~~~
Three pregnancy tests later, and Melanie finally accepted that she was, in fact, pregnant.
“What am I going to tell Chris?” she asked for the tenth time.
As they sat at Melanie’s dining room table, Veronica patted her arm soothingly.
“What am I going to do?” Melanie said. “I’m thirty-eight! I thought I was done. I thought Angie was it. Oh my god.”
Veronica kept patting her arm.
Melanie turned and gave Veronica a piercing look. “And you. You would have kept this from me, when you thought it was Angie that was pregnant?”
With a grimace, Veronica shrugged. “Mellie, hon, if I had said something to you, you’d have been totally freaked, and it would have turned out I was wrong.”
Burying her face in her hands, Melanie groaned. When she released her face she blinked at Veronica. “I am totally freaked out, you know. And I still think you should have told me.”
“I talked to her, I made her understand the risk she was facing, and she took it seriously. I thought I’d fixed everything and you never had to even worry about it.”
“She’s my daughter, Veronica!”
“She wasn’t in my vision, Mel. You were!”
“But you thought it was her!”
“And if I’d seen anything new to make me think my talk with her didn’t work after all, I’d have made her tell you she was in trouble. But I wasn’t going to just tell you myself, Melanie. It’s not fair. I mean, it’s already tough for her that you get inside information from me—”
“Tough? What are you talking about? You saved her life! Twice!”
“Well, once for sure. And in a situation like that, of course I’d tell you anything I saw. Of course! But this was something else. I mean, I know you would need to know if she was pregnant. But it would be something for her to tell you, Mel. Not me.”
Melanie crossed her arms and scowled. Veronica knew she was focused on this mainly so she could avoid dealing with the three pregnancy test sticks glaring at her from the paper plate they lay on in the center of the table. She considered bringing them up to get Melanie to stop blaming her, but that seemed cruel. Melanie would have to deal with reality soon enough. Let her throw a fit about Veronica’s decision to go behind her back if she must.
“I’m just not okay with it,” Melanie said, echoing Veronica’s thoughts.
“I get that. But it doesn’t change my mind about it.”
“So if you get a vision of Angie snorting coke you’re just going to go have a little chat with her, is that it? I’ll just be in the dark!”
Veronica sucked in a long breath of air, willing her patience to endure this onslaught.
“It depends on the vision, and on how Angie seems to be doing. Basically, how immediate the danger seems. If I get a vision now of Angie doing coke in college… yeah. I might talk to her first. If the vision seems to be telling me she’s currently doing coke, that’s a different story.” Melanie glowered at her. “Look, Mel, if she’d said anything that made me think she was having sex now, that she could already be pregnant, I would have told her that she had a choice, talk to you herself, or I’d do it. And I’d have pushed you to make a doctor’s appointment for her, and if she wasn’t already pregnant, I’d have advised you to put her on birth control pills, and to buy her a couple of boxes of condoms, but beyond that, I’d have removed myself from the whole thing. At that point—when I came to believe that she was in immediate danger—it would have become about her communicating with you, and you having a chance to take over. Okay?”
“Unbelievable!” Melanie barked. “You get to just know things about my kid, and decide whether to tell me? What kind of a friend are you?”
“The kind of friend who respects your daughter’s boundaries! And who believes she’s a good kid who will make the right choices if she’s given a chance. If I told you everything all the time about her, she’d feel violated, and rightfully so! It’s bad enough I see stuff sometimes that invades people’s privacy when it’s not a matter of safety or whatever—I shouldn’t be able to do that! It isn’t fair. The least I can do it keep that stuff to myself or at least restrict who I talk to about it!”
“But I’m her mother!”
Veronica pushed back her chair, preparing to stand. “Okay, look. I know you are upset. I know that inside, you realize I would never withhold information from you if I thought Angie was really in danger. But you can’t accept that right now. I get why you think I should tell you everything. But it’s not going to happen. I have this—gift, whatever you want to call it, and it’s a good thing, when I can use it to protect people. The rest of the time, it’s just an unfair invasion of people’s privacy, and if I could control it so I never had those insights, I would. But I can’t. The best I can do is try to respect their privacy. If you can’t accept that, I understand. But I’m not going to sit here and be your punching bag when we both know that’s not actually what you’re really upset about.”
She stood and waited to see what Melanie would say. She didn’t want to leave Melanie alone right now, but she also meant what she said.
Melanie stared at Veronica, her mouth clamped shut, a muscle jumping in her cheek. After a moment, her eyes flicked to the pregnancy tests, and then she shut her eyes as tightly as her mouth. The fingers of her hands curled and squeezed into fists. Finally, she let out a howl of frustration.
Veronica stood still, waiting.
Melanie opened her eyes again, pressing a hand to her mouth. Then she dropped the hand and grabbed it with the other one, wringing them together.
“I’m so mad at you,” she said in a low voice. “I’m so mad. I just—I should know when Angie might be in danger—it’s not fair that you know these things, and I don’t. But you’re right—it’s not just that—I’m totally freaked out, I can barely think about this—this news. Oh god.” Melanie closed her eyes again and resumed talking. “And I don’t know—I don’t know if I would be so mad at you, if I didn’t have this huge thing completely freaking me out. I don’t know what to do with it. So maybe I am so mad because it’s easier to be mad than deal with it. I just don’t know.” She opened her eyes, the blue catching light from the chandelier above, as she met Veronica’s concerned gaze.
“Mellie, I want to help you deal with it. But I can leave if you’d rather.”
“I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know how you can help me.”
“We can talk it out. What you want to do—keep it, or not. How it might work, you know, logistically, you having a baby.”
Melanie let out a choked noise when Veronica said that last word. “I can’t believe this. What am I going to tell Chris?”
“Do you want me to stay? We can figure out how you’ll tell him.”
After a pause, Melanie nodded. “Yes. Stay. I’ll just have to figure out if I’m really mad at you later. After I figure out what I’m going to do. So you’re not off the hook, missy.”
“Understood,” Veronica said, sitting back down. “Now. Let’s start with Chris. You’re seeing him tonight, right?”
Chapter 4
When Veronica got home two hours later, she felt wiped out. She parked her blue Honda at the curb in front of her duplex and sat for a moment before getting out. At least she’d been able to help Melanie figure out how to tell Chris. She’d do it before they left on their date so they could decide whether they wanted to go out and talk about it or stay in.
Veronica wondered whether Melanie would come back to her anger over Veronica not telling her everything she saw about Angie. It would be an issue whether she was still angry or not, Veronica knew. It was the first time Melanie had found out that Veronica didn’t share everything with her. That was bound to be a blow to her trust. She would probably wonder, now, what Veronica knew and wasn’t telling.
Not that she knew all that much. She didn’t get a lot of extraneous details off of people. Just tidbits here and there. The pregnancy vision was much more po
werful than those tidbits usually were anyway, and Veronica had to admit, it existed in a gray area. It was one thing to touch Angie’s arm and see her in the cafeteria chatting with a boy, and another to have a vision that seemed to indicate she was eight months pregnant and going into some sort of dangerous, premature labor. Veronica still thought she’d done the right thing talking to Angie first. But if the vision really had turned out to be about Angie—and if things got more serious with Joe Chapela, what would Veronica have done? Pushed Angie to talk to Melanie, certainly. She would have tried to see if Angie was going to remain abstinent, and failing that, she would have urged Angie to take precautions. Mellie would have to be in the loop then.
Veronica sighed, resting her hands on the steering wheel. Well, she didn’t have to deal with those complications, at least not at this point. No, it was Melanie who was pregnant. They hadn’t even talked about the blood in Veronica’s vision—of course initially she told Melanie about it, but after that the focus had been on the pregnancy itself. They drove out to buy the tests. When they got home, Veronica waited while Melanie peed—three separate pees, which Veronica thought was quite a feat. Together they stared at the sticks. They’d gotten three different kinds, for accuracy’s sake, and the first one showed two lines, the second a plus sign, and the third read “pregnant.” Then panic set in.
What would Melanie do?
Veronica couldn’t say. She suspected that Melanie was more Catholic at heart than she ever let on, and abortion would probably not be an option. But this was so unplanned—Melanie and Chris had been seeing each other for over seven months, but they were nowhere near the kind of commitment that came with becoming parents. Melanie was just starting her paralegal program. She had plans for her future, and they didn’t involve a baby.
I’m not going to figure this out for her, no matter how long I sit here fretting about it, Veronica told herself. She took a deep breath and gathered her energy. She felt sapped by the afternoon’s events. Dealing with Melanie’s anger had not been fun. Harry was waiting for a walk, Binky was probably passed out with hunger, and she had to eat something herself soon or she was going to get a headache.
She climbed out of the car and headed for the gate that led to the door on the side of the duplex, but jumped when another car door banged before she reached it.
“Veronica Barry?” a man called.
Turning around, she recognized the crew cut. “Officer Posey?”
He was dressed in street clothes and holding a bouquet of pink and orange daisies. He approached, his gait hesitant.
Veronica stood waiting, feeling uncomfortable.
Finally he came to a stop a few feet away. “I, uh. I wanted to say thank you.”
Raising her eyebrows, she didn’t answer.
“You were… um, you were right. About the DV call. Uh, we went to apartment 112. It was Jennifer Garza’s apartment, by the way.”
“I told you, I don’t know her.”
“Well, anyway, I remembered what you said. I mean Donohue and me, we both remembered. So when we got the call, we just… well, we both thought you were probably full of shit but why risk it? So we got back-up before we answered it and a couple of guys snuck around the back to the fire escape and… well, the details don’t matter. You were right. Garza’s boyfriend got out of prison last week and I guess he likes meth. He would have shot us. He would have killed me, just like you saw.” He took another step towards her, and held out the bouquet. Veronica realized he was afraid of her, and that was why he was approaching her so oddly. “So I just thought, it was only right. To say thank you.”
Veronica took the flowers. “These are beautiful. Thank you. I’m really glad things worked out.”
He nodded and turned away. His pace as he returned to his car was much quicker than it had been when he came over to her. She started for the gate again, but stopped as he called out to her.
“Hey, I’m sorry Detective Felsen’s such a bitch to you,” he said.
Veronica gave him a half-grin. What would he think if he knew Felsen sent him to his death out of spite towards Veronica? She waved at him. “Yeah. Some people are just skeptics, I guess.”
~~~
After returning from a quick walk with Harry—she owed that dog a trip to Folsom Lake—she found a vase for the flowers. Her cell phone went off just as she started to arrange them. Thinking it might be Melanie, she hurried to her purse. It was still too early for Melanie to have talked to Chris, but she might be losing her nerve. Veronica hoped she could find a way to encourage her friend.
It was not Melanie’s name on her screen, however, but Daniel’s cousin, Sunny. Veronica picked up the call.
“Hey, Ronnie,” Sunny said, using the nickname Daniel insisted on calling her. “I got those movies in the mail today. You still want to get together tomorrow afternoon for the marathon?”
Veronica grimaced, glad Sunny couldn’t see and deduce that she’d totally forgotten their plans. Veronica and Sunny shared a love of all things retro. They had agreed to watch three Hitchcock movies in a row on Saturday, while drinking Shirley Temples and eating a melon-ball cocktail recipe Sunny had dug up in an old Betty Crocker cookbook from the fifties. It had seemed like such a fun idea at the time, but now Veronica wasn’t sure she could stop worrying about Melanie long enough to enjoy herself. What if Mellie needed her tomorrow?
But Sunny had gone to all the trouble of finding the recipe and ordering the films. Mellie would be okay for six hours without Veronica, after all.
“Sure,” Veronica said, making her voice light. “Bring on the Hitchcock.”
“Excellent. I was thinking we could do more than melon balls,” Sunny said, and Veronica could hear a smile in her voice. “How about lunch while we watch To Catch a Thief, then melons balls for dessert and Vertigo? Personally, I don’t want to eat anything when we get to Psycho.”
“Sounds good. Do you want me to figure something out for lunch? I could bring a dish over.”
“No way. My handy Betty Crocker cookbook has a recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole that sounds like a slice of fifties heaven.”
Sunny, who emulated Bettie Page, liked the fifties more than any other decade. If forced to choose, Veronica considered the forties, although Audrey Hepburn might be her favorite actress—and Sophia Loren was in the running—and she loved Hepburn’s later stuff, like Charade. So with Loren and Hepburn so high on her list, she might have to opt for the fifties and sixties. Anyway, she loved almost any classic movie, although her enthusiasm started to wane when it came to movies of the seventies. This was something of a disappointment to Daniel, who had been raised to worship Dirty Harry.
“Tuna Noodle Casserole it is,” Veronica confirmed.
“Alright then. My place, high noon. Be there or be square.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
Veronica hung up and finished with the flowers. She heard a cat-thump in the bedroom and after a moment Blossom appeared in the doorway. After placing the vase of daisies on the coffee table, Veronica stepped over and stroked the cat. Blossom had long, luscious white fur, and she purred as Veronica ran her hand over her back.
“It’s nice to see you too, Bloss.”
Sighing, Veronica considered just telling Bloss about everything going on. She didn’t know who to call. She wanted to call Daniel and tell him all about Melanie’s surprise—and tell him about the blood in the vision, so he could help her think about how she could bring that up with Melanie sometime soon. But she knew it wouldn’t be right to talk to Daniel about the pregnancy before Melanie told Chris. He was already finding out second, after Veronica.
Besides, there was the little matter of the other thought knocking around in Veronica’s head. The one that started with a capital “E.”
Who could she talk to about Eric?
For a while she’d forgotten about Eric’s plans to visit Sacramento in the panic of pregnancy tests and Melanie’s anger towards her. But now that she had a moment to herself, s
he found that as much as she was worried for Melanie, Eric was near the surface of her mind as well. If she could just talk to someone about him, maybe she’d be able to get some perspective. Nothing like saying something out loud to take the power out of it, sometimes anyway.
She couldn’t call Melanie and talk to her about it, for obvious reasons.
She couldn’t talk to Sunny about it. Sunny was Daniel’s cousin. Veronica wasn’t going to tell Daniel’s cousin all about her old crush coming back into town, and how confused she was about it.
There was Khalilah, but as much as Veronica liked Khalilah—and they had bonded during some dangerous experiences just a few months before—she just didn’t have the kind of friendship with her that encouraged sharing mixed feelings about old flames.
Veronica could call her aunt, Cybele. Cybele would have something to say about it, and her perspective was usually out of the ordinary.
Did she really want to confide in Cybele about Eric?—but her mind kept returning to it. At last, Veronica grabbed her cell and punched in a call to her aunt.
“Cybele Barry,” came her familiar voice. Veronica’s heart tightened and she realized she’d missed her.
“Hey Cybele,” Veronica said, breaking into a smile.
“Veronica! What a lovely surprise. How are you, dear?”
Cybele’s voice had the grand tones of those who’d spent their professional life in the theater. She was a dancer, and she never really stepped off the stage.
“I’m doing well,” Veronica said. “How’s everything with you?”
“Comme-ci, comme ça. That lout Adam Brisman is harassing us again.”
Brisman was a recurring foe—he wrote for the Santa Fe Christian News and often took exception with Cybele’s dance troop’s performances.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Veronica said.
“Oh, don’t give it another thought,” Cybele said, and Veronica could see the graceful sweep of the arm that accompanied the dismissal. “That man deserves no space in our heads rent-free. Tell me all about yourself. How is your arm?”
The Plane and the Parade (Veronica Barry Book 3) Page 4