The Best Man's Baby

by Victoria James

  Quinn nodded slowly, darting his eyes in the other direction. His brother was a horrible liar. He was going straight home to tell his wife.

  Jake let out an extra-dramatic breath. He pulled out the pry bar and sat on the ground. He was going to kill himself if he tried to have this conversation and work at the same time. “Let me ask your opinion on something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You know that old property on Winding River Road?”

  “The old Victorian house on the river?”

  Jake nodded. “I’m thinking of buying it. I went in to see it with a Realtor and it needs a lot of work. Like I’ll probably have to gut it, take it back to the studs, but it’s an amazing property.”

  He could tell Quinn was trying to hide his shock. “I had no idea you were thinking about buying a house.”

  Jake shrugged. “I want to do this right. Start a real family.”

  “Go for it. Do you need help with a mortgage or anything?”

  “Nope. Thanks for the offer. I’ve got money,” he said. His brothers probably thought he was broke. Truth was, since he lived above the construction office, in Quinn’s old place, his expenses were low. He didn’t have lavish tastes, and Manning Construction was doing so well, all his money had gone straight to the bank.

  “Okay. Well, if something comes up and you need anything, just let me know. And uh, how’s the baby?”

  “Fine. And I’m raising that baby, with her. Regardless of what she thinks. Regardless of what any of you think. I’d never run from my own kid. I know you guys think I’m this screwup, but I know what a child needs, and it’s love and acceptance.” Jake coughed. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. It looked like he was going to have to prop up Quinn’s jaw with the pry bar.

  “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll make a good father,” Quinn said, looking at him.

  Jake looked away for a second as unexpected emotion hit him.

  “I know you and Dad had your issues, but he tried his best, and for what it’s worth, I know they’d be proud of you.”

  Jake ground his back teeth together. Quinn didn’t have a clue, not a damn clue. It was that skewed perception of their childhood that had made him want to sever ties with all of them at one point. Telling his brothers the truth wasn’t an option. He could barely have a serious conversation about his life now, let alone the past, and he had no guarantees what their reaction would be. But that didn’t mean he was going to sit here and reminisce about a father who hated him.

  “Thanks,” Jake said, rising. “I’m going to head over to the condo. I’ll see ya later.” He walked out the door, shrugging off the weight of that conversation. He’d rather think about Claire.

  …

  “This is so not fair,” Claire grumbled under her breath, her eyes glued to the front door of the Italian restaurant. She poured herself a glass of San Pellegrino, thinking how a glass of merlot would have numbed some of the pain this lunch date was about to inflict. She was waiting, rather impatiently, for her mother to arrive. She had thought it wise to make her little announcement in a public venue. Her mother was not the type to create a scene. Ideally, she would have liked to wait until her father was back home to make this announcement, but because of the burger-stabbing, she was left with no choice. It would be devastating for her mother to hear about her pregnancy from someone else.

  She fiddled with the paper label on the bottle. Since Jake had returned to Red River, her entire life had become a circus. Her stomach clenched painfully as she spotted her mother’s beige Buick glide into an empty spot near the front door. She waved and forced herself to plaster on a smile as her mother approached. After all, she had to look like the blissful mother-to-be.

  Her mother was decked to the nines as usual, her perfect size-four figure wrapped up in a pale-pink suit, her face and hair primped to perfection. Even a tornado wouldn’t budge a strand on her mother’s head. Claire gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before they sat on opposite sides of the booth.

  Her mother shook her head as she settled into her seat, emphasizing her discontent with a tsk sound. “I must say I am surprised you picked this restaurant. The Italians are fixated on carbohydrates. I mean, it’s impossible to even look at this menu without gaining a pound.”

  Claire slowly raised the menu to cover her face, pretending to be absorbed in the details and not at all ready to crawl under the table. She was going to try her best not to respond to her mother’s comment, but she knew her obsession well and that she would complain for the rest of the meal.

  “Mmm. These gnocchi in a rosé sauce sound great,” Claire said, suddenly getting an overwhelming craving for the potato dumplings as she looked at the menu. Her appetite had been returning at unpredictable intervals, and it was such a wonderful contrast to the nausea she had endured the last two weeks.

  Her mother gasped, reacting as though Claire had just told her she was an alien from another planet. “Of all the things to order, you choose carbs on top of carbs smothered in a rich creamy sauce. That’s hardly a figure-flattering choice. And after all the work you’ve done to trim those excess pounds.”

  Claire felt her face ignite like a box of kindling. She focused on the thick black print of the menu. She focused on the letters. Anything to keep her mind from going back there. First the doctor’s appointment and now this.

  She felt bile start to churn, felt her body go hot, but not because she felt anything like that girl anymore. Because she wanted to help her. She wanted to reach back into the past and hug the tormented young woman she once was.

  Claire took a deep breath. She knew what the old Claire would have done—she would have ordered the grilled salmon, lemon sauce on the side, no potatoes, just grilled vegetables. And then she would have waited for her mother’s smile of approval. But she wasn’t the old Claire anymore. She had tossed her to the curb years ago. Now she was new and improved and she was going to ingest as many carbs as was humanly possible in one meal.

  “You ladies decided?” the waiter asked with a bright smile, oblivious to the tension at the table.

  “I’ll have the gnocchi with the rosé sauce. Oh, but first I’d like to start with bread. Lots of bread—with olive oil on the side for dipping.” She heard her mother’s gasp of horror.

  “And I will have the grilled salmon, sauce on the side, grilled vegetables, and no potatoes please,” her mother said primly, handing the waiter her menu. And then she turned her full-on scary attention to Claire. She leaned forward in the booth. “Claire, I don’t know what kind of point you’re trying to make here by ordering that kind of food, but it’s just to your own detriment. You always were a rebellious child and teenager,” her mother said with a huff.

  “Rebellious? What have I ever done?”

  Her mother pursed her lips. “Remember the time you dyed your hair?”

  “A darker shade of brown?” She fought the urge to engage her mother in a lose-lose debate. Instead, she got her frustration out by wringing her cloth napkin in her lap.

  The waiter came with another bottle of San Pellegrino and poured them each a glass while they both sat in silence. She took a deep breath.

  “So, Mom, there’s something I’d like to tell you,” Claire said, taking a sip of the cold, bubbly water.

  Her mother raised her perfectly arched, perfectly waxed dark-brown eyebrows. “Really? You never tell me anything.”

  “Right, well I’m about to tell you something now,” she said with a forced grin. “You know Jake Manning?”

  Suddenly her mother’s face lit up like a Christmas tree in a department store window. “Why, yes I do. The best-looking of the Manning brothers in my opinion.”

  She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course the only comment her mother would make would be the most superficial. Claire had no idea how her father had managed to stay married to her mother. Her father always preached about tolerance, love, compassion…

  “Right. Well, he and I have been dating.” Okay,
so maybe that was a little stretch, but it was a heck of a lot better than I had a one-night stand with an amazingly hot man who impregnated me.

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  She chewed on her lower lip, trying to keep her tongue inside her mouth where it wouldn’t land her in any trouble. She coughed and then continued. “It didn’t seem important.”

  “Hot buns fresh from the oven,” the waiter said interrupting, then leaving.

  “Well, I must say, if you’re trying to hold on to a man like that, the last thing you should be doing right now is eating a basket full of bread,” she said, raising her brows and pointing to the bread basket with a tilt of her chin.

  Rage, the kind that began at the tips of one’s toes and then skyrocketed through the body until it felt as though it needed to explode out of the head like a cartoon rocket ship, engulfed Claire. For a moment she didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound. She glanced from her left to her right. She had two options—the first being to pitch herself out the window, and the second being to dump the basket of hot rolls onto her mother’s head.

  “Thank you for your heartfelt happiness, Mother.”

  “Well, of course I’m happy for you, darling,” her mother said, her eyes growing wider as Claire slowly reached for a bun. She caught the glimpse of her reflection in the sparkling silverware, again, an irritating flash of who she once was sneakily entering her psyche. She saw a young woman with braces gleaming through an awkward smile and acne that took on a purplish hue she’d tried to hide with makeup. Frumpy clothes attempting to hide pounds of unhappiness were her uniform, and eyes always filled with tears and self-hatred stared back at her.

  “Claire!”

  She jumped and looked at her mother. The voice wasn’t in her past, it was right across the table, and its shrill tone mirrored her mother’s sour expression as she waited for Claire to notice her. “You know I have always supported you,” her mother said, taking a sip of water, her fuchsia lipstick leaving a mark on the crystal water glass. Claire tried not to get agitated, tried not to let her mother’s blatant disapproval affect her. When she’d been a teen, she wanted desperately to be the image of perfection. She wanted to have her mother’s petite frame, but that was then, Claire thought, looking at her mother. She had worked through a lot of her issues and she was a stronger woman for it.

  “You know what, Mother?” Claire said, feeling the fire that burned in her body for the girl she once was. She didn’t wait for her mother to answer. She needed to get this out. Now. “You haven’t always supported me. You have always supported the image of what you thought I should be,” she said leaning toward her mother, her mother pressing away from her into the booth. She ignored the hurt look on her mother’s face and continued on, before she chickened out.

  “You always thought I was too ugly and too fat. I was at the top of my class and you never once congratulated me for it. The only thing you ever congratulated me for was losing weight, and even then, it was with the mention of how fat I used to be. When I told you I was opening my own business you didn’t encourage me, you just pointed out that I should be concerned with starting a family. When my business started booming you told me not to neglect my appearance. And now, now, I’m here telling you I’m dating Jake and all you can think about is what I’m eating? Well, you know what?”

  She paused, cleared her throat of tears, and shoved a piece of bread in her mouth and chewed.

  “You know what?” she asked again, chomping away. “I like bread. Yup, that’s right,” she said, nodding, as her mother shook her head at her. Claire dipped a piece of the bread into olive oil, dabbing it furiously, “and I like myself. I like my body. I like my mind. I like the woman I’ve become, and you know what else?” she said, this time unable to stop the tears that welled in her eyes as she stared at her mother, olive oil dripping from the bread still in her hand and onto the pristine white tablecloth. “I know Dad loves me. I know Dad is proud of me. And I know, if he were here, the first words out of his mouth would have been congratulations,” Claire said, blinking rapidly. She felt her chest heaving from sobs that were trapped inside.

  “Your father can’t protect you from the real world anymore, Claire. People are judged on their appearance every day and you’re naive if you don’t think so. That man you’re with isn’t going to be attracted to an overweight, frumpy woman. I’m just—”

  “No. No, you’re not going to do this. You are not going to try to instill doubt in me. Not now.” She stood, grabbing her purse and coat and slid out of the booth. “Oh, and by the way, you’re about to become a grandmother,” Claire added. Her mother looked horrified. She spotted the bread basket still filled with bread. Go for it. “And you know what else, Mother?” Claire said, grabbing each bun and stuffing it into her purse. “I am going to take each and every one of these processed white buns and eat them!”

  She turned, desperate to leave the restaurant. She needed fresh air. She wound her way through the tables, clutching her coat and purse to her chest, almost positive she dropped a roll somewhere between their table and the front door, but she kept on going. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone, hoping to God there was no one she knew here. What were the odds that quiet, shy Claire would be making a spectacle of herself twice in the same week?

  Her knees shook and her body trembled as she walked away from her mother. The smell of grilling steak and sizzling beef wafted around her like a cloak of anti-pregnancy fumes. She swung open the giant wooden doors and gasped the fresh, crisp spring air as she stood on the sidewalk. She had to squint against the bright sunlight, taking a few moments to gather her bearings. And then she stood there, basking in the warmth of the sun, in the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Red River. She took one breath, then another, until a strange calm permeated. She thought of her father. Of Jake. Of how far she’d come.

  She touched her abdomen, saying a quiet, proud hello.

  I did it, baby.

  Chapter Seven

  Claire held Ella while Holly wrestled a shopping cart free of the lineup.

  “Ella-Bella,” Claire whispered in a singsong voice, smiling as Ella laughed and squirmed. Holly took Ella and secured her into the top seat of the shopping cart, handing the toddler a large cookie and a sippy cup

  “Okay, so I want details. All the details. Starting with the night of the wedding,” Holly said as the automatic doors to the grocery store swooshed opened. Claire’s stomach clenched. When Holly and Ella had descended on her in her shop this afternoon like a great mama hawk and her little bird, demanding Claire come along with them, Claire felt she had no choice. Holly knew her store was closed on Monday, so she really had no way of getting out of it. And she owed Holly an explanation and an apology. She’d been so wrapped up in her own drama she hadn’t even thought of what her best friend would think about her spectacle. And after her doctor’s appointment this morning, followed by lunch with her mother, she could really use the company of someone supportive. A part of her missed the old Holly and Claire, when they would sit around and chat and gossip. Before life had become complicated. She did owe her best friend an explanation, but details, while they strolled through the aisles of the produce section with a two-year-old in tow, wasn’t exactly what she’d envisioned.

  “Oh, come on, you owe me,” Holly said, dropping a few mangoes into a plastic bag and then looking up at her. Ella stopped eating her cookie and watched her too. Claire started pushing the cart. She needed them to get through the produce section or Holly would never finish the interrogation. “I mean, first you stab Jake’s burger with a pregnancy test, then I almost break my neck tripping over dinner rolls on the floor of your store today. Obviously, you are having some issues.”

  Claire groaned inwardly. She should have picked up those buns. “I had lunch with my mother,” she said in a low voice.

  “Oh. Oh, no.”

  “Let’s just say there were lots of carbs involved and me walking out after announcing I’m pregn
ant.”

  “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  Claire nodded. “I don’t know why I was even surprised. Nothing’s changed. She’s the same woman. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “Well, you never know, sometimes when there’s a baby in the picture, people change. Give her time, she might realize everything she’s going to lose if she doesn’t come around,” she said, adding some oranges to the cart.

  Claire didn’t think so, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “I highly doubt it.”

  “Hey, never say never,” Holly said with a gentle smile. It was that same smile her friend had for her in high school whenever she’d been humiliated.

  “Sure. Thanks. I’ve got to tell you, I’m so sorry about the other night. I know I ruined your barbecue. It was so rude and so selfish.”

  “Uh, I know what came over you—anger! I’d be angry too. No apology necessary. Are you kidding? Jake deserved it!”

  “Thanks,” Claire said, darting her eyes around the store. Holly had a tendency to speak very loud when she was animated.

  “You know, Jake came by our house the morning after the burger-stabbing.”

  “Can we just refer to it as the barbecue?” Claire winced.

  Holly nodded vehemently. “Of course, of course.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He was a wreck,” her friend said with a theatrical sigh, putting bananas into the cart.

  Claire frowned. She couldn’t picture Jake being a wreck over anything.

  “Uncle Zake. Big Trouble,” Ella said, nodding.

  “Ella, you know everything, don’t you?”

  “We have to watch everything we say,” Holly said with a laugh. “Seriously, though, he knows he hurt you.”

  Claire felt her stomach turn over. She averted her eyes and looked at the display of apples, thinking of Jake the other night at her house and then this morning at the doctor’s. He wasn’t what she thought. She looked over at Holly again. Ella nodded.