Beauty and the Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  She was perfectly willing to believe that her condition was affecting her thought processes. That, and the fact that she was lonely.

  Despite juggling portions of three jobs, despite her friends and her work at the center, despite the fact that almost every minute of her day outside the house was filled with noise, people and activity, Lori was lonely. Lonely for the intimate touch of a man’s hand. Lonely for that sweet sense of sharing that was the very best part of a marriage.

  Pulling up into her driveway, she all but yanked the emergency bake out of its socket as she brought the vehicle to a dead stop.

  Get a grip, Lori, she cautioned herself.

  As best she could, she snaked her way out from behind the wheel. She’d pushed the seat back as far as she could and still be able to reach the pedals. The space between her and the steering wheel still felt as if it was shrinking at an alarming rate. With each day that past, she felt more and more like a cork being wedged into the opening of bottle every time she got into the car. God, but she couldn’t wait until she was herself again.

  But then you’ll have the baby to take care of.

  The prospect of what was ahead of her once she gave birth was even scarier in the dark. She hoped this was just a phase she was going through.

  Coming in, she closed the door behind her and kicked off her shoes. Lori dropped her purse on the floor beside them. The purse tipped over and two pens came rolling out. Not up to bending down, she left them there.

  Someday, she thought, she was going to have to put a table next to the front door. But not tonight.

  She felt tired and edgy at the same time.

  She tried to tell herself it had to do with the baby, but she knew better. What she needed, she decided, was to get her mind off what had happened in the center’s parking lot and onto something else. Something productive.

  Lori took the phone number Carson had written down for her out of her pocket. The debate about whether or not she should make a call lasted only as long as it took her to walk to her phone in the living room. Picking up the cordless receiver, she crossed to the sofa and sank into a corner.

  It wasn’t possible to make herself comfortable. Pregnancy had taken that option away from her, but she made herself the least uncomfortable she could. Looking at the number on her lap, Lori pressed the area code and then the rest of the numbers that would connect her to Angela’s house.

  The phone rang nine times on the other end before anyone picked up. When they did, they sounded far from happy.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice snapped.

  She wondered if this was Angela’s mother. She certainly didn’t sound friendly. “May I speak to Angela, please?”

  “She’s not here.”

  There was no effort to take a message. Lori had a feeling the woman was going to hang up. She talked quickly. “When do you expect her back?”

  The irritation level of the woman’s voice rose a notch. “Who knows? Kid comes and goes.”

  Lori glanced at her watch. It was after nine. “But it’s a school night.”

  “So? You her teacher?” the woman challenged.

  “No.”

  The woman shot another question at her before she could elaborate. “The police?”

  “No.”

  The next thing Lori knew, there was a dial tone buzzing in her ear. She sighed, pressing the off button on the phone’s receiver. She stared at it for a moment, empathizing. No wonder Angela didn’t feel she could talk to her mother.

  But the girl could talk to her. Anytime. She had to impress that on Angela. And if Angela was pregnant, then Lori would go with her when she went to face her mother with the news. That Angela’s mother had to be informed of her condition was not up for debate. The woman had to be made to take an interest in her daughter. Both of them could benefit from that.

  Lori dug herself out of the sofa. She couldn’t imagine what it was like, not having parents who loved and cared about you. Hers had been taken from her all too soon, but she had nothing but warm memories of both her mother and her father.

  The lack of good parenting had been one of the things that had drawn her to Kurt. His charm had only been enough to bring her in at the beginning. But there was this lost little boy beneath it all, a lost boy who’d never experienced parental warmth. Who’d grown up without it. From what he had told her, his father had left when he was still very young and his mother had found her way into a bottle for solace. It was Carson who had raised him. Who had taken care of both Kurt and their mother from the time he was fifteen.

  She supposed that explained a lot about Carson.

  That kind of responsibility was hard on kid. Carson had worked hard at his education and after school, he took any job he could to help out. And somehow, he’d still found a way to be there for Kurt.

  She knew Carson blamed himself for what had happened to Kurt. But the fact that Kurt was always drawn to the wild side, to speed, wasn’t Carson’s fault. He’d done the best he could to make a responsible person out of him. A man could only do so much.

  But first, she mused, looking at the receiver still in her hand, they had to try. There was no way she was about to give up on Angela. It looked as if too many people had done that already.

  She placed the receiver back in its slot, then made her way to the kitchen.

  The refrigerator was as user unfriendly now as it had been this morning when she’d take out the last of the orange juice. She’d made a mental note to go shopping, but the day had gotten away from her and she’d forgotten all about going to the supermarket.

  Not enough hours in the day, she thought, shaking her head. She let the door shut again. Oh well, it wouldn’t hurt to skip a meal now and then.

  She glanced down at her middle. It wasn’t as if she was in any danger of wasting away. She’d done enough eating for two lately.

  The sound of the doorbell caught her by surprise. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Because of her erratic hours, her friends weren’t in the habit of dropping by without warning.

  The doorbell rang a second time before she got to the front door. She looked through the peephole, but the image on the other side of the door wasn’t clear. She told herself she needed to get one of those surveillance cameras for outside the door. The list of things she needed was mounting. First and foremost, she needed a fairy godmother.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  Didn’t she see that it was him? “Open the door, Lori,” he said impatiently.

  Carson?

  She’d just left him in the parking lot. What was he doing here?

  She opened the door before the silent question was completely formed in her brain. The man on her doorstep was holding a large brown bag against his chest and looked rather uncertain for Carson.

  She smiled at him. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  Was it her imagination, or did he sound almost a little sheepish? Or was that awkward? She supposed, under the circumstances, that she felt a little awkward herself right now, given what had happened in the parking lot.

  Carson cleared his throat. “I, um, haven’t had any dinner yet.”

  She laughed, thinking of her refrigerator. Carson had been over a few times for dinner, but this wasn’t going to be one of those evenings. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck here unless you happen to like baking soda or wilted celery, or broccoli that looks as if it’s about to mutate into another life-form.”

  He felt as if a Boy Scout jamboree had used his tongue to practice their knot-making.

  “No. I mean, I picked up some.” He hoisted the bag, using it as a visual aid. “Mexican food. Then I remembered that you liked Mexican food, too, so I got extra. I figured you hadn’t eaten either.” Why was she making this so hard for him? Eating should have been a simple matter.

  She knew that he would probably tell her it was silly, but she was really touched by the gesture. “No, I haven’t.” He was still standing on her doorstep. All six foot two of him still looked miserab
ly awkward. It wasn’t like Carson. She gestured for him to come in. “That was very nice of you.”

  He snorted, pushing the compliment and her thanks away as if it was a bomb about to detonate right in front of him.

  “Don’t make a big deal out of this.” Carson pushed the door closed behind him. “Can’t have you neglecting to feed the baby.”

  She grinned, leading the way to the kitchen. Mexican food had been her main craving of choice. “At this rate, he or she’ll probably be born wearing a sombrero and humming Mexican music.”

  Carson placed the bag down on the kitchen counter. He was surprised by her comment. “That’s stereotyping.”

  “No disrespect intended.” She carefully unpacked the foam boxes out of the bag. “Stereotypes are usually rooted in reality. Besides, I love Mexican music. And Mexican jewelry and don’t even get me started about the food.”

  Though her pale coloring gave no indication to the casual observer, her mother had been part Mexican. The meals Lori remembered her mother preparing still made her mouth water every time she thought about them. Some of her best memories involved standing beside her mother in the kitchen, helping her make the dishes that were such a staple in their house when she was young.

  Opening the cupboard, Lori stood on her toes in order to take down two dinner plates from the second shelf. Without thinking, Carson reached in and took them down for her. Surprised, Lori turned around, brushing her abdomen against him.

  He stepped back as quickly as if he’d been brushed by a flaming torch instead of a pregnant woman. “You’re shorter,” he pointed out, mumbling his excuse for lending a hand.

  She glanced down at her feet. She didn’t usually walk around barefoot in front of him. “I’m not wearing my shoes.”

  He grasped at the topic with gratitude. Unlike most of the women in his acquaintance, Lori had worn high heels ever since he’d met her. Even through her pregnancy. “How you can wear those heels at a time like this—”

  She shrugged. She was so used to wearing them she didn’t even think about it.

  “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t wear high heels. Besides,” she confessed, “they make me feel pretty.” Shoes had always been her weakness and she thought there was nothing more attractive than a nice pair of three-or four-inch heels.

  He opened one of the containers. Splitting the enchiladas between them, he scooped out the sauce, spreading it evenly on the two plates. “You don’t need shoes for that.”

  She set the two glasses she was holding on the table and looked at him, a smile playing across her lips. Would wonders never cease?

  “Why, Carson, is that a compliment?”

  “No,” he retorted. Why did she have to make a big deal out of a conversation? “I mean…it’s just an observation, that’s all.”

  He used the excuse of getting napkins out of the pantry to turn away from her, afraid that he was going to trip over a tongue that had suddenly gotten too long and thick for him to manage properly.

  What the hell was he doing here, anyway? He’d had every intention of going home after she’d left the center. But then his stomach began to growl, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten for most of the day. Stopping at the Tex-Mex restaurant had reminded him of her. As if she had gotten very far out of his mind.

  He wasn’t in the mood to eat alone tonight. God only knew why. He usually preferred his own company to anyone else’s. That way, there was no need to make idle conversation.

  Except that with Lori, the conversation wasn’t idle. It jumped around like an entity with a life of its own. Pretty much the way she did most of the time.

  He shrugged carelessly, completely wrapped up in what he was doing. Or trying to look that way. “Nobody’s looking at your feet anyway.”

  “I know.” She patted her stomach. Was it her imagination, or had it gotten bigger since this morning? She was beginning to feel like the incredible expanding woman. “They’re all looking at my stomach.” She paused, fisting one hand at what had once been her waist. “Why is it that when a woman’s pregnant, people can’t keep their eyes off her stomach?”

  He looked at her. Her eyes always got to him. Her eyes and her smile. “That’s not true.”

  She knew he was just saying that to be nice. “Well, it feels like it’s true.” She placed two sets of silverware out. “I feel like everyone’s eyes are on my middle, waiting for something to happen.”

  He threw out the empty container for her and opened another. This one contained nachos with a cheese sauce. “Maybe you think they’re expecting that because that’s how you feel.”

  She moved the nachos to the middle of the table. “So now who’s practicing psychoanalysis?”

  He never lost a beat. “I’m a lawyer. Comes with the territory,” he reminded her.

  Pulling her chair out, she sat down. He straddled a chair opposite her. Like a cowboy about to go running off to a trail drive.

  “So it does, Counselor.” She studied him for a moment, thinking of the way he’d looked when she’d walked in on him at the center. Wondering if he’d think that she was prying if she asked. “Do you ever regret giving it up?”

  He thought he would. When he’d gone for his degree, he’d been sure that was what he wanted to do with his life. But arguing in court, trying to get a man free on a technicality, never taking into account whether or not that man was actually innocent, was something that never felt quite right to him.

  It wasn’t until he’d turned his life in another direction that it finally felt as if he was doing the right thing.

  “No,” he said honestly, “oddly enough, I don’t. Maybe because I don’t have time to.” He laughed shortly. “The one who regretted my giving it up was Jaclyn.” The arguments had started in earnest then. And he got to see the darker side of the woman he’d fallen in love with. It was a rude awakening. “My taking over at the center didn’t jibe with the vision of life she had in mind.” He didn’t hurt talking about her anymore. He didn’t feel anything. It was as if that had all happened to someone else in another lifetime. “Guess she has it now.”

  Lori wasn’t about to let him just throw out the comment and not follow it up. “Oh?”

  He reached for a nacho. There was rabid interest on her face. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  He wasn’t exactly the male equivalent of Chatty Cathy and they both knew it. “Carson, you never tell me anything without my jabbing you with a dose of Sodium Pentothal.”

  It was old news anyway, more than six months in the past. “She married some Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Has a house in Bel Air, a housekeeper, everything she ever wanted.”

  Lori could feel that wall rising up again. The one he kept himself barricaded behind. Lori reached across the small table and placed her hand over his. “Except a good man.”

  He shrugged. Conscious of the warmth of her hand, he withdrew his. “I had him checked out. I still keep in touch with my old firm’s P.I. Her new husband seems a decent enough guy.”

  “Why’d you have him checked out?” Unless, she thought, he still had feelings for his ex that he wasn’t willing to admit to.

  Carson thought that would have been self-evident. “If he was going to be living with my daughter, he damn well better not have any skeletons in his closet.”

  She should have realized that was it. She’d seen him with the kids at the center, gruff, but protective beneath all that. “You know, you’re full of surprises, Carson O’Neill, you really are.”

  She was doing it again, making him feel like squirming. He nodded at her plate. “Your enchilada’s getting cold. I know it’s nothing like what you make, but in a pinch—”

  He was apologizing again. “Don’t knock it.” She savored a bite. “It tastes so much better when I don’t have to make it myself.”

  He’d sampled her cooking and this couldn’t hold a candle to hers. “Funny, I was just thinking how much better it tasted when you made it.”

  The compliment pleased her. Whe
ther he realized it or not, he was good for her. “Then I’ll have to have you over for dinner again some night.”

  He frowned, lowering his eyes to his plate. “I wasn’t fishing for an invitation.”

  She knew that. “Well, guess what? You caught one anyway.”

  “But—”

  She wasn’t about to let him wiggle out of it. He’d done a nice thing for her and she wanted to return the favor. End of discussion. “Shut up and pass the nachos, Carson.”

  There were times when he knew it was pointless to try to argue with her. He did as he was told.

  Chapter Five

  Restless, Lori tossed the magazine back on the square marble tabletop. Dr. Sheila Pollack, her OBGYN, made a practice of keeping current with the reading material in the tastefully decorated waiting room, but since she’d already been here three times this month for herself, Lori’d read everything of interest to her. The rest of the magazines were devoted to how those with money to burn decorated their homes and that certainly didn’t include her.

  She glanced at her watch, wondering how much longer Angela’s exam was going to take. The door leading to the four exam rooms remained closed no matter how many times she looked expectantly at it.

  She’d been the one to bring Angela here today. Every time she’d asked the girl if she’d made an appointment with a doctor, Angela had put her off, procrastinating. After three days of verbal waltzing, Lori had called her own doctor. Lisa, Dr. Pollack’s nurse, had been sympathetic and agreed to slip Angela in to see the doctor in between patients.

  This state of limbo about Angela’s condition was unacceptable.

  “Why do you care?” Angela had demanded when she’d cornered her just as the girl had walked into the center this afternoon and told her that she’d made the arrangements for her to see a doctor.

  Lori’d ushered her out of the building. They had to leave immediately.

  “Because I do, that’s all. You need to face this, one way or another.” She’d pointed out her car. “Now let’s go.”

  Braced for an argument, she didn’t get one. Angela made no further protest about the pending exam. She also didn’t talk very much on the trip to Dr. Pollack’s office in Bedford.