Chapter Twenty-Two
THE NIGHT WAS like a shade of bulbous energy. Megg had come over to the apartment in a flurry of jitter, her hair as bouncy as her disposition. She seemed to radiate excitement through it all, and as I sipped on a ginger ale, she related to me all the peculiar facts about this blossoming relationship.
As soon as she finished dolling up, I was shocked. “Margaret!”
“What do you think?”
Her glasses were the only semblance of the woman I knew in the day-to-day work environment. Gone were the frilly, frumpy sweaters. Before me, a curvaceous woman wore a befitting black dress. Instead of au naturel, a dab of makeup here and there highlighted her hazel eyes and plump lips. She looked stunning, and I told her so. “You’re so gorgeous, Megg.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up.
“John will be all over you. Oh, snap! Look at the time. We gotta rumble.”
“I’d rather strut. Not rumble.”
“Whatever you feel, Megg. You’re the queen tonight. C’mon, just c’mon. If you don’t come on, what are we supposed to do?”
“We just stay here, let loose by watching reruns of Reba.”
“Out. Now. I’ll take my car and follow you.”
Twenty minutes later, I pulled my car into a space near Megg’s Civic at the restaurant, but far away enough to be inconspicuous to the nonexistent private investigator. I watched her shuffle to the front as other diners trickled in too. One can only imagine a Saturday night in Los Angeles, so I sat put for a while, and my reservation wasn’t until seven anyway. It was six-thirty. Plus, Baylee Feta-Braitley was nowhere in sight, and I refused to head in by myself until the last possible minute.
Eventually, her sleek convertible appeared in the parking lot, a silver bullet compared to my junky cockroach-mobile. I needed a new car.
She slipped out like a lithe model, but the hint of a pregnant belly was faintly noticeable, maybe not to the unsuspecting human eye, but to her closest friend, it seemed changed. I met her in a short embrace, unsurprised by her flashy red dress that accentuated the form of a starlet. It was only Baylee, I reminded myself, the person I had become closely intimate with over the two months of my employment. Somehow, our stars had aligned and two polar opposite souls clicked.
“So, where’s MeggMegg?”
“Oh, you know she hates that. She went in already. Our reservation’s later. I told you that, Bay.”
“Well, c’mon.” She locked arms with me, though she stood a foot over me in high heels. I wondered why she did things like that, but it was her personality. Mine was more of the gender fluid cat living in my apartment, because Fiona/Felix preferred couches to human beings. Oh goodness, I realized. I am the weirdest person alive.
When we entered the restaurant, the smell of humans and mouth-watering food condensed like clouds. The line was long, the bodies mixed together like they were jumbled pieces of a puzzle. After we checked-in, we took the only available seats in the waiting area, watching as others mingled about in the midst of social liveliness. We strained to look for Megg and John, but it was possible they’d already taken a seat. It was loud, so I finally turned to my friend, inches from her face.
“So, how is your baby?”
“Quiet down, Em,” she hissed. “I don’t want everyone to know.”
“Why not? I would be the proudest momma in the entire land.”
“Not everyone’s just like you, Emma Richmond. There is this thing called human identification.”
“Um.”
She laughed, her nose crinkling just a little. “You see, we live in a society plagued by physical necessity…”
“Stop now. I don’t want an educational lesson.”
“The truth is simple, Emma. I haven’t told Richard, and I don’t plan to.” She took a toothpick from a nearby table and stuck it into her mouth. The look was something paradoxical, just because a confident, classical woman like Baylee didn’t need rudimentary objects like toothpicks.
The shock wore off to sizzling anger. I felt like sizzling her. I whipped the toothpick out of her mouth and acted like I was going to stab her, drawing the attention of some people around us. “Why wouldn’t you tell him, Baylee? You lied to me.”
“I know, but at least I admitted that I lied to you.”
“True, but that doesn’t excuse the lying altogether. What are you thinking?”
“Your face is so red right now, it’s like a cherry.”
“I swear I will stab you in your perfect face!”
“Ladies?” asked a male voice. I turned to see a friendly man with his wife, who seemed genuinely terrified of Baylee and me.
“I’m so sorry,” I chirped, growing even redder. I turned my back again, hissing every word like venom from my saliva. “What. Are. You. Doing?”
“I’m not terminating, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not after I saw my little shrimp. Here’s the sitch: Richard’s probably not the father.”
“What?”
“You see, we love each other very much, but adultery is very tempting.”
“Baylee!”
“We’ve been in counseling a lot of mornings for the past month or so. You may have noticed out morning absences, and this is why. I found out he was cheating on me with the receptionist the floor down, and so I went out and did my civil duties back. This has been going on for the past three months. It’s livened our marriage, especially since he didn’t know what I was doing. The revenge.”
“Baylee, this is sick.”
She stopped for just a beat, the truth in her eyes momentarily blinding. Then her normal visage returned like a tide. “I don’t think so. We’ve been at counseling, learning to remain monogamous or something like that. I’ve learned that I love Richard Braitley, but he won’t love me after he finds out about this little gift.” Immediately she burst into tears, revealing the deep fracture of this entire godless situation.
“Baylee,” I said, shaking my head. “You have to tell him.”
“I can’t. He’ll leave me.” The tears were gone as quickly as they came, replaced by a frown that sent its own fission down my soul. “You see, men don’t take it well when their women go out and get impregnated by other men.”
“Baylee, you’re about to have a child.”
A bouncy waitress appeared nearby, calling out, “Richmond, party of two?”
Baylee stood up, shaking out her beautiful dress, her eyes still watery, but her body language as confident as before. “We’re going, Emma.”
“I think we should talk this out somewhere more private.”
“No. We’re doing a service for Megg, and she asked us to be here to watch. So that is what we are going to do.”
Mutely I followed, after apologizing once more to the couple who questioned our morality. As we weaved through the quaint tables around the tropical restaurant, I spotted Megg edging just a little closer to her handsome date like a phototropic plant responding to light. She did not even notice Baylee and I walking past, intent on the proximity of the man before her.
We took a seat that partially blocked our view, allowing only a view of John, whose own body language was friendly and relaxed. Nothing warned us that he was about to strike with his serial killer powers or anything atypical like that.
Baylee ogled the menu before her like nothing was wrong, so I slapped it from her hand and said tersely, “Baylee, stop it. This is bigger than dinner.”
“I know that.”
“Then act like it.”
She laid the menu on the table, her lips pursed into a straight line. “Simply, I’m afraid, okay? John and I never had a perfectly appropriate relationship, that’s for sure. So it was not like we knew how to live that way magically when we got married. You see, Emma, I’m almost two decades younger than him. He saw me at a casting call, and instead of giving me my big break, he asked me to dinner. I was twenty-one.
“Twenty-one passed into twenty-two, and so on. He left his girlfriend for me, a girlfriend
I knew nothing about, or at least, I acted like I knew nothing about. Eventually, I was the one desperate to beg to marry him. ‘I want that fairytale,’ I remember screaming at him. So he proposed, and we got married. Marriage only made things harder, honestly, Emma. You see, I don’t have the privilege of a supportive family. I don’t even really have a family, like a lot of people in this world do. Do I feel privileged to drive a nice car and have a nice apartment? Of course. But it is all disingenuous. And I have no way out, because I love my husband, even when we are so nasty to each other that the only thing I can think of when I’m with him is a black hole. We are a black hole together. So please tell me. How do I let him go when he has been the best thing in my life?
“Where would I go if we split? Where would my baby go?”
There was a moment when I knew she expected my reply. A reply of acceptance, and even the hint of assurance. Yet the silence was piercing to my psyche, and I relented. “You’d always have a place to stay at my house.”
“Really, Em?”
I sighed and added a snip of pep to my voice. “Of course. Especially since I’m shrimp’s godmomma.”
The waiter finally approached with a bottle of wine. Sensing our forbearance, the cute old man said, “Hiya girls. Can we…”
Baylee pushed her arms on the table, seductive like a stealthy serpent. “Water for me, please. Same for my friend.”
“Excuse me, I would take a straight-up Coke. Thank you.”
He hurried off, confused, not bothering to ask for appetizers. He was afraid enough as it was. The white lights reflecting from the arches cast a glow on Baylee’s dark hair. Finally, I realized she expected me to offer something meaningful. “Bay, I’m sorry, but I still think you are taking the wrong approach.”
She slammed her hand against the table. “That is not what I wanted to hear, Emma.”
“I’m not going to lie to you. That’s not what I’m here for, and that is why you treasure my friendship.”
She shrugged, her eyes trying to play off annoyance. She turned to find Megg and John. “They’re sipping wine, looking into each other’s eyes. Why did she need us as parents?”
“Some people are not as confident as you.”
“Feisty tonight.”
Our drinks were presented; I ordered a basket of mozzarella sticks. Baylee stuck her nose up at my childish display, but I smiled anyway. “I’m just proud you didn’t take any alcohol. Not with the baby in tow.” Watching Baylee stare at her water glass was giving me anxiety, so I finally said, “Who’s the father?”
Baylee looked frightened, her face wide with fear. “That’s what I’m afraid about. There’s a plentiful amount of men to choose from.”
“Bay, you’re not going to like this, but you have to tell Richard. He’s going to find out soon enough, anyway.”
“I know.”
When she went quiet again, I took a huge swig of Coke, closing my eyes for the smallest of seconds, and when I opened them again, Baylee had her arms draped around a familiar figure, one I recognized in detail. Sam.
As they exchanged greetings, I slammed the glass down, stood up, threw my napkin on the table and hurried to the restroom, unable to take more of the theatrical night. When I returned just before entering, a swarm of fans huddled around the man, and before I knew it, I was out the door of the restaurant, ignoring my call to urination.
I found my car, jumped inside, whipped the engine into motion, and sped off. While I felt like a coward, I also felt like a free woman, so I barreled down the road to the bookstore near the apartment, the one I occasionally dropped into if I needed a cheap paperback.
After a failed attempt at parking well, my feet landed on the asphalt and I was inside the store, smelling leather and yellowed pages, my heart beating uncontrollably from the disaster of the night. I’d let down Megg, I realized in despair; yet she did not need me. I would go back, I decided, but a friendly arm took my own, and I looked into the eyes of Luke Cho. Oh.
“Emma,” he began, his eyes big and bright, offering promise and a future far away from a pregnant compulsive liar and a Hollywood playboy.
“Luke,” I said, a smile playing at my lips, the true excitement of seeing a friend livening my spirit.
“Long time no see.”
“It’s only been a few weeks.” At the lull in our meeting, I felt a need to apologize for the last time I’d seen him. Although there was nothing clearly romantic between us, there had been some questionable feelings shared between us. But it hadn’t excused my actions. “Hey, I’m sorry for what happened…”
“Stop it, Em. Why are you apologizing? You and Sam Woodshaw? It doesn’t matter. We’re just friends, anyway.”
“Just friends,” I said, the words wounding me the slightest, but the intentionality beyond them clearing my muddled brain. I offered my hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Shake. To our friendship. To your directorial skills, to my need to be a better friend.”
“Sure,” Luke Cho said, a glimmer of light appearing in the corner of his eye. “Hey, I’ve got to get, but I’ll see you later?”
When one door closes, another opens; and though I knew Luke would never be my Prince Charming, I also knew he would make a woman very happy. Selfishly, I pontificated about my own future, the depth of possibilities around the youth of my own, and debated if coincidence was at play. I’d seen two romantic interests in one California town in one night. There was no doubt this was the most ridiculous night of my life, and I didn’t feel that weirded out by it. The world was just a weird place, I thought. Deciding to put on my big girl panties, I jogged back to the car, where I knew I had to make a choice.
BAYLEE SAT AT the table with Sam, and I poked the embers of pain away, allowing my desire for forgiveness to come about. I took a chair and said without any reservations, “Hi, friends. I’m sorry for my outburst. I’m also sorry for being a thorn in your side. Thanks for putting up with me. I can leave to give you guys space, although Baylee, you need to be working…”
Megg’s voice chirped behind me. “Hi, guys! Sam, what a surprise to see you!” John appeared, waving too.
Sam and Baylee were both speechless, so I smiled. “They’re just about finished here, and I see you guys are heading out. Hot date, right?”
Megg winked, her smile proving my return was worth it. “We’re going to hit up an ice cream shop and then head back home.”
“It was nice seeing you,” I called after their departing figures.
“Emma, what is this?” Sam asked, his classical voice infused with beautiful poetry, each word fresh and fierce.
“I was immature a few minutes ago. So, I’m here to apologize, collect my dignity, and make sure my best friend gets home.”
Baylee tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table and kissed me on the cheek. “Have a few minutes with him; I’m going home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Now it was my turn to be shocked, so I stared at Sam, allowing the surprise to mix with trepidation as the friendly waiter appeared, presenting me with a menu. He frowned in confusion at first, but with the possibility of a sweet tip right around the corner, he ran off. After I declined to eat, Sam pulled me up, leaving a plentiful wad of bills for a generous tip, and we exited. The hint of rain filled the night atmosphere, the humidity reminding me of my Texas roots.
Sam took my hand and pulled me in the direction of a little bench outside the restaurant where we saw the night lights shift above us. Silence was the best voice in the moment, until he began with, “Do you ever feel like a caged bird?”
“Philosophy is not my strong point.”
“Baylee and I had a great conversation. It was about you.”
“Oh, well, that’s embarrassing.”
He closed his eyes. “You see, Emma, I’m afraid that you’re latching onto me. I’m afraid that you’re slowly seeping into my bones. But I’m also afraid that I’m not good enough for you, and that the best thing I could ever do for y
ou is to let you go.”
“Wow, that was a lot.”
He nodded once, then muttered, “Yep.” He pulled my hand to his heart, a romantic little fluttery movement. “You see, I’m not a romantic. You know this. I’m not into women because they’re good conversationalists, okay? I’m a carnal, animalistic human being. But the truth is, there is something different about you, Emma. I only want to see you happy.”
“Sam, this is deep.”
He reached out to kiss my forehead, letting his fingers slip through my hair. “Emma Richmond, what do you think? Am I strong enough to let you go?”
“Why do you need to let me go?” I asked, though the question was pointless. I knew the truth.
He kissed me, letting his lips linger on mine. When we drew apart, he said slowly, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but I think fate likes messing with us.”
“Fate doesn’t exist; God does.”
“If you’re right, God is fate for delivering me you.” Then he headed to his car and was gone.