by Jess Bentley
Mine does too. What do I say right now?
“I’ve been calling you for over a month,” he says, his voice getting louder. “Were you even going to tell me?”
“Jake, I…” but there’s nothing I can realistically say. Before, when I could have called him and told him, I would have been able to plan something or think out what I would say, but I haven’t even done that. Every time in the last month that I’ve imagined that conversation starting, I just put my mind on something else.
Now, I wish I’d spent the time playing that scenario out. At least I’d have something prepared.
Jake stares at me, waiting, but I’ve got nothing. Finally he rubs his face with both hands, and looks away. “And ah… I mean… is it mine?”
“The fuck do you mean, ‘is it yours’?” I ask, suddenly angry at the suggestion. Only after it’s out of my mouth do I realize it’s a completely rational thing to ask, but that doesn’t make me take it back. I’m committed. If we’re going to have this out, let’s have it out.
But that isn’t what happens. Jake looks like I hit him hard in the gut, and shakes his head slowly as he turns to leave.
“Jake…” God, I want to say something better. Something that fixes everything. Think, think…
“You can’t keep my own child from me, Janie,” Jake says as he leaves me. “Don’t even think about trying.”
I watch him go, stunned and numb. No, not numb. Terrified.
Terrified and racked with guilt that I absolutely deserve.
It takes until I’m back at Red Hall, locked in my office, before I work up the nerve to call Jake.
Well, almost. Each time my finger hovers over the call button, I try to rehearse what I’ll say. Every time, it sounds pathetic.
“I was going to tell you, but I wanted to make sure I got through the first trimester and the baby was healthy.” Christ, that’s not better than hiding it from him, and what, I was just going to wait three months?
“I’m actually not sure it’s yours and didn’t want to cause a panic.” Yeah, because tell him I’ve been sleeping all over town will get me some sympathy. The timing is too perfect. No way that will work.
“You’re a manipulative asshole who broke my heart and I never planned on telling you anything.” Honesty isn’t always the best policy — especially when I was honestly being kind of a bitch. What mother keeps a child away from her father? That’s a can of worms…
Nothing sounds right in my head, and in every case I imagine the verbal beating I’m probably going to take from him. Worse, I imagine the fallout afterward. Jake has the kind of resources that could hire lawyers. Good ones. Better ones than I can afford and more of them. Calling or not calling, though, probably won’t change the reality of that.
So I put my phone away, and again slide this event back on my calendar. I’ll do it. Just… not right now.
It’s half an hour until dinner service. I wipe my eyes, and smooth my dress. I have to keep my shit together — if not for me, then for my staff. This is a critical juncture. Tonight, Lacey is delivering the last taste-teasers before the launch party. The reception so far has been incredible, and there’s tons of buzz around it. We’re under consideration for a Michelin star, for fuck’s sake. Now is not the time to break down.
And yet, when I see Gloria schmoozing it up with one of the foodie bloggers that’s here for the final taste-teaser, I nearly lose my shit. Gloria flashes her eyes at me, and I can see in that slight smile on her smug face that she wants me to be thinking precisely what I’m thinking — that any moment she’ll tell the world about my situation and all this will go spiraling down the drain.
All I can do is separate them and have the talk I’ve been avoiding with her, so that’s what I do. “Gloria?” I ask pleasantly as I approach. “I have a few things I want to go over with you about tonight. You mind meeting me in the office?”
“Oh, I think I’ve got a handle on it,” Gloria says.
My smile is stiff. “It’ll only take a minute. I want your input on a few ideas.”
Gloria smiles approvingly at me, and turns to her temporary friend. “If you’ll excuse me — it’s a big night! We definitely want to get it just right.” As if accomplishing that requires her input; which is exactly what I meant to imply. I know the game we’re playing, even if we haven’t set terms yet.
She follows me back to the office, where I invite her in before I close the door behind us.
In private, there’s no point in either of us wearing masks. “What do you want?” I ask.
“I want Red Hall to be successful,” Gloria says innocently. “We all rise and fall together, right? As a team.”
“Gloria, I don’t have the patience for games right now.”
“Is it the hormones?” she asks, grimacing with mock sympathy. “I hear they can, you know… woo!” She twirls a finger around her temple and rolls her eyes. “Screw you right up.”
“What do you want from me to ensure you stay quiet about this?” I ask, mustering every grain of humility I’ve managed to collect over the years. It isn’t much.
Gloria, though, sighs and leans on the desk, looking thoughtful. You’d think I asked her what she wanted for Christmas — which, I suppose, I basically did.
“I want,” she says, slowly, deliberately, “more money, less responsibility. Some easy job where I can relax and look pretty.”
“That’s what you do now, Gloria,” I sneer.
That’s a mistake, and she narrows her eyes at me. “Double my pay. I never touch another rag or broom again, and I get to hire two hostesses to work under me. Don’t worry, I’ll still work — I’ll mingle with guests, take feedback, talk up whatever we’ve got going on. But I want more of a role here. And I want to be the go-to person for the bloggers and critics when they come in.”
She has no idea how close she is to losing a finger, sticking it in my cage like this. It takes everything I have not to fly off the handle right now. “I can’t afford two more hostesses if I’m paying you double,” I tell her.
Gloria’s eyes light up a little bit. We’re no longer arguing, we’re negotiating. She’s quiet for a long moment, and then shrugs. “All right. But I want to be our public face. I’d make a good figurehead for Red Hall, don’t you think?”
“It’s more stressful than you realize,” I tell her. “Are you sure you want that?”
“Um, please,” Gloria laughs. “Can I look good for cameras and smile and tell people we’re so pleased they’re here? Yes, Janie, I can do that. I’m not an idiot, you know. I’m just an opportunist.”
I know exactly what she is and I desperately want to tell her that. “Fine,” I say instead.
“Great! Believe me, Janie, this place is going to take off like a rocket with me leading the charge.” She walks around me, to the door, dismissing herself instead of waiting for me to let her go. The dynamic between us is forever altered.
At the door, she turns, smug in her victory over me. “I’ll give you a week to handle the press release between your mommy appointments. I’ll email you a head shot.”
“Oh, yes,” I tell her. “I definitely need a head shot for you.”
Gloria only winks at me. She doesn’t get the joke.
The final taste-teaser manages, somehow, to go off without a hitch and gain us even more praise in the local food blogs and columns. All night, Gloria flashes me smug looks while she flounces around the lounge, laughing and getting on with guests so loudly that I can hear her constantly. I know that she knows it, and that’s why she’s doing it.
Chester raises an eyebrow at me from the bar, again and again, his usual signal that I should rein her in, and he gets more and more exasperated as the evening wears on. He’s got to be wondering what the hell is wrong with me.
Maybe if I told him everything, he could help me come up with some kind of solution that doesn’t involve handing my pride over to Gloria on a silver platter. But that would be one more person who knows my secret and e
ven though I trust Chester… the more people that know, the closer I am to that critical mass point when this thing explodes across the town.
It gets so much worse when the guests leave, and we’re ready to close down for the night. Chester starts delegating closing duties, which is his job, and which I trust him to do well. He gets around to Gloria, though, and she just smiles at him, and then at me.
Chester looks like he might break a bottle over her head. I would claim she fell, if he did.
But since he doesn’t, I swallow my pride and step in on her behalf. “It’s okay, Chester. Gloria, if you would… just reach out to a few of the bloggers from tonight and make sure they have all the right information, I’d really appreciate it.” It’s all I can say before I literally feel the bile rise in my throat and I’m fairly certain it has nothing to do with being pregnant.
Gloria flashes us both a smile. “Sure thing, Janie. I’ll do it from home. I have all their contact information.”
She waves at both of us, and then gathers her little clutch to leave.
The moment she’s gone, Chester is on me. “What the total fuck, Janie? Did she kidnap your mother? Is she holding her ransom? Is the stress finally getting to you?” He peers at me with concern, and waves his hands. “How many fingers am I holding up? You know what year it is? You remember Gloria? The social-climbing bitch we hate but have to work with because of reasons?”
I want to spill it all so that it makes sense. More than anything in the world, because I could use a hug right now and Chester would give me that.
Instead, though, I lie. “She… handled a press release for me last week and did a good job. I don’t like her, but she has a talent and I’m going to use it. So. That’s all.”
He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t say so. Instead he gives me a short nod and then turns away to deal with the extra work that he and the rest of the staff now have to deal with.
As if it’s bad enough keeping the secret from Jake, now I’m going to keep it from the only man in my life I actually consider a friend.
Great. Just great.
Sleep doesn’t come easy tonight. In fact, it doesn’t come at all. I call Sahara, thinking that she’ll be the ear I need, but before I can blurt out that I’m pregnant she apologizes because it’s summer finals and she is up to her tits with work and study.
“But I’ll call you after this is all done, okay?” she says, sympathetic but rushed. “I promise.”
“No problem,” I tell her, even though I want to beg her to stay up with me and listen to my bitching and moaning.
“I love you, though, okay?” she says, insistently. Something in my voice, I’m sure. Like the echo of my secret.
“Love you too. Kill those exams. I need you to come down here so we can be rich bitches together, okay?”
She laughs, and after a few more goodbyes she hangs up first.
I have a number I can call. One that I rarely use because every conversation is fraught with potential pitfalls and some of them neither of us are aware of until we stumble into them. But, then, I have it for situations exactly like this, right? A confidant who loves me and wants the best for me, but who’s as a safe distance. So I gather up my courage, and call.
It rings. I’m not sure what time it is over there. It’s too many rings to be a cell phone, so it’s probably a land line, and for all I know it’s waking up the whole house. It’s got to be at least morning over there, right?
By the eighth ring I’m about to hang up. Bad timing, and probably for the best.
But then, he answers in French, of course. “Oui, allô? Ici Michael Hall.”
“Daddy?” I ask. “It’s Janie. Um… can we talk for a bit?”
Chapter 53
Janie
I can’t bring myself to tell him everything right away, so we dance around the subject. Neither of us is entirely comfortable talking on the phone yet.
“So this taste… test event is going well?” he asks when I catch him up on the stuff that seems, at the moment, pointless to talk about.
I’m pacing my living room, struggling with every word. “Taste Teaser, we called it and… yeah, it’s going really well. There are some reviews on Red Hall’s Facebook page, links to the articles they’ve been writing. Have you… been following along?”
“Of course I have, Janie,” Dad says, softly chiding me for thinking he might not. “I’ve seen all sorts of stuff lately. What was that with the guy you threw out?”
My eyes roll, and I groan. “Gloria…” I mutter.
“Who?”
“Uh… yeah, there was this guy causing trouble and I threw him out, and… this woman that works for me was the one that mentioned I was… you know…” I guess there’s some things it doesn’t matter how old you are — I can’t bring myself to talk about my period with my father.
“Ouch. Did you fire her?” he asks. At least he’s on my side.
“Uh, no… she’s a friend of a friend, so…”
“I gotcha,” he says. “Listen, Janie… I’m glad you called and I want to catch up, but did you really call just to let me know what’s going on?”
“Can I not?” I ask.
He sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. You’re sure there’s nothing else wrong, though? It’s just… we haven’t spent this much time on the phone, well… ever. If you need to talk to me, you know I’ll listen, right? Whatever it is.”
I hold my breath until there are spots in my vision. That’s probably bad for the baby. It’s certainly bad for me, but if I let it go, everything will come pouring out.
I need that to happen very badly, though, so I exhale and with it comes the story.
Dad doesn’t speak the whole time. He doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t judge me, or stop me, or laugh or even sigh meaningfully into the phone. At times I’m not even sure we’re still connected, but I keep talking anyway until it’s all out.
When it is, only then does he speak. “Wow, Janie. I… I’m sorry you’ve been through a rough time. Do you know what you’re going to do?”
I’m conditioned to think that question has specific subtext when I hear it from a man, and I bristle momentarily.
“I mean about the father,” he adds quickly. Maybe he’s been part of a conversation like this before.
I sink onto the couch and pull my knees up. They don’t go as far as they used to. I can’t wrap my arms around them comfortably anymore. It’s begun, and a petty sadness grips me in a moment of vulnerability; not normally enough to put me over or even register, but on top of everything else it’s that last flake of snow before the avalanche happens.
“I don’t know, Daddy,” I say, my voice tight. “He’s… not exactly a good man. I’m not even sure I want him to be a part of the baby’s life.”
“It sounded like you had a good thing for a minute,” Dad says. “Not that I’m defending him, mind you. It was awful, what he did. Thing is… sometimes people do things they can’t take back and… we don’t always have a choice. It sounds like you don’t have the full story yet. Maybe it’s exactly what it looks like, but maybe it isn’t.”
“Is there a difference between someone who does something shitty because they want to, and someone who does it because they need to impress their evil father?” I ask.
Dad’s quiet a moment. “What I mean,” he says more cautiously, “is that what’s done is done. The baby should have a choice in the matter, when it’s old enough to make that choice. You have to think about that now, while there’s time. We can all be terrible people under the wrong circumstances. That doesn’t mean we have to continue being terrible people, just that we have to find ways to make it better. To make ourselves better people.”
We’re no longer talking about me and Jake and the baby. Or at least, not only those things.
“Believe me, Janie,” he says, “not being able to reach out and hold your own children… it hurts. Jake may need a lot of work, a lot of growing up, but he doesn’t deserve tha
t kind of pain. Not just for being misguided and caught up in someone else’s madness, you know?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“But listen,” he says, “whatever you decide to do, can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“I know this is scary, Janie,” he says, his voice warm and genuine. “And I wish the circumstances were better for you. Happier, and less complicated. But if I’m being honest… I’m overjoyed to hear that I’m going to be a grandfather. And I think you’ll make a wonderful mother no matter how this all plays out. I get that it’s painful right now, but is it okay if we just… be happy for a minute? No strings?”
My tears are hot, and I can’t keep my eyes open. I try to turn everything else off and, to my surprise… I do. For a glorious few minutes, I’m actually excited, and I can hear my dad’s happy tears over the phone and it seems, just for that short time, like I have a real, happy family.
By the time we hang up, I can’t believe how much better I feel. Yes, things are terrifying. Any day now I expect some kind of retribution from Jake or his father. Who knows when this story is going to blow up, or what people will say about it. But I have a baby on the way.
It finally hits me.
I’m going to be a mother.
I sit down at my computer, looking over the list of contacts that have received invites to the launch party. Most of them are form letters.
With shaky fingers, I add Jake Ferry to that list, and type out an email to him — professional, but warm. It’s merely an olive branch, that’s all. Not a promise. Not a request for clemency.
Just Simply an open hand. Hopefully that’s enough to get the ball rolling.
Chapter 54
Jake
I’ve managed to go almost two full days without coming under Reginald’s scrutiny, and it hasn’t been easy. He hates it when I turn down his requests to go to this or that event — a strip club where he assures me the girls give head in the champagne room is the most recent invitation — but doing it gives me a high that I can’t get anywhere else.
