On Second Thought

by Kristan Higgins

  "True."

  "I really liked Leo. And LuAnn. My God, that eye shadow is fantastic! And I think I might fix Gram-Gram up with George when he's ready."

  Kate smiled a little. "Yeah, everyone was very...kind."

  "Think you'll go again?" Since this had been my suggestion, I really wanted it to work in my endless need to win Kate's (or anyone's) approval. For a second, I pictured her calling Sean to complain about me. Ainsley forced me to go to this horrible group, then all she talked about was Eric.

  "Maybe. Yeah. It was a good idea, Ainsley. Thanks for coming with me."

  "Of course! Anytime."

  The church basement door opened, and there was Jonathan Kent, still dressed in his suit, a trench coat draped over his arm. He lurched unsubtly to a stop at the sight of me.

  AA? NA? It gave his personality a little color, if also a crippling addiction.

  "Hi," I said, since he obviously wasn't going to.

  "Ainsley." His strange blue eyes shifted to Kate. "Hello," he said.

  "Hi, Jonathan. How are you?"

  "I'm fine, thank you. It's good to see you."

  "Thanks. You, too." She sounded sincere.

  For a second, I pictured them as a couple, then rudely shoved that image away. No. Jonathan Kent was not her type.

  Even if he was.

  Which he wasn't.

  "Can I have a moment of your time, Ainsley?" he said.

  "Of course, Mr. Kent." I batted my eyelashes at him, strangely and suddenly irritable. "I'll just be a second, Kate."

  "Take your time," she said, getting into the car and checking her phone.

  Jonathan came around to my side of the car and looked at the pavement, a lock of hair flopping over his forehead as if he were a Regency duke.

  His hair had flopped the night Nathan died, too.

  "You need a haircut," I snapped.

  He looked up, startled.

  "Sorry," I said. "What is it, Jonathan?"

  He lowered his gaze to my chin. Probably I had a pimple there. My fingers twitched, wanting to find out. "I would appreciate it if you didn't mention my presence here tonight."

  "At Alcoholics Anonymous?" I suggested.

  He didn't blink.

  "NA, then?"

  Still nothing.

  "I won't say anything. I assume it's the divorce group."

  His face didn't change. Then again, it never did. "Have you spoken to Eric yet?" he asked. "I would very much like a commitment from him."

  I would very much like? People didn't talk like that in real life. "No, I haven't. He's on my shit list at the moment."

  "I thought so. I sent him a message this afternoon after your early departure. We're meeting him in the city next Friday for drinks. Eric, you and I."

  "What? No, we're not!"

  He looked to the left, his jaw tightening. "Ainsley, you petitioned very hard to get The Cancer Chronicles linked to Hudson Lifestyle. Now--finally--people are reading that ridiculous blog. Traffic on the entire site today was up 9,000 percent. If you'd like to keep your job--indeed, if you'd like to do your job, which would be refreshing--I strongly suggest you make yourself available. I'll see you tomorrow."

  I was busy sputtering and therefore unable to answer. It was probably best... I didn't want to cuss my boss out--but how dare he? I didn't want to see Eric!

  Except I did. I wanted to see the old Eric, the one who loved me and didn't think I was a corpse.

  Jonathan had already walked away. I got in my car and slammed the door.

  "You okay?" Kate asked.

  "Peachy," I said, started the car and headed for Kate's. A bath in that soaking tub was definitely on the agenda. And a nice violent television show. Game of Thrones.

  I was in the mood for beheadings.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kate

  I woke up the day after the grief group with a glorious revelation.

  I didn't have to be sad anymore! I'd been so sad these past few weeks, shaking in my sleep, for God's sake, scared and stunned, feeling like a cannonball had gone through my chest and taken out everything.

  But I could be done with that. My duty was fulfilled. Already, the grief group had worked wonders.

  Symbolically, I was lying in the middle of our huge bed. My huge bed. No more sleeping on the left side. Also, the sun was streaming through the windows, and I could see the Japanese cherry tree, laden with impossibly pretty blossoms, gently swaying in the wind.

  The mourning period was over.

  Those others in the group last night--Leo losing his pregnant wife, poor Bree with the little ones, Janette watching her husband waste away, George after forty-three years--they had it rough. They had processing and stages and stuff.

  Me, let's face it. I'd known Nathan only nine months. It was deeply sad, but it didn't have to be crippling. I'd be noble and, um, clean, that would be great. I'd get back to showering every day, and I'd go back to enjoying single life again.

  I'd be so good, so kind, such a role model. My ex-cons (who'd sent a joint card, by the way) would love me all the more, and teenage girls would look up to me as an example of a life well lived, a person worth knowing. I'd be dignified yet also the life of the party (not that I'd ever been that, but it could happen). People would hear that I'd been widowed and be amazed. Kate? But she's so happy! She's so giving and wonderful and fun!

  I lay there a minute, picturing this, feeling better for the first time since Nathan died.

  Then I felt the familiar warm rush and accompanying cramps in my upper legs, flung off the covers and ran into the bathroom. Jazz hands didn't work. I flapped, jumped, the lights finally went on and I yanked down my sock monkey pajama bottoms.

  My period. And not just any period, either, the Biblical period, the is this a period or did I accidentally sever my femoral artery period, the pajama-destroyer, the burn-the-mattress, and God! It was so unfair!

  I wasn't pregnant. I wasn't pregnant. I really wasn't pregnant, and the throat-squeaking began. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, little nonbaby, I'm so sorry! My breath slammed in and out of me, hehn-hehn-hehn-hehn. My arms and legs buzzed with tingling so intense it hurt.

  I was probably dying. My heart raced and zipped, and my vision started to gray, and I knew, I just knew, my life was ending, and anxiety and fear engulfed me in a cold wave. What about my nieces and nephew? Sadie wouldn't remember me! Would I see Nathan in heaven?

  I bent double on the toilet. Don't let me die here, I begged my vague higher power. Please don't let the paramedics find me like this. I don't mind dying, just not in a pool of menstrual blood with my sock monkey pajamas around my ankles.

  In for three, can't hold anything, can't think, jeez, listen to me, hehn-hehn-hehn-hehn. In for three, hold for three, out, oh, Nathan, I'm so sorry I can't even have your baby and I wanted one so bad and I miss you, I miss you so, so much, I want you to be here, blinking those long blond lashes at me, saying something sweet, please come back, please, I just can't do this, please help me. My hands fisted in my hair as I struggled not to list to one side.

  Some distant part of my brain gave a wry smile. I guess the whole not being sad thing was off the table, then.

  In for three, hold for three, out for three, hold for three.

  In for three, hold for three, out for three, hold for three.

  "Kate? You okay?"

  I pressed my hands against my hot eyes. "I'm fine," I said, my voice wobbling and strange. "I got my period."

  "You want me to come in?"

  "No. No. I'm..."

  "I'm right here. I won't go anywhere."

  Thank God. I wasn't alone.

  The lights went out; I flapped and they came back on. "Thanks, Ains," I said. I sounded more normal now.

  Could I stand? Would my legs work? The answer was yes. I washed up, dug out the box of tampons, did what I had to do and pulled on Nathan's bathrobe.

  It still smelled like him.

  Oh, Nathan, please help me. Give me a sign.r />
  There was no answer.

  "Hi," I said, opening the door.

  Ainsley had already stripped the bed. She hugged me. "I'm sorry," she said.

  The spike was back in my throat. "I knew I wasn't. I took fourteen tests."

  She laughed a little. "I was hoping anyway."

  "Me, too." Never too comfortable with physical contact (except for when I was a wife), I stepped back. "You headed for work?"

  "Yep. Guess what? Eric's blog has more than fifty thousand shares. Nice, huh?" She rolled her eyes. As always, she looked like Betty Boop in that 1950s, adorable style she had. Circle skirt printed with little umbrellas, white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, bright red lipstick. The only thing modern about her was her adorable cropped haircut.

  I'd heard her crying last night, but she was smiling now, probably because I needed her to.

  Eric was such an ass to leave her.

  "What do you have going on today?" she asked.

  "I actually have a shoot," I said. "A teenager who wants to be a model."

  "Oh, fun! And it's gorgeous out, too. Where are you going?"

  "Prospect Park. Brooklyn."

  "That sounds great! More fun than my night. I'm going to Gram-Gram's for dinner. She needs help with her dating profile."

  I felt a pang that Gram-Gram hadn't asked me, followed by relief. "You're a saint."

  "Tell me about it." She smiled again, her sweet apple cheeks plumping. "You okay now? Sounded like maybe another panic attack in there."

  I nodded. "I'm good."

  "Okay. I have to go. Jonathan pops another hemorrhoid every time someone's late."

  "Have a good day, Ainsburger."

  She laughed at the nickname Dad always used and left the room, her nice orangey smell going with her.

  I was so glad to have her here, and not at all sure I deserved her.

  I'd always tried to be nice to my little sister, but it was hard sometimes. For one, Sean and I didn't remember a time without each other; Ainsley was thrust upon us. There was always the schism: if I loved Ainsley too much, I'd be too sad at the end of our weekends with Dad. If I found myself missing her, it meant I didn't love Mom enough.

  When Ainsley came to live with us, it was even worse, because she was so little, so cute...and yet Dad wouldn't have left us without Michelle getting knocked up. For three years, I'd watched Mom's heart petrify, and then he was back, and with a cherubic toddler, too. Any time I spent with Ainsley, I felt like I was betraying my mother.

  I should've done more. She was just a little girl. I shouldn't have been torn at all.

  Just another item for the guilt pile.

  Well. I had a shoot, and I had to get to Brooklyn by ten, and traffic would be hell because it was New York. Max was meeting me there. I threw some tampons in my purse and swallowed some Motrin.

  The model in question was Elizabeth Breton, younger sister of Daniel the Hot Firefighter. She'd emailed me last week and said that her brother said he knew a professional photographer, and did I do head shots for modeling? She had a day off from school and she'd saved a hundred dollars of her babysitting money, less than a tenth of my fee.

  She sounded so sweet and earnest that I said yes, that would cover it. Fashion shots weren't my specialty, but I'd done enough to be competent.

  And it was awfully nice of Daniel to recommend me.

  I still couldn't get over the fact that he'd come to the wake, all the way from Park Slope.

  And that Paige hadn't. I did get a sympathy card with a white dove on it and the generic card message: Sending you caring thoughts. She'd written only her name.

  Whatever. I had bigger sorrows than a shitty friend.

  After I'd showered and dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt (no need to look pretty; that was the model's job), I went downstairs to make sure I had everything.

  There was my Nikon on the shelf in the study. Or den. I'd never know for sure which room it was, since Nathan was dead.

  Usually, I'd take that camera and my Canon; I liked to use a couple of cameras for their different qualities. But the last photos of Nathan were on my Nikon. Once I saw them...

  My hands tingled, and the spike in my throat seemed to materialize like dark magic. I looked at my fish, swimming laconically in his pretty tank.

  "Hi," I said. He mouthed back. Hang in there, I imagined him saying. You still have me.

  *

  When I arrived at the park, lugging my bag of lenses and filters, my camera slung over my shoulder, babies were out in full force. Beautiful, lovely babies in every color and age, running, yelling, crying, laughing, nursing and, in one case, being ignored as a mom complained loudly on the phone. For a second, I considered just pushing the stroller away and stealing the kid, but no, she gave me the side-eye.

  I guess I'd been staring.

  I hadn't really thought I was pregnant.

  When I was about ten, my second cousin invited me to go on a trip. Our mothers had been close as children, and Mimi and I were about the same age and played together at Christmas. She was an only child, and when her parents booked a trip to Hawaii, they invited me to come along. We would helicopter over a live volcano and swim and take a surfing lesson.

  It was, by far, the most exciting invitation of my young life. For weeks, Mimi and I talked on the phone--we would tame a dolphin, ride horses through the rain forest, and eat pineapples and coconut ice cream. It was incredible to think that I'd be going anywhere so exotic and different, that I'd have actual adventures.

  The day before the trip, Mimi came down with appendicitis, and the trip had to be canceled. I was crushed, but as I cried into my pillow so my mother wouldn't hear, I also acknowledged I never really expected the trip to actually take place. It was too good to really happen.

  That was how it was with Nathan and me and children. Unimaginably wonderful, so close...and then no.

  "Kate. How are you?" Max appeared, unshaven, his white skin, dark eyes and black stubble making him look like a somewhat sickly vampire. Still, he had a thing going on. Balding, midfifties, that scary assassin voice... Women loved him.

  "Max." We hugged briefly; he wasn't touchy-feely, and neither was I.

  "You good to go?" he asked.

  "Yep. We're meeting over by the Boathouse."

  We walked under the Cleft Ridge Arch, where a toddler was testing the echo, and down Prospect Park's winding paths. The grass had been cut recently, such a happy smell. Overhead, the branches of the towering trees interlocked like a couple holding hands.

  A beautiful, gazelle-like young woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt stood by one of the iron lampposts. Next to her was a suitcase, for wardrobe changes, I assumed. "Elizabeth?" I said.

  "Hi! You're Kate?"

  "Yes. This is my friend Max," I said. "Great to meet you. You're gorgeous!"

  She beamed. "Thanks. I'm so glad you could do this. I looked at the rates for a fashion photographer and I almost had a heart attack, and that's when Daniel said to call you."

  "I'm glad you did. Do you have a makeup artist?"

  "No. I'm doing it myself."

  "Got it. Max can help if you need to."

  "I used to work for Bobbi Brown," he said.

  "Really? I love their lip gloss."

  "Hey. Sorry I'm late," came a voice, and there was Daniel the Hot Firefighter, clad in faded jeans and the requisite FDNY T-shirt, a denim jacket slung over his shoulder. Cue Donna Summer. I need some hot stuff, baby, this evening...

  "I told you not to come," Elizabeth said, scowling.

  "Sorry, Lizzie. It's my job to make sure you don't look like a slut. Mom's orders." Daniel winked at me, oozing testosterone as one did when one was FDNY. "Daniel Breton," he said to Max.

  "Max Boreo." They shook hands.

  "So Lizzie here thinks she's pretty enough to model," Daniel said.

  "More than pretty enough," I agreed, though models had to be more than just pretty. Lizzie had dark brown hair and green eyes, perfect skin and
a full, smiling mouth.

  She and I talked about the looks she wanted for the portfolio--couture, which would involve the usual strange, heron-like poses; girl-next-door, which I was fairly sure she'd rock; drama, which would entail some crazy makeup and a close-up of her face. "Daniel says we can use his place for the indoor shots," she said.

  "Where do you live, Daniel?" I asked.

  "St. John's Place. Not too far."

  I suddenly remembered a night at his and Calista's apartment nine or ten years ago, when we'd lived on 4th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues--how happy Daniel had been, pouring us wine, looking at Calista like she was the sun and stars. That was one of the things that made him so likable--he'd been an adoring husband.

  I wondered if a person got over a love like that. Based on Daniel's dating history with the False Alarms, it seemed the answer was no.

  Daniel caught me looking at him, and I turned my attention to my camera, adjusting the lens.

  While Lizzie changed in the Boathouse, Max and I set up. Daniel texted and leaned against a tree. Max got out the reflector to make sure we'd have enough light on Lizzie's face. I checked the light meter and did a few test shots of the building.

  Then Lizzie came out wearing a formfitting gold gown, her hair in a sleek twist, shimmering gold eye shadow and dramatic blush. "Holy shit," Daniel said. "How old are you again?"

  "Almost seventeen."

  "I thought you were twenty-four."

  "That's Sarah, dumb-ass. I'm still in high school. If I was twenty-four, I'd be totally too old to start modeling."

  He groaned. Max murmured something to Lizzie, and she opened her makeup case and handed him a tube of gloss and let him touch up her lips.

  "We good to go?" I asked, and she nodded. "Okay, Elizabeth, show me what you've got."

  She struck a pose, and all of a sudden, she went from cheeky girl arguing with her brother to a gorgeous woman, looking disdainfully at the camera while she raised one arm over her head. I crouched and snapped, circling around her, and she worked with me, following the camera with her eyes, angling her body. Then she shifted, hand on hip, one leg behind the other. Now an over-the-shoulder look. She arched her back and put her hand on her collarbone. Profile. Three-quarters. Her long neck arched gracefully, and she knew how to make her lines long and interesting.

  "She's good," murmured Max, which was high praise, coming from him.

  Some people gathered around to watch as Lizzie fluffed her gown, lifted its hem, leaned forward and smiled, then pouted, then glared. I gave her some instructions--relax your hand, lower your chin, look down, close your mouth, use your neck. Max moved the reflector and fixed her hair from time to time, and Daniel just watched.