Wrong Question, Right Answer

by Elle Casey

  Jenny’s looking down to my waist. “I think you’re already showing. It makes sense that you have twins in there. That’s how you found out so soon.”

  May lets me go and stares at my belly. “Oh, my god. Adorable baby bump. Hollywood-worthy. I can’t even believe it.” She looks at me. “I’ll bet that’s why you’ve been so sick. You’ve got twice the hormones coursing through your veins.”

  I feel myself blanch a little at that. I don’t like the idea of twice the hormones anywhere, let alone in my veins.

  Lucky comes up and puts his arm around me, pulling me a little away from them. “Let’s give her some space, girls. We don’t want her barfing on anybody.”

  I jab him in the ribs with my elbow, but he ignores me, pulling me closer to kiss me on the side of my head. Then he lets me go and walks over to accept congratulations from the guys. I stand alone, stunned at how crazy this scene is. And I’m smack-dab in the middle of it.

  Ozzie catches my eye and nods at me. It fills me with warmth to know that he’s not angry about it. I don’t know why I expected him to be, though I suppose this means I’m definitely on a desk for the rest of my pregnancy. Even I know better than to risk my health now. I guess my body’s going to be doing double duty with these babies, so I might as well get used to the idea of sitting my butt in a chair.

  “It’s a little early in the day, but why don’t we go upstairs and have a celebratory drink?” Thibault suggests.

  May raises her hand up high and everybody looks at her. “I’ve got fresh-squeezed orange juice,” she says brightly.

  Ozzie grabs her in a hug and kisses her right on the mouth in front of everybody. “Good job, babe.” He looks at all of us. “Come on, let’s go upstairs. We can have a drink while we talk about the day ahead.”

  Everybody waits for me to go up the stairs first. I know it’s completely stupid, but it makes me feel special, like I’m some kind of royalty in this place. It’s the first time since I found out I was pregnant that I’ve felt maybe it won’t be completely horrible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Desk duty really isn’t as awful as I expected it to be. For the past several weeks, May has been with me more often than not, and she’s gradually lost some of her crazy enthusiasm and settled into an almost normal personality. In fact, today, she’s especially calm. It makes me suspicious. Almost paranoid.

  I should probably leave well enough alone, but a conflict-free life has never really been the track I’ve run on. “What’s wrong with you?” I’m leaning on the arm of my chair, looking over at her as she stares at her video. I know she can hear me, but there’s no change in her expression. “Hello? Is anybody in there?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing’s going on. I’m fine.”

  I watch her for a while longer, pretty sure I see unshed tears shining in her eyes. I take one of my earbuds and swing it out at her, causing it to land on her arm.

  She shrugs it off.

  That’s when I know there’s something really going on and that it’s probably nothing minor. Do I want to get involved? No. That’s an easy question to answer. Should I get involved? That’s the harder question. I hem and haw over it silently for a little while, knowing that once I open this can of worms, the situation’s going to squiggle and squirm and probably get slimy. Oh well.

  “Something’s wrong. What’s up? Maybe I can help you.”

  May shakes her head. “No, you definitely cannot help me.”

  I actually find that a little offensive, but I try really hard not to lose my temper because I am in helper-mode right now.

  “Maybe I could. You should try me.”

  May shakes her head. “No. I just need to figure this out on my own.”

  “Ah-ha! So, there is something wrong . . .”

  May looks at me, a hint of mutiny in her eyes along with some tears. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  My voice softens without my meaning for it to. “You should try me. I’m actually a pretty understanding person when I put my mind to it.” I have no idea where that statement came from. These baby hormones are seriously messing me up.

  She shakes her head, an actual tear falling from her eye. “Not this time. You’re too good-looking.”

  She’s mad because she thinks I’m pretty? This makes no sense whatsoever.

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that,” I say. “I’m about to get really fat and probably blotchy and pimply too.” I’ve been reading my pregnancy books.

  “It doesn’t matter how pimply or blotchy you get; your babies are going to be gorgeous. How could they not be with you and Lucky as the parents?”

  I smile, knowing this can’t be the reason for her distress, but distracted by her mention of Lucky. “I know, right? He thinks he can grow a stupid beard and he’s suddenly going to be ugly.” I shake my head. “Men.”

  I glance over at May, expecting to see her mollified, but all she does is act angrier.

  “What? What’d I say? What’s the big deal about Lucky’s beard?”

  May slams her hand down on the cubicle desk. “It has nothing to do with Lucky’s beard!”

  I lift my eyebrows way up, waiting for her to calm down.

  The look on my face must trigger something in her, because she lets out a big, long stream of air and slumps down in her seat.

  I take a couple moments to settle my voice and try again. “Honestly, May, you’re my wingman back here in no-man’s-land. You can’t keep secrets from me because it’ll drive me crazy all day long and then I won’t get my work done and Ozzie’ll yell at me again.”

  She tilts her head at me. “Since when do you care about people keeping secrets from you? Usually you want people not to share anything with you.”

  I shrug. She isn’t wrong about that. “I don’t know. I’m blaming it on the babies.”

  She nods. “They can seriously twist your brain.” The funny way she says it has my ears perking up.

  “Do you have something you want to tell me?” I ask.

  Her head shakes so vigorously I know she’s full of crap.

  “You do have something you want to tell me.”

  “No.”

  I sit up straighter and fix her with my mean stare. “Time for you to ’fess up. What’s going on? I know it involves me.”

  She looks confused for a second but then she shakes her head again. “No. Not directly, it doesn’t.”

  I stand. “If you and Lucky have been talking about me behind my back . . .”

  She jumps to her feet and waves her hands at me. “No. No, no, no. It’s nothing like that at all. I haven’t even said anything to Lucky or anyone else about this.” She slaps her hand over her mouth and looks around.

  I narrow my eyes at her. “So, there’s something really bothering you that involves how good-looking Lucky is and you haven’t told Ozzie . . .” My mind is spinning, trying to come up with answers to the question floating between us.

  “Do you have a crush on Lucky?”

  She reaches up and grabs two fistfuls of her hair and pulls while she growls. “Rrrrr, no! Why would I have a crush on Lucky?”

  I shrug. “Because he’s hot as hell?”

  She lets go of her hair and lets her arms fall down to her sides. “He is hot as hell. And that’s the problem.”

  I reach out and pat her on the shoulder. “Ah, I see. Unrequited love. It sucks. Don’t worry, it’ll pass. I used to have a crush on Lucky when I was a kid, but I was able to ignore it for, like, ten years, so I’m sure you’ll be able to do the same.”

  I’m actually not convinced she has a crush on Lucky, but I know saying this might be enough to bust the top off her little can of secrets so she’ll unload on me. I’m almost enjoying this.

  She shrugs me off. “I told you, I don’t have any feelings for Lucky. He’s a nice guy, but I don’t want to go to bed with him.”

  “But do you want to have a baby with him?” I’m afraid I’m getting close to the actual truth of the si
tuation.

  She screams at me really loudly this time. “No! Why would I want to do that when I’m already pregnant?!”

  The room goes suddenly silent and her eyes bug out of her head. I’m pretty sure mine are bugging out too.

  She slaps first one hand and then the other over her mouth and shakes her head. Tears stream out of her eyes.

  I step closer to her and take her wrists, pulling her hands away from her mouth. “Did you just say you’re pregnant?” I’m speaking softer now, because I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want the entire warehouse to know her situation, even though she just screeched it out like a war eagle.

  She nods.

  I reach up and wipe the tears off her face as best I can. It’s not easy because they keep coming. “Does Ozzie know?”

  She shakes her head no.

  “Is there any particular reason why you’re not telling him?” I can’t imagine Ozzie being anything but thrilled to hear this news.

  She nods but doesn’t explain further.

  I shake her gently. “You’re really not going to make me guess, are you? You’re slobbering tears all over the place. I’m going to need a towel soon. Just tell me.”

  She drops her chin to her chest. “I don’t want to say it out loud. It’s already bad enough that it’s in my head.”

  I push her down into her seat and then roll my chair right in front of hers and sit in it. We’re knee to knee, and I’ve got both her hands in mine. I really don’t know what I’m doing; I’m just imagining what Jenny would do if she were here in my place. According to Lucky, she’s good at giving advice and listening to people.

  “Tell me everything.” My throat almost seizes up at that statement. I really don’t want her to spill her guts, but I know that Jenny would.

  She stares off into space for a little while before looking at me. “I’m worried that my baby is going to be ugly.”

  I bark out a laugh before I realize she’s serious. “What? I don’t think I understand.”

  She pulls her hands out of mine and gestures at my face. “Look at you! You’re gorgeous, and Lucky is like an angel. You’re about to give birth to the two most beautiful babies who ever walked the earth, and then I’m going to come along behind you with this plain old baby and nobody’s going to want to tell me the truth about him, but they’re all going to feel sorry for me, and then Ozzie won’t love me anymore because I gave him what looks like an ugly child compared to yours but might actually be a fairly cute one.”

  I have to turn sideways in my chair and pretend like I’m coughing to hide my laughter. She cannot possibly be serious, can she? She’s being completely ridiculous. Hell, if she can love that ugly-ass Chihuahua mutt she’s got, she can love anything. His ears are like shovels planted into his skull, his head’s the size of a baseball and twice as big as it should be, and his eyes always look like they’re in danger of popping right out onto the floor. May’s love is deaf, dumb, and blind.

  With that thought, I remember a couple paragraphs from my pregnancy book telling me how emotional women can get when they’re pregnant, and how unreasonable some people might consider them to be. The lightbulb goes on: she’s got pregnancy brain. And if this happens to me, I’m going to want a lot of understanding people around, so I have to be that person for her. I imagine myself as Jenny again; she’s one of the most understanding people I know.

  I turn back toward her. “May, listen to me. Right now you have a lot of pregnancy hormones in your system that are causing you to hallucinate. Badly. So what you need to do is listen to me, because I’m not being crazy like you are.” I wait for her to nod her acceptance before continuing. “First of all, there is no way that any baby made by you could be ugly.” I gesture at her head, hoping to find inspiration there. “You have gorgeous, thick hair. It’s not frizzy, it’s not thin, it’s not any of those things that girls hate. So if you have a girl or a boy, you’re cool with the hair.”

  She wipes a tear from under her eye. “I do have pretty thick hair. You’re right about that.”

  I bump her knee with my fist. “See? And your face . . . Your face is awesome. You’ve got a really nice complexion and no scars.” I lean in closer and point to my temple where Charlie hit me with a fork once. “You see that? A scar. My face isn’t nearly as pretty as you think it is. You just need to look closer.”

  She uses the heel of her hand to push my forehead away from her. “Be quiet. You know you’re gorgeous, and your babies aren’t going to inherit your scars.”

  Thank God for small favors. I point at her chin. “Look at your jawline, though. Perfectly feminine. You could have been one of those chicks with a really manly jaw, but you’re not. You look like a girly girl. Like . . . a fairy princess or something.” I pulled that right out of my butt, so I cringe, waiting for her to scowl and yell at me.

  A shy smile comes out and starts to glow from her face. “A fairy princess? No one has ever called me a fairy princess before. And you never lie, Toni. You would never say anything just to make somebody feel better.”

  I nod enthusiastically. “You’re right. If you were ugly, I’d just tell you. Boom. You’re a dog. But I wouldn’t say that to you because it’s not true.” It may or may not be entirely correct to say that I always tell the bold-faced truth, but I don’t need to share that insight with her. I don’t need to tell her that these babies growing inside me have turned my innards to butter and that I’m finding it really hard to be harsh with people anymore.

  “But even though I might look a little bit like a fairy princess and Ozzie’s gorgeous, it doesn’t mean our babies are going to be as cute as yours.”

  I frown at her. “Are you crazy? When your baby comes out, it’s going to be the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen. Ozzie too. There’s no way he’d look at my kids and compare them to his own kid and find his own kid lacking.”

  She looks like she’s not sure whether she should believe me or not.

  I plow ahead, knowing I’ve got her on the ropes. “Seriously. Besides, my pregnancy book says that there’s some kind of hormone or something that triggers when a father sees his own face on the baby. It makes them think that the baby is super cute even when it’s not. That’s why Mother Nature made it so babies look like the father when they’re born. It’s all about survival.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Really? Are you telling the truth?”

  I hold out my arms. “As you said . . . I don’t say nice things just to make people feel better. You can trust me.” This time I am telling the truth. And I know for a fact that if May looks down at her baby and there’s any hint of Ozzie on that baby’s face, she’s going to think the kid can walk on the moon without a spacesuit.

  “I need to get the title of that book from you.” She wipes the rest of her tears away and sniffs loudly.

  “Sure, no problem. I’ve got a whole bunch. I’ve already read most of them so you can just take ’em.”

  She smiles at me. “I never took you for a girl who would do research when she found out she was pregnant.”

  “I’m not.” I smile. “Lucky bought them for me. He’s in serious research mode right now. He’s starting a whole library. Right now he’s reading about toddlers.”

  “Awww . . . that’s so cute.” Her regular May-smile is back on her face, which brings me a huge sense of relief. I can only imagine what Ozzie would do to me if she walked away frowning. I’d get blamed for sure.

  May rolls her chair back over to her cubicle and acts like she’s going to pick up where she left off with her work. I sit there and stare at her until she looks over at me.

  “What?” she asks.

  “You’re not going to just sit there, are you?”

  “I have to finish my work.”

  “But you haven’t even told Ozzie you’re pregnant yet.” Maybe she has a grand plan she’s failed to share with me.

  May shrugs, looking at her computer screen. “I have to pick the right moment. We weren’t really expecti
ng this. I was supposed to be planning a wedding, not a birth.”

  I lower my voice. “Does Jenny know?”

  May looks over at me, the air surrounding her thick with guilt. “No. She’s going to kill me.”

  “Why? Won’t she be happy?”

  May sighs and turns her chair to face me again. “It’s really complicated. We’re doing all this wedding planning, and we have all the dresses picked out; but if I know Ozzie, he’s not going to want to wait to get married. He’s going to want to get married quicker so the baby can be born after the ceremony.” She rolls her eyes. “He’s a little old-fashioned.”

  I snort. “Not that old-fashioned.” I point at her stomach.

  She rubs her belly and smiles. “Okay, so he’s not that old-fashioned. But anyway, I know him; he’s going to want to get married right away.”

  I shrug. “So? Do it. Everyone can move their schedules. Not a problem.”

  She sighs. “Obviously, you’ve never planned a wedding. My sister has a caterer on board, a florist, dresses to be fitted . . . It’s going to be a nightmare.”

  I refuse to buy into that garbage. “No. It’s going to be easy. We change the venue to Jenny’s backyard, we all go to the store and buy dresses off the rack, and any restaurant in the area can whip together a little reception party with just a few days’ notice. You don’t need to get all froufrou with it.”

  She pouts. “But I was kind of hoping for a little bit of froufrou.”

  “Fine. Don’t you have to make those little favors or whatever you were talking about the other day? Those can be really froufrou.”

  She grins. “So you were listening.”

  I shrug. “A little bit filters in here and there.”

  She stares off into space again, nodding her head slowly as her eyes narrow in concentration. “Maybe we could pull this off.”

  “Not without help. You’d better go tell your fiancé you’re pregnant so the rest of us can find out and then we can start doing what needs to be done.” I stand up and spin her chair around to face out of the cubicle area. I try to tip the chair and dump her out of it, but it barely budges, merely leaning a bit.