by Emma Quinn
Maria shook her head.
“Jesus, Maria. Say something,” said Jack.
Maria raised an eyebrow. “Lottie is used to living without you,” she said roughly. “She’ll last a lot longer than six weeks. You’d better get used to it.”
Jack blinked. Maria had never been so blunt to him before. He sighed, looking down at the bruised chive he’d been rolling between his fingers. Then he groaned, slumping forward and burying his face into his hands.
“What am I going to do?” he asked through his fingers. He raised his head a little to look at Maria. “I can’t really blame Lottie. I still miss her too,” he admitted.
Maria looked up from the pizza dough she was forming. She sighed. “There’s something I should have told you, Jack,” she said softly.
Jack frowned, sitting up straighter. “What?”
Maria toyed with the dough in front of her. “The day that the ring went missing, Eleanor came by the house.”
“What?” Jack asked again, this time a little angrily.
“She said she’d forgotten her scarf the day before. You remember? She came by to talk to you.”
“I remember,” said Jack.
“Well, I let her in. She does have a habit of leaving things lying around,” Maria pointed out. “I didn’t really think anything of it. She came back downstairs with one of those printed Hermes silk things she’s so fond of and left. But…the longer I think about it…the more I think that I would be much less surprised to learn that Eleanor stole that ring, not Alana. I honestly don’t think Alana had any idea what was going on. She’s not that good an actor.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Jack asked.
Maria looked down at the counter. “Because you knew that I didn’t like Eleanor and there was the ring in Alana’s bag. I didn’t want to go around accusing people just because I don’t like them. But maybe it would be worth looking into.”
“Shit,” said Jack, pulling out his phone. Standing up, he headed outside, angrily pacing through the rose bushes – now wrapped in burlap to keep them warm through the winter. The pale winter sun was starting to set and the air was cold. But Jack was so angry he didn’t even notice.
“Jack!” Eleanor greeted him happily. “It’s so good to hear from you.”
“Did you steal my mother’s ring?” Jack asked bluntly, trying to keep from yelling in anger.
Eleanor was silent on the other end. Then, in a tight, high voice, she replied, “What ring, Jack? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying,” Jack said incredulously, recognizing her tone of voice. “The emerald engagement ring you liked so much. Did you take it to frame Alana?”
“I—no, Jack, you don’t understand. I just—I didn’t—How—”
But Jack had heard enough. He hung up without another word. “Fuck,” he said to the roses. They said nothing, just bobbed gently in the breeze. “Fuck!” he said again and went inside.
“It was Eleanor!” he said as he came inside.
“Oh, Jack. I’m so sorry. I should have said something sooner,” said Maria.
Jack shook his head. “No, it’s my own damn fault. I should have listened to Alana. I shouldn’t have just attacked her like that. God, I’m such a fool!”
Maria came over and laid a hand on his arm. “Maybe it’s not too late,” she said.
Jack looked at her. “Do you think?” he asked, his voice hopeful.
“Go to her, Jack,” said Maria.
Without another word, Jack dialed another number. “Hello, yes, this is Jack Menuda. I need to speak to Anita Hart. Right away. Yes, right away.”
“I need to get in touch with Alana,” said Jack without preamble when Anita finally picked up.
“Alana doesn’t work for us anymore, Mr. Menuda,” Anita said. “You had her blacklisted, remember? She left town.”
“What?” Jack asked, horrified.
“Well, she couldn’t find work here in Boston and her father needs another surgery on his back. So she moved somewhere she could get work.”
“Her father needs surgery?” Jack asked, shocked. “She never told me that.”
“Well, nannies don’t usually share their private life with their employers,” Anita pointed out. “It’s not very professional.”
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “What happened to him?” he asked.
“Work accident, I think. His employer refused to cover it on some insurance technicality, from what I remember. Anyway, the two girls have been supporting him for the last few years. I think this was supposed to be his last surgery though.”
“Do you have his number?” Jack asked.
Anita paused. “That’s private information, Mr. Menuda. I’m not at liberty to—”
“I screwed up,” Jack interrupted her. “I accused Alana of something she didn’t do. And I was—I am in love with her. So I overreacted because I was hurt and now I’ve cost her her job and her father’s health and I had no idea and my daughter won’t speak to me because of all this and I need to make this better. I owe her.” The words came out in a rush. Jack hadn’t been intending to admit that much to Anita.
Anita was silent on the other end of the line. Finally she said, “The last I heard was that Alana had moved out west. To California, I think. And you can reach her father at 555-323-6441. Good luck, Mr. Menuda.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” said Jack as he hung up.
Maria raised her eyebrows.
“I’ve got some calls to make,” said Jack. “Tell Lottie I love her but I won’t make it for dinner.”
Maria nodded. “I will,” she said.
Alana had been staring down at the little stick in her hand for a full minute when the chime on the front door tinkled and broke through her horror. Customers had arrived.
Alana pressed her eyes closed, tossed the little plastic stick in the bin next to the toilet and quickly washed her hands, drying them on her apron as she went out.
“Hello!” she greeted them cheerfully as she came around the bar of the little diner. It was ten minutes to closing. Please God, she thought. Please let them just order coffee.
They did. But they took their time drinking it. Tom, the cook, clocked off, leaving Alana alone with nothing but the two stragglers and a single, unending thought for company: Oh God, I’m pregnant.
Finally, the couple drained the dregs of their coffees and slowly – so slowly – made their way to the door.
“Have a great night!” she called after them with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. They ignored her and headed out into the warm Santa Barbara evening.
“You’d think people would be a little nicer while they’re on vacation,” she said to the empty restaurant. “I mean, they’re just hanging around enjoying themselves all day. What’s there to be grumpy about?”
No one answered her and Alana sighed, blowing her new bangs out of her eyes. New city, new job(s), new haircut, she’d decided. She’d thought maybe it would help ease the transition. It hadn’t.
Picking up a damp cleaning cloth, she crossed to the abandoned table and began to stack the dishes. On the stereo, a gentle folk song was playing, some woman with a low voice and a guitar singing about California. It soothed Alana, but not enough. Looking down at her hands, she could see they were shaking.
When she’d come out to California a month ago, she hadn’t planned on working as a waitress, serving spray-tanned, nitpicky tourists. She’d been hoping to find work as a nanny. And she had. And, while her new family was very kind, they weren’t as well-off as her east coast employers had been. They only needed her during the day until the parents came home from work, so, to supplement her income, Alana had taken on the evening shifts at a local restaurant. It wasn’t great, but it was fine. And with her father’s final surgery coming up, they needed all the money they could get.
At the thought of her father, Alana sat down at the table she was cleaning and put her head in her hands. She’d never
been away from her sister and father for this long before. Even though she’d lived with other families in Boston, she’d always been able to visit. Santa Barbara wasn’t a big city but she felt lost and lonely here on her own. She kept turning corners and wanting to point something out to Lottie, only to remember, again, that the girl was lost to her.
So, she’d already been having a bad month. And now this. A baby. Jack’s baby.
When she’d first moved to Santa Barbara, Alana had written off her missing period as stress, but two no-shows was too much. She’d bought a pregnancy test, hoping to prove herself wrong.
“Oh God, what the hell am I going to do?” Alana groaned to the empty restaurant, burying her face in her hands. She could barely support herself and her family as it was, never mind another mouth to feed.
Alana felt a tear trickle down her cheek and sniffed, trying to pull herself together. She still had to get the restaurant cleaned up before she could finally go home and sleep. Now was not the time to be falling to pieces. She could do that on the bus home.
The doorbell tinkled and Alana quickly straightened, smoothing the colorful apron that covered her dress. “Sorry,” she said as she stood, “we’re—”
But Alana was so shocked by the person standing in the doorway that she couldn’t finish her sentence.
“Hi,” said Jack, giving her a sheepish smile.
“I…you…” said Alana faintly, and promptly sat back down again. “What are you doing here?”
Jack let the door shut behind him and quickly crossed to where Alana was sitting. “I came to apologize.”
“What?” Alana said, still feeling totally at a lost.
“I was wrong,” said Jack, sitting down on the seat next to hers. “I was wrong on so many levels. I’m so sorry, Alana. I shouldn’t have just accused you like that. It was ridiculous. I know you wouldn’t do something like that. But I was just…I’ve been hurt so many times that I was looking for an excuse to get rid of you before you had the chance to hurt me, you know? I was so happy…I think on some level I just didn’t believe that it would last. So I self-sabotaged myself. And, in the process, cost you your job and God knows how much else, broke Lottie’s heart and…and my own. I’ve missed you so much. I don’t even know where to start. All I know is that I have to get you back. Whatever it takes. Whatever you want me to do. Alana…I need you. Lottie needs you. We need you. God, she hasn’t spoken to me since you left, can you believe that? I’ve just messed everything up so badly.”
Alana blinked. “So you believe that I didn’t steal that ring?” she asked quietly.
“Of course,” said Jack, reaching out, then hesitating, then taking her hand in his. “I know it wasn’t you.”
“Who was it?” Alana asked, letting him hold her hand, but still feeling unsure.
“Eleanor,” said Jack, rolling his eyes to the sky. “Which is so much more in character. Maria told me she’d stopped by the house the day the ring went missing. And we put two and two together.”
Suddenly a bell chimed in Alana’s memory. “Ohhhh,” she said. “So that’s why she came to see me.”
“What?” Jack asked, frowning.
“Eleanor came to talk to me while I was waiting to pick up Lottie that day. I didn’t even know she knew where Lottie’s school was! But she was really friendly and caring and said she wished me luck with you, but that you were a player and would probably leave me for someone younger. I always wondered why she’d bothered. I assumed it was just her way of trying to psych me out. But that must have been how she got the ring into my bag. She got really close and put her hand on my arm and everything. She must have dropped it in then.”
Jack’s lips tightened in the corners. “I swear to God, that woman…” Then he shook his head. “No, it’s my own fault for jumping to conclusions. I should have asked you first. If I hadn’t been so insecure, I would have.”
Alana smiled for the first time since Jack had arrived. She squeezed his fingers in hers. “We all make mistakes,” she said gently.
“Sure,” said Jack. “But some mistakes are bigger and stupider than others.”
Alana giggled and Jack smiled, his thumb caressing the back of her hand. “What can I do to convince you to come home with me?” he asked softly.
Alana licked her lips, hesitating. The idea of going back to Boston, to Lottie and Jack and the fairy tale house surrounded by roses, was very tempting. But it sounded like just that: a fairy tale.
“Jack…” she said, swallowing. “I want to come back. I miss you too. You and Lottie and our life. But I…you hurt me. I had to leave my home, to leave Boston. This past month and a half has been, well, kind of awful, to be honest.”
Jack laughed softly. “Just ‘kind of awful’?” he asked.
“Okay, like, really super horribly awful,” Alana amended, laughing a little too.
Jack nodded. “I know,” he said. “Well, I mean, I don’t know, I guess. I’ve just been sad, I wasn’t worried about my dad’s surgery on top of that or anything.”
Alana blinked. “How do you know about that?” she asked.
Jack shook his head. “Well, no thanks to you!” he replied. “I can’t believe you didn’t ever think to mention to me that your dad was in such trouble!”
Alana blushed. “Well, I didn’t want to bother you with it. It was personal. It wasn’t your problem.”
“Alana,” Jack said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I’m in love with you. What’s bothering you is my problem.”
Alana grew very still. “You’re what?” she asked softly.
Jack sighed. “In love with you. I was then and I am now and that’s why I’m here, basically, to beg you to take me back even though I was an incredibly insecure asshole.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Alana pointed out, neatly changing the subject. She could feel that familiar warmth tingling through her. All she wanted was to throw herself into Jack’s arms. But first she needed to make sure that what had happened last time wouldn’t happen again. Not to mention: how would he react to the news of a baby? “How did you know about my father?” she asked.
Jack looked down at her hand in his. “When Maria and I finally put together what happened and I’d confronted Eleanor and realized that I’d been a total idiot, I called your manager. What was her name again? Anna?”
“Anita,” Alana corrected him.
“Anita - who’s not very impressed with me, by the way. Anyway, she told me that you needed money for your dad’s surgery so, because I’d had you blacklisted, you’d left town. After I’d gotten the whole story out of her, I called your family and Claire told me where you were.”
“Claire told you where I was?” Alana asked skeptically. She wondered what Jack had done to convince Claire that he was for real. Claire knew the whole story and didn’t think too highly of Jack either. And Claire could be very protective.
“Yes,” said Jack, his eyes sliding away from hers.
“How did you convince her?” Alana asked, smelling a rat. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jack sighed, looking out the window, then over at the counter, then the ceiling - basically anywhere but Alana. “I paid for your father’s surgery. I talked to a friend of a friend and got him an appointment with the best guy in town. The surgery’s happening on Wednesday. But I didn’t want to tell you…I don’t want you to feel like you owe me or something. It was the least I could do after all the pain I caused.”
“You paid for…that’s the day after tomorrow!” Alana gasped, vacillating between overwhelming gratitude, shock, and horror. “I’ll never make it home in time!”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I booked us tickets home for tomorrow afternoon. I mean…if you want them. We don’t have to go together either. I can change the seats. Or not. I mean, I don’t want to—”
“I’m pregnant,” Alana blurted out suddenly, interrupting Jack’s stuttering. She just couldn’t keep it in any longer.
Th
e only sound in the restaurant was the low voice of the singer and her plaintive guitar.
Jack blinked. “You’re…”
“It’s yours,” said Alana quickly. “I just found out. Like, an hour ago. I didn’t want to do the test at home in case my employers saw it somehow and terminated my contract and I had no—” Now she was the one vomiting words, unable to stop talking.
“It’s mine?” Jack interrupted her.
“Yes,” said Alana, hardly daring to breath. “I want to keep it.”
Jack reached out and pulled Alana into a passionate kiss. Her tense shoulders immediately relaxed and she buried her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer.
“Thank you,” said Alana when they finally broke apart. “And thank you for paying for my father’s surgery.”
“No,” said Jack, shaking his head, brushing her nose with his. “That was an apology, not a gift. What you just told me is a gift. Thank you.”
Alana laughed. “Well, it was a very good apology,” she said.
“Please come home with me,” Jack whispered, his dark eyes wide and pleading. She saw that there were tears in them. One escaped, trickling down his cheek. “I can’t believe…I want to have a family with you, Alana.”
Alana smiled at him, reaching up to wipe the tear away with her thumb. “Of course I will,” she replied, kissing him again. “And you don’t have to change the seats. I want to be next to you forever.”
Jack laughed weakly. “Me too,” he said, kissing her deeply. “Oh my God,” he said, when they broke apart. “Oh my God, I’m going to be a dad again! I don’t even…I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my whole life! Can I feel your belly?”
He looked so happy that Alana couldn’t help but laugh. The last hour of panic and horror had already melted away into joy. “There’s nothing there to feel yet!” she said, giggling as Jack grabbed her, pressing his ear to her stomach anyway.
“Hey!” Jack whispered to her stomach. “Hey, are you in there? Can you hear me?”
Alana’s stomach just gurgled in response and Jack snorted with laughter as Alana blushed. “I’m hungry!” she said, embarrassed.