. You know… that is about the heart rate of most baby girls.” His eyes twinkled a little as he gave Scott and Naomi a knowing look. “Of course, we won’t really be able to tell what gender the baby is until about the fifth month, but the heart rate is usually a good indicator.”
>
He went to his paperwork and then told them he’d contact them as soon as he had the paternity test results. Thanking them for coming in, and swearing confidence about their visit, he left them.
Scott turned and grinned at Naomi, and she could see in his eyes that excitement had taken the place of uncertainty. “Did you hear that? A girl… it’s probably a little girl. Wow! A daughter. I never thought I’d have a daughter…” he trailed off as he stood staring at the wall, not really looking at it as much as he was looking through it into his own future with a little girl to raise.
“Well, he said gender isn’t really determined until the fifth month,” Naomi replied to him gently as she adjusted her clothes once more.
“So I guess that means princess birthday parties… a pink room… a kitten…” he almost looked as if he was in a daze.
Naomi laughed a little and shook her head. “Come on. Let’s go,” she told him, taking hold of his arm. He followed her out of the office and stopped her before she got into her car.
“I want to take you shopping!” he announced excitedly. “I think we need to start getting things for the baby now. We don’t really have that much time. I mean… we’re both very busy people and the months are going to fly by so fast. We should really get on this now. Right now. Are you busy today? Can you come with me for a little while? I could meet you at the firm and then we could ride in my car. What do you think?” he asked in eager anticipation.
She stared at him. “Wait… you wouldn’t date me because you didn’t want to be seen out in public with me, and now you want to go baby gear shopping with me?” She couldn’t quite believe it, and while she wanted to believe it, it seemed as surreal to her as the baby did to him when they had first walked into the examination room.
