“He’s the only person who could be the father, Heather,” I insisted. “I haven’t been involved with anyone else.”
“Sure, whatever,” Heather said, and I could picture her rolling her eyes. “If you go to the press about this, or kick up any fuss about it, we will be pursuing legal action against you. You’re lucky Finn didn’t want to see you in court after last time.”
“But I can prove that the baby belongs to Finn,” I said.
“Even if that’s true, darling, you’re just another girl that Finn’s left behind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have clients to take care of.”
The call ended and I let the phone slip out of my fingers, falling softly in my lap.
After a few minutes, I came back to myself, and realized I’d been crying in the parking lot next to the urgent care facility. I wiped at my face, blew my nose, and picked up my phone once more, calling the only person I could think to call.
“Hey, babe,” Jen said as soon as she picked up.
“Are you busy? I need to talk, and this isn’t something for a phone call.”
“I can have a bottle of wine ready by the time you get to my apartment,” Jen said.
“Maybe hold off on the wine,” I told her. “But if you’re home I’ll be there in like…twenty minutes, assuming traffic isn’t too bad.”
“Okay. Should I put coffee on or something? Can you give me a hint?”
“Just wait until I get there. I’ll tell you everything.”
The drive to Jen’s place, where the city started to peter out into the suburbs, took me a little more than twenty minutes. By the time I got there, my eyes were dry once again, and I felt at least a little bit more in control of myself. That feeling went right out the window, however, as soon as she answered the door.
“What the hell is going on, sweetie? You look terrible!”
“Jen, I’m pregnant,” I said, not stopping to say hello. “The baby is Finn’s, and he won’t talk to me, and his manager says if I try to make any kind of public fuss about it they’re going to sue me for that stupid piece in the Inquisitor that I didn’t even write.”
Before I knew it, I was sobbing, my face buried against the front of Jen’s shirt, and she was hugging me, patting my back and my hair.
“Oh God, Amy! That’s awful!”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said, shaking my head as she led me into the house and towards the kitchen. “I have no job, I can’t get anyone to take me seriously as a reporter—I was on my way to a damn barista interview…” I laughed even as the tears continued to roll down my face, and Jen sat me down on a stool at her breakfast bar. “And the worst part is that, now, I don’t even know if I can take any job.”
“You’re freelancing, right?” Jen asked, and I nodded. She went to her stove and poured water from her kettle into a cup. “When you put the kibosh on wine I figured it had to be something like this,” she told me with a little smile. “Chamomile tea should be okay, right?”
“There’s nothing about it in the ‘banned foods’ list they gave me,” I said, pulling out the little sheet of paper the urgent care place had given me at checkout.
“Have you considered adoption, maybe?”
I shook my head. “I’m probably completely insane for this, but I can’t imagine giving the baby up.” I covered my face with my hands as the enormity of that decision came over me. “Good God—if I can’t get a job, how am I going to live? Much less take care of my baby?”
Jen put a mug of tea and a crock of honey in front of me. I added honey to my tea and stared into the yellow-amber depths, trying to think of what I would do to survive the next eight months, and then the eighteen years after that, with no prospect of a job, and no way to support myself that I could see.
“…and Finn McClane, Minneapolis’ latest ‘it’ couple…”
I looked up, startled at the sound of Finn’s name coming from the TV in the corner.
“What?”
Jen grabbed the remote and rewound the daytime chat program she’d had on.
“Eliza Fefferman and Finn McClane, Minneapolis’ latest ‘it’ couple, were seen out at exclusive downtown restaurant, Kimono…”
I stared open-mouthed at the screen; something inside of me had shattered into a million pieces at the sight of Finn, hand-in-hand with a beautiful blonde.
“Well, that pretty much puts an end to any thought I might have had of trying to get in touch,” I murmured.
“If you’re sure he’s the dad, then you need to tell him,” Jen said softly. “You should go to the Herald or ESPN or something—get the word out.”
“His manager said if I do, she’ll sue me over that piece Kent wrote,” I countered, shaking my head. “And Kent will make sure that there’s no way I can prove I didn’t write it.” I sighed and took a sip of the tea that Jen had made. “I’m screwed. I might as well just accept it. I’m going to be a single mother.”
Jen looked at me for a long moment. “Well, I am not about to let my best friend worry about getting thrown out onto the street,” she said firmly. “We’ll hire someone to move your things, and you can stay here while we figure out how you’re going to get your life together.”
“You don’t have to do that, Jen,” I said, exhausted from all the stresses of the day.
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” she told me. “And if you can’t manage to save up some money between now and when the baby is born, or find a more solid gig freelancing, we’ll talk about what to do then. You understand me?”
I smiled weakly. “I understand you,” I said. “I don’t know how I managed to get a friend as awesome as you, Jen, but I’ll just have to accept that you’ve lost your mind and hope that it lasts.”
SIXTEEN
Amy
“God, I feel like a blimp,” I said, resting my hands on my protruding belly. I was due in less than a week, and Jen had extended her offer for me to stay with her for at least another month, telling me that it made no sense for her to house me while I was pregnant if I had nowhere to go right after delivery.
Jen had shown her true colors as my best friend: not only had she taken me in, and refused to accept any rent from me, but she’d made sure that I had the best possible medical care available in the city, and had even taken some time off of filming to come with me to appointments.
It was so strange; I had never really thought about the possibility of having kids until it happened to me. I had known—sort of, in the back of my mind—that I wanted them eventually, but if anyone had asked me before I’d gotten pregnant, I would have said that I wanted to wait until my career was stable and I had a partner. Instead, I’d ended up becoming a single mother with no clear job prospects in front of me, years earlier than I expected.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Jen said playfully, “but I did consider buying you a Goodyear sweatshirt.”
I threw a kernel of popcorn at her, making a face. It was just starting to get chilly at night, and more comfortable to be so hugely pregnant in the fall than it had been all summer.
The months of my pregnancy had seemed to drag on and rush past, all at the same time. I’d gone to one appointment after another, until it seemed like my entire life revolved around the process of bringing the baby to term. Since Jen had insisted that I shouldn’t try too hard to find a full-time job before the baby was born, I’d done some freelancing, but nothing too strenuous.
My parents didn’t really know what to think about my pregnancy, and I was grateful for the fact that neither of them had blamed me in any way or said that what I’d done was irresponsible. I’d talked to Dad about the article shortly after everything had come out, and he’d told me that I’d just have to wait it out.
The summer had been absolutely brutal; I’d sweated and ached, and as my belly had gotten bigger and bigger, I had reached a point where all I wanted to do was lie around in bed—or in Jen’s huge bathtub—all day.
But my friend wouldn’t let me.
She got me out of the house and into pregnant yoga classes, or took me for spa days while insisting on keeping the tab for services to herself and not letting me see it. She put up with my morning sickness and my grumpiness and my whining, and made sure that everything was as perfect for me as it could possibly be. The month before, she’d thrown me a beautiful baby shower, and had invited some of her film industry friends—she said, with a wink, to make sure I got plenty of expensive presents.
“I just wish this baby would get itself out of here already,” I said, eating a few more pieces of popcorn. I’d managed to gain only twenty-five pounds during my pregnancy, in part because the morning sickness hadn’t gone away until almost my fifth month. I hadn’t even really started to show until month six, but then it had seemed to happen all at once.
“I know,” Jen said, giving me a sympathetic look. “I wish I could help, but I don’t think anything is really going to help you right now, huh?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “All I can think about is getting done with this.”
“So, you’re due in a few days,” Jen said, taking her phone out of her pocket. “I wonder who’s going to be your baby’s birthday twin?”
“It’s not important,” I said, shaking my head. “My baby isn’t likely to end up being a celebrity.”
“Hey, lots of celebrities have been born to strong, single mothers,” Jen pointed out. “You never know what his or her destiny is going to be.”
“The first due date in the window is September thirteenth, next Wednesday,” I said.
“The thirteenth… hmm.” Jen consulted her phone. “Jacqueline Bisset, that’s not a bad person to share a birthday with. Tyler Perry, Fiona Apple, Stella McCartney, Ben Savage—lots of famous people born on your first potential due date.”
“Apparently a lot of famous people’s parents had sex around Christmas,” I grinned.
“How do you mean?” Jen said.
“I think it’s just that a lot of people end up being born in mid-to-late September,” I said. “I mean, even if you think about the fact that there’s more to do indoors now than there used to be, Christmas is a pretty common time of year for people to get some extra loving.” Something tugged at my mind and I tried to ignore it. “I mean—I pretty much conceived on Christmas.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Jen admitted. “Even if it is a lame cop-out.”
She stuck her tongue out at me and somehow that jogged my memory. I closed my eyes as the conversation between me and Finn filled my mind. After we’d made love, he’d mentioned the irony of it being so close to Christmas, when he’d been conceived, and we’d talked again about his annual tradition of going to the orphanage he’d grown up in on his birthday.
“Earth to Amy, come in Amy,” Jen said, cutting through my thoughts.
“September eighth,” I murmured to myself.
“What about it? That’s today,” Jen said. “Hey—you’re not starting to get contractions or anything, are you?”
“September eighth is Finn’s birthday,” I told her quietly. “It’s Finn’s birthday today.”
“Oh, crap,” Jen said. “I didn’t know the baby’s birthday was going to be so close to his.” She shook her head, giving me a sympathetic grimace.
“I have to tell him,” I said. “I have to. I can’t just—I know he’s involved with that starlet or whatever, but I can’t just go the rest of my life with him not knowing.”
I thought about how much it would hurt Finn to find out that I’d deprived him of knowing his own child. What if he doesn’t care? What if he hates me so much that he doesn’t even want to meet his son or daughter because of who their mother is?
I wanted to cry, and closed my eyes tight to try to stop the feeling. On the list of things that I would miss about being pregnant, the way that almost anything could make me start crying would be at the very bottom.
“But you tried everything,” Jen said. “We agreed that you had to give up on it six months ago. His manager said she’d sue you if you made a fuss about it.”
“So I can’t go public about it,” I told her with a shrug. “But there has to be a way that I can get to Finn without going through anyone else.”
I wracked my brain, trying to think of something. Finn had gotten even more famous since he’d started dating the TV star; I’d tried not to pay too much attention, but with so much time to myself and not a lot to do, I ended up hearing about him on TV from time to time, or stumbling across some news about him on a trending Facebook story. There had to be a way that I could get to him.
“I mean, this whole thing happened because I managed to get around the usual security and separation, right?” I gave Jen a wry little grin.
“That was, without a doubt, your finest moment as a celebrity-stalking reporter,” Jen agreed, mirroring my smile.
“So, I have to be able to do it again,” I said. “But how?”
I thought about it. I knew I couldn’t wait until after the baby was born; I didn’t know what kind of recovery I would be in for, and besides, it would look much more suspicious to just show up one day with a baby than to be pregnant—at least, I thought so.
Not that I wouldn’t have a ton of questions for a woman who showed up out of the blue, nine months pregnant, claiming that I was the father of her child.
I cringed mentally. If Heather had mentioned anything to Finn, if she’d told him that there was no way that he was the father, I would have an uphill battle. But I thought—I hoped—that Heather probably wouldn’t have told him anything at all.
Ever since Finn had started dating Eliza Fefferman, the paparazzi presence around him had grown intensely; I had to think of a way to get to him when he wouldn’t be around his girlfriend, or hounded by the press, or guarded by Heather or his coach. It would need to be something that he would do privately, that would be just him and maybe a few other non-famous people.
Another memory of the short time that Finn and I had spent together, of the interview I’d gotten with him, popped up into my mind.
“Oh my God—of course!”
“What?” Jen looked at me wildly.
“Every year, on his birthday, Finn goes back to the orphanage where he grew up,” I explained. “That’s the one place he would be on his own—the one place he wouldn’t have Heather with him, and he’d do whatever it took to keep the press from finding out about it.”
I checked the time; I didn’t know what time of day Finn usually made his trips to the home, but it was probably more like an all-day event—I should, in theory, be able to get there before he left.
For a moment, I almost chickened out. I thought about how strange it would look, and how doubtful Finn would be if I showed up there, out of the blue. He might even be angry with me for blindsiding him on a day that he always kept to himself, a special occasion where he had a chance to do something that made him happy.
I’d be the raincloud on his birthday, the party jinx to spoil the fun. Could I really bring myself to do that? And what would I do if, once I got there, he refused to believe me?
It doesn’t matter if he believes you. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t want to have a part in the baby’s life. You have to do the right thing and at least give him the chance.
I got off of the couch and waddled across the living room to where my car keys were, trying to remember the name of the orphanage. I could put the address in my phone’s map system and hopefully get there quickly, before I lost my nerve.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jen was right behind me, hands on her hips.
“I think I’m going to drive to the children’s home and talk to Finn,” I told her.
“I’m sorry, honey, but you are way too close to delivering for that,” Jen said, shaking her head. “You can’t drive. I don’t want you to go into labor, and I know you don’t want to have the baby in the driver’s seat of the Camry.”
“But I need to get there, Jen,” I insisted. “Don’t try to stop me, please.”
“I’m not going to stop you,” she said. She smiled and reached into the bowl, grabbing her own keys. “I’m going to drive you there and make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
SEVENTEEN
Amy
I had to admit, I was relieved. When I thought about driving with my huge, pregnant belly between me and the steering wheel, it gave me a chill. I followed Jen out to her car, forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths. When the adrenaline had started flowing in my body at the thought of finding and confronting Finn, the baby had started moving around as if he or she wanted to kick free of its confinement.
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