by Mia Caldwell
Jarvis reading out the evidence to Hamiltons, texts Asia. I relay the message to the Pierces. We’re all kind of holding our breath.
“No, I’m sorry Elise had to die. But Corbin is my son and I want to see him happy. So I’m glad she’s gone.” Mitsy is looking at me slightly defiantly, like she expects a challenge, but no, I’m glad she’s gone, too. So I just nod. “It’s better for the baby,” she continues, clapping Maeve’s hands together.
Mr.Hamilton just threw a punch at Jarvis! Corbin stopped him. awesome. I relay that text as well and we all laugh nervously.
She’s all “LIES!” and “Where did you get this?!” I hope to hell she thinks I’m just taking notes or I’ll need a bodyguard.
“I told Jarvis to keep Ms. Johnson’s name completely out of this. Because she would need a bodyguard,” says Ed. I can believe it, that woman is evil.
I keep checking my phone, thinking I’m missing texts, but an hour goes by with no more from Asia. Ed had gotten bored with playing on the floor and is thumbing through his phone on the window seat. Mitsy has read half the books in the playroom, but Maeve is alway happy to hear more, especially if they have Spot the Dog.
Finally the door bursts open and Corbin comes in, Asia right behind him. “Good news!” he says, grinning ear to ear. We all exhale, audibly.
“He wouldn’t let me spill the beans,” says Asia.
“The Hamiltons have agreed to drop the suit. We don’t show any of our gathered evidence to the police, they stay away from Maeve.”
“Completely?” I ask.
“No contact. If, after she turns eighteen, Maeve wants to contact them, that’s fine, but nothing until then. And hopefully not then.”
We all rush to hug him at once, congratulating and expressing relief. His parents pull back to let me have my own hug, though. His embrace is close, strong.
“Look!” Mitsy says.
We turn toward her and see that Maeve has begun making her way across the rug, calling “Da da da da” as she goes. Corbin drops down to meet her and she speeds up a little, uncertain though her crawling is. “Da da!” she says when she reaches him. “Dada!”
There’s no mistaking that for her random syllable babbling. My eyes tear up as I watch Corbin scoop his daughter in his arms and kiss her neck. Mitsy is crying openly and even Ed looks a little red-eyed.
Asia comes over to me and touches my arm. “Look,” she says, voice low, “I’m going to scoot, leave you guys to this. Corbin was amazing in there. You’re a lucky girl. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I’ll do my best,” I tell her, hugging her before she goes. “Stop in at the kitchen as you leave, Marta was going to have lunch ready.”
Our lunch is loud and happy. Marta and Connie agree to eat with us, everyone passing the food around laughing and telling stories. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of all of us. I’ve never seen Corbin more happy, he’s smiling from forehead to chin.
That evening, after Maeve has gone to sleep in the Pierce’s room, Corbin and I go out for a walk. The night is perfect as we stroll through the rows of grapes.
“You know what Maeve needs now?” asks Corbin, holding my hand.
“Yeah, a big slobbery dog and a half dozen chickens, we’ve been over this,” I tease.
“Well, yeah. She’ll get those, too. But in a couple of years maybe? She needs a little brother. Or sister. Maybe both.”
I’m not sure I’m breathing, so i just make a “Hmm” noise. Corbin stops and turns toward me.
“I’m serious, Vanessa. I can’t imagine going forward without you. I mean, I’ve only known you this short time and you are already an important part of my life, indispensible.”
“Aw, you’ll find a new nanny,” I say, trying to get to what he’s really saying without jumping to conclusions and looking like an idiot.
“Well, that part is going to be tough, but you know that’s not what I mean. I love you. Maeve loves you. I don’t want you to leave us.”
“Are you asking me to stay here even after school starts?”
“Yes. But more than that. I’m fucking it up, I know, but I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”
I’m speechless.
“No ring, I’m not down on one knee…that didn’t work out so well last time, so let’s do it our way–let’s just do it, just say yes.”
“Corbin, we hardly know one another. I love you, I do, but it’s not even been two months!”
“I know. But it feels like a trial by fire. You’re the one. I’ve known it all along but now I’m certain.”
“I want to say yes. But it feels too soon!”
“Then just say yes to me. And we don’t tell a soul until Christmas. When you see that it’s still the best idea I’ve ever had, we’ll announce it. And we’ll get married here on your spring break, when everything is green and in bloom. And then I’ll show you India.”
I feel my head nodding, like it had its own plan. I just go with it. “Yes. Then, yes.”
We don’t walk much more. Suddenly it seems really necessary to get back to my room. And with Maeve sleeping in the Pierce’s room in another wing, we don’t even have to worry about being quiet.
Epilogue
“Daddy! The goats are in the kitchen!” Maeve is standing in the doorway of my office, her hair a wild mass of black curls, dirt smudged on her face.
“Where’s your mom?” I ask, hoping I don’t have to go wrangle the goats, but knowing it’s not fair to expect my very pregnant wife to do it.
“She’s napping. Marta caught Spotty, but Brownie is too fast.”
I sigh and get up. The goats were a bad idea. I see that now. But they were so cute and Maeve was so delighted by them. Vanessa’s Grandma told me I was an idiot, in her charmingly blunt way. “Goats are nothing but devilment” was what she said and she was right. They spend their entire day trying to figure out how to get out of the pen that poor Rick repairs after each escape.
A bad idea.
Vanessa’s in her eighth month of pregnancy now. Soon we’ll have an infant as well as a three year old. We timed it so that the baby would be born near the start of summer break, but it means it’s already really hot when Vanessa’s really big. Beautiful, I swear, but…big. She says the kids in her class keep teasing her, saying she’s going to give birth to a full grown man. Connie swears the doctor is wrong and there’s a surprise twin in there. Vanessa tells her to bite her tongue.
The nanny problem sorted itself out naturally enough. After I’d sent away yet another angry control freak, Vanessa said, “What about Marta?”
And, duh. Of course. Marta already knew Maeve’s routine, knew how we liked her treated. She didn’t mind giving up the cooking job at all when I told her the salary. Marta’s a good cook, but so are a lot of people. Only a select few are qualified to love my kid. Kids.
It was still a tough transition. Maeve wanted Vanessa. But kids are adaptable, like everyone keeps telling me, and now she seems happy enough.
As I near the kitchen, I can hear Brownie bleating. “Hey Maeve, how did Brownie get into the kitchen?”
“I letted him. Now you can catch him easy.”
Sound logic, I suppose, from her point of view. When I open the door, I’m greeted with utter chaos, as I expected. The little goat has happily bounded from floor to chair to table to counter to top of counter, knocking everything to the ground as he goes. There are round goat berries everywhere.
“Bleeehhh!” Brownie greets us from on top of the refrigerator.
“He’s on da FWIDGE!”
I text Rick for back up. “Hey, goaty goaty goat. Hey Brownie, here boy.” I pick up an apple from a bowl and show it to him. “Want this? C’mere!”
He leaps down on to the counter, but ignores the apple and continues to bound around the kitchen surfaces, strewing everything in his path, bleating happily.
Maeve is screaming with delight, which of course just riles the goat. Chaos.
I make a lunge for Brownie as h
e tries to careen past and manage to grab him around the middle. I lift him up, upside down. He’s struggling to get his feet on the ground, I’m struggling to right him, but hold on. Maeve is trying to pat him, saying “Hey yittle guy, hey yittle guy!”
I look up and Vanessa is in the doorway, hands on her big belly. She just shakes her head. “I guess I should snap a picture for the prep school alumni magazine.”
“Hi. Brownie got into the kitchen.”
“I letted him!”
“I see that. Corbin, I think it’s time. We need to…get the bag.”
I drop the goat, who gets to his feet and bounds off again.
“Maevey,” I say, trying to sound calm, “Can you go tell Marta we need her to come in right away. She can just let Spotty go. Rick will catch him later.”
Maeve scampers out the kitchen door.
“Oh shit, are you sure?”
“No, It might just be that an invisible person is stabbing me in the belly, but I think this is probably it.”
I’m trying to keep down the panic, to not think of the last time I took a wife to the hospital.
As if reading my mind, Vanessa says, “It’s going to be fine, honey. I’m going to be fine and so is the baby.”
I just nod. Marta appears in the kitchen and knows with one look what’s going on. Rick turns up behind her with a collar and leash for Brownie.
“I got this, Mr. Pierce,” Marta says, “You take your wife to the hospital.”
Somehow, we get out, get the bag, get in the car. Vanessa is quiet, trying to breathe through the contractions or whatever bullshit they tell you to do so you don’t notice a human is trying to batter its way out of your body.
Somehow, we get to the hospital, into a room, into a bed. Vanessa’s doula met us there, and she’s doing the heavy lifting of timing contractions, making sure the doctors know Vanessa wants to deliver without medication. All I have to do is hold her hand and tell her she’s beautiful. I’m pretty sure I can do that.
Somehow, there’s a baby, and then, just as Connie predicted, another. The surprise twin, a little girl hiding behind our strapping boy. After our son Joseph emerged, Vanessa said she couldn’t stop pushing. And then out came Frances. We’ve gone from a family of three to five in a matter of hours.
When Maeve comes to visit, she wants to name the twins Brownie and Spotty after the goats. But I convince her that we don’t want the babies to try to escape all the time. She agrees with me now, but we’ll see how she feels when they’re three.
Vanessa wakes from a nap and says, “I’m starving, will you get me some food?”
“What do you want?”
“I’m craving a BLT. But make sure it’s on the menu first. I don’t want to lose you to some waitress that feels bad for you.”
I kiss her forehead. “Too late. I’m already lost to a waitress. And a nanny. And a teacher. And a mother.”
“You’re a sap. Go get me food. But hand me my book before you go. I’m near the end and I want to get to the happily ever after before they bring the twins to me again.” She looks at me and smiles. "But I guess that is the happily ever after, huh?"
“Now who’s a sap? But yeah. C’mon, Maeve, let’s ride off into the sunset.”
“What’s in da sunset, Daddy?”
“A sandwich, honey. A BLT sandwich and a happy ending.”
*****
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The first three chapters of
A Baby for the Billionaire Beach Bum
Kiera
“I swear to god, Dre, if you try to come back here, I’ll change hotel rooms and I won’t tell you where I am.”
I heard my best friend’s throaty laugh over the phone before she told her new boyfriend, “She says she’s going to change the locks on me!”
“No, I’m going to change rooms completely. You’ll never find me. So don’t even bother. Seriously, Andrea, don’t worry. I’ve been on vacation on my own before.”
"Thanks, Kiera. I just feel bad. I mean, you paid for me to come to Aruba, and now I’m ditching you for some guy. Feels like bad friend behavior to me."
“Look,” I said, “it’s not like you were the life of the party when you were here. You were so busy mooning about Walker I was talking to myself half the time anyway.” Not true, exactly, but sometimes she needs tough love.
“Ugh! Now I feel worse!”
I laughed. I love Dre like a sister, which means I can be happy for her, but still want to smack her upside the head. I mean, I was genuinely happy that Andrea found true love and all, but it actually does suck to have been abandoned. Sure, I’ve come to the Caribbean on my own before, but it was always by choice. We had plans. But Walker had swooped in with his dramatic rescue and his giant mansion on Bonaire and his private yacht. It’s not like I could compete with that, you know?
“Andrea. You know me, I’ll make my own fun. Look, I’m going to go to that surf lesson we had scheduled for this afternoon.”
“Can you get a refund for my half?” We’ve been friends forever, Dre knows that even making a decent salary as a lawyer, I still have to watch my wallet.
“Maybe,” I lied, knowing they were non-refundable because I’d gotten them on a LivingSocial deal, “and if not, I’ll just offer your slot to the best looking guy on the beach.”
“I know you will. Thanks, Kiera, you’re the best. We’ll be back to Aruba Friday, in time to get my stuff. Walker says you can fly back with us on his plane!”
“Great, you kids have fun. I’ll see you Friday.” Rolling my eyes, I set the hotel room phone back into its cradle. I’d insisted that we have a no cell phone week. Just us girls, on our own. This was a little more “on my own” than I’d bargained for.
I know that it is stupid to feel jealous. Juvenile. Small. Pointless. It’s not just that I had planned out how this vacation would go–I distract Dre from her troubles, we go out, drink, pick up men–although I do kind of hate to see a plan abandoned. And I’m not mad about being alone. I’m comfortable in a crowd, I’m fine on my own. It’s not like I was wishing for a relationship and she got one, I don’t even have the time. It’s just…I don’t know. I’m annoyed.
I know Andrea thinks I sleep with every guy I flirt with, but the truth is I haven’t gotten any action in months. I don’t know why I keep pretending that I’m the hook-up queen, like I was when we were in high school and college. It’s not like anyone’s impressed by that in your late twenties.. It balances the lawyer thing, I guess. Washington DC lawyers are a notoriously stuffy group. We’re all so focused on getting ahead in a city with a lot of competition. Being the girl that can still shotgun a 24 ouncer at least sets me apart a little bit.
Sure, I know I could follow my mom’s advice and stand out by doing more pro bono work or by getting a job with a non-profit instead of a private corporate law firm. You know what that won’t pay? My rent.
My parents moved to Anacostia in the late 1980s. If you know any history of the area, you know that was crazy. But they were idealist community activists, they were convinced that if more middle class black folk moved in, the neighborhood would be saved from the crackheads. Mostly, they just gave the crackheads some nice middle class shit to steal. They also left me and my sister with the sense that we don’t owe “the people” anything. They can work for it like we do.
So now I rent a nice little rowhouse in Capitol Hill and I never get to enjoy it because I work all the time. I have a huge group of young lawyer friends I barely know. And I haven’t had sex with the same guy more than twice (two occasions, that is. I can really pack in a lot of action on a single date) since college. I’m a huge damned success.
Lucky me.
I notice that the light is flashing on the phone, so I call down to the front desk.
“Ms. Simpson, you have a message from Kevin Davenport. He says he’ll meet you at Lambada Joe’s at 8.”
“Thanks.” The hell he will. I’m more annoyed than I should be, I guess. Ke
vin was a nice guy. He cheerfully spoke only in his native Papiamento when I told him I liked it best if I didn’t know what he was saying. He let me flirt and dance pretty dirty. When I brought him back to our room, we made out and then he left when I told him to. I guess it’s a measure of my standards when “nice guy” means “did what I said and stopped when I said stop.” But he’d called the hotel several times, trying to get me to meet him again. Like I said, he’s nice. And I’ve never really been into nice.
Leave the waiting for Prince Charming to Andrea. I want his naughty little brother. The one that will come riding up on his white motorcycle. And then ride away again at the end of the night.
I dig the tickets for the surfing lessons out of my bag and change into the bathing suit that’s least likely to come off in the waves. Andrea’s the real swimmer, I mostly just like to look cute on the beach. But hey, maybe surfing is just what’s been missing from my life. Maybe after this, I’ll take all my vacations in Hawaii or wherever it is surfers go.
The website said a rash guard would be provided, so I just put on the top with the thickest straps. It’s still pretty sexy, though, I’m not gonna lie. I’ve given up on trying to keep my hair under control and I just let the natural frizz take over, but honestly it looks pretty good, too. I may have been abandoned by my best friend, but I’ve still got it.
When I get onto the hotel shuttle bus that will take me to the beach where the lessons are held, there’s a fine looking man sitting by himself in the back. Tattoos on muscular arms. Sexy half-scowl. He has earbuds in, but he looks up when I get on. I walk to the back and sit across the aisle from him, smiling as I sit down. He’s definitely checking me out.
“What are you listening to?” I say, kind of loudly, pointing at his phone in case the volume’s up too loud to hear me.
He pulls one bud out and grins. He has perfect teeth. His eyes are a weird shade of green that probably means contact lenses, but he looks like that guy that played Chad in High School Musical. “What, baby?”