I closed my eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
I heard his boots clopping against the cement floor. When they stopped, I opened my eyes to find him standing next to me.
“I’m sorry your father abandoned you, Portia. I really am. But his guilt doesn’t automatically transfer to the rest of us.”
I looked at him but said nothing. He turned his focus from my face to the open barn door behind me.
“This may come as something of a shock to you, Portia, but you’re not the only person in the world who’s been left.”
As the sound of his steps faded behind me, I focused on the candles sitting next to the bucket of melting ice. The single rose in the bud vase hung its head to one side, as though it didn’t want to look at me. I stamped my foot against the cement, sending a shot of sound careening off the empty barn.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
“Okay, Peter, get out,” I said as I opened my front door. It had stopped raining, but my dress was still wet, and I was anxious to get him out and get changed into something I could eat five quarts of Ben & Jerry’s in without feeling self-conscious.
The living room was empty. I stepped out onto the porch landing and looked down.
The Hyundai was gone.
Deflated, I settled myself on a bar stool at the kitchen counter, running my fingers through my damp hair.
“Shit,” I huffed to myself, and got up. I opened a cabinet and grabbed a glass.
You’re not the only person in the world who’s been left.
I pushed up the handle on the faucet, filled the glass with cold water, then put it down on the counter. I looked out the window into the night, grabbing a streetlight for a focal point.
It was like a sign, the final thing that told me this is what I need to do.
I picked up the water and took a drink, my eyes glazing as the streetlight blurred in my vision.
I want to be with you. Forever.
I tossed the rest of the water down the sink and plunked the glass down. That’s when I noticed that all my dishes were done.
I turned around. The books and magazines that had been splayed all over the coffee table were piled neatly on one side. The jacket I’d thrown over the back of the easy chair was hanging on the rack by the door.
Peter.
I smiled before I could stop myself. Straightening up had always been Peter’s preferred method of apology. I leaned over the counter and put my head in my hands. That’s when I noticed the little black velvet box sitting between my elbows.
I stood up straight. I wanted to be furious. I wanted to toss it across the room.
Instead, I opened it.
A half carat shimmered at me, set in a simple platinum setting. Almost exactly like the one I’d shown Peter a year ago, when I’d gone through a brief hinting phase, before the relationship started its downward spiral into the fifth ring of hell.
Forever.
I shut the box with a snap. I couldn’t think about this now. It was too much. And the fight with Ian was still tearing a hole in my stomach. It was time to do something else, time to get out of the apartment, time to distract myself.
And settling a score is often a perfect distraction.
“Mags!” I slammed the front door behind me. “Mags, where the hell are you?”
It was only eight o’clock. The house was empty. I rushed through the living room and kitchen to the back door, where I found all of the Mizzes playing gin rummy at the big umbrella table.
“Portia!” Mags stood up, her smile tremendous. “I’m so glad you came by, darlin’. Sit down, I’ll get you a drink.”
“Mags,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “We need to talk.”
She patted my arm and kissed my cheek. “Okay. Sit down with the girls, I’ll come back with your drink, and we’ll talk. G and T all right?”
Mags headed into the house, not waiting for my answer. Bev gave me a wry smile and patted the seat next to her.
“Sit down, Portia,” she said. “I have a feeling this is gonna be an interesting discussion.”
I crossed my arms. “Did you two know about this?”
Vera forced a smile, but I could see the discomfort in her eyes, although whether it was about our argument that morning or about this Peter thing, I couldn’t be sure.
“You mean that Peter’s in town?” she asked. “Yes. Isn’t it exciting?”
Exciting? My head tilted to the side. Before I could ask the question, Bev glanced up at me over her cards. “He’s upstairs sleeping in your old room.”
“His room, now.” Mags tapped me on the shoulder, forced the drink into my hand, and motioned toward the seat next to Bev.
“His room?”
“Sit down, honey,” she said, settling herself down opposite the empty seat. “What do you say, girls, should we start a new game and deal Portia in?”
“Absolutely!” Vera said, tossing her cards on the table. “That was the worst hand of my entire life.”
Bev snapped her fan of cards closed and handed them to Mags. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, sit down, child.”
I didn’t move. “Peter’s sleeping in my room?”
Mags nodded as she shuffled the cards. “Well, yes. He looked so tired when he showed up here, poor boy.”
“I don’t know what you said to him, Portia,” Bev said, “but he wasn’t in a good state.”
“Oh, so what, now I’m the bad guy?”
Vera shook her head. “You’re not the bad guy.”
Silence. Mags and Bev gave me looks that said in no uncertain terms that I was, indeed, the bad guy.
I shook my head. “I don’t believe this.”
Mags sighed and put the cards down. “I really don’t see what the problem is, Portia. Just the other night you were telling me that all you wanted was a man who would stick.”
“Excuse me?” I shook my head as the whole obvious scenario began to sink in. I stared at Mags. “You orchestrated this whole thing, didn’t you?”
She answered with one raised eyebrow, and then went on. “And now a perfectly good and might I say easy-on-the-eyes young gentleman comes to town and proposes.” She shook her head and picked up the cards again. “I thought you’d be happy.” I swallowed. There was more to this story, I just knew it. “Mags, what have you done?”
She looked at Vera and Bev and smiled, then batted her eyes at me. “Peter didn’t tell you?”
I felt like I was going to throw up.
“Well, darlin’,” she said. “We’ve hired ourselves a new business manager.”
My stomach heaved. “Oh, my god.”
Mags rearranged her hand of cards. “He’ll be staying with us for a while until the apartment over the Page opens up.” She glanced up at me. “Or someone finds room for him.”
“Are you kidding? Are you kidding me? You hired me a husband?”
“Why not?” Bev asked, her mouth tight. “We had intended for you to be the business manager when you finally decided to return from your endless schooling, but you’re not interested, so…”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”
“Shhh, you’ll wake him, poor boy. He’s had such a rough day. He didn’t say exactly what happened when he saw you, but based on the look on his face, I think you could have been nicer to him.” Mags glanced toward the empty seat at the table, then back up at me. “Well, Portia. Are you in or not?”
I stared at them for a minute. Vera looked appropriately contrite. On the opposite end of the scale, I’d never seen Bev so pleased. And Mags just smiled, like it was no big deal.
“Good night, ladies,” I said. I went back into the house, slamming the screen door behind me. I was making my way down the front steps when I heard Mags’s voice calling after me. “Portia?”
I turned around to face her. She closed the distance between us.
“He’s a nice boy. And he loves you.”
“Are you crazy? You’re crazy. You cannot run my life any way you see fit, Mags. Thi
ngs don’t work this way.”
She smoothed her hand over one silk sleeve and then raised her eyes to meet mine. “Well, darlin’, things don’t seem to be working the way you’ve been doing them, either, now have they?” I turned around and trudged the six blocks back to the Page, stepping on every sidewalk crack I could find along the way.
Chapter Eight
“So,” Beauji asked as we power-walked, “have you talked to them yet?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“What about Peter?”
“He’s with the Mizzes. I avoid them all.”
“It’s been a week,” she said. “Not that I don’t like having company for these morning walks, but you’re a bit of a downer, you know.”
“Am I?” I said, kicking a large pebble into a ditch. “I thought I was being pretty cheerful. Considering.”
“Hmmm,” Beauji said. “What about Ian?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him, either. You’re officially the only person in my life with whom I have any contact, aside from my faculty adviser, who was nice enough to pretend to believe me when I told her I was almost done with my dissertation.” Beauji gave me a sideways glance but didn’t break her stride. “You’re not almost done?”
I shrugged and looked toward the east, where the sun was in full bloom. “What time is it, do you think?”
Beauji glanced at her watch. “Seven-eighteen. So, when is the dissertation due?”
“December.”
“Are you at least mostly done?”
“Define mostly.”
She sighed and shook her head, picking up the pace. “For Christ’s sake, Portia, if you throw twelve years of school down the drain—”
“I’m not throwing twelve years of school down the drain. I’m just delaying it. Maybe. I only wanted it done by December so they could consider me for the new faculty position opening up in the spring. But now…”
“But now what?”
“I don’t know.” We started again, in the direction of the Babb farm. “Do we have to walk on this road every day? Couldn’t we go through town and down River Road? I really don’t want to bump into Ian.”
A big fat lie, that. But still. A girl’s got to keep up appearances.
“Ian writes in the mornings,” Beauji said, arms pumping. “But we can go another way tomorrow. If we do it tomorrow.” She grinned at me. “I have a feeling today’s the day.”
“You have a feeling every day’s the day.” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. Every morning we walked. And walked. And walked. Still no baby. I had my suspicions that she wasn’t even pregnant, just fat in a highly abnormal way.
“But today’s my due date,” she said, taking a swig of her water.
“Yeah, and yesterday was supposed to be the day because no one ever gives birth on their due date. And the day before that was supposed to be the day because it was a full moon, and birth rates climb during a full moon. And—”
“Hey, are you trying to alienate the last friend you got left, or what?”
I didn’t say anything. Beauji slowed down a little more.
“We’re almost to the farm,” she said. “Ready to turn around?”
We stopped and stared northward, silent for a moment. I considered going farther, visiting with Ian, having coffee, chatting, trying to mend that busted-up fence. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts Beauji considered dragging me screaming by my hair to do that very thing. We each sighed on the same note. Nobody beats old friends for clairvoyance and timing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that about me being your last friend.”
I shrugged. “Truth hurts, right?”
She put her hand on my shoulder. I thought it was a comfort gesture, until I saw her face, which was contorted in pain.
“Beauji?”
She bent over, grabbing her thigh with one hand and my shoulder with the other.
“My cell phone,” she gasped. “It’s in the pack. Call Davey.”
“Are you in labor?”
“Call Davey!” She sucked in a breath. I zipped open the fanny pack we’d assembled for just such an occasion, pulled out the cell phone, and hit the power button.
Nothing. I hit it again.
Crap.
“Beauji?”
She whooshed out a breath and straightened up.
“Oh, holy Mother of God, that fucker hurt.”
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head. Her eyes were glistening. “I think this is it, Portia.”
“Sit down,” I said. She looked down at the dirty road under her feet.
“I’m not sitting down here. I’ll never get up again. What did Davey say? Is he on his way?”
I sighed. “Have you charged this phone recently?”
She grabbed the phone and punched the power button a few times. Her eyes welled up in tears.
“Oh, my god,” she wailed, her voice high-pitched and squeaky, “I’m going to have my baby on the side of the road!”
I put both my hands on her shoulders.
“Beauji, look at me.” She did. I put my palms on her face. “You’re going to be fine. I’m right here and I will not let you give birth on the side of the road. Do you understand me?” She nodded slowly Her expression calmed. Then she bent over again and let go with a stream of obscenities. I put my arm around her, supporting her until the contraction passed.
“Beau?” I asked, when I felt the muscles in her shoulders relax under my hand. “You okay?”
She whimpered. I ran my hand over her hair.
“You might not even be in labor right now. You said yourself that you’ve been having false contractions.”
“No,” she said, gasping. “This is different.”
As if to make her point, her water broke, gushing over our feet and dribbling down the road. She began to cry. I closed my eyes. We were three miles from town, two miles from the farm, and she wasn’t going to budge. I heard what sounded like a car and looked over my shoulder.
“Beau?” I said into her ear. “I’m going to flag down that car, okay?”
Her hand tightened on my arm. “I’m scared.”
I kissed the top of her head. “You’re gonna be fine, baby.
Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ve got it under control, but I need to step into the road and wave that car down, okay?” Beauji gave a small nod and put both her hands on her thighs for support. I stepped out into the road and waved. A familiar blue pickup truck came up around the bend. I didn’t have to read the lettering on the side to know the familiar logo: WILKINS CONSTRUCTION.
“Hey!” I said waving frantically. “Bridge!”
Bridge slowed the truck down, squinting at me as he rolled his window down. “Portia? That you, girl? What the hell you doing out in the middle of the road?”
“She’s in labor,” I said, motioning across the street to where Beauji was hunched over. “Can you drive her into town?”
Bridge glanced at his passenger seat, which was filled with a large pile of hardware and tools. I looked at the bed of the pickup; it was running over with planks of wood held down with bungee cords.
“That baby’ll be in school by the time I get this truck unloaded,” he said. “I was on my way to the Babb farm. I’ll grab Ian and we’ll come back and get y’all, okay? You go tell her she’s gonna be just fine.”
He took off. I ran back across the road and put my arms around Beauji. “That was Bridge Wilkins.”
Beauji looked up at me, her face momentarily switching from fear to disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”
I shook my head and smiled, happy for the momentary distraction. “What are the chances, right?”
Beauji eked out a pathetic laugh. “This town is too fucking small.”
“Anyway, he’s on his way to get Ian. They’re going to be here in a minute and we’re going to get you to the hospital.”
She grabbed my hand. “Portia, it hurts. I mean, it hurts a lot. They told us it
would hurt in the class, but I didn’t know it would hurt. Not like this.”
“I know, honey,” I said, running my hand over her hair. Of course, I didn’t know, I had no idea, but it seemed the thing to say. Her eyes watered and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight as she huffed through the contraction. When it was done, she looked back up at me, her eyes wide and terrified.
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You’re gonna be just fine.” I touched her chin and turned her head to look at me, putting on the most confident expression I could drum up. “When that baby comes, you’re gonna be in a nice hospital room with Davey by your side and some terrific drugs working magic in your system. Just hang in there for me, okay?”
I put my arm around her and prayed everything would turn out as well as I just told her it would. Two of the longest minutes of my life passed, and I finally heard the sounds of a car coming. I looked up and saw both Ian’s SUV and Bridge’s truck slowing down and pulling to the side of the road. Ian and Bridge carried Beauji and placed her in the backseat of the SUV. Bridge tossed me his cell phone and told me to call Davey as he hopped in the truck to follow us in. I tossed myself into Ian’s passenger seat; the car was moving before I got the door closed.
“Which way to the hospital?” His hands were taut on the steering wheel, his eyes focused on the road.
I gestured with the cell phone. “Take a left on Main, then just go straight until the road curves. Hospital’s right there.”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!” Beauji yelled from the back. I turned and dropped one hand over the back of my seat, reaching out toward her. She grabbed it, and I tried not to wince at the pain of her grip. I dialed the sheriff’s office and told the girl on the line to notify Davey. Ian’s eyes darted from side to side as we approached a red light on the corner of Main. He slowed a little, saw there were no other cars, and rushed through.
“How is she?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” she yelled. “Just get me to the goddamn hospital!”
“I think she’s going to be okay,” I said, sharing a small smile with Ian.
Davey met us at the emergency entrance. Ian and Bridge pulled Beauji out of the backseat and placed her in the waiting wheelchair. Davey hollered a “Thank you!” over his shoulder and zoomed her into the hospital. Bridge and Ian and I stood frozen at the entrance for a moment as the wave of adrenaline retreated. Finally, I turned to Bridge and smiled.
Ex and the Single Girl Page 12
