Happily Ever Ninja (Knitting in the City #5)

by Penny Reid

  “Why are you holding them hostage at the door?” Elizabeth appeared and reprimanded Sandra, reaching for my arm and pulling me forward.

  “I’m not holding them hostage, I’m welcoming them.”

  “For the record, I do not feel adequately welcomed,” Greg piped in with his typical contrariness.

  I patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll survive.”

  “I will suffer through. Where are the men folk?”

  “Around,” Elizabeth said distractedly as she guided me away. “Sorry, Greg, we need Fiona. We’re having a crisis.”

  “No one is better in a crisis than Fiona.” I glanced at Sandra as she said this, lifting her chin toward the cake in Greg’s possession. “Be a dear and put the cake in the kitchen?”

  “Fine,” he mock-grumbled. “But if you don’t return my wife to me in a half hour, I will orchestrate a new crisis.”

  “Such as?” Elizabeth paused, obviously wanting to hear whatever humorous thing Greg was about to say. He had this reputation with my friends—hilariously wrong in the head—and they often compared his jokes to a clown car accident, unfortunate but funny.

  “Where’s Alex?”

  Sandra gave Greg the side-eye. “What do you want with my husband?”

  “I thought we might check out what the Senate has been up to.”

  Elizabeth didn’t comprehend his horrid threat. “Meaning?”

  “Don’t you dare.” Sandra narrowed her eyes, administering a piercing squint at my husband; of course she would catch on at once because terrible minds think alike.

  I gave him a withering look and tossed over my shoulder, “No hacking into government websites again, Greg.”

  “I’ll see you in a half hour, dearest.”

  There was a short pause before Elizabeth gasped, finally understanding his meaning, “You did that? You put up those pictures of that senator? The naked selfies on the house dot gov main page?”

  “I did no such thing.” Greg sounded and looked insulted, then added, “Alex did it. I was merely the Pinky to his Brain.”

  Sandra gave Greg one more dirty look before pushing us around the corner and out of earshot. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was laughing.

  “I can’t believe he did that. Where did he get the pictures?”

  Sandra’s irritated expression quickly dissipated and she chuckled lightly. “He is so delightfully wrong.”

  “It’s not funny,” I said. It wasn’t funny, not really. Granted, this senator was responsible for passing laws making federal programs negotiations of drug prices with Big Pharma illegal, which cost taxpayers millions. And this senator had been slated to become a lobbyist with Big Pharma—so, basically, he was corrupt and had sold his vote.

  Still, the end doesn’t justify the means; hacking into cell phones isn’t funny. And yet . . . Greg made it funny. He made people both wince and laugh, feel guilty and good at the same time. As Sandra might say, it was his superpower.

  “What’s the current crisis?” I changed the subject, unzipping my coat and allowing Sandra to help me remove it.

  “Janie is hiding in the bathroom.” Elizabeth turned me toward a hallway.

  I frowned at this news. “Again? Why?”

  “She isn’t precisely hiding, but she won’t come out. And she sounds . . . not well,” Sandra clarified.

  “Not well?” I spotted Marie and Kat directly ahead of me, standing on either side of the closed bathroom door, and gave them both a quick hug.

  “I think she’s throwing up again.” Marie’s forehead creased.

  Elizabeth shook her head at this news. “If she’d told me she was sick we could have moved the party to my apartment.”

  “She keeps insisting everything is fine,” Kat whispered to our circle. “But she’s been in there since I arrived twenty minutes ago to help set things up.”

  “What does Quinn say?” I lowered my voice to match Kat’s pitch.

  “He’s not home yet.”

  “Did you try calling him?” I asked, glancing at the closed door.

  “I called him.” Elizabeth showed me her cell as though to prove her efforts. “So did Sandra.”

  “He said he was on his way home and told us to mind our own business.” Sandra did her best Quinn Sullivan impression, which would have made me smile if the situation had been different.

  “What do we do? Ashley and Drew will be here in a few minutes and the rest of the guests will start arriving at five. Do we move the party?” Marie asked, and all eyes were pointed at me to provide the answer.

  I surveyed my friends’ worried expressions, then the door where the sound of Janie coughing was just audible. I walked around Kat and Elizabeth, crossed to the door, and knocked gently.

  “Janie, it’s Fiona.”

  “Oh, hi Fiona.” She sounded weak, unsteady, and I heard her sniff. “I’ll be right out, I just need to . . .”

  When Janie didn’t finish her sentence, but instead made a horrid dry-heaving sound, I retrieved two bobby pins from my pants pocket. “Janie, I’m coming in.”

  “You can’t. The door is locked. I need another minute.”

  “Elizabeth, can you bring me a glass of juice? Not apple. Lemonade if she has it.” I picked the simple lock while I made this request.

  “If she’s got a stomach flu, flat ginger ale would be better,” Elizabeth suggested.

  I shook my head. Based on the facts presented, I was fairly certain Janie’s illness wasn’t as transitory as a stomach flu; Quinn’s response and lack of overt concern being the most damning of the evidence. He knew what was up . . .

  “No. Lemonade. And Saltines.”

  Sandra squinted at me. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

  I shushed her, which had the opposite effect I’d intended. Sandra gasped, covering her mouth, her eyes growing impossibly large. “Oh my apple pie! Do you really think—”

  I shushed her again and waved her back. “Give me a minute?” Before any of the other ladies could give voice to their questions, I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

  Janie was lying on the tile floor. Her long body was folded into a ball, her curly red hair in disarray around her head and shoulders. Her eyes opened and met mine. She wasn’t in pain, she was nauseous. Tremendously nauseous.

  Yep. She was pregnant.

  I tried not to smile, and failed. For better or for worse, parenthood is a club. It’s based on shared experiences, usually having to do with either indescribable joy and/or unspeakable suffering. I’d been the solo member of the parent club amongst my good friends for the last eight years. Therefore, I couldn’t help but feel a deep camaraderie with—and maybe also gratitude for—Janie now.

  “We’ll move the party,” I said simply, and continued before Janie could protest. “We’ll move it to Elizabeth’s place. You stay here and rest. When it winds down, we’ll all come back to see if you’re feeling better.”

  “I’m not sick, though most insurance companies and the AMA consider it a disease state.”

  “I know.” I nodded once, then moved to the sink, wetting a clean washcloth with cool water and grabbing a dry fluffy towel. I knelt beside Janie, helped her lift her head so I could fit the fluffy towel beneath it, then dabbed at her forehead with the washcloth. “But apparently you also can’t host a party when you’re in your first trimester.”

  Her eyes widened and grew more sober, watchful. “How did . . . never mind,” she croaked. “You know everything.”

  “I do not know everything.”

  She ignored me and continued, “I didn’t want anyone to know. We found out last week and, with Ashley leaving, this is her party. I didn’t want . . .” Janie swallowed weakly and her eyes fluttered shut.

  “You didn’t want to hijack her party with your news?”

  “Exactly.” She tried to swallow, then made an involuntary gagging sound.

  “Janie?” Quinn’s voice called from the other side of the door. “Kitten, are you
okay?”

  She tried to push to her elbows, but I placed a hand on her arm to keep her in place and responded for her. “She’s okay, but she needs those Saltines.”

  “Ugh, I can’t eat.”

  “You need to eat, otherwise the nausea will get worse. Elizabeth is bringing you lemonade and crackers. Citrus helped me with both Jack and Grace.”

  “Elizabeth is here with the food. Fiona, let me in.” Quinn sounded appropriately concerned. His anxiety made me smile. Greg had been of a similar disposition for our first pregnancy—like I was made of both glass and plutonium.

  I gave Janie one last smile of commiseration, then turned to the door, taking a deep breath before I opened it. I wasn’t surprised to see everyone—and I do mean everyone—hovering anxiously on the other side.

  I addressed Quinn first. “She has to eat. If she doesn’t eat, she’ll keep getting sick.”

  He nodded gravely, like I was giving him directions to save her life. “Okay. I’ll make sure she eats.”

  “I will too,” Dan—Quinn’s second in command—chimed in, looking almost as anxious as Quinn.

  Daniel O’Malley, six foot, stocky, brown eyes, brown hair; Quinn Sullivan’s childhood friend and now business partner; candid, loyal, and unrequitedly in love with Kat Tanner (aka Kathleen Tyson) . . . unrequited because she is in denial.

  “Why didn’t she tell us?” Elizabeth addressed this question to Quinn, as though she held him responsible.

  Based on the way he was grinding his teeth, I surmised he was going to repeat his earlier answer, It’s none of your business.

  Therefore, I interjected, “She’s not that far along, and they just found out last week. Plus, she didn’t want to be the focus of tonight, what with Ashley leaving on Wednesday.”

  Ashley and Drew had arrived while I was in the bathroom; they were standing at the back of the gathered crowd, and she shook her head at this reasoning. “She is a nut. I don’t care about having a party—seeing y’all is enough for me. I wish we could cancel the whole darn thing and just hang out and knit.”

  “And crochet,” Nico—Elizabeth’s husband—added with a grin. He and Janie were the crocheters in our group, though I suspected Nico did it primarily as a way to spend time with his wife, and secondarily to bond with her friends.

  “Elizabeth, please take the food to Janie’s room.” I motioned with my chin down the hallway, then turned to Quinn. “It would be good for you to carry her, but lift her gently.”

  He nodded solemnly and started for the bathroom, then stopped and turned to me. His typically glacial gaze was tempered with gratitude, but also something else.

  “You’ll come back, right? You’ll come back and check on her?” he asked.

  I frowned at him, confused, especially since Elizabeth was an ER physician and Ashley was a nurse.

  I was about to point this out when Elizabeth said, “Maybe you should make a list of foods, the best kind for her . . . condition.”

  “She doesn’t have a condition. You make it sound like she has gonorrhea.” Sandra shoved Elizabeth’s shoulder, grinning with gusto. “Janie and Quinn are going to have a baby! Why is no one doing cartwheels?”

  “I agree,” Marie nodded enthusiastically. “This is a reason to celebrate. I’ll mix cocktails.”

  “I’ll help,” Kat offered.

  “Let’s all help.” Nico herded everyone toward the kitchen; he must’ve understood the strained expression on Quinn’s face and wisely decided to move the crowd.

  Greg loitered behind, waiting for our friends to shuffle past, then came to my side.

  Before Greg could speak, Quinn tugged me by the arm and turned me to face him again. “Listen, I need your help.”

  I blinked at him blankly for two beats before I found my voice. “What do you need?” Quinn wasn’t the type to ask for help, ever.

  “Janie has been sick for weeks, and the doctors keep saying it’s normal and everything is fine as long as she’s not dehydrated or doesn’t lose too much weight. It doesn’t seem normal to me. They gave her a prescription for Zofran, but she doesn’t want to take it.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s worried it hasn’t been adequately studied in pregnant women.”

  “Pregnant women take Zofran all the time.”

  “Yeah, but you know her. She says she wants to see a randomized, double-blind clinical trial.” Quinn and I shared a look of commiseration; this was classic Janie. He continued, “She’s tried everything to stem the nausea and nothing works. Ginger, peppermint, Preggie Pops—whatever the hell those are. Do you have any ideas?”

  I thought on this for a moment, then asked, “Is she craving anything?”

  “She hasn’t mentioned anything.”

  “Maybe try bringing her different kinds of foods, all with strong flavors. Citrus helped me with Jack. With Grace, mustard or anything vinegary did the trick.”

  “The other thing is,” Quinn’s eyes darted to Greg, then back to mine, “she won’t listen to me. She’s been—”

  “Irrational?” Greg supplied. “Crazy? Emotional? Exhausted?”

  Quinn nodded. “All of those things.”

  I covered Quinn’s hand with mine and squeezed. “I’ll talk to her for you. Have her take a few days off work and I’ll come over, bring different foods. Something will help.”

  “Thank you.” Quinn turned his hand so he was holding mine, and his typical stoicism was replaced with the sincere warmth of relieved gratitude. “Thank you. I mean it.”

  “No problem.”

  Quinn let go of my fingers and pulled his through his hair. “Okay, I’m going to get her.”

  He gave us both one more distracted head nod before disappearing into the bathroom. Greg tossed his arm around my shoulders and turned me toward the living room, placing a kiss on my forehead and whispering, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  I gave him the side-eye. “I think so, Brain. But where are we going to get rubber pants?”

  Greg grinned at my reference to Pinky and the Brain, a cartoon that originally aired in the 1990s, and one that Greg had forced me to watch repeatedly during his senior year of college. He’d left Iowa to finish his degree in Texas right after we’d become engaged. Every Tuesday and Thursday we’d sit on the phone together and watch Pinky and the Brain.

  “I missed you, Pinky,” he said, staring at me like I might disappear.

  I returned his smile, though I was inexplicably sad.

  No . . . not sad. Nostalgic.

  When I was pregnant with Jack, Greg had taken a desk job for a year so he could be with me, so he could hover and worry and fret daily in close proximity. It had made me crazy at the time, as we’d been apart more than we’d been together during our engagement and marriage. But now I looked back on those twelve months as some of the happiest of my life.

  Greg’s grin diminished the longer I stared at him. Wanting to keep the moment light, I redoubled my effort to smile and lifted to my toes, giving him a quick kiss.

  “I missed you too, Brain. I always do.”

  ***

  “. . . and so I took Enis out of the soccer program and added him to the little league waitlist.” Ashley’s co-worker finished her lengthy monologue—regarding the trials and tribulations of the local co-ed youth soccer league—with unbridled exasperation.

  “Fascinating.” Greg nodded intently, his eyes narrowed in a way that told me he hadn’t been listening to a single word she’d said.

  Granted, he’d joined the conversation just minutes ago, stepping close to me, and shoving a plate of food into my hands, saying, “Please eat something.”

  Kat and Sandra, who were also present, had nothing to add. Sandra scanned the crowd while Kat smiled politely. Kat’s superpower was being polite.

  Meanwhile, I had been listening to the woman. I was keenly interested in the league’s dynamics since Jack was about to start practices next month. “Thank you for the information. You’ve given me a lot to
think about.”

  We’d moved the party to Elizabeth and Nico’s penthouse, which was down the hall from Janie and Quinn’s. The blizzard-like conditions kept many people from venturing out, opting to send regretful texts instead. Ashley’s phone kept buzzing with messages, so she eventually turned it off. If she was disappointed by the turnout, she didn’t show it.

  Ashley’s co-worker looked at her watch. “Like I said, soccer wasn’t the right environment for Enis. But your son might have a better experience.”

  “Jack won’t be playing football,” Greg said distractedly.

  “Right . . .” The woman gave Greg a questioning frown, but didn’t address his statement; she obviously wasn’t aware that, to the British, football meant soccer.

  Since I had no plans to tell Greg that Jack would be playing soccer, I made no effort to clarify. I felt Sandra’s eyes on me; obviously, she had caught Greg’s meaning.

  I decided to change the subject. “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost nine. I should be going.” The woman scowled at her watch, like she was irritated at the time.

  “It was nice to meet you.” I passed my plate back to Greg.

  “You too. Please do call me if you have any more questions.” She shook my hand, then pulled a card from her pocket and passed it to me. “This is my work number, but it’s probably the best way to get hold of me.”

  “I absolutely will. Thank you.”

  After a few more pleasantries, Ashley’s co-worker left us to search for her husband.

  As soon as she was out of the room, Greg tugged lightly on my elbow. “Did she say her kids’ names are Penis and Vagina?”

  Kat coughed, her eyes bulging. Luckily she hadn’t been drinking her red wine as he spoke. Kat was known for her spit-takes.

  Sandra smirked, not even trying to suppress a goofy chuckle.

  I whipped my head back and whispered to Greg harshly, “No! It’s Enis and Ragina. Their names are Enis and Ragina.”

  “Sorry,” he shook his head, leaning away, shrugging, and not looking sorry, “I’m still hearing Penis and Vagina.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at this. “I think those are your two favorite words. It’s the only explanation for why you’re constantly saying them out loud.”