by Hazel Parker
Unfortunately, all this roomy splendor only serves to remind me that I’m the only one around to enjoy it. This becomes all the clearer as I make myself a drink and sit down in an armchair by the French doors leading out to the patio. It lets me survey the interior of the space, and I find it almost barnlike in its emptiness.
It’s not empty of material finery, to be sure. It is, however, glaringly devoid of human presence, save for myself.
I don’t even have Curtis with me for company. When I told him about my intention to spend some time in Europe, he had asked in his formal way if I wanted him to accompany me. I’ve traveled without him before, and often, but this trip feels different, and he picked up on that right away.
On the face of it, there really was no reason for him to come along. After all, the hotel employs a staff of specialized servers called guest experience managers. They seemed hardwired to tend to a guest’s every need.
No, Curtis had wanted to come because he was worried about me. I suppose I’d given him plenty of reason to be, as I hadn’t left the house since my blow-up with Steph. I had still worked, of course, albeit from home. Some days, I didn’t even come out of my bedroom. Curtis was probably nervous that I was turning into a latter-day Howard Hughes.
Maybe there was some merit to his fears because staying in so much was out of character for me. I decided that a change of scenery was in order. I had cohorts in England that I hadn’t met with personally in some time, so now seemed as good a time as any. One private jet flight later, I was making the rounds in London.
I had been invited out for dinner on several occasions, which I begged off from every time. I didn’t want to be around people once I had concluded my business with them. It was like I had used up my reserves of social skills and had nothing left over for after-hours company.
I sigh. How have things come to this?
That’s no mystery. I know perfectly well how things have come to this, how I came to be skulking around a rain-drenched country an ocean away from home.
I lost track of how many times I had almost called Steph after I had arrived in London. After the first week, these urges were slightly less. By the second week, I was down to absently fiddling with my phone only a few dozen times a day.
You’re doing great, I tell myself sarcastically. Another year, and you might be able to go for an hour without thinking about her.
Except that’s the thing—I don’t want to go without thinking about her.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to check up on her without contacting her directly. I had a number of people who could stake out all three of her restaurants, observe the mood of the establishments and even that of Steph herself, if I wanted.
I won’t do it, though. It was meddling that had brought things to this state to begin with. And I can admit that it was in fact meddling. I don’t want to compound my mistake by intruding on her life again. I could try to fool myself that I could be covert about it, but again, it was trying to be sneaky that had caused my plans to blow up in my face.
I’m at a loss, though, as to what to do now. I can’t talk to Steph directly, I won’t check up on her, and not doing either is making me feel lost and at loose ends.
I pick up my phone and dial. It takes a moment for the international call to go through to the States.
“Hello?” says the voice on the other end. “Stone residence.”
“Hi, Curtis,” I say, smiling a little in spite of myself. It’s good to hear his voice. I haven’t phoned home the entire time I’ve been away.
“Hello, sir,” he replies. Does he sound glad to hear from me? It seems like he does.
“How is London?” he goes on.
“I think there’s going to be a worldwide shortage of cats and dogs because it’s been raining them ever since I got here,” I say.
He gives his restrained little laugh at that. Then, “And your colleagues, sir? Has your business with them gone well?”
I finish my drink and rise to make another one. “Gone well and now well gone. I seem to be without further plans at the moment.”
“Will you be returning home, then?” he asks.
I drop ice into my glass and pour Macallan Fine Scotch over it. “I don’t know, Curtis. I don’t think so. I guess I’m looking for the next place to drift along to.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, drifting seems rather out of character for you.”
“I would have thought you’d be glad I got myself out of the office for a while,” I say.
“These aren’t precisely the circumstances I would have wished for,” he counters.
“And what circumstances are those?” I ask, although we both know perfectly well. “Never mind, never mind. Any news from home?” I try to sound casual.
“No, sir. Everything at the house is in order. Nothing overly pressing has arrived for you in the mail, and of course, all calls have been forwarded on to your mobile number.”
“All of them?” I ask. I can’t help it.
“Yes, sir.”
“I see.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Curtis?”
“If you don’t mind my saying—”
“I don’t mind at all,” I interrupt. “Say away.”
He pauses, clearly uncomfortable with giving his opinion when it wasn’t requested.
“It seems that you are waiting for something in much the same way that other parties are also waiting. Everyone involved appears to be waiting for someone else to break the silence.”
“And so?”
“And so, perhaps you should be the one to break this silence, sir.”
“I’m not so sure the…other party wants it to be broken, Curtis.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I suppose the question you must ask yourself is, can things be allowed to continue as they are now?”
I say nothing.
“I hope I haven’t overstepped my bounds, sir,” Curtis says.
“Hardly. You haven’t said anything I haven’t thought to myself a thousand times.”
“Sometimes, it helps to hear someone else give voice to one’s thoughts so that they may be objectively observed.”
“I believe you’re right. Thank you, Curtis.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
I hang up and am slightly surprised to find the Scotch bottle almost empty. I call down to the front desk and request another. They assure me that it will be no trouble at all to locate and will deliver it with haste.
I sit in the armchair again and toy with my phone. Curtis, as is typical for him, has a point. I have long held to the philosophy that you can wait for things to happen or you can make things happen. Maybe there’s a kind of middle ground between the two, something that doesn’t entail sitting on my hands or trying to force a desired outcome.
I sigh. In a perfect world, I would call Steph, and after a little initial awkwardness, we would reconcile and she would board the first available plane to England. We would spend several weeks here, holed up in this luxury hotel, making up for lost time.
The phone is still in my hand. I bring up Steph’s number. I am five hours ahead of Chicago, so although it is almost eleven here, it is only six o’clock there. She’ll be at work, no doubt, but that could be said of most hours on any given day. I could wait until I was reasonably confident she was home, but I feel like I am done with waiting.
There’s a knock at the door. The guest experience managers are famous for their promptness, and this is no exception.
I answer the door, prepared to tip heavily to compensate for the lateness of the hour.
“Hi,” Jamie says from the doorstep.
Chapter 23 - Steph
In five minutes, you can read two to three pages of a book. You can also declutter your junk drawer in five minutes. In five minutes, you can brush the dog. You can also go through your kitchen cabinets and put together a grocery list.
In five minutes, you can find out if your life is going to undergo a tre
mendous, massive, planet-sized change.
“Anything?” Tira calls from the outside the bathroom.
“All quiet so far,” I answer, still studying the window on the home pregnancy test with the intensity of a scientist.
Oh, yes—when you’re waiting on something like this, five minutes can take up to a year to pass.
I had called Tira the day after I had had my bizarre-o dream. I had plucked up the courage to go out and buy the test on my own but had spent the rest of that day putting off using it. I had reasoned that I would be just as pregnant or not-pregnant the following day and that it could wait until I was in a little better state of mind. Not exactly great reasoning, but there you go.
When Tira had learned of my…predicament, she had shown up at my apartment so fast, she might as well have teleported there. She insisted that we would get through the situation either way, but it was important to know for sure, and right now.
“Check again,” she says.
“I haven’t stopped checking, T.”
“Check again anyway.”
“I’m the one who’s supposed to be a nervous wreck here, remember?”
She laughs a little jaggedly. “Can’t we both be nervous wrecks?”
I’m about to reply when the positive sign begins to show up in the window of the test. It’s faint at first but rapidly solidifies into a definitive pair of crossed lines. It glares at me like a miniature neon sign, one that causes all the blood to rush to my head. I can feel my pulse thudding around my eyes. All of a sudden, I can’t catch my breath.
“Steph?” Tira calls. “You okay?”
Feeling disconnected from my body, I watch as my hand goes out and opens the bathroom door. Tira leans in expectantly. I watch as my other hand holds up the test for her to see. I hear my voice, trembly and faint, saying, “It’s a boy. Or a girl.”
It’s difficult to read the emotions on Tira’s face. They flutter by so quickly: happiness, fear, concern. She comes forward and puts her arms around me, drawing me close and hugging me.
“Oh, Steph,” she murmurs, then holds me at arm’s length and looks me in the eye. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I can’t be pregnant,” I say, and my voice still sounds washed-out, barely there. “I can’t be. My life can’t accommodate something like that. I have my career and…my career! There’s no way! And besides…” I trail off and almost laugh. It comes out sounding like a weak hiccup. “Trent and I were only together two times.”
“One time is all it takes, honey,” she replies.
“Apparently so.”
She waits for a beat, then asks, “What are you going to do?”
At first, I don’t have a sense of what she means. Do? I’m going to sit down; that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to sit down so I can fully immerse myself in the full-body numbing shock I am experiencing. After I’ve done that for a while, I may stand up, go to the kitchen, and have some ice cream.
I tell Tira my plans. “Do you even have any ice cream?” she says.
“A trivial detail. I’ll just make some. I’m a chef, you know. Or I was up until a couple of minutes ago. Now I’m a mom-to-be.” I do laugh this time, and Tira looks as though she doesn’t trust the sound of it.
“It’s going to be okay,” she says again soothingly.
“Oh, I know it will be,” I reply. “It’ll be fine. I have all the ingredients already. And it’ll be a good nesting activity. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be wanting to do? Nesting activities?”
“I’m not talking about making ice cream.”
“Well, could we? Because I don’t know if I could handle…talking about anything else right now.”
She leads me over to the couch and we sit down.
“Does Trent know you…might be making ice cream?” she asks.
“Of course not,” I answer quickly. “I haven’t spoken to him since I…well, not to put too fine a point on it, since I drove him away.”
“You didn’t drive him away, Steph. You two had a fight. He stormed off, that’s all.”
“That’s all? You make it sound like he went into another room to simmer down. He left the country!”
“Okay, but remember what I said about him and grand gestures? That applies to all kinds of situations.”
I put my head in my hands and groan. I had thought when I had gone to Trent’s house a couple of days ago and been told by Curtis that Trent was in Europe “for an indeterminate length of time” that I couldn’t feel any worse. Oh, how life can throw another layer onto the rock pile.
“Let’s try this again,” Tira says gently. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I honestly have no idea.”
“In the short-term or the long run?”
“Either. Take your pick.”
She looks at me, somehow sad but smiling at the same time. “Just remember, I’m here for you, no matter what.” She puts her arm around my shoulders. “I’m here for you.”
“Thanks, T.” I nod towards the kitchen. “Can we make some ice cream now?”
“You were serious about that?”
“There are two things I’m always serious about—being pregnant and working in the kitchen.”
An hour and a couple of bowls of homemade ice cream later, Tira takes her leave. She offers to stay with me, but I tell her I need some alone time to do some thinking. She only departs after extracting a promise from me to call her later tonight.
Tira is everything a person could want in a best friend. She is as fiercely loyal as she is determined to keep me from having the finer things in life pass me by. I know she will have my back through this.
Alone for the moment, though, the situation looms over me. My life, formerly on such solid ground, now seems to be spinning like some crazy carnival ride.
It’s not like I have ever actively not wanted kids. I like children. The thought of having one of my own, though, had always seemed like something I would get to later. It was a classic case of the ambiguous later, which, left to my own devices, would most likely have ended up as being never.
Later now seems to be just a bit less than nine months away.
There really are only three choices that I can see—have the baby and keep it, have the baby and give it up, or don’t have the baby at all. There’s a fourth option, which is to go to sleep and wake up to find this is all a dream, but I don’t see that one as happening with any reliability.
I put my hand on my stomach, trying to comprehend the consequences of what that little test had told me. I try thinking about it in terms of my career. Nope, I can’t get a handle on it. I try thinking of it in terms of my body. I come up empty on that one, too. My living situation? Nada. The money angle? Uh-uh.
I start to wonder how things had come to this, only to quickly realize that I knew perfectly well who had turned my life upside-down. I also realized how much I like the upside-down version of my life, and how much I like the person who has done the life-flipping.
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I’m more inclined to believe that it gives you a sharper perspective on your heart’s concerns. At least, that’s what it was doing for me.
I love Trent.
I haven’t known him for a long time, but I have fallen in love with him just the same. Otherwise, why would it hurt so much when he had left? And why else would I feel such anxiety at not knowing when or even if he would come back?
Not just that, but a million other things could happen—plane crashes, car wrecks, asteroid strikes. I was very rapidly coming to learn that a large part of love is terror, the terror of imagining all sorts of terrible things happening to the object of your affections.
And it struck me that I also felt that terror when I imagined giving this new life away or denying it its chance in the world at all. It was at that moment that I realize that I love this baby, too, and that I intend to both have it and keep it. I don’t know how I’ll be able to do either, b
ut I’m sure that it’s the course of action I intend to follow.
I feel a sense of accomplishment. Major life decision made. Now what? Start babyproofing the apartment? Go online to shop for cribs? Figure out how to explain to Daniel and the rest of my staff how different things are going to become in the near future? Make more ice cream?
No, the thing to do is to alert the other party involved here. I have to call Trent. He needs to know what is going on.
Technology can be a wonderful thing. It can reach out to someone half a world away, no matter where they are, and tell them that you’re thinking of them and want to speak to them. It can put you in touch with your heart’s desire. It can allow all manner of arguments and misunderstandings to be washed away by affection and longing.
It can also be picked up by a strangely familiar female voice, who goes on to tell you that Trent can’t come to the phone right now.
Chapter 24 - Trent
Rather than looking as though she had just come in out of the rain, Jamie appears to have stepped fresh off the pages of a modelling magazine. Her hair is down and longer than I remember. She’s straightened it. She’s also dressed casually—black jeans and a black blouse that showcases her slim frame.
“Well?” she says after a moment. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” I reply. “Jamie, what are you doing here?”
“I heard you were in town and thought I’d say hello.”
“In town? You mean you were already here? In London?”
She smiles. “Photo shoot. It got rained out. No surprise there. We’ve all been sitting around on our hands for days now.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Trent, you should know that billionaires can’t do anything in secret. The places you go and the things you do are practically public information. Besides, I have a friend who works at this hotel, and she called me.”
I make the mistake of turning around and heading back towards my suite’s bar. Jamie takes advantage of this and steps into the room, closing the door behind her.
