“Yep. Although she is out-of-her-mind ticked off at that poor baby for not waiting it out. The resident, that Duke snot, wants to know if he can give her two mils of Valium. Wants her to stop cussing at him.”
“No, he can’t,” Gretchen said. “Tell him I’m leaving now.”
Anna stared at me pointedly. Office hours were over.
I walked to the Volvo slowly. Happy, and not. My baby was fine. But I was as confused as ever about Caroline and her little club. The parking lot was crammed, and a white, late-model Lexus SUV crept behind me, a little too close for comfort, apparently hoping to grab my spot. I turned, annoyed. The glass windshield was too black for me to make out the driver, an illegal tint job, which I’d seen plenty of here in Texas.
Except that a few minutes later at a red light, I could swear the very same Lexus was right behind me. When the light turned, I pulled off into a McDonald’s and flipped my head to watch the SUV gun by. The sticker on its back window urged me to HAVE A BLESSED DAY. The right bumper declared the driver an ABORTION SURVIVOR. That was a brain twister.
My eyes lit on the neon pink graffiti on the McDonald’s window heralding the “return” of the McRib.
My stomach really wasn’t hurting anymore. I promised myself I’d eat better, starting tomorrow.
I rolled up to the drive-through and ordered.
On the way home, I decided.
I was going to tell Mike about the rape.
10
“He’s a rookie.” Mike kicked a box out of the way as he sat down to the night’s pitiful dinner offering: a Spa Lean Cuisine with an apple. Mike would compensate by downing a whole bag of chips later in front of the Yankees game. “He’s a kid. Cody doesn’t know how to handle himself yet. He also happens to be the son of a city councilman who has the ability to make my life very easy or very difficult.”
He took an aggressive bite out of the apple. “Did you have to shut the door in his face?”
“Is that what he told you?” I fired back. “You should be supporting me. He’s a walking sexual harassment case for the city. Not to mention his racial remarks and the little underlying threat about not stirring things up. He bears watching. He’s a redneck tattletale.”
“Oh, come on, Em. Did you really just say redneck tattletale? He said he brought the whole thing up to me because he was worried that he upset you… in your condition.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling a sudden kinship with Gretchen Liesel. Good old boys.
“You seem a little on edge, Mrs. Page,” I mimicked, pitching my voice lower, drawling it out. But my anger at the young cop had started to dissipate, one of the benefits of riding the roller coaster of second-trimester emotions. He wasn’t worth the energy.
“I’ll stop egging you on,” Mike said. “I know there are some issues there. God, it still creeps me out that you can manipulate your voice to do whatever you want, even sound like a guy. Although I’d be happy if you want to bring a little Scarlett O’Hara into the bedroom tonight.”
“Hey,” I said lightly. “Those voice-over gigs paid for my master’s degree.”
All at once, I missed Lucy. She had been fond of me rummaging around my bag of accents. Pulling one out as a party trick. I once convinced one of her new boyfriends that I was a princess from Bulgaria seeking asylum.
“Redneck tattletale is going on the list.” Mike spit an apple seed into his empty microwave dinner plate, which once held the meal he’d eaten in five bites. He nodded toward the piece of paper on the refrigerator held up crookedly with a magnet the shape of New York State.
It was titled “Pregnant Thoughts,” in Mike’s barely decipherable scrawl. He’d introduced the list in the second month of my pregnancy, to record my hormonal pearls of wisdom. Currently at the top: Just because I’m crying doesn’t mean I don’t have a point!
The list of pregnant thoughts was one of the first things he dug out of a box when we moved. They were always funny the morning after, and it kept the other list company-the one scribbled with possible baby names. Over the years, that list got shorter. Mike didn’t know, but I had named each baby we lost.
“So where do things stand with Caroline’s case?”
“I’m wondering whether I overreacted. Wondering whether I’m reacting enough. Feeling my way through small-town politics. By the way, Harry and his wife would like to meet for dinner tomorrow night. At Ruggieri’s. About seven.”
“Harry…?”
“Mayor Harry Dunn. As in the mayor. My boss. You met his wife at Caroline’s.”
Letty. I didn’t want to think about two hours of spaghetti twirling with a former pageant queen who was probably on board with the Confederate flag license plate. I swiftly changed the subject. “I saw Dr. Liesel today. You know, the woman at the party who was recommended as a good local OBGYN.”
“Why? I thought you just had a checkup in Dallas. Did she look at the baby?”
“Yes, we heard the heartbeat. I’m fine. The baby’s fine. I was having a little intestinal distress. I’m trying to tell you something else.”
Mike eyed me carefully. He knew about more than a few paranoid trips to the doctor, some that made me feel embarrassed and neurotic and others that painfully assured me I wasn’t. He tossed his tray and apple core in the trash and walked over to where I was standing near the window in the fading light.
“I’m glad everything’s OK,” he said softly. He didn’t wait for me to speak. “That light, that blue shirt… you look like the Madonna. I’d paint you right now if I knew how to paint with something other than a roller. Maybe you should look in a mirror and paint yourself. You have to be the most beautiful pregnant woman ever.”
He bent over to nuzzle my neck and to feel up the C cups.
“I have some things to tell you… about what Dr. Liesel said… and… other things.” I leaned back into him, distracted by Mike’s roving hands and mouth and liking it enough to not make him stop.
He paused. “Didn’t you tell me everything is fine with the baby?”
“It’s not about that.”
“Can we still have sex?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s take this discussion to the bedroom.”
This was it.
This was the moment I should tell him. When he felt the most in love with me, after his last shudder, while we spooned, my padded body snug against his muscles, his arm curved around my belly protectively.
The safest place in the world for me to tell.
Our lovemaking had been especially simple and intimate tonight. Not a lot of foreplay. Our faces so close that I could feel his breath, his eyes locked to mine, blue to green, for each slow and deliberate thrust. A good, sweet hurt inside, like when a masseuse’s hands find the right spot.
Mike came quickly. I didn’t.
I didn’t want to.
I turned over, squeezing my eyes shut, preparing myself, thinking that every moment after this one could be different.
“I was raped in college.” A rush of words. A whisper buried in my pillow, too low for him to hear. Nothing like I planned. No easing in. No waiting for his body to recover.
I said it again, too loud this time. The word raped cracked the air, a gunshot across the water. His arm around me loosened a little. Retreat? I was flooded with instant regret.
Two seconds had passed. Now three. Enough time for an Olympic runner to cross the finish line well ahead of everyone else. My body began to shake, like it might explode. Mike was pulling me to his chest.
“It’s OK,” he said urgently. “It’s OK.”
Sobbing, I clutched his arms around my belly. When I squeezed my eyes closed, I spiraled in a black universe. Mike said things, soothing things that I didn’t hear for all the noise in my head.