“Why would this make you creepy?”
Taryn shrugged, trying to ignore the none-too-gentle tug at her heart. “My family doesn’t understand why I would want to deal with dead people all day. I have to do makeup for dead babies and little kids all the time. They really don’t get that.”
“So, what? People shouldn’t be made up for funerals just because someone would have to deal with a dead body? Anything’s creepy when you think about it in the wrong light. Look at me. I scar people’s flesh for a living. That sounds like something you’d hear on a procedural cop show.”
“It does sound psychotic.”
“I think what you do is great. Not everyone could do this, but it’s an important job.” He looked down at the broken young woman on the slab, the curiosity in his features turned to compassion. “This is her last goodbye. This is the last time her family and friends are going to see her.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“Will you tell me about your one relationship?” Slate asked when they sat down to lunch that Sunday.
Taryn looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Curiosity.” He flashed her a winning grin. “We’re friends, right?”
“Well played.” She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her folded hands. “His name was Javier. We met at freshman orientation. That was before I decided on beauty school and then a mortuary science certificate. Our freshman and sophomore years, we traveled in the same social circle and eventually ended up together.
“Javier was the know-it-all type. Arguments with him were frequent, and they always ran longer than anyone was comfortable with. They were the tiring type of argument where, when all was said and done, there was nothing accomplished except headaches and broken pride. He had a habit of taking an offhand comment and picking it to death.”
“Sounds like a real prince.”
“No, really. There were a lot of great things about Javier. Give me a little credit. There had to be something good about him for me to have been interested in the first place. He was intelligent in a too-smart-for-his-own-good type of way. A lot of what he talked about fascinated me. When he wasn’t arguing, he could be interesting.
“We were together for two years, and I wasn’t unhappy. I meant what I said before. I’m not jaded about relationships at all. There are a lot of great things about being in a relationship. Friendly conversation over dinner, shoulder massages after a bad day, and regular sex.”
“Can never go wrong with regular sex.” Slate waggled his eyebrows.
Taryn smirked. “Odd jobs around the house were just done. I didn’t have a chance to notice a burned-out light bulb before it had been replaced. He shared the cooking and cleaning burden. Oh, and my car. Javier never would have let my car get to this point. Sometimes I miss the partnership much more than I miss the man.”
“I get that. I miss waking up with someone.”
“You like morning breath, huh?”
“What can I say?” He leaned forward over the table. “But speaking of odds and ends getting taken care of, I have another question for you. Is there any special reason why you haven’t taken your car to be fixed?”
“Necessity and laziness. It’s not breaking down. I just don’t trust it to go thirty-five miles in stop-and-go traffic. It tends to overheat when it idles for too long. I work right down the street, so it’s useable in my day to day life. I wouldn’t try to go on the freeway with it, though.”
“What would you say to me taking it home with me to fix?”
“You know how to fix cars?”
“Well, no. But I have people, man.”
“You really don’t have to do anything. I’ve just been lazy. I’ve been meaning to take it in for months.”
“Let me take care of it. Plus I can get it done from cheap to free, depending on what’s wrong with the thing. I told you—I’ve got people.”
Taryn tapped her chin, thinking it through.
When she didn’t answer, he went on. “People keep telling me things between us are going to get complicated when the baby comes. More complicated, I guess. We should take care of this now while everything is, I dunno, calm?”
Taryn looked up at him, unsure if she liked the word we thrown in there. Pushing that aside, she considered his offer. “You’re right. I really need to get it done before it breaks down completely. It shouldn’t be too hard to get rides, or maybe I could rent a car for a little while.”
“Caleb would help if I asked him to.”
“Oh, I couldn’t ask him to do that. He’s already done too much carting me to LA and back.”
“It’s not like he went out of his way. If anything, bringing you along means he can use the carpool lane. He doesn’t have a lot to do in Orange County anyway, and he thinks you’re good company.”
Taryn was pleased at this revelation. She found her conversations with Caleb interesting and looked forward to them as part of her weekends with Slate. In fact, she’d been disappointed when Slate offered to come to her this weekend because it meant she was missing out on seeing Caleb.
Still, she didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. Slate and Caleb were new to her. She would be much more comfortable working something out with Mel, Rob, or her coworkers. They’d all known each other for years, so there was a little give and take about their relationships.
Then Slate laughed. “Oh man. We’re so dumb.”
“What?”
“If I drive your car to LA, that means you have my car. Problem solved.”
“Oh, yeah. But that’s even worse. How will you get around?”
“You know my place is only about a mile from the shop. I don’t mind the walk.”
“Slate, you shouldn’t—”
“I want to do this for you.” He sat up, crossing his legs as he looked at her. “I want to help. This whole pregnancy thing.” He gestured vaguely at her stomach. “I can tell it’s a pain in the ass. I feel bad. I’d help you with all that if I could. Since I can’t, let me do this one thing for you. Really. I want to.”
It was impossible to argue with that smile of his.
Exhaling on a gust, Taryn nodded. “Okay. Twist my arm if you must. I just hope it makes it back to your place.”
“No big deal if it doesn’t. My mom pays for triple A for me.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“She worries. She’s a mom, you know?”
Taryn said nothing, but she pressed her palm against her still flat belly, wondering not for the first time what kind of mother she would be. Despite all the morning sickness, her conversations with her family and Slate, so much of this didn’t feel real. She took things one day at a time, dealing with the changes in her body, at work, and the way she ate.
“Speaking of Mom . . .” Again, Slate rubbed the back of his neck. “I haven’t told her yet—about all this, I mean.”
Taryn didn’t know what to say. If things hadn’t gotten so out of hand so quickly at her parents’, she doubted she would have told them yet either.
Taking her silence as anger, Slate was quick to continue. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but I know my mom. She’s going to have a million questions, and I only have one or two answers.” He tried to smile, but it was a twisted expression at best. He couldn’t keep his nervousness off his face.
“I understand. My parents are the same way. So many questions. And they’re all over me because I didn’t schedule my first doctor’s appointment until this Tuesday.” She twirled her fork around and around in her pasta, nervous. She’d been putting off this conversation, but no more excuses. “They want to meet you.” Now it was Slate’s turn to be silent. Taryn chanced a glance over. Slate had a look on his face as though someone had a hold on his balls and was threatening to squeeze. “I told them not yet. You’re right. We need to have more answers.”
“Yeah.” He was silent for a handful of beats. “Well, anyway. About your doctor’s appointment. Hopefully the car will be done by then, but e
ither way.” They both watched him push a roll back and forth restlessly on the table. He took a deep breath. “If you’re uncomfortable, feel free to tell me to fuck off, but I would really like to be there.”
Taryn smiled. “I think I’d like that.”
Chapter Seven
“I hate doctor’s offices. I hate them, Mel. I hate them with a passion.”
“That chick you got this gal’s name from said she was nice, didn’t she?”
“It’s not about that. I know it’s silly, but I always get this feeling I’m going to test positive for something.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re only going to test positive for pregnancy, doll face.”
“You don’t know that. If there were no chance of them finding something, they wouldn’t go looking for it.”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“It’s a precaution because shit happens.”
Mel stood and walked a few steps over to where Taryn was swaying back and forth on the balls of her feet. She put her hands on Taryn’s shoulders, stilling her nervous movement. “Hey,” she said and waited until Taryn looked up. “You’re fine. Patch is fine. It’s just a little pee, a little blood, and your doctor seeing more of you than your baby daddy remembers seeing.”
“Nice.” Taryn sat on the edge of the couch and let her shoulders slump. “I really hate needles.”
“Girl. You know I don’t want to hear that from you. You with the easy peasy veins. They stick you in the arm and you’re done. I, on the other hand, got stuck with game-playing veins. Jerks are fantastic at hide and seek. Do you know how hard it is to get a vial of blood from me? They stick me in one arm, fish around a bit because that’s pleasant. Then they stick the other arm, rinse and repeat. Finally, after I’m already full of holes, they go ahead and stick my wrist, which I’ll have you know is fine going in but stings like a mother bitch coming out, and if that doesn’t work, they—”
“Ugh. Stop.” Taryn held one hand out to her friend and spread the other over her very rebellious stomach. “I’m pregnant. You’re supposed to be nice to me.”
“I’m saying that’s not what’s going to happen to you.” She shook her head and grabbed for the remote. “Here. I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of the Avengers,” she said, flipping to her Amazon collection and calling up The Avengers movie.
“You want me to watch The Avengers?”
“Concentrate on the pretty. It will make you feel better.”
Taryn eyed her friend, some of her anxiety melting away as she teased, “You know if you make me watch this again, I’m just going to come up with more reasons why Iron Man wants to get it on with Captain America.”
“There’s something very wrong with you. Iron Man is in love with Pepper, dammit.”
“You have a girl-crush on Gwyneth Paltrow.”
“Entirely beside the point.”
After she started the movie, Melanie gave Taryn a hug. “Try not to worry. Promise me.”
“I’ll try.”
True to her word, Taryn tried not to fret. It proved to be an exercise in futility. The ability to be blasé about doctors was something she’d lost a long time ago.
Was she doomed to be the paranoid mother her own mother had been? It wasn’t what she wanted, but she was headed down that road faster than quick.
Her cell rang. A glance at her screen only changed the direction of her pessimistic thoughts. Slate was supposed to pick her up so they could go to the doctor together. Taryn kept waiting for Slate to show his true colors. He kept insisting he wanted to be there for her, for the baby, but every time she received a text from him, Taryn expected an excuse. Her stomach twisted with dread as she connected the call. “Hello?”
The static on the other end was horrible. “Taryn?”
“Slate?”
“Hey, look. Your car. I thought it was fixed, but . . . well . . .”
“You’re not coming.”
He groaned. “Taryn, I want to be there. You know how much I want to be there. But your car. I’m broken down on the side of the highway. It’s going to take awhile to get a tow, and I’m too far away.”
Taryn swallowed hard to keep her throat from closing off. She forced a light laugh, because she believed him. She could hear the traffic. “That car is more trouble than it’s worth. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I swear I want to be there. In fact, if I can get the car situated, maybe I can make it there a little late.”
She wasn’t going to hold her breath. “It’s okay.”
“If I don’t make it, though, you’ll call me when the appointment is over, right? Let me know how it went?”
“Yeah. Of course.” She hung up the phone quickly after that and bit her lip to stave off the tears that threatened. The second she knew he wasn’t coming, the urge to have someone by her side through this hit her so hard she swayed where she sat. It wasn’t want; it was need, and she was desperate. She was sinking deeper beneath the water, and Slate’s phone call was the last light of the surface fading away.
Taryn called up her contact list and scrolled to her mother’s number. Even if the doctor found nothing wrong, there would be a laundry list of ways Taryn would have to alter her life just to let the baby incubate. That was too big. She needed her mommy and daddy to hold her hand.
She hit send but then ended the call just as quickly. Her parents had no more control than she did. There was a reason she hadn’t invited her mother to this appointment in the first place, despite Faye’s not-so-subtle hinting. It would have only raised her blood pressure. Her mother had paranoia down to an art form.
“Hell with this. You’re the mommy now,” Taryn said to herself. She wiped her silly tears away, took a breath, and shrugged off the melodrama. Robin and Melanie were busy. Slate was stuck. Her parents wouldn’t be helpful. Maybe Taryn didn’t want to be alone, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be. She found her purse and got herself out the door for her first appointment.
“I hate doctors’ offices, Slate. With a passion. I hate the smell. I hate the way they look. I hate everything.”
On the other end of the phone, Caleb’s friend sighed. “I know you do, man. You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. And really? You’re bitching because it smells like antiseptic?”
“It seems wrong. I walk into this place, and someone inside is getting the worst news of their lives. A place like that should smell like sour milk at least.”
“You know what, don’t go. That’s my kid. Are you trying to freak me out, ‘cause it’s working.”
“Ah, hell. I’m sorry. I was babbling. Don’t pay any attention to me.” Caleb sighed and rested his head against the window. He glared at the medical building for another second before he dragged himself out of his car. “This is the good kind of doctor. OB. It doesn’t get more euphoric than that, right? No bad news for your kid.”
Slate was quiet for a beat. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No. You should have. That’s what friends are for, and you’re right. Taryn shouldn’t be alone. I’m all over it. Don’t worry.”
As he stepped into the waiting room, Caleb searched for Taryn. He saw happy couples with their heads bent together over swollen stomachs, but not Slate’s baby momma. He went over to the receptionist. “I’m here for Taryn Sato.”
“Are you Daddy?”
Caleb’s heart gave a painful twist. “Yes.” The lie was the easiest way to get where he needed to be, he knew. Less complicated.
“Oh, good. Mommy said you might be joining us. Hopefully that will make her feel better.”
“She’s not feeling well?”
“It’s normal for Mommy to be nervous, especially on a first appointment. Doctors aren’t everyone’s thing.”
“You can say that again.”
Caleb turned down the hallway and hesitated outside the room she’d indicated. The receptionist had said the doctor wasn’t with her yet, but she might have been getting undressed. Err
ing on the side of caution, he knocked.
“I’m decent.” Taryn’s chipper voice went a long way toward grounding Caleb’s discomfort.
He opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. “Hey.”
“Um. Hi? What are you doing here?”
“Slate didn’t want you to be alone, so he asked me to come with you.”
“That’s very sweet of both of you, but it’s unnecessary. Surely you have to have better things to do.”
“A favor for Slate’s baby is pretty high up there on my good-things-to-do list.” He kept his voice light. He’d gleaned from their conversations in the car Taryn hated to think she was a burden to anyone. “It’s no trouble, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I can stay out in the lobby if you don’t want me in here.”
She looked uncertain, so he continued. “I’m, er, I know what to expect from these appointments. I can be up by your head during the exam, or I can leave the room.”
“Do you have kids?”
Caleb’s throat tightened. “No.”
She studied him for another moment before she nodded, and her features softened. “If it really isn’t a big deal, I would really appreciate if you stayed,” she said in a surprisingly small, timid voice.
He took the chair by the head of the bed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I know.” Her words were still quiet. When she breathed in, the sound was shaky. “I guess doctor visits are never fun.”
“Yeah. Well, if they do the heartbeat thing, that’s pretty neat.”
“I think when I talked to her on the phone, Dr. Morris said they were going to try to hear it.”
There was a knock at the door then, and the doctor entered. “Good afternoon, Miss Sato.”
“Taryn. Please.”
“Taryn.” Her eyes flicked over to Caleb. “Is this Daddy?”
Standing, Caleb offered his hand. “I’m Caleb. I’m just a friend. Daddy got stuck with a broken-down car.”
Taryn grimaced. “My fault.”
“Ah, well. Daddy’s taking care of Mom one way or another. That’s good. Mom and Baby can’t have too much support.” Her handshake was strong. “I’m Sandra Morris. What do you say we find out more about Baby?”
One to Tell the Grandkids Page 5