"Full of vitamin C." He stepped down into the living room, then leaned over the back of the couch to kiss me. He tasted minty. That meant face to face meetings all day.
"We need names," I declared.
"Okay. Already? We have some time."
"Yeah, I suppose we have about six months and some change, but I want to decide. Besides I want monogrammed everything. Initials everywhere. I gotta start placing orders. And who knows, you might want more tattoos."
"Forward thinking. I like that," he said absentmindedly touching his chest. He turned like he was going to walk out of the room but I wasn't done yet. "We doing Ks or Ms? Or you wanna start something new with Bs? Get a little alliteration going."
He turned around and thought for a moment while he pulled out his hair tie and shook his ponytail loose. "Think Bs sound good. Let's brainstorm and maybe our HoneyDate this weekend, we can dine in and have a little name selection game."
"You still want to do HoneyDates?"
"You don't? I thought it was a great idea. I still do. You’re still crazy in love with me right? ’Cause I still love you. I miss you all day long," he teased.
"I am and I do. I miss you like crazy,” I sang the last bit. “I just kinda ruined everything we had on our list."
"You didn't ruin anything. We readjust, that's all baby." He came back over to the couch and sat down beside me. "It'll go fast, but six months is still a long time. I don't want you to stress yourself out. There's plenty of time to just enjoy us."
"There is no us, Michael. Only Zuul."
"That was creepy as fuck. I'm going to hit the head and then I have to make some calls. Tame Ardmenson got arrested last night."
"Again?" The Flames starting guard was nasty on the court and a complete fucking idiot off it. He'd never been charged with anything, but he was couldn't keep his ass out of trouble during the off-season. Luckily he was white, so he usually got scooped up and not gunned down in the street.
"Yeah," Michael said, scrubbing the back of his neck. "He trashed a VIP section at some club in Dallas. I think he already got someone to spring him from the clink, but I have to talk to Rick and Bata tonight. We gotta release him."
Michael had come into possession of The Flames after the previous owner, who was now awaiting trial, had literally hired a hitman to kill a guy who owed him thousands in gambling debts. Michael, the head coach, the general manager and ninety-nine percent of the players had busted their asses to bring a wholesome family vibe back to the city and team. Ardmenson was kind of fucking that up for them."Let me make a call and then Operation Name Our Children is on."
"Deal. I'm sorry this is happening."
"Me too."
I watched my husband as he walked down the hallway toward one of the spare bathrooms, thinking over what he had just said. I had to take care of myself, that was for sure, but he was right. A lot could happen in six months and while I was busy playing walking incubator, I still had a life to live. And Valentine designs to stop ignoring.
✶
The next morning, I decided to suck it up and go back into the office, after my appointment with Dr. Fuckface Cheerful Pants. The girls were happy to see me and Patch, which just made me feel worse.
"I feel awful bailing on you guys so much," I told Daniella as we made ourselves comfortable on the couch with our laptops. “But I got some stuff done, if that counts.”
"Dude. Please do not worry about it . You're pregnant. Two times. I can't even imagine what that's like."
"Please tell me if you want me to shut up about it at any point." In all seriousness, Daniella had talked to me and Lili about certain things that just didn't apply to her and things I'd never considered when it came to being a trans woman. I knew the burn of having friends who had no clue what it was like to be black. I didn't want to be that asshole.
"Oh no, trust me. My mom's story of our births scared the living shit out of me."
"For real," Lili added from across the room. She made quite the face.
Daniella laughed. "She was in labor with me for like a million hours. A million plus five with that one. I get to play with super cute babies I don't really have to be responsible for and it gives me an excuse to shop. And when it's mom time for me, I'll have my best friend to give me all kinds of advice." She leaned over and put her head on my shoulder then gave my leg a little squeeze.
"See if I screw them up first."
"Shut up. You're gonna be great at it. Also it's been a nice distraction. I think Duke is seeing someone."
"Oh no."
"Oh yeah. It'll be fine. Just give me like a calendar year to get over him and everything will be a'okay."
If there were a way I could have forced the two of them into a room and screamed at them until they could see they belonged together, I would have. But grown folks gonna grown folk and there was nothing I could do about it. Daniella was a hopeless romantic, but not in the I-secretly-love it-when-my-friends-fuck-with-my-love-life holiday movie sort of way. I just had to let it go.
"Okay," she said, pretending to crack her knuckles. "Let's see what we got."
In just a couple days, fifty resumes had come in. Some from our online listings and some from Ruben and other friends. It was a lot to go through. It hurt my head just to think about it. I was thinking about my tummy neighbors and the precious lining of my esophagus. My husband. I couldn't stop thinking about Michael and all the HoneyDates we had to cross off our list by default, and the ones we could salvage. A million other things that had nothing to do with finding a new assistant or touching bases with our freelancers, or taking Notable Moments’ money, or finishing my own designs that were due to the printers whether the smell of Jade's shampoo made me want to forget how to inhale or not. Still, we set up ten interviews. That took more than half the day.
"I think you might want to hire your own personal, personal assistant too. Someone in Miami," Daniella said when I came back from a trip to the hurl bucket that was all sound and fury signifying nothing because my stomach was empty. I sipped one of the protein shakes Dr. Assface had recommended, turning the idea over in my head.
"Nah, is my honest answer."
"Okay then."
"We need help here. Plus Holger and Vera will be in Miami with me."
"Vera is very organized."
"Oh god, have you heard Michael's Scottish accent?"
"Not yet. Do I really want to?"
I grabbed my phone and hit Michael's number.
"Yes, my darling," he said after one ring.
"You two are killing me,” Daniella said, scrunching her nose up at my phone.
"Hey babe. I have you on speaker. Do the accent. I want the girls to hear."
"I'm just steppin' inta a meetin', aye."
"Oh my god. That's horrible!" Daniella squealed.
"More later," Michael said in his normal voice. "Gotta go. Love you."
"Love you, too."
"He didn't do that in front of any actual Scottish people, did he?" Daniella asked.
"Oh no. That would have gotten us banned from the whole country and we want to go back next year." My stomach sank as soon as I said the words. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. "Well maybe not next year."
"You'll get back." Daniella said with a warm smile. "And you'll take me with you."
"And me. Jesus Christ," Lili said. "You jerks never take me anywhere."
"What are you talking about? We took you on Faux Spring Break to Mexico," Daniella said.
“Mexico is like two hours from here!”
"We'll take you to Scotland, Lili," I said before a sister fight broke out. "You can come too, Jade."
"I'm good," she said, deadpan. She didn't even look up from her computer. That's why I liked Jade. Laser focus. Which reminded me, I had to try to at least complete one design before I went home. The core of our little business was not going to create itself.
✶
Oh how I took Brittany for granted and oh how I hated interviewing peop
le. I hated asking people interview questions. Daniella was so much better at it than I was. Even back in our HR days, she was good with the one on one and I was better with the mundane paperwork. Or maybe I was just so distracted that I hated having to sit through the interviews, period. I wanted just the right person to magically walk through the door. Like Mary Poppins, but without the life lessons and the singing. We just needed someone who could pick up right where Brittany left off, someone smart with a good sense of humor who didn't mind that Daniella and I were incapable of keeping our personal lives out of the office. Someone who clicked with Lili and didn't annoy Jade.
There was Christa, who was twenty minutes late because she forgot the address. After our brief two on one with her, Jade suggested we follow her uncle’s interview tactics and refuse to interview people who couldn’t bother to arrive on time. That rule of thumb had merit, but neither of us could be that brutal. Still, Christa was out. Erin, who had this amazing resume she’d created in inDesign was right on time, but reeked of weed so bad I had to take a step back and hold my nose the minute she walked in the door. Daniella cut right to the chase and asked if she was high, which she freely admitted to ’cause you know it was just part of how she was brought up. No big deal. Daniella killed the interview right there for all of our sakes. I was all for recreational good times, but damn there was a time and place and that scent was just too much.
Telvin was terrified of dogs and would not stop looking over at Patch, who in turn took that as his cue to come over and say hello. That was the end of Telvin. No clue why he applied in the first place considering we put “Must Like Dogs. We have one in the office” in the job posting, but whatever. I'd never seen a man hop over a chair so fast in my life. We settled on Hannah. A soft-spoken, soft butch Korean girl Jade had actually recommended. Hannah and Lili had almost identical temperaments, she loved dogs and she asked us a ton of questions that let us both know that she'd actually thought about the job before she drove out to interview. She was also fine with travel and the odd responsibilities of assisting two people who were definitely learning as they went. She was available to start right away.
After that was settled, and Lili got to work setting up Hannah’s email and phone, we were back to playing catch up and meeting this deadline for Notable Moments. And lord did I try, but Kiara would not stop sending me links to adorable baby stuff and of course I had to look at all of it. Plus Michael and I were off to Miami in a few days. I had to pack, had to plan, had too much to do and almost no time to do it. Just six and a half more months and then eighteen years after that, and maybe a few decades after that and I’d be able to take a break and breathe.
Seven
At different points in my life I'd been tired and overwhelmed. But I'd never known the pure suckery of being tired, overwhelmed, underfed and pregnant in Miami humidity during hurricane season. When we arrived in Florida I had just slid into my second trimester. I was free of Dr. Zelner and immediately had my first appointment with Dr. Angelique Prado, who had actually had twins herself and didn't smile at me like she was trying to get me to understand big words. Michael and I toured the swanky hospital where I'd be giving birth and that gave me a little peace of mind, but still, months to go and so, so much to do. I decided to stop thinking about the fact that I actually had to raise two small children when they arrived and focused on just getting to my delivery date, but that barely helped.
The Notable Moments deal was stressing me out. Michael and I talked, and I decided being the face of the line wasn’t something I was particularly interested in. For starters, I was far from the spokesperson for our generation. I loved the idea of "the millennial mom" but I was married to a billionaire. Other than our love of sarcasm and feminism, I knew my life and that of the typical twenty/thirty-something mom didn’t have all that much in common. Daniella and I brainstormed the idea of having different “real” moms and pregnant ladies model the products. Hopefully the folks at Notable Moments would go for it.
My mom thought turning down the opportunity was a big mistake, but I had to tell her gently to back off. The stress, my god the stress. The more I thought about the project, the more I found myself obsessing over my current gestational situation. There was no such thing as a distraction anymore. I had babies, moms, pregnancy, maternity wear and accessories on the brain twenty-four hours a day. It got to the point where I actually looked forward to the moments where Daniella needed to talk to me about other random business things. I started to live for the breaks in my day when I had to check in with our freelancers and approve designs for actual holidays.
Even when Michael and I managed to squeeze in a HoneyDate, we would only make it maybe five minutes without one of us bringing up how I was feeling or the way my body was changing. I felt like a complete dick because Michael being Michael, he couldn't help but be honest about his excitement. He was in full dad mode and sort of in awe of having me as his wife and making him a father. I couldn't tell him that I didn't want to talk about the babies being the size of a peach.
Everyone around me was in some kind of mode actually. Kaleigh and Kiara were so psyched to be aunts to the twins. Kaleigh wanted two boys and Kiara sometimes wanted two girls, but also thought a girl and a boy would be a nice addition to the family. Michael and I set up accounts for them that they were both very responsible with but that didn’t stop them from buying me tons of baby-related things and having them overnighted to the house. Some of the stuff joined the pile of wedding gifts I'd insisted we ignore. My parents, of course, were excited and worried, but more so excited. They got to be the grandparents. They weren’t responsible for stuff like teaching my kids how to walk and talk and how to use a fork and avoid peer pressure.
And then the girls. Daniella and Lili were over the moon. Aunties By Proxy, as they liked to call themselves, so much so that they asked me to design them t-shirts whenever I got a chance. I added that to my to-do list. And even though Daniella and Lili were three thousand miles away, Zia and my friend Asia were right here in Miami with their own set of comments and inquiries. Now that I was showing and knew what parts of the city to avoid so photogs wouldn’t catch my newly adopted Fuck All This Shit face, Asia was nice enough to have us over to her house for lunch one rainy Friday when I was feeling particularly cranky.
Thanks to her husband’s position as a starter for the Flames, they had their own absurdly large house and a cook and hired help to lend a hand with their three little ones. Tyrie and Persia were already back in school, but her thirteen-month old, Tika, joined us for our meal. There was no escape for me. Babies everywhere.
I tried to make myself comfortable. My ass felt too big for every chair.
“I have to admit, I'm happy for selfish reasons,” Asia laughed. I watched her as she gingerly held Tika’s chubby fists and helped the baby take clumsy steps around the table. “We might get you here year around.”
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Please don't say that.”
“You got a few years, maybe. But you're gonna want to be here for the season and then when they get old enough, they make friends. We tried to head back to Texas last summer and Tyrie was not having it. His little homies had plans and we had to stay right here.”
“Please don't tell me that. Tell me I'm in charge. Tell me I can make my marriage work over the phone.”
“Girl, good luck. And just watch, you're gonna sign those birth certificates and every private preschool in Dade county will start hitting you up before the ink dries. They’re gonna want those Bradbury billionaires on their roll call.”
I groaned again and rubbed my stomach. “But it's so humid here. So wet.”
“It's hot in L.A. too,” Zia laughed.
“Not like this. Dear god, not like this. Michael needed to buy a team somewhere cooler.”
“Too late. We’re keeping you. Just claim that residency and make yourself comfortable,” Asia laughed.
“Ugh, that reminds me. I haven't even changed my name on my license yet.”
“You should get on that, Mrs. Bradbury,” Zia said.
I rolled my eyes and tried a bite of the turkey burger Elena, their cook, had prepared for me. That was all I'd been craving recently, ground turkey and grapes.
“Have you picked out names yet?” Zia asked.
“We have.”
“Well?”
I’d liked to pretend that Michael and I agonized over the names but we didn't. Once we settled on Bs it was pretty easy to agree on options we were both very happy with.
“Buck and Blaze. Those feel gender neutral. I'm kidding. Brayden, no matter what for Baby One, and Bryan for Baby A if it's a boy or Bethany if it's a girl. Stereo Speaker and Mayor McCheese also made the shortlist, but we thought maybe those names might cause some problems.”
“I don't know,” Zia said. “Stereo Speaker is growing on me.”
“Don't you even think about it,” Asia laughed and Tika joined in with her own giggle as she bounced on her wobbly knees. “My children can’t associate with anyone named after any sort of household appliance.”
“Don’t worry. My mama would fly down here and change the birth certificates herself,” I replied as my phone chirped in my bag. It was Daniella’s text alert. I was tempted not to look at it, but it was a work day.
Just emailed with Deb. CC’d you. We’re on for Monday. You good to go, sexy mama?
I smiled at my phone, but suddenly wanted to throw it in Asia’s pool. I didn’t have words for what I was feeling, but it felt like something close to my body’s early warning system going off. Still, duty called.
“Sorry. It’s Daniella,” I said as I started texting back.
I will be. I added the smiley face emoji with the biggest grin. I worked best under pressure. I’d made great progress but the final touches on the Notable Moments presentation would definitely be handled in the eleventh hour, Sunday night after I’d spent part of the weekend pretending that I didn’t have a responsible life to lead or a business to help run or people to not disappoint. I knew I should’ve been tinkering with it right then, but I had to give myself at least an hour or so to enjoy my lunch with my friends.
SO FOR REAL: A Sugar Baby Novella Page 7