A screaming siren hurtles past, weaving through traffic on the wide boulevard. An eastbound number seven train rumbles into the elevated station across the way, brakes squealing.
It’ll be at least fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour before the next one comes through at this time of night.
She can’t take the subway anyway. She’d have to change trains at Queensborough Plaza; it would take hours. Nina checks the pockets of her maternity jeans for cab money as her eyes search among the passing cars for a taxicab. Several pass, all of them off-duty or occupied.
Home . . . bed . . . sleep. . .
Teeth chattering, she wonders if she’s ever been this miserable in her entire life.
A trio of tipsy businessmen in suits and green ties pass by her.
“Hey, are you okay?” one of them pauses to ask as his friend opens the door of the bar.
Nina nods. “I’m fine,” she says weakly, wondering if they think she had too much to drink. That would explain the disgusted expression on their faces as they notice her pregnant stomach.
They enter the bar, leaving her alone on the street once again.
Nina feels the baby stirring within her. She presses her hands against her belly, pressing gently over the spot she imagines contains a miniature foot kicking.
It’s okay, little one. I’ll get us home. I’ll make sure I keep you safe. Don’t worry, Mama’s here.
The phrase has popped into her head out of nowhere, and she pushes it right back out again.
Mama is not here.
She is not Mama.
The door opens again, spilling music and laughter out onto the street.
“Nina?”
“Joey . . .”
Thank God. It’s Joe. He’ll take care of her. He’ll get her home.
“Are you okay?”
She nods, grateful for the concern in his eyes; grateful for him. “I just want to go home, okay, Joey? I’m not feeling good, and I’m . . . I’m tired.”
To her horror, she’s crying.
“Okay, sweetheart.” He’s wrapping something warm and dry around her; her coat. “I’ll bring you home. Come on, let’s get a cab.”
“There aren’t any.” She sniffles.
“Sure, there are. There’s one.” He steps to the curb, raising his arm.
Moments later, they’re in a warm cab hurtling along the boulevard. Nina is slumped against Joe, his arm around her, making her feel safe. Sitar music plays softly on the radio and the turbaned driver hums along.
“Maybe you should call the doctor,” Joe says, after a few minutes.
“I’m better already,” Nina tells him. “It was just so hot and smoky in there. It got to me.”
“Barb said you felt like you were coming down with something.”
“I don’t know, maybe I am. Cara has the flu. If I’m not better tomorrow, I’ll call Dr. Sanjna.”
“You promise? Because I’m not going to be around to make you do it, Nina.”
“I promise.”
She leans her aching head against his warm shoulder, closing her eyes.
“Thanks for taking care of me, Joey,” she murmurs.
“I want to, Nina. You’ve always taken care of me . . . and everybody else.” He pats her damp hair. “I’ll always be here for you, Nina. You know that, right?”
She nods, longing to say the same thing back to him, but she can’t bring herself to do it. It wouldn’t be true . . . and Joe would know that as well as she does.
So she says nothing at all, just stares through the rain-splattered window into the stormy night.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, if you’re seated on the right-hand side of the plane, you may be able to see Newport, Rhode Island’s famous oceanfront mansions below us in just a few moments,” the pilot’s voice announces over the intercom.
“Oh, bully for them,” says the woman seated by the window to Joe’s left.
He glances up from this morning’s Wall Street Journal, which he never did get to read while he was waiting in the airport. He tried, but couldn’t focus. His thoughts kept drifting back to Nina.
She looked so wan and delicate last night . . . so unlike her usual breezy, robust self.
“Wonder what we get to see on the left-hand side of the plane?” Joe’s aisle-mate asks. “A couple of bloody strip malls? Or perhaps a budget motel?”
He chuckles. “Maybe you can bribe somebody over there to switch window seats.”
“That’s all right. The other aisles are mostly full, and I’d much rather stay here with this lovely empty seat beside me, and you on the other side of it—now that you’ve decided to stop brooding or reading or whatever it is that you’ve been doing for the last hour.”
“Actually, a little of both,” Joe admits, setting the paper on the empty seat. Truth be told, he barely glanced at his aisle-mate when they boarded the shuttle to Boston.
Now he gives her a quick once-over and sees that she’s very pretty. Stunning, really—a svelte brunette with high cheekbones and blue eyes. The English accent is intriguing—and so is the fact that she isn’t wearing a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.
That he has checked at all leaves Joe feeling a little unsettled. It’s been months since he’s instinctively looked at an attractive woman’s hand to make sure she’s available.
Nina told you to get busy dating and find a wife, he reminds himself. And he knows that finding somebody to love would be the best way to put Nina behind him—and fill the aching void she’s going to leave when she goes away.
But until now, he hasn’t had the time—or, okay, the heart—to even think about dating.
“I’m Elizabeth.” The woman extends her hand across the vacant seat between them. There’s no doubt that she’s interested. He can tell by her body language; the tilt of her shoulders toward him, the way she shakes her long hair back, her lingering handshake.
“I’m Joe,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a financial analyst. What do you do?”
“As of two weeks ago, I’m an equities broker in Manhattan. I just moved there. I’m headed to Boston for a conference.”
“So am I. Which one?”
If it’s the same conference, Joe decides, it’s some sort of sign.
Turns out, it isn’t the same conference. That they’re going to be staying in hotels a few blocks apart in the Back Bay isn’t fateful enough, as far as Joe’s concerned, for him to ask her out. Yet.
“Where are you from originally, Elizabeth?”
“Mobile, Alabama,” she says, deadpan—then laughs at his expression. “I’m from England, actually.”
He grins. “No kidding! So am I.”
“Really. That’s odd. You sound more like a New Yorker to me.”
“Hey, you’re good. And it looks like we have something in common.”
“Oh? You’re good, too?” she asks, with a provocative arch to her pencil-darkened brows.
“No, I meant . . . Queens.” As soon as he says it, he groans inwardly. He’s definitely out of practice when it comes to witty banter with beautiful strangers.
“Queens? We have Queens in common?”
“Yes. You have one, and I live there.”
To his surprise, she laughs.
“Wow. If you think that’s funny, you would have loved me in the old days, before my sense of humor was this rusty.”
“Oh, really? What seems to be the problem now?”
“I’ve just had a lot on my mind,” he confesses to this total stranger.
“Oh? Let me guess. Your wife turned all your boxer shorts pink in the laundry? Your daughter is dating a punk? Your son lost his retainers again?”
He smiles. “No wife. No daughter. No son.”
Yet.
“Fiancée?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No again.” He toys with the tray table lever in front of him.
Don’t think of Nina. Not now.
But he can’t help it.
Sitting here, chatting with another woman, feels vaguely wrong. As though he’s being unfaithful to Nina . . . who, he reminds himself, urged him to start dating again in the first place.
But she certainly didn’t have an exotic creature like this English Elizabeth in mind. And neither did Joe.
In fact, Joe hasn’t yet reconciled himself to the fact that he should get back out there and play the field. Being with Nina was enough for him.
Being with Nina was comfortable, and cozy, and everything his relationships with other women have never been.
That’s because you and Nina weren’t in a relationship. You were indulging each other in a time when both of you were lonely, and needy. And now those days are over.
“You don’t look so sure about that.”
“Hmm?” He looks over at Elizabeth.
“About the girlfriend. You don’t look entirely convinced that you don’t have one.”
“Well, the thing is, I have a friend who—”
He breaks off as a face pops up in front of him. A miniature, chubby, crumb-covered face that belongs to a toddler seated in the next row.
“Why, hello,” Elizabeth says, smiling.
“Heh-whoa,” the child says, and pokes its small thumb into its rosebud mouth.
“What’s your name?”
The thumb comes out only long enough for the child to say, “It’s Mo-ah-gan.”
“Morgan? That’s a beautiful name,” Elizabeth says.
“It is. It’s a legendary name.” Joe can’t tell whether it’s a boy or a girl. The child’s head is covered in silky blond ringlets. “Did you ever hear of Captain Morgan, the pirate?” Joe asks the toddler.
He’s met by a solemn head-shake, followed by a parent’s admonishing voice in the next row. The child disappears abruptly.
“I’ve heard of Captain Morgan, the pirate,” Elizabeth informs him. “And the spiced rum, as well. It’s lovely with pineapple juice.”
“Is it?”
All right, she soooo wants him to ask her out for a drink.
Now what?
“Oh, yes, it’s delicious,” she says, wetting her lips with a languid tongue.
Ask her out.
But she’s an equities broker, not an aspiring mom . . .
Or is she?
She was friendly to little Morgan, points out the part of Joe that finds her alluring in other, distinctly non-maternal ways.
The rest of him—the part that can’t seem to forget that he’s about to become somebody’s daddy, retorts, And that’s proof that she would make a good mother? Just because she didn’t tell the kid to sit down and turn around in her seat the way Amanda might have?
She comes right out and asks, “Do you have plans this evening?”
“This evening? Er . . . yes. Yes, I do.”
Liar.
“Oh,” she says, deflated. “That’s a shame.”
It is. It is a shame.
Here is an alluring, available woman with whom he has something in common.
They work in the same industry. They live in the same city. She’s tolerant of other people’s children. And . . . they’re both spending a few days in Boston.
Maybe it is fate, Joe tells himself, pushing aside his lingering guilt—and a maddeningly persistent image of Nina’s face.
She’s the one who told you to date again. Remember?
Yeah. And . . .
Hell. She’s the one who’s leaving. She’s never wavered about that. Not for a moment. Not after becoming pregnant. Not after spending all those hours, all those nights, with Joe. Making love.
No, Nina’s not going to change her mind.
But Joe can.
He turns to Elizabeth. “You know, I am free tomorrow night . . .”
Chapter Eighteen
“NINA?” GRANDMA CHICKALINI’S voice calls from the dining room.
Nina stops stirring the pot of linguine bubbling on the stove, closing her eyes and bracing herself for the inevitable.
Now what? Grandma has been here for an hour. So far, she’s complained about the fact that Pop sent a car service to pick her up instead of driving her himself, about the traffic on the Triborough Bridge, and about the electronic EZ-Pass toll machine malfunctioning and how things were much simpler in the old days when we relied on people and not robots.
Then she went on and on about the cold, rainy weather until Nina finally snapped, “Well, what the heck do you expect on March nineteenth? Ninety degrees and sunshine?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Grandma looked so hurt.
Nina apologized, of course. She tried to explain that she’s just exhausted and irritable from all the cooking and cleaning to prepare for tonight’s feast. And that she’s been trying to fight off some kind of flu bug for the past few days.
“Nina?”
“In here, Grandma . . .”
Where else would I be?
Nina’s been in the kitchen, on her feet, since five o’clock this morning, aside from the hour it took her to set the table and create a small altar on the buffet with a statue of Saint Joseph, flowers, stalks of wheat, dry pasta and beans, and flickering votive candles. And of course, the half dozen sweet, braided loaves she painstakingly created yesterday.
“Your breads look beautiful.”
“They do?”
“Yes. You finally figured out how to get that nice glossy crust without making it too dark. Your mother would have been proud.”
Mommy.
Nina swallows a swell of emotion along with her irritation.
“I spent years trying to show her how to get it right. Your other grandmother had tried to teach her, but . . .” Grandma waves her hand as if to say, What did she know? “I showed her my way, and she caught on after awhile. Your loaves look just like mine. Just like hers. And you, Nina . . . you look like her. Especially pregnant. Did you know that?”
She nods slowly.
Mommy’s been on her mind constantly these past few days. Maybe it’s because she still remembers her mother bustling around the house just as she has been, preparing for the elaborate St. Joseph’s Day feast.
Or maybe it’s just that she isn’t feeling well, and Joe’s gone, and she longs for somebody to lean on.
Her grandmother squints behind her thick bifocals. “Nina, you look flushed. Are you feeling all right?”
“It’s just warm in here, Grandma,” she says, gesturing at the steamed-over windows. “And the oven is on, and I’ve been standing over the stove.”
To punctuate the point, she grabs the spatula and tosses the greens that are sauteeing in garlic and oil.
Grandma isn’t satisfied with that. “No. You just don’t look good.”
Surprise, surprise. I don’t feel good, either.
“Maybe you should go lie down, Nina.”
Lie down? A half hour before everyone is expected to arrive for the elaborate meatless feast? Soup, fish, three different pastas, an assortment of elaborate vegetable and legume dishes . . .
Lie down.
Yeah, sure.
“Where’s Rosalee?” Grandma tastes the simmering lentil soup and smacks her lips several times. “Something’s missing. Too bland.”
Nina manages to swallow the words she’d like to say, instead telling her grandmother, “Ro’s at the restaurant helping Pop.”
“What about your brothers?” Grandma grabs the salt shaker, dumping a generous amount into the soup pot. “Why aren’t they working wit
h your father so that Rosalee can be here, helping you?”
“Dom couldn’t get away from midterms, and Ralphie’s busy at school.”
She isn’t about to tell her grandmother he’s in detention. All she needs is for Grandma to start in on him when he shows up. He didn’t want to come home for dinner tonight as it is.
Ralphie’s been making himself more scarce than usual these last few days. Something is clearly troubling him, and Nina has been so preoccupied with cooking, cleaning, and just generally feeling lousy that she hasn’t had the energy to figure out what that might be.
She sets aside the spatula and presses her fingertips against her throbbing temples. Her headache has been worsening all day, and the Tylenol she allowed herself to take for it earlier hasn’t helped.
“You’re lucky I’m here, Nina. I’ll help you.” Grandma plucks a jar of dried oregano from the spice rack and marches back toward the soup pot with a purposeful gleam in her eye. As she dumps some of the dried green herb in to the pot, she glances down at Nina’s hand and says, “No engagement ring yet?”
“Nope.”
Tell her. Tell her right now that you’re not going to marry Joe. That the baby will be his, and not both of yours. Not yours at all.
“With all the money Joe Materi makes, I would think he’d have marched right out and bought you the biggest diamond at Tiffany’s.”
For God’s sake, tell her.
Nina rubs her forehead. The ache is growing worse.
“Go lie down, Nina. You shouldn’t be on your feet so long.”
“You’re the one who should be upstairs lying down, Grandma,” Nina protests. “You had a big trip.” And you’re driving me out of my freaking mind.
“Big trip? Pfft. I’m fine. I miss cooking. I miss a lot of things.”
So do I.
Nina closes her eyes briefly. When she opens them, her vision seems blurred. Only slightly, but . . .
Warning bells go off in her head.
Wasn’t this supposed to be one of the warning signs of preeclampsia?
Did she remember to take her blood pressure this morning before she started cooking?
She doesn’t think so. She was so incredibly tired. It was all she could do to drag herself out of bed when Yank started barking to be let out.
The Nine Month Plan Page 27