Fifty Ways to Say I’m Pregnant

by Christine Rimmer

  Starr loved where she lived. The apartment had all the other editorial assistants at the office green with envy. She had a view of Central Park out her living room window, hardwood floors throughout and 700 square feet of living space. Yeah, the place listed for considerably more than her salary. But since her grandmother owned the building, the rent was no problem—there was none.

  The phone was ringing as she let herself in the door. Starr ran to get it. She checked the display. Yes! Tess. Tess called two or three times a week and Starr was always glad to hear her voice.

  She grabbed the phone. “Hi.”

  “Just get in?”

  “Uh-huh.” Starr got a can of pear juice—lately she had a thing for pear juice—from the fridge and popped the top. She took a long sip. “Went for my checkup.”

  “And?”

  “Lookin’ good.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to see you. Only three weeks to go…”

  Starr set her juice can on the counter and looked out her kitchen window at the fire escape and the gray wall of the building next door. Good a time as any to break the bad news. “Well, I’ve been meaning to tell you…” Starr let her voice trail off.

  Tess got the message—and didn’t like it. “Oh, no. Honey, it’s Thanksgiving. We all want to see you.”

  “And I want to see you. But, well, you know how it is with flights these days. Always delays. I’ll probably get stuck in Denver, like I did on the way out here. I’ll get home—and then just have turn around and come back.”

  Tess let out a hard sigh. “It’s Beau, isn’t it?”

  “No. No, not at all.” It was an outright lie.

  And Tess was no fool. “He needs to know.”

  Starr laughed at that one. It was not a very cheerful sound. “Coulda fooled me.”

  “Other people are going to have to know as well.” Tess kind of whispered that one—as if she feared someone might be listening in. “By Christmas you’ll definitely be showing. Do you realize that?”

  Might as well get all the bad news over with at once. “See, the thing about Christmas is the same as the thing about Thanksgiving. I don’t have any leave built up yet, and I’ll only get a couple of days…”

  She could close her eyes and picture Tess so clearly about now. She’d be in the big east-facing master bedroom, slowly sinking to the edge of the bed she shared with Starr’s dad. “No. No, now this isn’t right.”

  “Tess, I have a new job. I can’t just take off for a week or two because it’s a holiday. It doesn’t work like that—and let’s not argue over this. Let’s—”

  “No.” Tess’s soft voice had a thread of steel in it now. “No, I think we need to talk about it. I think we need to talk about responsibility—and how you keep running away from it.”

  “But I’m not running away. I’m right here. And I will be coming home.”

  “When?”

  “Eventually.”

  Tess wasn’t going for it. “Starr, you have got to tell Beau about that baby. It isn’t right that you—”

  “I will tell him.”

  “When?”

  “I said. Eventually.”

  “That is no answer.”

  “Tess, this is my problem. Let me deal with it my own way.”

  “But you’re not dealing with it. And you are putting me in the position of lying to your father every single day.”

  “Look. There’s no point in going on and on about this. I’m sorry, but I’m not coming home for Thanksgiving—or for Christmas.”

  “You can’t go on like this.”

  “Watch me.”

  They argued for a while longer. When they said goodbye, nothing had been solved.

  Starr took the rest of her pear juice and went over to the window that looked out on the park. It was beautiful out there, the trees aflame with the colors of fall. Starr stared at all that beauty and muttered rude things under her breath.

  Tess didn’t get it. She just couldn’t understand. Damn it, it wasn’t fair. Starr was doing her best, taking care of herself and her coming baby—eating right, going to bed early…

  What more did Tess want from her?

  Starr drained the last of her juice and wandered back to the kitchen area to toss the can in the bin under the sink. She kicked the cabinet door closed and leaned on the counter and stared out the window at that brick wall.

  Slowly, as she gazed blindly at the gray-painted brick, the truth settled over her.

  All her muttered excuses and self-justifications didn’t change the facts. In the end, she would have to take her broken heart and her expanding tummy and go home for the holidays.

  Tess was right. And Starr knew it.

  What Starr didn’t know was that her father and the hands had come in a little early that day.

  Zach took off his coat and boots in the laundry room and climbed the stairs in his stocking feet. He heard his wife talking on the phone in their bedroom and before he pushed open the half-shut door, he heard her say, “Starr, you have got to tell Beau about that baby.”

  Zach waited, there in the hall, on the other side of that half-open door until his wife hung up the phone. And then he gave that door a shove—not too hard.

  Just enough that it swung all the way inward and Tess could see him standing there.

  The wind blew the first cold flakes of snow against his face as Beau shut the gate between the two small pastures. The calves on one side of the fence bawled for their mamas. The cows on the other side bellowed back at them.

  Tomorrow, they’d run them all into the corrals nearby and put them through the squeeze chute to medicate them for grubs. Then they’d drive the cows down to the southern pasture for the winter.

  The calves they’d leave right here. Over the following few days, the calves would forget their mothers and learn to eat cattle cake. Then they’d be ready to be trucked farther out to their winter home.

  No calf liked it when you took its mama away. But they got used to it soon enough.

  Too bad a man couldn’t be more like a calf. Too bad he couldn’t just accept what he wasn’t gonna have and get on with his life.

  Too bad in the middle of the night he couldn’t stop himself from thinking he smelled jasmine, couldn’t help wishing he could turn and look over at the empty spot next to him and find a certain black-haired woman lying there, fast asleep, all wrapped in dreams.

  The pain of missing her wasn’t getting any better. He was starting to accept the fact that it never would, starting to admit to himself that the day was gonna come—and soon—that he’d get himself on a plane and head for New York City.

  He wouldn’t be going as a tourist.

  He’d be going to try to get back the woman he’d sent away.

  And come to think of it, there was another way that a calf was different from a man. A calf didn’t get any choice in the matter. When weaning time came, a calf had to grow up.

  A man, on the other hand, was a free agent. He could act like a damn baby his whole life long if he chose to.

  Yeah. Those nights alone had given him way too much time to think, given him time to accept the fact that the hard things Starr had said to him—about his family, about how, deep down, he’d always blamed himself for the way things turned out—they were all true…

  “Let’s get back to the house,” Daniel shouted against the bawling of the cattle and the rising wind. “Get some food in our bellies….”

  Beau mounted up. He and Daniel and the two temporary hands they’d hired just before gathering day turned their horses for home. The ride didn’t take long.

  When they reached the house, there was a Rising Sun pickup waiting in the yard. Zach got out as Beau dismounted.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Two days after her argument with Tess, Starr called her stepmother to say she’d be home for Thanksgiving, after all.

  Tess acted kind of strange, really. Kind of…distant in a pleasant sort of way.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she
said. “It’s the right thing and I’m so happy you’re coming home….”

  There was something kind of canned about it—about her tone of voice, about the by-rote way she said the words. As if whatever she was really thinking wasn’t getting said.

  “Tess. Is something wrong?”

  “Well, no. Of course not. I’m pleased you’re coming. I truly am.”

  Starr hung up and got on the Internet to look for a flight. She was scanning the options, trying to find one that wouldn’t have her hanging around in Denver for three hours, when the lobby intercom buzzer rang.

  It was the doorman. “Ms. Bravo. There’s a Beau Tisdale down here to see you. Should I send him up?”

  Her knees suddenly gone to jelly, Starr leaned against the wall and tried to answer. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

  “Ms. Bravo. Are you there?”

  “I…uh…” Her mouth was so dry. And her stomach was churning. “Yes, Andy,” she croaked. “Go ahead. Send him up.”

  Starr staggered to the couch. She was still sitting there, trying to breathe normally, trying not to throw up, when the doorbell rang.

  She didn’t move. Funny, she wasn’t quite sure she could trust herself to get up.

  The bell rang again. I can’t. I just can’t do this, she told herself silently. Still, somehow, she slowly rose.

  About halfway to the door, she put it together: Tess’s distant attitude, Beau showing up at her door out of nowhere….

  The door opened at last. “What a surprise,” Starr said.

  Damn, she was beautiful, Beau thought. Too bad she looked mad enough to kick a porcupine barefooted.

  “Come on in,” she said in a tone that clearly told him she meant, go to hell.

  So much for a sweet and tender reunion.

  Beau picked up his duffel and followed her through a short, narrow entrance hall into a nice-size living area.

  She pointed at the duffel he still clutched in his fist. “Just…put it down there.” She flung out a hand toward nowhere in particular.

  He set down the duffel, shrugged out of his jacket and took off his hat, laying the jacket across the duffel and the hat on top of that. “Starr—”

  She put up a hand. “Long flight, I bet. Thirsty? Sorry, I don’t have any beer. But I have got fruit juice.” She marched over to the kitchen nook and yanked open the refrigerator door. “Orange, grapefruit, pear…lots and lots of pear…”

  “Starr…”

  She shoved the door shut so hard he could hear the stuff inside clinking and rattling. “So. No juice, then. How about—?”

  “Starr.” He dared to take a step toward her. “Listen, I—”

  “What?” She demanded, before he got a chance to finish. “Just…what?” He took another step. She narrowed her eyes at him and muttered. “Stop. Right there.”

  He stopped. “Starr, I only want—”

  “You know,” she accused through clenched teeth. “Admit it. Right now. You do, don’t you? You know.”

  What could he say? The truth, he decided. They needed more truth between them. On her part—and on his, too. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

  “Tess broke my confidence.” She folded her arms across her stomach.

  Sweet God. He knew every soft, jasmine-scented inch of her body. And her body was…changing. There was a slight roundness to her belly. And her breasts were fuller…

  Reality hit him all over again, swift and hard as a fist in the gut. She was going to have his baby.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  He’d never been so happy.

  He was absolutely terrified.

  “She did,” Starr insisted. “Tess broke her word to me.”

  “Er, not exactly…”

  “What are you saying? She did or she didn’t.”

  “Zach said—”

  “Oh, wait. Let me guess. My dad. She told my dad and my dad—what? Showed up at Daniel’s with a shotgun in his hands?”

  He strove for reason. One of them had to. “Look, how I found out isn’t what matters.”

  She had her lips pressed so hard together, they made a hard white line. “I can’t…I don’t…” She hung her shining head. He waited. He understood how she felt—well, maybe not exactly. But close enough. She looked up at last. And swallowed. “You know, I think I’d like to sit down.”

  He took another step toward her. By then, she was backed up against the sink. He dared to hold out a hand. “Come on,” he whispered. “Please.”

  Slowly, she reached out and laid her hand in his.

  They sat on the couch. She allowed him to put his arm around her and they sat there in silence for what seemed to him about a decade. He looked out the window at the skyscrapers across Central Park and waited for her to accept the fact that he was really here.

  Eventually, she let him tell her that Zach had overheard Tess talking to her on the phone. “He told Tess that she’d better not call you, that you women had messed things up about enough and she’d damn well better give the men a chance to make this right.”

  Starr actually laughed at that. It was a pained kind of sound, but still. It was a laugh. Beau decided he’d take it as a good sign. “Poor Tess,” she said. “Stuck in the middle, right where I put her. I hope she’ll forgive me….”

  “I’d imagine she’s probably wondering if you’ll forgive her.”

  Starr leaned against him, then. He’d never felt anything so wonderful in his life—her soft sigh, the way her head rested in the crook of his shoulder.

  He had her where she belonged—beside him—at last. This time, he was holding on. This time, she’d get neither cruel words nor cowardly denials from him.

  She said, “Tess and I will work it out.”

  “Yeah. I know you will.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him then. “And what about us?”

  He shrugged, though his heart was pounding so hard it felt like his chest was about to explode. “We’ll go home,” he said. “Get married. Be happy.”

  Her sweet lips trembled. “Because now you think you have to?”

  “No. Because you love me—and I love you. Because I’ve always loved you. From that first second I saw you comin’ toward me across your dad’s front yard.”

  Her eyes were shining now. She sniffed, blinking back the tears. “Suddenly loving me is enough, huh? It never was before.”

  He caught her shoulders, looked at her straight on. “Uh-uh. It was always enough. I was just too damn blind to see that. But even a blind man will get the picture eventually.” She sniffed some more and swiped at her eyes. “You were right,” he said, “about me blaming myself. Not so much for my dad and brothers. But for my mother…” His throat seized up. He had to cough into his hand before he could go on. “I guess I always felt like I should have done something to stop them from beating on her, that she needed help and I didn’t give it, that I should have saved her somehow….”

  She put her hand against his chest. “It wasn’t your fault, Beau. You were a little kid.” She said the words so softly.

  He wrapped his hand around hers, brought it to his mouth, kissed the knuckles one by one. “I have something for you.” He laid her hand on his chest once more—over the pocket of his shirt.

  She frowned. “It feels like…”

  He reached in, pulled out the thin gold chain. A heart-shaped locket twirled at the end of it. “It was hers—my mother’s. Hold out your hand.” She opened her palm and he dropped the locket into it.

  She sniffled some more. “Oh, Beau…” She worked the tiny latch—and let out a small cry of dismay when she got it open. “But it’s empty.”

  “Yeah. Once, a long time ago, there were pictures of my mom and dad in there.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Damned if I know. I guess you’ll just have to supply the pictures yourself.”

  She was nodding now—with great enthusiasm. “Oh, I will. A picture of you and one of me—or maybe one of us together. That wo
uld leave the other side for the baby, when the baby comes….”

  “Turn around.” She shifted on the couch, showing him her back, lifting that curtain of midnight hair. He hooked the chain around her neck—and dared to press a quick kiss at her nape. “There.”

  She turned to him again, violet eyes gleaming. “It was in that envelope, wasn’t it? The envelope of T.J.’s things…”

  He gave her a slow smile then. “Got it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “Well. Was it?”

  “Yeah,” he confessed. “In his beat-up black wallet. He had twenty dollars in there and an expired driver’s license—and that locket, tucked away in a hidden flap. I don’t know how he got hold of it, but he had it. And now he’s passed it on to me. That and my dad’s old Timex. And a set of keys to a bunch of things that don’t belong to T.J. anymore.”

  “You did it,” she said. “You looked in that envelope. You dealt with what was in there.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, not all that impressed about it himself. “I did.”

  “Oh, Beau…” She sighed and swayed toward him, lifting her soft mouth to his.

  With great effort, he held back from kissing her. “Is that a yes, then? Will you come home with me?”

  “You’re sure? It’s what you really want?”

  “More than you can ever know. Marry me. Be my wife. We’ll build ourselves a house next to Daniel’s house and you can show me…what it can be. To have what matters—to be with you. To have a family.”

  “Oh, Beau…”

  “Say yes.”

  And at last, she did. “Yes,” she said. “I will marry you, Beau.”

  He took the kiss she offered, then.

  As he would take her love. And their baby.

  Eagerly. With no holding back. No cruelty. And no denials.

  For the rest of their lives.

  From the Medicine Creek Clarion,

  week of December 4 through December 10

  Over The Back Fence

  by

  Mabel Ruby

  It was a white wedding for Starr Bravo and Beau Tisdale just this past Saturday, December 1, at the Rising Sun Ranch, where the bride’s family resides. The Reverend Applegate presided as the snow drifted down outside and the loving couple exchanged their sacred vows.