by L. B. Dunbar
The noise was rhythmic and steady in beat. I foolishly looked up at the ceiling trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.
“What’s that?” I asked, trying not to sound like an idiot. I looked at Elaine who smiled at me with tears in her eyes.
“That’s life,” she whispered.
I looked at the nurse, who only smiled in return, and said, “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I was overwhelmed. I felt a cold wave of something slip from my head to my toes. I was going to be a father. I was going to have a child. With a woman I didn’t love. My life was so fucked up.
I glanced at the dark blob on the screen.
“Can you tell what we are having?”
“Do you want to know?” The nurse addressed Elaine.
Elaine looked at me and I gave her a shrug. I wanted to know, but I would do whatever she wanted.
“Sure,” she said, still mesmerized by the sound filling the room.
The nurse moved her magic wand over Elaine, positioning it here and there, before a clearer image came into view. A rather large head. An arm that looked raised like it was sucking it’s thumb. And something between the legs.
“Is that what I think it is?” my voice shook.
The nurse calmly smiled again.
“Congratulations. It’s a boy.”
I was still dazed from the whole experience. If Elaine and I were a couple, I could imagine taking her back to my place and making love to her to celebrate. Instead I offered her lunch. It was a conciliation congratulations. I would never be having sex with Elaine again. At that point, I was a bit turned off by women as a whole. I felt like I couldn’t trust any of them.
We ordered in silence before Elaine leveled me with a stare.
“How’s Lila?”
I choked on my water.
“She moved out.”
“Why?” Elaine sounded surprised. “I thought her apartment wasn’t supposed to be ready until after the first?”
“It’s not.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed in exasperation. Maybe it was desperation. I hadn’t been able to find a hint to where Lila had gone. After struggling with myself for a week, I went to Kaye Sirs and asked him to investigate Lila. I was still seething when I entered his office at Camelot Records.
“Why do you want to investigate Lila Lovelourne?”
“I think she had something to do with Arturo’s disappearance or at least the accident.”
“Why would you say that?” he asked cautiously. I suddenly realized Kaye knew something I didn’t.
“I saw the pictures,” I stated, but Kaye only nodded. He didn’t seem surprised as if he knew what I was referring to.
“Her intentions might have been wrong, but she did not cause that accident.”
“How do you know?” I bit, coming closer to his desk.
“Because I know the whole investigation like the back of my hand. Lila Lovelourne came to the police willingly with what she knew and what she didn’t know.”
“And what didn’t she know?” I snapped.
“She didn’t know who took the second set of photos, but the police now know it was an amateur photographer. They were taken after the accident. It was not Lila who took those pictures.”
“How can you be certain? I saw them on her computer. The images were together.”
“Those images were linked the moment they each hit the Internet, which they did, separately. The police were able to trace the source, which Lila willing gave them from her camera memory card. It didn’t match Lila’s.”
I remember being shocked at the amount of information Kaye had and hadn’t shared with us.
“Why did she take the shots, in the first place?” I snapped.
“Something about paying for dance classes for her sister’s daughter.”
Fleur. She had done it for Fleur.
Thoughts of Fleur brought me back to Elaine’s presence at the table. It was going to take a lot to raise a child on her own, but I didn’t plan to let Elaine be truly alone. I would be involved as the baby’s father; I would not be a Josh Tucker. Elaine and I had been friends once. What she wanted was a lover. I kept her at a distance to avoid that very situation. She wanted someone to share the experience with her. I couldn’t be that man and it made me a bad person, all over again.
I thought of Lila. Elaine wanted motherhood, but Lila had it by default. She willingly took over the care of Fleur and she was doing it all alone. Fleur’s father wasn’t involved, and Fleur had no other family willing to help her. I tried to imagine that in moments of desperation, Lila might have thought she had to take photos to make a buck. It only pissed me off more. However, Elaine came from money. A whole army of servants would be at her beck and call to support her raising our son.
“You miss her, don’t you?”
“Lila?” I blurted, as if Elaine had been reading my thoughts.
“Fleur.”
“I…I learned some things that I can’t trust about Lila, so I can’t miss her. I can’t miss either of them.”
“Bullshit.”
“What?” I laughed. Elaine Corbin was the epitome of decorum next to Guinevere DeGrance. To hear her throw out that word was rather out of character for her.
“You can still miss them. Her. It’s hard to find out someone you thought was perfect wasn’t, but it doesn’t lessen the withdrawal from that person.”
Somehow, I knew Elaine was speaking from experience.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Elaine. We used to be good friends. This is all fucked up now, but we have a life-long connection by this child. I’d like to start new with you. As a friend.”
Elaine twisted her lips as if she was thinking hard about what I said, as if it was a difficult decision to make, but finally her green eyes sparkled and she smiled slowly at me.
“I’d really like that Lansing.”
I smiled weakly back at her. So many things had happened in such a short time. How did my life get turned upside down so quickly?
“So, back to Lila,” she started again.
“Forget Lila.”
“Can you? Can you really? Did you forget Guinie that fast?”
“I…Nothing happened with Guinie.”
“You accused Lila of lying to you, but now you’re lying to yourself. And me. Something happened and once again you need to live with those consequences, Lansing. Sounds like the Lady Killer strikes again with Guinie and Lila.”
“I didn’t break her heart,” I laughed bitterly.
“Wanna bet? I don’t think you know how not to break a heart,” she said, but she didn’t mean it as snarky as it sounded. She said it as if she felt sorry for me.
“Look, since we’re going to be friends, I’m going to be honest with you, since you can’t be honest with yourself. You’re always going to love Guinie for some reason. You may always do anything to put her first, but she’s never going to pick you. You’ll always be her second, because her destiny is Arturo.”
“So, where is he?” I growled.
“I don’t know, but he’ll return.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“What do you know?” I hissed as I leaned across the table.
“I don’t know anything that you wouldn’t know yourself. It’s been on the Internet. Someone snapped a photo of Arturo in New York. He was standing next to a private car in the street.”
I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was the same day I’d seen Arturo.
“So, what are you going to do about Lila?” Elaine asked hesitantly, attempting to change the subject.
“I don’t know. She seems to have disappeared, too.”
I had fallen into an old routine. I hung out in my apartment until I couldn’t stand myself, or until I couldn’t stand Galehaut, who seemed to be spending a lot of time in my place. He was worried about me after my week-long binge. T
he holidays were days away and I wasn’t planning on spending them with anyone. I’d actually had one of the best Thanksgivings of my life when I thought back on my day with Lila and Fleur. I didn’t see how being with the band, or any of our family, was going to help my mood.
Galehaut and I hadn’t really discussed what he walked in on weeks ago. He had entered my apartment unannounced, to find me in a daze at those photos and he witnessed me kicking Lila out. At some point, he walked Lila out, but I knew that only because he told me. I refused to talk to him further about her. As the weeks passed, I was becoming a bit concerned. I didn’t know where Lila could go until her place was restored. Then, I didn’t know how I would handle having her back in the building, but my curiosity was getting the best of me.
Galehaut has just killed me in the new video game he was testing out for his family’s computer company. My head wasn’t into it. I hit the button to restart the game and faked my interest as I asked the question that I couldn’t avoid any longer.
“So, I’m a…curious. When you walked Lila out, do you happen to know where she was going?”
“Why?” he asked monotone, not looking in my direction, but I looked at him. It was the way he responded. He knew something.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Why, Lansing? Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just…curious. I just want to make sure she’s…that Fleur’s okay.”
“Not a good enough answer, Your Grace.”
“Fuck off, Will. Tell me what you know.”
“Why? So you can go after her and attack her, like you almost did in your apartment.”
“I would never hurt Lila.”
“I think it’s too late for that.”
“What do you know?” I hissed under my breath.
“I know more than you, because I’m not blinded by what I can’t have, when what I should have was in front of me the whole time as I fucked around with other girls.”
“And what ‘should I have’?”
“A woman who puts you in your place, makes you think about your bitch decisions, and maybe makes you feel like you could be part of something more.”
“Yeah, right. Like what?”
“A family,” he said, in all seriousness.
“Fuck, Will, not this shit again.” I threw the controller on the coffee table and flung my head back to stare at the ceiling.
“You need something else to focus on.”
“I need a distraction,” I swallowed.
“No, you don’t. You need something else to concentrate on. Something…no, someone, that would make you forget about your lost chance with Guinie, and make you take a new chance on somebody else. A more realistic chance.”
“What I need is to know where Lila is,” I groaned. “That’s it. It’s that simple.”
“It isn’t that simple. You don’t deserve to know, yet,” Galehaut huffed.
“Jeez, you’re being harsh,” I laughed.
“Until you can admit that what you had, right under your nose, was the best thing for you, you don’t deserve to find her.”
“Admit right under my nose…” I was starting to laugh again, but my humor choked me. The smile fell from my face as I sat upright and looked at Galehaut.
“You have her in your apartment, don’t you?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Not anymore.” He shook his head without even looking at me, his eyes still trained on the large flat screen and the blood bath before us. “And that’s not under your nose,” he mumbled.
“How could you do this to me?”
“I didn’t do anything to you. I did it for her.”
“Thank God, I can trust you didn’t do her,” I laughed without humor, and he reached out quickly to punch me in the arm.
“Well, I would if I weren’t me. And you’re an ass, Lansing. You don’t deserve to do her, either, because you’re you right now.”
Words raced through my head. You don’t deserve her. The best thing was right under your nose. Something still wasn’t right. I stood when I realized I suddenly knew where she was.
Someone was banging on my apartment door, but I didn’t know why. No one knew I was here. The two people that did each had a key. I couldn’t get to the door anyway because Fleur was balanced over the toilet again. Poor thing had some kind of stomach flu, and she had started throwing up in the middle of the night. Every time I thought she had it under control, she’d start again. I’d already called the pediatrician twice. I was scooping her hair up and rubbing her back with my free hand when the banging started again.
Jesus, take the hint. No one’s home.
Fleur sat back on shaky legs and I tried to pick her up to carry her back to her room just outside the bath. I laid her back down and covered her as her eyes closed immediately. The banging began again.
What the…?
As I reached the door, I peeked through the peep hole to find Lansing outside my door. I couldn’t handle him, at the moment. I was exhausted from being awake most of the night. I just couldn’t deal with him. I stepped back from the door.
“Lila? Lila, I know you’re in there. Open up.”
I didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything he could say to me. I stepped back farther from the door, as if he could see me through the solid wood.
The banging started again.
“Lila? Please. I know you’re in there. If you don’t open up, I can get the key and you know it.”
At that exact moment, Fleur began to cry my name again. If I didn’t get to her, she’d let loose on the floor like she already had twice last night. I couldn’t clean that bedding again. I didn’t have the energy.
I reached for the deadbolt, unlocked the door, and immediately ran for Fleur.
“Fleur, up,” I cried.
“Lila,” she was moaning, as she slid out of bed and almost fell to the floor. I quickly moved the garbage can that had somehow been pushed back from the side of the bed and helped Fleur balance over it. She couldn’t possibly have anything left, but I held her hair back as she shook and cried.
“What the fuck? What’s going on here?” Lansing barked.
“Look. I don’t know what you want, but now isn’t a good time, Lansing.” I didn’t even look at him, my concentration was on Fleur. I felt his presence behind me as Fleur moaned and sat back from the bin.
“Come on, sweetheart, lay back down. You need some rest.”
I helped her stand and climb back under the covers.
“What’s wrong?” Lansing was standing directly behind me, looking over my shoulder at Fleur.
“She just has a stomach bug, but she’s been throwing up since the middle of the night,” I said as I yawned.
“When was the last time you slept?” he said softly behind me.
“What do you want, Lansing?” I demanded, turning to face him. More literally, face his chest. He was closer to me than I thought, and I bumped into him as I spun. His hands gripped my arms to steady me, but he didn’t let go.
“Lila, you look exhausted.”
“Thank you,” I said, yawning again.
I tried to step around him, but I knew from past experience it was futile. He moved with me.
“Can she be left alone?”
“I can hear her from the living room,” I said. Lansing stepped back so I could lead the way out of Fleur’s room.
“Have you been here the whole time?” he asked immediately, as I sank onto the couch. I leaned back and closed my eyes to him.
“Yes.”
“Why haven’t I seen you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you weren’t looking,” I laughed softly.
“Lila?” I opened my eyes slowly as I felt the couch cushion next to me dip.
I didn’t have strength to fight him, so I figured I would let him say what he needed to say. He could get whatever off his chest, and then leave me alone, so I could sleep. That’s all I wanted right now. Sleep.
“Lila, are you falling asle
ep?”
“No.” My eye lids sprung open and I blinked as I tried to sit upright. Lansing shifted next to me, taking off his zipper sweatshirt. I didn’t understand what he was doing until I felt him slip behind me on the couch and place a hand on my hips. He was tilting us downward.
“Lay down,” he demanded softly, and I gave in. I was just too tired.
I was having an amazing dream. My sister was still alive and she was with Josh, but I didn’t care. I had my own man. Lansing was standing with his arms wrapped around me, his chin on my shoulder as he whispered in my ear. I don’t recall what he said, but I smiled in the dream. My sister turned to hug Josh, only Josh was looking at me over her shoulder. He smiled his wicked sweet smile and I flinched. It was one of those weird jolts when your body jerks and you come awake. An arm tightened around me as I stared into my darkened apartment from the angle of my couch.
“You’re okay,” came a muffled voice in my hair. A hand flattened on my stomach and butterflies took flight in my lower belly.
“Lansing?” I said in a sleepy voice.
“Yeah?”
“What are you still doing here?”
“I’m…I’m holding onto you, Lila.”
“Why?”
“You were tired,” he said flatly and I took a deep breath. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from Lansing Lotte.
“I need to get up and check on Fleur.”
“I already did.”
I shifted to see him over my shoulder. “What?”
“I checked on her a while ago. She was still asleep.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He reached over me for something on the floor. I assumed it was his phone, but the position placed him on top of me. One of his legs slid between mine and his chest was flattening my breasts. The pressure made my nipples perk to attention and I cursed myself for responding to him instantly. He looked down at me, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was watching my mouth which had fallen open as I took in a breath. He purposely slipped his knee forward. I tried to stifle the sigh, but a noise came from the back of my throat. His eyes widened and he held my gaze.
