Your Baby Or Mine?

by Marie Ferrarella

  He was still asleep. She stood, looking at him, love swelling within her heart. During the day Christopher was sheer energy, but once he was down, he was down for the night. It was, she supposed, nature’s little way of compensating.

  She was still smiling to herself as she dialed the phone number. A sleepy voice answered on the fourth ring and said what passed for hello.

  “Jeremy? This is Marissa.” She glanced at the clock and realized what time it was in New York. She’d completely forgotten about the time difference. “Oh, God, did I wake you?”

  “Yeah, but that’s okay.” She heard rustling on the other end, as if he was sitting up in bed. “I’ve got some news.”

  Marissa didn’t know if she particularly liked the sound of that. It was the exact same way her father used to preface his announcements that they were moving yet again.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I’m coming home.”

  She could feel her stomach sinking down to the floor. The apartment was a godsend for her. Located just a couple of miles from the campus and close to both her job and Jane, it made her life easy.

  Easy was obviously not a word destined to remain with any permanence in her life. “When?”

  “End of the week.”

  “The end of. the week?” When she’d agreed to sublet the apartment, Jeremy had said that he was leaving for two years. It had only been nine months. “But you said—”

  It was clear that he didn’t feel up to being hassled when he was half asleep. “That this was only temporary,” he reminded her.

  She could barely afford to live here. How was she going to pay for a regular apartment and still go to school? “Yes, but you made it sound as if it was until the end of next year—at the very least.”

  He didn’t sound any happier than she did about the need to return home. “It was, but the funding for the play ran out We closed today.” Jeremy let out a long sigh. “I could let you stay on. Of course, it’d be a little tight.”

  In more ways than one, she thought. It was all right to deal with Jeremy when he was three thousand miles away. But she knew what close proximity would bring and she wasn’t up to the struggle involved with keeping him at arm’s length all the time. Jeremy believed that no woman should die without experiencing the pleasure of having slept with him, at least once.

  “That’s all right,” she told him. “I’ll be out by the end of the week.” Oh, God.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” He yawned in her ear. “You’d better get some sleep,” she urged. “I’ll see you Friday.”

  “Let me know if you change your mind. I’m a bighearted guy.”

  “Right.” Marissa hung up, frowning. She had four days to find a place to live, work on her thesis, study for an exam and juggle all the other various parts of her life.

  Marissa felt as if she’d just hit the legendary wall. And it had fallen on top of her.

  Chapter Three

  Marissa hurried into the room, just barely making it in time. The clock on the back wall announced that it was exactly five-thirty.

  Made it.

  She was only vaguely aware that Christopher had his fingers tangled in the ends of her hair and was apparently intent on seeing how resilient it was. The tugging on her scalp registered peripherally and she moved his hand away. Undaunted, he went to work on the neck of her T-shirt.

  A quick scan of the room told her that everyone seemed to be here. She had made class by the skin of her teeth. Again. This had to stop. Up until last month, she’d always been so organized.

  Like a drill sergeant

  She supposed, in a way, she wasn’t all that different from her father. Marissa raised her brow. Now there was a frightening thought She wasn’t anything like the Sergeant, she was just feeling slightly punchy, that’s all.

  Concerned about having to look for a new place to live, she’d tossed and turned all night. And when she’d finally dropped off, Christopher had woken up, loudly announcing the beginning of a brand new day. A day that had three classes and a trip to the library crammed into it. The latter had turned into nothing short of a disaster. Every book she needed for her thesis had been checked out. There hadn’t been time to try another library.

  Lately there didn’t seem to be enough time to do anything except rush.

  The classified section she’d grabbed this morning on her way out the door was no closer to being read now than it had been when she’d left the apartment at eight. It had spent the day sticking up out of her purse, a constant reminder that she hadn’t had the time to look through it yet.

  She was a little afraid of opening it. Afraid to see just what apartments within the area were going for now. Undoubtedly it had to be a lot more than she was able to wring out of her already-squeezed-to-the-limit budget. There was no way that she was going to be able to afford an apartment on her own. Though she hated the idea, she was going to have to find a roommate.

  With her master’s thesis weighing heavily on her mind, the prospect of looking for an apartment and a roommate was almost more than Marissa could handle. She could feel it wearing away at her, eroding her optimism like a steady drip eventually erodes the surface of a rock.

  It was beginning to seem, Marissa thought, as if life just never got easier.

  Heads turned in her direction as the door behind her closed with a resounding slam. She hadn’t meant to let go of it. Marissa flashed a smile at those closest to her. Reaching over to set her purse on the floor, she accidentally dropped the folded newspaper. She felt disjointed and uncoordinated.

  Marissa sighed, gathering her patience together. She was going to get through this, just as she had managed to get through every other bumpy segment of her life. If she’d gotten some sleep, she wouldn’t feel this frazzled.

  Still, sometimes it would be nice just to have one thing to handle at a time. Like getting her thesis completed.

  Securing Christopher on her hip, Marissa bent to pick up the scattered pages. She was definitely going to go through them right after class. Just before she collapsed into a boneless heap.

  “Let me get that for you.”

  Marissa glanced up to see that the offer had come from Beckett. She bit back the impulse to say that she could manage. Right now, she couldn’t.

  “That would be very nice,” she murmured, straightening again.

  With one eye on Andrea who was on the floor, communing with two other babies, Alec squatted and quickly gathered up the paper.

  Marissa dragged her free hand through her hair. The damp air had made it curl like a plateful of curly fries. It felt hopelessly tangled. A little, she mused, like her life right now.

  “Thanks.” She took the paper from him, then smiled ruefully. “I seem to be coming apart today.”

  Not that he’d noticed. Alec allowed his eyes to wander up and down her frame. She was wearing hot pink leggings and a pristine white top today. He wondered how long it would remain that way, given that her son was tugging a piece of it toward his mouth.

  He smiled at her. “Then you must have gotten your hands on one hell of an adhesive because all your parts seem to be holding together damn well from what I can see."

  He was flirting with her, she thought. The effect was not unpleasant. In the midst of the classroom, it was harmless enough and God knew it felt good to hear when she was feeling like an A-l ugly duckling with frizzy hair.

  “Thanks.” The dimple at the corner of her mouth winked as she grinned. “I needed that more than having the papers picked up.”

  She has a nice smile, Alec thought. Hell, she has a nice everything. If he were in the market for that sort of thing, he added silently. Which he wasn’t.

  The only thing he was in the market for right now was a nanny. Fast. Just the thought of the pending interviews lined up for him tomorrow made him uneasy. He glanced at Marissa, wondering if asking her one more time might make her reconsider his offer.

  He never got the chance to find out.


  Setting the classifieds out of the way, Marissa turned her attention to the rest of the class. If she didn’t get started, there was no way the class would end on time. She didn’t believe in shortchanging people just because she was having personal problems.

  Alec picked Andrea up from the floor and found a spot in the front of the room. “Time to get you limber, Andy,” he whispered against the downy softness of her cornsilk hair. He took her gurgle to be agreement.

  Individual chatter died away quickly. The only sound that remained was that of babies cooing and fussing.

  Marissa smiled ruefully at the people in the first few rows. “Well, I see that I’m the last one here again. I’m really sorry,” she apologized with feeling, “but I seem to be running behind lately.”

  A sympathetic, commiserating murmur rippled through the group. Everyone, it seemed, had been there, or was still there. Babies had a habit of upending lives.

  Marissa found looking out on the sea of familiar faces comforting. It helped nudge her problems into the background. At least temporarily. These people weren’t paying good money to come to class just to see a woman nearing the end of her rope. They were here for guidance, bless ’em. And to be shown creative games they could play with their children, games that were geared toward teaching as well as fun.

  Most of all, they were here because they loved their children. It gave them all a common bond. A special bond. No one knew better than she did the importance of parental love. Or how it felt to grow up without it.

  She looked around the room slowly, making eye contact with as many people as she could. “All right, people, let’s get started, shall we?”

  She was preoccupied, he would make book on it.

  Alec was well acquainted with the signs. They’d been there, in his own mirror, countless times over the past year. Today had been no exception.

  The look that was in her eyes had stared back at him this morning while he was shaving. Preoccupied, he’d almost managed to slice his face. He’d been worrying about finding if not the perfect nanny, at least a tolerable one, preferably with stamina.

  Alec couldn’t help wondering what Marissa’s dilemma concerned and if there was any way that they could wind up helping each other. If he did something for her, then maybe she would agree to…

  He was really beginning to think like a desperate man, he upbraided himself.

  “How could a man feel desperate, having someone like you in his life?” he asked Andrea. She ignored him, trying to swallow her foot whole. Laughing, Alec redirected her attention to the business at hand.

  Out of the corner of his eye he watched Marissa as she wandered from parent to parent, giving advice, encouragement and always, tacit approval. Her genuine enthusiasm was infectious. Everyone, he noted, vied for her attention. They were all seated on the floor, most with their offspring planted between their legs, struggling to put the toddlers through the paces of the new exercise she had just introduced.

  Marissa was determined to get to everyone at least once during the session. She stopped by one mother whose baby, howling in protest, was trying to make a break for freedom. Each time the woman let go of him, he would start crawling away.

  It looked amusing, but Marissa knew how frustrating it could be. “Try this,” she suggested. Using the little boy as a model, Marissa demonstrated how to stretch the young muscles without placing undue pressure on them. The boy stopped squirming.

  Success. Marissa rose, nodding at the boy’s mother. “Now you.”

  Hesitantly, the woman mimicked what she had been shown. Marissa’s grin was wide as she squeezed her shoulder. “That’s it. Have fun with it.” She began picking her way around the room again. “That’s why you’re here,” she told the others, “to have fun with your baby.”

  Another woman waved to get Marissa’s attention. “Is this right?”

  “As long as neither you nor your baby turn into a pretzel, it’s right.” Marissa watched as the woman demonstrated her own interpretation of the stretching exercise, then nodded. “Remember, creativity is the key. Be flexible. Inventive. This isn’t so much about form as it is about making sure your baby gets a healthy dose of exercise.”

  “How much is enough?” someone asked.

  “As much as either one of you can take. You’ll know when it happens,” she promised. Marissa stopped to ruffle one baby’s amazing mop of black hair. The baby gurgled in response. “These babies have energy, use it positively. For you, not against you. Tire them out naturally, instead of having them become comatose in front of a TV set.”

  Alec looked up, surprised. “You don’t like television?”

  Marissa turned in the direction of the question. Beckett. She couldn’t picture him planting his daughter in front of a television set. He seemed too attentive to the little girl’s needs.

  “Oh, I love TV, but just not as a perpetual baby-sitter.”

  That had been her mother’s solution and she had taken to it wholeheartedly. So much so that as Marissa was growing up in her nomadic existence, at times it seemed as if the TV was her only friend. It had taken willpower and determination for her to break the habit and stop hiding in a make-believe world. She’d made certain that her siblings didn’t make her mistake.

  “Too many parents plant their kids in front of a TV set and leave them there. Then they’re surprised five years later to find out that their son or daughter has turned into a couch potato with no interest in getting any exercise.”

  Just as Marissa began to kneel, Andrea scooted through her legs. Marissa grabbed the edge of the little girl’s smock in time to prevent her from colliding with another baby. She stilled Andrea’s squeal of protest with a hug.

  She was quick, Alec thought as he reclaimed his daughter from Marissa’s arms. Andrea was developing a nasty habit of wanting to go off exploring on her own. He knew he should encourage it, but he worried about her getting hurt. Maybe he was being too cautious. He wished there was someone to turn to to help him over the rough spots.

  “I don’t think there’s any danger of either one of you becoming couch potatoes,” he commented. Not with moves like that.

  Marissa inclined her head, acknowledging his assessment. She thought of the pace her life had taken on lately. A sigh escaped before she could prevent it. She saw the curious look in Beckett’s eyes.

  “I think I might like that, actually. Kicking back and sitting on a sofa—one that didn’t have work piled up all over it.”

  He would have bet that there wasn’t anything about her that was disorganized. Maybe he was wrong. “Are you talking about laundry or a business you run out of the house?”

  “Neither.” Marissa thought of the state she had left her living room in this morning. Her sofa was littered with pads of notes that had to do with her thesis. The thesis that would determine whether or not she was going to graduate. “I’m talking about schoolbooks.”

  He had a feeling that she didn’t just exclusively teach Baby and Me classes. “Then you’re a real teacher? I mean, you teach someplace else?”

  “No, I learn someplace else.” She’d already told him that she was going to school, there was no harm in elaborating. “I’m going for my master’s degree. Child psychology,” she continued. Marissa looked toward her son. Having used him in her original demonstration, she had left Christopher in Cyndee’s care as she made her way around the room. “I want to know what makes them tick as well as how their bodies work.”

  He didn’t begin to fool himself into believing that he would ever understand how his daughter’s mind worked. She was only a year old and he was already having trouble second-guessing her reactions. It would only get harder as time went on. “Sounds like a lifetime study.”

  She laughed, thinking of the theory she was developing in her thesis. “Tell me about it.”

  Impulse took over, putting words into his mouth before they were fully formed in his head. “I’d like to. Over coffee.” Alec looked at Marissa hopefully. “Maybe aft
er class?”

  She was tempted. But then she squelched the reaction. It wasn’t a good idea. The last thing she wanted was to see one of her male students socially. Her life was complicated enough as it was.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Strictly student and teacher.” He clarified his invitation so quickly that she was embarrassed for thinking that he’d meant socially. “I’ve got some questions I need to ask you and you’re a hard lady to corner for more than a couple of minutes at a time.”

  “Marissa,” a woman called to her.

  Alec grinned, his point validated. “See what I mean?”

  Her mouth curved as she nodded. “Yes.”

  “Is that yes, you see what I mean, or yes, you’ll go out with me for coffee?”

  She answered before she let herself think about it. If she stopped to think, she would have been forced to refuse. She had too much else to do. Time was ticking away.

  “Both.”

  “Great.” A pleased feeling spread through Alec that seemed somewhat disproportionate to what had transpired. But then Andrea tried to make another break for it and Alec found his attention drawn elsewhere.

  Alec would have never thought of Squirrely Joe’s as a, place to take a woman for a cup of coffee. For one thing, the cups were made out of cardboard. For another, so was their coffee. The Squirrely Joe’s located two miles from where the Baby and Me classes were held was part of a fast-food chain that served up remarkably appetizing junk food. Making a proper cup of coffee was very low on their priority list, right after degreasing the overhead oven fans.

  But Squirrely Joe’s was where Marissa said she wanted to go when he asked her. So, Squirrely Joe’s it was.

  With both babies safely nestled in their respective portable car seats, Alec and Marissa carried them into the restaurant. The interior was decorated like a cartoon forest. An overhead speaker piped in appropriate sounds. Alec supposed the place was not without its charm, if you were crazy about cartoons.

  Sliding the infant seats into the booth first, they sat down on opposites sides of the table. Alec waited a moment to see if Andrea would wake up. But she went on sleeping.