by Amy Brent
Too happy.
I managed to help Mom decorate for the party here and there, looking forward to it being over. Maybe then, James and I could sit down with them and tell them what was going on, just the four of us. I knew that there was going to be a fight afterward, and I wanted to keep it as calm and quiet as possible.
This was so nerve-wracking for me.
I wore a beautiful purple dress the night of the party with some black flats. It had cute cap sleeves and hugged my chest while it draped over my stomach down to my knees. I looked in the mirror after I lined my eyes with some dark liner and added some mascara. I didn’t want the bombshell effect from the party the year before since I got what I wanted, just without the man. I just wanted to be pretty because the cameras would be going off and my daughter deserved a beautiful picture of her mother before her birth.
Then I would go cry for what I didn’t have in my life; the man that I loved but was too afraid to say the words to.
James hadn’t told me that he loved me either, even though there had been hints about my moving in here and there and his telling me that he wanted me in my life. That was all I had and I wanted love for us. I wanted love for our daughter.
I went downstairs when the guests started arriving and forced a smile on my glossed lips as I descended carefully down the stairs. The team was arriving and I greeted them as they passed by me on the way to the bar to grab a drink, accompanied by their cute kids and beautiful wives. I told the family members that were walking in and hugged them as they told me how beautiful I looked.
James took my breath away when he came in, dressed in a classic suit with his hair slicked back. He shook my father’s hand and kissed my mother’s cheek before he moved to me. “Looking beautiful as always,” James told me before he leaned down and pressed his lips gently to my cheek before moving into the house. I felt wrecked with the idea that I couldn’t join him, holding his hand and walking around with him. I imagined him here with a date and the idea killed me as I watched him smile at everyone as he chatted, looking happy and content. What was his secret?
We sat to eat dinner and I considered myself lucky to be at the same table that he was. My father said a blessing as he always did at big meals and he teared up when he mentioned the baby and looked at me. I fought my own tears after all of the silence and stress I’d seen him go through over the last year. I glanced at James, who was smiling to himself as he raised his glass.
Why was he so damn happy? I wiped the tears away that were more than just a reaction to my father. I wanted to stand up and scream that I was in love with James and that he was the father of my baby. I wanted them all to know.
I was done with my plate and I pushed it away as James stood and cleared his throat. I stared at him, wondering what the hell he was up to. “I have a few things I’d like to say here.” He looked at my father and smiled. “Gary, I have been blessed to coach for your team. The guys are like my own kids but I’ve made the decision to resign and my assistant coach is happy to step up and take over for me. I have something else that I want to pursue in my life.”
“James, what’s going on?” My father stood and looked at him with angry eyes. “Is it money?”
“No, sir.” He stopped in front of my chair and dropped to one knee as my mouth dropped open. “I am in love with your daughter and she’s giving me a beautiful gift. The baby is mine and I want her to marry me more than anything and be a family.” I felt tears slide down my cheeks as the room reacted, but nobody stronger than my father.
“You did this to Tory? She’s a kid, James. What the hell is wrong with you?” I winced as we were all a witness to Dad’s anger and I looked at him.
“I’m going to be twenty-two soon, Dad. I am young but not too young to be his wife and a mother. I love him, and we’ve been seeing each other for months, only secretly. We didn’t know how to tell you, and I didn’t expect…this.” I looked at him and wiped my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve been dying to say all of this to you, Tory. I wanted to do it big and prove to this entire room that I’m in love with you.” He stood and looked at my dad. “Can I have your daughter’s hand in marriage, sir? I promise to take the utmost care of her and our daughter. I will make them my everything and give her the world. I just know that I can’t live without her.”
“Shit, James. I don’t know whether to punch you or kill you right now. She’s my baby…” He looked at James and me. “You two are really in love?”
“Desperately,” I told him as the tears ran free down my cheeks.
“Take care of her,” my brother said as he stood with my father, joined by the other one. “Take care of her and the baby.”
“For God’s sake,” I said as I wiped my eyes and looked down at James. “I know he will.”
“You bet your ass he will,” Dad said as Mom looked over his shoulder and glared at him. “Go ahead, James. Do what you’re going to do.”
James swallowed and looked at me. “Tory, I have loved you for far longer than I might be willing to admit and I’d love for you to be my wife. I want to make a home together for our baby. Will you marry me?”
“Yes, yes and yes. I’ve been waiting for you to say this to me.” I laughed nervously as he pulled a ring from his pocket and slipped it on my finger as I started to cry again. It was beautiful with a band covered in diamonds surrounding another rock that was big enough to sparkle but not gaudy. I loved it, and Jack stood and pulled me slowly into his arms as everyone started to clap.
He kissed me softly and whispered that he loved me. He whispered that he always loved me, and I agreed before kissing him again. We pulled away and looked around at the faces staring back at us. Some were shocked, others were smiling, but the most notable faces in the room were my parents as they lifted their glasses in a toast.
“I am going to offer you the job back as well, James. I don’t mind keeping football in the family, but don’t expect any special treatment from me. I still expect the team to win it all this year.” Dad said as we both stared at him. He winked and James looked at me.
“What do you think?”
“What do you think? I get to keep you either way,” I told him as I stared at him.
“I was going to take some time off with you, travel once the baby is here and maybe join a business with my friend. I want to be home with you,” James told me as I smiled at him.
“You’ve taken the team this far already this year, and I’ll be busy with the baby once she’s born. We won’t be traveling anywhere for a while. We can go on a great trip in a few months. Stay for a while,” I urged James as he kissed me.
“I’ll take that offer…Dad.”
Dad groaned, and I pulled James closer for another kiss.
I knew that we could make it. I knew that we had the love for each other as well as our baby.
The End
Book 4: Daddy’s Best Friend
"It's good to have you home again, Max," said Sam.
Would that I could say the same, she thought. But her modeling career, in as much as she had one, had gone bust, so while her parents thought it was great that she was at home again, the sting of failure was still a bit hard for Maxine Sawyer to stand.
Her mother, a small, lean woman with frizzy hair and 1970s-style aviator glasses, led her upstairs, back to her old room. It felt weird, being treated like a guest even though she already knew where everything was. Her parents hadn't done much to her bedroom--they'd donated or otherwise got rid of all of her old clothes and cleaned out her trove of high school art projects, from the time she'd thought she wanted to be a designer. They'd kept some of her better pieces, though, she was glad to see. But otherwise her room was much as she'd left it when she landed her first modeling contract in Los Angeles--the white lace bedcovers were still there and the walls were still the warm shade of butter-yellow and her old crocheted rug was still next to her bed.
"Wow," Max murmured, as she threw her suitcase on her bed. "This b
rings back memories."
"Your father and I were hoping that you'd stay, go to college--"
"Mom, not now, okay?" Max said. Her parents had never liked the idea of her being a model. They said it was a career path fueled by drugs and alcohol, one that turned pretty girls into old women before their time. Max could see the truth of that, even as a willful teen, but she was determined to make a living of it all the same.
She did everything right--she worked whatever jobs she could find, her green eyes and blue-black hair landing her opportunities that most models couldn't get. She had a "charming, beguiling look", as the modeling agency that hired her maintained. But after three years, the contracts started drying up. She wondered what it could be--certainly not her weight, which she'd maintained at a steady 112 pounds since the beginning. And her reputation--eager, hard-working, creative, intelligent--was stellar.
"Sorry kid," Gerry had said. That was the Gerry O’Connell, the manager of the All Occasions modeling agency she signed with, when she called to ask him why she had no work. "These things come and go. One moment you're in, the next everybody wants sun-kissed blondes. Right now it's a Brazilian moment—deep tans, tousled salt-sprayed hair. Maybe you'll have better luck in Ireland."
Well, she would have gone to Ireland--she'd thought about it, and even started the visa application, at least until she realized that just filing the papers would cost her $500, and that was $499 more than she could spare. Damn the EU, she'd thought. Only later did she realize that even the cheapest flight to Ireland was easily in the four digits.
So it was on to Plan B, which she would have been okay with if Plan B actually paid anything. In LA, if you couldn't make it as a model then you hacked it as a waitress, worked bit parts as an extra in movies and shows, or you signed up for making porn. Waiting tables was a hellish hustle, which would have been worth it nonetheless until she realized that every diner would have to tip her at least 18%, and she needed at least 30 hours a week, before she could make rent. And given that the management always skimmed a bit off the tips and she could have her hours cut without notice, it became impossible to both pay rent and eat, and while CopaCopa did give the wait staff free meals it was only one meal in a day, and that was barely enough for even a model. She wound up going through Whole Foods, because they at least had free samples, but after the second assistant asked her if she needed any help she realized that it would be suspicious to go to Whole Foods and never buy anything. Working as an extra was mostly about free food and strong coffee. Porn actually did pay, but just the process of getting cast was more humiliating and degrading than she had the stomach for. For some reason her being a virgin was supremely desirable--but when they began talking about lessons on how to give proper blow-jobs suddenly calling her parents and asking to come home didn't seem so bad.
"I'm just glad you're home, sweetie," her mother said, now. "Dinner at six, okay?"
"Thanks," Max said. She wondered how to tell her mother that her diet had changed—when she’d tried to explain what veganism was her mother just nodded blankly (they were using Skype) and asked if organic butter would be all right. She’d sighed and nodded. Her mother would still be cooking luscious meaty casseroles and heavy, creamy soups, accompanied by thick slices of cheesy, buttery bread---and in the meantime, she'd added gluten to the list of food that she didn’t eat, so that was another thing she’d have to explain. Basically, if her mother cooked, it was off-limits.
But as the smell of chicken pot pie wafted into her room, she found herself wondering if maybe eating a full meal for the first time in three years could really be a bad thing. Her parents did mean well, after all, and they'd taken her in again without any "I told you so" or making her feel guilty about not heeding their advice. Maybe college wasn't such a bad idea--as she looked over the pieces of her portfolio that her mother kept she realized that they weren't half-bad--she could get a job somewhere while she worked towards a degree in graphic design, and maybe even design clothes one day that people would fight to model.
Irony was a funny thing, she thought as she put her clothes away. Still, this was a second chance, and she knew that most people didn't get one. And it began with eating her mother's chicken pot pie and telling her parents that she was going to enroll in college.
It’d been a long time since she was back in Maryland. She’d forgotten a lot about it—she’d fallen asleep on the drive home from the airport and therefore missed a lot. But now, in the morning, she woke up in her bedroom which felt bigger than the entire apartment that she’d shared with four other girls, also all models, to the sight of the sun coming over the trees in their backyard—it felt a little like she’d landed on an alien planet, where the hot water worked and there weren’t hair clots the size of her fist in the shower. She pulled on a long shirt/short dress, depending on whether she was wearing leggings with it (it was leggings weather), going for “boho chic”, but she realized that she’d sold all of her turquoise jewelry for the plane fare home. She still had some cheap costume jewelry, though—some dangly feathers, a string of wooden beads—so just plain “boho” it was, then.
As she went down the stairs and into the kitchen and smelled eggs and bacon it was amazing how badly she wanted some, even though she was a vegan (until last night).
“Good morning,” her mother said.
“Hi,” Max said, as she sat down at the table, sheepishly—unable to hide how much she’d missed having eggs and bacon. Her mother gave her a sidelong look and plated out one egg and a strip of bacon, and added an English muffin to it for good measure. “It won’t kill you,” her mother had said the night before, when she’d tried to explain (again) what being gluten-free meant.
“How do you know?” she’d asked. “Did you know that we’ve only been eating wheat for five-thousand years? Before that we were hunters and gatherers—”
“The world didn’t change overnight,” her father had said. “You think they invented plows and tamed oxen and built cities in two days?”
“No—”
“Then we’ve been eating wheat and cows and chickens before then, too,” he said, gruffly. “This is our home, and if you want to stay here then you have to live by our rules.”
It had seemed gauche to start a ruckus about lifestyles and living decisions on her first night home, so she’d bitten her tongue and ate the chicken pot pie. But now, she could tell that her mother wanted to discuss something with her, and it wasn’t about her pseudo-reluctance to eat the eggs and bacon. Her mother was putting away the dishes in the dishwasher, a focused frown on her face as she composed her speech. Max waited.
“They’re hiring at Lincoln,” her mother said, finally, picking up a mug of coffee on the counter and sitting down across from Max. Lincoln was the main strip mall in the area—for all that they said that strip malls were dying Lincoln was still doing a bustling trade, not the least because it was the only place in twenty miles to get anything.
“Thanks, mom,” she said, not-saying that she was so not going back to retail, or waiting tables. Everybody at CopaCopa had told her that at least they weren’t getting robbed outright, like they did in the suburbs. She’d worked at the Gap, herself, in her teenage years, for a pathetically low wage, and there was one thing she was certain of: nobody ever made it anywhere by working in retail.
“You’ve got to start somewhere,” her mother said.
“I know,” she said. “Can we just agree that it’s going to take me a little while to come up with some kind of plan, though, please?”
“How long do you need?”
“I’m going to go to Montco today to see what their requirements are for enrollment,” Max said. Her mother smiled, as Max knew she would. “Maybe see about a work-study while I’m there, and then go for a swim.” Her mother had a family-wide membership for the local YMCA—it was cheaper than getting three separate memberships, especially since her father used the gym irregularly and she was only in two a few times a year. And she did have to work off th
e chicken pot pie from the night before.
“Work-study would be good,” her mother agreed. “At the very least, you’ve already worked, so you know what they’ll expect.”
Didn’t you spend three years telling me that modeling wasn’t a real job? Max thought, but she kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t in a mood to pick a fight with her mother now—and her mother really did have good intentions for her, she reminded herself. It was just that, having been a housewife for almost twenty years, she really had no idea how things really worked out there in the real world.
Max ate the egg white and scraped the rest of her plate into the trash, while her mother sighed. “I told you,” Max said, as she pulled on her shoes. “I’m gluten-free and vegan now.”
“Bring the car back before three,” her mother called.
Max nodded. It’d been a while since she’d last driven; she was always the designated driver when she and her modeling friends had gone out—the stories about girls getting drugged and raped were too common for it not to happen, and her friend Jenny had had a close call. If Max hadn’t walked into the men’s room at the club by accident, there was every possibility that Jenny would have been raped—her dress was pulled down to her waist and the man had just whipped out his cock, and Jenny was clearly out of it. So she never drank in public places—and anyway, after her modeling gigs dried up she was too busy scraping together rent money to party, anyway.
So it was rather incredible how fast and automatic everything still was—look left, look right, check her blind spots, scope the mirrors, turn, merge. She wondered, briefly, if this meant that she was supposed to be living in the suburbs, with its perfect tree-lined streets and two cars in every garage, stifling her with its Stepfordian perfection. It was what had drawn her to the city—or rather, pushed her out of the suburbs—and now, as she pulled into the parking lot of Montgomery County Community College it was hard to think of this as a way out, instead of as a prison.