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He sits in the noisy cafeteria with his group, in the designated corner. A sign might as well hang above them: Beautiful People Only. As I walk by, something whizzes past me and lands in the soup on my tray, splattering overcooked vegetable bits all over my favorite sweater, the grayish blue one Mom and I found at a garage sale in Seattle. I hear snickers.
One of them isn’t laughing, though. His gaze is sympathetic, and before I can make myself scarce he’s beside me, taking the tray and offering me a napkin.
“You’ve got to forgive my friend Brian. He thinks throwing French fries around is amusing. Typical jock, right?”
I accept the napkin and dab at my shirt, not meeting his eyes. Wishing I didn’t have to turn bright red like a complete moron.
“Your name’s Jennifer, right? We sit next to each other in Spanish. I’m Drew Griffin.”
I hazard a glance at him. He’s pretty tall so I have to tilt my head up. It’s like raising my face to the sun. His eyes are bright blue. His smile is warm and encouraging and ever so slightly goofy, as if he has no idea half the school is madly in love with him. I, on the other hand, figured it out right away, when I heard the girl with the locker next to mine gossiping with a friend.
“Look,” Drew says, “I’m sorry about this. Let me buy you a new lunch.”
And so he adopts me. At first I’m suspicious because my self-confidence isn’t exactly soaring and I can’t imagine why he would pay me so much attention. But I’m also pretty star-struck so it’s hard to resist. Soon I forget all about my aversion to cliques and popular kids. When I spend time around Brian, Kurt, Molly and Heather—and, wonder of wonders, they accept me, too—I feel as if I finally belong somewhere.
It’s all so seductive—going to parties, constantly getting phone calls, hanging out with kids who have their own Saabs and BMWs and more spending money in their pockets than my mom earns in a week. Molly and Heather share their clothes and makeup with me, and I’m amazed when they figure out a new style for my hair—layered and blow-dried with a ton of gel—that makes me look about ten years older and a million times more sophisticated. Drew takes me out all the time and before long we’re an item. He’s drawn me out of my shell, helped me to become a new person—one who’s self-assured and carefree and fun.
But then school gets out for the summer and Drew’s older brother, Ross, comes home from college. And life gets a lot more complicated.
The present
THE CONFIRMATION that Drew was the baby’s father made Ross feel as if he had a bad case of acid reflux. He realized he’d hoped Jennifer would say no. That somehow he’d been wrong.
Damn it, Drew. Not right now. So many people would be affected by this. Lucy. And their mother had barely left the hospital. She was recovering fairly well, but she needed to keep her life as stress-free as possible until her health was back to normal. She wasn’t the kind of person who would greet the news of Jennifer’s baby—and Drew’s paternity—with equanimity.
Ross stifled the curse that formed on his lips. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
He stashed the broom and handheld vac back in the hall closet. In the kitchen he put the trash can under the sink, washed his hands and poured two glasses of water from the filter pitcher in the fridge. He hated that this wasn’t easy, that he actually felt something for her after all this time. That some crazy part of him was actually happy to see her again despite the circumstances. Their past should just be a dim memory. He shouldn’t care anymore. All he should care about was protecting the innocent bystanders.
When he returned, Jennifer stood by the bay window, looking out at the view of downtown Portland. The curtains were at the cleaners’, due back next week. Without them the windows seemed raw, the curtain rods and cords a stark frame for the view.
He offered one of the glasses of water and she thanked him for it.
An unfamiliar white station wagon sat across the street from his house, crammed with stuff. He saw a lamp, cardboard boxes, a cactus plant and what appeared to be a bunched-up comforter. California license plate.
She sipped the water. “It’s a lovely view,” she said into the silence, her gaze on the city. “I like your house.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you live here alone?”
“Yes.” Did she care? Did he want her to care?
Ross glanced at her profile and felt the same pull of attraction he had as a college kid. This was the woman who, as a teenager, had felt sympathy for a rain-drenched flower seller. Who’d read Arthur Koestler and Noam Chomsky and had intelligent things to say about them. Who’d been willing to help out his aunt Lenora, a total stranger, when she’d broken her ankle.
And the last time he’d seen Jennifer they’d kissed. Kissed each other while she was still dating his brother.
He tried to push away the thought and the accompanying twinge of conscience. Drew didn’t deserve his loyalty anymore—not after what had happened with Lucy and not if he’d slept with Jennifer during the past year. But the guilt still lingered.
“No family of your own?” she asked.
“No family of my own.” He’d tried that route and it hadn’t worked out.
“Drew said you’re an E.R. doctor. Northwest?” The hospital.
He nodded.
Another moment passed. She stared out the window again, as if absorbed by the view of the city, then said, “I need to get in touch with him.”
Ross thought that sounded like a singularly bad idea. “Does he know about the baby?”
“If he knew, I wouldn’t be having so much trouble reaching him.”
An opinion Ross didn’t share. “He never told me he’d seen you again. I guess he didn’t give you his phone number.” When the two of you got together. When you conceived this child.
Her eyelashes flickered. “He gave me a phone number. It just wasn’t his.”
Nice. In that case he should have had the guts to give no phone number at all. But not Drew. He wanted to look good even when he was being a jerk.
Ross considered her belly, judging her to be about six months along. He remembered a business trip Drew had taken to San Francisco last December. The timing worked. And the timing made Drew’s actions unconscionable.
Ross felt a strong desire to strangle his brother.
“I couldn’t find him in the phone book,” she said. “But he does live in Portland…?”
“More or less.” Drew lived across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington. Which amounted to the same thing if you were driving all the way here from San Francisco. But even if she’d thought to check for Drew there, she wouldn’t have found a number. His brother preferred not to be listed, claiming he didn’t want his law clients calling him at home in hysterics.
To come all the way here without confirmation Drew lived in the area, Ross thought, had been a gamble. But maybe Jennifer was more desperate than she wanted to admit.
He observed her car more closely. Flakes of rust had gathered around the wheel wells. The rear door on the passenger side had a dent in it. Under its heavy load the car sagged onto its aging shocks. A car that belonged to someone who couldn’t afford much maintenance, it fit with the bleach-stained shirt and the cheap shoes.
The accumulating evidence of her financial difficulties surprised him, though. When he’d known her, Jennifer had been bright and motivated. He’d expected her to do better. Much better.
“You drove here from California?”
She nodded.
“And you plan to stay for a while.”
“Yes.”
“Your mother—where is she?” Surely her mother would be able to help her at a time like this.
“She died last November.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” He’d met the woman once, briefly, on the street outside his parents’ house when she’d come by to pick Jennifer up. She’d seemed nice, if a bit tired. He remembered she’d worn a hairnet and some kind of uniform.
“Breast cancer,” Jennifer volunteered.
“How long was she sick?”
“Seven years, on and off.”
He knew what this meant. Knew the financial, physical and emotional toll an extended illness took, though he only witnessed the crisis points in the E.R. Jennifer’s circumstances made more sense now.
“That must have been rough,” he said.
She shrugged, and despite her attempt at nonchalance he saw that it had been excruciating.
“And now this.” Her pregnancy. Her child by a man who would never acknowledge his paternity.
“Now this,” she echoed.
He watched her. “When’s the baby due?”
“September fourteenth.”
She had less than three months to go. Not an easy time to travel. Not an easy time to pack your life into your run-down station wagon and move to a different state.
“Why now?” he asked. Why hadn’t she contacted him sooner—as soon as she’d realized she was pregnant and couldn’t reach Drew?
She understood his meaning. “I had my reasons,” she said. “I needed time. I needed to come to terms with my situation.”
Ross didn’t press for a detailed explanation since she obviously didn’t care to share more. Perhaps she’d considered an abortion but hadn’t been able to go through with it. Perhaps she’d known about Lucy, though he wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t. Perhaps she’d wanted to raise the child on her own, without Drew’s involvement, and had finally had to accept that she couldn’t swing it financially.
And she clearly couldn’t. She clearly needed assistance.
Understandable. He knew how hard it was to be a single mother with no child support, especially if you already had to deal with the expenses associated with a long-term illness. At the free clinic where he volunteered each week he saw plenty of mothers who were forced to live on the edge of poverty—and not because they were stupid or lazy, but because keeping a single-parent household going was damn hard if you hadn’t started out wealthy and weren’t among the top twenty percent of income earners.
Ross didn’t want to think about Jennifer living below the poverty level, especially with a new baby. And he could prevent it from happening. He could also prevent anyone else from getting hurt by this.
Not that he was concerned about Drew. Had Drew been the only one affected, Ross might have just jotted down his brother’s information and sent her on her way. But that wasn’t the case.
Ross walked closer to the window. Studied the front yard. The leaves of the climbing rose were getting specks on them, he saw, and made a mental note to bring it to his gardener’s attention.
He crossed his arms, unable to make himself turn around and look her in the eyes. “How much do you need?”
“Excuse me?”
He knew the question was an ugly one, but he asked it again. “How much do you need, Jennifer? To raise your baby. And to do it somewhere far away from here.”
JENNIFER STARED at Ross’s broad, intimidating back. He’d told her where she stood—firmly outside the circle of people for whom he cared, people he considered his own. Just as her father had when she was thirteen. Now, as then, she was nothing more than a problem—a problem to be solved by throwing money at it.
Jennifer raised her glass to her lips and felt herself shaking. She finished the water, then walked out of the room with all the composure she could muster, which wasn’t much. She couldn’t be around him, couldn’t handle it, despite the weeks she’d had to prepare herself.
Stumbling blindly down the hallway, knowing it was rude, she tried to numb herself from caring. From feeling anything.
At the far end of the hall she pushed through a half-open door into an airy kitchen overlooking the backyard. The counters were indigo tile, the sink white porcelain below a six-paned window. A work island took up the center of the kitchen and a separate breakfast bar divided the cooking area from the dining room.
She focused on her hands as she rinsed her glass and put it in the dishwasher. Pretending she was calm. Under control, the way she’d wanted to be. But her eyes stung with tears and her throat felt tight.
The past couple of months had been so stressful. Last winter when she’d realized Drew had left her a fake phone number she’d decided he wouldn’t want to know about the baby, convinced herself she could go it alone. But then her profit-driven landlord had found a way to eject her from her rent-controlled apartment. To get a new one at the same price she would have had to settle for a hovel not much better than a refrigerator box in a back alley. Looking for a roommate, she’d quickly ascertained that few of the candidates—and none of those who weren’t creepy—wanted to live with a newborn.
Some friends had put her up temporarily. But she’d seen how easily her life could slip, felt the vulnerability of a pregnant woman alone with few resources. She was deeply in debt, struggling to pay off her mother’s medical bills. What if she lost her job? What if she couldn’t afford good child care? What if something unforeseen happened, like her mother’s cancer? The cancer had taken over their lives. Had forced Jennifer to quit college and steadily drained their finances. There had been countless treatments and periods of remission, periods of hope, renewed fear and then hope again. And when Andrea Burns had died after battling her illness so valiantly, she’d left Jennifer without any family. Even her father, she’d learned, had died in a car accident a few years earlier.
She’d awakened on her friends’ couch one morning and known she couldn’t let history repeat itself. Her baby deserved a chance to develop a real relationship with his or her father, however imperfect that father might be. Her baby deserved, too, the additional security and emotional support a second parent would provide. A bigger safety net, which she alone couldn’t give.
Ross entered the kitchen, interrupting her thoughts. Jennifer didn’t turn around. Gripping the counter with both hands, she felt the edges of the wooden trim bite into her skin.
She stood there a long time, silent, wishing with a foolish part of herself for him to apologize, to take back his words, to welcome her and the baby into the Griffin fold.
But of course he didn’t.
Finally she faced him, surprised to find him closer than she’d expected, standing between her and the tiled island. She crossed her arms, feeling her belly protrude below them. “I didn’t come to your house to be bought off.”
“I know that.”
“So don’t insult me.”
He said nothing, just reached up and brushed the pad of his thumb across a spot of dampness under her eye. Then, as if he couldn’t resist—and already regretted his lack of will—he settled his hand on her shoulder and drew her to him.
Jennifer felt herself step into his arms. She tried to stand stiffly in his embrace, to resist the urge to relax, to keep the gesture from affecting her. But she was alone in a new city, with all her friends back in San Francisco. And this was Ross Griffin. Still compelling, still irresistible, despite the words he’d spoken in his living room. She felt her body soften against his, felt herself lean in to him. It was the wrong thing to do—just as it had been nine years ago—but she couldn’t stop herself.
Her belly made the hug awkward, but she soaked up the comfort he seemed to offer, savoring the connection to another human being.
No, not just another human being, of course. The connection to Ross. Even though he’d hurt her with his attempt to buy her off, she couldn’t help her pleasure at being near him again. Or the irrational relief she’d felt when he told her he lived alone, without a wife.
Inside her, the baby moved. A fluttering kick followed by what felt like a full-body stretch. A limb pressed outward, against Ross’s stomach.
He went still. “The baby.”
She nodded.
He released her shoulders and placed both palms, fingers down, on the heavy curve of her stomach. Her secondhand maternity jeans had a low waistband, so only the thin layer of her pink cotton shirt separated his skin from hers. The baby kept moving.
Jennifer closed her eyes. She loved these active periods, loved feeling the unmistakable presence of a new person growing inside her.
Ross’s hands were warm and broad. With a slight upward pressure he supported her belly’s weight. The contact felt intimate and much better than it should have.
Eventually the baby quieted. She opened her eyes to find Ross watching her.
Abruptly the spell broke. She stepped back, unable to look into his eyes. Regretting her susceptibility to him.
She remembered the last time they’d touched. The way he’d kissed her and the price she’d had to pay. So long ago, but still she could remember it—a distinct moment ringing like a tuning fork in her memory.
“I’m trying to help you,” he said.
“Then tell me his phone number. That’s all I want.”
