by Ann Evans
Only one more article was left to be dealt with, which was a good thing. For then Jenna was going to head home, swallow a couple of aspirin and some antacid and hide under the covers until the boys got home.
Feeling more nauseated by the minute, she pulled the article in front of her and read through it quickly. It was a short piece on five new ways to prevent pregnancy. She dashed off her idea on her notepad: Jack and Jill Without the Pill—What to Do When the Drugstore’s Closed.
She rubbed her stomach as it fluttered again, and for a moment, she actually felt dizzy. “Stop it!” she commanded. “Can’t you see I’m trying to work?”
What was up with her body this morning? Atlanta Saint Impregnated by Aliens. Jenna laughed at her foolishness. If any aliens had done a mind-meld and gotten her preg—
She threw up in her garbage can. Loudly. Painfully. And somewhere in the middle of all that retching, the possibility hit Jenna like a blow to the back of her head.
Not aliens, but worse. Much worse. Oh, my God. It’s not possible. We used protection.
As soon as she could keep her head up, Jenna shuffled through her purse, searching for her date book. She always kept close tabs on her monthly cycle. She wasn’t late, was she? Maybe a couple of days. But surely…
The calendar revealed the worst. More than a couple of days. More like a week and a half. But that could be explained. She’d been under a lot of stress lately. Arguing with her father and brothers over her determination to buy a house. J.D. had fought with some kid in his class, and she’d been called into a teacher-parent conference. With a family like hers, it was a miracle she wasn’t more irregular.
Jenna put her head in her hands. I am not pregnant. Not by him. Not by anyone.
With shaking fingers, she dialed her gynecologist’s office and begged for an appointment that day. Then, unable to stand the suspense, she jumped up from her desk, raced down the street to the drugstore and bought two home pregnancy tests. Even before she sat in the doctor’s office, she knew what that headline would read.
Atlanta Idiot Impregnated by Arrogant SOB.
ALL THE WAY HOME, driving in stunned disbelief, Jenna wondered how she was going to break the news to her family.
Six weeks pregnant. Six weeks to the day she’d slept with Mark Bishop in New York City. Lauren had been dead wrong about her. She did remember how to have fun. And look where that fun had landed her!
It wasn’t just that she was pregnant. And single. It was that she was pregnant by the most inappropriate, arrogant, confusing man on earth. Aliens would have been better. At least they didn’t pretend to be something they weren’t.
She just couldn’t believe it. Pregnant by a man who had obviously thought she was capable of the most obscene behavior. What would he say when she called to give him the news?
As she pulled into her driveway, Jenna made a sudden decision. She wouldn’t tell him. There was no question in her mind that she would keep the baby, but that didn’t mean he had to be involved. In the interview he’d made it perfectly clear he wasn’t looking to become a daddy anytime soon. So let him keep to his cold, power-hungry world, and she’d keep to hers.
She loved children. She was a good mother. She wouldn’t ask him for a thing. Eventually Mark Bishop’s contribution to her current situation would become less and less an issue. By the time the baby came in late spring, she wouldn’t even remember what Mark looked like.
She was strong.
Capable.
She could raise this baby by herself.
PETE RAWLINS was just hitting the ball out of the park when loud voices pulled him from his dreams. Turning over in bed, he blinked into the moon shadows, trying to focus on his brother’s bed. J.D. talked a lot in his sleep—chasing some alien menace, yelling for invaders to halt and be identified, marching prisoners off to space-jails. No matter who was trying to get some sleep.
But J.D. was sound asleep, his arms still hugging the space cannon he always took to bed with him. Goofball, Pete thought. Everybody knew you didn’t have to worry about two-headed, one-eyed space aliens. Not when there were plenty of Spiderman’s enemies creeping around.
He heard the noises again and recognized Uncle Trent’s voice. Pete glanced at his clock. Almost eleven, according to Mickey’s hands. That meant the family conference was running late.
Sometimes, like tonight, Mom would invite his uncles for dinner, and then everybody had a family meeting later. He and J.D. got sent to bed early. Pete didn’t mind that much. Who wanted to listen to a bunch of adults talk about something bad called income taxes? Or whether the house needed a new roof? It was boring stuff. Even playing alien invasion with J.D. was better than that.
But those meetings never got so loud they woke him up. Even with Uncle Trent there, who could outholler anyone at Pete’s Little League games. Maybe he’d better see what was going on.
On bare feet, Pete crept across the bedroom, trying to remember where all the squeaky stairs were. He’d almost made it out the door when J.D.’s voice nearly made him jump out of his skin.
“Where ya goin’?” his brother whispered from his bed.
“Downstairs,” Pete hissed back. “Go back to sleep.”
J.D. was suddenly wide awake, sitting up. “Are Cyberlons in the house?” He jerked his cannon blaster to his chest. J.D. was the mortal enemy of Cyberlons.
“Shut up! It’s just Mom and the uncles and Grampa.”
“Oh,” J.D. said with noticeable disappointment.
“I think they’re having a fight. I’m just gonna take a look.”
J.D. slid out of bed, weapon in hand. “I’m coming with you.”
It was useless to tell J.D. to go back to sleep. He knew as well as Pete that the family never really fought. They talked loud sometimes, but their mother told them that was because they all had strong “pinyons,” whatever they were. But yelling could be bad. Something serious. And worth checking out.
They settled across from each other on a step midway up the stairs. It was their Christmas and Easter waiting spot. Close enough to hear what was going on downstairs, but still out of sight.
“…still don’t know how you could have let this happen, Jenny-girl.” That was Grampa Will, sounding sad. In his mind Pete could almost see his gray hair flopping as he shook his head.
“Well, I’m certainly not going to explain how it happened, Dad. It happened. There’s nothing I can do about it now except move on.”
His mother sounded upset. Then a chair scraped as his uncle Trent spoke. “The hell we can’t do something about it. Tell me his name. I’ll pound the guy into the dirt with my bare hands.”
“Yeah, that’ll help,” Pete’s mother said calmly. “Stop being dramatic. You’ll wake the boys.”
Pete and J.D. exchanged looks. They’d better not get caught listening.
“The baby needs a father,” Grampa said.
“Not this one,” their mother answered.
“Jen, don’t be stubborn,” Uncle Chris said. “Give me his name, and I’ll run it through the department computers. With a little luck, I can know everything there is to know about him in twenty-four hours. Criminal records, finances, personal history.”
“And what will that get me, Detective?”
“You’ll know what kind of guy he is. Whether he’ll take responsibility for his actions. If there’s anything in his past you need to worry about.”
“I already know what kind of guy he is,” she replied. “He’s not going to want any involvement with this child. I’ve already accepted that I’m going to have to raise this baby alone.”
Pete jerked in astonishment. Huh? Mom was gonna have a baby?
J.D. had heard it, too. He leaned across the step to whisper to Pete, “What baby?”
Pete made a face at him. “Mom’s pregnant, you dope.”
J.D. blinked like a baby owl. “But I thought Daddy was gone.”
“I still say we break his legs,” Uncle Trent was saying. “No one me
sses with my sister like this and gets away with it.”
“Trent, stop behaving like a Neanderthal,” Grampa Will said.
Pete heard his mom sigh. “Look, I appreciate everyone’s concern. But I’m really tired of discussing this. I know you want answers, but I’m just not willing to give them right now. I’m still trying to absorb the fact that I’m going to have another child.”
There was a long silence, and when his mother spoke again, Pete thought her voice sounded shaky, like when she told them about getting a divorce. “I’m sorry if you’re disappointed in me, Dad. But it’s done, and now I have to find a way to deal with it. I can do this alone, but I’d much rather know that my family’s behind me. That I’ll have your love no matter what. And that this baby will have your love, too.”
“Oh, Jenny-girl,” Grampa Will said. “Why didn’t you just find a nice, sensible young man who’d be a good husband and father to the boys? Why do you always want something more than what you have?”
Again no one said anything for a long time. Then it suddenly seemed like all the men in the family were talking at once.
“You know we’ll be there for you,” his grandfather said in a low voice.
“Whatever you want, sis,” Uncle Chris agreed.
“I still think we should break his legs,” Uncle Trent complained, and then added, “But all right. It’s your call, Jenna.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to tell Petey and J.D.,” their mother said.
At the mention of their names, both boys crept silently up the stairs and back to their room. They jumped back in bed, just in case their mother meant to wake them up and tell them right now. After some time had passed and she still hadn’t come to their door, Pete’s heart stopped thumping so hard in his chest. He tucked his hands under his head and stared up at the ceiling.
A baby in the house. What was that going to do to everything? Was Mom happy about it? She didn’t sound like it. Not really. Did she wish Daddy was here to help her?
Out of the corner of his eye, Pete saw J.D. flop over on his side to face him. “I still don’t get it,” he said in a whisper.
Pete didn’t look at him. If he ignored his brother, maybe he’d go back to dreaming about alien battles or something.
No such luck.
“Petey,” J.D. hissed at him. “Pete! What’s it mean? Tell me, or I’ll blast you to Saturn with my cannon.”
Feeling slightly sick, Pete propped himself on one elbow to face his brother. “It means Mom’s going to have a baby.”
“But I thought we were getting a dog.”
“Well, we’re not. We’re getting a little brother.” His mouth curled in disgust. “Or sister.”
“If Daddy’s not with Mom, how can she be gonna have a baby?”
Under his breath Pete swore like his grampa Will had when he’d stuck a fishing lure through his thumb. He wanted to jump out of bed and take that cannon blaster and throw it out the window. He glared at his brother. “J.D. ought to stand for ‘Just Dumb,’ instead of James David.”
Mad now, J.D. plopped down on his back. “You don’t know, either,” he accused.
That was sort of true. Pete knew making a baby involved kissing and then sleeping next to another person. And he knew that person didn’t have to be the one you were married to. He wasn’t sure what happened after that, but he wasn’t willing to admit that to his brother.
“I know one thing,” he whispered back to J.D. “Mom’s gonna need all the help she can get.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
TWO DAYS LATER Pete was still waiting for his mom to tell him she was going to have a baby.
Although J.D. seemed ready to ignore or forget everything they’d overheard that night, Pete had been unable to think of anything else. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t told them yet. Grampa Will and his uncles didn’t count. He was the man of the family now that his dad wasn’t around, and he had to do something to make things easier on his mother.
Especially after last night.
He’d come into the bathroom and found her sitting on the side of the bathtub, crying. She’d pretended she wasn’t and begun rushing around, acting like getting their bathwater just right was the most important thing she’d ever done. But Pete could tell by her red eyes and cheeks that she was upset, and he couldn’t think of anything they’d done recently to cause it. So it had to be the baby.
He didn’t know what to say or do. It scared him a little to see her this sad, so he hadn’t argued when she insisted that they wash their hair and clean their ears. And later, when J.D. started whining about which pajamas he wanted to wear, he shut his brother up with a whispered threat that he’d never see his space cannon again if he didn’t stop being such a baby. Threats like that always worked with J.D.
Then this morning, by accident, Pete had the answer to the whole baby problem.
Mom was in her closet, picking out something to wear to the office. Pete had come into her bedroom to ask if he could have last night’s cold pizza for breakfast, instead of cereal. He sat on the edge of her bed, running his hands over the bedspread, waiting for just the right moment.
There was a file folder on the bed, and when Pete peeked inside, he saw the pictures of the men Mom had talked about interviewing for work. He pulled them out, setting them out on the bedspread.
His reading was good, but he couldn’t make out a lot of the words. The pictures were cool, though. Most of the guys were surrounded by lots of cool things like horses and planes and boats.
“Are you gonna talk to all these guys, Mom?” he asked. “I thought you were done.”
His mother stuck her head out of the closet. “No, unfortunately. In a weak moment I let your aunt Vic talk me into trying again with another one of them.” She watched him lift the pictures for a second, then added, “Don’t mess those up, Petey. I have to take that file back to work.”
The first page in the file was all writing, and he held it up. “What’s this word?”
She sat down beside him. She’d recently taken her morning shower and smelled like flowers. It was a smell he liked, and if he hadn’t been too old, he would have snuggled against her and filled his nose with it.
“Eligible,” she said, then pointed out the words one at a time. “The South’s Ten Most Eligible Bachelors. That was the name of the article.”
“What does…el-elible…mean?”
“Eligible,” she repeated slowly. “In this case it means available. To get married.” She sighed and fluttered her eyelashes at him so that he knew what she was going to say wasn’t really serious. “If only we poor, foolish women were smart enough to catch one of them.”
“You could catch one of these guys, Mom,” he said, wanting to make her feel good. “You’re smart.”
He got a sudden idea. The men in the pictures were obviously all rich, and they looked like movie stars. The kind girls got all goofy over. They might make good daddys. He scrunched his face up, trying to see his mother from their eyes. She wasn’t like a movie star, but she was still pretty.
“Not so smart, Petey,” his mother said with a sad little smile and a shake of her head. “At least, not lately.” She rose suddenly. “Now scoot. I’m running late, and I need to get dressed. And no, you can’t have leftover pizza for breakfast.”
Pete made a shocked, disappointed sound. “I didn’t even ask yet!”
“You didn’t have to. I know everything that goes on in that devious little mind of yours.”
But later, after she’d left for work, and he and J.D. were waiting for Grampa to take them to school, he realized she didn’t have the folder with her. When he went back upstairs and peeked into her bedroom, he saw that it was still on the bed.
His mom was right—she did almost always know what he was thinking. But for the first time ever, he thought that maybe she didn’t know everything.
That afternoon Pete could hardly wait for Mrs. Weatherby, the baby-sitter who watched them after school, to drop them off a
t home. He’d already told J.D. his plan. Now all they had to do was wait for the right time.
Grampa Will liked to mess around in the garage in the afternoon. Once he started on his latest woodworking project, he wouldn’t stop for anything. Pete and J.D. could get to work on fixing Mom’s problem.
They finished their after-school snack—still no leftover pizza—and he and J.D. charged up the stairs, pretending they wanted to play in their room. A few moments later, they slipped into their mother’s bedroom. In another hour, their mom would be home from work, so they couldn’t waste time. Pete went quickly to the bed.
“We’re not supposed to play in Mom’s room,” J.D. whispered, hanging back. “We’ll get in trouble.”
“So? We’ve been in trouble before.” Pete was feeling excited now. All day he’d been practicing in his mind, and it was finally here. “And we’re not gonna play. This is business.”
“I don’t like it. If Grampa catches us—”
“Grampa’s not gonna catch us. He’s gone to the garage, and he thinks we’re playing.”
“Suppose he comes upstairs to check on us? Or goes to the bathroom?”
Pete had retrieved the file and put the pictures out on the bedspread. Over his shoulder he gave his brother one of his mother’s stern looks. “That’s why you’re gonna keep an eye on the door while I make the call. Stop being such a goof. Do you want to help Mom get a husband or not?”
J.D. clamped his jaw tight, like an old turtle. “I don’t see how getting Mom a husband is gonna help.”
“Look at these guys, J.D.,” Pete said. He pointed to the pictures, knowing that his little brother just needed to see what kind of man their mom could end up with. “They look like movie stars, and they’ve got money and cars and…and everything. They can make Mom happy and help her with the new baby. Mom needs someone like that.”
“Why don’t we just get her a baby-sitter? Like Mrs. Weatherby.”
“Because what Mom needs right now is a man.”