Shopping for a Billionaire’s Baby

by Julia Kent

  “Last week.”

  I get a genuine laugh. “Ha ha. Cute.”

  “No. Really. I’m exactly seven days late. They tell me it’s normal for first babies.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Who wants to mess up their life with a kid? It’s so limiting.”

  “So is being a jerk, Steve, but so far you haven’t let that stop you.”

  “Hey!” His bark of surprise gives me pleasure for about three seconds before someone decides to reach a very large, flat hand across my lower belly and pull slowly, like I’m in a giant tug of war for my uterus. “I’ve heard pregnancy can make women emotional and irritable, but this–”

  Someone uncorks a bottle of Champagne.

  All down my legs.

  He looks up, seeking the source of the sound, then notices the growing puddle on the floor. “Did you pop a bottle of prosecco?”

  “Is that what they’re calling the bag of waters these days?” I gasp, my pain and pressure suddenly five feet away as I look down, trying to see my feet. Can’t see them, but I can feel them.

  They’re wet.

  “Did you–my God, Shannon, did you pee your pants?”

  “I’m not wearing pants, Ste–” I can’t even finish his name. The pressure increases, a band around my lower half. I breathe into it, remembering Helen’s advice. She might have been crazy about regimentation, but for a brief time, she did give some solid help in terms of managing the mind into submission.

  The mind processes sensation however we train it to. This is not pain. It is only pressure. If I tell myself it’s productive pressure, I’ll never feel the pain. My breath becomes a cloud of Declan, the love in his eyes turning to molecules I inhale. I bend over, my belly hard as a rock, the tight wave moving down gradually. I ache between my legs, the pull worsening. As the pressure lessens, I look up.

  Into the eyes of a cartoon character.

  Who knew eyelids could go that far back into the socket? Huh.

  “Shannon, you need to stop this right now!” Steve insists. Dodging the growing puddle of amniotic fluid on the ground, he gives me a look of distaste. I know that look well. I remember it from college, when a bee stung me and I started wheezing.

  “I can’t stop labor.”

  “This is labor?”

  “No, Steve. It’s an amateur porn video. We’re combining golden showers, breeding, and elevator fetishes. We’ll make a killing in ad revenue.”

  “I never gave permission to be in a pornographic film! You can’t just–oh,” he says flatly, realizing I’m being sarcastic.

  Breathe. All I can do is breathe as my legs start to shake. The cold, wet skin around my ankles feels disjointed, like someone’s handed me a wax ankle covered in water. That’s not mine. Those aren’t my feet down on the floor, covered in my baby’s bag of waters, right?

  “Labor,” I gasp, reaching for my purse. “Oh, my God, I’m really in labor. I have to call Declan.”

  “Screw Declan!” Steve growls.

  “Not right now.” And not ever again, I think, as the baby shoves a knitting needle into my cervix.

  Patience washes over me, a bubbling brook that flows like a summer spring, sweet and clear. I tune out the world, the asshole in this little box with me, my own doubts, the sense of pain. If I close my eyes and journey inward, like Helen said, I can find my baby. He’s there, waiting for me to guide him out.

  He’s coming. It’s time to meet him.

  “Call 911! Call your doctor! Call–” Steve backs away from me in a panic, slamming into the control panel with all the buttons just as the little light shows we’ve reached the lobby floor. The elevator jerks to a stop, sudden and unexpected, turning my hips to unstable rollers, gravity throwing me sideways. I drop on one knee, arms wrapping around my belly, protective. My hip and knee take the brunt of my fall.

  Steve screams.

  An alarm, distant but regular, sounds above us.

  “Give me my phone,” I gasp, unable to speak as the rising crescendo of pressure pulls at me like the tide, a growing intensity that I can either fight or submit to. Can’t flee. Can’t run screaming. Can’t avoid. The only way out is through, but I’ll be damned if I’ll go through this with Steve Raleigh.

  Steve takes one step toward my evening bag, his highly shined shoe gliding on the fluid. “Urk!” he squawks, then slips, grabbing the handrail just in time to avoid falling on me. I am on my right side, breathing through a long, deep contraction, the pain bearable. I stop thinking about myself as an individual with free will. Completely stripped from me, any sense of control is rapidly fading, replaced by a muscular destiny I know nothing about.

  But am about to become an expert in.

  “Oh, Shannon, that looks like it hurts,” Steve says, his voice pained as I low-moan my way through the back pain, my spine being pulled out of my flesh and shoved as hard as possible through my butthole. “But could you keep it down? The echo in here is really strong.”

  Empathy without compassion is just another form of narcissism. It steals your emotional truth from you. Is it really empathy if the other person says all the right things, repeats all the expected, comforting words, but never lifts a finger to help when asked?

  No. It’s not. Then it’s just empty. You can’t spell empathy without empty.

  And that is all Steve Raleigh is.

  Empty. Hollow. A shell.

  And that’s when gratitude washes over me.

  I was so close to living half a life, with my emotions brushed aside like dirt on a patio chair cushion. Worse–I was completely ready to accept that living half a life was the best I could find in the world. Settling for someone like Steve Raleigh used to represent success.

  The next wave of pressure hurts a little bit more, the pain of what I could have been radiating out of me.

  Meanwhile, Steve fiddles with his phone until soft music starts to play from its tinny speakers.

  Muzak. Very, very familiar muzak, in fact.

  New-agey crap, irritating and electronic, pours forth.

  “Turn that off,” I say, the words closer to a growl than a request.

  “John Tesh is the perfect music for calming down, Shannon.”

  “I am not listening to this crap, Steve,” I seethe. “You made me hear it when we had sex. It’s triggering waves of nausea.”

  “John Tesh music makes you sick to your stomach?”

  “No. Memories of sex with you do, Steve. Give. Me. My. Phone,” I demand, my evening bag just out of reach. “I can’t believe you wasted time turning on John Tesh music when you could have called 9-1-1 for me!” My breathing feels stiff and unsure, coming fast suddenly, then super slow. I can’t catch myself. I am falling and slipping, rolling and spinning, all at the same time. My bones twist inside my skin. I imagine them cracking, splintering, separating like boulders being rolled down a large hill.

  Gravity. Gravity is pulling my bones. But where?

  “HELLO?” blasts a voice from the stainless-steel speaker by the elevator buttons. “Are you trapped? This is Jerry, the elevator operator. We’re working on getting you freed.”

  Steve pushes some button on the panel and says, “Thank you.” He releases the button and looks at me.

  “TELL THEM I AM IN LABOR, YOU ASSHOLE!”

  “I’m sure they’re working hard to free us,” he says as he kicks my bag toward me, the bottom of it sliding into a puddle of amniotic fluid. My grip on reality is tenuous at best, but as the world throbs, I find my phone and call 9-1-1, ignoring a slew of texts from Declan. My eyes take in a few of the words, like “elevator alarm” and “where are you?” in there.

  “9-1-1. What is your emergency?” the operator asks in a warm voice that reminds me of mothers, grandmothers, aunties and sweet women surrounding me with smiles and gentle hands.

  “I am in labor and stuck in an elevator at the–” Too much pain takes over, cutting off my words.

  “Okay, ma’am. Stay calm. What’s your name?”

  “Shan
non Jacob–er, McCormick.”

  “We’ve had other 9-1-1 calls come in about you already from an elevator operator at the building, honey. Emergency services are on their way. How far along are you?” Her voice has a nasal tone to it, not unpleasant.

  “Forty-one weeks. No question I’m in labor. My water broke. I–”

  Steve’s phone rings. He answers it, watching me as I curl into a ball on the floor, my back splitting in half. It’s as if I can feel each individual bone in my lower spine separating from the nerves, muscles, tendons, and flesh, being peeled away to be mounted in a museum exhibit.

  “Steve Raleigh. Wait–who? Declan? How in the hell did you get this number?”

  “SHANNON!” booms from Steve’s phone. But I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can’t do or be.

  I am just pressure, all of it condensed into my bones, the baby breaking me in order to come forth.

  “Hello? Hello? I’m keeping this line open. We’re sending an ambulance.” I hear the 9-1-1 operator’s words from my phone as she continues, but my ears ring, my belly pushing down, down as my pelvis opens, like someone has taken each side and is cracking me in half like a pistachio shell.

  I give in to the pain.

  I have no choice.

  Steve is yelling into his phone, Declan’s bellowing my name, and all I can do is close my eyes to tell the baby:

  Come. Come now. Come well, my child.

  I am waiting.

  * * *

  Declan

  * * *

  “What the hell do you mean, you didn’t call 9-1-1? Are you crazy? I called 9-1-1 the second I learned the elevator was stuck, you piece of useless–”

  “Hey!” Steve Raleigh whines into his phone. “I don’t have to take this abuse from you.”

  I’d hang up on him if it weren’t for the fact that he’s the only person who can help Shannon. I tried calling her. Tried texting. Dave got Steve’s number for me.

  “Listen to me. That’s my wife in there.”

  “I know who she is,” he says in a nasty tone. “She’s made one hell of a mess in here, too. Her water broke.”

  “Her water WHAT?”

  Worried, uniformed men surround me, talking to each other about accessing electrical panels and mechanical rooms, past elevator failures, and a host of other words that add up to the fact that my extremely pregnant wife has just had her water break inside a stuck elevator where she is trapped with the most narcissistic man in the world.

  The guy who didn’t take her anaphylaxis from a bee sting seriously when they were in college.

  The guy I want to throttle.

  The guy I’d trade places with in a heartbeat.

  “Get me into that elevator,” I snap at a worker in a blue short-sleeved shirt, a name tag on his breast. He’s the only person carrying a tool box.

  A shadow covers the guy’s name tag as someone else walks up to us. Tuxedo. My brain registers a tux, and right now, anyone in a tux is useless. I ignore him.

  “Look,” I say to the guy in blue. Gus. His name is Gus. “Gus. Get me in that elevator. My wife is forty-one weeks pregnant and her water broke.”

  “Doing our best, man. Give it a coupla minutes,” he says, serious but not giving me the words I want to hear.

  “DEC!” I hear Shannon call out on Steve’s phone. “Help!”

  “Steve, what are you doing to help her?” I bark at him.

  “Help?”

  “She’s in labor. The baby is coming. You need to help. Their lives are at risk,” the last words coming out of my mouth with a surreal detachment that makes them feel like bubbles, popping as they rise, weightless. Impossible to survive intact and complete any journey.

  “There’s fluid all over the floor. My shoes are ruined. And Shannon’s on the ground, on her side, panting. How much longer before the doors open? I can’t be expected to help in a medical emergency! I’m not trained for this!” Hysteria tinges his words.

  Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me?

  “You do what you have to in a crisis, you dumbass,” I instruct him. “Now go help my -- ”

  “Stop calling me names!” Click.

  “STEVE! STEVE!” I’m about to throw my phone across the room when a vice grip grabs me, shocking my system, body in overdrive from rage and fear. Shannon’s in pain in that elevator and I can’t think.

  “Declan.” It’s Dr. Derjian. “Someone said there’s a woman having a baby. Shannon, I assume.” Calm and rational but laser-focused, he’s exactly who I need right now.

  The opposite of that asshole Steve Raleigh.

  “Elevator malfunction. Her water broke. She’s stuck in there with her ex.”

  Eyebrows go up.

  “I wouldn’t want him, either. He’s useless.”

  “ETA on fixing the elevator?” Dr. Derjian asks me, urgency mirroring mine. Stress spikes in my blood like a poison.

  I look at Gus. He shakes his head sadly.

  A loud groan comes from the elevator, followed by a high-pitched scream. Dr. Derjian and I turn to Gus. I grab his elbow and shout, “Get her out of there!”

  “We’re trying. It’s complicated. We got a guy in the mechanical room who’s already working on it. These old hydraulic lifts–”

  “Get me in that elevator,” I snap. “Is there an access panel on top?”

  “Like in the movies?” Gus asks, giving me the kind of look only a Southie guy in the trades can give.

  “Yes. Like that.” I stare him down, heart jackrabbiting out of my chest. Images of poor Shannon writhing in agony, helpless, trapped with that asshole, won’t stop filling my mind, distracting me.

  I cannot be distracted.

  “You want to break into the elevator car itself through the ceiling?” Gus’s face makes it clear I’m nuts.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “We’ll debate my mental state later.”

  “Declan, he’s right,” Dr. Derjian says. “The best approach is to wait until they can fix the elevator. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

  “My wife is in there, having my baby, with a useless piece of shit ex-boyfriend who treated her like dirt. He hung up on me when I tried to get him to help her. Give me a better reason to break into the elevator,” I demand of Gus.

  Gus and a uniformed elevator operator whose name tag says Jerry blow out long, disgusted sighs. “I ain’t got one, bud. Let’s get you in there,” Gus says. He leads us over to the elevator doors, where he uses a walkie-talkie.

  “Hey, Bernie. You killed the power yet?” he says.

  “You’re turning off the power?” I snap. “How will we open the doors?”

  A long, frustrated breath comes out of him. “Look, bud. I know you’re upset. But you gotta trust me. I know how these systems work. It’s all I do. You gonna let me do my job or what?”

  “It’s just that Dr. Derjian and I need to–”

  The doctor pulls me away and gets in my face. “First of all, call me Alex. Second, he’s right. The workmen will get her out faster if you leave them alone. They’re not incompetent asses like your wife’s ex.”

  I nod. Speaking of which... I dial Steve Raleigh’s number again.

  Voicemail.

  “Son of a bitch!” I need to punch something. “He blocked my number.”

  Gus starts prying the elevator doors open. “Power’s off. Let’s get you in there.”

  “What about the doors below? Can’t you pry it open on the ground floor?” My hands itch to touch Shannon. To be there for her. With her. If anything happens to her or the baby, so help me God...

  “Some kinda glitch. Something’s stuck in the track. We don’t know why, but it looks like–” He grunts. “Yup. Got it.” A two-foot gap, enough for me to squeeze through, shows the elevator shaft, the top of the car down below, a good handful of feet..

  “Any chance you have a video camera in the car?” Alex asks Gus, turning to me. “I could at least observe her state. This doesn’t look like
a good idea,” he says to me, peering down the cable-lined shaft.

  “No, man. Sorry. Not yet. We upgraded electrical but the camera was next,” Gus says. “You got two choices. Go in through the top panel, or wait until they pry the ground floor doors open.”

  Shannon screams again, the sound going feral, low, like an animal in pain. I hear the muted tones of Steve Raleigh. It’s not the sound of comfort.

  That jackass is berating her.

  I pull out my phone and look at Alex. “What’s your number?”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Get in there. Help Shannon until they pry the doors open. I’ll need you on the phone in case.”

  “In case what?” Gus asks, alarmed suddenly.

  “In case she has the baby,” Alex says.

  “First baby?” Gus laughs. “My wife took eighteen hours with that one. You think she’ll give birth in there?”

  I look to Alex. He shrugs. “Babies are unpredictable. Her water’s broken. Probably not. No one knows.” His words have weight. Actual experts understand that ambiguity is where the truth resides in any given situation. Poseurs think that certainty makes them the authority. They’re wrong.

  It’s the person who has knowledge, skills, and the insight to understand that uncertainty is its own natural state who you want in a situation like this.

  A loud scream comes from below, making my gut coil inward, my heart racing harder.

  “Those screams are less than a minute apart,” Alex says, frowning. I know what that means.

  “Get me in there so I know what the hell is going on,” I demand as Alex pulls me away from the edge as Gus climbs down, straddling the top of the car. Gus and some other guy in jeans and a hoodie use tools to remove screws.

  “Declan, this is a bad idea,” Alex cautions.

  “Let’s get our numbers in each other’s phones,” I insist, thumbs flying faster than my heart as he reads off his number. I text. He buzzes.

  Good.

  Gus finishes removing the top panel just as a guy in a firefighter uniform appears, looking like he has some authority and is about to use it. Shannon lets out a horrible sound, making me move closer and look down at the elevator. Gus comes over, the firefighter and I helping haul him up. I look down, wedging myself in the shaft doorway.