“Hey, stranger,” he said easily. “You’re home early for a work day.”
She forced a smile before looking at him. “Slacking off. You caught me.”
He must have come home from work early, too, because he’d already changed from his usual suit into the sort of weekend casual clothes one would expect to see in a Ralph Lauren ad: dark jeans, a vaguely nautical navy sweater with thin white stripes across the chest, and loafers that probably cost more than a pair of tickets to the Mariners.
Was it her imagination, or was Eliot checking out her waistline?
“I was talking to Miriam earlier. We’re thinking tonight would be good for a Happy Hour party. My place,” he added.
Miriam also lived on this floor. The three of them had evolved into friends over the two years they’d lived here, shortly after the renovated condo units were put on the market and promptly snapped up by upwardly mobile professionals. Their Happy Hour parties lay at the crux of that friendship, but she’d been avoiding them since she’d found out she was pregnant. “Well…”
“You better not suggest we have brunch on Sunday, instead. You’ve used that line too many times this winter.”
True. Because she could avoid drinking alcohol for brunch. If she turned down a drink at one of their Happy Hour parties—which involved imbibing copious amounts of a feature cocktail, chosen and supplied by the host of the evening, followed by several rounds of nerdy board games like Rumi Cube or Scrabble—they’d know right away something was up.
This was supposed to be the weekend when she came clean. After the phone calls to her family, she’d planned to tell Miriam and Eliot next. She’d been nervous about their reactions
before
she found out about the Down Syndrome markers.
Now, she was terrified.
Yet, she had to tell
someone.
She was so tired of keeping such a big secret. Of feeling run-down and nauseous without being able to complain to anyone. Of worrying about the future, about Adrian’s reaction, about how she was going to handle this at the university…
She could feel tears filling her eyes again and dipped her head so Eliot wouldn’t see them. But she was too late.
Eliot touched her chin, lifting her face a few inches. “I had a feeling something was wrong.”
He took her briefcase out of her hand, and pushed open her door. Ushering her inside, he went straight to the fridge. “I’m going to pour you a drink and you’re going to tell me everything. It’s Adrian, right?”
Eliot had never met Adrian, but he didn’t like him just the same.
On principle,
he often said, at which point Miriam would nod and give Dani a look.
I’m not saying anything, because girls have to stick together, but you do know Eliot is right, don’t you?
Dani sank into one of the white leather chairs next to the fireplace. She knew what Eliot was looking for. In less than a minute, he’d have it all figured out.
“You don’t have an open bottle of white?” Eliot shut the fridge, then checked the cupboard where she kept her stash. When she wasn’t drinking cute cocktails invented by her friends, Dani always drank white wine.
“Mother Hubbard, what’s going on here? You’re completely out of—”
And just like that, Eliot went silent. As it extended, Dani imagined him thinking about her avoidance tactics lately, counting back the weeks and the months, to when they’d begun. As her friend left the kitchen and settled in the chair next to hers, she braced herself.
“How long have you been pregnant?” he asked.
“Late December. I didn’t figure it out until I missed my period in January, though.”
He fell back into his chair, knocked there by her words. “Holy shit.”
“I’m due at the middle of September,” she added.
No mistaking the look to her belly now. Eliot glanced from her slightly thickened waistline to her face.
“How’s Adrian feel about it?”
Damn. He would have to ask that. “I haven’t told him. Yet. Haven’t told anyone.”
“So I’m the first. I’d be honored, except for the fact that I had to take inventory of your wine cellar in order to figure it out.”
“The pregnancy wasn’t planned. Obviously. I was afraid to tell people until I figured out how I felt about it.”
“And—?”
“I still haven’t figured it out.” This was a lie. She knew what she wanted. The baby. Adrian. Marriage. She wanted it all, and she’d just hoped and hoped that somehow it would work out. If just once Adrian had mentioned something about taking their relationship to the next level. Even if he’d suggested it was time she met Ava. All she’d needed was a positive sign and she would have blurted out the news, she knew she would have.
But through all of January, February and March Adrian seemed perfectly content to continue with their usual routine. Dinner at her place, once or twice a week, followed by an hour or two in bed. Adrian had a live-in-nanny for Ava, which afforded him a certain amount of flexibility with his work and social life. Occasionally, he would go so far as to fall asleep with her after they made love, or stay to watch a movie. But he’d always rouse himself before dawn, so he could hurry home before his daughter woke up.
The situation was far from ideal. But she’d known that walking in. Sleeping with the department head wasn’t smart. Of course, they had to keep quiet about it. As for Adrian’s devotion to Ava—would she love him as much if he wasn’t such a great dad?
She sighed.
“So are you saying you might not keep this baby?” Eliot asked tentatively.
She didn’t answer. Not once had she thought about termination. Not once, that was, until her ultrasound today…
Eliot got out of the chair. “Let me get you something. What do pregnant women drink? Tea?”
“I’ll have a glass of milk.”
He blinked. “Yes. I thought that was strange. You have a gallon of the stuff in your fridge. Not even fat free.”
She put a hand on her belly. “I’m following the nutritional advice of my doctor.”
“Okay. So then, you
are
keeping the baby.” Eliot went to the kitchen and poured the milk.
“Yes,” she said, the word coming out instinctively. In that moment, she made a decision to keep quiet about the ultrasound. It could be the doctor had made a mistake. The images were so fuzzy. She would wait until her meeting with her OB next week before jumping to any conclusions.
Just making the decision to keep quiet about that part of things made her feel calmer.
“Wow. That’s, um, that’s major, Dani.” Eliot poured a second glass of milk.
“One will be enough,” she said.
“It’s for me. Seems like with news this big, I should join you in a toast.” He came back to the living room with both glasses, handed her one, and then raised his own. “To a healthy baby.”
She almost choked on her first swallow. Had Eliot somehow guessed? But no. Proposing a toast to a healthy baby was a completely natural thing to do. “Thank you.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had a glass of milk,” Eliot said after his first sip. “Not bad.” He was working on downing the glass, like it was a medicinal necessity, when his phone began playing the opening music from
The Good Wife,
a signal that this was a work call, probably one of his female clients.
Eliot was one of the city’s top divorce attorneys, known for his ability to reach settlements without the need for courtroom drama. Dani had heard him on enough phone calls to know he had excellent behind-the-scenes negotiating abilities, and a sympathetic and charming manner with his clients. Though he claimed he hadn’t intended his practice to include only female clients, somehow most of them were. His boyish good looks probably had something to do with that. Not to mention, his incredible capacity for sympathetic listening.
Though she knew Eliot was too ethical to actually get involved romantically with any of these women, the way he spoke to them, Dani was sure the majority fell at least a little in love with him.
Eliot set down the glass and pulled out his phone, speaking in his professional
you can count on me
voice. “Eliot Gilmore. Hi, Christine. How are you doing?”
Dani smirked. When he raised his eyebrows at her, she found a tissue then wiped off his milk moustache.
Eliot succumbed to the clean-up, standing perfectly still. His eyes were on hers as he spoke into the phone. “How upsetting for you,” he said, sounding as if one-hundred percent of his concentration was on the woman on the other end of the conversation. Then, when Dani had finished wiping the film of milk from his upper lip, he turned, moving to the windows and the view of the Sound. “Did he really? Your husband is going to pay for that.”
Once when she’d asked why Eliot had chosen to specialize in divorce law, he’d replied, in all seriousness, “We all have to follow where our talents lead us. You’re good at analyzing early childhood factors that lead to academic success in later years. I’m good at helping people split up.”
He was a funny guy, Eliot. He always delivered lines like that with a straight face, so she could never tell if he was poking fun, or not.
Leaving him alone to talk with his client, Dani went to her bedroom where she changed out of the slacks, blouse and jacket she’d worn to work that day, first undoing the safety pin she’d used to hold the waist band together. She had to go maternity wear shopping this weekend. Nothing was fitting anymore.
Except her yoga clothes.
She put on a pair of stretchy black capris, then a wine-colored, long-sleeved t-shirt that hugged the new curve in her tummy in a gentle, but obvious way. For a minute, she studied her profile in the full-length mirror at the back of her walk-in closet. She put a hand on the bump and told herself it was going to be okay. Her mother had delivered four healthy daughters. Her sister Mattie’s twins had been perfect, too.
By the time she returned to the living room, Eliot was ending his conversation. But he hadn’t yet slipped the phone back into his pocket when it started ringing again, this time with the theme music from
The Game of Thrones
, their favorite show. Which meant it was Miriam.
“Sweetie.” Eliot’s tone was brighter and more relaxed than the one he’d used with his client. He listened a bit then said, “I’m with her right now. Why don’t you—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Dani’s door was opened and Miriam walked in looking perfect, as usual, in a black skirt and lacy black top. Miriam only wore the one color—and why not?—it looked fabulous on her. She had smooth, delicate features, shiny black hair, and dark eyes fringed with thick, sooty lashes. Her parents had moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong before it reverted to Chinese control and Miriam had grown up in Canada. She’d gone to college at UW though, and claimed to have no interest in ever moving back to the northern country.
After earning her masters in English Literature, Miriam had taken on a variety of vague internet publishing jobs. Though she never shared details, Dani gathered that she designed book covers and edited manuscripts for authors of self-published books. At least once a month she went to visit her parents in Vancouver but only for a few days.
Her life plan, she’d told Dani and Eliot, was to meet someone half-way tolerable and have a Green Card wedding, so she could get her American citizenship. Miriam’s definition of “half-way tolerable” was probably more like Dani’s “close to perfect.” Miriam was always going for first dates with men she’d vetted on various Internet dating sites. Almost never, did she go on a second.
Dani knew all about wanting to escape the place you came from. It was why she was where she was, a successful academic at one of the best universities on the West Coast. Otherwise, she’d be cleaning horse poop from stalls back in Montana.
Okay. Maybe not the fairest way to describe the work that her sisters Callan and Mattie loved so much. But still. Not for her.
“So the party is on?” Miriam asked, looking puzzled. “I thought it was going to be at your place?” She glanced at Eliot when she said this. Then her attention went from him to the half-full glass of milk still in his hand, and the second, empty but filmed glass on the counter.
“So what are we drinking tonight?”
Before either Eliot or Dani could say anything, Miriam took Eliot’s glass and had a swallow.
“Eww. What is this?”
This time Dani had no trouble getting the joke. She and Eliot both laughed so hard, neither one of them could answer for about ten seconds. Finally Dani managed to say, “m-milk,” which only made Miriam frown more deeply.
“Why the hell are the two of you drinking milk?”
Eliot glanced at her, raising his eyebrows with theatrical significance. Obviously this was her news to spill. Dani took a deep breath, then splayed her hands over her tummy and turned so Miriam could see her silhouette.
“Oh. My. God.” Miriam put both hands to her face.
Dani stood there, feeling self-conscious as both her friends stared at her tiny baby bump.
“So,” Miriam spoke slowly. “This is why you’ve been avoiding us? And here I thought you were offended by my Christmas gift.”
The gift
had
been a bit of a sore spot. A T-shirt printed with the slogan:
I could be social. Or I could read. (I’m going to read.)
Dani had wanted to protest when she opened it. “What do you mean? I’m social. Aren’t I?” But she supposed by some standards, she wasn’t. And she did have to admit that she had a reputation for refusing to go along on Miriam’s shopping trips and Eliot’s afternoon matinees when she was in the middle of a good novel.
Still, the t-shirt’s indictment had hurt. Especially when Eliot had hooted with laughter after reading it.
“I haven’t been avoiding
you.
I’ve been avoiding
alcohol.
”
“There’s a difference?” Eliot deadpanned.
“Exactly.” He’d made her point. “Since we always drink when we get together in the evenings, what choice did I have?”
“You mean other than the truth?” Miriam shrugged one of her petite shoulders. “You could have told us you were pregnant.”
Dani let out an exasperated sigh. How many people were going to be pissed with her that she hadn’t shared her news sooner? Fortunately, Eliot saved her from having to respond this time.