Package Deal

by Jess Bentley

What makes me more messed up? That I almost want him to know so that maybe we can work things out, even after he tricked his way into my pants? Or that I worry about the media shit-storm that would fall on my head if it got out? It’s a toss-up.

  Mama dreamed about a storm, too. Who knows, maybe she really is a prophet.

  As usual, being out in public makes me flustered and nervous. Any day now I’ll be heading outside with a shawl over my head and oversized sunglasses hiding my face like a fugitive. Annie gives me a sympathetic smile when she sees me.

  “Let’s get you on the table,” she says. “Let me give you a lavender belly massage. It’ll help you both relax.”

  “I know you probably believe in prophetic dreams,” I tell her, once I’m lying down on my back and I’ve gotten her caught up on recent events. “But it’s still kind of crazy, right?”

  “Mother’s intuition, if you ask me,” Annie says. “How’s that?”

  A mental check of my current state tells me that whatever other holistic bullshit Annie does, there really is something to the idea of a belly massage — whether the lavender helps or not. “I don’t know about Mama,” I tell her, “but you’ve got some kind of magic, for sure. Much better.”

  “Good,” Annie says. “It’s not good for either of you to be stressed like this. If you’re going to stay uptight, maybe I should see you a little more often. I can get you in three times a week, if you don’t mind a kind of weird schedule.”

  “You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” I tell her. Three times a week is almost three grand for Annie. Over nine months? She’d be losing more money than I can possibly ask her to give up.

  “It’s no trouble,” she insists. “Let me put you on the books. Just promise me you’ll follow the schedule. I’ll lay it all out through your due date and push it to your calendar.”

  I sigh. Am I a charity case? I suppose I must be. “You’re too good to me, Annie. I don’t deserve it.”

  “If not for you, I wouldn’t be where I am,” she tells me. There’s a pause after that.

  I know what’s coming.

  “It’s your decision,” she starts out, “and you know I support you no matter what, but… have you been in touch with Jake?”

  “I have been the opposite of in touch,” I admit. “It’s insane, Annie... it has to be the hormones. I see him everywhere. Everywhere, Annie. I was in the bathroom the other day at the gym” — she gives me an approving nod, because the gym was her idea — “and I couldn’t hear the person in the stall next to me, and could not shake the idea that it was Jake, that he’d somehow followed me in and was waiting for me to come out so he could confront me about the baby.”

  Annie bites her lip. She looks concerned, and with a sigh she tells me why. “Hon, I have to be honest with you.”

  “Please do,” I sigh. It’s not like Annie has the ability to not say what she’s thinking, even if she does have infinitely better tact than I do.

  “Paranoia? High stress? Irrational fears? Does that sound familiar?” She says it gently enough, but it still sends a shiver down my spine.

  “Shit,” I breathe. “I didn’t even…”

  The story about the gym? Seeing Jake in the grocery store even though I know damn well that man doesn’t buy his own goddamn groceries…

  Those are the sorts of things my mother might say; the kinds of irrational things she’d call me about to come and dispel.

  “You just need to manage your stress, Janie,” Annie says, one hand on my bare belly. “So come see me, three days a week. An hour at a time. Keep going to the gym, and…”

  She doesn’t finish, but I know what she wants to say.

  Tell Jake.

  “I can’t, Annie,” I whisper. “Not after what he did.”

  “It won’t stay a secret forever, hon,” Annie tells me. “Just make sure it comes out on your terms, or it’ll be more trouble. Either way — I’m here.”

  “Thank you for that,” I say. “You’re the only ally I feel like I’ve got right now.”

  “An even better reason to tell him.”

  For all her gentleness, I can see in her eyes what she thinks.

  Maybe because I keep looking at myself in the mirror with the same expression.

  Janie

  Freshly chastised, albeit gently, I leave Annie’s office feeling at odds with myself — much more relaxed, yes, but somehow more guilty, and more worried about what exactly I plan to do. So far, I haven’t given it enough thought.

  But Annie’s absolutely right. I can’t hide a pregnancy forever. I have a tight body — for now, anyway — but I’m not some gymnast that can go nine months without showing and then have a surprise baby. I have another month at the most before there’s no hiding it. And that assumes that I can somehow convince Gloria to keep her trap shut, which will more than likely involve something ridiculous like making her part owner of Red Hall.

  No. Over my dead body. Or hers. How much does a hit man cost?

  I’m indulging in the macabre humor of that thought when I freeze. My heart crawls right up into my throat and before Jake even crosses the street it’s clear what’s on his mind.

  He knows.

  How could he not? Annie’s place has a sign on it, and it’s not subtle.

  I consider running away. Somehow, I suspect Jake can run faster than a pregnant lady who’s never run more than a half a mile at full speed.

  It doesn’t matter what choice I make though, because Jake is standing feet away from me just a second later, hurt and disgust all over his face. He looks from me to the sign, and then back at my belly, where his unborn child is growing.

  “Are you fucking… Jesus, Janie… are you serious?” His face is red, and the veins on his neck are bulging. His mouth works as he tries to find words.

  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 ma
nipulative 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 even 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 b
e 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?”

  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?”