“You,” he said, pointing at me, pinning me to the chair, “are going to say nothing. To anyone. And we—” he waggled his finger between us “—are going to date.”
I laughed so hard I had to put a hand under my belly. And here I thought Carter didn’t have a sense of humor.
“I’m not kidding,” he said, stone-cold serious.
“You’ve got to be!” I cried. “There’s no way in the world anyone is going to believe that I am dating you!”
His face hardened, a cold mask that chilled me from across the room. Cruel and distant, his eyes raked me, pulled off my clothes, my skin.
Got it, I thought, pulling the tutu and mug against my chest as if the pig and the silk might keep me warm against the chill of him. You wouldn’t date me if I was the last woman alive. Message received.
“Then why do this?” I asked, my voice a little shaky.
“Because,” he said, “you’ve made me and this administration a laughingstock and the only way to bring back any legitimacy is to put our heads up and pretend like it was a bump in the road.”
“What road?”
“Our road.”
“We don’t have a road! I stood up on a chair and…” I blinked, shook my head, something awful occurring to me. “People are going to think this baby is yours.”
He stared at me as if I’d grown two heads. “They already do,” he said. “And no one, no matter what we say, or whatever letter you write is going to believe otherwise.”
“So how about we don’t do anything. We lie low—”
“The news crew that’s been following me around all day followed me here. They’re camped out on your front lawn.”
“What?” I cried, whirling in my seat to peer through the light green sheers over my window. “Oh, my God,” I whispered. He was right. A camera crew was loitering right in front of the main entrance to my loft building, smashing the bougainvillea Tootie Vogler had planted last year.
This is not good.
“Did they see you come in?” I asked, my voice so high it practically scraped the ceiling.
“They followed me, Zoe.”
“You can leave out the back!” I cried. “Plead the fifth if anyone asks. Just pretend—”
“I’m a public official,” he interrupted. “I can’t lie low, and if this isn’t addressed in some way, the speculation will only grow. And I can’t let that happen,” he said. “I won’t.”
For the first time in the brief twenty-four hours I’d known him, he seemed human. The ice in his blue eyes melted and revealed something vulnerable, as if he had something he cared about and might lose in this whole farce. His job.
“You like your job?” I asked.
He blinked, and after a long moment, he nodded. “I love my job. I have…work I want to do for this city.”
Ah, man, why couldn’t he go on being a jerk? Now I was totally sunk—I couldn’t be responsible for him losing his job.
“So we date?” I asked, still dubious.
He nodded. “We’ll tell people I met you at one of the community center informational meetings. That I fell for your—”
Beauty? Charm? Too-big heart?
“Quirkiness. Your…ah…offbeat sense of humor. We’ll tell them that stunt on the chair was your idea of a joke. Not a good one, but a joke. For a few months, we go on some very public dates. We get our photos taken and then you dump me.”
Dumping him, I liked the sound of that. “What if I was married? Or in a relationship—like you said—”
“I knew you weren’t married,” he said. “But if you were involved in some other more informal relationship, our research might not have—”
“Research?” I interrupted, a cold chill spreading down my arms and across my chest. I stood, a toe shoe falling out of my hands, and I reeled it back in by the ribbon, reluctant to lose any of my armor. “You researched me?”
“Of course.” He sounded as if he researched all of his dates. As if it made perfect sense.
“What exactly do you know?” I asked. “About me.”
“You’re thirty-seven, single.” He arched one of those imperial blond eyebrows. “You were raised by Penny Madison, a single mother who works for the post office. You are—I guess were—a dancer. You recently moved back to Baton Rouge from Houston.” I held my breath, a cold sweat blooming across my back. Was this happening? Did he know? Was my secret in a file somewhere, discussed at a meeting as though it was nothing? A bubble of nausea burned up my throat.
“You teach dance classes to kids and grandparents,” he said, leaving Houston and my secret behind. “And obviously…you’re…ah…pregnant,” he said, gesturing, embarrassed, at my belly, as if I were carrying a Shih Tzu in a dress instead of a baby.
“That’s all?” I asked.
“Is there something more I need to know?” His blue eyes narrowed, sharp as knives.
“No.” I edged around the blue couch to get as far away from him as possible. Unbelievably, I still felt the warmth from his body, like a distant sun. “That’s my life,” I muttered, wondering how something so full could be reduced to a few lines.
It occurred to me I didn’t know anything about him. Not his age, not where he grew up. The lack of knowledge felt lopsided, but it’s not as if it would ever occur to me to have him researched. Vetted.
I didn’t work that way.
I looked at him, the compelling stillness of him, the cool of his eyes and the fine bones of his face. He was like nobility or something, a man removed from the messy realities of the kind of life I lived. Who looked, honestly, pained to be here with me. As if he were barely holding back all the disdain he felt.
This wasn’t going to work. There was simply no way anyone would believe we liked each other, desired each other, respected each other—not for a minute.
“I know I made a mistake,” I said. “I’m—” I swallowed and shook my head “—prone to that kind of thing, but look at you. You can barely stand to be here and, frankly, I don’t like you being here. No one is going to believe that we’re in a relationship.”
Carter wiped his face and sat down on the edge of my coffee table. His knees a few inches from my legs, the edge of my silk robe trembled as if trying to get closer. “Look, we go out on a few dates. Get our picture taken. We make it…convincing.”
“Convincing?” I squealed, wondering if that was code for sex. “I’m not sleeping with you.”
He rolled his eyes. “We go to dinner, smile at each other. We hold hands.”
“Hold hands?” I laughed. “Like we’re teenagers? That’s not going to convince anyone.”
His hand, big and warm, stroked the kung fu grip I had on my tutu. His thumb surfed the bumps of my knuckles and his fingers found my pulse, which jackhammered against my skin.
Touch. Warmth. He had calluses on the tips of his fingers, and the abrasion sent little shock waves through my body, waking up the parts of me that were hibernating during my long cold winter. Oh, lord, it had been so long.
My blood slowed, turned to honey, as desire warmed in my belly.
The mug fell from my hand, thumping onto the carpet.
“I think we can make it work,” he said, pulling his hand away and standing up, crossing to the far side of the room.
Golden sunlight burned through the windows, setting him aglitter. He was truly the most handsome man I’d ever seen, and that was saying something. It wasn’t as though the Houston Ballet Company was filled with trolls.
Awareness and embarrassment buzzed through me, and I bent to pick up Sir Piggy as if the dollar store mug were my most prized possession.
The silence between us hummed, loud and awkward. He watched me, quiet. Waiting. But not smug—if he’d been smug, I would have chucked Sir Piggy right at his head.
But still, this reaction of mine, it wouldn’t do. Not while he stood there, calm and collected, as unmoved by me as he’d been when he’d walked in the door.
“Okay,” I said brightly, as if I
weren’t shaken down to my feet. “Public hand-holding it is. When do we start?”
“Tonight,” he said, and my stomach plummeted. I’d been hoping for a few days, some time to get my head around this. To warn my mom and Phillip.
“What do I tell my friends?” I asked. “My mom?”
“Nothing would be best.”
“That’s…that’s not possible. They’ll know this baby isn’t yours. That we’re not…together.”
“That reporter—Jim Blackwell—he’ll be all over your life, and that includes your family and friends. The less they know, the easier it will be on them.”
Well, I thought, what was one more secret to keep from my mom. “All right. So where are we going tonight?”
“Bola,” he said, naming the fancy steak house that had opened downtown a few months ago.
Nope. Uh-uh. Not going to happen. I would fake-date him anywhere but there. “I’ve heard it’s awful,” I lied.
He shook his head. “From who? The food there is amazing.”
“Well, if it’s amazing food you want, I know of a great soul food place down on River—”
“The point is to be seen by people,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid. “Get our photo taken.”
“But Bola has cockroaches,” I whispered, as if Zagat were in the room with us. “In the kitchen.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” he asked. “Because I really do not get your sense of humor. We’re going to Bola.”
Of course, I thought, resignation like a brick settling in my stomach. Maybe, if I was lucky, Phillip wouldn’t be working.
At least the food would be good, I thought, happy to see a bright side. This baby loved steak. I, of course, loved it dipped in cream cheese, but I would try to control myself.
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said.
“That won’t work. I teach until seven and then… well, I’ll need to get ready. Eight at the earliest.” More like seven-fifteen at the earliest, but he didn’t need to know that and he certainly didn’t need to have every single thing go his way.
He nodded. “Eight then.”
I managed to smile as if this were a real date, something to look forward to. “Eight it is.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, I thought, watching his long lean body cross the floor of my apartment. He was handsome, wealthy—at least I’d be able to eat a whole lot of steak in the next few months. Plus, he could hold hands better than most men made love. If I could just keep myself together and he managed to not be an autocratic ass, maybe everything would be all right.
Of course, there was Phillip to consider now, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“Try to wear something appropriate,” he said.
And with that little ego crusher, he was gone.
4
I was running late. As usual. And Mom was not helping.
“No,” I said, tucking the phone between my ear and my shoulder and locking the door behind me. I clicked on the lamp by the door and a puddle of warm light spread around me. “Mom, we’re not…serious.”
“But that thing in the paper, and now this? Dinner?”
“Yes, Mom, it’s just dinner.”
“At Bola? That’s not just dinner.”
“It is. It’s just a fancy dinner.” A fancy dinner that required a fancy dress. “He’s sort of a…fancy guy.” I winced; that wasn’t right at all. He was the opposite. He was stark and serious. Fancy like a rock face, maybe. Or an oak tree. I ran to my bedroom, shedding clothes as I went. Yoga pants—my pregnancy uniform—just weren’t going to cut it tonight.
“And how long has this been going on?”
I rolled my eyes and pulled open the accordion doors to my closet. “Not long,” I said, yanking the ribbon attached to the small chain on my overhead light. I was trying to be vague, like Carter had told me, but my mom was a hound dog. “A month, maybe. Honestly, we’re just friends.”
“Honey, why didn’t you say something? I thought…” Penny trailed off, her voice leaving behind a little wake of pain mixed with guilt.
A delightful combination that my mother specialized in.
I sighed and sat down on the mess of pillows and blankets I called a bed. I quickly bounced up and pulled a cereal bowl out from the duvet before settling back down. I didn’t like lying to my mother, and I really didn’t like hurting her, but at some point there needed to be some distance. Some breathing room.
Not for the first time, I doubted my decision to come back to Baton Rouge to have this baby.
“I mean, you used to tell me everything. But recently, you’re so different. The baby—”
I didn’t want to talk about the baby with my mom. Not again. For four solid months it had been all we talked about, and now the subject was closed. Closed.
“Mom, listen to me. I sort of blew it with the whole standing on the chair thing, and now we have to go public. It’s not a big deal.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I took a deep breath and jumped right into the new cold waters that swirled between us. “You know why, Mom.”
“You’re going to be a single mother, Zoe. Dating isn’t—”
“And there you go,” I said, standing up and wiggling out of my bra. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I don’t need another chapter from your How To Be A Single Mother textbook.”
There was a pause, the silence long and slow, like colliding with an iceberg, and I bit my lip to keep from apologizing. I was right on this.
“Do you like him?” Mom asked, her voice quiet. “Is he nice to you?”
I nearly laughed. Nice? Carter O’Neill? The word simply did not apply. “Of course.”
“All right, just…be careful with yourself, honey.”
“I will. I have to go, Mom. Bye.” I hung up and tossed the phone on the bed.
I approached my closet like Napoleon taking over a battlefield. None of my pants fit, and I didn’t have the money for new special maternity ones, so I shoved aside a small quadrant of black, white and denim pants. It wasn’t a terribly formal sort of place so I pushed away the turquoise beaded gown and the black sheath from my days at the Houston Ballet. Ballerinas needed gowns for those fundraiser things, but why I still kept them I had no idea. Well, they were glittery and I did like glitter.
“This is a disaster,” I moaned, flicking hangers back and forth, contemplating my pink cowboy shirt with the lassoing hearts. There was the red-and-white maternity tent dress my mother had bought me a few days ago, which honestly made me look like a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant. I pushed aside a few cardigans and dug way back into my closet, my stomach sinking farther and farther into my feet.
I wanted to look good tonight. Smokin’, even. Because Carter had mocked me and had made my heart flip over in my chest when he’d held my hand.
The combination stung like salt in a wound.
But it didn’t look like glamorous me was going to make an appearance tonight. Or any other night for the foreseeable future. I was five months pregnant, a political prisoner of my own making, and I was attracted to the stone-cold warden.
Wedged into the back of my closet between my old prom dress and the remnants of my flapper phase, I found a clear plastic garment bag.
Sunshine dawned in my dark loft as I pulled out the hot pink raw silk A-line dress. A few years ago in Houston, I’d fallen in love with this dress, with its big red and yellow appliqué roses on the short hem, its bold color, and the way it made my legs look about a million miles long. The only problem was that it had been a little too big and I’d meant to have it altered, but kept forgetting.
Thank God.
I tore open the bag and pulled the dress over my head, shimmying it down around my belly and hips. I stepped sideways into the full-length mirror and squealed with delight. A little tight around the belly, but I was pregnant, what could one expect?
But the rest of it, oh the rest of it…perfect. The big collar clasped around my neck, a flo
ppy silk rose beneath my chin. My arms were bare, so I slid on a few silver bangles. And then a few more.
Shoes. Shoes would be an issue. My swollen feet begged for the low sandals with the fabulous gemstones, but I remembered how tall Carter was, how he seemed to tower over me, and I reached way into the back for my black, secondhand Chanel stilettos.
Yes, I thought, admiring herself in the mirror. Oh. Yes. I pliéd, dipped. Tried to arabesque, but the seams wouldn’t allow it. I felt beautiful in this dress.
Lush and womanly and sophisticated.
Like a woman who owned my life.
I could do this. I could go on this date and hold hands and smile at a man who didn’t like me at all. In this dress, I could do anything.
The walls of my apartment shuddered as someone pounded on my door. It could only be one person and I clapped.
“Eat your heart out, Carter O’Neill,” I whispered and mini jetéd, as best I could, to the door.
CARTER
* * *
“I’ll try to be there, Savannah,” I said into my cell phone as I brushed the rain off my jacket.
“You’re lying, Carter,” my sister said. “I can tell. I can always tell. Honestly, why do you bother trying?”
I smiled, staring up at the ceiling. I liked it when my little sister called me on my bullshit; it made me feel closer to her, as though it was ten years ago and she still needed me to protect her.
I remembered her a year after our mom had left us on Margot’s doorstep. Savannah had come into my room in the middle of the night, her voice a whisper, her hand against my arm a hot little puddle.
“She’s not coming back, is she?” she asked, moonlight turning her eyes black. “Mom’s left us here.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, though I knew. Of course I knew. But I didn’t want to hurt her.
“You’re lying,” she said. “You’re always lying to me.”
Suddenly, in this hallway, I felt a million miles from my sister. From my family. From the man I was. And it was my own fault. Every time I tried to protect them I ended up putting more than miles between us.
The Saint Page 4