Knocked-Up Cinderella

by Julie Hammerle

  I called Isamu and told him the new offer. We agreed we’d finalize everything in the morning. “Looks like I’m gonna need that golden pen tomorrow.”

  …

  Erin

  “Hey,” I texted Ian, “I hope everything is going well! Here’s your friendly reminder about our childbirth class tomorrow afternoon at the hospital.”

  I placed the phone face up on the coffee table in front of me, between my flute of orange juice and Natalie’s mimosa. We’d gone to a bridal shop for her fitting. She hid behind the pink and white curtain as a saleswoman zipped her into her dress. Katie was supposed to be here, too, but she was currently MIA.

  I texted her, too. “Where are you?”

  Another saleswoman, Karen, popped her head in from the other room. “How are you doing, sweetie?”

  “Fine.” I pointed to my glass of juice.

  She leaned against the doorframe. “This probably brings back memories for you.”

  I narrowed my eyes, warily. What did this woman know about me and my memories? “Drinking OJ…?” I asked.

  Karen shook her head. “No, silly. Wedding dress shopping.” She nodded toward my ample gut. “How long have you been married?”

  I touched my belly. “Oh, I’m not—”

  Karen blushed. “I’m sorry. I assumed. I’m sure you’ll meet the right guy someday!” She turned an ear toward the front of the store. “What was that? A phone call?” she yelled to absolutely no one. The only other employee working this morning was currently helping Nat into her dress. Karen quickly shut the door and disappeared.

  I grabbed my phone again. The nerve of her, making assumptions about me. It reminded me of the time I’d gone to Home Depot for something in the dead of winter. I’d been wearing this huge, boxy parka, and the greeter woman informed me about a current deal on new construction projects. She pointed to my midsection and said, “You could build a nursery.” I stood there speechless, but she doubled down. “You know,” she said, “for the baby.” I burst into tears, right there in the middle of Home Depot on a Saturday morning. Dirk and I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get pregnant for almost a year at that point. I went home and immediately dumped the offending parka in the trash.

  How dare that saleswoman assume I had a husband. How dare she assume I even wanted to get married. I always avoided asking these kinds of questions of other people. You never knew what was going on with someone else. Maybe there was no dad. Maybe we’d just broken up. Maybe he was dead.

  Maybe fuck you, nosy person, because the dad was currently halfway around the world, ignoring my calls.

  Tale as old as time.

  I checked my phone again for good measure. I probably would’ve felt the pulse on my watch if a text had come in, but sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I missed it.

  Nothing. No new messages.

  Katie rushed in then, wearing her workout gear—skin-tight three-quarter leggings and a barely there, backless tank top. I’d never seen her dress like that before. She usually wore baggy sweats and too-large T-shirts. She skipped the champagne and poured herself a full glass of cucumber-flavored water. “Hey.” She waved to me as she downed her beverage.

  “Hi,” I said. “New clothes?”

  She spun around. “These are so much easier to lift weights in. Do I look okay?”

  “You look amazing.” She’d been wearing so much baggy clothing, it totally hid her new, toned bod. I pulled my capped sleeves down slightly to hide my flabby arms.

  “My instructor today complimented my form. She says I’m an expert at Romanian deadlifts.” She held her arms straight down in front of her, arched her shoulders, and leaned forward, sticking her butt back.

  “Looks good to me,” I said.

  She leaned against the bar counter. “She even asked me to walk around the room, correcting other people’s posture.”

  “Awesome!” I said. “But too bad for those other people.” I avoided exercise classes altogether, because why should I pay money for other people to point out my faults?

  Natalie emerged from her dressing room like a diva taking the stage. Her outfit had transformed magically from a simple sundress to a full ball gown with a beaded halter top. She’d had her hair straightened recently into a sleek bob that looked so sophisticated paired with her dramatic eye makeup.

  “Beautiful,” I said. My girls were currently crushing it in the looks department. I was a tick about to pop.

  Katie clapped. “I’d hug you,” she said, “but I’m disgusting.”

  Yeah, sure. Katie was the disgusting one. She’d strutted in here, showing off her muscular back. I was the lumpy sack of potatoes whose boyfriend had stopped texting her and had decided to stay in Tokyo ten days longer than planned.

  I had to get out of my head. Ian cared about me. He’d told me so the last time we were together…almost two weeks ago. He gave me this beautiful necklace. I touched the diamond and topaz teardrop pendant resting against my sternum. He hadn’t texted because he was busy with work stuff. Full stop. He lived for his career. I’d known this going in.

  Nat, regal like a queen, stepped onto the platform in front of the three-way mirror and rotated to see herself from all angles. “Chris has been texting me all morning.” She giggled. “He wants to see pictures…right now.” She beamed, winking at Katie and me in the mirror. “I told him he could wait a month.”

  I snuck another peek at my phone. Still no text from Ian. Chris had been texting Nat all morning, but my boyfriend couldn’t be bothered to shoot me an I’m busy, but I got it! message. That I would’ve understood. I would’ve sent him a thumbs-up emoji, and all would’ve been well.

  Dirk used to do this. He’d ignore my texts, and I’d let him get away with it, because I’d opted to play the part of the cool chick with a life of her own. And then he broke up with me for someone more emotionally demonstrative.

  And now history was repeating itself.

  “Chris is so smitten,” Katie said.

  Natalie smiled back at her in the mirror. “We both are. But it’s also like, we’ve each been in bad relationships before. This time around, we’re dedicated to making time for each other. That’s really what it comes down to, priorities. He’s mine. I’m his.”

  “It’s good to have other priorities, though,” I said. I hadn’t just been playing the cool, busy chick with Dirk. I actually was that chick. I, too, had dedicated myself to my job. I had friends and a demanding schedule full of all kinds of fund-raising obligations.

  “Of course.” Nat frowned at me. “And we do, Chris and I.”

  What worked for one person didn’t work for others. I was fine on my own, and so was Ian. “Just because two people live somewhat separate lives doesn’t mean they’re not dedicated to each other.”

  I stood and waddled over to a small rack of dresses along the back wall—the maternity section for knocked-up bridesmaids. “I need something spectacular for the Gala.” Ian, no Ian, I’d crush it at the fund-raiser. I’d be Dr. Erin Sharpe, belle of the ball. He could decide to be a part of all that gloriousness or not.

  Katie plucked a dress off the rack. “This is very you.”

  She wasn’t wrong. She’d found a multicolored maxi dress that’d make me look like a circus tent. It was the ball gown equivalent of that boxy coat I’d worn to Home Depot.

  “I’m not showing up at the Gala looking like a principal or like I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m one hundred weeks pregnant.” I grabbed a slinky turquoise blue number with a slit up to there.

  “You’ll look hot in that,” Nat said. “Ian will faint.”

  “If he does”—I held the dress up in the mirror—“that’s his problem.”

  …

  Erin

  The next morning, I was the only person flying solo at my childbirth class for expectant mothers and their partners/coaches, though not everyone there was in a couple. The woman next to me had brought her mom because her husband had been deployed overseas and wouldn’t be
back for six more months.

  Now that was a good excuse.

  Also on the good excuse list? Being dead or in a coma, which could’ve been where Ian was, for all I knew.

  I’d stopped worrying about him, and I’d stopped checking my phone over it. I’d even turned it off and zipped it into my purse, which I shoved into the far corner of the room. Maybe he’d surprise me and show up. Or maybe he’d send an “I’m sorry!” text. In which case, I didn’t want to know about it. He didn’t need to know I’d been sitting around like a chump, waiting for his call. I was a strong, independent woman, who didn’t need anyone.

  “Do you have a friend you want to call?” asked the instructor, Missy.

  I nearly bit her head off. I had to stop myself from unhinging my jaw and swallowing her whole. Instead I plastered on the most saccharine smile I could muster and said, “I’m fine on my own.” It was my mantra.

  The truth was, Nat was out with Chris’s family, and I couldn’t bother her. And Katie was at some all-day fitness showcase her cross-training instructor had asked her to attend. They were busy with their own lives, and I would be fine doing this by myself.

  Just liked I’d planned in the first place.

  I perched on the big bouncy exercise ball on my own. I breathed on my own—with the help of some righteous indignation. I survived the gory video on the miracle of birth all by myself.

  I could only count on myself, and that went double for James. We were a pair, a team. I touched my belly and whispered, “You have me.”

  After the class, I bought myself a caramel shake at Oberweis and headed home, where I slipped into my comfy uniform of T-shirt and ratty old shorts, put on a movie, and fell asleep on the couch.

  A few hours later, I woke to someone banging on my door.

  I scratched my head, stood, and pulled open the door. There I found Ian, wearing a suit, pulling a suitcase behind him.

  “You didn’t answer my calls,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours.”

  Rich.

  So fucking rich.

  “I tried to make it to the class.” He followed me into the condo. I didn’t invite him in. “My plane got in late, but I hopped into what looked like the fastest cab at O’Hare. We booked it to the hospital, but you were already gone. And then you weren’t answering me. Erin, you have to answer me.”

  I cocked my jaw. Oh, really. Did I? “Noted,” I said.

  “You had me worried sick.” He reached for me, trying to put his hand on my belly. I pulled away. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  Was something wrong? “No,” I said. “It’s all good.” I bit my lip. The cool chick with a life of her own.

  “No, it’s not. Talk to me. Please.”

  “You’re…” My eyes latched on his, and the anger bubbled up. The cool chick disappeared, and the super-bitter pregnant lady who was sick of this shit took her place. “I can’t believe you’re actually harping on me for not calling you right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I figured you were probably fine, but I just get nervous when I don’t hear from you. I don’t mean to be so smothery.”

  “Oh, you’re not smothery,” I purred. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out my phone, turning it on for the first time since my childbirth class. There were several texts on the home page from Ian. I ignored those and opened up the rest of our text conversation. “Here’s what you texted me while you were gone for the past ten days.” I read the entirety of his side of our chat. “‘Hi! I’m here! Talk later!’ ‘Things busy! Chat soon!’ ‘Going fine! You too?’” I looked up at him. “You know, you never did directly respond to my lengthy answer about my iron situation. And finally, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow for class.’” I glanced up at him, shutting off the screen. “Ten. Days.”

  “I legitimately was busy,” he said. “And the time difference.”

  I moseyed to the kitchen and poured myself some water, and he followed me. “I get it,” I said. “I totally, totally get it. Believe me.” I casually held out my hand. “Let me see your phone.”

  “Why?” He, defiant, clutched his phone to his chest. “I wasn’t cheating on you, if that’s what you think.” Oh, the panic on his face.

  I left my hand where it was, waiting for his phone. “That’s not at all what I think.”

  He rolled his eyes, unlocked his screen, and handed it to me.

  I clicked on his texts and scrolled through his messages from the past two weeks. “Scott and Tommy,” I said.

  “That was about business.”

  “You texted them a whole screed about the condition of the golf course you were at one day.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Still business related.”

  “Someone named Nikki with the big portfolio?”

  “She’s a potential client, that’s it. We were supposed to meet for lunch, and I had to cancel.”

  “Like how you were supposed to meet me at the childbirth class today, and you just didn’t show.”

  He clamped his mouth shut.

  “And Maria Minnesota.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Your ex.”

  He blushed slightly, but folded his arms in defiance. “You can barely call her that, and we were only texting about the fund-raiser. For your school. Which I’m involved in because of my business.”

  I shut off his screen and handed his phone back.

  “I went to the bridal shop with Nat yesterday and she kept talking about how she and Chris prioritize each other. I’m not your priority.”

  “Erin, you are. James is. It’s just…every time I went to call or text you, I knew it was going to be a lengthy thing, so I kept putting it off.”

  “For ten days. While you had plenty of time to text your ex about what we should serve for dessert at the Gala.”

  “Because that was an easy answer. It took two fucking seconds.” He paced the floor, running his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. He looked like Beethoven. “Look, you and I went into this knowing the score. We both work. We’re both busy. We live our own lives. I thought that meant we were going to be a little more casual about the BS relationship rules.”

  I touched my belly. “I think we’re way past casual.”

  “You know what I meant. I thought we wouldn’t play games and put unrealistic expectations on each other.”

  “The unrealistic expectation that you call me when you’re out of town and that you show up when you say you’re going to?”

  “My plane was late!”

  “And if you’d bothered to text me once in a while over the past week, that’d probably be less of a big deal. The truth is, you’re never going to put me first.” I started pacing. “Since I had a lot of time to think on my own this week, I realized that I used to let Dirk get away with this stuff. He’d ignore me, and I’d just wave it off. I’m done doing that. It bothered me that you didn’t text me while you were gone. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did. I get that your job is your life. You told me that up front, and I should’ve believed you.” I repeated the gesture Maria Minnesota had shown me a few days ago. “It goes work…friends…everyone else.”

  He hesitated. I’d gotten to him. “That’s not true, Erin. Not even a little bit.” Lies. “But I’d been working on this deal for months. I had to focus on it. I had to see it through to its conclusion.”

  “So now it’s concluded?” I said. “You’re done. No more Tokyo.”

  He hesitated.

  I laughed. “Of course more Tokyo,” I said. “And probably Rio and Helsinki and Lima and —”

  He cut me off. “Scott’s calling.” He hit the answer button.

  “And now you’re answering your phone in the middle of a fight. And my place in the ecosystem grows even clearer.”

  “Scott?” He placed his hand over his other ear to drown out my chatter.

  I didn’t let that stop me. “And I thought I was the one who avoided conflict. I thought I was the roly-poly bug who curled up in a ball
when things got difficult.”

  “What?” Ian’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God.”

  Arms still folded, I stopped ranting and stood still, watching Ian. His face had gone green, then white. My stomach plummeted.

  “Oh my God,” he said again. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone and stared at me wide-eyed, as if still trying to process the information. “Scott’s mom died.”

  I reached for the counter to hold myself upright. And I’d just been ranting at him about answering his phone.

  Ian rushed out of the kitchen and grabbed the handle of his rolling suitcase. “I have to go up to Winnetka.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said, following him, grabbing my own phone to text Katie, to let her know where I’d be.

  “No,” he answered quickly, without a second thought. Then his face softened. “It’s fine. You stay here.”

  “Because we had a fight?” I said.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Ian, I want to be there for you. I know you have to help Scott, but let me help you.”

  He shook his head. “This is, you know, family only.”

  My hand reached for my cheek, as if I’d been slapped. I’d been half-joking before when I’d put myself in the category of “everybody else,” but Maria had been right. It didn’t matter that I’d been carrying his kid for almost nine months. “I’m not family.” I flopped down on the couch and looked up at him. He avoided my eyes. “Fuck, Ian.”

  He sat next to me. “It’s not that.” He reached for my hand, but I snatched it back. “Scott doesn’t know about us yet. He doesn’t know about the baby. I can’t drop that bombshell on him today.”

  “Makes sense, but over the span of, oh”—I did the math—“seven months, the right time for you to tell your best friend you were going to be a dad never came up? Not one time?”

  “He was going through a lot.”

  I’d never asked a guy to prioritize me before, but I deserved more than this. I deserved more than sporadic texting and zero presence in his “real” life. “Well.” I turned away from him, facing the kitchen. I couldn’t look at him. “Good thing we never defined what we were, because we’re obviously nothing.”