Immediate Family (18 page)

“They didn’t say. Brad’s looking into it.” There was another long pause, then Briggs asked in a grave voice, “Em, how much do you actually know about this man?”

“I know he’s not a terrorist!” she cried.

“I’m not saying he is. I’m just wondering if there’s something in his past that you don’t know about.”

“I’m sure he has nothing to hide. I know what kind of person he is!” She realized she was practically shouting and glanced at the door to the outer office, relieved to see that it was shut. Getting a grip on herself, she said in a more even tone, “All right. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll talk to him. I’ll see if he can think of any reason he’d be on a watch list.”

“I think that would be wise. For
all
our sakes,” Briggs added ominously.

Emerson hung up feeling as if she were going to be sick to her stomach. She knew in her heart that Reggie was innocent of any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, a small voice in her mind whispered,
It wouldn’t be the first time you were fooled into thinking a man was someone he wasn’t.

With a heavy hand and an even heavier heart, she picked up the phone once more, this time to punch in Reggie’s number. She arranged to meet him after work, at a Village trattoria where they were unlikely to be spotted by any of her mother’s aquaintances.

She arrived just before dark to find him waiting for her out front, wearing a thin overcoat and blowing on his hands to warm them.

“Why didn’t you wait inside? You must be freezing,” she scolded lightly, as they made their way into the restaurant.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t find me so easily.” He smiled, gesturing toward the mob scene at the bar.
This
was the Reggie she knew and loved, Emerson thought, a man who understood that it was more about the little, everyday courtesies than any grand gestures.

“My treat this time,” he said, when they were seated at their table with menus.

“That’s sweet, but really, it isn’t necessary. I can write it off as an expense.” They both knew it was just an excuse, that the real reason she insisted in paying every time was that she was conscious of his limited resources.

He shook his head. “No, I insist. Otherwise, I shall feel like a kept man.” They argued a bit more before she finally gave in. She knew better than to get in the way of his pride.

“When you called, I thought at first it was bad news,” Reggie confessed, after they’d ordered and were sipping their drinks.

“What made you think that?” she said, growing uncomfortable all of a sudden in the cozy restaurant filled with bright chatter and delicious smells.

“I don’t know. Something in your voice.” He shrugged. “But clearly I was wrong. Anyway,” he glanced around him, smiling, “I don’t see anyone coming to arrest me.”

He’d only been joking, of course, but she felt something twist in her gut nonetheless. Only long practice at putting the best face on things kept her from blurting out what was on the tip her of her tongue.

“Do I need a reason to see you?” she asked, lightly running her fingertips over the back of his strong, callused hand. “It’s been almost a week. I’ve missed you.” Lately she’d been rushing home from work each day to be with Ainsley, so she hadn’t had a moment to herself.

“In that case, we shall have to make up for lost time,” he said, smiling at her in a sultry way that sent a surge of warmth spilling down from the pit of her stomach. She could almost feel his hands stroking her skin, teasing her body into loosening its inhibitions…

Then the chill of reality set in. Her mind traveled back to her conversation with Briggs. There was no getting around it. She had to ask Reggie if there was anything in his past that might have raised a red flag. If there was even a grain of truth to those accusations, it was her duty to find out.

“Actually, there
is
something,” she began, the gravity of her tone letting him know there was another reason she’d asked to meet him. Instantly, he grew alert, his dark eyes, glittering in the candlelight, fixed on her. “A friend of my ex-husband’s made some calls on your behalf. Apparently there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

“What kind of misunderstanding?” Reggie frowned in puzzlement.

“Your case has been referred to Homeland Security.”

He appeared as dumbfounded as she’d hoped. “I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. Then his eyes widened in dismay. “You can’t think…”

Emerson wanted desperately to deny it, but she couldn’t. She had Ainsley to think of. And her mother. Suppose, just suppose, he
had
been involved in some suspicious activity back in Nigeria. Even if he himself would never harm them, it could expose them to a potential threat. Nonetheless, she felt as if she were plunging a knife into his heart when she asked, “Can you think of any reason you’d be on a terrorist watch list?”

“No. There is no reason.” He spoke firmly.

The expression on his face alone should have been the only answer she needed, but she couldn’t leave it at that. There was too much at stake. “Maybe something that happened a long time ago that you forgot about?” she pressed, hating that she had to do this.

“I wouldn’t forget a thing like that.”

“But there must be
some
reason.”

“In my country, there has been much bloodshed through the years, for reasons that seldom make sense.” He spoke softly, enunciating each word. “My people know it’s pointless to ask why. The question always is
how.
How do we get beyond this? But sometimes there is no getting beyond it, and I can see that this is one of those times.” He rose to his feet, holding himself perfectly erect. No king had ever looked so dignified. “Please give your mother my regards and tell her I regret that I can no longer care for her.”

“No! You don’t understand!” Emerson jumped up, catching hold of his sleeve. But it was obvious from the deeply wounded look he wore that he had understood her perfectly.

He removed himself from her grasp, tenderly, regretfully almost, taking a step back. “I wouldn’t wish for you to be concerned about her safety, so I think it’s best that I go.”

With that, he turned on his heel, leaving Emerson struggling to catch her breath in a room suddenly devoid of oxygen.

J
ay was in the war room with Todd Oster and the rest of his design team going over the Concept jeans ad when Inez buzzed him on the intercom.

“Jay, it’s Franny on line two.”

He picked up, pleasantly surprised to hear from her. These days it was unusual for her to call unless it was about their Lamaze class. Outside that, they’d gotten together only occasionally over the past few months, always with other people around; most recently for Thanksgiving dinner at Emerson’s and a book-launch party for one of Franny’s authors. They kept up the facade that nothing had changed, but a certain self-consciousness had crept into their conversations, neither of them willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.

“Are you in the middle of something?” The familiar sound of her voice brought a tug of longing. He missed their old camaraderie. And recently, he often found himself wishing, despite all his careful reasoning, that it could be more than that.

“Nothing that can’t wait,” he said, ignoring the arch look Todd shot him.

“I just thought you’d want to know that I’m having contractions.” Her tone was deliberately casual, but he could hear the veiled anxiety in her voice.

Jay felt his heart kick into high gear. “Jesus.” He did a quick mental calculation. “But you’re not due for two more weeks.” He lowered his voice so the others wouldn’t hear.

“Tell that to the baby,” Franny said.

“How far apart are the contractions?”

“Ten minutes or so. Too soon to be pushing the panic button.”

Too late for that,
Jay thought. “Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?”

“No way,” she said, reminding him of what their Lamaze teacher had cautioned against. “I’d only be stuck there for hours while every intern in the joint took turns poking me like I was a Thanksgiving turkey.”

“But you
did
speak to the doctor?”

“I just got off the phone with him,” she said. “I think I caught him in the middle of a golf game. Either he meant it when he said I had plenty of time or he didn’t want to lose his putt.”

“I don’t see how you can joke at a time like this.” He was mildly dismayed to hear his father’s dour voice coming out of his mouth.

“What else am I going to do? It’s too late to back out, so I might as well enjoy the ride.” He knew she was only cracking jokes as a way of relieving her anxiety. “Though try me when I’m pushing a watermelon through a straw; I might not be laughing then,” she said, quoting one of the other women in their class who’d given birth twice before.

A new, panic-driven thought occurred to him. “Please tell me you’re not at work.” Knowing Franny, it was entirely possible.

“What, you think I’m nuts? Just because I’m in no hurry to get to the hospital, it doesn’t mean I want my baby delivered by the office boy.”

Our baby,
he mentally corrected her.

“I’m on my way over,” he said.

“I’m telling you, it’s too—” She broke off with a groan. As soon as she’d caught her breath, she gasped, “Ooh. That was a doozy. Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t mind some company after all.”

“I’m hanging up now. I’ll phone you from the cab.” He was already reaching for his coat.

Five minutes later he was in a taxi racing across town. It had begun to snow outside, a wet, sleety snow that pelted the windshield. But despite the cold he was sweating profusely under his heavy overcoat in the unheated cab.
You’re worrying needlessly,
he told himself. What could go wrong? Franny was healthy and the pregnancy normal.

But hadn’t the same been true of Vivienne?

When he arrived, Franny met him at the door in her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, her hair gathered up in a top knot from which dark curls spewed like a geyser. “That was fast,” she said, letting him in. “Did you ski over?”

He shook the snowflakes from his overcoat before tossing it onto the coat rack. “Just about,” he said, recalling how the taxi had gone into a skid as they were making the turn onto Bleecker.

“How about a cup of tea?” She was quick to add, “I promise it’s not herbal.”

Ignoring the offer, he said nervously, “Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know…”

“Thrashing around in bed biting on a leather strap?” she finished for him. “I guess that comes later.”

“Why don’t you sit down while I get
you
some tea,” he said, steering her into the tiny, overstuffed living room—Franny could never throw anything out—that right now, with the snow drifting down outside the windows that looked out over the momentarily pristine white landscape of Perry Street, made them seem like the last two people in the world.

“No thanks. I’m supposed to stay on my feet, remember?” She began pacing back and forth across the room, her slippered feet working the worn oriental carpet into little furrows. Then all at once she doubled over, clutching her belly and gasping, “Quick. What time is it?”

He consulted his watch. “Twelve past the hour.”

“That’s six minutes since the last one,” she said, straightening with an effort. She waddled over to the sofa, her hands pressed to the small of her back, and collapsed onto it, panting, a light sheen of perspiration making her forehead gleam in the winter-pale light.

“That’s it, we’re going. Get dressed while I have them bring the car around.” In the taxi on the way over, he’d had the foresight to call his car service. She started to protest but he cut her off, saying firmly, “You can argue all you want on the way to the hospital.”

“When did you get so bossy?” She mock-glared at him as he hauled her to her feet.

“This isn’t my first time, remember?”

They exchanged a solemn glance. How could she forget?

Franny took a quick shower and threw on her maternity jeans and an oversize sweatshirt emblazoned with a bucking bronco that he recognized as one he’d brought her back from a long-ago trip to Montana. With it stretched over her belly, she looked like the world’s most rotund rodeo queen. As he helped her on with her coat, she peered out the window at the falling snow. “How bad is it supposed to get?”

“They’re saying a foot. But we should be all right. The worst of it won’t be till tonight.” He grabbed the bag he’d packed while she was in the shower. Vivienne’s had been ready weeks in advance, but with the baby coming early, Franny hadn’t had a chance.

Outside, he held onto her elbow, steering her over the slippery pavement to the car waiting at the curb. The only one available had been a stretch limo, and as they climbed in, Franny said, “I thought you were taking me to the hospital.

“I am.”

“Then why do I feel as if we’re on our way to the prom?”

Jay grinned at her. “I would have gotten you a corsage but there wasn’t time.”

“Some date you turned out to be.”

“I’ll make it up to you when all this is over,” he promised, momentarily forgetting he was a married man and that Franny was engaged.

She doubled over with another contraction. This time, she held tightly to Jay’s hand, grimacing, until it had passed. Jerking her head in the direction of the glass divider, through which they could see the back of the driver’s head, she muttered, “I wonder if he charges extra for delivering.”

“I’d rather not put that one to the test.”

Traffic along Eighth Avenue was bumper to bumper, slowed by the snow covering the roadway in slushy tracks. The contractions were coming every five minutes now; he’d been timing them ever since they’d left. And, unlike Vivienne, who even in hard labor had remained ladylike, Franny was making plenty of noise, grunting and huffing.

“It’s all your fault,” she panted between contractions, shooting him a fierce look. “If you hadn’t signed on for this, we’d be at Shaughnessy’s right now, kicking back with a couple of beers.”

“As I recall, you had to twist my arm,” he said, with a smile.

“I didn’t have to twist very hard. Oooohhh.” She doubled over once more.

Jay massaged her back, murmuring encouragingly, until she straightened again, looking as if she’d exploded out of a cannon, her face crimson and her curls corkscrewing in every direction. “It’s really happening, isn’t it?” she said in a hushed voice. “We’re having a kid.”

He placed a hand on her belly. “I have a feeling he’s destined for great things. With our genes, how can he miss?”

“Let’s get through this first before we start putting aside money for Harvard.”

“Actually, I sort of had my sights set on our alma mater. If we—” He broke off, seeing her suddenly freeze as a stricken look came over her face. “Franny, what is it? Are you all right?”

“I think my water just broke.” She looked down at a wet patch spreading over the crotch of her jeans.

He grabbed a baby blanket from the zippered bag and used it to pat her dry as best he could. They were both breathing hard, and Jay’s heart was racing. He held Franny in his arms the rest of the way, murmuring over and over in her ear that everything was going to be okay.

At St. Vincent’s, she was whisked into a wheelchair and trundled off to the elevator, Jay holding her hand as he jogged alongside. Luckily, the semiprivate room to which she was assigned was unoccupied so Franny was spared having to listen to another woman’s anguished howls. Hers alone were enough to bring the roof down.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” she called plaintively as he was being hustled out of the room so the doctor could examine her in private.

“I’ll be right outside. You think I’d leave this to amateurs?” he teased.

The nurse in attendance responded dryly, “Your wife’s in good hands, I assure you.”

Jay and Franny exchanged a wry look. Neither bothered to set her straight.

Franny knew now what it would have been like for Fay Wray to give birth to King Kong’s baby. If this monster of a kid pushing its way out of her weighed under ten pounds, she thought through her fog of pain, her hips must be smaller than she’d thought. When all this was over, she ought to be able to fit into Paris Hilton’s bikini.

“Come on, Franny. Give us a little push,” she heard Dr. Stein urge through the roaring in her ears.

“I’m giving birth to King Kong’s baby and you want
little?”
she growled. No way was this kid going out the same way it came in. She arched her back, her whole body clenching with the pain as it mounted to a monstrous pitch, a sound that was scarcely human emerging from between her clenched teeth: “Grrrnnnaaaaarghhhh…”

“You’re doing great, Franny. Almost there.” Jay smoothed away the strands of hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. The sound of his voice had a soothing effect, like the shot they’d given her earlier to dull the pain.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she groaned.

“Just a few more pushes. You can do it. I know you can.” His voice was gentle yet insistent.

Another tsunami of pain ripped through her, and she cried out. For a moment she almost wished she hadn’t gotten herself into this. What was being childless compared to being split open like a ripe cantaloupe? But there was no way out; at this point it was damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.

Franny bore down with all her might, every muscle in her body quivering.

“I see the head!” crowed the nurse.

Through the rushing noise in her ears, Franny heard the doctor say, “All right, Franny, you can ease up now.” She fell back gasping, but no sooner had she caught her breath than he was urging, “Okay, just one more big push.” From this angle, all she could see of Dr. Stein between the V of her spread legs were the fuzzy ends of his gray hair poking from under his surgical cap. If she were to rip out every one of those hairs at once, she thought, he still wouldn’t know what
real
pain was.

Then she was pushing again, with no other thought than of dislodging this
thing
inside her.

She felt something warm and wet slip out between her thighs, and the pain abruptly eased. Dr. Stein was holding something up, but when she lifted her head to get a better look, all she could make out through the sweat pouring down her forehead and into her eyes was a vaguely flesh-colored bundle smeared from head to toe with what looked like Noxzema.

“A girl!” Dr. Stein cried.

Franny blinked and the bundle materialized into a tiny, perfect infant.

“Mr. Gunderson, would you care to do the honors?” The doctor extended a pair of scissors to Jay.

Jay stopped gazing rapturously at their newborn long enough to cut the umbilical cord, then Franny was cradling the tiny, warm bundle against her breast, her baby’s rosebud of a mouth rooting for her nipple. “Smart girl. She knows just where to go.” She beamed up at Jay, whose face was wet with tears.

“She’s perfect,” he said, in a voice soft with wonder. He stroked a tiny, wrinkled foot with his fingertip.

“We did good.” No, better—they’d produced a miracle. “Look, she has your eyes.” Eyes the blue of a prairie sky in haying season. “And my nose.” Her mother would have been proud, even though Franny had wished for a nice straight one like Jay’s.

“Not much hair, though.” Jay fingered the pale tuft on top of the baby’s crown.

“It’ll grow,” she said.

Jay’s happy expression briefly dimmed, as if he were remembering that he wouldn’t be around to see that happen. Franny reached for his hand, holding on tight, determined not to let anything spoil this moment. As they huddled together, gazing in awe at the tiny girl with her father’s blue eyes and the Richman nose, theirs was an unbroken circle.