by Kate Rorick
“We will.”
“But I . . .” Lyndi hesitated. Paula looked up from the pile of résumés.
“But what?”
She took a deep breath. “But I thought I was already in the new managerial position.”
Paula’s eyebrow went up, but she said nothing.
So it was up to Lyndi to say something.
Which took more guts than she knew she had—and dipping into the long dormant language she’d learned in her business classes.
It was terrifying.
“I know the title is only assistant manager,” Lyndi said in a rush, “but I’ve been working super hard—I mean, extremely hard—to learn the business side of the Favorite Flower and to streamline our inventory, clean up our website and boost its capacity for traffic, and work creatively to make new product categories. That, at least, was my intention.”
Paula’s second eyebrow rose, but again she said nothing.
“And I think I’ve done all these things.”
“You have,” Paula said. “And very well.”
“So, if there’s going to be a new managerial position, what are they going to be doing?”
Paula let the papers in her hand fall gently to the desk. “They are going to be doing everything you just said.”
Lyndi gaped for a split second. Then . . . “Well, then certainly I would think that I would be the one to . . . that I could be your new manager.”
“I would think so, too—but you can’t,” Paula replied. “Because this person is going to be doing all of these things in Boston.”
It took a moment for Lyndi to register what Paula was saying.
“Boston?” she repeated.
“The Favorite Flower is expanding,” Paula explained. “We’ve been doing great business in Los Angeles, and we are about to launch shipping services. Our setup here allows us to ship overnight to the West Coast, but we need a similar setup on the East Coast to penetrate that market. So, we are opening up a Favorite Flower distribution center in Boston.”
“That’s . . . awesome,” Lyndi said. “Congrats. So, does that mean you are going to shift your bulk buying? Because I’ve had my eye on a new source for our wrapping materials but we aren’t at a quantity yet that makes it cheaper than our current—”
“Lyndi,” Paula said firmly, stopping her before she could go too far down that road. Then, Paula shook her head, a rueful smile playing over her face. “Man, I really wish you weren’t pregnant.”
“What?” Lyndi replied. “Why?”
“If I had my druthers, you would be great as the East Coast version of me. You’ve excelled at the administrative aspects of the job, as well as being a kick-ass floral designer. But . . .”
“But . . . you didn’t think I would want to move across the country when I’m about to have a baby.”
Paula’s eyebrow went up. “Well, do you?”
Lyndi let her eyes drift down. Her hand came to rest on her rounded belly. The permanence of it. The reality.
“No,” she said quietly. “I guess not.”
LYNDI DRIFTED TO a stop at the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Drive, lost in a haze of her own thinking. The honking horns of rush hour traffic winding through the packed and crumbly streets barely penetrated her mind. A place packed with oddball shops and mural-covered buildings (and a Walgreens), it was one of the few areas of Los Angeles that could claim to be pedestrian, and as such, cars tended to be a little bit more aware of people on foot.
And people on their bikes.
It felt so good to be on her bike again—it had been weeks and her legs were stiff from lack of pedaling. She knew Marcus would be livid if he found out—but Marcus wasn’t home yet. She still had another few hours before his flight was scheduled to land from New York. She still had that precious little bit of freedom that came without someone watching you, making sure you didn’t break the pregnancy rules.
Besides, she needed to think. And the only place she had ever been able to do that was on her bike.
A week ago, everything in her life had been fine. On track, even. She had a boyfriend she loved. She had a family that supported her. And she had a job that she felt good about. Now, she didn’t know if she even got to call Marcus her boyfriend anymore, given he hadn’t really considered her his girlfriend, just his baby mama. Now, she knew just how much resentment her sister held toward her. How much Nathalie—her favorite person in the world—hated her for being pregnant. And it turns out it wasn’t enough to like your job—not when you suddenly realized you wanted to excel at it.
The light changed, horns honked behind her. She headed across the intersection. A few blocks down was Echo Park Lake, Lyndi’s favorite place in the city, and she set her pedals on that course.
A man-made oasis, Echo Park Lake beckoned to people young or old, rich or poor, dog lovers or cat (although most of the cat people left their felines at home). Nathalie, of course, would make fun of her if she knew she loved it.
“It’s so dirty!” she could hear her sister saying, as if anything slightly less than perfect wasn’t worth enjoying.
Marcus didn’t understand her love of the place either.
“It’s just not . . . authentic, babe,” he’d said to her more than once, when she’d invited him to come with her.
But Marcus wasn’t there at the moment. So screw him and his authenticity.
She loved the lake. It was always alive. People came out, congregating near the water they knew to be precious in the desert, feeling the sun on their skin. There were health nuts running in circles around the lake, the more lethargic hanging out on the shore under the palm trees. Sure, there was the requisite homeless population, but didn’t they deserve a little bit of paradise, too?
If it wasn’t for the skyline of downtown Los Angeles looming in the background—and the fact that you could easily see the other side of the lake—you could pretend you were on an island in the Pacific far from the worries of the world.
Lyndi’s favorite thing about Echo Park Lake was the pedal boats, which you could ride to the fountains in the center of the lake. Not that Lyndi ever had taken one of the pedal boats. She’d always wanted to—it was like riding a bike on water!—she just hadn’t.
Somehow, she was afraid that was going to be the theme of her life from now on.
Something that she wanted . . . some adventure she should be on . . . she’d have to shrug, and let it pass her by. Because now she had the baby to consider.
And she suddenly had so many things she wanted to do.
She wanted to go skydiving—okay, she was not super keen on flying. Or heights. Or falling. But that was more reason to do it—to overcome those fears! But when on earth was she going to get to go skydiving?
She wanted to road trip to Alaska. She wanted to try a pottery class. Heck, she wanted to try pot! She hadn’t ever really felt the desire to do so in college, but now . . . okay, she didn’t really want to now, but the choice was being taken from her. She would have a kid, she wouldn’t be able to experiment with quasi-legal drugs.
She wanted to go to Boston.
She wanted to be the person that Paula relied on, that she sent across the country to open up a new arm of their business. But . . .
She couldn’t go 3,000 miles away from her family, from everything she knew. Because she would need them. She would have a kid.
For the very first time since she peed on that stick, she felt the pinprick of regret.
She was almost happy that the sunset hit her full in the face as she turned a corner and came to see the reflective waters of Echo Park Lake. Since she’d forgotten to grab her sunglasses, it would give an excuse for the tears in her eyes.
But it also made it so that she completely missed the car that was trying to make a left turn. She’d had no idea it was there—until she heard the horn, the screech of brakes, and the screams.
Chapter 19
“HELLO, CAN YOU HELP ME? MY SISTER IS here?”
Nathalie said the sentence she had b
een practicing in her mind since she’d gotten the phone call a half hour ago, jumped in her car, and sped to the hospital on Sunset Boulevard.
“Ms. Nathalie Kneller?” the nasal voice on the other end of the line said. “You are listed as Ms. Lyndi Kneller’s emergency contact on her insurance . . .”
It had been hard to hear any words after that, but Nathalie did manage to make out that there had been an accident, and her sister was in the hospital. What unit, Nathalie didn’t know. What the injuries were, Nathalie didn’t know. And she wouldn’t let herself speculate. Instead, all she did on the (way too long, what the hell was with traffic today?!?) ride down was practice her first sentence.
She would take every moment after as it came.
Of course, it would be helpful if the veritable sloth manning the front desk was able to hang up the phone long enough to hear one complete sentence.
“Yeah—no, she said that’s what the eggplant emoji was for. I didn’t get it either—”
“EXCUSE ME.”
Nathalie didn’t have time for her teacher voice to take effect. She went right to holy-hell-my-sister’s-been-hurt-and-your-emoji-cluelessness-is-stopping-me-from-seeing-her voice.
“I was called. My sister was in an accident. She’s pregnant. Where. Is. She.”
It might have been the snarl. The gritted teeth. The Do Not Mess with Me Belly. But something got the hospital receptionist off the phone and onto the computer, asking how to spell “Kneller.”
With her visitor sticker slapped on her suit jacket, Nathalie broke into a run to the elevators, stabbing at the button marked “4th floor, Labor and Delivery.”
The nurse on the desk in Labor and Delivery was a lot more helpful. But then again, it might have been because it looked like she was a pregnant lady with labored breathing who was freaking out in the Labor and Delivery department.
Once they figured out they didn’t need to hook up Nathalie to a monitor, they led her to the hospital room where she finally, finally, got to see her sister.
The room was dim, the curtains pulled across the windows and the encroaching twilight. The only sound in the room was the beep of a monitor, hooked up to the still and quiet form of Nathalie’s little sister.
The last time Nathalie had been in a hospital room like this was when she was eight. When she had visited her mother.
Her mother had never let her come unless she was awake and able to play with Nathalie. She wouldn’t let her daughter see her weak. Toward the end, Nathalie wasn’t allowed to come visit at all.
So to see Lyndi so lifeless . . . so vulnerable . . .
She reached out and took her sister’s hand. It was alarmingly cold. So much so that only the steady beeps from the monitor and the visible in-and-out of Lyndi’s breath reassured her. That, and the harness-looking contraption that encased her other arm from elbow to knuckle. It was so stiff and had so many different buckles that Nathalie wondered that it wasn’t a torture device instead of a healing one.
At that moment, Nathalie didn’t know what to do. She had come to the hospital, she had said the line she had practiced over and over in the car, which had taken her here. But now that she was here, she didn’t know if she was supposed to do any more than hold her sister’s hand.
Was she supposed to hold Lyndi’s hand? Was that allowed?
Was she supposed to flag down a doctor and force them to tell her Lyndi’s status? Was she supposed to sign forms? Was she supposed to notify loved ones? Make medical decisions?
Was she supposed to feel anything other than horrible and regretful and as if she was the worst person on the planet?
“Are you holding my hand because you’re going to propose? Or is this just a weird hospital thing people do?”
“Oh my God!”
Nathalie actually jumped in the air when her sister’s sardonic voice interrupted her own unfocused thoughts. But instead of dropping her sister’s hand, she ended up squeezing it tighter.
“Ow! Nat, are you trying to break my other hand?”
“No! Sorry! God . . . I thought you were . . .”
“Comatose?”
“No . . . although your hands are really cold.”
“They’re always cold.” Lyndi frowned at her icy fingers. “I have Mom’s circulation.”
“Right,” Nathalie said, and immediately felt a rush of guilt at any thought of Kathy. She had been studiously avoiding letting her mind tend in that direction for the past few days.
“What are you doing here?” Lyndi asked, breaking the awkward silence.
“I was called.”
“Oh . . . I didn’t realize they called you,” Lyndi replied dully.
“Lyndi.” She hesitated. Then she asked, “You . . . you listed me as your emergency contact on your insurance?” The why was implied.
“Well, of course I did,” Lyndi replied, looking at Nathalie as if she were stupid—and in this instance she probably was. “I always put you down.”
Nathalie felt heat coming to her cheeks, oddly affected by Lyndi’s words.
But then, of course, was the awkward silence again. Bred by two sisters who hadn’t been able to talk to each other in months.
“So, er, what happened?” Nathalie said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on. If you were fine, you wouldn’t be in the hospital,” she argued, putting her hands on her hips. “They wouldn’t have called your emergency contact.”
“I’m certain you were only called because I’m pregnant. It seems to be the reason for everything nowadays.”
“Didn’t you ask the doctor?”
“No, I was unconscious when I came in.”
“Lyndi!” Nathalie cried.
Lyndi sighed the sigh of the deeply suffering. “I was riding my bike . . .”
“You were RIDING YOUR BIKE?” Her heart practically stopped beating. “How could you be so stupid? Riding your bike? In LA traffic? When you’re six months pregnant?”
“Okay, can you let me get through the story, and then berate me?” Lyndi said. “It would save a lot of time.”
“Fine. But, Lyndi—” One look from Lyndi shut Nathalie up. “Fine.”
“I was riding my bike, turned right into the sunset. I didn’t have my sunglasses on me so my eyes took a minute to adjust. By the time they did, I was in a car’s blind spot. It swerved into me, I swerved away from it and into a pole.”
“You hit a pole?” Nathalie tried very, very hard to keep the judgment out of her voice. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
“I broke my wrist,” she said, holding up her splint-covered hand. “And they’re monitoring the baby.” She lifted up her hospital gown, showing two sensors strapped to her belly—one low and one high. “One’s for fetal movement, the other’s the heartbeat. So far so good, but they’re going to keep me overnight.”
“Good.” Nathalie took a deep breath. “Good. But, um . . . that doesn’t explain why you were unconscious. And why they called me.”
“When I came in they drew my blood and you know how the sight of blood makes me pass out, so I . . .”
“You passed out.”
“That must have been why they called you. Because I was out for a little bit.” Lyndi cleared her throat, resettled herself in her hospital bed. “So, as you can see, everything’s good. You don’t have to stick around.”
And with that, Nathalie lost it. And by it, she meant the top of her head, because it practically exploded.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have to stick around? Oh okay, I’ll just leave my pregnant little sister in the hospital. Never mind that I rushed all the way here afraid she was dying. Never mind that she was a total idiot riding her bike and hit a freakin’ pole. Never mind that obviously someone is going to have to help her because she broke her wrist and can’t take care of herself.”
Lyndi turned shocked eyes to Nathalie, but Nathalie didn’t see them. She wouldn’t see them until they had gone as steely as Lyndi’s voice.
> “Okay, you really can go now.”
The low control in her words made Nathalie stop pacing.
“You didn’t mean that I can’t take care of myself because I’ve got a broken wrist.” Lyndi’s eyes narrowed. “You meant I can’t take care of myself, period. So how am I going to take care of a baby if I can’t take care of myself? That’s what you’re really saying, isn’t it? That’s what you meant to say at the baby shower and that’s what you meant to say now.”
Nathalie was caught. She could lie. Deflect. Not kick up any dust, and bring everything back to a state of even. But suddenly, after the last however many months of tight smiles and keeping things even, and one colossally disastrous baby shower, Nathalie didn’t want to keep things even. She wanted to do what came naturally to sisters.
She wanted to finally have it out.
“Okay, Lyndi,” Nathalie said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Yes—you’ve always had someone taking care of you. Dad, Kathy, me. Now Marcus. Although Marcus obviously isn’t taking very good care of you if he isn’t even here right now.”
“Marcus is on a plane. Coming back from New York. And I’m sure that I’m going to get the same lecture from him that you’re giving me, so don’t worry about me being ‘taken care of.’ Your version of care is well covered.”
“You’ve never had to worry about anything the way we worry about you,” Nathalie replied. “For heaven’s sake, I had to schedule your OB appointments!”
“Only the first one. And you didn’t have to—you just did! Because that’s what you do. You take over. Because you don’t think I can stand on my own two feet. Just like Mom and Dad. And you know what,” she rushed through before Nathalie could counter, “you can be mad at me for ‘stealing your pregnancy’—whatever the hell that means—but I didn’t do this to you. It honestly has nothing to do with you. Maybe, just maybe, you could consider the possibility that it’s you who is stealing my pregnancy.”
Nathalie gaped. “That’s ridiculous!”
“It’s not ridiculous. People actually want you to be pregnant. They’re happy for you—no one is happy for me.”
Nathalie was about to retort . . . but something stopped her. Something had broken in Lyndi’s voice. Something raw and true and little.
