Baby, Baby, Baby

“Too narrow.”

“How ’bout over there? There’s plenty of room.”

“Are you kidding me? Next to a twenty-year-old beater with dents in its door?”

Well, hell. It didn’t make any difference to him where she parked or how long it took her to do it. He was just happy to be this close.

Once inside the store, Melanie whipped a list out of her purse and studied it gravely for a moment before she said, “This ought to take me about twenty minutes. Half an hour at the most. Shall I meet you up here in front or out by the car?”

“Whatever.” He said it on purpose just to watch her eyes kind of pinwheel and her tongue hit the back of her teeth with an irritated little cluck. “Up here is fine.”

“Do you have a lot to get?” she asked as she pulled a shopping cart from its nest.

“Well. Yeah. Everything.” He nearly laughed watching her try to keep the top of her head on and the steam from pouring out of her dainty nose and delicate ears. “How ’bout if I just tag along behind you and pick up stuff as I go?”

“Suit yourself.” She snapped her list taut and took off with a little snort.

Still trying to not laugh, Sonny wrenched his own cart from the row and followed in her wake. There was nothing quite like Mel’s fine, firm, denim-cheeked wake. Ah, damn. How he wanted to reach out for a perfect handful of her.

The momentary attack of lust made him think about the imminent baby business, and his stomach knotted up again. Since this was Saturday, that didn’t leave much time till Monday and the damned artificial deal. If he couldn’t get her to even go to lunch with him, how the hell was he going to convince her to let him impregnate her?

Because he would. Sonny knew that as well as he knew his own name. Mel would’ve been pregnant the very first time they’d made love two years ago if they hadn’t used precautions. Two bodies didn’t come together the way theirs did and not set life in motion. Two people didn’t send sparks off the way they did and not start a fire someplace. If he was certain of anything, it was that.

He caught up with Melanie in the paint aisle. “What’re you planning to paint?” he asked.

“The nursery,” she answered chirpily, sending his stomach into acid overdrive. He felt like throwing up, so he leaned his forearms on his cart and bent his head while Melanie accosted the paint guy with one of her typical opening remarks guaranteed to send a poor, overworked and underpaid salesclerk’s eyes pinwheeling.

“I’ve got a very specific shade of yellow in my head,” she said.

“In your head,” the guy replied with a smirk in his voice.

Sonny didn’t even want to see the one on his face because then he’d have to do something about it.

Oblivious to the kid’s rudeness, Melanie pressed on. “I didn’t see the exact shade on any of those little swatches. Maybe I could try to describe it for you.”

“Ho-kay,” the kid said somewhere between a yawn and a groan.

“It’s not as bright as a jonquil,” Melanie said. “And not as soft as lemon sherbet. I guess maybe there’s a bit more gold in it than green. What I’m imagining is a baby-duck yellow.”

The kid could barely restrain a guffaw. “Baby-duck yellow.”

“Well, yes. That’s how I imagine it.”

While she went on at excruciating length, Sonny contemplated a few of the color swatches in the display case on his left. Who knew there were so many shades of white? Arctic white. Swiss white. Rice. Ice. Mel wasn’t so far off the mark with her ditzy name, he decided.

“You sure you don’t want a baby-chick yellow, lady?”

“No.” She was adamant but sincere, as only Melanie could be. God bless her. “That’s too yellow. Way too soft. Baby duck is exactly the shade.”

“What about baby canary?”

The clerk’s sarcasm sailed right over her pretty, precise head. “No. That’s too soft, too.”

“Ho-kay. How about baby-piss yellow? Or maybe…”

That did it, dammit. Sonny had the kid’s narrow shoulders pinned up against the paint machine in two seconds flat. “Are you deaf, pal? The lady said baby-duck yellow.”

“Y-yessir.” His face had gone a perfect shade of Arctic white.

“You think you can mix her up some of that?”

“Y-yessir.”

“All right, then.” Sonny loosened his grip on the lapels of the helpful orange jacket. “How much do you need, Mel? A quart? A gallon?” he asked over his shoulder.

There was no answer.

“Mel?”

When Sonny turned to look, Melanie was gone.

If she’d had any spine at all, Melanie thought, she’d jump in her car and leave Sonny in the dust the same way she’d left him in the paint aisle. She looked over her shoulder in time to see him come out of the hardware store, pause just long enough to light a cigarette, and then continue toward her.

Melanie picked up her pace, but even so Sonny reached the Miata before she did.

“What the hell did you think you were doing in there?” she yelled at him.

“What do you mean, what was I doing?” he yelled back. “Nobody talks to my wife that way.”

She wanted to rip her hair out in frustration. “I’m not your wife.”

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