Like the big boy he always claims to be, Maddox simply says goodbye and waves back at me as they walk off. But not before I hear the boy say to him, “Why do you have such a stupid accent?”
Back in my car, my phone rings and I hit the answer button on my steering wheel. “Hello?”
“Baylor? This is Angie Wilson.”
“Oh, yes,” I say. “Hi, Angie. How are you?”
“I’m good, thank you. How are you settling in?”
“Pretty well, so far,” I say with a sigh. “L.A. is a different world for us. It’s going to take some getting used to.”
Her delightful laugh comes through my speakers. “That it is,” she says. “I was wondering, if you’re free, would you like to meet for lunch today? I know it must be hard to make friends in a new place and I want you to know that I’m totally here for you. Whatever you need.”
It takes a minute for me to wrap my brain around Karen’s BFF welcoming me and wanting to make friends. She must take my silence as a rejection. She says, “Listen, if you’re busy, it’s all good. We can do it another day.”
“No, it’s not that,” I say. “I’m definitely not busy. I know three people here, Gavin, Callie and Maddox. It’s just that . . .”
“I know, I know,” she says. “I was tight with Karen. But, Baylor, that was in the past. She’s still living in the past while the rest of us have grown up into adults. I’m done with her. I was basically done with her long before Gavin saw you in Chicago. I just didn’t make it official until then.”
“I guess I could do lunch,” I say.
She practically squeals into her phone and then proceeds to give me the address so that I can put it into my GPS. “See you there at twelve-thirty,” she says. “I can tell we’re going to be good friends, Baylor.”
Our second week in L.A., when I’m dropping Maddox off at school, I get pulled aside by a stunning woman who looks like she came straight from a Fashion Week catwalk. “You’re Maddox’s mom, right?” she asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Oh, good. Your son is in the same class as my Gage,” she tells me. “Apparently, they’ve become friends, and Gage would like to include Maddox in his birthday party this weekend. That is, if you’re both free.”
“Both?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says, as if she’s stated the obvious. She hands me a thick invitation. “Saturday. Three o’clock. The address is in there.” She points her boney manicured French-tipped finger at the envelope in my hand. “I hope you’ll be able to make it.”
“Thank you, that would be great,” I say, happy at the thought of Maddox making new friends.
“Fabulous,” she says, spinning on her five-inch heels to walk back to her car. I pad away in my ballet flats thinking how things are looking up every day.
After reading the invitation that would rival any celebrity wedding invite, I spend the drive home wondering exactly what ‘Margaritas for Moms’ at an eight-year-old’s birthday party entails.
I get excited about the prospect of meeting more women my age. Well, to be perfectly honest, most of them are older. Maybe that’s why they look at me funny when I drop Maddox off, because I’m so much younger than they are. Well, that or the yoga pants.
Gavin has been wonderful about trying to get me involved with his life here. But the person he spends the most time with, outside of Maddox and me, is his partner and best friend, Scott, who is a certified bachelor. Thank God for Angie. We’ve had lunch twice in the past few weeks and we hit it off instantly. We avoided all things Karen, and mostly stuck to talking about the production company and my writing. By the end of our second lunch, she had even convinced me to allow her to get some screenwriters to take a look at a few of my books.
So between my new friendship with Angie and the party invitation, I’m practically bouncing into the lobby of my building. Until I come to a dead stop when I see who is sitting in the reception area.
Karen McBride.
chapter forty-two
Karen stands up and walks over to me the second I come through the door. This is no coincidence. She’s here for me. I hold up my hand to stop her approach. “You are the last person on earth I want to see. I’d rather have a run-in with my stalker.”
I keep walking towards the elevators, hoping she’ll go away if I ignore her. I press the call button and cross my arms in front of me as I wait impatiently for a car. When the elevator doors open, I step in only to hear Karen shout out behind me, “I’m pregnant with Gavin’s baby!”
Rage, that starts at my feet and is working itself up through my body, takes over as I put my hand out to stop the doors from closing. I walk out, take a hold of Karen’s elbow and gently but forcefully drag her past the bank of mailboxes, where people are staring at us after her very public declaration. I pull her out the side door, onto a patio that overlooks the water. I stare at her harshly, my eyes blazing with anger. “What are you trying to pull now?” I ask.
She smirks. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”
Didn’t tell me? Gavin knows? She’s really pregnant? A nauseating wave rolls through my stomach and I’m sure my face has lost all color as she continues talking. “It’s true,” she says. “We were trying to get pregnant for almost a year before you showed up and ruined everything.”
“That’s not how I hear it,” I say, trying to remain calm, even though my insides are shaking so much I feel I could vomit on the bitch’s shoes at any second.
“I suppose not.” She goes to take a seat on a wrought-iron bench, making a big production of sitting down as if it’s hard for her, even though I can’t see any evidence of a protruding baby bump through her tailored clothing. She crosses her tanned, willowy legs. “But you should know by now not to believe everything that you hear,” she says with another smirk.
“You’re really going to say that,” I spit out. “After all the lies you’ve told—you really have the gall to tell me not to believe Gavin?”
She shrugs. “Frankly, I don’t care who you believe,” she says. “The fact is, I’m four months pregnant. And even if he leaves me, he won’t leave his child. Think about it, Baylor. He complained about missing seven years with your kid. Do you really think he’d miss one minute of this little baby’s life? He’ll come back to me when he sees what it’s like to hold his newborn baby. When we watch it take those first steps together, when it calls him ‘Daddy.’ When he feels what it’s like to bond with a child from birth—then he’ll know where he really belongs.”
She reaches into her purse and pulls out a black-and-white ultrasound picture. “Here.” She shoves it at me. “You can give this to Gavin to put on his refrigerator. The first picture of his precious baby.” She gets up to walk away, leaving me unable to move as I stare at the picture of Gavin’s child. His other child. The baby he will get to know from birth. The child that may very well rip him from Maddox and me.
Gavin finds me sitting on the edge of our bed with my cell phone next to me. I haven’t moved since I sent him the text telling him Karen came by. He didn’t ask why. He didn’t try to call. He simply said he’d leave right then, confirming Karen’s allegations that he already knew.
I’m still holding the ultrasound picture. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, in a voice that’s broken and hoarse from crying.
He takes the picture from me and looks at it, shaking his head sternly. “I was hoping to get concrete proof for you before bringing it up.”
“Concrete proof of what? You sticking your dick in her as soon as you returned from Chicago?” I yell.
“What? No!” He falls to his knees in front of me. “It’s not my baby,” he says. “I don’t even know if it’s anyone’s baby. She’s probably lying about the whole thing.”
“But you said she wanted a baby. You told me that months ago. And she said you had been trying.” I don’t even care that I wipe my nose on my sleeve.
He grabs my hands, still on the floor before me. “No, Bay. We weren’t trying.
We weren’t even together that way those last few months. Whatever she said is total bullshit.”
I rip my hands away from his. “You lied to me. I trusted you and you lied.”
His face pales. “No . . . no, I didn’t lie, darlin’. I was simply trying to get the facts before coming to you. With everything that you’ve been through, I didn’t want you worrying about this.”
“So you thought you’d keep it from me. This huge piece of information that could change our lives.”
He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “It won’t change anything. It can’t. It’s not my baby, Baylor. If she were pregnant with my kid, which she couldn’t be because I told you, we used condoms every time—but if she were, she’d have to be huge by now, six or seven months probably.”
“How long have you known?” I ask.
He sighs and looks at the floor. “About a month,” he whispers. “She must have found out you were moving here. I’m sure that’s why she picked then to tell me.”
“A month?” I yell. “You’ve known for a month? I packed up my life, Maddox’s life, and moved here for you and all along you’ve been keeping this enormous thing from me?” I get up and walk out of the bedroom.
“You still don’t trust me, do you, Bay?” he asks, following along behind me.
I stop when I reach the living room. I turn to look at him but remain silent.
“You realize this is exactly what Karen wants, right?” he says. “She wants to break us up. Why do you think she only told me after she got wind of you moving here?” He gently pulls me over to sit on the couch next to him. “Why now, Baylor? If she’s really pregnant with my kid, wouldn’t she have told me as soon as she got the divorce papers?”
I close my eyes, causing tears to spill out and run down my already wet cheeks.
“You have to trust me,” he begs. “You know me. I love you. I’ve loved you since I was twenty. I would never hurt you. I have never hurt you. And if you believe her, if you let her lies rip us apart again, she fucking wins.” He pulls me close, kissing my hair. “I’m so sorry I withheld this information, but I’m one-hundred-percent sure I didn’t get Karen pregnant. There is only one woman I want to carry my child. There is only one woman I’ve ever wanted that with.”
I slump into Gavin’s arms. I breathe in and out slowly as he comforts me. “I believe you, Gavin. Of course I believe you. Just promise me you’ll never keep anything from me ever again. Even if you think it’s insignificant. If I had been prepared today when she confronted me, if I had known, I wouldn’t have stood there like the broken woman she wanted me to be.”
He pulls me onto his lap, enveloping me in his arms. “I promise,” he says. “I swear to you, Baylor. Never again. Never again will I let her hurt you. Hurt us.”
I nuzzle into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry I accused you of sleeping with her after Chicago,” I say. “It was a knee-jerk reaction. Everything she said about you missing Maddox’s first years and how you’d never do that to another baby—I knew it was true. I knew that even if she’d tricked you into getting pregnant that you would never leave a baby you’d created. I had visions of that woman being bonded to you forever and it crushed me.”
“It’s not going to happen, darlin’. I promise,” he says. “She’ll be out of our lives very soon. I’ve got a team of lawyers and a private investigator working to disprove her claim. But medical records are private. Even though she says I’m the father; that still doesn’t give me the right to access them without her permission. And she hasn’t given me permission. What does that tell you?”
“You’re right,” I say. “I know she’s using this as a last ditch effort to break us up. But, God, Gavin, if she really does have a baby? All I can say is that I’m glad she’s rich and can afford the best nannies, because that poor kid will need someone with an actual moral compass to raise it.”
He laughs. Then he asks, “Are you okay? Are we okay?”
I nod. “Yes, we’re okay.”
He raises a seductive eyebrow. “Then how about we take advantage of this unexpected quiet time together?”
I giggle. “Is there any page in particular that you want to try?”
He laughs. “Every page,” he says, picking me up to carry me back to our bedroom. “I want to act out every love scene in every book you’ve ever written. I don’t care if it takes our entire lives to do it.”
chapter forty-three
Maddox gives me a look from the side of the swimming pool where he sits alone. Occasionally, a kid will talk to him or include him in a game. Just as, occasionally, the mothers will ask me a question and then pretend to be interested in my answer. I smile at him sweetly and then make a silly face so he giggles before he jumps back in the deep end.
Apparently, ‘Margaritas for Moms’ is code for ‘let’s get together and see who has the best life.’ And right now I’d say Monica, the birthday boy’s mom, is well in the running. Especially if you ask her. Everyone is making such a big production of how extravagant their child’s gift to Gage was. I glance over at the gift we brought, a year’s worth of weekly Red Box rentals, and wonder how soon after we leave it will get discarded in the trash.
I’m not even sure uncomfortable is what I feel. Embarrassed is more like it—for them. How can these women sit around and do nothing more than one-up each other? Oh, your husband writes songs for a living, well my husband sings them. Your kid made the honor roll, well my kid got an inquiry letter from Harvard. Yada yada yada. I can’t believe I was actually looking forward to this day.
One woman, I don’t know her name, because I stopped trying to remember them all ten minutes into the party, actually laughed and said, “Maple Creek? Is that even on the map?”
After that, I sat back and smiled politely while praying to God to speed up time, or to at least give me food poisoning from the catered spread under the large white tent next to where we sit.
The redhead, whose son keeps thwacking Maddox with a towel, sits down next to me. She asks, “What’s your name again? You look so familiar.”
“It’s Baylor. Baylor Mitchell.” I brace myself for what I’m afraid comes next.
She stares at me for a few seconds and then her mouth falls open. “Oh, my God, not the Baylor Mitchell, as in the author of ‘Never Better’?”
“Guilty,” I say.
“Holy shit!” the woman shrieks, earning giggles from a few nearby kids. “Monica, did you know there was a celebrity at your party?” She pulls me up from where I’m sitting and drags me over to a grouping of ladies. “Taylor, this is the author of the book I told you about last week. This is Baylor Mitchell.”
I hear another woman whisper to her friend, “The dud from Maple Nowhere is a famous author? In what world is that fair?”
The woman I now know as Taylor, squeals, “Oh, my God! I just read your book. As in, it is like literally still sitting on my pool lounger at home. I can’t believe it.” She narrows her eyes at me and lowers her voice. “Do you do all the stuff in your books?” she asks.
I inwardly roll my eyes. “I have a big imagination.”
Several women spend the next thirty minutes fawning over me and shoving their phone numbers at me as if they are all suddenly my best friends. I’ve quickly become the center of attention, much to Monica’s dismay, as she stands back and puckers her lips while eyeing me with her frigid stare. I guess I won’t count on being invited to her next barbeque.
Thankfully, the caterer appears, announcing that it’s time for cake. He then proceeds to cut into a cake that’s almost as big as the table it’s been placed upon. It’s in the shape of Thor’s hammer, as apparently the superhero is Gage’s favorite. I’m no cake connoisseur, but if I had to guess, I’d say Monica spent about as much on this cake as I did on my first car.
On the drive home, Maddox asks, “Mommy, do we have to invite all those kids to my birthday party? Dylan kept spitting on me and Jordan always laughs at the way I talk. Do you think I talk funny?�
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“No, buddy, you don’t talk funny at all,” I say. “You talk exactly like a kid who grew up in Connecticut. There is nothing wrong with that. And you can invite whomever you want to your birthday party.”
“What if I want to invite Ryan and Cole?” he asks, referring to Chris’s boys. “And Brody, Drew and Amber from my old school? What if I want to have them at my birthday party?”
I sigh. “Well, maybe we should plan a weekend back home and have your party then,” I say.
Maddox smiles excitedly, but I just shake my head thinking how I referred to Maple Creek as ‘home.’
Two weeks after Karen came to me with her accusations, a man has come forward claiming to be her baby’s father. The man, who looks strikingly similar to Gavin, said Karen paid him for his ‘stud’ services. At the time, he didn’t know who she was. But with all the asking around that Gavin’s lawyers and private investigator had done, he somehow found out she comes from a wealthy family, and he now plans to sue for custody—and boatloads of child support. It’s sad, really. The kid will either have a pretentious narcissist for a mom or a gold-digging loser for a dad.
“No shit, really?” Callie says, after I explain to her in detail what the private investigator uncovered.
“Really,” I say. “She went out and got herself knocked up right after Gavin dumped her. She was going to try and pass it off as Gavin’s kid.”
“That bitch!” Callie yells, drawing stares from the tables nearest to us.
I look around the upscale restaurant at our fellow patrons. I see women with their bangled wrists and surgically enhanced chests. Men in their Armani suits are sipping scotch at one o’clock in the afternoon. I wonder how many of these people are for real—how many don’t have to pretend to be something or someone else. I think about the keychain that my mom gave me when I was fourteen. I wonder how much of myself I’m losing by trying to fit into a place that is so completely not me.
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