From Here To Maternity

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Laura managed to nod. “I know. I see it. But there were no meetings. No decisions. So I don’t know what to think, either.”

  Michelle’s expression darkened. “Wow. Then this is really weird, isn’t it?”

  “Exceptionally. If not cosmically,” Laura quickly agreed, crossing her arms under her bosom.

  A wordless moment passed, then Michelle brightened, smiling at her. “Want to hold him?”

  Laura backed up, waving Michelle’s request away. “No, thank you. I’ve been holding spewing babies for the last two days of the photo shoot And no one got hurt. Which is something of a victory for me. So I think I’ll just stop while the only casualty is my wet-wipe of a suit.”

  Michelle laughed. “In that case, what’s one more stain? Come on. Hold him.” With that, she unstrapped the baby and picked him up, holding him under his arms and kissing his fat little cheek. For all her kind efforts, though, the baby grabbed a handful of Michelle’s blond hair and yanked it hard, right before stuffing her curls into his little round mouth. Michelle’s squeal of dismay galvanized Laura into action.

  She quickly squatted next to Michelle, taking the baby’s hand and trying, as gently as possible, to pry his fat little fingers open. He immediately cooperated, releasing Michelle’s hair and grabbing Laura’s finger, gripping it tightly and saying mama with a disconcerting note of certainty in his baby voice.

  Laura all but passed out Desperately she waggled her finger, still held hostage in his fat ones, and managed to quip, “Hey, I’m not Mama. Don’t you know that’s how rumors get started?”

  Michelle’s chuckle, as she massaged her scalp, told Laura that she’d sounded as droll as she thought she had. Immediately, Laura’s face heated with self-consciousness. To deflect it, she changed the subject. “It looks like you’ve done a great job of caring for him here, Michelle.”

  “It wasn’t hard. He sat there in his little carrier, happy as a clam, and stared out the door. Like he was expecting someone.” Her face softened with sympathy. “Probably his mother, poor baby. Anyway, I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t.” Then she brightened some. “Heck, you probably would have done a better job, given that big family of yours.”

  “Not mine. My mother’s. And, trust me, there is no ‘better job’ when it comes to me and kids,” Laura assured her. But still, she couldn’t stop a chuckle as she thought of her wonderfully crazy and exasperating gypsy of a mother, her five marriages, five relocations and her five children to prove each one. “Even though I’m the oldest, my mother knew better than to let me help with the babies,” Laura added. “So I know nothing about the diaper crowd. Okay, not even about the curtain-climber set Anyway, my shaving the right half of James’s head the day before school pictures were to be taken seemed to be the last straw for my mother.”

  “You what?” Michelle squealed. “Laura Sloan! That’s awful. You shaved his head? Why?”

  Grinning wickedly, Laura shrugged. “He said he wanted a haircut. So I gave him one. Well, half a one.”

  Her mouth open, Michelle said, “I cannot believe you did that. How old were you then?”

  Staring at the baby, Laura frowned, thinking back to the incident. “I guess I was about nine or ten. And James was six. But I was totally excused from child care after that. It’s a shame, too, because I really do love kids.”

  “Yeah. It sounds like it,” Michelle responded with a shake of her head.

  “But I do,” Laura protested—over Michelle’s laughter. Grinning, Laura focused on the baby and cooed, “Don’t I? I love kids. And aren’t you the cute little man? Who’d just drop you off, huh? Where’s your mama?”

  Again, the little boy stared at her, then raised his fist toward her and said, as plain as you please, “Mama.” Then he promptly tried to stuff her fingertip into his mouth, and managed to show three or four sharp baby teeth into the bargain.

  “Oh, how cute. I think he likes you,” Michelle crooned, breaking into the tender moment. “So that means—” she plopped the chubby little guy onto Laura’s lap and stood, brushing her woolen slacks “—I can go now. I have to go by the church—”

  “No!” Laura bleated. Wrapping an arm around the baby’s middle, Laura freed her finger from his clutches and grabbed Michelle’s pants, holding her in place. “Stay. Please. I’ll give you a thousand dollars not to leave him here with me. Haven’t you heard anything I said? Think, Michelle. You’re leaving him here with me. With me.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Michelle said, laughter bubbling in her voice. “You’re not going to hurt him. You were just a kid yourself back then. You didn’t mean to—”

  “Ha. Kid? I accidentally left my baby sister in an elevator, Michelle. Five years ago. She was one. I was twenty-five.” Hearing her admission, Laura blinked and upped the ante. “I’d better make it two thousand. Have you no pity for this child?”

  Michelle laughed outright. “He won’t need any. Now, stop it. You’ll be fine. He’s a good baby.”

  “He may be good, Michelle. But I’m not. I don’t know what to do. Seriously. Five minutes after you leave, he could be dangling from the ceiling fan.”

  Michelle’s smile could only be called beatific. “Oh, you. You are so funny.” Then she patted Laura’s hand, which was still attached to her slacks. “It’ll come to you. After all, you’re a woman. Mothering is in your genes.”

  Laura scoffed. “Is this national Mothering Is in Your Genes Day? David said the same thing. Will no one listen to me?” She relinquished her hold on her art director and stared at her. “I’m telling you, it’s not in my genes. And that’s according to my own mother—who should know. And so should you. You’ve seen me with kids. Admit it. Your hair stood up, didn’t it?”

  Michelle sobered, looked pensive. “Well, at that one photo shoot a while back, you did give that four-year-old girl five dollars and a subway token to go eat out when her mother said she was hungry.”

  “See what I mean? This child—” Laura waved the baby’s soft, fat little arm at Michelle “—is not safe with me.” Then, buoyed by Michelle’s stated concern, Laura continued. “Think of it this way, Michelle. Unless Tucker here is somebody’s idea of a joke, we have an abandoned baby on our hands. We need to tell someone.”

  “You mean like Mr. Cohn and Mr. Draper—who are in Switzerland, as we speak? You’re the someone, Laura. Senior VP on the premises. Everyone else has gone home.”

  “They have? I am?” Laura’s mind whirled with her responsibilities. Liabilities. Lawsuit potential. Career up in smoke. Think, Laura. Then she had it. “All right, we should be calling the police or the lost baby people—what are they called?”

  Michelle shrugged, frowning as if in thought but glancing toward her coat and purse draped over a chair. “I don’t know. Child Protective Services? Child Welfare? Something like that.”

  Laura smiled brightly. “Yes, that’s them. Look them up and we’ll call them. Protective. I like that They sound like people who’ll know what to do with someone like…” Like who? She glanced at the active bundle on her lap, tugged her gold serpentine-chain necklace from his grasp and looked at Michelle. “What should we call him? I mean, he seems a little young for hey, you or kid.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Michelle quirked her mouth, looking the baby up and down, then her expression brightened. “I know—how about Tucker? You called him that a minute ago, anyway.”

  A frown of surprise clouded Laura’s features. “I did?” But then she considered the name, the baby—and liked it. “All right, then, Tucker it is.”

  Laura smiled, suddenly feeling better. They’d call the protective people and have them come get the baby. And then she and Michelle could go home. There. Done. With no loss to her dignity. Well, except that she was still squatting on the floor, holding…Oh, no.

  A slightly less than dry Tucker, if the warmth spreading over her navy designer suit skirt was any indication. Laura lifted the baby, stared at the darkly wet circle where he’d been sitting, and her ex
pression crumpled. She held Tucker out to Michelle. “Take him. He’s wet.”

  Not the best opening statement, apparently. Because the art director formerly known as cooperative balked, shaking her head and backing up, stopping only when she got to her coat, which she promptly snatched and shrugged into. “I’d like to help you, but I need to get to the church on time.” She grabbed her purse and went the long way around her drafting table, thus avoiding Laura’s grasp as she made her way to her door and slipped out. From the hallway she called, “See you tomorrow.”

  “Not if I see you first,” Laura called back. Was she going to have to kill her entire team? And then she was alone with the baby. Quiet moments ticked by while she eyed Tucker and he eyed her.

  Then he broke the stalemate. He grinned and reached out, working his little hands and saying, “Mama.”

  “Yikes. Boy, have you got the wrong girl,” Laura said. Still squatting flat-footed, still holding the dangling baby in front of her, her elbows braced on her knees, Laura told him how it was in her life. “Everything else aside, kiddo—and I mean all those horror stories you might have heard, which, by the way, try not to be too freaked out about them, okay? I’ll do my best not to drop you on your head or anything—But what I’m trying to say is I’m not the mama kind. I don’t even intend to get married.”

  An unbidden, unwanted image—Grant Maguire’s face—flitted into Laura’s consciousness. She blinked, dispelling it from her mind. If only it were that easy with her heart. “But, anyway, the boring details aside, I got over him—no! That. I got over that, the wanting to get married, a long time ago. I’m happily single. See, look around you, Tucker. This is my life. Glass and chrome. High-rises. City streets. Nightlife. You may not know it, what with me squatted here and serving as your potty chair, but I’ve made a great life for myself. I make an obscene amount of money. And I’m what we big people call a high-powered executive—”

  “Mama.” He smiled, pointing at her with a droolsticky finger.

  Laura chuckled as her heart warmed. Why’d he have to be so darned suitable-for-framing cute? “No. Not mama. So not mama, you wouldn’t believe it, buddy. In fact, you’d run…well, you would if you could. Anyway, try saying this…ex-ec-u-tive. Can you say that?”

  “Executive.”

  Laura froze, staring wide-eyed at the grinning baby. He hadn’t said it. No. The husky male voice had come from behind them. Her heart thudding, her limbs tingling, Laura swallowed and came slowly to her feet Only then, and with great dread pounding her blood through her veins, did she turn around, unthinkingly sticking Tucker under her arm like a quarterback would a football. The child’s head and arms hung out one way, his wet bottom and feet the other. With his mouth, he was making rude but happy noises, totally entertaining himself.

  However, Laura all but forgot Tucker as she stared at the man leaning against the doorjamb. And he stared at her, appearing to Laura to be just as frozen in place as she felt, just as unwilling to break the moment. Or their eye contact. Their first eye contact in ten years.

  Grant Maguire. In the ensuing quiet, images flitted through Laura’s mind, reminding her of that fine autumn day on campus years ago when she’d first seen him. She’d fallen in love almost instantly, perhaps loving more the vulnerable little boy she found hidden beneath the Big Man on Campus exterior. She’d thought, in her undergrad days, that he had fallen for her, too. Because their time together had been oh, so torrid. After two years, there’d even been talk of marriage. And that was when the rich as Croesus, handsome as Adonis Golden Boy had bailed. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

  Until now. Here he was. Her client. The heretofore and studiously avoided newly hired marketing director for Tucker the Bear baby products. That he had a job—any job at all—told her he was still into that whole trying-to-prove-himself-to-his-father phase. “Hello, Grant,” she finally managed to squeak out around the blush that fired her cheeks.

  “Hello, Laura. You’re been avoiding me.”

  She swallowed. “Have not.”

  “Have to. Either that, or you’ve been out of the office or in a meeting straight through for the past month.”

  Her chin came up an embarrassed notch. “Yes, I have.”

  “Have not.” Grant chuckled, the sound causing every nerve ending Laura owned to tingle. Darn it, it just wasn’t fair that after ten years, the sound of his voice, of his laugh, should have her wanting to run into his arms. Had she no pride? She’d feared she’d have this weak-kneed, willy-nilly response to him. That was why she’d avoided him. But all that aside, she desperately needed to say something. “So, Grant. You look…good. I guess. I mean, you do. You look good. Better than you do on TV. And in the tabloids. With all those women.” Shut up, Laura.

  Laughter erupted from him. “Thanks…I think. So do you. Look good, I mean.”

  Her heart leaped. Almost without thought, she shifted the baby’s weight on her hip. “I do?”

  “Yes. You do.”

  “Urn, thanks.” Then it got quiet again. Too quiet. Laura couldn’t seem to make herself do or say anything. How could she? Because with all that light brown sun-streaked hair, tawny eyes and tanned skin, even in January, Grant Maguire was—oh, my God—standing there. Muscled, lean, fit, the son of one of the richest men in the world. And dressed like a model on the glossy pages of some expensive menswear magazine.

  But clothes on him were an afterthought, an unnecessary adornment Especially since Laura knew what lay underneath them. She didn’t have to fantasize. She had firsthand experience. Hands? Her hands. On him. Oh, my God. A tingle raced over Laura, centering itself low in her belly. Her breath caught. She stared at him.

  He was staring at her. Crash! Back to Earth. Back to reality. And back to her appearance. Her soul cringed. Great. A month of avoiding him, and he catches me like this. As if she needed to further humiliate herself, Laura saw herself through his eyes. Skirt wet Hair skewed. Baby in tow. And her a moment ago squatting and talking to the baby. About her life. Her life alone. Suddenly, a fit of embarrassed temper replaced Laura’s fascination for the man. “How long have you been standing there?” she blurted.

  2

  “LONG ENOUGH,” Grant assured Laura, even though he’d only been there a second or two. He walked into the office, shoving his fisted hands into his overcoat’s deep pockets. But he’d been there long enough to know it was either do that—pocket his hands—or risk them reaching out of their own volition to grab her to him for a soul-searing kiss. Totally unexpected.

  Unexpected? This bam-right-between-the-eyes, gutdeep wrenching that had his muscles locking and his throat all but closing was merely unexpected? And the Grand Canyon is just a big ditch, Grant. All right, certainly he’d expected to have some sort of reaction upon seeing her. After all, he had insisted his company use her agency for their advertising once he heard her name around his office, once he knew she worked here. And that was when his pursuit had started.

  He couldn’t explain it. He’d thought of her often enough over the years and had thought of looking her up sometime. He’d instinctively realized he still harbored strong feelings for her, but he’d never acted on them. He couldn’t really say why. Perhaps it was due to the shame he felt over the way he’d left But then, hearing her name spoken at work, her A-1 reputation touted, flipped some kind of switch in his head. Or his heart. He’d known somehow that it was time. He needed to see her. To hear her voice. To touch her.

  And now here she was. And here he was. The two of them. Staring at each other…for a little too long. Too quiet…for a little too long. Okay, so he hadn’t suspected this overtly sexual shock he’d experienced as he watched her from the doorway. How could he have known everything in him would want her, would cry out what a jackass he’d been, would demand that he kiss her, that he beg her to forgive the stupid, idiotic twenty-two-year-old he’d been ten years ago when he left? Beg her to give him a second chance?

  And on top of it all, just look at her. Man,
she looked good. Tall. Curvy. So womanly. Gone was the untried, gawky young girl he’d fallen in love with. Here was the realization of the woman. So together. Well, together except—and again, no surprise here—for the dangling, chortling baby and the wet skirt and the mussed hair. But still, leave it to her to pull off the patently ridiculous with sexy style. Finally, figuring he’d stood there long enough like some kind of a drooling idiot, Grant pointed to the as yet unremarked upon baby precariously perched under her arm. “What you got there?”

  Laura started, as if the sound of his voice had pulled her out of deep thought. She glanced at her bundle. “Um, it appears to be a wet baby.”

  Grant chuckled, loving the challenging glint in her gray eyes when she looked his way. “I see that. Is he one of ours?”

  Laura’s eyebrows rose. “Define ‘ours.’”

  “Tucker the Bear. Baby model. My product, your account? Ours?”

  “Oh.” Then she shook her head. “No.”

  Frowning, Grant considered her, not knowing what to make of her ruffled demeanor. Could she be undone because he had the same effect on her as she did on him? Dare he hope as much? But when the moments again stretched out, so did a sudden dread. He had to ask. Had to know. “Well…is he yours, then?”

  “Mine?” She said it as if she’d never heard the word.

  Grant steeled himself to hear the truth. Where there were babies, there generally were daddies. Husband daddies. “Yes. As in, ‘you mama, he son.’”

  “No. Oh, God, no. No. He’s not mine.”

  “He’s not? Good.” Grant heard his blurted reaction at the same moment she did. His eyes widened. “I mean—”

  “No. Seriously. It is good. For his sake.” She pointed to the baby and put her free hand to her chest. Grant so envied that hand of hers. Then, and as if needing to calm herself, she took several deep breaths that enticingly lifted her full breasts…and all but sent Grant to his knees. What was he, to be acting this way, some hormonal junior high kid? But he was so distracted by her every movement that he had to think hard to catch up to her words. “You weren’t standing there as long as I thought you were. Or you’d know that he’s not mine.”