by Dana Dratch
Fleetingly, I considered wearing rubber gloves. But J.B.’s mom wouldn’t have done that. And from what Nick said, this little one needed to know that even though Mama was AWOL, he still had people around who loved him.
Through it all, J.B. wailed. Earsplitting screams. Mouth wide open. Eyes scrunched shut. Face scarlet.
Once I got him onto the table and peeled off the onesie, it took a minute to register what I was seeing. A diaper as reimagined by an industrial engineer who’d never actually seen a baby. Nick.
The outer layer was a white kitchen trash bag that had been wrapped around his little bottom like a burrito. It was fastened neatly on the sides with two pieces of silver duct tape.
Beneath that, acting as the actual diaper, was one of my sunny yellow tea towels.
Forget Nick’s neat little pellets. It looked like someone had thrown a grenade into an outhouse. The tea towel had given its all. But it was a lost cause. Under the yellow cloth was a layer of some-thing white and absorbent. A folded puppy pad. Unscented, of course.
I chucked the whole thing—tea towel and all—into the trash. “This is gonna take a lot of baby wipes,” I reported to J.B.
He stopped, burped, and stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. They were a beautiful sapphire blue. Then he started crying again.
Given the two ninny nannies looking after him, I didn’t blame him one bit.
I wrestled him into the new diaper and fastened it with the panda tabs. And it fit!
Whatever other complaints I might have about Nick, he knew how to weigh a baby.
But the onesie definitely needed a bath. I grabbed the red cashmere throw from the sofa. It was butter soft. And it would keep the little guy warm for an hour, while I washed his clothes.
I felt for J.B. The closest I’d come to dressing a baby was playing with dolls as a kid. And a small, squirming human is a whole different ball game. I opted for a loose, toga-style wrap. At least it beat the plastic bag burrito.
“You know, you look very stylish,” I said, lifting him from the table and settling him into his carrier, all the while carefully supporting his neck. “And this will keep you warm and snug while I wash your little outfit.”
Even though he was still screeching, I leaned over and kissed the top of his downy head. He smelled good. Like fresh air.
J.B. stopped howling for a second and opened his eyes. When he saw me, he looked scared and started crying again. This time, instead of screaming, it was soft weeping. With tears. Like he was grieving. He broke my heart. I wanted to sob right along with him.
And somehow, I didn’t think this was a problem that a bottle or two of formula was going to solve.
Chapter 11
At eight the next morning, I was on my second pot of coffee. I’d have done better just to run an IV from the pot to my arm.
J.B. never slept more than an hour and a half at a shot. I swear he could sleep and eat at the same time. A couple of times, I fell asleep with him in my arms. When his bottle was empty, he’d start wailing again.
At the beginning of the night, Nick and I took turns with him, dozing in shifts. But between washing bottles, changing diapers, warming formula, burping him, and rocking him, even working as a team, it was all we could do to keep up. Two of us and only one of him. And we were outnumbered.
I was beginning to wonder if his parents had dumped him because they needed a solid night’s sleep. But I was willing to forgive and forget if they’d just come claim him.
Sometime around four a.m., exhaustion and sleep deprivation were seriously affecting our judgment. I actually considered calling our mother for help, while Nick proposed pitching a pup tent in the yard so he could get a nap. And taking Lucy with him.
As I mainlined caffeine this morning, J.B. snoozed in his carrier on the living room table. If he kept to his nocturnal schedule, he’d be up any minute.
Nick had passed out in one of the lawn chairs on the front porch with Lucy at his feet. I didn’t have the heart to wake either of them.
I’d planned to start my new job this morning. Maya had e-mailed my first batch of Aunt Margie letters yesterday. But forget giving advice. I could barely string together three words to form a sentence. And that sentence was “I need coffee.”
How did real parents do it?
Somehow, I didn’t think even Aunt Margie could fix this mess. (And I hazily recalled considering that idea around 4:30 this morning.)
So I chugged coffee and hoped for inspiration to strike. Or a meteor.
When the house phone rang, I dove for the kitchen wall. Too late.
“Wah-wah-wah-waaaaaaah!” I heard from the living room.
“Uh, hello,” I said.
“Jeez, Red, that sounds like a baby.” Trip.
“Really? Must be on your end. I don’t hear it.” I stretched the cord and grabbed my coffee cup, practically pouring the warm liquid straight down my throat.
That’s when I noticed that the yellow T-shirt I’d put on this morning was inside out.
“I’ve got the weekend off,” Trip said. “I was thinking about hitting that new Cajun place in Georgetown. I’ve heard you can make a meal on the dessert cart alone. So naturally I thought of you.”
“I’d love to. But I can’t. I can’t even begin to explain what’s going on over here.”
“Does it involve a four-letter word that begins with ‘B’ and ends with ‘aby’?”
“Yup.”
“Have you had breakfast?” he said.
“At this point, I’m not even sure I had dinner last night.”
“I’ll bring food. Nick around?”
“Crashing on the front porch. Sat down to read the paper and dozed off.”
“A sleeping aid and you can wrap fish in it,” Trip said. “Show me a website that can do all that.”
“Relax. It had nothing to do with the content. He put in a full day baking; then we were both up most of the night. It was kind of an all-hands-on-deck situation.”
“Got it. I’ll be there in an hour with sustenance. By the way, I have some news you’ve got to hear.”
Chapter 12
Turned out the news Trip brought—along with most of Burger King’s breakfast menu—had nothing to do with J.B. or his mother.
“Mira Myles is out,” Trip said as he unwrapped his egg-and-cheese sandwich.
“Out of her mind, more like,” I said, reaching for the ketchup.
“Which one is Mira Myles?” Nick asked, popping potato nuggets into his mouth.
“She’s the one who wrote that column for the Sentinel pretty much claiming that I’d killed my former boss,” I reminded him. “Later totally discredited. She’s also the one who took out the china department of an Arlington home store when her fiancé broke off their engagement.”
“Half the stemware department, too,” Trip prompted.
“Yeah, once she got going, there was a lot of rage there,” I said.
“Oh yeah, I remember seeing the video on the news,” Nick said, smiling. “One of the local bloggers called her the Batshit Bride.”
“That’s the one,” Trip said, slipping Lucy a long strip of crispy bacon. “The boyfriend’s family owns the corporation that owns the Sentinel. But the real news is that Mira’s got it in her head that someone talked her precious Denny into breaking up with her. Someone he chatted with at a bridal registry event.”
“Wait a minute,” Nick said, snapping his fingers. “Was that the thing you dragged me to when you were doing that bridal story? Was that you?”
“Hey, I didn’t talk him into anything. I didn’t even know who his fiancée was. All I said was, if you’re talented enough to win an art scholarship to Florence, the love of your life should be rooting for you. Not discouraging you.”
“Well, she’s loose,” Trip said. “And word has it, she’s looking for revenge.”
“I didn’t even use my own name when I went to that thing. Good luck finding me. Besides, wouldn’t it make more sense to go af
ter Denny? He was nuts about her. She could probably win him back.”
“Can’t leave the jurisdiction,” Trip said. “The home store’s pressing charges. And Denny’s parents had the old family retainer file a restraining order. She can’t come within five hundred yards of any of them or their newspaper offices.”
“Jeez, she lost her job? She was one of the Sentinel ’s stars. Mira sold papers.”
“The way I hear it, one too many questionable stories, plus a very public meltdown that made the news . . . ,” Trip said.
“Plus she made Denny miserable,” I said, troweling strawberry jam onto a buttermilk biscuit.
“Especially that last one,” Trip said. “Anyway, thought you should know.”
“I’d rather know who J.B.’s mom is and when she’s coming to take him home,” I said.
“Amen to that,” Nick said, as he slipped a paper plate loaded with scrambled eggs topped with crumbled bacon in front of Lucy.
She held herself back until he stood up, but her tail was beating double time. The pup loved bacon and eggs. Especially the bacon.
“Unfortunately, I have exactly nothing on that topic,” Trip said. “Zippo, zilch, and nada. One gentleman reported missing two towns over. But he’s seventy-three, and his wife suspects he might have hopped a bus to Atlantic City to gamble and hit the buffets. According to our hard-charging crime reporters, no one else in the wind. And definitely no missing babies.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, and if we’re going to have J.B. in the house for a couple of days, we’re going to need more than diapers and formula,” I said. “I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to wash that little onesie.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “The poor little guy’s been sleeping in his car seat for at least a full day. That’s got to be making him at least a little cranky. What we need is one of those discount baby stores. Like BabyMart or Mega Baby. The blogger moms love those places. Everything you need in one place. And the prices are decent.”
Trip slid his eyes toward me. Clearly a question.
“Hey, the man knows his babies,” I said, reaching for an egg sandwich. “Thanks to him, we got the right size diapers, and we’re not messing up J.B.’s hormones with the wrong kind of bottles. Why don’t we go this morning? There’s a Mega Baby a couple of miles from here. Next to that barbecue joint.”
“Which explains how you know where it is,” Trip said.
“I happened to glance out the window while I was waiting for the cherry cobbler.”
Nick shook his head. “I can’t. I have to run the chocolate chip cookies to my client before noon. And if I wait around and help them clean up after, she’ll cut me a check.”
“I have the day off,” Trip volunteered. “I was planning to sample a four-course Cajun meal from a Michelin-starred chef. But I can skip it for a jaunt to a baby superstore. Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Wait a minute,” I said to Nick. “If you’re visiting a client and we’re hitting the baby store, who’s watching J.B.?”
Nick and I were so tired and loopy, we’d forgotten why we were tired and loopy.
“I can’t take him to the lunch. Schmoozing is part of the job. And what if he needs a bottle or a clean diaper?”
“Relax, Red, we’ll just take him with us,” Trip said. “It’s a baby store. He’ll fit right in.”
“Yeah, but your Corvette doesn’t have a backseat, and J.B. needs to be in the backseat. So we’re gonna have to take the Slutmobile. We can’t take the Slutmobile to the baby store. They’ll think J.B. is a slut-baby.”
My best friend looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Then he shook his head, reached into his pocket, and handed off his keys to Nick. “It has a little storage in the jump seat, and the trunk is spotless. Please do not exceed the speed limit.”
Nick’s face lit up like a five-year-old at Christmas. “Really? Oh, man! Thank you!” He grabbed the keys and practically ran out to the driveway.
“I promise I won’t go over fifty-five,” he called out from the front door. “And I’ll put a tarp down so you don’t have to worry about crumbs. Wait ’til they see me in that shiny red Corvette convertible—my competition is going to plotz. I just hope I run into Simmons.”
Trip looked at me and dropped his voice, “Not literally, right?”
Groping the bottom of the takeout bag, I found one last, lonely tater tot, popped it into my mouth, and shrugged.
Chapter 13
Cherry cobbler or not, there’s no way I could have missed Mega Baby. It took up three-quarters of the upscale shopping center behind the barbecue place. And there was a three-story inflatable baby out front. With a yellow banner proclaiming, “From our bouncing baby to yours.”
“If it was a seafood restaurant, would they have a giant inflatable clam out front?” Trip asked, giving it a gimlet eye.
“If Nick gets his kitchen licensed, maybe we can put a giant inflatable cookie on the front lawn,” I said, swinging Nick’s Hyundai into the closest spot that wasn’t marked RESERVED FOR MOMMA. “I’m thinking a thirty-foot cookie might discourage some of the after-hours visitors.”
“Tacky kitsch as a form of home security? I like it.”
J.B. didn’t care one way or the other. J.B. hadn’t
made a peep since we’d pulled out of the driveway. When I opened the back door, I discovered why: He was sacked out. With a smile on his face. Sweet little guy. Did he think we were taking him home?
He’d fussed when we carried him to the car. I pictured a major wrestling match to get that car seat buckled into the back of Nick’s sporty little Hyundai. But Trip made it look like a sleight-of-hand magic trick. A couple of snaps and both J.B. and his car seat were facing backward and strapped in snug and tight.
What did it mean that the men in my life were better mothers than I was?
“So did you ask Nick if the little guy might be his?” Trip asked.
“Not yet. We’ve kind of had our hands full. Besides, if it was a possibility, don’t you think he’d have said something?”
“He might not know it. You women are a strange and secretive species.”
“I dunno,” I said, pulling a cart from the rack, as Trip settled the carrier with a still sleeping J.B. in the front. “I kinda think there has to be some middle ground between giving birth in secret and dumping your child on the father in the middle of the night. Like suing for child support. Or threatening to tell our mother.”
“I’ve met your mom. That’s definitely the way to go.”
“No lie.”
Mega Baby clearly knew its customer base. There was a bar cart with a giant coffee urn and a stack of hot cups right inside the door. Perfect for zombie moms and dads.
“Ooh, caffeine, I could use some of that,” I said, making a beeline for the table.
“If you and Nick Jr. behave yourselves, we’ll stop for barbecue,” Trip said.
“Do you really think he’s Nick’s?” I asked, dumping three pods of creamer in my coffee. “Does he remind you of Nick?”
“Not really. The eyes are a different color. And he doesn’t have much in the way of hair. But I’m no geneticist. It could be possible.”
I had to admit, that thought stopped me cold. Did I just need a few baby blankets, or should I be registering him for a 529 plan and a good college?
“C’mon, Red,” he said. “It’s like the newsroom. We’ll take it a step at a time. It’ll be OK.”
“You really think so?”
“Hey, you’ve had him more than twenty-four hours and no E.R. visits. He’s fed, he’s clean, and he’s happy.”
“That’s because he’s asleep.”
“Take the win. So what exactly do we need here?”
“We’re all set on diapers, and formula and bottles. But we need something for him to sleep in, and a half dozen of those little onesies. And something that makes him stop crying would be nice.”
“It’s a baby supply store, not a magic
lamp. I think you’re stuck with the crying.”
“Hey, I raided the coffee can in my closet. I have a wallet full of cash, and I’m open to suggestions,” I said.
“In short, their ideal customer. But I’d keep the open wallet part to yourself. So what’s our cover story?”
“I was just going to say we’re watching him for a friend.”
“But you’re stocking up on supplies. And we don’t know his name or how old he is? You might want to practice that story because you’ll probably be repeating it to the cops.”
“OK, his name is J.B. He’s my brother’s baby. And we’re doing this as a surprise, because my brother and his wife are just moving to town.”
“You are surprisingly good at fabricating. As your former editor, should I be worried?”
“That also covers us in case we buy something large and need to have it delivered.”
“You are not buying the giant inflatable baby.”
“I meant like a bed.”
“I believe they call them cribs.”
“I knew that. Hey,” I said, snapping my fingers, “what if J.B.’s mom shopped here? They might be on some kind of registry. The store might even have an address on file. They have these places all over the country.”
“Possible. But without a name, there’d be no way to check.”
“Unless he’s local and someone recognizes him.”
“Not to burst your bubble, but don’t all babies kind of look alike?”
He had a point. At birth, all four of us kids looked nearly identical. Like little old men. Even Annie. Dad claimed we looked like his father—our grandpa Vlodnachek. I’ve seen the family photos. Unfortunately, he was right.
“OK, but I wanna see what this car seat sells for. If they only sell a few of them, that could be a lead.”
“OK, Nancy Drew,” he said, picking up a onesie that was styled to look like a tuxedo. “Hey, check this out. You could take J.B. to your next cocktail party.”
“Oh, he would look cute. How much?”