“Let’s chat more about the Sankalpa business later,” she said to Bobby before they joined Hector and Jordan near the entrance.
“Here you go,” Jordan said, passing their fake baby to Bobby. “You two are on Battle of the Births Faby-sitting duty.”
“Here are the basics, boys. Don’t lose the fake baby, and don’t allow dogs or spiders anywhere near it,” she added.
Hector cringed. “How’s the challenge going?”
“Your face says you know exactly how it’s going,” she teased.
“We’ve gotten a few updates, here and there, from Barry, but we’ve been so busy creating another CityBeat offshoot,” Bobby replied.
“For what?” she asked.
“Foodies. We’re calling it CityBeat Eat. We’ve been working with several of our most popular food bloggers,” the man added.
“Catchy name,” Jordan replied as they entered the hotel.
“Our early beta testing is promising—especially with the breakfast food bloggers,” Bobby continued as they headed toward the ballroom.
“Lucky for you, you’re hosting the event and not on the auction block like you were at the last literacy fundraiser we attended,” Hector added with a wink.
Sweet relief washed over her. During the Battle of the Blogs, Hector and Bobby threw a twist into the last gala they’d attended by making a book discussion session with her an auction item. And Jordan wasn’t at all pleased when another guy started bidding.
“We’ve come a long way since then,” her husband said, wrapping his arm around her.
“Agreed! You’ve come a long way since yesterday. Bobby and I saw a picture of Georgie taken not too long ago. And let me tell you, it does not do you any justice, sweetie. Even if you were going for nautical glam,” Hector said with a chuckle.
What did he mean by nautical glam?
She was about to ask when a woman in red glittery Western-wear teetered toward them on sky-high heels.
“Georgiana and Jordan! I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Muffy Bradford. Remember, we chatted over email a few months back. Come with me. We need to get you all squared away. There’s been a slight change in the order of events, and we’ve decided to jump right into the auction.”
Georgie shared a glance with her husband. “Okay. We’re ready to go.”
“We’ll catch up with you after the auction,” Jordan said to the CityBeat founders.
“And take good care of our fake baby,” she added as Hector, Bobby, and Faby entered the ballroom.
The middle-aged glitter cowgirl waved for them to follow her down a hallway that ran adjacent to the ballroom.
“How are your mother and Howard?” the woman asked from over her shoulder with a flip of her glossy hair.
Georgie swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I think they’re doing well.”
Muffy opened a door and ushered them up a few steps to the area behind the stage.
“Do you expect them back soon?” she asked with another hair swish.
The lump in Georgie’s throat doubled in size.
“We’re not sure.”
“I see,” the woman replied with a crafty twist of her lips, then gestured toward the thick blue velvet curtains. “Wait here. They’ll introduce you, and then you’ll walk out on stage. And take this,” she said, swiping a folder off a nearby table. “It contains all the auction items.”
“So, we just read from it?” Jordan asked, accepting the folder, then glancing inside.
“Yes, and ad-lib a bit. All the ladies at the country club are enamored with you, Jordan. I’m sure you’ll be a big hit with the crowd. They love your blog.”
Georgie held the red sparkler’s gaze. “Jordan and I work together on the More Than Just a Number blog. It’s not only his blog. It’s our blog.”
She was not feeling this glossy crow, one bit.
A slight crease formed on Muffy’s Botox-smooth forehead.
“I guess I never noticed you, dear,” the woman said, then gobbled up her husband with one last thirsty look.
Georgie gave the woman a pinched grin. This Muffy character was one to be watched.
“She seems like a nice lady,” Jordan said offhand as the woman’s heels clickity-clacked down the hall.
Georgie crossed her arms. “That’s debatable.”
“Are you ready for this?” he asked, tapping the auction folder.
She glanced around the empty backstage area. Hopefully, someone running the show would check in with them.
“Do you think I have time to drink my juice?” she asked, sounding like a kindergartener, but not caring.
Shit got real when she ran low on pineapple.
Jordan bent down and pressed a sweet kiss to her lips. “You probably do. You drink, and I’ll read over the auction items. We can’t have you running on empty while we’re on stage.”
He wasn’t wrong. The other day, she hadn’t hit her pineapple quota and had flipped out when he’d unloaded the groceries and placed the yogurt in the crisper drawer.
Who does that, right? Still, he didn’t deserve the pineapple-depleted epic tongue lashing she’d doled out.
She listened to the buzz of voices on the other side of the curtain making chitchat, then opened her purse and spied her can of salvation. She popped the top and grinned down at the liquid that used to make her hurl. The first sip never disappointed, but she didn’t have time to savor the pineapple goodness. She needed to pound those six ounces like nobody’s business.
Tipping the can, she channeled her inner frat boy and started gulping. She was nearly done when a gust of air and the whooshing slap of fabric, followed by blinding bright lights, left her frozen in place. With her head tilted back and the can pressed to her lips, she must have looked like a pregnant pineapple pinup girl.
Specks of dust and bits of lint hovered in the thick beam of light as she lowered the can and shielded her eyes. A shiver spider-crawled down her spine, accompanied by the crushing suspicion that something was off when a woman’s shriek caught her attention and proved her premonition was correct.
“I knew it! I knew it, Howard!” came the voice she’d recognize anywhere.
17
Georgie
Clang! Clang-clang-clang!
Out of shock or some strange pregnant spasm, Georgie dropped the empty can of pineapple juice. And, as if swallowed by silence, everyone in the room watched the little cylinder roll to a stop at the edge of the stage.
Jordan lowered his voice. “Georgie, I think it’s—”
“I know,” she whispered back, feeling the color drain from her cheeks.
Her mother was here. Had the messages made it to her? Perhaps, this was a surprise?
Georgie took a few steps forward, trying to find a way to see into the ballroom without frying her retinas.
“Mom, is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me,” came the moneyed huff of a woman who did not sound like she was there for a pleasant surprise.
The glare of the spotlight dialed back a bit, and Georgie blinked once, then twice as she took in the scene. Hector and Bobby sat at the center table, slack-jawed and eyes as wide as saucers with Faby seated on the table.
Her gaze slid from the men and landed on her mother, standing in the center of the room.
Georgie did a double take, hardly able to believe her eyes.
There was one thing about Lorraine Vanderdinkle that remained the same no matter if she were shopping the couture racks at Chanel or reading the psychic energy of a piece of toast.
The woman was always put together. Be it jewelry from Tiffany’s or crystals from some high-end hipster spiritual shop in Boulder; the woman never looked less than perfect in her chosen persona du jour.
But that wasn’t who glared up at her. No, this woman sported a wild mane of hair with glints of gray—like her natural hair color gray—which hadn’t been seen since the beauty disaster of 2012 when her stylist came down with the flu, and she had to wait a whole
week before getting her roots done. One would have thought the world was about to implode. To ease the pain, she’d checked herself into the Ritz and gone into hiding between room service and spa treatments.
But there was more!
Her mother’s usually chemically smooth face wrinkled—like, muscles actually moved—as she frowned without even the hint of makeup. And her outfit, a dull pale green tunic and flowing pants, was crumpled and—God forbid—probably not dry-clean only.
Georgie pressed her hand to her rounded belly and did her best to compose herself as the ballroom, filled to the gills with rich people in Western garb, sat stupefied.
“You look different, Mom,” she stammered, then realized, a second too late, that spectacularly inarticulate utterance was probably the worst thing she could have said under the circumstances.
A few better choices…
How was your trip?
Did you nail down that Sankalpa?
If you haven’t noticed, I’m super pregnant.
Any of these would have sufficed as a more appropriate greeting when coming face-to-face with an angry socialite who needed to have her roots done ASAP.
Her mother lifted her chin and tucked a mostly blond and partly gray strand of hair behind her ear. “This, Georgiana, is what one looks like after flying commercial for twenty-three hours straight in…” she paused, taking a moment. “Coach,” she finished with a pained twist to her lips.
The ballroom flooded with gasps as women fanned themselves, and men shook their Stetson-clad heads.
Georgie glanced at her husband in an attempt to flash oh-shit eyes, only to find the man flashing the same expression when a bearded gentleman in a white flowing robe walked through the ballroom and stopped next to her mother.
“Namaste, Georgie and Jordan,” he said with a deep bow.
“Howard?” Jordan asked, squinting into the dim ballroom.
Now, Georgie was the one gasping. Her venture capitalist, all-about-the-numbers, worth-a-boatload-of-money, pragmatic stepfather looked like a cross between a monk and a shaman. For all the years she’d known him, the clean-shaven, pressed businessman only deviated from tailored suits to don tennis whites at the country club. She figured the guy slept in some version of a business outfit.
“I go by Wandering River now. But, yes, Howard Vanderdinkle is my former, unenlightened name.”
Georgie turned to her mother. “What happened to him?”
Lorraine raised her hand and waved away the kindly shaman, aka, her husband. “I cannot even get into that right now,” she huffed.
It was jarring to see such depth of emotion on her mother’s face. Botox had kept her Stepford-smooth for the last decade.
“Okay,” Georgie uttered, stranded between shock and unmitigated awe at the sight of these two.
“Would you like to know why I’ve spent the last multitude of hours in a chair labeled twenty-six C?” her mother asked, throwing it out to the audience as a shockwave—presumably from the idea that Lorraine Vanderdinkle had been seated at the rear of a plane—rippled through the ballroom with another round of gasps and profound astonishment.
“Because my daughter is pregnant, and she didn’t even think to inform her mother,” she said amid a sea of shaking heads as a bevy of disapproving eyeballs ping-ponged from her mother to the stage.
Georgie stepped forward. “I’m sorry you didn’t hear it from me, but Jordan and I have been trying to get in touch with you. I called Howard’s office, and they said you were in a—”
“Critical phase of spiritual transformation,” the woman supplied.
“Yes.”
Her mother had to know how hard it was to get a message to them.
“You didn’t think to mention that you were pregnant?” her mother threw back. But the slight shake in her voice revealed more grief than anger.
Georgie took another step forward. “We were ready to go all out tomorrow, doing whatever we had to do to get in touch with you. Nicolette was going to be my first call.”
Her mother released a frustrated sigh. “That would have done no good.”
“Why?”
“She chartered a private flight—on our account—and has been living large at our bungalow in Fiji. That was another fun surprise we learned today.”
“That’s terrible!”
“That’s a Libra!” her mother shot back.
Georgie shared a glance with Jordan. “How did you even know I was pregnant?”
Her mother crossed her arms. “A Belgian duchess.”
This debacle was turning into a soap opera.
“Where did you find a Belgian duchess at a spiritual retreat in India?” she asked.
“She joined our party a few days ago and had smuggled in a cell phone. She was there to appease her daughter and wasn’t at all interested in finding her Sankalpa. She and I bonded instantly, thanks to my knowledge of fashion and time spent on the French Riviera,” her mother added, throwing that tidbit to their audience, who nodded approvingly.
“Mom, that still doesn’t answer how a Belgian duchess knew I was pregnant!”
Her mother lifted her chin. “Yes, that part. Well, she and I would look through her pictures from her shopping trips in Milan as well as her favorite food blog images.”
“Wait…weren’t you supposed to be discovering your innermost desire and honing your chi?” Georgie threw back.
“Your mother veered slightly from the enlightened path,” Howard, Wandering River, whoever chimed.
Lorraine ran her hands through her disheveled hair. “You can only chant and look inside yourself for so long before all you want is Gustavo, delivering a dry martini after a day of shopping and three sets on the tennis court.”
“The path is long and winds near the deer and the caterpillar,” her stepfather offered with a sage nod.
“Is he okay?” Jordan asked, but her mother waved him off.
“Yes, I mean, the sex with Wandering River is out of this world, but that’s not important now. We’re not discussing Howard—”
“Wandering River,” the man corrected.
“Wandering River’s innermost desire,” Lorraine finished.
“My innermost desire is being present in the moment, like I am right now. I am presently here, as are you,” the man replied, clasping his hands behind his back.
“That’s mine, too,” Bobby called with a wide grin only to have her mother raise a hand and silence the man like a stern headmistress.
Georgie glanced around the ballroom to find a flurry of attendees holding up their phones and recording this train wreck of a mother-daughter reunion. These people were getting a heck of a lot more out of this night than just an auction and some square dancing.
“What is important,” her mother continued, “is that the Belgian duchess follows a Belgian waffle blogger, who posts her pictures on the CityBeat site.”
Georgie’s jaw dropped as it all came together in a perfect blog-a-licious cluster.
“Does the duchess follow the Belgian Waffle Princess blog?” she asked.
“She does. And she’s not even a real princess. She’s from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, of all places. But she can knock out an amazing waffle montage. I’ll give her that. But there’s more. She posted a picture sent to her by her sister, who lives in Denver,” her mother finished, confirming what Georgie had feared.
The policeman’s wife’s sister was a breakfast blogger from Sheboygan.
The Belgian Waffle Princess must have posted that picture she’d taken with the police officer.
Her mother’s frown deepened. “What were you doing in your sailor suit that day? Did you enter a pregnancy beauty pageant? If so, I would have insisted on altering the costume to something more flattering. But your work pinning the hat was spot-on.”
Outed by a waffle blogger and on display as Denver’s worst pregnant daughter, Georgie shook her head as the room went topsy-turvy. This insanity is why she hadn’t wanted to share the news with her mother
. She stared out at the sea of sparkly cowgirls and leather-vested cowboys, then met her husband’s gaze.
“Is this happening, or are we trapped in a pregnancy delusion?”
Before he could answer, her mother cut in.
“This is no delusion, Georgiana. This is a mother confronting an ungrateful daughter.”
Jordan took a step forward and hardened his features. “Go easy, Lorraine. We understand that you’re upset, but I will not stand here and allow anyone to accuse my wife of being ungrateful. Georgie has been trying to get ahold of you for weeks.”
Howard pressed his hands into a prayer position. “Well done, harnessing the tiger within, Jordan.”
This was too damn much!
Georgie stared up at the ceiling, shaking her head before meeting her mother’s eye. “This is why I didn’t know how or when to tell you.”
“It’s not that hard, pumpkin. Three words. I am pregnant.”
“It’s not that easy. Not with you, Mom,” she bit back.
“Georgie,” her husband whispered.
“I’m fine. If she wants to do this here and now, we do it.” She lifted her chin, mirroring her mother. “I didn’t know how to tell you about the baby because I was afraid that you’d go overboard.”
Her mother scoffed. “Overboard like what? Fly in a couture baby’s clothing designer from Paris to create a complete line of signature baby outfits? Rent out the botanic gardens and invite every spiritual energist in the state to commune with nature, then chart your baby’s astrological life course?”
Georgie released a humorless bark of a laugh. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was worried about!”
“Georgiana, worry is an emotion as helpful as the dew on a blade of grass,” Howard replied.
“Is this how he talks all the time?” she asked as her mother huffed her frustration.
“Ignore him. Now, who here is a grandparent?” her mother asked, again turning to the audience like a talk show host.
Hands shot up throughout the ballroom.
“And how did you find out you were going to become a grandparent?” her mother pressed.
“My daughter told me over brunch at the country club,” a voice called from the back of the room.
Own the Eights Maybe Baby Page 23