Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  She’s back before the rest of us have stood up.

  “Chloe, there seems to be laundry on every seat in there. What have you been doing all day?”

  I actually can’t think of a good answer to that.

  “I just remembered, I brought this for Holly.” Nick says quickly. He picks up a wrapped and beribboned package and hands it to me. “Open it.”

  I smile at him and slide the ribbon off, and at that moment Holly starts to fuss in the bedroom.

  “I’ll go get her and be right back.” I hesitate briefly, because this means leaving Nick exposed to Charlotte, but Howard will run interference.

  I love picking Holly up from her naps. I get so excited to see her again, feel the weight and warmth of her little body.

  I perform a quick diaper change. Funny to think how panicked I was about diaper skills. Was that only weeks ago?

  “Turn on the charm, girlfriend,” I advise her, as I snap her leggings. “Make eye contact. Be interested in others.”

  She ignores me and stares at the ceiling.

  Okay then. I see where this is going.

  As we head back toward the kitchen, I hear Charlotte saying, “Charlie is your younger brother? How is Charlie? That boy could sell ice to the Eskimos. Terrible influence on Chloe.”

  “He’s currently selling surfboards to the landlocked,” Nick replies. “And is a terrible influence on my kids.”

  “Ah, you have children! And how old are they?”

  “My daughters are twenty-one, and my son is nineteen.”

  “Oh my, they’re grown! Your job is done. You’re an empty-nester! I remember that wonderful feeling of freedom.” She smiles.

  Perfect. Thanks, Mom. Well done.

  Charlotte frowns. “Did you say daughters? Both twenty-one?”

  “Yes. Twins.” When he smiles, a dimple appears in his chin.

  “That’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?” Only my mother could make an act of biology into a breach of etiquette.

  “And here they are!” Howard says with great cheer, as we enter. Holly looks like a muppet. I realize I have a mental image but don’t know the name of the one with red hair that stands up on end. I huff her baby scalp. In a year, I imagine, I’ll know the names of every single muppet. I’ll probably know their birthdates and social security numbers by memory. I wonder if Elmo dresses left.

  Nick looks up and meets my eyes, and the world goes quiet. I realize I am holding my breath.

  He stands and walks over to us.

  “Well, hello, little girl,” he says softly to Holly. And to me, “I’d forgotten how small they are.” He’s so enchanted. The way Nick looks at Holly takes my breath away. I wish a man would look at me like that.

  And then he does.

  “‘But little girls get bigger every day,’” Howard sings.

  “Gigi,” Charlotte sighs. “That movie changed my life. Even as a child, I just knew I’d love Paris.”

  Howard begins murmuring in her ear.

  “Would you… like to… hold her?” I ask Nick. “I need to get her bottle ready. Or I can put her in her basket.”

  “Of course. Sure. I’d like to.” He smiles. “I’d love to.”

  He takes her in his arms, experienced and assured but maybe a little rusty, and turns back to sit on his stool. I take a bottle from the fridge, put it in a bowl, and run hot water. When I glance up, he’s looking at her tiny face, completely absorbed. And she’s looking right back at him. He has one of her hands between two big fingers. She looks even smaller than usual.

  My heart skitters.

  Why?

  Howard and Charlotte stand and walk out of the room, his arm around her, their heads together. He catches my eye and winks.

  I think I may have lost my babysitters for tonight.

  I test Holly’s bottle on my wrist. Feels right.

  “Thanks,” I tell Nick. “Her bottle’s ready. I’ll take her.”

  He looks up, surprised. He holds out one hand.

  “I’ll do it. Let’s see if I remember how.”

  With nothing else to do for the moment, I sink down onto the next stool and watch them.

  After a minute, Nick smiles at me. “Like it was yesterday. Muscle memory. I wonder how many bottles I’ve given?”

  There’s a clatter in the front hall, and a moment later Howard appears, Charlotte behind him. She is wearing a cashmere wrap and carrying her handbag.

  “Chloe,” Howard says, “it is always wonderful to see you, and now Holly, too. She’s an angel. And I know how much it means to you to have your mother here to help with everything when you’re so tired and overwhelmed.”

  He looks suspiciously like he’s trying not to smile.

  “Oh, Howard. You just don’t know what it means,” I contribute. “Really, you don’t.” Wild hope is rising inside me.

  “I think I do, actually. Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me for taking her away,” he continues. “She is wearing herself to the bone taking care of you both, and I just feel I must step in before she makes herself ill. I’ve made a reservation at the Four Seasons for tonight, and tomorrow we fly to France.”

  “Whatever you think best,” I assure him. “Of course. We’ll manage somehow.”

  “I’m sorry, dear.” Charlotte steps forward and kisses me on both cheeks. “Howard is right. It was too much.” She brightens. “But I’ll send you both some dresses from Paris. We’ll be back in a few days, and I can help more after I’ve recovered.”

  Nick is watching all this like it’s an episode of Arrested Development. He can’t shake hands, but Charlotte kisses him and Howard pats him on the back. And then they’re gone, leaving behind just the scent of Chanel No. 5.

  I cough.

  “Looks like we’re not going out for dinner,” Nick says. “Pizza?”

  I burst out laughing, the kind of hysterical peals you can’t quite believe are coming out of your mouth. Holly’s eyes widen, darting to look at Nick, and then her mouth does the telltale tightening I’ve come to know.

  “Oh, baby,” I whisper, my laugh halting midstream as she turns her head aside, spitting out the bottle nipple, and makes a squeaky newborn cry that says she’s just getting started.

  I hold out my hands to take her back. No man wants to hold a screaming baby as foreplay on a date. The night just shattered, for good or bad, and this date turned into a threesome.

  And not an O party threesome.

  “I’ve got her.” He stands, all fluid grace and muscle memory, moving her to his shoulder and patting her back harder than I would.

  Scrambling, I get a cloth on his shoulder, fussing with the space between Holly’s tiny body and Nick’s broad shoulder. I have to stand on tiptoe, even in heels, to make Nick as spit-up proof as possible.

  I manage.

  He laughs, the rumble making me suddenly aware of the space between our bodies. “It’s just a little spit up, Chloe. It washes out.”

  “Charlotte acted like it was napalm. She wore latex gloves and a Tyvek suit while burping Holly. I’ve seen Ebola researchers wear less.”

  “Why do you call your mother by her first name?”

  “Because it’s slightly less painful than using her preferred form of address.”

  “Which is?”

  “Your Majesty.”

  Nick is in the middle of finishing his bourbon. He chokes, clapping a palm across his mouth to cough discreetly, those bright blue eyes mesmerizing. I could watch them for hours.

  Being with him feels so good.

  He’s bouncing and patting little Holly, who decides the world isn’t so scary after all, her little knees tucking up under her, face burrowing into Nick’s shoulder.

  I think I’m a little jealous.

  Jealous of my own daughter.

  This is how far I have fallen in a few weeks?

  “How’s life?” he whispers, his tone clearly implying that life as I know it is over.

  “I’ve had a good life.
A great life. Now this is my new life.”

  Holly’s diaper begins making sounds you normally only hear in Lord of the Rings movies featuring the fiery pits of hell. I continue talking, because I’m used to it. It’s not unlike working with a construction crew after the local food truck makes a stop.

  Nick is so obviously an experienced dad, because he completely ignores Holly Vesuvius. I take her back from him.

  “When you have kids,” Nick says quietly, “it brings up all your own unprocessed issues.”

  “What unprocessed issues?” I say, pretending to be offended.

  “Like your mother?” His eyebrows shoot up.

  “What about my mother?” Even as the words roll off my tongue like a ribbon of error, I regret them.

  “She’s a little—”

  I interrupt him. “Petty?”

  “I would use the word ‘narcissistic.’”

  I shrug. “We all view the world through our personal lenses, right?”

  “Chloe.”

  “She means well.”

  “She’s slowly driving you to the brink of collapse.”

  “Only the brink. I’ve lived on the brink for long stretches of my life, Nick. It’s not such a bad place to live.”

  Holly begins to cry.

  “Diaper change,” I announce.

  Nick peels her out of my arms and turns away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Changing her.”

  I gape at him. “Why?”

  He frowns. “Because you just said ‘diaper change.’”

  “That wasn’t an order,” I say with a laugh that turns onto a yawn. “Just an observation.”

  He blinks, slowly. I haven’t quite gotten used to seeing him in his glasses. They’re stylish horn-rim frames and they make him look more distinguished. Not older, just wiser.

  And more vulnerable. Messy. Casual.

  Holly curls on his shoulder like a turtle that has crawled out of its shell and seeks comfort.

  “Maybe I have some unprocessed issues, too, because Simone rarely changed a diaper. She would declare ‘diaper change’ and that meant I should do it.” His eyes go unfocused. He’s clearly two decades in the past.

  Gently, so gently, I reach over, sliding my fingertips between his pecs and Holly’s little body, the back of my hand brushing against his bare, slightly-hairy chest where his shirt is unbuttoned as I find the right grasp to take the baby.

  “Chloe, no, I—”

  I get her in my arms and give him a firm look. “Some patterns can’t be reinforced, even if they’re for the right reasons.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll never change a diaper!”

  “Of course. Just not this one, Nick.” I’m a pro. Holly’s freshened up in under two minutes, and I hand her back to him, triumphant.

  “How about we take her for a walk in her stroller?” Nick suggests, using a sing-songy voice, the low timbre of his voice soothing. “If she falls asleep, we can find an outdoor table somewhere for dinner.”

  “Food that isn’t microwaved? Dinner that isn’t delivered in a white cardboard carton? What is this planet you live on?”

  “Planet Empty Nest,” he whispers as, on his own, he finds the stroller and uses Jedi Mind Tricks to get Holly on her back and snuggled up in the little pod, blankets tucked neatly around her.

  Ouch. Not sure what to say to that.

  I pop the pacifier in her mouth, then look up at him and say what I’m really thinking.

  “You are a god,” I say, completely sincerely, in awe at his prowess.

  With babies.

  “I hear that a lot.” He shoots me a grin as he reaches for me, warm hands on my waist, the hug delightful even if my face is smashed against Holly’s burp cloth. “Mostly in bed.”

  * * *

  Nick

  The joke is awful. Terrible. I’m not on my game, but I have to say something to cover for the “Planet Empty Nest” comment. The look on Chloe’s face feels like a slap.

  But I’m not taking it back.

  A kiss is a perfect way to delay the chance that I’ll say something stupid again, so I go for it. She melts into me, her body different, looser and more casual, even as I feel the effects of stress and sleep deprivation in the way she holds herself. Chloe tastes good. Great.

  And then the baby starts to cry.

  Chloe breaks away instantly, practically leaping away from me as if I’d burned her, eyes wild. Her reflexes are primed for newborn care, attention swiftly focused on the baby as she fusses over her in the stroller, muttering aloud about whether to pick her up or not.

  “Let’s get her outside in the fresh air,” I say, taking the decision away from her. She looks at me with those big brown eyes, circles under them, the slight slant at the corners somehow deeper, the charm intensified by her vulnerability. With a grateful air, she follows as I steer the stroller out her front door, picking it up and walking down the handful of stairs to the sidewalk.

  I turn around to find her gaping at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You did that so effortlessly. I have to turn the stroller around and coax it down, one step at a time, careful to make sure poor Holly doesn’t bunch up at the end like a neatly-folded suit in a carryon.”

  Holly’s wiggling under the blanket, trying to decide whether she’s upset or not.

  “Let’s move,” I say quietly. Funny how all this baby stuff kicks in after years of not doing it, like riding a bicycle.

  Or making love.

  Within a minute, the baby has settled down, and Chloe’s squinting in the sun. She looks like a hermit who has lived in a cave for a year and is finally seeing daylight.

  We pass by my car. I look at Chloe, then at the box on my backseat. Holly begins to snurgle and Chloe’s distracted, hovering. I seize the chance and pull the box out of the back seat, tucking it in the carriage bottom.

  “What’s that?”

  I bite back a grin. “You’ll see.” Might as well get this over with. The damn thing is like a bad penny. I assume she’ll throw it away once I give it to her. As we walk, Chloe pushing the stroller now, I begin to have second thoughts.

  “Thank you,” she says with a sigh, her shoulders releasing, one hand massaging her own neck. “I’ve been taking her out for walks, but then she cries and I can’t calm her down. You ever start crying with your baby?”

  “Can’t say I ever did.”

  “It’s pretty embarrassing. Especially when you cry louder than the infant.”

  I rest the palm of my hand on her back. She lets out a little sound, so faint I almost don’t catch it. The sweetness in it, the unbearable contentment, makes me want to elicit that sound from her every day.

  We walk like this, happy and free, Chloe nattering with great pleasure about Holly’s daily habits, her birthmarks, the way she pulls her fists into her sleeves and how she already sticks her tongue out in imitation. I watch Chloe, who is the same woman I met a month ago, yet she’s different.

  She isn’t pregnant. Didn’t give birth.

  But she glows.

  “How does it feel?” I ask her as we halt at a stoplight, waiting our turn.

  “What? Being a mother?”

  “How does it feel to have gone through so much work to get here—and now you’re here?”

  She blinks, taking in a deep breath, nodding, her mind clearly churning to find the right answer. I like this about her. She doesn’t react.

  Chloe processes.

  “Inevitable.” She says just one word, then smiles. Her eyes say she’s tired, but her mouth says she’s thrilled.

  “That’s one hell of an answer to unpack.”

  “Is it? Why?”

  The light changes. We begin to enter the crosswalk as an older woman walks in tandem with us, peeking in the stroller.

  She beams.

  “Congratulations, you two! How old is your baby?”

  I damn near freeze in the middle of the crosswalk.

  �
��She’s almost two weeks old,” Chloe answers, smooth as silk. Looking right at me, she smiles, raising one shoulder just enough to say, Go with it.

  My throat tightens. My pulse races. I put one foot in front of the other and my hand that rests on Chloe’s shoulder feels like it’s a thousand pounds.

  “Beautiful! Is she your first?”

  Chloe’s eyes widen. The ruse has gone too far.

  “No,” I say truthfully. “She’s not.” I don’t mention that she’s not mine at all.

  “Enjoy! They grow up so fast!” The woman pivots to make a left turn. “Mine are in college now. I’d trade the freedom for a day of their babyhood in a heartbeat.”

  I can’t feel my feet. I can’t hear traffic. A roar of blood pounds my ears. I’m walking only because of primal programming that warns my rat brain to get out of the way of the big metal predators in the road.

  Chloe laughs softly, the sound full of questions.

  “That was cute.”

  That was something.

  Just as we reach the curb, Holly starts to scream, a high-pitched, frantic newborn cry that requires an instantaneous response. Chloe’s arms are under her in seconds, lifting the baby up, the red-faced scream continuing, unabated.

  It’s like having fingernails raked down an exposed nerve.

  The sound triggers a kind of parenting PTSD in me, taking me back twenty years. My body becomes my twenty-two-year-old self, my eyes overly alert and senses on edge.

  “What’s wrong, honeybee?” Chloe coos. “It’s okay.” She makes some shhh shhh shhh sounds to soothe the baby while I stand there, dumbly, blinking in the sunlight.

  “Is Elo – um, Holly okay?” Damn. Almost called her by my daughter’s name.

  “I don’t know! She doesn’t scream like this.”

  And then Holly lets out a frat-boy belch that my brother would approve of.

  Spit up pours out of her like a volcano.

  Chloe goes into awkward new-parent mode, trying to avoid being a target, while comforting one pissed-off infant.

  Breaking out of my trance, I hand her the first thing I find in the carriage bottom.

  “Here.”

  She begins mopping up Holly, then stops. “Joe?”

  Shit. She’s forgotten my name.

  “No. Nick.”

  Her laugh comes out as a gaspy-wheezy sound, like she’s having an asthma attack. “No, I mean – how did Joe’s old Coldplay t-shirt get into my daughter’s stroller? I thought I got rid of this.” She wrinkles her nose. “It smells like his old cologne.”