Her Baby's Father

Lucy deserved to know the truth, but it wasn’t Ross’s place to tell her. She wouldn’t trust his motives. She might not believe him. She might not want to know. Hell, maybe she had lovers on the side, too.

Hard to imagine. But maybe she would accept Drew’s straying if she did find out, forgive him in order to keep what they had together. The outward success, the beautiful house, the social standing.

The family they’d started… Been able to start.

But Jennifer’s baby complicated everything. A couple could survive a simple extramarital affair with therapy, time and hard work on the relationship. But a child was something else. An embodied reminder, forever, of the moment of infidelity. A human being requiring care and attention from Drew, if he had such to give.

Which he surely didn’t.

It pissed Ross off that what was probably best for Jennifer and was definitely best for his mother—at least, right now—would also benefit Drew: for her to accept Ross’s help and stay, with her baby, out of Drew’s life. His brother would be getting off scot-free. But wasn’t that what he always managed to do? Obtain what he wanted from people, whether they liked it or not?

Ross wondered when he’d gotten so sour. When he’d started to want Drew to be shown up for what he was, to pay for his actions.

Drew jangled his keys, ready to go.

“So that’s it,” Ross said.

His brother shrugged. “Seems so.” He inclined his head toward the driveway. “Where’s she headed, anyway?”

Ah, so he wasn’t so unconcerned. Ross detected a trace of desperation in the question, a need to know that was more than the bland curiosity Drew tried to convey.

“Here.”

“Here, here?”

That, at least, got Drew worried.

“Portland. She left San Francisco.”

“Any chance she’ll go back?”

“I don’t think so. Not for a while.”

“Huh,” Drew said. “Interesting.”

Ross got the strangest sense that along with whatever anxiety his brother felt, a part of him also relished this series of events, treated it as a game, a negotiation. A tricky situation he could wriggle out of with charm and intelligence. Like a rock climber attempting a perilous route, he loved the adrenaline rush.

And the hell of it was, he might escape cleanly.

ROSS WAITED until Drew pulled out of the driveway before he opened the door to his study. Jennifer was sitting very still behind his desk.

He watched her, waiting for her to speak. When she didn’t, he broke the silence.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She rose, pushing down on the arms of the chair.

He supposed he’d thought she would have tear tracks on her cheeks. She didn’t. Her gaze was clear and direct, but her mouth was tight.

“You were right,” she said.

He shrugged. “My brother’s an ass.”

“I should have known.” She tucked a chunk of hair behind her right ear, leaving the other side to swing free. “I did know.”

“He denied sleeping with you.”

Her expression didn’t change. “I figured he’d do that.”

“He has things he’s trying to protect.” A lame excuse, which sounded lame on his lips.

“We all have things we’re trying to protect.”

“He doesn’t realize it’s too late.”

“People never do.” She walked toward the door. “I’m exhausted. This has been a long day. Thanks for giving me a bed—I think I’ll go use it.”

UPSTAIRS, JENNIFER SAT on the cream-striped duvet and stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror that stood in one corner. She saw herself as Drew must have. As a liability.

Badly cut hair, tired eyes, discount-store clothes.

Swollen belly.

She was a man’s worst nightmare. A pregnant lover. She was evidence, proof. She was a lapse in judgment.

Yet Drew had acted confident during their brief meeting downstairs. As if he’d already considered this eventuality and braced himself for it, talked him self through the steps to deal with it. What kind of man could do that?

Her image stared back at her, quiet and still. Her mother’s statement returned to her, overheard so many years ago. No one can resist a baby. Andrea Burns had said the words to a friend, regretting she hadn’t gone to visit Jennifer’s father until Jennifer was well past infancy. No one can resist a baby, not even a man like him.

Jennifer had often wondered what a man like him—her father—was supposed to be. After she’d tried Drew’s fake phone number in January, she’d suspected he was a similar type. Now she was convinced.

No one can resist a baby.

But a pregnant woman wasn’t a baby. A pregnant woman was terrifying.

If she hadn’t lost her apartment and been so far in debt, she might have waited. She might have been able to show up in Drew’s life with an adorable baby who would smile and coo and gurgle, and would trap his heart. Proving her mother’s theory.

Except, it wouldn’t have worked. He would already have had a baby to whom he would have given whatever fatherly love he had to give.

She imagined the scene as it might have played out. Sitting on a chair in Ross’s study, a baby on her lap. Drew walking in. Saying to him, This is your daughter, or This is your son. And having him stand there with a blank, shielded look, telling her he didn’t believe her, telling her she should have come to him sooner, within the first trimester.

That would have been worse than this, she told herself. It was better not to have false hopes. But much more depressing.

Jennifer roused herself, scooting off the bed. She reached for the lilac knit maternity tank and shorts she used as pajamas.

Enough self-pity and despair. She had tomorrow to think about. She had to figure out where to go from here.

Buck up, honey. Time to be strong.

ROSS LAY IN BED, listening to the quiet creaks of the house settling onto its foundation for the night. Light from the street outside filtered through the venetian blinds, providing enough illumination for him to see the outlines of familiar objects around the room. The photographs of family and friends on the dresser. The carriage clock he’d inherited from his grandmother, silent since he’d allowed it to run down a few weeks ago.

To have Jennifer in his home, sleeping down the hallway, felt strange. It made him aware of the house in a way he usually wasn’t. Of how large it was for one person to live in. Of course, when he’d bought it he hadn’t been alone, and he’d imagined there would someday be children to fill it.

Probably he should move, he thought. Get a condo in a downtown high-rise. Give in to the inevitability of it. Accept what life had offered him.

But he knew he wouldn’t. What was really wrong, after all, with a big, empty house? Except that, sooner or later, it made you lonely. Made you enjoy having a houseguest more than you should, and look forward to seeing that houseguest in the morning with an unsettling amount of anticipation.

It was just one night, he reminded himself. One night and one morning, because anything more than that would be too complicated.

And Jennifer was once again off-limits.

But as his brother had demonstrated on more than one occasion, just because you shouldn’t get involved with someone didn’t mean you wouldn’t.

CHAPTER SIX

Nine years earlier

It’s not as if I want to be an uptight killjoy. I can’t help disapproving of Drew and his lame-brained cohorts, though. Constantly partying, sleeping until noon, watching MTV. Lying around the pool. Not doing anything redeeming.

And that girlfriend of his. She’s got to be the third blonde named Jennifer he’s dated in the past year and a half. Just once, I’d like to see him bring home a brunette named Roberta. Or Phuong-Mai. Someone interesting for a change.

I know I’m not being fair. But sometimes he just pisses me the hell off. I can’t count on him to do what he says he’ll do, like helping me move some furniture for Aunt Lenora.

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” he tells me, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, as he slouches on the kitchen chair, sockless in his dock shoes, taking a few seconds out of his busy life to shirk a commitment.

He’s just made plans to go to his friend Kurt’s house for a spur-of-the-moment party. They’re trying to figure out who can buy the beer. I guess he knows better than to ask me.

“Lenora’s not getting back until then, anyway,” he adds.

Our aunt broke her ankle a couple of days ago on a midnight hike, part of some New Age retreat in the mountains. Drew and I had plans to move her bed to the ground floor of her house so she won’t have to drag herself up and down the stairs for the next few weeks.

“I can’t do it tomorrow,” I tell my brother. “I’m working.”

And I’m not going to jeopardize my internship, which was damn hard to get, by scheduling it for my lunch break—since there’s no way he’d show up on time.

Drew shrugs. “Hey, you’re the one who offered to do this, not me. I said I’d help if I could. I never promised anything.”

“Jesus,” I say as Drew goes back to his phone call. Outside it’s raining but not windy. For a moment I watch the drops patter down onto the flat surface of the pool.

I glance over at Jennifer. She’s ignoring the whole exchange. For the past half hour she’s sat at the kitchen table while Drew’s been on the phone ordering clothes from the new J. Crew catalog and bullshitting with his friends. A copy of Smithsonian Magazine is open on the table, and I can see from the pictures that she’s reading the article about insects in the Amazonian forest. I’m surprised she knows how to read—then feel like a jerk for even having the thought.

Oh, what the hell. I decide to struggle with the mattress by myself. “See you later,” I tell them, and head for the front hall.

I’m reaching for my Gore-Tex pullover when Jennifer joins me.

“If you need help,” she says, kind of offhand, “I could do it. As long as it doesn’t take too long.”

I look at her. “You’re not going to the party?”

She shakes her head. “I have to start work in a couple of hours. I’d need a ride home afterward, though. Otherwise, I have to go catch a bus right now.”

“Where’s home?” I ask her.

She tells me the address and cross street. It’s not far, geographically, from where Lenora lives, but a different neighborhood. Not a great one, though certainly not the worst. “Where’s work?”

“The Beauty Barn. Over by Lloyd Center.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” I say. “I’d appreciate the help.”

Jennifer goes to the kitchen to say goodbye to Drew. Then she’s back. She’s only wearing a T-shirt and jeans and she doesn’t seem to have any rain protection.

“No umbrella?”

She shakes her head. “It was sunny when I came over. Anyway, this is Oregon, right?”

Oregonians pride themselves on not using umbrellas. Nevertheless, I get a large one from the hall closet and hold it over both of us as we dash to the car.

“The Beauty Barn, huh?” I say as we drive away from Council Crest. Water sluices along the gutters on both sides of the road and the wipers thwack back and forth at full speed.

“We sell discount cosmetics,” she says. “It’s probably not your kind of store.”

At the bottom of the hill we hit a knot of afternoon traffic in front of the intersection by the freeway, and come to a complete halt. An old Cutlass is stalled in the right-hand lane and everyone has to shift to get around it. The light turns green, but only a handful of people make it through. We’re still several cars back when the light turns red again.

I see Jennifer reach into her bag and come up with her wallet. She pulls out a five.

“I’ll be right back,” she says, then she opens the car door and steps out into the rain before I can reply.

As she crosses in front of me to the median and jogs toward the intersection, I spot a ragged-looking black man with a bucket of flowers to sell. He’s drenched and his flowers are, too. Before Jennifer reaches him, he goes up to a couple of cars, but no one wants to open windows in the rain. I watch her buy a mixed bouquet and say something that leaves the guy laughing. Just before the light changes, she gets back to the car and buckles up.

The flowers are yellow and purple and blue with a clump of ferns as a background. Water drops cling to the petals.

“I thought these might be nice for your aunt,” she says.

Following close on the bumper of the car ahead, I slip through the light on the yellow. I glance over. It doesn’t ring true that she would go out in the rain to buy flowers for a woman she’s never met.

“That’s really thoughtful of you,” I say. And then I add, “That guy sure looked miserable.”

She makes a sound of agreement. “I hope I wasn’t his only customer.”

I know she went out there just to give the guy some business. So he wouldn’t waste his whole day standing in the rain, making no money. I don’t know many people who would do that.

Damn. It would be a lot easier to see her as a silly teenage party girl like all of Drew’s past girlfriends. I don’t want to start thinking about her being kind and considerate. About how—come to think of it—she doesn’t seem to have much money, but she’ll give away five bucks just to help someone have a better day.

I consider the five bucks. Can she really afford to spend it like that? Probably not. I’m the one who should have thought to get something for my aunt. “I’ll pay for the flowers,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, really. I’ll pay for them.”

She doesn’t answer me, and now I realize I’ve been too pushy. Made her feel bad. It’s got to be tough hanging around with Drew and all his wealthy friends.

At my aunt’s house, we park in the driveway and I come around the car with the umbrella. “You could have used this when you went to get the flowers,” I say, indicating the umbrella.

“I didn’t want to miss the light.”

She gets out of the car, cradling the bouquet. Her light blue T-shirt is soaked. The fabric sticks to her skin.

I keep my eyes averted, trying to remind myself again that she’s not that cute. Kind of average. Not that smart or she wouldn’t be dating Drew. And she works at the Beauty Barn, for Christ’s sake.

Finally I remind myself she’s still in high school. That fixes everything.

Inside his aunt’s place, Ross heads for the stairs without even looking back to see if I’ve shut the door. The house is narrow, packed tightly in among its neighbors, but it’s wonderful. It’s funky and bright and colorful. The furnishings are a crazy mix, from a heavy walnut armoire that could have come out of an English estate to an orange shag runner in the hallway that’s pure 1970s tackiness. But somehow it all works.

“If you’re cold,” he says over his shoulder, “I’m sure you could find something in the hall closet. And I can promise Lenora won’t mind if you borrow it.”

My shirt feels clammy against my skin and I regret my rash decision to buy the flowers. Not that Ross would notice if I were to walk around naked instead of in a wet T-shirt. But I still feel exposed.

His aunt’s hall closet is crammed with jackets and coats and overflow clothes, but they’re not exactly my style. I pick out the best thing I can find—a black long-sleeve western-style shirt with gold studs on the collar—and put it on over my T-shirt. It’s too big, but I roll up the sleeves and it works okay as a jacket.

The bed is a queen-size and it’s heavier than any bed I’ve ever tried to move. “Jeez,” I say as we slide it down the hallway. “What’s in this thing?”

At the top of the stairs we have to wrestle it around a corner, and then we both stand below it and tip it to go downward. We’re side by side holding it up, keeping it from going too quickly, and it’s good there are two of us.

We leave the mattress propped against a wall and go back up for the box spring, which is mercifully light. After that we grab the simple bed frame, and then move some furniture around in the ground-floor den so there’s space for us to set it up. All together it doesn’t take more than twenty minutes, and when we’re through I ask if Lenora is going to need to have some clothes downstairs as well.

Ross says he doesn’t want to get involved in trying to pick out clothes for his aunt. “I never understand what she wears. And anyway, clothes are easy. She can get a friend to bring some down. She’s got a lot of friends.”

“Just no one else who would want to move a mattress that heavy, right?”

He looks at me then, more directly than he has all day. “Thanks for helping out.”

The way he says it is just so plain and simple and straightforward that it actually makes me embarrassed. I haven’t blushed in months, it seems like—ever since I learned how to act like the cool kids—but now I feel my neck getting hot.

I can’t figure out what the deal is with Ross. I didn’t like it when he was all disapproving and aloof, but now that he seems to think I’m okay, I find I don’t like that, either. He’s making a big deal about the fact that I helped him out, but it really wasn’t one. I would have been sitting on a bus, probably soaked to the skin, if I hadn’t come with him.

He says, “What time do you have to be at work?”

I check my watch. “In an hour. I’d better get going. My work clothes are at home. Can you still give me a lift?”

“Of course.”

We stick the flowers in a vase from the kitchen and then place them on the art deco table in the front hall. They’re nothing special, really, but I think Lenora will like them. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person to put her nose in the air about cheap flowers.

Ross doesn’t ask me to tell him where I live again. He just drives there. When he pulls up to the curb and cuts the engine, I’ve already taken off his aunt’s black shirt and draped it over the back of the seat. I start to get out, but he tells me to wait.

“Go change. I’ll drive you to work.”

I don’t know what to say, mostly because I’m suddenly afraid he’ll want to come up while I get ready and I don’t want him to see our tiny apartment. I haven’t even let Drew see it. We’re on the third floor, and the unit is drab and lightless. There’s only one bedroom, which my mom made me take. She sleeps on the living room couch. The place is clean, but it’s still embarrassing.

But my worry is for nothing. Ross hands me the umbrella. He doesn’t make any move to get out.

Ten minutes later I’m back in the car, dressed in the plain white oxford shirt the Beauty Barn requires. At work I also have to wear a red apron with a barn on it and a button with my name, but they make us leave those in our lockers. The button boasts a picture of a cow. It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss, except it’s wearing too much eyeliner and eye-shadow, like one of those televangelist ladies.

We cross the river, and get to the area where the Beauty Barn is located about half an hour before my shift. I figure he’s just going to drop me off, and I don’t mind because he saved me a lot of time on the bus.

But he says, “You haven’t eaten.”

I point to my bag. “I packed some snacks.” Just an apple and some cheese and crackers. I didn’t have time to make more.

“There’s a good deli a few blocks away. I’ll buy you a sandwich.” He’s already got the car moving.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say, though I can tell it’s useless.

A few blocks turns out to be six, but we’re there in just a couple of minutes. Ross suggests a tomato-basil-mozzarella sandwich he thinks I might like and orders some kind of meat-lovers combo for himself.

The sandwich is incredible. It’s on a crusty baguette with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and the basil tastes as if they just picked the leaves off the plant. Ross probably eats food this good every day. I don’t, and I savor it.

“Was your mom home?” he asks, as I polish off the first half.

I shake my head. “She doesn’t get off work for another few hours.”

“And when does your shift end?”

“Late,” I say. “My mom’s going to pick me up.”

He nods. “Good. I’d hate to think of you waiting for a bus in the middle of the night.”