Father Knows Best

by Lynda Sandoval

  As if she had a choice.

  “Are you…um…okay? I didn’t hurt you guys or anything, did I?”

  She laid her palm on her abdomen—why do pregnant woman always do that? “No. I’m fine. Or I should say, we’re fine.”

  “That’s…good,” I mumbled as I gathered up the rest of my stuff with shaky hands. My heart had started to rev. The thing is, despite my vow not to retch every time I thought of Jennifer, I didn’t exactly know what to say to her in person. This situation was uncomfortable to the max.

  Uncomfortable like the whole “how do you end your laugh?” conundrum. You’ve heard of it, right? Once you start thinking about it, you always realize you sound like a dumbass at the end of your laugh, and then it’s hard to (1) laugh, but even more to (2) stop laughing once you’ve started.

  Because you don’t want to sound like a dumbass.

  Get it?

  Okay, my thoughts were making like a grandma cart and veering way off-track—big shocker. Not. It’s just the way my gray matter seems to operate.

  “You working?” Jennifer asked, yanking me back to the present.

  I shot her a glance. “Uh. Yeah. You?”

  “Well, the free kind of work, yes.” She laughed.

  She laughed! Like, within the context of a conversation with me. Me, Lila Moreno. Archenemy. She-who-allegedly-stole-Dylan (even though I didn’t). I don’t know why I was so weirded out by this surreal exchange, but there you have it. I was. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen Jennifer—who, incidentally, was rocking the full-on mousy light brown coif by now—in the past month, but we’d always had Meryl as a much-needed buffer and conversation conduit. It freaked me to be one-on-one with Jennifer. I mean, what the heck was I supposed to say now?

  Sorry I could’ve hurt your fetus. Smell ya later?

  Nothing seemed right.

  Come to think of it, nothing had seemed right ever since my friends and I had found out about Jennifer and her baby. In that instant, everything about our carefully planned-out summers subtly (or dramatically, I wasn’t sure which) changed.

  Why was that?

  With all my loot loaded back into my grandma cart, I stood and brushed my palms against the sides of my jeans. “Okay, well…I have to go to FedEx.”

  “Oh. Sure.” She stepped aside, tucking her hair—which, admittedly, was still cut in a cute style—behind her ears. “I guess I’ll…see you around?”

  “Uh-huh.” Sure. Whatever. Like she’d want to?

  I started to roll my cart up the sidewalk again, away from Jennifer, thank God. I needed to hit the brakes on my racing brain and get back to my happy-day-in-July place, darn quick. Where were those bluebirds on my shoulder when I needed them? Freakin’ fairweather Disney.

  “Lila, hang on,” Jennifer called out.

  I stopped, but I didn’t turn around. My gut clenched.

  “Can I…can we…”

  With trepidation, I peered back toward her. She seemed to be struggling with her words. Her skin got blotchy red when she was nervous, I noticed. Not a good look for her. “What?”

  “Do you have time for a cup of coffee at Mountain Lion?”

  My eyes must have projected my incredulity.

  She held up a hand. “I just thought we could talk. Nothing more.”

  I turned back toward her then, resting both palms on the cart’s handle. “You don’t have to do this. I’m cool with you hanging out with Meryl. You don’t have to pretend to be my friend, too, okay? I get it.”

  “It’s not that.” She uttered a frustrated sound.

  “What, then?”

  Her face got this pinched look, and she didn’t bother to brush away the strands of hair that the gentle breeze blew across her lips. “You and Meryl…and Reese and Kelly…have been nicer to me than my own group of so-called friends ever since”—she indicated her midsection—“or maybe, nicer to me than they ever were, which makes me an idiot.”

  I felt an unwelcome twinge of compassion. “You’re not an idiot. They’re idiots.” Actually evil flying monkey idiots, I thought but, thankfully, didn’t voice.

  “Whatever. I guess.” A pause. “Yeah, they are.”

  I watched her neck contract with a tight swallow, and it occurred to me that this might be as difficult for her as it was for me, not that she deserved my sympathy, really, after all the bullying she’d inflicted on me and my friends over the years. But I still felt a pang of it.

  “I just…owe you guys more than I’ve said.” Jennifer shrugged. “That’s all.”

  I squirmed from one foot to the other. “Oh. Well. It’s okay. If that’s all.”

  “It’s not all.” She raked her hair away from her face. “See, I’ve been attending these teen AA meetings, and—”

  “You’re an alcoholic, too?” I blurted, stunned by this news bomb on top of everything else. Oops, I guess that was thoughtless.

  She laughed nervously. “No. Not at all. But my home life totally sucks. My friends are…”

  “I know,” I said softly.

  “Yeah, I guess we’ve covered that.” She huffed. “It’s weird, me with the whole AA thing. I realize that. But everyone there is so nice and nonjudgmental, and they listen to me. They’re the only people who seem to really…listen. Plus, a lot of what they say makes sense beyond the whole alcoholism thing.”

  I blinked a couple of times, trying to wrap my brain around this brownish-haired, Alcoholics Anonymous–attending, makeup-free, chubby, pregnant Jennifer Hamilton.

  Like, seriously, who the hell was she?

  I gulped. “Are you telling me you’re working the ten steps, but just not in an alcoholic way?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Huh?”

  “There are actually twelve steps.”

  “Oh.” Whatever. “So, are you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not ‘working them’ in any formal way. But this whole…baby thing has given me a lot of time to look at myself, and I’m not always happy with what I see.”

  I half laughed. “I can understand that.” Oops. “I mean, no offense.”

  “None taken.” She twisted her uncharacteristically unglossed lips to the side. “Besides, you’re right and I know it.” She paused. “I guess I just want to make some changes in the way I live my life.”

  This intrigued me. “Like what?”

  “Come have a cup of coffee and we’ll talk.” She stared at me, a challenge. “My treat.”

  I stared back, chewing on the insides of my cheeks.

  Finally, she rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking to be your best friend, for God’s sake. You’re not required to confide a single thing in me. It’s just coffee. The brown stuff. Nectar of the Wired Gods.”

  I smirked. She had a point, and hadn’t I said I was going to try harder to not actively despise her, in light of her tribulations? This was my chance to walk the talk, as Meryl always touted. I glanced at my grandma cart. “Well, I have to get this stuff shipped first.” I hesitated. “Then I have to call my boss and ask her if I can take a break.”

  “That’s cool,” she said mildly. “Look, if you can make it, I’ll be at Mountain Lion. If not, I understand.” And then she turned heel and headed in the opposite direction.

  Seriously.

  No snit. No snark. No snide remark.

  Hey, I think I just made some kind of a poem.

  Well, at least it rhymed.

  But back to the Jennifer sitch. I swear this summer was getting weirder by the second. I mean, what would she understand if I didn’t show up? That I hated her? Did I hate her? I stood there for probably two minutes, stunned by what had just occurred, replaying it in my mind, trying to get real with how I truly felt. This time last year, if Jennifer and her minions had witnessed me dragging FedEx packages up the street, they would’ve (1) mocked me, or (2) looked past me, as if I were just another pine tree in the whole damn forest.

  That was then, this
is now.

  Wait—is that the name of a book? Never mind.

  In any case, progress, right?

  Still, I didn’t have to go. She’d given me an out.

  All I had to do was pretend that Chloe needed me back at the agency, and I’d be off the hook. No questions asked. The world’s perfect lie. Perhaps for that very reason, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and dialed Chloe’s number. It rang twice before she answered.

  “Hi, it’s Lila. I was just wondering if I could take a twenty-minute break after I finish at FedEx?”

  Unprecedented, I know.

  Lila Moreno and Jennifer Hamilton. Having coffee—decaf or something for her, of course, since she was preggers. And yet, despite the fact that I’d agreed to meet up with my ultimate nemesis, and not for a rumble, the earth didn’t seem to be splitting in half.

  At least…not so far. But I have to say, I kept my ear perked for the cracking sound.

  Chapter Ten

  The vulnerable way Jennifer’s face lit up when I walked into Mountain Lion Coffee shot a lightning bolt of guilt through me for even having contemplated blowing her off. She waved both arms with enthusiasm—as if I wasn’t capable of finding her in the small establishment. Duh. Her hair may have returned to its unobtrusive natural color, but those platinum blond-dyed roots reached straight into her brain waves, boy.

  Be nice, Lila, my conscience said. Actually, I think my conscience is a dead ringer for Meryl—no lie. It might even be Meryl, and without her I’d morph into some impulsive, politically incorrect sociopath.

  I held up a finger, then pointed toward the front counter. After ordering a nonfat latte (extra hot, extra foam, double shot), I headed over to her table.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “You thought I wouldn’t?” The chair legs scraped on the polished concrete floor as I pulled it away from the table and sat down.

  “Totally,” she said.

  We both chuckled nervously.

  She eyed my java. “I told you I’d treat.”

  I shrugged. “Raincheck. I only have twenty minutes before I have to be back at work, and I didn’t want you to lose the table.”

  She sipped her cocoa, nodding. “What’s it like working for your boyfriend’s mom?”

  I averted my gaze.

  Awkward, awkward, awkward.

  She sighed. “Listen, Lila, if you think I’m fishing for info about Dylan, I’m not. Being pregnant? It forces you to examine your life whether you want to or not. He and I were never right for each other. Ever. Let’s just lay that right out on the table and be done with it, once and for all. I don’t have romantic feelings for Dylan. None. Pathetic as this may sound, I don’t know that I ever really did.”

  A beat passed. “O-okay. So, why’d you date him?”

  She twisted her mouth to the side. “Because he’s…Dylan.”

  I nodded. Hard to explain, but it made sense.

  “So?” she prodded. “The work gig. What’s it like?”

  I sat back and relaxed as best I could. “I love it. I get to dream about all the places I want to visit one day. Plus, it’s fun, and the atmosphere at the agency is upbeat. High energy. You know?”

  She nodded. “That’s why I love Inner Power. Well, for the opposite reason. It’s so serene there, so laid back and just…accepting. So unlike my heinous home life.”

  We fell silent, concentrating on our drinks.

  Awk-k-k-k-ward.

  Finally, I cleared my throat. “So, uh, have you decided what you’re going to do? About the baby?”

  “I’m not keeping her, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She hiked one shoulder and looked sad. “One part of me thinks that sounds so incredibly cruel, like I’m throwing her away—”

  “No, it doesn’t. You’re just a kid yourself.”

  She bit her lip, looking grateful. “I know. I’d be a terrible mom at this point in my life. Think about it: would you want to be raised with me as your mother?”

  I accidentally snorted latte foam out of one nostril at the horrible notion, then coughed. “Uh, no way in hell.” I paused, wiping my nose. “But I wouldn’t want to be raised by any of us. We’re too young.”

  “That’s it exactly. I know lots of women have babies at eighteen and raise them successfully. But not me. I still have a lot of growing up to do.”

  I didn’t comment, because trust me, it would’ve been one helluva snark, and my inner Meryl would not have been pleased.

  She smoothed her fingertips around her cocoa mug, seeming to chew on her next words. Finally, she peered up from beneath her lashes. “If I tell you something, do you swear not to tell anyone?”

  Ugh! I cringed. “I don’t know if I can keep that promise. Sorry. Just being honest.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, do you swear not to tell anyone who might tell my parents at least?”

  Yeah, like I know anyone who’d tell her parents. “Sure.”

  Her face took on this excited yet apprehensive glow. Happy and terrified all at once, if you can imagine. “I’m thinking of asking Reese and Kelly to adopt her. Oh! It’s a girl. I had an ultrasound.”

  My brain was in stutter mode from the first part of her confession, so I focused on the end part. “Cool. I grew up with four annoying, stinky brothers, so a girl rocks.”

  “Boys stink?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Way. I can’t even go into Luke’s room without gagging.”

  “Huh,” she said, as though this were a revelation. “Miffany always bragged about how hot he was.”

  Miffany, if you’ll recall, is Luke the Puke’s reprehensible ghoulfriend and Jennifer’s former BFF. “She doesn’t live with him. Besides, her name is Miffany, for God’s sake. That alone indicates a lack of brain cells.”

  Jennifer snickered. “Anyway, I agree that a girl rocks. I was hoping for one.” She laid her hand absentmindedly on her slightly protruding belly again. “I’m sort of down on the whole male gender right about now.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Can’t say I blame you.”

  “Guys suck ass.”

  A true statement if I’d ever heard one. Except Dylan, of course, not that I was going to voice that. Ismet was cool, too. I sipped and a hideous thought entered my brain. I had to ask. “Is that why you’re thinking of Reese and Kelly as adoptive parents? The no guy aspect?”

  “God, no. That would be lame.” She grimaced. “Not to mention stereotypical and patronizing.”

  “Right-o,” I said, relieved, but trying to hide my astonishment that those words had come from Jennifer Hamilton’s mouth. People, can you even grasp the hugeness? If High School Homophobia held a pageant, the former Jennifer would have a curio cabinet full of tacky tiaras.

  Her face morphed into a pensive expression. “It’s just”—she flipped her hand—“they’ve been trying to conceive through artificial insemination, and it isn’t working. And they’re having trouble adopting because they’re lesbians and we’re not exactly a progressive state.”

  “Oh.” Startled. “I didn’t know that. I mean, about them wanting kids.”

  She eyed me sideways. “Well, the subject came up just because of my own pregnancy. That’s all. I feel so bad for them, because they deserve to be parents. Homophobia sucks.”

  I must’ve looked stunned, because she blew out a dejected sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I was a total asshole about the gay thing before I started hanging out with them.” Distress seemed to age her features. “I just…didn’t know any lesbians.”

  “So? You knew Mark Bartlett and never cut him any slack. They’re regular people like us. Love is love.”

  “I get that now. I do. And, for the record, I’ve apologized to Mark.”

  “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “But Reese and Kelly, man, they’re more than just ‘people.’ They’re special.” She widened her baby blues at me. “Wouldn’t you have loved having them as your moms?”r />
  An unexpected wave of sadness rocked me, and I gripped my coffee cup. “I would’ve loved having my mom,” I said softly.

  Jennifer inhaled sharply and covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, shit,” she said, muffled. “I forgot that your mom…you know—”

  “Died,” I said, in a flat tone. “It’s okay to say the word. It’s not as if she did anything wrong. She just…got sick and died. Cancer’s impartial that way.”

  Anguish pulled lines between her brows. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “My mom died a long time ago, practically when I was a baby. I want to know.”

  Her turn to look thrown. “Really?”

  Surprisingly, the answer was yes. Why the answer was yes, I hadn’t figured out, and I didn’t want to examine it too closely. “So. Reese and Kelly. Do they know?”

  She tilted her head from one side to the other. “We’ve talked about it a little, in an abstract what-if kind of way. But I get the feeling they’re excited by the prospect. Not getting their hopes up, you know.”

  “I think that would be really great. But”—I pressed my lips together, choosing my words carefully—“wouldn’t it be hard for you? I mean, to see her around town like that?”

  “No. Maybe.” She threw her arms wide. “Okay, truth? How the hell do I know? I’ve never had a kid before. I’ve never put one up for adoption. I’m clueless.”

  I snorted. Very unladylike, but who the heck cares? There’s something so satisfying about hearing someone admit to a blatant character flaw you’ve recognized from day one.

  “The only thing I’m sure of is that I can’t raise this little girl the way she deserves. I don’t even want to and, ashamed as this makes me feel, I’m not totally sure who the father is.”

  What the hell do you say to a comment like that?! “Oh. That…um…sucks.”

  “Sorta,” she said, nonplussed. “But, now that I’m on this adoption track, knowing would just cause more problems.”