It's Complicated (36 page)

Deciding to grab a cup of milk instead, she opened the refrigerator to find—

The coffeemaker.

What the hell? Jillian wiggled in her arms, making Josie freeze in place. How could someone so placid and sweet cause her three friends to fall apart like this? Something more must be going on. No one falls apart this fast from just having a little baby, right?

“Oh! You found it. Dylan said he couldn’t remember where he put it this morning.” Acting like it was no big deal that someone had shoved an entire ten-cup coffeemaker next to a bag of fennel in the fridge, Laura hauled it out, shoved a clean spot into the detritus on the counter, and plugged the machine in. Josie gingerly picked up trash from the counter and began throwing it away, trying to help.

“Don’t you guys have a cleaning service?” Josie asked.

“Louisa’s sick,” Laura said. “Of all the weeks.” With ruthless efficiency, Laura had coffee brewing in under ninety seconds, and turned to Josie, stretching her arms up in the air, giving Josie a front-and-center view of her right breast.

“Uh, Laura….” she said, pointing. The nursing shirt Laura wore had some sort of vertical slit, like crotchless undies, and as she lifted her arms to the ceiling it became evident Laura wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Oh.” Laura reached under the neckline of her shirt and did something that made a clicking sound. “My nursing bra was unclasped. Sorry for the peep show.”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“I know you have. You were at the birth.”

They smiled at each other and Josie leaned down to huff the baby’s head. How could she cause such chaos?

“And speaking of the birth,” Laura added, “how’s Dr. Perfect?”

Carrying the smile a bit longer, Josie shrugged. “We had coffee. And a few hot kisses in the alley. I’m thinking about surprising him tonight with Thai and episode five of
Downton Abbey
.”

Laura pretended to golf clap, miming it to avoid waking Jillian. “Well played. I know you’re scared shitless, but you’re doing the right thing.”

“Speaking of the right thing, I need to bounce something off you.”

Laura made herself a cup of coffee and gestured for Josie to go on.

“I already spoke with my boss about this, but I think Alex’s grandpa isn’t getting the meds in our research trial. I can’t be sure, and I would never go into the records and look. It’s a hunch.”

“Did you say anything yet to Alex?”

“No. But I feel like I should.”

“Of course you should! Wouldn’t you want to know if you were Alex?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Josie sighed. Jillian gurgled and smiled, a crooked grin that made Josie and Laura say “awwwwwww” in unison.

And then the unmistakeable sound of more gurgling, except this came from the diaper.

“Last time she made that sound she shat all the way up to her hair,” Laura said, staying in her position across the kitchen, drinking her coffee.

A spreading warmth coated Josie’s palm, the one that supported Jillian’s ass. “C’mon. You can’t say things like that and then just leave me holding her.”

“Here,” said a deep voice. They both turned to find Dylan standing there, rubbing his eyes. He wore blue boxer briefs, and Josie noted that they were just like Alex’s while trying not to check out Dylan’s bulge. Like she needed that image in her head.

She already knew too much about his body. Too, too much.

“Thank you for wearing underpants,” she said as she handed the poopy baby over to one of her dads.

“You’re in my house. You’re lucky I’m wearing them,” he grunted, turning away. “And save me some coffee!” he called back, cooing at the baby, who was now staring at him in absolute fascination as Laura and Josie watched his butt until he turned a corner and entered one of the back rooms.

“You’re only allowed to stare because I say it’s okay,” Laura said, finishing her coffee. She looked at the counter and said, “Damn. This is really awful.”

“I’ll help. And his ass reminded me of Alex’s, so I was just reminiscing.”

“Why get nostalgic when you can go home and make new memories?” Laura opened the dishwasher and began loading coffee mugs.

“Because if I tell Alex about his grandpa, he might get…squirrelly. Families often don’t want to hear the truth about decline, and Ed might be in a permanent downward spiral. It’s…complicated.”

Laura’s sympathetic smile helped take the edge off her fear. “If you don’t say anything you’ll regret it. Maybe there’s something people are missing. Alex is a doctor. He’s not your average patient’s family member.”

“True.”

Laura waved her hand at the mess. “Why am I cleaning? I have ten precious moments without Velcro Baby attached to me and I’m doing dishes? Ugh.”

“I know. Let’s go to a strip club and get a lap dance. Better use of our time.”

Mike walked in the front door, stretching his calves as if he just finished a run. “Man, it’s gorgeous outside.”

“Yeah, the Jeep has the best weather ever!” Josie shot back.

A sheepish look on his face showed he knew he’d been busted. “I, uh…”

Laura walked over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “It’s okay, hon. We know you were sleeping in the Jeep. You’ve been doing it for the past week.”

“You’ve been
what
?” Dylan bellowed, entering the room with Jillian on his shoulder.

“Subject change—are you going to work for Menage Match?” Mike asked Josie.

Three sets of eyes zeroed in on her.

“No pressure,” she mumbled.

“No. Pressure,” Laura insisted. “Pressure most definitely there. Do it,” she hissed. Dylan rocked in place, mercifully having thrown on some sweatpants. Mike stood over them all, eyes calm but exhausted.

“You’re serious?” Josie asked, incredulous. “I thought Laura was just out of her mind with being 158 weeks pregnant!”

“We’re serious,” the three said together.

“Salary?”

Dylan named a figure. A damn
fine
figure.

“Benefits?”

“The guy who handles our HR issues at the ski resort can help with the new venture.”

“My own parking spot?”

“Oooooooh, tough negotiator,” Dylan joked. “How about a bowl of red-only M&Ms at your desk every morning and a Justin Bieber butt plug for each day of the week?”

“Why would I want a Justin Bieber butt plug?”

“If you’re going to put that guy’s face anywhere, it might as well be—”

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Jillian’s cry pierced the air.

“I’m not deciding now, guys,” Josie said as Dylan handed the baby to Laura, who reached under her neckline and unclicked the bra, latching Jillian on with an expert hand that belied her three weeks of motherhood.

“But you’re considering it?” Laura asked hopefully.

No Gian. No Alzheimer’s patients. No worrying about how to break bad data news to various researchers. More money. More flexibility. Working with Laura regularly.

What could be better?

“I am.”

Laura bounced in place with excitement, unable to move because of the baby sucking milk out of her. Josie wondered what it felt like. Was it the same as getting a hickey? It couldn’t be, right? You’d bruise all the time. She just stared.

“Hello? Earth to Josie?”

“What?”

“You said yes!”

“No, I didn’t!” she huffed. “I said I’d think about it.”

“Close enough.”

Mike wandered in to the living room and took a good look at the chaos. “We need to clean this up.”

“And by ‘we’ you mean you and Dylan,” Laura piped up.

“Absolutely.” He leaned over and kissed the top of Laura’s head, then did the same with the now-happy Jillian, who opened her eyes wide and stared up at one of her dads.

“Come over to the dark side,” Dylan called out from the kitchen, then joined the group with his own cup of coffee, plopping down on the laundry on the floor.

They were so happy. Exhausted and messy and overwhelmed—but happy.

Vulnerability didn’t wear well on Josie but Laura and Mike and Dylan showed her that being vulnerable and willing to take emotional risks could be ... a different kind of strength. Being self-contained, Josie was independent, relied on no one; her strength was in her thick skin. She was proud of thinking through every contingency in any given situation, so she was prepared for disaster when—not if—it struck. But maybe the secret to being OK wasn't to close herself off and keep all the heartbreak at bay.

What if there were a different way to navigate life emotionally? Opening herself up to Alex felt like being flayed emotionally. Stripped of that thick skin.

Alex represented something more.

And Laura was offering something different.

Indecision ate away at her soul. Ed’s deterioration was evident, and Alex had put his finger on something that Josie wished weren’t true. His grandfather was in decline, and nothing anyone said would make a difference, the attempts at denial so obvious that even the people who tried to claim that Ed was fine couldn’t do it with any sort of conviction. In contrast to Ed, other patients on the project, patients who had been at about Ed’s level when they’d started, seemed to be doing so much better. It was as if the fog of Alzheimer’s were lifting. Not gone, but burned off a bit, so that what had been an opaque, thick mist had turned into a light transparency, making the disease much easier to manage, rather than a beast that victimized.

Too much knowledge tore Josie in half. She felt like Meredith Grey in an episode of that television show,
Grey’s Anatomy
. In the exact same ridiculous situation where looking into the files to know whether Ed was in the control group or was actually getting the medication that was at the center of the research trial meant jeopardizing the integrity of the project and her job. Never one to take professional chances, Josie found herself frozen solid, fear permeating every cell of her body, her brain, and now, her heart. There was no way out.

If she didn’t look up Ed’s status on the research trial, and he wasn’t receiving the medication, he could lose out on the benefits. If she did look up the information, then everyone who was benefiting could lose access to the experimental drug, and there was the tiny, insignificant little issue of violating every ethical and moral tenet of her profession.

Alex was a man of great integrity, of tremendous moral character, and it was part of what drew her to him. Violating that, even for the sake of a higher moral principle, would destroy his sense of respect for her.

Respect. She shook her head and laughed, so deep in her thoughts that her coffee cup went cold in her hand. Respect wasn’t exactly something that she had become accustomed to in relationships, so the thought of losing it created a kind of pain inside her that had no outlet. What words could she use to describe the loss of something that she’d never really had before? Having it now was like being handed a crown to a country that you’re supposed to rule over, just because of sheer luck, not because you were born into it, or because you were worthy, or because you earned it. Her own insecurity made her think that the respect Alex poured over her was invalid.

Self-sabotage was a finely honed skill in Josie. It was, in fact, filed to such a sharp point that the threat of using it was enough; she never had to actually plunge it into her heart. Some rat-brainedpart of herself was steadily concocting a crazy set of ideas that would add up to her downfall. It went something like this:
You don’t deserve Alex’s respect, therefore, why not do what you know is morally right and lose his respect?If he follows a higher moral order than just following rules, then you’ll keep him and have even more respect from him. If he doesn’t, you can both walk away, having averted disaster.

On the surface, that made perfect sense. It was rational. It was analytical. It weighed and balanced, and carefully managed a variety of principles that all added up to a simple series of steps and beliefs. Deep inside, though, Josie knew that it was a bullshit justification to do something that she knew would help Ed, but that would destroy her career, her relationship with Alex, and her sense that maybe, just maybe, this one time, she really was worth the respect, and the desire, and—dare she say it—the love.

Love. She inhaled slowly and then let out the breath through her mouth, like a meditative sigh. Alex loved his grandfather dearly. Ed’s daughters all loved him, too. There was a family culture of joyfulness, of love and compassion, and a sense that if you love someone enough, everything will be okay. Too bad Josie wasn’t part of that family.

But she was part of this one.

Jumping up to make more coffee, Josie looked at Mike, Laura and Dylan—of them, chatting happily, Laura leaning back against the couch, eyes closed, stroking Jillian’s little head as she nursed.

For Josie, it was time for something more or something different. She didn’t know what to call it, but as she’d said to Laura when she first started seeing Alex, she was
somethinging
.

That was a step in the right direction.

Because somethinging was better than nothinging.

The bags weighed her down as she walked from the Thai takeout place around the corner from their neighborhood, and the white plastic straps cut into her fingers, but Josie didn’t much care. The scent of peanut sauce wafted up and made her mouth water. Or maybe it watered with thoughts of seeing Alex in a moment. Her stomach gurgled.