“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
She glanced at him hesitantly. She hadn’t told Chase, knowing he had to perform, and not sure how he was going to feel about the news. But Hal…he had to know; it affected him, too.
“I’m pregnant.”
“What?” Hal sprung off the couch. “You’re kidding? Congratulations! This is fantastic!” At her lack of exuberance, he paused, his brow furrowing. He crossed to sit on the coffee table in front of her, his hands on her arms. “You’re okay, aren’t you? The baby’s okay?”
“Yes. Yes. Everything is fine.”
“Well, good. You had me worried there for a minute. Chase must be thrilled. I’m surprised he is even able to perform.”
“I haven’t told him.”
“You haven’t…why?”
“Hal, we’ve only been married a couple of months. Chase and I decided to wait for a while. He’s got this album coming out—”
“Listen, Hope, when I went into business with Chase, I knew his music was important to him, but I also knew it wasn’t the most important thing in his life. I didn’t know at the time you were, but now, seeing you guys together…this is what it is all about for Chase. And, for the two of you to have a baby, to create life…if you don’t think he is going to be absolutely overjoyed to find out you’re pregnant, then you’ve got him all wrong.”
She let out a huge breath she didn’t even know she had been holding. Her smile broke over her face in an instant. “Thanks, Hal!”
“You bet. Now we better get back or Chase is going to go nuts.”
Chase seemed relieved to see them in the footlights. He immediately came over to her at the first break. “Hey, what’s going on?” He squeezed her arms gently, and bent down a little to peer into her face.
Seeing his look of concern, she just couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Honey…we’re going to have a baby.”
His face registered his shock, and for a minute her heart sank. “What did you say? Did you just tell me you’re…?”
She nodded.
“No kiddin’?” A slow smile spread over his face. “I’m going to be a daddy?” He paced in a little circle with his hands on his hips. She watched him carefully. “No kidding? WOW! WOW!” He put his arms around her and lifted her off her feet with a whoop. “This is fantastic!” He beamed. “Oh, oh, oh!” He put her down, his face showing concern. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “Yes, Chase, I’m fine.”
“Wow, a baby!” He turned to the nearest stagehand, who held out a towel for him to mop his brow with. “Did you hear that? We’re going to have a baby!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hal!”
Hal laughed. “Yes, I know, Chase. Congratulations!”
“Wow! This is SO cool!”
“Chase, you have five seconds!” the stage manager called.
“Okay.”
“FOUR.” People whipped around him, tugging his shirt off, depositing a fresh one over his head. “THREE.” Someone handed him the towel and he wiped his face. “TWO.” Someone straightened his hair. “ONE.” He started to head on stage, but turned back to slip his arm around her and kiss her, hard, on the mouth. Without another word he entered the stage lights, leaving her breathless and radiant. She could hear his voice as he waved off the musicians.
“I’m sorry, everyone, I missed my cue. But I think you’ll understand when I tell you…I just found out I’m going to be a father!” The crowd erupted and the band members set down instruments and came over to congratulate him. “Oh my gosh! I just told twenty thousand people before I told my mom! She’s going to kill me! Hold on a minute…do you guys mind if I make a quick phone call?” The suggestion was greeted with wild applause. “Okay, shhh…shhh…Mom? Hey, it’s Chase... Good. Good... I am. In fact, I’m on stage right now. But I had to call to tell you something. What would you say if I told you that you were going to be a grandmother?” He held the phone away from his ear as she shouted. “She’s pretty happy,” he told the crowd. “What? Yeah, Hope’s fine. She’s right here. Hope, she wants to talk to you.” He held the phone out and Hope shook her head. He waved her on stage. “Come on.”
Petrified, she took a few steps forward. Don’t look at the audience! Don’t look at the audience! she told herself. She crossed the stage to his side.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is my wife, Hope!” The clapping and whistles were deafening. He grabbed her and kissed her passionately for several seconds before releasing her. Hope, a little red in the face, took the phone and headed backstage. “How about I play you a little rock and roll now?” The music started and Hope had to go deep into the building before she could hear the congratulations shouted into the phone.
* * *
“Mommy!” Olivia ran through the gallery, heedless of decorum, her little canvas slip-ons beating a happy cadence on the polished wooden floor.
“Hey, Toots!” Hope bent down to scoop the bright, five-year-old up into her arms. “How are you?”
Livvy’s white sundress was spotless, and her sunny blond curls were swept up on her head in what she and her mommy liked to refer to as her “princess ‘do.” The two made a pretty picture. Hope wore a similar white sundress with large black polka-dots, and over it, a sheer, short-sleeved, black jacket that stopped above her waist and buttoned at the top with one large button.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Josh ran up to them, interrupting in typical three-year-old fashion.
“Joshie!” his older sister scolded. “I was talking to Mommy.”
“I’ve got a present for you,” Josh stated brightly, ignoring the baleful look his sibling shot him. Chase rolled in behind the pair, pushing a double stroller containing their still-sleeping twins, grinning at her over Josh’s head.
Hope pretended not to see the enormous bouquet of flowers tucked conspicuously behind Josh’s back. “For me?” she said in surprise, squatting down to look into his big blue eyes. Josh shook the long blond hair he wore in a style similar to his rock star father’s out of his face, and pulled the flowers out from their hiding place with a flourish. “Oh my!” Hope looked up into Chase’s sparkling eyes. “They’re beautiful!” The huge bouquet was made up of daisies and a number of flowers she didn’t recognize in pinks and purples and yellows, wild and flowing.
Chase took in every inch of her legs, accentuated by her sleek black heels, as she straightened up slowly.
She leaned over the stroller to give him a kiss, smiling at the twinkle in his eyes she recognized, knowing it meant he was turned on.
“Mommmy…?” Olivia began, stringing the word out and looking at her with her I’m-so-cute-don’t-I-deserve-a-treat eyes.
Hope sighed, feigning exasperation. “I think I have ice cream treats in the mini-fridge in my office.”
Needing no more invitation, the pair took off running toward the back, jostling for position just as she and Chase used to, screaming ecstatically.
“In the top part...and watch those flowers, Josh!” she called after them resignedly, realizing their little ears were already well out of range. Both Hope and Chase instinctively checked the stroller to see if the commotion had rousted the twins, but Sam and Jules lay with their heads turned toward the middle, resting them on top of each other, their cheeks flushed and mouths hanging open, oblivious.
With a sigh of relief, Chase observed. “I can see why they like coming to the gallery.”
She chuckled. She stayed apart from him, her arms clasped behind her back, swinging a leg through a streak of sun from the windows that made the wood shimmer where it touched the floor. “And why do you like coming to the gallery?”
She smiled coyly as she looked up at him, sending a shiver down his spine. He walked purposefully toward her, seizing her by the hips and scooting her back against one of the dividers her artwork was hung on. She groaned as he nuzzled her ear. “I’m in love with the artist.” He pulled back to look at her meaningfully.
“
You are, huh?” She giggled and blushed slightly.
“I love that I can still bring out the school girl in you. It makes me want to get you alone all the more.”
She tried to ignore the sensations Chase had created when his lips had brushed over her ear. “Well, I’m afraid I’ve got a thing for this rock star,” she teased, nibbling on his bottom lip, tempting him needlessly.
He took possession of her lips, kissing her so wonderfully deep it seemed to resonate within her, pulling on a deep-seated chord, playing her like his favorite guitar. A melting began in her middle and spread, consuming her senses. She felt herself almost going under.
They heard the jingle of the door somewhere behind them as a customer entered the gallery, and he removed his lips from hers, but remained close, opening his eyes slowly and letting them roam over her face. Hearing footsteps now, he released her, standing back and clearing his throat, a slow smile replacing the need that was on his face seconds before.
She stood with her arms behind her, clasping the walls of the divider, still looking at him, but now her smile mirrored his, reflecting the shared secret of their stolen intimacy. At last, when she felt her lust-weakened knees could again support her body, she pushed away from the wall, taking a deep breath, almost unwilling to let the glow he had brought on vanish.
“How was your morning?” she said finally with forced casualness, his ears only meant to catch the continued intimacy woven in her voice.
“Terrific!” He smiled, frozen as she was.
The customer came around the corner of a divider and he dropped his eyes. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking at his toes for a minute before lifting his head to continue. “We went to the library”—he let a sigh escape, briefly mourning the loss of their closeness—“and then read books for about…thirty hours…and chased bubbles up and down the beach. How was yours?”
“We made a big sale overseas…”
Something in the way she said it alerted Chase. He watched her face curiously.
“A million dollars big,” she announced with barely concealed excitement.
“You sold a picture for a million dollars?” he said in shock.
“No, silly!” she replied, swatting his arm playfully. “The dealer bought five.”
“Still…that’s two hundred thousand a piece,” he whistled, genuinely impressed. “A million dollars will sure buy a lot of beakers,” he added, referring to the Cancer Research Fund, which received all the profits from her sales.
“Yeah!” She grinned, no longer able to hide her delight at the prospect. She started to saunter back toward her office in the rear of the Hope Hatton Gallery, but he grabbed her hips again and pulled her back, sliding his hands down her arms.
“I say we go out to celebrate,” he growled, burying his face in the hair she had left down and curly today, and breathing in her scent.
“I don’t know. The kids were up late last night...”
“Not with the kids; just the two of us.”
She spun around, peering at him in surprise.
“Grandma needed some ‘cheek-pinching time.’ Her plane lands at five.”
This time her squeal did wake the twins.
“Oh, honey!” she cried as Jules started to fuss. “Mommy’s sorry.” She unbuckled and picked up her still-warm daughter, snuggling her to her chest. “Did you have fun at the library?”
The apple-cheeked, honey-brown-haired cutie nodded her head with a smile, fingers curled to her lips as her pigtails danced up and down.
“We chased bwubbles.”
“I heard! We better go check on Sissy and Bubba. They’re having ice cream. Would you like some?” Her head nodded up and down vigorously and was coupled with a loud, happy cry from Sam, who Chase had just released from confinement. The two toddled off in the direction Livvy and Josh had taken, holding hands peaceably.
As they watched the pair go, she sighed with contentment. “They’re so sweet, aren’t they?” She felt his hands on her shoulders.
“Just like their momma,” he replied, kissing her hair. He turned her to face him. “Now you’ve got them all sugared up, when are you going to be home?”
“I just need to see to a few details with the shipping of that order, and then I was thinking of knocking off early and coming home to spend some time with you and the kids.”
“I think,” he said with a kiss, “that’s a fabulous idea.”
* * *
When Hope got home, she found a note on the table.
We’re at the Beckmans’.
Love you—Chase
Their neighbors, the Beckmans, were on some jaunt in the Amazon or the Antarctic or something. Antarctic, she decided, after reflecting a moment. They were on that quest to hit every continent. The Amazon was in the spring. The Beckmans’ normal pool service couldn’t cover a few of the days they were gone, so Hope and Chase had offered to fill in. She quickly went to the bedroom and shimmied out of her dress, pulling on a pair of blue jean shorts and a navy t-shirt with a red Chevy symbol emblazoned on the front.
When she entered the gate to her neighbors’ elaborately landscaped backyard, Chase was already dragging the pool with a net attached to a long pole. Josh and Livvy sat on the edge at the shallow end, their feet swirling in tiny circles as they watched the sunlight dance off the water. Sam and Julie were back in their stroller, parked in the shade, chattering away animatedly, as if they had been selected as a council of two to solve the world’s problems.
“Hey, Babe, you look good!”
She looked down at her tennis shoes and shorts; she had donned a baseball cap to ward off the sun, pulling her long hair through the hole in the back. “I think you’ve been out in the sun too long.”
“Not hardly,” he said with a wicked grin. “I’m almost done here.”
“Okay.” She toyed with the idea of pulling her socks and shoes off and dipping her feet in the pool with Josh and Livvy, but she thought she should look around first and see if there was anything she could do to help. “Hey, guys!” she called to the pair.
“Hi, Mummy!” Josh answered. Livvy popped up and started running toward Hope for a hug. Not to be outdone, Josh chased after her, only to be outmaneuvered by his older sister in the last several feet. “You always get the first hug!” he complained.
Cutting off any response from Livvy, Hope reached over to tickle Josh’s rib cage. “But you always get the first tickle, don’t you, Mister?” Hope tickled him until he curled up into a little ball, leaking peels of laughter. Livvy took off toward the tennis courts. “Uh-uh-uh, Young Lady! Not without your shoes, you don’t.”
Livvy laughed and ran back to get her little canvas shoes and frilly, white socks.
“I wanna play tennis, too,” Josh called, pulling on his shoes as well.
“What do you say to a set of doubles, girls against the boys?”
“I say,” Chase responded, “you’re on!” He wheeled the twins’ stroller over, Hope helping him down the patio steps.
While Sam and Jules chased ants around in one corner, Chase and Hope watched the comic attempts their older children made to hit the ball, swinging at it a good seven or eight times before the ball ever reached them, then hopping back to take another few whacks at it. At one point, Livvy actually connected and sent it past a surprised Chase.
“Way to go, Liv!” he called happily.
“Good job, girlfriend!” Hope slapped her a high-five.
“You’re gonna be one great little tennis player,” her proud daddy called.
“Nah. Her sport’s volleyball, right Liv-Girl?” The pigtails nodded enthusiastically.
“What about basketball?” Chase countered.
“Right!” Hope rolled her eyes.
“Can we go play with the ants, too?” Josh asked, nonplussed.
“Sure.” Chase ruffled his hair. “I’ll just give your mom a little tennis lesson.”
“Sure, you will,” she rejoined, rocking from foot to foot, ready t
o parry anything he sent over the net.
Within a short amount of time, Chase found himself huffing and puffing, his shirt stuck to him with sweat. Hope had incredible skill and reach, getting to balls he thought for sure he’d put past her. He flashed back to their first table tennis match, where he had been defeated by her, surprised he hadn’t learned his lesson by now. She zinged another ball past him and he bent over, resting his hands on his knees and panting, “Had…enough…schoolin’…yet?”
She laughed lightly and came to the net. When he met her, she kissed him sweetly. “Oh! You taste like salt.”
“Yeah, I’m all sweaty. You’re killin’ me here!”
She laughed again and meandered over to the bench with him. They sat and he tried to find a dry corner of his shirt to mop his face with. He looked at his pretty wife out of the corner of his eye, then put his arm around her and leaned back, letting the sun warm his cheeks and eyelids.
Hope looked to the corner of the court where Sam was allowing an ant to crawl up his arm, and the others were screaming and running away, only to return and take off again with another squeal. It suddenly struck her what a perfect day it had been. She had sold a million dollars worth of art, plus, and spent the afternoon laughing and playing with her children and husband. Despite being only a little over four pounds when she was born, Livvy, and all her other children, were healthy and, presumably, happy. She couldn’t have been more in love with her husband, and if life were a rat race, she’d say she’d gotten the cheese.
She pulled Chase to her by his t-shirt, kissing him and tasting the salty flavor of his sweat. “Let’s go home, Salty-Dog, and you can take a shower.”
He smiled, quirking an eyebrow as a silent invitation to join him. She slapped him on the chest, and then rose to collect their children.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.J. Schiller is living large in the Midwest trying to balance all of life’s chores and pleasures while writing about it. Her home is known to be messy, her thoughts random, her blessings many. When not writing she gets paid to hang out with her friends, her fellow lunch ladies. When not writing or scooping food for hungry fourth graders, she likes to karaoke and pretend she’s one of the rock stars she writes about. One of her constant writing companions is her cat, Serena, who likes to curl up between her legs where she can feel the heat from the overheated laptop. Talk about living large!
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