Shopping for a Billionaire’s Baby

by Julia Kent

  “And now, partners, I want you to do this exercise,” Helen calls out. “You don’t have the uterus in you, so this will help you to understand how unbelievably athletic birth really is. Keep in mind that when she is dilating, that cervix–” she points to the little rubber ring around the balloon’s opening “–will thin out by one centimeter per hour until it reaches ten centimeters, and only then can the baby’s head truly begin to emerge. One centimeter per hour,” she stresses. “If that cervix doesn’t dilate on time, there will be hell to pay.”

  “Hell?” Ivan asks nervously.

  “Your body either conforms to requirements or hospital staff makes it conform. Your choice,” Helen declares with a withering look that says she expects our bodies to operate on a military schedule or else.

  Vicki looks like she ate a frog. “But I thought every birth was different. Our bodies are varied. The baby chooses when to trigger the biochemical and emotional process of labor–”

  Helen snorts. “And the oxytocin fairy comes and sprinkles love dust all over your labia during transition. Did Sunny teach you that, too?” A pitying look and a long sigh are what Helen gives the class. “Childbirth is about pain and reward. It’s that simple. The more you make sure the process is orderly and punctual, the better your outcome.”

  “But–” Ivan starts to argue.

  Dec stops him with a Give it up look and whispers, “Just get through it, man.”

  “Now, birth those babies! Pull on the top of the balloon with long, strong strokes. Palms on top, fingers extending down like the long muscle fibers of the uterus. That’s right.” Walking along the rows of desks, Helen gives approval or disapproval, coming at last to us and Ivan and Vicki, frowning.

  “It’s your finger technique,” she says to Ivan, who turns red.

  Declan pulls with long strokes until finally, our baby–er, ping pong ball–crowns and pops out, shooting onto the ground.

  Ping ping ping!

  Everyone laughs as Dec casually picks up the ball and palms it. Helen takes a step back and gives Dec a nod of approval. Poor Ivan is struggling, those lumberjack hands more than big enough to do this, but the process delayed.

  “These balloons are too thick,” he grouses.

  Helen takes one more step back, facing him as he holds the balloon up, the neck facing her. “The proper process for crowning is–”

  Just then, the ping pong ball pops out with ferocious force, arcing through the air with tremendous speed, straight into Helen’s open mouth.

  Screams from our classmates fill the air as it becomes clear Helen is choking on Vicki and Ivan’s “baby.” Her eyes bug out, fist thumping her rib cage. Declan jumps up out of his desk, the entire welded contraption tipping over, and he stands behind her, moving his hands and arms into position.

  Thrust!

  Still choking.

  Thrust!

  Still choking.

  “She’s turning red!” one of the other classmates says as a loud scuffle in the hall turns into a group of people pouring in, all wearing scrubs.

  Thrust!

  The ping pong ball shoots across the room, hitting the first nurse over the threshold, the ball bouncing off her arm.

  A hideous, wet, ragged breath comes out of Helen, who collapses in Declan’s arms.

  The first nurse is followed by two more, then two doctors in lab coats, one with grey hair and a very familiar face as she makes eye contact with me and recognition sets in. It’s the ER doctor from my bee sting and my trip here when I swallowed my engagement ring.

  “Bloody hell!” Dr. Porter gasps. “That is the worst anaphylactic reaction I have ever seen!” Her eyes bounce between my belly and my face. “Or did you decide to swallow even bigger rings?”

  And then I realize she’s joking.

  English people have seriously bizarre senses of humor. What other country could produce Benny Hill, Russell Brand, and Monty Python?

  “It’s Helen! Not me!” I shout as nurses surround our poor instructor and usher her out of the room.

  Vicky points at Declan. “He performed the Heimlich maneuver on her. Saved her life!”

  “Well,” Dr. Porter says as she leaves. “Good show. I imagine you’re an expert at it, given your wife.”

  “We’re done,” Dec declares to the entire class, grabbing my hand and gently helping me out of the desk. No sign of emotion at all from him means he’s compartmentalizing.

  “You just saved her life!” I gush.

  “Anyone could have done that.” Clearly eager to leave, he wants nothing to do with the rest of the class, with staff, with anyone but me.

  “What about the rest of our childbirth classes?” someone asks as we exit, a rhetorical question as there’s no one in authority to answer.

  We stop in the doorway. I look at Dec and shrug.

  “YouTube,” Ivan announces. “You can learn to do damn near anything on YouTube.”

  Dec gives him an appraising look of respect. “Good point.” He pulls out his phone and texts someone.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as we filter out into the hall, walking toward the elevator to the parking lot.

  “Texting Dave. He’ll arrange for a private childbirth tutor to come to our offices for the next few weeks.”

  “Tutor? What about YouTube?”

  “You really want to take childbirth classes from YouTube?”

  “Between Carol and Mom, I can learn what I need to know. And human childbirth instructors are zero for two now. Let’s go the electronic route.”

  “Fine.” He texts Dave again. “Dave is setting up a curated childbirth video series for us.”

  “He’s going to ask for hazard pay.”

  Dec purses his lips and touches his phone. “He already did.”

  Chapter 19

  Shannon

  * * *

  I hate being the center of attention. You would think, being the middle child, that I would crave it, but I don’t. Mystery shopping fell into my lap (a lap I no longer possess, given my thirty-fifth week of pregnancy), but I don’t think it was an accident that my first real, adult job out of college involved flying under the radar and observing other people.

  Not being the object of observation.

  When I was a kid, my birthday parties were about hanging out with my friends, eating cake, and having more toys to play with–with my friends. I didn’t care about being the birthday girl, or having people shower me with praise. I don’t need to be the focus. I just need to be included.

  This baby shower is the grown-up version of my ninth birthday, minus dad dressing up as a clown and Mom lighting the piñata on fire.

  Oh, God.

  She doesn’t have a piñata here, does she?

  “Mom! You didn’t get a baby shower piñata, did you?” I ask as she washes her hands at the sink. Spread out across the countertop is enough food to feed, well, not an army.

  Maybe an army made up of all the very pregnant women in my childbirth class, though.

  “Oh!” She looks stricken at my question. “Did you want a piñata? The only ones I could find seemed so beastly. Batting at a giant papier mâché baby to make it spit out candy seemed a little over the top, even for me,” she says nervously.

  “No, no, I don’t want a piñata.”

  “Whew.”

  “What’s this?” I ask, poking at a cake that looks like something from Mardi Gras.

  “A king cake.”

  “For a baby shower?”

  “I baked a baby into it! I thought it would be cute.”

  “So we can’t beat a piñata in the form of a baby, but eating a baby is fine?”

  “Oh, Shannon, stop. Plus, I got lots of beads.” She picks up a string of beads and shakes it.

  “Is the baby shower a Mardi Gras theme? Do people have to flash their boobs to get a string of beads?”

  “That’s a great idea!”

  “No, Mom. It’s not.”

  “I’m kidding, Shannon.”

>   “It’s impossible to tell.”

  “I’m working on that.” She hands me a flat, sunken cupcake. “Here.”

  “What is it?” I eye it suspiciously but pop it in my mouth anyway.

  “Tiramisu cheesecake cupcake.”

  “I am having an orgasm in my mouth,” I say around the creamy goodness. “Mmmm. You can light piñatas on fire at my parties if you just keep making those.”

  “We all promised never to talk about that incident again,” Mom says primly. “But your bangs did finally grow back in after the nasty singeing, so it’s all fine.”

  Declan walks past us with purpose just as the doorbell rings. He opens the door to find James, flanked by Andrew and Amanda. Hugs, kisses, handshakes, and general greetings rumble down the hallway.

  “And here we go...” I say, taking a deep breath.

  “You always hated parties in your honor,” Mom says matter-of-factly, her look kind and maternal.

  “You knew that?”

  “We did. But we held them anyhow, because once you relaxed, you had so much fun.” She rubs my belly. “So relax. This is about him.” She pokes, once, where an elbow makes an appearance in my too-stretched skin. “Not you.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Before I can say more, I’m enveloped by family, Carol and her boys tumbling in after Dec’s family, Pam coming in without Spritzy, to my utter shock, my hugging technique definitely different given the fact that every hug involves three people.

  Dad plays host, offering up alcohol like he’s a Walmart greeter with booze, and soon we’re all settled in, chatting in clumps and clusters. I wander over to find Declan in a deep frown, talking with Andrew, Amanda, James, and Pam, who looks a bit unmoored without her ever-present dog in a handbag on her arm. I wonder where Spritzy is?

  “Two months of trying is better than average, in fact,” Declan pointedly informs his brother. I look at Amanda, who uses her right shoulder to communicate that she has no idea what they’re talking about, Spritzy is at home with some kind of infection but is fine, and yes, she had a mouth orgasm, too, when she sampled one of Mom’s tiramisu cheesecakes.

  She has a very expressive shoulder.

  Andrew laughs and gestures toward me. “She’s what–twenty-eight? I’d imagine the odds are good when you’re young and breeding.”

  “Breeding?” Declan and I say in unison, tone and all.

  “Besides,” he adds, while Amanda does an impressive display of semaphore with a cocktail napkin and a coaster, spelling out Please don’t kill him he’s too good in bed for me to lose, “statistically speaking, every month you try, what are your chances?”

  “About twenty percent,” Pam says out of the blue, turning to give Andrew a bright, aware look that I know is really all about her deep amusement.

  “How do you know this?” he asks, knowing damn well what the answer is.

  “I’m an actuary. It’s my job to know this.” She turns to James and lowers her voice. “By the way, I’ve seen the new woman you’re dating. Be sure to wrap it unless you’re ready for a fourth child.”

  “Wrap what?” James asks, genuinely perplexed. “My secretary always wraps any gifts I give to women I woo.” He’s retired, but insists on having a secretary nonetheless. Andrew humors him.

  “Not the one you slip them, Dad,” Andrew says, laughing. I look at his hand and see yet another beer, a different brand from the one he was drinking seconds ago. Woo...

  Boy.

  I look behind him to find Amanda signaling again. This time she sighs and spells out, Ok. Kill him. I’ll find a good vibrator.

  “The one I slip–oh, Andrew! Don’t be gauche,” James chides in that rumbly way he has that simultaneously makes you think he’s disgusted but also quite proud of what his son is implying.

  “You’re not sleeping with her?” Mom asks, feigning sympathy while offering up a plate of sugar and cream that I want to steal and hide in the corner to eat. “Do you need to go to the doctor and get a little blue pill, James?”

  “What? No! I don’t–how did my sex life become a topic of conversation?” James huffs.

  “Because Pam’s warning you not to get your current girlfriend knocked up. Don’t turn my future children into uncles or aunts with nieces and nephews who are older than them,” Andrew says in a loose voice.

  “What? Actually, that’s not how it would work...”

  “Anyway,” Andrew adds, chugging his beer for a few seconds before resuming. “Dad’s too old. His sperm have expired.”

  Pam gives him a strange look. “Sex ed classes at Milton Academy weren’t very comprehensive, were they?”

  “Milton is a fine school! The best!” James interjects, as if that has anything to do with this.

  “You do realize men as old as James can father children,” Pam says to Andrew as if she’s his professor and he’s the class clown.

  “Quit calling me old!” James interrupts.

  “You’re offended by the word old?” Pam asks him calmly. “Why? It’s the truth. You are old. We are old.”

  “Speak for yourself! I am middle aged.”

  “Sure you are, Dad. Because everyone knows McCormick men live to be one hundred and fifty,” Andrew says with a snort.

  “At the rate you’re going, you won’t see your next birthday, mister,” James growls.

  “BREEDING?” I scream at Andrew through gritted teeth.

  Funny how that word will silence a room.

  “We are not breeding!” I inform him.

  “Aren’t you? You’re pregnant.” The neck of his beer bottle tips toward my midsection.

  I am so sorry, Amanda mouths, grabbing Andrew’s arm to pull him away from certain death at the hands of his father and brother.

  But they’re nothing compared to me.

  The doorbell rings just then, saving Andrew. He’s lucky he’s married to my best friend, who looks awful in funeral wear, or I’d kill him.

  “Hamish!” Dad’s call of surprise makes James light up and walk toward the door.

  I look at Mom, who is walking past with a Bundt cake covered in strawberries and lemon sauce. My stomach growls. I swear the baby moves toward the cake, as if drawn to sugar magnetically, my organs rearranged so he can get closer to the sweets.

  “You invited Hamish, Mom?”

  “What? He’s family. James mentioned he’s in town before some modeling gig in New York.”

  “Does the guy ever actually play soccer anymore?” Amy tosses in. “All he seems to do is preen for the camera for big paychecks.”

  “Shhh,” Mom chides as the big Scottish ginger, two generations removed from James but a very healthy representative of the Old World branch of the McCormick clan, walks in with a big smile and a small, wrapped box in his hands.

  “Declan! Shannon! Congratulations are in order!” Dec takes the box in one hand, shakes Hamish’s big hand with the other, and I’m suddenly enveloped in auburn hair and the scent of woodsmoke and salt. I’m on my tiptoes, the baby bulge making this hug really uncomfortable.

  “Oh, my. That’s a big belly!” he says, pulling back gracefully, righting me fast. “I’m so sorry, Shannon. But look at you! Aren’t you a glowing mum?”

  “Thanks.” I look at the gift. “You didn’t have to.”

  “Of course I did. I was raised properly. You always bring a blessing for a new baby.” He kisses my cheek and looks at Dec with a wink. “Good for you, keeping the generations going. We don’t have any bairns yet in ours, but we’ll have to start keeping up with our American cousins.”

  A dog collar jingles and soft fluff brushes against my ankles, coming to a halt at my feet. The dog’s eyes tip up under a fringe of white tied back with a little green bow.

  “Aye! Who is this?” Hamish asks as Dad offers him a beer and Mom comes back, cakeless.

  The baby moves himself back into non-sugar position.

  “His name is Chuffy,” Mom says. “He’s our new puppy.”

  “Come again?” Hamish’s eyebrows
, a slightly deeper auburn than his hair, shoot up, eyes widening with a confused and slightly mortified look to them.

  “Chuffy. You know. Like the UK word,” Mom replies, deeply pleased with herself.

  Hamish chokes slightly on his beer. “Excuse me? The UK word?”

  “Chuffed! You use it all the time over there. ‘I’m so chuffed!’ means you’re excited. I watch a lot of British television. So when we got Chuffy, he was so excitable! So excited about life.” Mom gives the dog an adoring look. Chuffy licks his penis.

  “Marie, do you know what ‘chuff’ means?” Hamish asks, clearly assuming that only he knows the answer.

  “Sure. I just said so. It means excited.”

  “Well, now, ‘chuffed’ does, sure. But ‘chuff,’ itself, means something verra different.”

  Amy leans in, suddenly part of the conversation.

  “What does it mean?” she asks.

  “It’s another word for vagina,” Hamish answers her directly.

  The sound of soda spewing out of Amy’s mouth is only rivaled by the sight of her spraying all of it on Hamish’s chest, which–given his height–is about even with her face.

  “Oh, my God!” I gasp, grabbing napkins to hand to the poor guy, who is, oddly enough, grinning madly at Amy.

  “I’m sorry,” she says as she chokes and laughs.

  “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m used to being the one suddenly spraying women with fluids, so it’s a nice turnabout.” Wink.

  Mom is frowning at poor little Chuffy. “I don’t understand. Chuffy is all about being excited.”

  “Trust me, Marie, it works either way. When men see a vagina, they get plenty excited,” Hamish says, flashing a wicked grin at Amy.

  Amy punches him in the shoulder. “You’re so vulgar.”

  “It isn’t vulgar to speak the truth.”