The Company You Keep

by Tracy Kelleher

  “There’s no need to call your father. He should just be getting to the office now, and I don’t want to bother him. I’ll talk to him this evening when he comes home.”

  “And tell him what? What’s wrong?” Press was scared. Noreen normally seemed so healthy, invulnerable.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Something’s right, in fact. I’m pregnant.” She blinked and stretched out a wan smile.

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m going to have a baby. We’re going to have a baby.” She breathed more easily now.

  “But…but…you’re old.” Press grabbed on to the doorjamb with one hand. “And Dad is…is…he’s practically ready for retirement.”

  Noreen laughed. “I’m not that old, thank you, and I doubt if your father will ever retire. Oh, he’s slowed down like I’ve asked him to, but he’s much too vigorous to ever give it up totally.”

  Press was trying to wrap his head around the news. He was going to have another sister—or maybe a brother this time. He actually found the thought appealing—especially the brother part. “Does Dad know?”

  “No, you’re the first to hear the news. I just got confirmation myself.” She raised an arm and pointed to a pregnancy kit opened on the marble-topped vanity. “It’s just like last time—getting sick right away, that is.”

  “But what about your job? Traveling to Congo? You can’t exactly do all that if you’re pregnant and…and throwing up all the time.”

  Noreen sighed. “If this pregnancy continues like the last one, I’ll be over the nausea in a couple of months. So, of course there’ll be adjustments, but there’s no reason to think that I won’t be able to continue working, even traveling up until a month or so before the baby’s due. I’ll find out more after I’ve seen my obstetrician. It’s not as if this baby was planned, but a baby is always a blessing.”

  Press wasn’t about to get into a discussion about birth control with his stepmother, but he couldn’t help thinking. “You really think he’ll be happy?” He couldn’t imagine his father looking forward to the patter of small feet around the house. Though he did seem to dote on Brigid as much as his limited contact allowed.

  There was the sound of marimbas playing. Noreen and Press looked up. It was Noreen’s cell phone on the bathroom vanity.

  Press stepped over and got it. “It’s my father,” he said, passing it to Noreen. “I’ll just wait in the other room.” Press pointed over his shoulder.

  “Thank you.” She looked up and smiled. “See, maybe he anticipated the good news? It must be fate.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “SEE, YOU DID IT,” VIC ANNOUNCED as he pulled into an illegal parking space in front of the liquor store on Whalen Avenue. Bean World was across the street, and already the line was out the door.

  Mimi unhooked her seat belt. “You’re right. I didn’t break out into one cold sweat the whole journey. Though I did have a white-knuckle grip on Roxie’s collar.” For the duration of the ride, Roxie had dutifully stood up in the backseat and rested her head against Mimi’s headrest. Even with her seat belt on, Mimi had been able to twist around and caress the dog’s fur.

  “And thank you for all my kisses.” Mimi gave the dog a kiss on the snout in return. Whenever they’d hit a red light, which in Grantham was about every two seconds—or it seemed like it—Roxie had used her doggie sixth sense and given Mimi quick “buck-up” licks on her cheek.

  Now that they’d arrived, though, the kisses had come to an end. Mimi already missed them. She held on to the door handle, ready to get out, and hesitated for an awkward moment wondering whether she should lean over and give Vic a thank-you peck on the cheek. But she decided he might think that was just too forward. Besides, it didn’t look like he was making any similar move, so she let it pass.

  “Listen, thanks for the lift. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me—really,” she said. She gave him a quick nod of sincerity.

  That didn’t seem to allay the awkwardness at all. If anything, she only felt more nervous. Time to get out and get Lilah’s advice—that was for sure. “So, if you could wait a sec, I’ll just get my bike out of the trunk.” She pressed down the handle and scooted out quickly, grabbing her backpack as she went.

  “Here, I’ll help you.” He put the emergency flashers on and after carefully looking in the rearview mirror and then over his shoulder, opened his car door. He circled around and lifted the lid of the truck, then hauled out the bike with minimal effort. He set it down on the ground with the handlebars facing Mimi and looked at her. “I don’t think you should downplay what you just did. I’m sure it wasn’t easy. And I was happy to help. Really. Roxie, too.”

  “I think Roxie must be my good luck charm.” She bent forward through the open trunk lid and ruffled the dog’s snout. Then she straightened up, adjusted the knapsack and gave Vic a sideways glance. “And you were a big help, too.”

  “You’re going to be all right with your leg? Getting home?”

  She touched her thigh. “I’ll just take it easy. It’s just a strain. I can always walk from here.” She grabbed the handlebars, debated saying more, decided not to, and was about to push off when… Oh, why not? “Listen, as thanks, why don’t I take you out to dinner tonight?”

  Vic waved off the suggestion. “That’s not necessary. I always give lifts to good-looking women—even ones who have humiliated me in public.”

  “C’mon, that was over twelve years ago.” She made a face. “You’re going to make this hard, aren’t you?”

  “Frankly, I never thought that one day I’d be able to give you a ride without freaking out, too. It must be all Roxie’s influence—on me.”

  Mimi smiled and shook her head. “Well, now that we’ve agreed that she’s a powerful mitigating force, bring her along, too.”

  Vic crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

  “Are you going to make me beg?” Mimi asked. Exasperation showed in her voice.

  He shook his head. “No, as tempting as that might be.”

  “And here I thought you were such a nice guy.”

  He held up his hand. “Oh, but I am. I just said tempted. Anyway, I accept—with pleasure.”

  Mimi felt a pressing need to swallow. “I tell you what, why don’t you stop by when you’re done with work, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “It could be close to seven. I’ve got a pretty full day, plus the commute.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll dine fashionably late. You know the address?”

  “I know it.” He reached up and closed the trunk lid. “What can I bring?”

  “Nothing. Just Roxie.”

  Vic laughed. “Why do I get the feeling that she might be the main attraction?” He didn’t wait for her to reply, but walked back to the driver’s side, looked around and got in.

  Mimi moved to the sidewalk and waited for him to leave. And as he passed her, he gave a brief wave. Mimi held up her hand but didn’t move it, watching as Roxie jumped into the trunk. Her large head grew smaller as the car drove off past the library before making a right turn at the light.

  She stared until they were out of sight. And that’s when she realized—Roxie might be her talisman, but Vic Golinski was…was… She dropped her hand and turned to cross the street.

  Only then did she notice her friend Lilah waiting on the bench in front of Bean World, rocking a stroller back and forth. Her head was bent, there was a smile on her face and her lips were moving. She appeared to be deep in conversation with the baby. Mimi wondered how long she’d been sitting there, how much she’d seen. She called out.

  Lilah looked up and waved enthusiastically. She angled around the stroller, bent down to get the baby’s attention, then pointed in Mimi’s direction.

  Mimi crossed the street, wheeling the bike next to her. She had known all along that Lilah would make a great mom. With her thick hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, her rumpled T-shirt and painter’s pants and Birkenstock sandals, she glowed with the freshness
of down-to-earth motherhood. She might not have the whole situation under control, but she would always come through with love and the requisite touch of humor.

  Mimi bumped the bike up the curb and leaned it against her hip so she could embrace Lilah in a great hug.

  Lilah caught the embrace awkwardly around her shoulders. “Wow. A public display of affection! What’s happened to the no-touch Mimi I’ve grown to know and love?” She joked, though there was a decided element of truth to her words.

  Mimi released her friend and bent over to make a kissy face at the baby. “I guess it’s the sight of a resplendent Madonna and child that has me moving out of my normal comfort zone. Hey, Sam. Who’s the cutest ever?” The baby had only wisps of pale blond hair and a rash on his chin, but he was cute in that imperfect, adorable doughboy way. In fact, the imperfections only made him cuter.

  Mimi picked up one of Sam’s tiny hands and let the delicate fingers curl around her index finger. “My God, feel that grip. The kid is going to be so strong.” Mimi rubbed her cheek against Sam’s velvety-soft cheek. “So strong that you’re going to be able to push your Aunt Mimi’s wheelchair around for her in her old age.”

  Mimi glanced up at Lilah who was standing agog. “What? You’ve got this look? Haven’t you ever had people go goo-goo-ga-ga over your baby?”

  “Yes, of course. Because I do have the most wonderful baby ever. But it’s more than that. You seem more your old self again—more confident, more self-centered.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t sound like a compliment.” Mimi looked up from her crouching position.

  “Oh, it is, it is. And don’t get all uptight. I’m not going to make you tell me about your whole ordeal and the emotional turmoil afterward. I know from previous conversations and your—shall we say—blunt instructions, that the whole topic is off-limits.”

  “Good, so why don’t we talk about something that is definitely on-limits. Mr. Wonderful here.” Mimi squished up her nose for the baby, who giggled in return.

  “I don’t know. At two in the morning when he’s inconsolable and wide awake, sometimes I don’t find him Mr. Wonderful,” Lilah lamented. “And you mentioned his strong hands? Ha, his nails are the things that are really deadly. Razor-sharp, all the better to scratch my boob with while he’s nursing. You wouldn’t think anything could be so painful.”

  “Naughty boy.” Mimi pretended to wrestle with Sam, trying to pull her finger out of his death grip but letting him wag it back and forth all the same.

  Sam was so proud of himself he erupted in a bout of hiccupping laughter.

  Mimi patted one of Sam’s chubby legs clad in a stretchy green outfit and stood up straight. “Ooh, that hamstring is still a little tight.” She pressed her hand to her inner thigh. Then she locked the bike to the bench and held out her hand. “Shall we go in? I can take the front of the stroller and you the back. Then when we’re inside, I can give you, little man, your extra-special present from your favorite aunt Mimi.” How strange that she had automatically adopted a familial relationship with Sam, even though she eschewed her own family.

  “Good idea.” Lilah waited for Mimi to circle in front and start up the short stairs to the entrance of the coffee shop. “I thought I saw you get out of a car when you arrived, but I didn’t recognize the person driving,” she asked innocently—a little too innocently.

  Mimi shouldered open the heavy glass door and held it with her back until Lilah and the stroller were safely inside. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask. It was Vic Golinski. From our class,” she answered casually. She went and stood at the end of the line. “Why don’t you look for a table and I’ll get the order? What’ll you have?”

  “No way I’m walking away from that bomb. Did you just say Vic Golinski?”

  Mimi peered into the glass display case. “Gee, those shortbread cookies look good. I can’t remember the last time I ate something like that. It must be the workout this morning. Made me extra hungry. Can I get you one, too? That and a double shot latte?”

  “Let’s share. I’m still trying to take off baby weight—hence the sacklike pants.” She pointed to the overalls. “And a decaf latte—I’m nursing and I’d rather Sam didn’t stay up all night with a caffeine high. But enough about the order.” Lilah pushed the stroller up next to her despite the lack of room. “You were with Vic Golinski? The ex-football player?”

  Mimi shrugged like it was no big deal. “We happened to run into each other when I got out of my swim at the pool, and he offered to give me a lift. No biggie.”

  “No biggie!” Lilah shrieked.

  Sam looked up at her with a tight prunish face.

  Mimi looked down. “Oh, see, you’re scaring the baby. Don’t worry, Sam, your doting auntie will soothe your troubled brow.”

  Lilah grabbed a ring of plastic keys from the webbed pocket of the stroller and jiggled them in front of her son.

  Sam stuck out a starfish hand and grabbed the ring, stuffing one of the toy keys in his mouth and gumming it ferociously.

  “Plastic keys can replace a doting auntie any day,” Lilah cracked. Then she frowned. “But I remember you and Vic being like oil and water. Didn’t you get him thrown into jail before graduation?”

  “That story is so blown out of proportion. The police merely took him to the station, where they let him go. Besides, we’re adults now. We’re perfectly capable of carrying on a polite conversation despite our past differences.”

  Lilah raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Mimi, I know you may find this hard to believe, but I’ve never been naive.” She inched forward in the line, pushing the stroller to part the waves of coffee drinkers. Then her phone started to ring. “Rats. Just when this conversation was getting interesting.” Lilah checked the screen. “Let me just get this. It’s Noreen. We’re supposed to get together later this morning to discuss a new proposal to the Gates Foundation.”

  Mimi tried not to listen to Lilah’s conversation and instead rocked the stroller back and forth to amuse Sam. It seemed to work, because he started drooling with a very happy expression on his face. Deep in the recesses of her memory, she recalled doing the same thing for Press when he was a baby. She remembered taking him for a walk around the neighborhood with the nanny—God, it had been a young Noreen!—and that he’d been more interested in leaning over to look at the stroller wheels go round and round instead of listening to the birds or watching the cars go by.

  Lilah hung up and frowned. “Well, that was odd. Is something going on with your family that you’re not telling me about?”

  “Not that I know of. But then it’s not like I ever could tell you what goes on under that roof. I can tell you all about Brigid’s ballet classes and swim lessons—she loves to talk and talk on the phone about that stuff—but beyond that…” Mimi shrugged.

  Lilah retook possession of the stroller and moved it along. There were only a few people from the front of the line. “Noreen says something’s come up because she has to go into New York today. Something about your father and work—she wasn’t exactly clear.”

  Mimi shook her head. “Like I said. I’m probably the last person to know what’s going on. Probably my father needs his hand held at the tailor’s.”

  “Good. That this gives me more time to get some juicy gossip. I mean, I’m just a boring new mom trying to run a nonprofit in Africa on no sleep. I can’t even stay awake long enough at night to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory. Please tell me there’s something amazingly rapturous going on between you and Vic Golinski.”

  “Rapturous?” Mimi raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh, you know what I mean. Vic Golinski.” Lilah gazed off into space, then shook her head. “I was always too afraid to talk to him in college, frankly. He was so serious, even stern. He can’t possibly put up with your usual snide remarks, can he? Let alone forget about the past contretemps, shall we say? And you can’t possibly abide all that stick-in-the-mud demeanor. Geez, he made Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre look like a
party animal.”

  “Where do you get off using words like rapturous and contretemps? Anyway, you don’t think he’s man enough to let bygones be bygones?”

  “I don’t know him, but I do know you. The Mimi Lodge I know can’t let bygones be bygones. What’s going on with you two?”

  “Your order?” the barista asked. A young woman in her twenties, her hair was shaved into a Mohawk, with the center stripe a vivid green—which somehow or other worked with the tattoo of Bambi on her upper arm.

  Mimi rattled off instructions and elbowed Lilah aside when her friend reached for her wallet. “It’s my treat.”

  Before Lilah could protest Sam threw the keys. They landed on the small counter with the take-out lids, stirrers, sugars and shakers of cinnamon.

  “Hey, great aim, Sam. Your grandfather would have been proud,” Mimi congratulated him. Lilah’s father had been a star baseball player in college and had even insisted on playing in a softball game at Reunions two years ago.

  Lilah sighed wistfully. “Yeah, Dad probably would have outfitted him with a glove by now.” She retrieved the keys and did a quick straightening of the counter.

  Mimi pocketed her change and moved to the pick-up area. “Which reminds me—first things first, Sam’s present.”

  “Fine, but just remember, I’m your best friend. If you don’t confide in me, who are you going to confide in?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mimi saw some people get up from a front table. “Quick, cut off that student on crutches for the table by the window. A baby stroller trumps a leg injury any day.”

  “I’m prepared to head block an old lady if you agree to talk to me—dish the dirt. God knows, you made me tell all about Justin two years ago.” She pushed the stroller like a steamroller to the small round table in the front.

  When the order was ready, Mimi joined Lilah, taking in a bentwood seat opposite her.

  Lilah unstrapped the baby and lifted him to her seat. He immediately started banging the table with his fists. “Keep that hot cup on your side and dish,” she said to Mimi.