“Hey,” he said. “You don’t have to ring the doorbell.” After that, he bent down and gave her a soft kiss on the mouth, and held her a little while, too, just because she looked so fragile. He could feel her hauling in her breath against his shoulder, and he held on a little tighter.
She stood back, finally, came inside, and said, “Of course I have to ring the doorbell. It’s not my house. I came over to check on Dyma, and to see about cooking dinner. I bought stuff for a casserole, and I told you, I’m a whiz at family dinner. I’ve decided that can be my contribution. On days when you want that, of course. When you need a break, you can send the girls over to me.” Going for some more of that brisk and efficient and capable.
“That’s a no,” he said. “What, your first day at your new job? Not happening. It’s the offseason. I’ve got it. I already planned it, in fact. Dyma and Annabelle are watching a movie, I think, because I smelled popcorn. Having some downtime after rearranging my cabinets this afternoon, once the tutor left. Cooking could be an adventure, since I don’t know where anything is anymore. They had everything pulled out of there. I thought we’d be living in squalor for days, but nope. Dyma’s pretty much a human dynamo. How’d you name her that well? Did you wait until she was two, or what?”
She smiled, but it still looked tired. “I don’t know. Magical foreknowledge? She brings a lot of energy to the room. That’s one way of putting it.”
He brushed a hand over her cheek. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you go get changed, or better yet—bring your stuff over and have a swim, some gym time, whatever, while I make dinner? That’d be relaxing, right?”
“Well, the way I swim, it would be,” she said, getting some spark back. “Not the way you do it, like you’re in the Olympics. Although I don’t know where the gym is. Do I have to take the elevator, or what?”
He laughed. “I’ll give you the tour.” After that, he kissed her again and said, “Go get changed. I’ve got this.”
He’d worked out hard himself today, she was right about that. Because he’d been nervous, that was the truth. He’d said he loved her. To Orbison. Why had he laid himself on the line like that? But either Blake hadn’t told her what he’d said, or she’d brushed it off. He couldn’t tell which.
Nobody at the gym had brushed it off. When he’d hung up after that call, Julio had said, “I’m just gonna ignore the ‘padlock’ thing, because I’m classy, and go for the ‘pregnant’ part. Your lady’s pregnant?”
“Didn’t know he even had a lady.” That was Calvin, who was in a wheelchair, but had been building up his upper body with the kind of single-minded determination that earned a guy a starting spot. Harlan would bet he’d been a hell of a soldier.
“Well, yeah,” Harlan said. “I’ve got a lady. You heard it here first.”
“Uh-huh.” That was Brandon, who was on the leg press machine now, since he’d nudged Harlan off it somewhere in that conversation. Brandon was missing an arm, and an eye, too. He was also leg-pressing three hundred already. People thought Harlan motivated these guys. In fact, it was more the other way around. Brandon didn’t usually say much, but now, he said, “Sounds like it might be news to her, too. Which is weird, but I’m not sayin’ nothin’. New job, though, huh.”
“Yep,” Harlan said, and then, for some reason, added, “Working for Blake Orbison. She was his assistant before, up in Idaho. She’s a little nervous about the new job. Not really a big-city girl. Just moved into my place, along with her daughter.”
He was confiding. He never confided, and here he was doing it. To five guys. What was he, crazy?
“Well, damn,” Julio said. “If she was already working for Orbison, guess you can’t use the money and the looks and the cee-lebrity status to impress her. Man, that’s all your ammo shot. What else you got?”
Brandon said, “Sounds like he’s going with telling the truth.”
Some hooting and hollering at that, and Julio said, “Dangerous move, ’mano. Tell you one thing, though.”
“Yeah?” Harlan asked. He might as well get advice here, he guessed. Not like good advice was pouring in from anywhere else in his life.
“If she’s pregnant?” Julio said. “New job, too? Single mom? Be sweet to her tonight. Like the man said. Try a little tenderness.” That sparked some singing. Of course it did.
They gave him some more shit after that, too, but he figured the advice wasn’t bad.
A little tenderness. He could do that.
It was such a relief to get out of her shoes. Her feet had swollen a little today in the fancy new shoes—which had cost seven hundred fifty dollars? Really? They were just pumps. Pumps that hurt at the moment. A swim would feel good, though. A swim would feel great. With no onlookers to stare at her in her too-small bikini? (Which she had to wear, because the one-piece didn’t fit at all.) That would feel extra great.
Except that when she put the top on, there was no way. How had her breasts grown even more in about four days? She struggled with the hooks, ripped it off, shoved the thing back in the drawer, and wanted to cry. Just … climb into bed, pull the covers over her head, and cry.
This was too hard. She’d known it would be too hard, and it was too hard, and …
Suck it up, she told herself. You’ve got this. It’s a first day. First days are always awful. And Mom isn’t here, and …
Which was when she cried for real. Sitting on the edge of the bed in the swimsuit bottoms that didn’t fit anymore, either, clutching the serene cream-colored duvet cover, no doubt made out of fleece combed from the belly of some exotic animal that lived only at extreme elevations in the Himalayas and was tended by Buddhist monks. She wasn’t looking out the window at an endless vista of evergreen forest, with Mt. Hood starting to glow with the colors of twilight, because it wasn’t helping.
She had a new job that was beyond anything she’d ever thought she’d get. She was living in the fanciest house she’d ever seen. She was sort-of-dating the hottest, sweetest man she’d ever known. And all she wanted was to put her head in her mom’s lap, feel her mom’s fingers smoothing through her hair, and hear the voice she’d never hear again saying, “It’ll be OK, baby. It’ll be better in the morning. You can do this.”
She couldn’t. She couldn’t. Her mouth was open, and she was sobbing.
When the tap came on the door, she barely registered it. When it came again, she thought, I can’t let Dyma see me like this. I need to be the mom. Frantic with it, and not a single bit more in control. And when she heard the door opening and Harlan’s voice saying, “Jennifer?” she couldn’t manage to do more than try to pull the duvet over her. It was trapped under the too-heavy, fancy Euro pillows, and that made her cry more.
“Jennifer?” Closer now. Right here. In the doorway behind her.
“Yeah,” she said, and tried to control her voice. “Sorry. I’m just … did you need something?”
“Hey. Baby, what’s wrong? Job no good after all?” He came around the bed, sat down beside her, and didn’t put his arms around her. Instead, he took off his shirt and pulled it over her.