The Baby Plan

by Kate Rorick

  “Huh? Just what I said, babe. Can you grab that net? I want to be ready.”

  “You said some people aren’t meant to hit the Billboard charts.”

  “Uh-huh . . .”

  “You didn’t. Hit the Billboard charts, that is. Your first album flopped in the States.”

  “Wow, harsh much?” The line tightened. “Oh shit! I’ve got one—it’s trying to escape!”

  “If you’d stayed at that level, you wouldn’t have ever found success. But you went to Europe and got better, and got recognized for it. It took work. So . . . why should Maisey try and find a ‘level’ to settle for?”

  “Um, I don’t know, hon,” Sebastian replied, now actively in a tug-of-war with what must have been a gargantuan fish, judging by the way his arms were straining. “I was just saying that she’s a smart kid, you know? But there are a lot of smart kids. But . . . she’ll be fine.”

  “Right . . . right,” Sophia said, dubious as she thought over his answer.

  “It’s coming! It’s coming!” Sebastian cried, winding up the reel. Their hired fisherman guide rushed over to help steady Sebastian. “Babe, the net! The net!”

  But she had still been contemplating Maisey, and as such, the net in her hand was long forgotten. She snapped out of it just in time to rush over, and see Sebastian reel in a really big reddish fish, which they were to later learn was a mullet snapper. However, it wasn’t the fisherman who told them that, nor was it the chef who was waiting on shore to prepare their catch for lunch. Instead, it was Google, who also informed them that the mullet snapper was a strong, fighting fish. And fight it did.

  With a slapped tail to the side of Sebastian’s face, the snapper managed to break the line, do two flops on the deck of the boat, and jump itself back into the sea.

  So, instead of having a fish by which to tell the story, Sebastian ended up having a black eye.

  Luckily, he had a sense of humor about it . . . eventually.

  The period costume from wardrobe might have helped soothe his hurt feelings.

  All in all, Sophia was glad to have had the vacation, but was equally glad to get back to her life, and get to work.

  If only Vanessa would let her work.

  “There,” she said, finally finishing up Vanessa’s eyes. Vanessa immediately grabbed the hand mirror again, and examined her reflection. Sophia held her breath.

  “Great,” Vanessa said. “Perfect.”

  “All right!” Sophia said, pulling up a stool. “Sorry, I just need to sit down a second.”

  “Oh! Of course!” she said, her perfectly done eyes going wide. “I never thought—of course you should sit down. I know nothing about being pregnant. I don’t want to be the cause of your blood pressure going crazy.”

  Sophia blinked twice. She’d never told Vanessa about the risk of preeclampsia. She didn’t necessarily want to tell anyone that didn’t need to know. Not only was it personal, at this point, it was entirely theoretical. And it would automatically make people treat her differently, as if she were a fragile flower, instead of a woman whose body was doing what it was meant to do.

  Sebastian, obviously, did not have the same concerns.

  But as Sophia settled onto the kitchen stool in front of Vanessa, she couldn’t help but be grateful that at least Vanessa understood. If the blood pressure machine taught them anything on the Baja trip, it was that afternoons saw a (slight) spike, so best to take a minute, get a glass of water, and breathe.

  “Oh no! How are you going to be able to sit at the awards?” she worried. “It’s not like you have a seat at the table.”

  “They have chairs in the greenroom,” Sophia replied. She assumed. She didn’t actually know. “But I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. Now, all we need is the lips and you are going to destroy everyone tonight.”

  “Hmm . . . I don’t know if ‘destroy’ is the right word.”

  “Slay?” Sophia tried.

  “Conquer!” Kip said, and Vanessa clapped her hands.

  “Conquer! I like it. Oh, but not in that shade.”

  Sophia looked down at the lip palette in her hand, full of bold reds. Earlier, she and Vanessa had picked out a shade that coordinated with the rest of her face but also contrasted beautifully with the peach of her dress. It made her face stand out, while the satiny nature of the gown made her look like a nearly naked sylph.

  “You want a different red?” A slight difference in shade wouldn’t make too big a difference. “Maybe something with a bit more wine?”

  “No—no red at all. Let’s go with . . . this!”

  Vanessa had grabbed a tube of gloss. Not lipstick, not a paint—but a gloss with such a high frosted shimmer it might as well have been a trip on X from the late ’90s.

  In fact, it might have been from that ’90s episode of Fargone they did.

  “That’s . . . that’s a peach lip gloss,” was really all Sophia could say.

  “Right—peach! It will go with the dress.”

  “It will make the bottom half of your face merge with the rest of your body and disappear,” she said before she could stop herself. “We need a bold lip color for balance.”

  “So, that just means my eyes will stand out more,” Vanessa said, and flipped the lip gloss to Sophia.

  “Vanessa, I really think—”

  Vanessa’s exuberance shuttered, her face going full ice queen in less than a second.

  “You think I don’t know my own face?”

  “Of course not,” Sophia said gently.

  “I’m sorry.” Vanessa softened immediately, back to her sweetheart self. “This is too important to screw up, is all. But . . . you do what you think is best.”

  Vanessa held out the tube of lip gloss to Sophia.

  The room was completely silent. Kip watched everything closely. Even Marjorie had glanced up from her phone.

  Vanessa had told her to do what was best. And what was best at the moment, was not putting on the right deep red shade of lipstick . . . but instead preventing a total Golden Globes pressure-cooked meltdown.

  She took the tube of lip gloss, and sat down across from Vanessa in the chair.

  As she applied the horrible, frosted peach abomination, she thought about how she could persuade and assuage Vanessa in the car on the way to the show. If she showed it to her in different light, perhaps—maybe she could argue it didn’t get enough sheen with the lack of sunlight on the rainy red carpet.

  This was only temporary, she decided. There was no way she would let Vanessa hit the red carpet looking like an old-school Britney Spears. Surely she had enough time to—

  “That’s Blake,” Marjorie said, as her phone dinged. “The car’s here.”

  Almost simultaneously, there was a knock on the door.

  “Hello, hello, hello!” a sharply suited man of about thirty said as Kip swung the door open for him. “There she is!” he said as soon as he spied Vanessa. “You look incredible. Amazing!”

  “Blake,” Vanessa simpered, and slunk over to give him air kisses. “You always say I look amazing.”

  “This is a special level of amazing. This is something as of yet unachieved.”

  Vanessa transformed under the attention of the young but-not-too-young publicist, who scrutinized her appearance with the eye of a connoisseur. And a salesman.

  “Are we ready to go?” he asked. “I have your ticket packet, of course. And everyone’s badges.” He held out lanyards for the three of them. Kip and Sophia took theirs and placed them around their necks. Marjorie glanced at hers, uttered a brief “cool,” and let it dangle from her fingers as she went back to texting.

  “We are all set,” Vanessa said. “Just let me grab my bag . . . ugh, Swarovski crystals are so heavy . . . do you guys have everything?”

  Sophia and Kip nodded. Sophia was just putting the last brush back in her kit when she heard Blake’s low hum of concern.

  “Mmmm . . . what about your lips? Are we doing color?”

  “ . . . colo
r?” Vanessa said. “We went with peach, right, Sophia?”

  Sophia looked from Vanessa to Blake. And somehow, barely managed an answer.

  “Well . . . we talked about a red—”

  “You should have gone with it. This peach—it’s not going to pop in pictures. And you need to pop.”

  Vanessa glanced over at the mirror by the door, and gave herself a long hard look.

  “Yes. You’re right. God, Sophia—I can’t believe you were going to let me out the door like this!”

  “I . . .”

  “Ugh, just fix it, okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Sophia said, and hopped off the kitchen stool so fast, she got slightly dizzy as she stood.

  It was only a moment. She didn’t even wobble. But it was enough that Kip took her arm to steady her.

  “Sophia! Are you okay?” Vanessa cried out.

  “I’m fine. Thank you, Kip. Just stood up too fast.”

  “Have you been drinking?” Blake asked, sharp. According to Vanessa, Blake hadn’t wanted her to hire Sophia. He’d wanted her to use a makeup artist the PR firm had on retainer for awards season. But Vanessa refused, because of how close they were.

  “No!” Sophia cried.

  “She hasn’t been drinking—she’s pregnant, Blake,” Vanessa said, harsh. Then, she glanced at the clock. “Oh, we have to get in the car. Kip—can you do my lips on the way?”

  “I can—” Sophia began, but was immediately cut off by a shake of the head.

  “Sophia, I’m sorry—I should have realized this would be too stressful for you. You can’t even stand up without getting light-headed—I don’t want to worry about you passing out in the greenroom when I have so many other things going through my head. And with this lip color? I have to wonder if your eyesight is affected.”

  Sophia’s jaw dropped open. It’s possible she made a series of sounds. But it was also possible that they in no way resembled words.

  “So? Kip? Can you do my lips?”

  Kip, shocked, looked from Vanessa to Sophia. “Uh . . . sure.”

  “Then let’s go!” Vanessa put on her best starlet smile, and threw her shoulders back. Blake opened a wide umbrella, and threw open the door.

  “Oh thank goodness!” Vanessa said. “It looks like the rain is clearing.”

  And with that, she swept out the door, Blake and Marjorie in tow. Kip looked down at Sophia. Quietly, she handed him her kit with all the paints, powders, brushes, and emergency supplies Vanessa might need.

  “Go,” she whispered.

  He hesitated.

  “It’s okay. Just go.”

  And with that, Kip was out the door.

  Leaving Sophia in the middle of Vanessa’s living room, wondering if she would ever be able to get an Uber in this close proximity to the Golden Globes.

  Chapter 12

  “LYNDI, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

  Lyndi looked up and saw Paula peering down from the loft offices’ windows. Lyndi had just finished loading up her bike with Stan’s delivery route of flowers, and was about to flip up the kickstand.

  “I’m about to learn a tap routine for my Broadway debut,” Lyndi said sarcastically. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “You can’t take your bike out.”

  “Stan’s not here—again. Someone has to take his run.”

  “Not you,” Paula replied.

  “We’ll walk the floor of the market as soon as I get back, scout tomorrow’s flowers. I won’t be long, I promise.”

  “No you won’t, because you’re not going. Come upstairs. Now.”

  Rarely had Paula taken the “I’m the boss do as I say” tone with Lyndi. But when she did, it was worth heeding. So, Lyndi unbuckled the backpack full of bouquets from her body, and quickly moved up the stairs.

  Paula was sitting behind her desk, and had put on her best stern boss face, her hands laced in front of her.

  “Lyndi, I can’t have you taking runs anymore. It’s not appropriate.”

  Lyndi sighed. “Listen, I know you want me more in the warehouse, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Honestly, I think we need to let Stan go, he’s become too unreliable. I can cover his runs until we get someone new, and I won’t be neglecting my duties as your second in command. I’m already half done with the new website skins, and our Instagram is booming . . .”

  “That’s not why. Although, you’re right, we do need to let Stan go,” Paula mused. Then, she shook her head, got back to what she wanted to say. “We can’t have you doing bicycle deliveries while you’re pregnant.”

  Lyndi felt her stomach flip over. And no, it wasn’t the baby moving. She wasn’t even showing yet, so she certainly couldn’t feel the baby kicking—at least according to Dr. Keen. No, it just turned out her stomach flipped over a lot these days, as she wondered.

  Not worried, just . . . wondered.

  Wondered what it would be like to have the baby in their tiny apartment. Wondered where the crib would go. Wondered if their little girl would have Marcus’s eyes or hers. Wondered if Marcus was ever going to stop giving her foot rubs, since she was suddenly ticklish and it didn’t exactly relax her.

  Wondered if the fact that her gums bled every time she brushed her teeth was a pregnancy symptom or a reason to buy stock in gingivitis mouthwash.

  Turns out, it was a pregnancy symptom.

  Turns out, a lot was a pregnancy symptom. Like, basically everything.

  Twitchy legs? Symptom.

  Bloated and gassy? Symptom.

  Carpal tunnel? Symptom.

  Drooling like a basset hound? Symptom.

  Weird darkening patches of skin on your face? Yeah, it’s called melasma, and it was a symptom, too.

  Lyndi had not been trained to expect any of this. Television had really only told her about morning sickness, and she thought that once that was done, she’d be free and clear, with only the occasional craving for odd foods (her desire for eggs Benedict had gone from a whiny want to a freakish obsession), and a gleefully expanding waistline.

  However, so far, the gums were really the only symptom—other than the aforementioned morning sickness—that she’d experienced. But thanks to those pastel emails she still continued to get, and still continued to open with the pathological need of the morbidly curious, she knew what to expect in the nearish future.

  But it was also one of those emails that betrayed her to the Favorite Flower.

  Well, it wasn’t really the email’s fault. It was very much her own. But she’d been walking the floor with Paula and one of their arrangers, Judy. Judy was taking pictures of all the flowers that Paula and Lyndi pointed out that they wanted to earmark for arrangements for the next day. Unfortunately, while Lyndi was negotiating the price for wholesale roses (Valentine’s Day was only a few weeks off and if they didn’t have a good relationship with a rose supplier they were screwed, as she’d convinced Paula to do a special preorder link on the website for the Big V) Lyndi motioned Judy over to take some pictures of the fat English rose varieties.

  “Oh damn, my phone died,” Judy said. “I didn’t get the pink or red hybrids.”

  “Here, use my phone,” Lyndi said, absentmindedly typing in her code to unlock it before handing it over, before even looking at it.

  “Oh my God! You’re pregnant?”

  And wouldn’t you know it, but one of those pastel emails was open on her phone. (Congratulating her on having reached the eighteenth week of pregnancy, with a video comparing her fetus in size to the latest in a long line of incrementally sized vegetables—this one a bell pepper.)

  Lyndi snatched the phone back as fast as she could, but the damage was already done. Judy was gawking at her with wide, unblinking eyes. And all of Lyndi’s protestations of “that’s um . . . I mean, it’s only . . .” did nothing to help her case.

  “Paula!” Judy had called out. “Did you know our little Lyndi’s expecting??”

  And that was that. If it had been Paula who had f
ound the email on the phone, Lyndi guessed that she would have been discreet about it, but since it was Judy, who spent her mornings arranging flowers and spreading gossip, news of Lyndi’s pregnancy had lapped the LA flower district by the very next morning.

  It wasn’t that Lyndi didn’t want to tell people about her pregnancy. It was simply that, whenever she did, she wasn’t really met with any kind of enthusiasm. She had endured the glitter-covered gender reveal party, where everyone kept telling her she was so smart to have her baby while she was young. As if a rebounding body was the only potential silver lining they could think of.

  Not to mention, her own friends didn’t even bother to show up. In fact, these days Allison, Olivia, and Elizabeth were barely texting her back. All her “hey wassup?” and “We are so overdue for brunch!” missives were either met with silence or with a banal “OMG I’m so busy! Let’s try and hang next week!” type response.

  However, Judy and the other arrangers were incredibly enthusiastic, wondering when the wedding would be. When Lyndi made it clear that there wouldn’t be a wedding, their ardor cooled considerably.

  And her boss, Paula, hadn’t mentioned it once.

  Until now.

  “I’m not incapacitated, Paula,” Lyndi said, testily. “I can ride my bike. I rode my bike here this morning, didn’t I?”

  “True, and unfortunately, I can’t stop you doing that—how you get to work is your own business,” Paula said, taking off her horn-rimmed glasses, a sign of her exhaustion. “But deliveries come under the company’s umbrella, and if something happened while making a delivery . . . it would be a big liability.”

  “Oh.” Because what else was there to say? Not only was her baby a shock and occasional inconvenience, she was now a liability.

  “Doing deliveries isn’t in your job description anyway,” Paula said, not unkindly. “Believe me, you have plenty to do.”

  Lyndi’s eyes flew up to Paula’s. “I do? I’m sorry, I thought I had a handle on all of my new responsibilities . . .”

  “You do.” Paula practically laughed. “So much so, I’d like to shuffle some of the stuff on my plate to yours. Especially with Valentine’s coming up, I’m going to need all the help I can get. Inventory of the wrapping materials, double-checking the website to make sure it’s processing orders correctly—ever since that update it’s been buggy—I need a new spreadsheet template tracking our monthly profit margins . . .”