The Baby (The Boss #5)

by Abigail Barnette

  If some mid-90’s metal song about boning hot librarians had started playing and a fog machine started up when she entered, I would have been totally on board with that. She wore a tight black pencil skirt and a crisp white blouse. How someone with boobs like hers could manage to wear a button-down was a mystery for the ages; I assumed she had them tailored, because the buttons didn’t gap. Her bulky, cable-knit sweater coat was rich, red ochre, a dull impersonation of her hair color. Those gorgeous tresses coiled up in a sloppy twist, and thick-rimmed black reading glasses served as a makeshift headband.

  The last time I’d seen Gena, we’d just been naked and sweaty together the night before. I wasn’t sure how I was meant to shift gears into being friendly acquaintances, again, especially when I hadn’t seen her in a year, and especially when every centimeter of my skin ached at the sight of her. I pressed my thighs together under the table before I stood to hug her.

  “Sophie.” Her breathy, “Santa Baby”-style voice tickled my ear as her arms tightened around me. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Yeah,” I managed to choke out. Where the hell had my poise gone? I was like the nerd in an 80’s movie trying to ask the popular girl to prom. You’re not here to ask her anything. You’re here to have lunch. “You look fantastic.”

  “Divorce agrees with me.” She laughed, stepping back. “You look really good, yourself. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the big smile and the—” She waved her hand up and down, indicating my clothes.

  “Oh. Well, I stopped wearing black and rending my garments yesterday,” I quipped, but it felt cheap. Like I was mocking Emma’s death.

  “I know you’re joking, but seriously…how are you?” she asked as we took our seats.

  “Worse than I expected,” I admitted. “Not that I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, but it’s rough.”

  “And Neil?” she asked, shrugging out of her coat. “I can’t imagine how he must be taking all of this.”

  “Not well, at all.” It was refreshing to finally say it. She wasn’t as invested in Neil as our close friends were, so I didn’t feel like I had to lie to protect her feelings or keep her from worrying. “But we have Olivia, so that helps.”

  “Olivia is his…?”

  “His granddaughter. Our granddaughter, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “Emma and Michael named us as guardians in their will.”

  “Wow.” Her eyes went wide. “You’re a grandma.”

  I held up my scolding finger. “No. Never ever.”

  Gena laughed, covering her gorgeous smile with one hand. “I’m sorry. What is she going to call you, then?”

  “Sophie,” I said firmly. “And we call Neil afi. It’s Icelandic.”

  The server came and asked for our drink orders. We both ordered seltzer water with lime.

  “So, you’re working today, too?” I asked once the server had left.

  Gena nodded. “I work at an art gallery, now. In Soho.”

  “An art gallery, huh?” When we’d first met, she’d been an interior decorator. I supposed it wasn’t that much of a career leap. “How did that happen?”

  “In a roundabout way. About three years ago, I went to a show there, scouting out a painting for one of my clients. I got to know the gallery owner a little bit, and about a year and a half later, Ian had a show there with his drawings. Then, like four months ago, I ran into the owner, again, and we were talking about the divorce and how I was looking to change careers. He offered me a job.” She shrugged. “Not the most interesting story, but I’m happy with how it turned out.”

  “Wow, good for you.” I was kind of jealous. Not that I didn’t love my job—who could complain about running their own magazine about their very favorite subject?—but making a whole new start must have been exciting.

  Then, her expression went kind of stiff and she said, “Look, let’s just get something out of the way, right now. Because I know that you’re probably thinking that I asked you here specifically for this. And I didn’t, but it feels like the elephant in the room. How’s Ian?”

  Ugh. I was such an a-hole. Here I was envying her chance at a fresh start when it meant that her marriage had fallen apart. I didn’t want that kind of freedom. I didn’t want a fresh start, at all. I just wanted to not be in the middle of my life as it was at the moment.

  “I didn’t think you asked me here for that,” I said, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. “What do you want to hear? Because I could tell you that he’s really happy, or I could lie to you to make you feel better.”

  She laughed. “No, I want to know the truth. He’s happy? Is he seeing anybody?”

  “Yup.” I leaned back as the server placed our drinks on the table, and Gena asked if we could have just another minute to look over the menu. But it was such a lie. We weren’t going to look over the menu. We were going to obnoxiously chat forever and ever. I continued, “He’s actually seeing somebody I set him up with. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

  “Not at all.” She took a sip from her glass. “Sophie, our split was so nasty. But I feel so much better about it, now. We weren’t good for each other. I’m glad he found someone who is good for him.”

  “I heard he cheated on you,” I said. “I hope that’s not overstepping my bounds—”

  She waved her hand. “No, he didn’t cheat on me. I left him. I think he made that story up just to, I don’t know. To win or something? I wish he wouldn’t tell people that.”

  “Are you kidding?” I’d had Penny moping around the office for weeks for nothing? “That actually broke them up for a little while.”

  “You’re kidding.” She made an exasperated noise. “Well, I hope things are going better, now.”

  They were going a lot better, but I definitely wasn’t going to go into gooey detail for her. Whether she left him or vice versa, she probably didn’t want to know that her ex-husband was deliriously happy with someone else. A girl had her pride.

  “They are. He’s doing really well, Gena. But what about you?” I planted my elbows on the tabletop and leaned forward, my chin on my hands. “Tell me all your stories of the swinging single life. Give me all the dirty details?”

  “I think you get enough dirty details at home,” she chided.

  Oh, I wish.

  “There’s really nothing to report, unfortunately. It’s crazy how much dating has changed.” She shook her head in dismay. “What is the minimum age I can get away with on Tindr? Be honest.”

  “Please, there are plenty of guys who are out there looking for a cougar,” I teased.

  Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me, grandma.”

  “Ouch.” I giggled and reached for my menu. “Okay, let’s get serious here. That guy’s going to be back any second, looking for us to order.”

  She pulled down her reading glasses to look over the menu. Minimum age on Tindr. Pff. Gena was in her late thirties and built like a classic Hollywood starlet. With a much bigger bust line, and cleavage that drew my eye to the open neck of her shirt…

  I quickly glanced down, thanking God that she hadn’t noticed me practically drooling over her tits.

  God, even my mental phrasing was trying to get my panties wet.

  This was why lunch was such a bad idea, I realized. After sleeping with her once, I still fantasized about Gena all the time. And now that fantasies were basically the only sexual activity I was engaging in, it was impossible to not remember how her skin had felt under my fingers, and how soft and hot her pussy had been under my mouth.

  A sudden gasp of breath sucked the saliva from my watering mouth down my throat, and I choked.

  “Are you okay?” Gena asked, looking up in alarm.

  I nodded and patted my chest with my palm, still coughing vigorously. I reached for my water and tried to take some sips between hacking larynx spasms. “Swallowed some…spit.” My sweaty, red face probably looked so attractive.

  The server came back to save me in the nick of time. We placed our orders, and Gena asked
, “So, back to the baby subject. I hope you don’t mind my asking but…what’s that like? I mean, do you and Neil ever plan on having kids of your own? How will that work out?”

  “I’m never having kids,” I said with a definitive sweep of my arm. “So, I guess it will be a non-issue.”

  “But raising a baby,” she said, pushing her glasses back onto her flame red tresses. “I can’t even imagine what that must be like when you don’t want to do it. Are you okay with it?”

  “Actually, yeah. I’m fine with it. Obviously, it’s a learning curve. But I don’t feel like having Olivia makes me a mother. I feel like I get to be grandpa’s cool young wife.” Although, Mom had warned me about making friends with your kids. Apparently, it was a big no-no in the parenting rule book.

  “I have to hand it to you, when I heard through the grapevine that this happened…” She shook her head. “Rudy told me. He’s really the only friend of Ian’s that I keep in touch with.”

  “Ian is friends with Rudy?” That surprised me. At Emma’s wedding, Ian hadn’t really hung out with him. But Rudy had been sitting with Valerie all night, and I’d gotten the feeling that there was something not quite friendly between her and Ian.

  Gena nodded. “Not close friends, but we had dinner with him a few times, and he’s hilarious on Facebook.”

  “Rudy has a Facebook?” And he wasn’t friends with me? Not that I was surprised. In the Valerie v. Sophie case, he was firmly on the plaintiff’s side, though he could be lovely to me when she wasn’t around.

  “Why aren’t we Facebook friends?” Gena asked, suddenly lighting up. She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “I’m sending you a request, right now. You’d better accept it.”

  “I’ll do it, right now.” I grinned as I retrieved my own phone.

  “What’s that smile about?” Gena teased.

  I shrugged. “It just feels really good to be out with someone who’s treating me like a normal human being and not a mourner.”

  “I know the feeling. Kind of.” She put her phone down, just as mine pinged with a notification of her friend request. “Can I confess something?”

  “Sure,” I said absently as I tapped on “accept”. I looked up. “Fire away.”

  “I kind of got in touch with you for the same reason. Everyone is treating me like a tragic divorcée. They’re always trying to set me up with someone, or they’re censoring their language because they’re afraid it will hurt my feelings. None of my married friends want to be around me.”

  “Like you’ve got the sadness plague, and they’ll catch it?” I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded to our shared wisdom.

  “Exactly!” Her eyes flared wide. “But I’m convinced at least two of them think I’m going to steal their husbands. What is with that?”

  “Divorced vagina,” I said in a faux-spooky voice. I even wiggled my fingers. “It hungers.”

  She laughed and looked down. “See, I knew you’d get it.”

  “How?” Oh, that might come off wrong. “I’m not trying to be confrontational, but aside from having sex, we don’t know each other very well.”

  “I think I’m at an advantage, because I read your book. I feel like I know you better than I actually do.”

  “The perils of writing a memoir.” I sighed.

  “You could do another one,” she suggested. “I mean, when everything isn’t quite so raw. You have an angle. Face it, there aren’t many twenty-seven-year-old grandmothers out there.”

  “You overestimate my enthusiasm for the title,” I quipped. The idea of writing another book, even in the hypothetical, made me feel a little panicked. When Neil had been hospitalized, writing I’m Just the Girlfriend had been my escape. An outlet for my pain and my fear. But now, I didn’t want to let that stuff out. It was one of the only things reminding me that I was alive.

  God, that was grim.

  “Okay, okay. But, if you ever change your mind, put my name in the acknowledgements.” She winked. God, she had the most adorable little wink.

  “Ugh, I am…crazy attracted to you, right now,” I blurted. Blood rushed to my face. Mortified, I stammered, “N-not that it’s a bad thing. Or that that’s why I’m here, that’s not why I’m here, I just—”

  Gena laughed, again. I wanted to crawl inside that sound, smoke a bowl, and float in it.

  Great. Now, I had a crush on Gena.

  “Why would I be offended by that?” She crinkled her nose and said, “I know I’m hot.”

  “Oh, I get it, now,” I said in a tone of mock-revelation. “That’s why I’m attracted to you. You’re as vain as I am.”

  “Let the record show that I did not contact you because I thought that right now would be a good time for you and your grieving husband to double up on me.” Her lips closed, but her smile broke through, again. “I just think you’re really cool, and I had a feeling you needed someone outside of the scope of the tragedy to talk to. You can text me or Facebook message me any time you want, whenever you need to vent or just not talk about what everyone else wants to talk to you about.”

  I tilted my head. “Thank you. That’s really nice. You’re a good person, Gena.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I try.”

  “The same goes for you, by the way,” I told her. “If you ever want to just get together like this, or go to a shooting range to express our feelings, you know how to find me.”

  “For which I am grateful.” She sighed deeply, then lightly clapped her hands together. “So, now, the important stuff. Did you watch Hannibal all the way to the end?”

  “Oh, my god, yes.” I leaned in low, like we were discussing a matter of national security. “That ending could not have been any gayer if there had been explicit anal.”

  “I know!”

  It was really amazing how the time flew, and how light my heart was once I could have a frivolous conversation with someone. Life had been divided pretty sharply and suddenly into B.E. and A.E., before Emma and after Emma. An hour with Gena was like having a time machine.

  For the first time in months, I finally thought things might be okay.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  All of the grief websites Dr. Harris had recommended said that during the first year, anniversaries were the hardest times to negotiate. After weeks of processing the event, a person in mourning would be plunged right back to square one.

  Emma’s birthday was on April ninth.

  “I think I know what I want to do,” Neil told me the week before, over dinner. We’d finally agreed upon a full-time nanny Neil trusted to not murder us in the night and kidnap the baby, so we’d carved out two evenings a week when we ate without Olivia, just the two of us. Tonight, Mariposa dealt with Olivia and her new favorite game of tossing her cup on the floor, and Neil and I got some much needed grownup time.

  Much needed grownup time to discuss stuff like what we were going to do for his dead daughter’s birthday.

  At least, he seemed weirdly upbeat about it. “Okay. What do you want to do?”

  “I think I’d like to have Valerie over, and her boyfriend, and Rudy. We can all have dinner together.” Neil twirled some linguine onto his fork. “Perhaps we can share happy memories, lift each other’s spirits, that sort of thing.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” I agreed, though I wasn’t sure how well it would go in practice. It hadn’t even been four full months, yet—that would happen a week after her birthday. The anniversary loomed every single month, like an inescapable countdown to further misery. It seemed like what he was proposing could easily turn into a second funeral.

  An idea popped into my head and I said, “Oh!” before I could consider whether sharing it would be wise or not.

  “Oh?” he asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

  “I was just thinking…but it’s kind of silly.”

  “No, no, I want to hear,” he promised.

  “I was just thinking about Tangled.”

  “The cartoon?” he aske
d, and I was sure he had no clue where I was going this.

  “The animated film masterpiece,” I corrected haughtily. “Anyway, there’s this thing that the king and the queen do… They think their daughter—that’s Rapunzel—they think she’s gone forever. Every year, they have this huge festival on her birthday, and at the end, they light these paper lanterns and let them go over the sea. And the whole time, Rapunzel is in her tower, seeing these lights every year, not knowing they’re from her parents…” I stopped myself. He didn’t need to know the whole plot. “The point is, the lanterns are like, the way she’s connected to her parents, even though they’re not together, and even though she never knew them. Maybe we could do something like that for Olivia.”

  “Paper lanterns?” Neil asked, considering.

  “Yeah. It would be like a reverse Tangled.” I choked up a little on the word. That scene with Rapunzel in the boat always got me.

  Neil smiled or, at least, showed the brief flash of a smile he was capable of these days. “I think that sounds lovely, Sophie.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I looked down at my plate. “My love of Disney strikes again.”

  “I think Olivia is going to be a very happy little girl, having you for a mother-figure,” he said.

  Since we’d become Olivia’s guardians, Neil had reassured me over and over that I was going to do fine in my new role. It wasn’t until now that he’d mentioned anything about what Olivia would think of the job I was doing. It surprised me how much I needed to hear that.

  Since we only had five days until Emma’s birthday, we didn’t have much time to plan. Neil called Valerie and Rudy, and of course they said they would come. I managed to track down floating paper lanterns and find out if they were legal—they weren’t, but nobody followed rules about that kind of thing, anyway—and gave Mariposa the evening off, though she told me she’d be staying in and watching Netflix all night, anyway.

  She’d told us on a few occasions that we were her dream clients, just because of our internet speed and the fact we paid for streaming video services as part of her room and board.