The Big Bang

by Linda Joffe Hull

  “I’m sure they’re okay,” he found himself saying. “Relocated.”

  “To heaven,” she said.

  “Did they?”

  “And you were right about the land. Too marshy to support…”

  Hope hated seeing the playground out her window? She’d implied the bunnies had been more than simply displaced? To top it all off, she stood there, albeit drunk out of her mind, telling him he’d been right about the land all along? Could he be so drunk he was imagining things? “Are you saying?”

  “Frank fixed it. All better now.”

  “Not for me,” he said.

  “I know.” She put her head on his shoulder. “So sorry.”

  Her hair tickled his neck.

  “I knew you’d understand,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were consulting on the playground?”

  “You’re the kind of man who’s nice and kind and understands.”

  Her apology pained and tickled his brain. “Understands what?”

  “I couldn’t just ignore the cosmic message of both nursery and playground jobs coming my way.” Her eyes sparkled. “Not after Renata saw an anchor and a garden in my tea leaves.”

  “Renata? Tea leaves?”

  “I thought if I didn’t…” Sadness darkened her face. “No baby.”

  He couldn’t begin to understand what she was talking about, but whatever it was…

  “So sorry, Will.” She went slack in his arms. “I really am.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. Whatever it was seemed to somehow explain her reasoning.

  She kissed his cheek.

  At least to her.

  He glanced back toward the pool to see how much Meg could see of him. “We should get you home,” he said, holding her up.

  “Wanna go to bed.” She nodded. “Crazy day.”

  Crazy didn’t begin to describe it. A sorry and an admission he’d been right all along?

  He put an arm around her toned, yet soft shoulder, carried her to the passenger side, and opened the door. As he tucked her into the passenger seat, the fabric of her sundress bunched, revealing the orb of her right breast.

  He shut the door, but not before an admiring glance.

  On his way to the driver’s side, he reached into his pocket, grabbed his cell, and dialed Meg. “I need to drive her home.”

  “Who?” Meg asked.

  “Hope.”

  “You okay to drive?”

  Despite an afternoon of drowning his bitter bile with beer, he’d never felt more sober. “I’m good.”

  “By all means, safety first. Please drive her,” Meg said loud enough so not only he could hear her over the music, but whomever she was standing around chatting with. “I’m sure I can catch a ride.”

  “See you at home,” he said, opening the door and sliding into the driver’s side.

  His good fortune felt almost too ridiculous to imagine as he rolled down the street, pulled into her driveway, opened her garage door, and parked inside.

  He reached her side of the car in time for her to open the door, stand, and slide into his arms. “Let’s get you up to bed.”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” she slurred.

  “Alarm on?” he asked nearing the door from the garage into the back hall.

  “Code is my birthday,” she said. “Twelve twenty-nine.”

  He put the key in the lock.

  “Gonna change it to my baby’s birth date,” she said.

  He pressed the numbers into the keypad and opened the door.

  “When I have one.”

  “Good idea.” He led her across the house toward the front hall.

  “You want to get me pregnant?”

  He stopped. “What?”

  “I’m ovulating.”

  “Hope, you’re very drunk.” He definitely had to be too.

  “And high,” she said.

  “You were smoking pot?”

  “Eating brownies.”

  “At the party?”

  “Don’t know who brought them,” she said in a singsong voice. “But they were delicious.”

  “Even more reason to get you up to bed.”

  “Exactly,” she said as he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs.

  He had to be imagining that he held Hope Jordan in his arms and was carrying her to her bedroom where, at her suggestion, they were to procreate, get it on, fuck.… Was there even a word for a drug-, alcohol-, and infertility-driven once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make love to the woman of one’s dreams? “Hope, I don’t think you mean what…”

  “I know you’re attracted to me.”

  “Impossible not to be, but—”

  “Tim wants me to be pregnant.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “So does Frank.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “I need a baby,” she said.

  “I know you do,” he said, flipping on the light as he reached her bedroom.

  “Jim doesn’t.”

  “Jim doesn’t want to—?”

  “Jim doesn’t want it to be so hard.” Her hand dropped from around his neck and flopped to below his belt where she attempted a drunken grab. “Are you?”

  “Hope, you’re not in your right mind,” he managed, fighting the impulse to rip off her clothes and show her just how hard he was. “You should sleep.”

  “Not yet.” She pulled her dress up and over her head. “Shower time.”

  There was no point concealing his erection as she grabbed his hand and led him toward the bathroom.

  ***

  Unsure if the hot bath was helping her come down or enhancing what she was now sure was her high, Laney blew out the sandalwood scented candles. She sat up and reached across to the window to let in some cool air. As she opened the blinds, motion caught her eye from the window directly facing hers.

  Hope’s bedroom light was on.

  The curtains were open.

  Hope was naked, heading toward the bathroom.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Was she with Tim Trautman?

  Laney had given him a brownie thinking they might enjoy the effects together, only to have him rush off the second he spotted Hope.

  It was always about Hope.

  Laney turned to see if her glasses were anywhere nearby, instantly regretted the effects of the quick movement on her equilibrium and resorted to squinting.

  She had to be imagining things, definitely shouldn’t have had so many cocktails, because the man who followed Hope wasn’t Tim. He looked like, had the same gait, and prematurely salt and pepper hair as, but couldn’t be…

  Couldn’t be Will.

  ***

  Maryellen just meant to take a little walk in the moonlight, enjoy the cool air on her face, and clear her head while she waited for the bathroom to open up. She’d meant to circle back, run in, and get a finger down her throat so she wouldn’t have a belly ache all night. Then, she’d finish cleaning up and join Frank out by the pool.

  She would have, had the moon not been so bright and inviting, bidding her to follow the warm, white glow where it led.

  Which happened to be home.

  Frank had probably found Hope again and was too busy playing savior in shining armor to his perturbed parishioner to notice she wasn’t in the kitchen washing dishes. Even still, she should have called him to let him know where she was, would have, but couldn’t find her phone.

  She went around to the side gate, fumbled for the key, and let herself in the back door.

  She needed to tell him she was home safe.

  Needed to use the bathroom.

  Needed candy.

  Not necessarily in that order.

  She flipped on the light in the kitchen, picked up the phone, and dialed his cell number.

  Got his recorded voice.

  Hi, you’ve reached Frank Griffin. I’m not available right now…

  Please leave a message.

  “H
i, it’s me,” she said. “I’m at home, so see you when you get here, I guess.”

  She hung up wishing he wouldn’t hurry.

  And then she wished something she’d never allowed herself to think ever before—she wished he wouldn’t come home at all.

  She headed for the bathroom, stopped at the pantry on the way, and opened the door.

  Licorice.

  She tore open one of the bags she kept stocked for Frank, grabbed a Red Vine, coiled it like a snake, and stuffed it into her mouth whole. Bag in hand and thoroughly enjoying the soft, sinewy, sugary strawberry-ness, she stepped out of the pantry and headed for the powder room.

  On her way, she noticed the low, shadowy candlelight coming from the basement that signaled Eva was already home with her friends.

  She cracked the door wider and crept down the first two stairs.

  “And now it is done,” Eva’s voice rang out into the hazy air.

  Maryellen peered around the blind corner and saw her daughter in what looked to be a purple cape.

  She was craning to see more when the stair creaked.

  “You hear something?” someone asked.

  Before she heard the answer, Maryellen rushed back up the steps and stationed herself at the center island. She was nibbling a second piece of licorice when the basement door opened.

  Eva, back in her normal black, appeared first. Tyler Pierce-Cohn, the Estridge twins, and what looked to be the rest of the youth group emerged from behind in a fog of incense and she hated to even consider what else. “Mom?”

  “That’s me.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Eating.”

  “I see that.”

  “Red Vine?” She offered one to her daughter and then all around.

  “No thanks.” Eva narrowed her eyes, tilted her head slightly. “You’re eating candy?”

  “So good.” She took another bite. “So fresh.”

  “We all decided to come home and hang in the basement,” Eva said.

  “The incense was a dead giveaway,” Maryellen said.

  “I…” Eva looked at the kitchen wall clock. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Surprise!” she said.

  “How long have you been here?”

  She tried to look stern, tried not to laugh by telling herself that whatever Eva was worried about probably wasn’t funny. She looked down at her watch.

  10:08 P.M.

  “I don’t know, maybe ten minutes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  All recreation center users are to treat the facility with respect, demonstrate good sportsmanship at all times, and eat only in designated areas—From the Melody Mountain Ranch Recreation Center Guidelines.

  “You there, Hope?” Jim, but not exactly Jim, yelled.

  He was shorter, darker haired, more interested in her.

  “Ready or not, here I come!”

  More interested in their game.

  As Jim, but not really Jim at all, disappeared into a candle-lit room filled with exercise equipment, Hope crept out from her hiding place beside a vending machine stocked with toy babies. She dropped a quarter into the slot and closed her eyes, letting her fingers choose between the pink and blue stork buttons.

  A baby dropped into the cradle/receptacle to the theme music from the game show Jeopardy.

  As Hope reached for an edge of the pink blanket swaddling her plastic newborn, a telephone rang from somewhere in the recesses of what she knew was the rec center.

  “I wish you’d pick up,” not Jim said.

  Hope scampered down the corridor lined with vending machines, stopping briefly in front of a beverage machine. She pressed F9 and watched the machine drop ice, vodka, and some sort of incandescent purple liquid into a cocktail glass docked behind a plastic door.

  Before the door slid open, a warning flashed across the top of the machine: Pregnant and nursing mothers should avoid consumption of alcoholic beverages.

  She kissed her doll and reached for the drink.

  As she took a long but unsatisfying sip, the phone rang again.

  Hope hurried over to a new hiding place behind a machine vending home-baked desserts before Jim, but not Jim, appeared in the hallway. He looked around and disappeared into another room filled with half-drawn plans for playgrounds and churches she was supposed to design but had forgotten, abandoned, or been distracted from finishing.

  “I didn’t mean for things to go down this way,” he said.

  “Me neither,” she whispered.

  “I’m coming,” his voiced echoed. “I’m coming soon…”

  The machine beside Hope began to churn and buzz.

  Hope looked through the pink-tinted glass and into the machine. Amid the homemade cookies, lemon bars, apple pie slices, and brownies available for purchase, a Blondie caught her eye and an intoxicating aroma, like warm brown sugar, vanilla, and chocolate chips, wafted through the air.

  She reached into her pocket, grabbed some change, slid around toward the coin slot, and listened to the quarter roll into the machine.

  Her finger was on F9 when a hand covered hers.

  “Gotcha.” Jim, but not Jim’s, golden wedding band glimmered in the neon of competing vending machines. He helped her press the buttons.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I know how badly you want this.”

  “So badly.”

  He reached in to retrieve the brownie. “I’m here for you.”

  She turned to face him and looked deeply into his blue-brown eyes. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

  He fed her a bite of brownie.

  Took a bite himself.

  They chewed and swallowed in perfect time with each other.

  “So good,” she said.

  “These are very special, you know?”

  “I know,” she said.

  “So are you.” He wrapped his arms around her. “And you deserve to have what you’ve wanted, needed for so long.”

  Not Jim leaned toward her as she leaned toward him.

  Tim?

  They shared a long, slow, brownie-flavored kiss.

  They were still kissing when the real Jim’s voice carried in from the other room. “It’s just I feel kind of overwhelmed by the pressure I’m under to do something amazing here and—”

  “I don’t want, can’t, talk about this right now,” she said in the direction of his voice. “Trying to relax.”

  Not Jim kissed her more deeply.

  Pipes began to squeal and water flowed from showerheads affixed to the ceiling and walls of the giant industrial shower into which they’d somehow been transported.

  Their clothing disappeared.

  He, whoever he was, licked the water from her neck, her breasts, worked his way down toward her belly.

  “Should we be—?”

  “No worries.” He kissed just below her hipbone. “It’s all by design.”

  “You mean?”

  He stood and pulled her close. “I’m going to be a daddy.”

  “Oh.” She pressed her hips against his. “Yes!”

  The room filled with steam.

  A door squealed open. She couldn’t see who’d entered, but his voice was unmistakable: “You shouldn’t be in here. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be…”

  “No!” Hope heard herself scream.

  She opened her eyes.

  Cold sweat dampened her chest, back, and the Restoration Hardware ticking-stripe sheets she’d just picked to complement her Italian Vintage Floral duvet and dark maple four-poster bed. Hers and Jim’s.

  Her head pounded, her mouth was cottony. Her stomach more so.

  Not in the rec center shower.

  Not making love to a man other than Jim.

  She was alone. At home. In her own room.

  She tried to sit up in bed and instantly thought better of it.

  “I hope the party was fun last night,” Jim’s amplified voice came through the answe
ring machine. “Wish I could have been there.”

  Hash brownies.

  Had she really eaten those brownies?

  “Please call me back when you’re up, honey.”

  With the click of the phone, she sat upright.

  Regretting the quick motion, she managed to lean over to Jim’s side of the bed and pressed play on the answering machine…

  And realized she was naked.

  With matted hair, and no memory of how she’d gotten there.

  She had no memory of much of anything, beyond eating brownies with Tim Trautman.

  How had she gotten home?

  She slid back under her covers.

  “You there, Hope?” Jim’s voice tumbled her halfway back into the dream. “I’m sure you’re still sacked out but I wish you’d pick up.” The answering machine picked up his sigh. “Listen, I didn’t mean for things to go down like they did yesterday.” He paused. “I’m sorry, it’s just I was feeling kind of overwhelmed by the pressure I’m under to do something amazing here. And, honestly, at home, too.”

  The tightness began to ease in Hope’s chest.

  “Thing is,” Jim, the real Jim, continued, “I know how badly you want this, have needed this, for so long. And I know you might not believe this after our conversation, but I do want and plan to be a dad.”

  She’d had way too much to drink, ingested drugs, and was probably still not entirely sober when Jim’s apology message played while she slept.

  “Thing is, I gotcha about at least shooting for the right timing.”

  Played into her dream.

  “I just want to try and be a little more relaxed about the whole process while we are trying. Call me when you get this and let’s try and work out a schedule where you’re here or I’m there at the right time until this job’s over. You deserve, we deserve, to at least give it a try.”

  Relief flooded her head and then, her heart. Could what seemed to be a nightmare really be a dream coming true?

  “I hope the party was fun last night.” The kindness and understanding in Jim’s voice flooded the room. “Wish I could have been there.”

  All just a bad dream.

  She needed to call him back and thank him for the apology. Apologize to him for ignoring his calls all day yesterday while she wallowed in her misery.

  Her guts burbled.

  And drank too much.

  Before she called, a cup of coffee to totally sober up and some toast to settle her stomach were probably in order.