Chapter Nineteen
MY DESK NEEDED a maid, I decided on Monday morning. Already Megg had stopped by with a list of casting details awaiting my aid. It was around nine o’clock, and already the coffee was starting to wear off, that Baylee Feta appeared, pulling up a chair as quietly as a phantom.
I jumped, startled, when her eyes were in my face, giant orbs of dark energy. “Hi.”
“Hi?” I asked, my heart beating fast. “Hi. You terrified me, Bay.”
“I need to talk to you. It is very important, really. After work today, we’re going to your apartment to discuss. Got it?”
“Okay? I mean, sure, I don’t mind.”
She nodded, disappearing as quickly as she’d come.
BAYLEE FINGERED A pearl necklace like her life depended on the pendant. She slurped a cup of sweet tea in a moment (yes, I’d introduced it to her) and waited observantly for more. She stared at the pictures lining the faded paint of the walkway into the kitchen, looking at the faces of Jamie’s family and my own.
“I’m from Nevada, did I ever tell you that?”
“No, you never did.” I refilled her glass with the skill of a waitress. Then I went to work slapping some cheese on a Triscuit, my deft fingers almost sliced by the knife.
Baylee splayed her arms out on the sofa then, like she was experiencing pain from a long day. Since I was her coworker, I knew that the majority of her workday included a lunch out, a trip to the nail salon down the road, and a few hours of actual work, with some of that time period drawn at Richard’s office. It was peculiar, but the only thing I cared about was Baylee’s pleasant spirit—nothing like the dangerous maniac she could be.
Which was coming on, right now.
“Why do you not believe in drinking? I promise, it is cleansing to the soul. At least—some of it. Some wine; beer is a little stale.”
“Well…”
“Anyway, I guess I should just say it: I wanted a kid. Okay, I even feel like I need a kid. It’d give me something to do instead of heading to an office I barely care one dime about. I mean, I met you there, but we can see each other without going to where my husband runs his empire.”
“Where is this going?” I asked, not caring that the hint of frustration slipping out was like a sword. Baylee’s eyes widened, her long delivery suddenly evaporated.
“Okay, I’ll just say it. Emma, I’m having a baby.”
I dropped the knife I held but didn’t even care that it careened down to the floor, ricocheting against the lower kitchen drawers. “What?”
There are some people in this world who do not have the ambiance of motherly love. I had never pegged Baylee Feta as a mothering type; more of a mean, crabby older sister who emulates the popular prom queen.
“Don’t worry, I’m having the baby. But…”
“But…Richard doesn’t want a kid. How did this happen?”
“He got a vasectomy, Em, but it obviously didn’t work.” She cuddled the baby in her stomach. It was peculiar, watching her pat a flat tummy. “Basically, this leaves me a choice: Either baby or Richard.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Emma, I do know that. He made it clear: No kids, just us. He’s got kids practically our age. He’s not into another kid, whether it’s a boy or girl or anything. His other kids are perfect in his eyes anyway, so why would he want another? Sometimes I think he believes I’m a child he has to parent.”
I rushed over, hurrying to my friend. “Baylee, don’t say that. You’re an independent woman.”
“An independent pregnant woman,” she corrected me.
“You’ve got to tell him.”
“I know, but it doesn’t mean I want to. I have a doctor’s appointment next week, and I’d really like it if you’d come with me.”
“Shouldn’t you be taking your husband, the father to your child?”
She sat straight up, interesting me in this abnormal gesture. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she had something to hide. I decided it was the nerves surrounding the fact that she was pregnant—against her husband’s wishes. “I would like you to come—as the baby’s designated godmother. I mean, I could ask Megg to be with me, but I thought at least you’d care.”
“Godmother?” I choked back some saliva. “Me? A godmother? Kids hate me, Bay! And we haven’t really known each other that long…”
“So what? Enlighten me a bit. I offer you to be my baby’s godmom, and you spit in my face? Dios mio, I need a vacation stat. I’ll promise you Richard, but you’re coming with me to my appointment. Deal?”
I bit my lip, pretending to think, before pulling her into a lopsided hug, to which she tried to force me away. “Let’s see. You and a baby? It’s weird, unexpected, yes; but am I absolutely ecstatic about it? Duh! Life is something to celebrate.”
IT WAS THE next Wednesday when we pulled into the cracked parking lot of the third-best OBGYN in town, a woman named Dr. Geraldine Rivers, who supposedly catered to the celebrity patients. As we sat in the waiting room, Baylee absent-mindedly flicking through a glossy gossip rag, she began, “Thanks for coming with me. I’m a bit nervous.”
“Calm down. You’re going to be a great mom, and you know it. I’m just glad you told Richard.”
Her hand quivered a bit. She looked up, her eyes wider than usual. “You know, I think I will be a good mom. Nothing like my mother. This baby will have everything.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously. This baby will be my little king or queen.”
Her gold-painted fingertip landed on an article about none other than Sam Woodshaw. As she began a soliloquy of the past and the future, I slipped the magazine into my own palm and assessed the photograph before me. His brown hair was tousled in the photo, nothing like the slickness I’d seen at the apartment. He held a bottle of amber liquid to his lips, a pretty blonde hanging on his arm. You don’t know him, a little piece of my heart sobbed. Even through his impromptu stops to the apartment for Monopoly and TV shows, I didn’t know him well. We hadn’t even really dissected our relationship. Of course I was a monogamous creature, but I wasn’t sure if he was, which sounded really stupid. I needed to be sure.
“It’s why I feel like women are so inspirational,” Baylee continued, her voice intensifying as each word fell out.
“Mmm hmm,” I began, but it wasn’t like I was really paying attention to what she had to say. It was Baylee; as long as I nodded my head and offered a few occasional “okays,” everything would be all right.
Twenty minutes later, we sat in a private little space waiting for the nurse and Dr. Rivers. Baylee untied her hair from a loose ponytail. “So, bets on the due date?”
“If it’s early August, then I’m going to guess March 7th.”
“Ew. I’m guessing April. My baby’s going to be a late little thing, spoiled just like his or her mommy.”
A peppy nurse entered the space, carrying some scientific utensils. “So, which of you ladies is Mrs. Braitley?”
“Feta-Braitley,” corrected Baylee, sticking out a prim hand. “So, let’s cut to it. I missed my last period. The baby was conceived in late June, I assume.”
“All right. Well, let’s go ahead and collect a urine sample, just to be sure, of course.” The nurse had a friendly, earthy face, but her timbre exemplified stress.
“Sounds good to me. Let me follow you.”
In the moment of lucidity—not around my crazy friend—I pulled down a maternity magazine, feeling my heart burst. I was only twenty-two, far too young for a baby, and in the midst of all this wedding drama, I realized that everyone would be having babies way too soon for comfort. If Jamie came home pregnant—or a hypothetical girlfriend proved to be pregnant, I mean—it would end an era of youth.
When Baylee returned, she lay out on the exam bed and let her hair splay out around her, Sleeping Beauty style. She was unusually quiet, so I pretended to leaf through the articles depicting happy mothers—homemakers, CEOs, celebrities, teachers,
etc. It was refreshing, but then again—a whole the size of a rock was lodged into my heart from not having that dependable of a mom.
“When do we find out if it’s a lady or a lord?” I asked quickly, desperate for some sort of deviation from where my thoughts churned.
“Oh, that’s not until much later. I’d bet I’m only a few weeks over a month along.”
Eons later, Dr. Geraldine Rivers entered the room, her statuesque frame glowing from the sunrays seeping in through the windows. She immediately shook our hands and offered, “So, how are you, Mrs. Feta-Braitley? And this is your darling sister, I suppose?”
“Friend,” I said. “Well, actually, godmother.”
“A godmother already, huh? How about you come stand next to me, then, to see your little godbaby? It’s time to do the ultrasound.”
Baylee tensed up, just in the slightest motion that I saw, and her lips began to quiver. I hurried over to her, gripping her hand in my own like this was a life or death situation. Richard deserved to be here, I decided, but Baylee had told him the circumstances. Maybe he hadn’t even wanted to come; maybe he had an appointment at the office or something. In that moment, I knew it was not my place to be there.
Yet as soon as the little fetus appeared on the screen, a little globule whose heart was steadily beating, my body convulsed. There was life inside of Baylee, like a little lumpy loaf, but an adorable loaf all the same. Baylee began crying, her tears ricocheting against her cheeks, as Dr. Rivers consoled her.
“Oh, dear, your baby is beautiful. You see that, right?”
“I’m only crying because he or she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
That compliment—maybe the only one I’d ever heard from Baylee’s sotto voce—was enough to rock my core.