by Zoey Parker
Once we’re back at our table, however, Gabriel is only too happy to feed me pretty much all of it, until I’m so stuffed I can barely move.
“You know what that means,” he says with an evil smile after I flop back in my chair with a low moan.
“No, what?” I say.
I close my eyes, not really wanting to know the answer.
“That means that it’s time to dance!” he says.
A second later, music is pounding out on the dance floor and a disco ball is lowering itself overhead.
I shake my head, but now a voice is saying, “Ok, everyone, the bride and groom specifically said they wanted everyone out there for the first song, alright? So, you get on out there.”
I groan, look over at Jaws, who somehow has the microphone now, is the one responsible for this latest announcement.
“Oh noooo….” I moan.
“Oh yess…” Gabriel says, rising and extending his hand.
I have no choice but to accept his hand, and clamber onto the dance floor, where Uptown Funk is playing again.
I start out bobbing noncommittally, as my cousins sway alongside me, Opa wags his cane to the tune, and Rhonda circles around, snapping photos when she isn’t grooving herself.
But soon the music is inhabiting me once more and I’m swaying along with Gabe, shaking my hips like Hannah, throwing my hands up like Jaws and his girlfriend Tinsley, grinning like Pulse.
And soon the song and I are one, and I’m twirling through Piccolos and Rebel Saints alike and it’s all the same to me, they’re smiling and I’m smiling, they’re enjoying themselves and I’m enjoying myself, and we’re all just people having a ball.
And who would’ve thought that one song could be playing during the three greatest moments of my life and yet, here we are, Uptown Funk is booming on, and Gabe is picking me up and spinning me, and I never want him to stop – not ever- because I’m here with my friends, family and the love of my life and I can never be happier, it can never get better than this – never.
Epilogue
Gabriel
Three Months Later
I’m losing her already. We’ve only been married three months, and already she’s pulling away.
I sit here on the bottom step of our staircase and wait for my wife, like her dog.
That’s what I’ve been as good as these past few days, trotting after her with my tongue hanging out, desperate for her to dole out an explanation, the reason why she won’t tell me where’s she’s been, what she’s been holding back from me.
Toni’s been denying everything.
But not today. Today, she left the house again without explanation, still hasn’t replied to my texts, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
I sit here on my steps and stare at the door.
If things are falling apart, I want to hear it from her own lips.
The longer I sit here, however, the more restless I become.
Toni left only 20 minutes ago, am I really about to sit here for another few hours if need be?
I glare at Jane as she trots up and tilts her head at me, at the man who’s doing a better job at being a dog than she is.
I stand up.
I know where to go.
My legs take me outside. I turn to give one last admiring look at our house. Our mansion, really. Its white walls are just as Toni requested, white with rosewood doors, all the arches rounded Italian-style. Just as Toni requested. Hell, our whole life is as Toni requested: she has her own motorcycle now, we go on trips around the world every weekend – how could she be unhappy?
The answer comes back as an insidious voice in my head: Because of what you said to her a few weeks ago.
I stride to my bike, get on, start driving.
As mansions and acres of lawn flash past, I shake my head, dismiss the thought.
Just because I don’t want to have kids right away, doesn’t mean she’ll dump me on the spot.
If you’re so sure, the voice returns, then why are you heading where you’re heading?
Shut-up, I tell the voice, and it does. It burrows into a churning into my stomach, that only worsens when I pull up to Babylon, our old bar.
I stop in front of it, a weird twist of nostalgia in my chest as I stare at it. Where I met her. Where it all began. Where I have to go to find out.
Toni wouldn’t have done… that, would she?
I stride in before the answer can come.
The place is just as I remembered: black floor and walls, a strange Christmas-tree shaped light fixture on the wall, a handful of hip, chill-looking people.
It’s fitting that it’s Jake behind the bar. He smiles as I come up.
“It’s been a while.”
I nod.
“Has Toni been here lately?”
The easy smile on his face slides off.
“You’re not still on about that one, man, right? I told you…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, just – has she?”
He won’t meet my gaze, says “Yes,” and I collapse onto a bar stool.
“When?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” he says.
“Two Jack Daniel’s,” I say.
“Ok,” he says.
The first one is a gulp, the second merely an inhalation.
“Another whiskey,” I tell him.
When he slides the cup of brown deliverance over to me, I don’t take it, I ask, “Did she leave with anyone?”
Jake shakes his head, turns away.
“I’m not doing this, man.”
I stand up.
“Please, this is important.”
I down the whiskey, but when I lower the glass, he’s over at the other end of the bar, talking to a big-bearded customer.
Already I’m feeling it, the effects of the whiskey. My gaze slides around this beloved hated bar once more, stops on the blonde sitting on the stool beside me. She’s eyeing me like she’d like to help take my mind off my Toni problem.
I head to the other side of the bar, to Jake.
“Another Jack Daniel’s,” I say.
When he returns, I grab his hand, say, “Please man, it’s important.”
He rips his hand away, and, before he turns away, says, “Yes. She left with a tall man.”
I slump back to my old seat, drink most of my drink.
“Can I have a taste?” the blonde says, now right beside me.
I shove out the glass. She puts in a straw and, eyes on me, sucks.
When she’s sucked her fill, I drink the rest in one gulp. Everything’s a bit blurry, but the blonde’s still beautiful, putting her hand on my chest, whispering in my ear, “What’s your name?”
“Toni,” I say, pulling back and away, “Toni.”
The ride home is a mist of Toni leaving in the bar with a blur-faced man, and me, swerving and pressing into the gas and dodging cars and people and everything else at the last minute, almost hoping to hit them.
I shriek into the driveway just as she gets home too.
She’s happy, doesn’t expect it.
“Gabe?” her lying whore smiles says.
I grab her.
“Tell me. Tell me.”
She’s scared. Good.
“You know?” her lying terrified lips ask.
“I went to the bar. I know.”
She’s scanning my face, her terror transforming into rage.
“And… you’re actually upset?”
She peers in closer.
“You’ve been… drinking?”
“I talked to Jake, okay,” I snarl, “I know.”
She’s shaking her head, snapping, “You’re not making any sense. Jake doesn’t know.”
I lean in close, get right up in her face.
“He saw you Toni. He saw you leave with that guy.”
Now she’s smiling and I want to smack it off of her.
“Oh, my god, you mean the guy who put the letter on top of the bar for me because I wasn’t tall enough?”
“So clearly, you don’t know,” she says.
“You’re lying,” I say.
She stares at me, as if searching for a glint in my eye, the beginnings of a smirk, as if hoping to find that I’m joking.
Finally, she shakes her head, says, “Wow, you know what? I set this all up to make it a nice surprise. But now? I don’t think I’ll even tell you. Not today. You ruined it.”
The words burst out again – not really a belief as much as a fear, “You’re lying. You’re cheating on me.”
Toni stalks off toward the door, stops at the front mat.
“No, even better Gabriel, I’m pregnant with your child.”
The doors slams beside her. I gape at it. At its wooden planes, its bronze doorknob.
Toni’s lying. She has to be, and yet… why would she lie about this?
I hurry in after her, but she’s already halfway up the stairs.
“Toni?”
“Leave me alone Gabe, you’re drunk and you’re mean.”
“Toni, please,” I say, “I’m sorry, I… you’ve just been so distant these past days. I didn’t know what to think.”
On the second floor now, she stands at the railing, looking down at me.
“Fine, Gabe, but… that? After all we’ve been through, you think that?”
I hang my head. My boots are filthy; I never noticed.
“I just can’t bear the thought of losing you…” I murmur.
She pauses and I rush up the stairs, take her in my arms, ask her, “Were you telling the truth? Is that what this has all been about – all this secrecy?”
Her lower lip trembling, finally she says, “Yes.”
I look at her, my wife and now, the mother of my child, I smile, exhale.
“Thank God.”
Drawing back, Toni says slowly, “You mean it?”
I nod.
“When I told you I wasn’t ready, I was just afraid, Toni. I am afraid. That I won’t be a good father, that I’m not much of a role model. Not yet. May never be.”
I sit down on the carpet, stare into the wall.
“You forget what I was doing less than a year ago.”
Toni sits beside me, leans her head on my chest, “You forget what I was doing less than a year ago.”
I pat her head, shake mine.
“Going to the bar to hook up isn’t quite the same as running a sex trafficking business.”
Toni giggles, turns to face me with a grin.
“You’re right. You’re an evil, evil man Mr. Gabriel Pierson. Not fit to father children.”
I pat her head again, smile myself.
“Glad you agree with me on this one.”
Next thing I know, I’m being whacked in side of my head.
“So, you have a bad past Gabe. So what? Lots of people do. You can’t control what happened to you, what you did before. All you can do is try to be the best person you can now. And if you teach even that to our children, they will be the richer for it. You are a kind, brave, giving, compassionate, capable man, Gabe, and any child of yours will be better off for having you as their father.”
She burrows her head deeper into my chest, and I lean my head onto her.
The way she said it, I almost believe her.
I pat her again, and she kisses my cheek, says, “I was so afraid, that’s why I’ve kept it from you. And then when I brought up having kids and you dismissed it, I got scared, wanted to wait until I knew more to tell you.”
“How long have you been keeping it from me?” I ask.
“I’m two and a half months pregnant,” Toni says, “So far the baby is healthy. Our little angel.”
“What?!” I ask, standing up.
Toni leaps up.
“Were you just pretending to be supportive so you could tell me later to get rid of it?” she demands, eyes flashing.
“No, I just… you’ve been lying to me for two months?”
Toni takes a paper out of her jacket pocket, shakes her head.
“I found out a couple of weeks ago, didn’t want to tell you until I knew more. I’m sorry.”
She hands me a paper, and I find all my arguments dissolving in my mouth.
It’s an ultrasound photo of the baby. Our baby. With a big alien head and little lump of body. Ours.
“Wow,” is all I can come up with to say.
Toni takes the photo back with shaking hands.
“So… you’re okay with this?”
“Ok with this? Toni, I’m going to be a father! I’m going to have a little baby with you!”
I race all the way down the hallway and back.
“We’ll have to outfit one of the storage rooms into a nursery,” I say, then race back down the hallway and back to Toni, “Tell Jaws after a few more months, I can only imagine the gifts he and Tinsley are gonna unload on us… and Toni?”
I stop in front of her. She’s beaming.
“Yes?” she says.
“Names! We have to start thinking of names.”
Toni nods. “Yeah, but Gabe?”
“Yeah?”
“We can, just... I thought, maybe, we could call her ‘Natasha.’ What do you think?”
I sit down on the carpet again, and Toni sits down beside me.
“Gabe?”
“I… I think…”
I turn to her, take her face in my hands.
“I think that’s perfect. Natasha, my baby girl.”
And then I pick Toni up and sweep her to the bedroom. Our bedroom, our silk-sheeted, black on red, silk on velvet boudoir where I have made love to my wife, and made a baby with my wife, and will make love to my wife, will make more babies with my wife.
“Natasha,” I say, flinging Toni onto the ruby top-cover.
“Natasha!” she declares, tossing a decorative velvet pillow at me.
I catch it, fling it back at her, and collapse on the bed beside her.
We lie there, all curled up in each other and these silky, silky sheets, and our incredible stupendous love, laughing at nothing, at how lucky we are, at the gloriousness of life itself. Every once in a while, one of us will say it, the delicious refrain, the fusing of our past, present and future into a being, a creature, a child that will be our better in all ways.
We say it to ourselves, murmur it to the universe. “Natasha, Natasha.”
THE END
***
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