Without a Net

by Kimberly Cooper Griffin

  Reese simply smiled and put her forehead to his. “Obviously it didn’t matter, sweetheart,” she said with such affection everyone around them laughed.

  When Mickey kissed Reese sweetly, Fiona had tears in her eyes. She wanted that with someone. She wanted it with Meg.

  Suddenly a heavy hand with a pinky ring landed on Fiona’s shoulder, and Uncle Arthur stood between her and Meg.

  “We have to get going. Ricardo says I’ve had enough to drunk… drink.” Arthur’s eyes were glazed and he spoke with a slur, but his smile was bright. He winked and waggled his fingers at a good-looking man across the room—his long-term boyfriend, who Fiona now adored. They were a cute couple.

  “I better make my exit before I do something he’ll regret. I just wanted to say goodnight to the three loveliest ladies in the room, and to remind you two,” he said looking pointedly at Meg and Fiona, “to come up to Ithaca and visit me before Meg moves back to Washington.”

  Arthur enfolded Fiona in a warm hug and she smiled over his shoulder at Meg, who watched with an amused expression on her face. Arthur held her for a moment too long, but Fiona didn’t mind. She liked him. She liked all of Meg’s family. When Arthur released her, he turned toward Meg for a hug, but stumbled into the glass of wine in Reese’s nearby hand. Most of the red liquid splashed on the wood floor, but a few drops landed on the arm of Fiona’s white shirt.

  Ricardo rushed over and tried to move Arthur away, but he wouldn’t have it. “Oh! S-H-I-T!” screeched Arthur, and he pulled at the cocktail napkin wrapped around Reese’s glass stem, sloshing more of the wine onto floor. “F-U-C… oh listen to my foul mouth! I insist on paying for the cleaning bill. I’m such an ugly drunk. Ricardo was a prophet about this, as usual!”

  Ricardo nodded his head vigorously, but he looked amused. “Look what you did, you brute!”

  “I’m a clumsy oaf. How do you put up with me?”

  Ricardo smiled and waved his hand in the air. “God, knows. I’m a saint. You need to fix this, though.”

  “Don’t worry about it. If it doesn’t wash out, you can give me free coffee when I visit you in Ithaca.” Fiona gently pushed away Arthur’s attempts to dab at the stains. It wasn’t a favorite shirt.

  “Free coffee isn’t a fair trade. You will let me know if it doesn’t come out?” Arthur asked, and she suppressed a laugh at his attempt to exact a promise with an intent stare under lowered brows.

  “Yes, I promise.” Fiona laughed and waved him off as Ricardo dragged Arthur away with a faux disapproving “tsk-tsk”.

  “He’s going to have a headache tomorrow. Guaranteed,” Ricardo said over his shoulder with a laugh.

  Promising them it wasn’t a big deal, Fiona waved goodbye and turned to Meg and her parents, who looked like they were going to start apologizing all over again.

  “Please don’t worry about it. It’s an old shirt. I should have worn the dress, anyway. Let me run upstairs to change and I’ll be right back down.”

  Fiona tossed a smile over her shoulder as she took the stairs two at a time and rounded the corner at the top of the landing to head down the hall. Suddenly alone, her smile grew soft, and her eyes barely registered the rich colors of the rug running the length of the wide hall as she slowed to a walk. Fiona’s thoughts were filled with the promises she had seen in Meg’s eyes all evening. She wanted to turn around and call Meg up to her so she could give voice and touch to the feelings threatening to spill out of her. Images of Meg’s skin and mouth filled her mind. Preoccupied with the thrill running down the back of her spine, she ran headfirst into a person exiting a room near the stairs.

  “Oh! Sorry!” Fiona cried out, as she lost her footing and reached out to steady herself. Quickly regaining her balance, she let go of the stranger’s arms and gasped when her gaze moved up and zeroed in on the face of the last person she had ever expected to see there.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t…” Mike’s voice trailed away as his expression registered who she was. He held her elbows. “Fi? What are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  Mike hugged her and smiled. “Charlie invited me out to meet his parents.”

  “Charlie? Here?” She had so many questions. Did Charlie’s family somehow know Meg’s family? Were they here for the party? She wasn’t happy to know he was continuing to string Mike along, but it was interesting Charlie was introducing Mike to his parents. Was this just another build up to a big disappointment for Mike?

  Mike was obviously excited to share his happiness with her. “This is his parents’ house.”

  Fiona was confused. “This is Meg and CJ’s parents’ house.”

  Mike looked confused and shook his head. “Charlie is CJ. CJ is Charlie. They’re the same person.”

  Things started to click, and not in a good way. She wrinkled her nose. “Charlie is Meg’s brother?”

  Charlie emerged from the room they were standing next to. “Hi, Fiona.” He looked uncertain and wouldn’t sustain eye contact. He wasn’t acting like the cocky Charlie she knew from the study group. And now that she knew his relationship to Meg, she saw the uncanny shared resemblance. How had she not seen it before? But looks were as far as it went. His personality and the way he held himself were nothing like Meg.

  “Hi, Charlie. Or should I call you CJ?”

  He furrowed his brow. “My family are the only ones who call me CJ. I’ve been going by Charlie for years.”

  Fiona was still trying to come to terms with unexpectedly meeting Mike and Charlie here. Or CJ. Whatever his name was. She didn’t answer. She looked back and forth between the two, wanting to go find Meg.

  “I saw you downstairs. I mean, I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure.” Charlie shifted his eyes to a point next to her head.

  Mike giggled. “I’ve been telling him he needs glasses. He’s so vain, though.”

  Charlie made a face but ignored the remark. “So, um, Mike said you were, um…” His eyes drifted to her midsection.

  Fiona’s stomach dropped. This was not a conversation she wanted to have right then.

  “Charlie…” Mike grabbed his wrist and shook his head.

  “What?” Charlie laughed and he looked more like the guy Fiona remembered. “It’s not like it will be a secret in a couple months when she…” Charlie put his hands before his belly and pantomimed a ball growing bigger until it popped.”

  She looked at Mike and tilted her head.

  Mike had the decency to look sorry for Charlie making fun. “Hey. Come on, Charlie. We’re still trying to get used to all of this.”

  Charlie laughed again. “I’ll bet. Does Meg know?”

  Fiona didn’t answer. Meg and Mike were the only ones she’d talked to about it and it wasn’t any of Charlie’s business.

  Charlie drew his head back with a smirk. “You haven’t told her? You’re not going to keep it, are you?”

  “Charlie. Stop. Fiona and I need to talk about this first.” Mike switched his attention to her and she took a deep breath, ready to hear him beg her to keep it. God, she couldn’t do this. Not now. Not here. “Have you decided to get rid of it?”

  Fiona cleared her throat, glancing at Charlie, wishing he wasn’t there. “I’m keeping it.”

  Mike’s face went pale. Not the expression she expected.

  “Oh, wow. Um, if… if you decided to, um… because of me, well, um…” He scratched the back of his neck. “I… I changed my mind.” He glanced at Charlie, who was watching with interest, and back to her. “I’m not ready to be a father. I don’t know if I ever will be, but definitely not now. I think I was seeing a chance to prove something to my parents. I was grasping at straws. I realized it didn’t change who I really am. All it would do is bring a kid into the world with a fucked-up dad.” Mike laughed nervously. “Who needs another one of those?”

 
; Fiona stared at Mike. She’d expected this conversation to happen so differently. She couldn’t find words. She didn’t even know how she felt. But it was starting to become clear. She was relieved. She was staring him with wide eyes and she could see him studying her face. She should say something.

  “Fi…” Mike grabbed her hand. “Are you mad at me? Say something.” He searched her face and shook her arm. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m letting it sink in,” she finally said.

  “Is it a good sinking in or a bad sinking in?”

  “A good sinking in, I think.” She let the relief settle over her. She managed a smile. “It’s good.”

  He looked relieved.

  “I’m still going to keep it,” she said.

  Mike’s face dropped and he looked like he was about to cry.

  “Don’t worry. You don’t have to help.”

  He looked confused. “But—”

  She raised her hand. “Seriously. No one needs to know you had anything to do with it.”

  The clouds started to shift away from Mike’s face. “Seriously? Because I really, really don’t want to be a dad.”

  She nodded. “Really.

  “How’s Meg going to react to this little development?” Charlie asked.

  Both of them looked at her. “That’s between Meg and me.” She needed to go find Meg and tell her about the unexpected conversation. She turned to leave and there was Reese, standing at the top of the stairs. God. Had she heard any of the conversation?

  Reese’s eyes darted from her to the men standing behind her. Yes. She’d heard. Fiona felt like she was going to be sick. Embarrassment and disappointment bubbled in her stomach.

  “I brought something—” Reese held up a bottle of soda water and a cloth.

  She tried to smile. “Oh, um, thank you. I’ll be right back.” She needed Meg, so she pressed past Reese on the stairs to look for her.

  74

  “Oh my God, Meg. Your parents must think I’m some sort of… I don’t know what.” Fiona sat on the edge of the bed and buried her face in her hands.

  Meg sat down next to her and stroked her back. When Fiona had come to find her, she’d been upset, and now, back in their room, she was getting even more upset as she explained. Meg was trying to figure out what had happened so she could fix it. “Are you sure she heard the whole conversation?”

  “Enough of it to know I’m pregnant.”

  “I’ll go talk to her and find out what she heard.”

  “Fuck!” Fiona’s shoulders slumped. She shook her head. “Please don’t. Your parents are going to loathe me.”

  Meg hated seeing Fiona like this. She’d begun to loosen up with her family and now this. Her parents would totally understand. It might seem like a weird situation at first, but they’d understand. At least she was pretty sure they would. “They’re rational people. They don’t live under a rock. They’re not judgy. I’ll tell them what happened and they’ll totally understand.”

  Fiona looked up at her like she had two heads. “I got drunk and had sex with my gay best friend because he begged me to help him figure out if he was completely gay or only somewhat gay. Not only did we determine he was one hundred percent gay, I got pregnant from the experiment.”

  “If you put it like that. But if we tell them what you told me when you first told me, they’ll understand. By the way, how is it Mike knows my brother? Don’t you think it’s a weird coincidence?”

  “Charlie was in our study group.”

  “Charlie?”

  Fiona shrugged her shoulders. “Your brother introduced himself as Charlie in our study group.”

  “You’re kidding me! He used to hate it when we called him that.” Then it dawned on her. Charlie and Mike were… “Wait. Isn’t Charlie the guy you said Mike was in love with?”

  Fiona dropped her chin and looked at her. The new information about her brother threw Meg for a loop. CJ, using his childhood alias of Charlie, was dating men in New York. CJ—the guy she knew as a womanizer. The guy who used to make fun of her and call her a dyke. The brother who had made her life a living hell during high school, and off and on since then with his smirkiness and shitty barbs, was dating guys now? What the fuck?

  Meg noticed Fiona watching her and remembered this conversation was about her, not her brother, even if this was a major deal. Or was it? The time she spent with CJ when he’d arrived the other night had been almost like old times. They’d had a good time. Maybe his shittiness had been about his confusion before he realized who he really was. Regardless, right now she needed to put this on the backburner and try to support Fiona.

  She cleared her throat. “We can talk about CJ later. In the meantime, I want to assure you my parents are not going to hate you. It’s all about how it’s presented. We can tell them the story you told me and they’ll understand like I did.”

  “I’m not sure you can spin it to make it sound less stupid.” Fiona threw her hands up in the air. “To top it off, somehow the two of us—Mike and I—we both end up at their house! How are your parents not going to be horrified by this turn of events?”

  When she put it that way, she could see Fiona’s point. Her parents would probably be a little surprised, maybe even a little judgy—even though she said they wouldn’t be. But she also knew they liked Fiona. She continued to run her hand in circles across Fiona’s back. “Give them a minute to get used to it. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  Fiona fell back onto the bed and covered her face with her hands. “I’m not so sure. How can they understand if I don’t even understand it most of the time?”

  “You have to give them a chance.”

  “I don’t know if I can survive feeling this mortified. How can I even face them?” Fiona spoke through her hands.

  “Like you’ve faced everything in your life—head on. It will be okay. I promise. Let’s get some sleep. I’m sure it’ll seem a lot less awful in the morning.”

  75

  Fiona finished brushing her hair and watched Meg through the mist in the shower. She was right. Things didn’t seem as bad in the morning. She was still embarrassed, but at least she didn’t want to slink away in the dead of night. Maybe Reese hadn’t heard everything. Maybe she was worrying about things to worry about, as her dad used to say when he was alive.

  She put the brush down and backed toward the door. “Hey, I’ll meet you downstairs in the kitchen.”

  Meg popped her head out of the shower. “You don’t need to do it on your own, you know. Wait until I’m done here and I can go down with you.”

  The look of concern on her face was sweet. Fiona couldn’t help herself. She kissed her. “Believe me, I’d rather jump into the shower with you right now. But I have to face the music sooner or later. I’ll be fine. If it comes up, I’ll just tell them what happened. Like you said. I have to give them a chance.” She smiled, even though her courage was fading as each minute ticked away. There was only one way to move past this and it was to keep on doing what she’d normally do. Fiona shook her hair back and marched downstairs.

  As she approached the kitchen, she heard Charlie talking. Who was he talking to? Who was in the kitchen? Her stomach lurched. She wasn’t prepared to deal with a whole crowd.

  “…knew Mike got Fiona pregnant, but I didn’t know Fiona was dating Meg.”

  “Were she and Mike dating at the same time?” Reese asked.

  Fiona stopped in the hall before they could see her. So, Reese must have heard at least something. At least enough to start drawing conclusions. The wrong conclusions. She wanted to go in and give them the truth. But was the truth any less embarrassing? Her face grew hot.

  Charlie huffed. “I honestly don’t know what they were doing. Mike calls her his best friend. Maybe it’s a friends with benefits thing.”

  Reese made a sound like
she was thinking it over. “Do you think Meg knows? She never mentioned Fiona was pregnant. I guess it’s none of my business, but—”

  “I don’t know. If she does, she probably doesn’t know the whole story.” Charlie sounded so smug. She imagined his face cocked into the infuriating smirk he always seemed to wear. He was making everything worse. If she were Reese, she’d wonder what her daughter was doing with someone like her. What must Reese think of her?

  “Poor Meg. She really cares about Fiona. This is going to destroy her. Knowing her, she’ll probably try to take care of her and this baby.” There was a sound of liquid and Fiona imagined Reese pouring coffee into her enormous cup. “She’s just getting started. This will impact her whole life.”

  Charlie laughed. “And you always thought I was the fuck up.”

  Reese sighed deeply. “This isn’t her fuck up, to use your vernacular. But I hope she knows what she’s getting into. It’s so sad. I liked Fiona. She seemed like such—”

  She’d used the past tense. A surge of nausea lurched within her. She didn’t wait to hear any more of the conversation. She couldn’t. The pressure in her head deafened her and the mortification she’d felt the night before was back in full force, along with a burning anger and a sense of loss for the relationships she’d foolishly started to hope to nurture.

  She barely remembered making the trip up the stairs and down the long hallway to the room she and Meg were staying in; Meg’s childhood bedroom, the room where she’d explored Meg’s trophies, posters, and childhood memorabilia. The room she’d hoped she’d visit many times more.

  Meg started when she entered, jumping back from the suitcase she’d been bending over. She pulled her towel tighter around her and laughed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  Fiona didn’t respond. She put her suitcase on the bed and started throwing the few things she’d taken out of it back into it.

  Meg came close. “Hey. Hey. What are you doing? Are you okay?”

  Fiona wiped the tears off her cheeks, furious at herself for allowing them to fall. She couldn’t look at Meg. “I need to leave.”