Part 24 (1/2)
”Are you...” He cleared his throat. ”In Florida, your friend said you were sick.”
She smiled, then ducked her head. ”I'm not sick. It was a misunderstanding. I'm fine. I'm...”
From the top of the stairs, he heard someone call ”Addie?” As he watched, Val came down the stairs, barefoot in sweatpants, with a book in her hands. ”Did you read this one yet? You're supposed to be eating kale. Like, crates of it. Or else your kid could have...” She bounded to the bottom of the staircase. Jordan recognized the book she was carrying from Patti's shelf: What to Expect When You're Expecting. ”A neural-tube defect? What the h.e.l.l is that?”
Jordan looked at Valerie, then back at Addie. ”You're pregnant?”
She blushed. ”A little bit, yeah.”
Jordan's head was spinning. ”You...” He stared, remembering the condoms, and also Mrs. Ba.s.s's insistence that she didn't have a boyfriend. ”Did you go to a sperm bank?”
”Something like that,” she said.
He made himself stop staring and tried to remember why he was there, what he'd meant to tell her. ”I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. About...” His voice trailed off. He had no idea what to call what had happened between them, no certainty of what he was sorry for except that he was indeed sorry.
”I appreciate that. Dan's okay, right?”
Depends how you define ”okay,” thought Jordan, remembering Dan curled on his side in the jail cell and Meredith Armbruster's calm a.s.sertion that they had prayed together. ”He's fine. But that's the other reason I came. I wanted to make sure he hasn't been bothering either one of you.”
Val's face darkened. Addie's hand crept back to her belly. ”No,” she said. ”Should I be expecting him?”
”I don't think so. I think he's turned over a new leaf, or he's trying to.”
Val snorted. Addie said nothing. The wind gusted, making the bare branches of the trees in her front yard shake. He saw Addie s.h.i.+ver, and he wished he could hold her, open up his jacket and tuck her tight against him. ”Go inside,” Jordan said gruffly. ”It's cold out here.” He remembered the flowers and held them out to her. ”These are for you.”
”Oh.” She took them and held them awkwardly in one hand, barely noticing as Val drifted discreetly back up the stairs. ”Thanks, they're beautiful.”
”Addie, listen,” he said. ”Do you think we could get together sometime? For a drink, or dinner, or something?” His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and his palms and armpits started to sweat.
She looked at him, her smile fading. ”You've been in my house,” she said. He didn't answer. ”You met my brother, I bet.” He waited. ”You chased me all the way down to Florida...”
”'Chased' is a little bit strong. It was pursuit.” He looked at her, straight-faced. ”Official police business.”
She narrowed her eyes. ”You were showing people my picture. And it wasn't even a good one. And we...” She ducked her head. That pretty flush was back, coloring her cheeks and her neck.
”Well, that's just standard police procedure. Didn't I mention it the last time I was here? We do that with all our suspects. First the kissing, then the arresting. The kissing calms them down.”
Her laughter had a lovely, musical sound. He went on. ”I'm sorry about being in your house. But we did have some pretty compelling circ.u.mstantial evidence. And your door was unlocked.”
”Was not.”
”Was too.”
”You had a key under your welcome mat.”
”That's not the same thing.”
”Have dinner with me.”
She leaned against the side of the doorway and sighed, with one hand on her belly. ”It won't work.”
”Is it because of the baby?” She didn't answer. Jordan wiped his palms on the sides of his pants and plunged on. ”My wife and I, my ex-wife, we couldn't have kids. I always wanted them-she did, too-but...” He shut his mouth.
Addie shook her head again, looking as if she might cry. ”I wish things were different. But I'm not brave.”
”You are.” He looked into her eyes, making her believe it. He was sweating everywhere, hands and armpits and behind his knees, knowing just how important this was and certain that he was going to screw it up somehow, the way he'd screwed everything up lately. ”We're good together. You know we are.”
She didn't answer. She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either. Jordan kept talking. He wasn't sure he could have stopped even if he'd wanted to. ”Just a chance,” he said. ”That's all I want.”
Addie shook her head. ”The baby...” She paused, regrouped, and tried again. ”The, um, father...”
She seemed about to say more when Jordan interrupted. ”I don't care about that. As long as it's over.”
”Oh, it is so over.”
”Then that's fine.”
She looked at him, standing there in the cold. For a long moment he was sure she was going to shake her head and shut the door. Instead, she exhaled slowly and looked at him, her face alight, smiling. ”Would you like to come inside?” she asked. She held the door open, and Jordan followed her into the warmth and the light.
FIFTY-FOUR.
”Can I just say how much I love this?” Valerie asked. It was a ripe June afternoon. We were in the backyard, bare-foot in shorts and T-s.h.i.+rts and canvas gloves, digging up a patch of gra.s.s in the backyard, where my mother had once had her garden.
”What, weeding?”
”No. Your whole setup.” She beamed at me. She'd tied her hair back in a bandanna. ”You. Jordan. The baby. It's so South Pacific!”
”People are going to think it's weird.” I sank my spade into the dirt, then got up, setting my hands in the small of my back and stretching. My due date was ten days away, and I was just starting to think through the logistics: how, in all probability, my daughter's skin would be darker than mine and Jordan's. Maybe they'd think she was adopted... or that I was the nanny. That would be interesting, I guessed.
I rubbed my back again, then scratched my belly, which itched all the time. In the wake of our adventure-and that was consistently how she referred to it, as ”our adventure”-I'd seen a lot of my best friend. After her month off, Val had gone back to work, and back to her condo in Chicago, but she'd signed up for improv cla.s.ses-in case, she said, she decided to leave the glamorous life of a meteorologist for the even more glamorous life of a thirtysomething wannabe actress. Every weekend she came to Pleasant Ridge, taking over the guest bedroom where no guests had ever slept, filling the house with her music, her chatter, her self-help books and baby books, the bags of designer maternity clothes and crates of kale, her running shoes, unlaced and stuffed with her socks, by the door. Once in a while, she'd join me and Jon for Wednesday-night pierogi. Jon was delighted that he was going to be an uncle-he'd made a sign with the baby's due date for his room, and one for the refrigerator, and a reminder card for his wallet-and he'd used his employee discount at Walgreens to buy a NUMBER ONE BABY onesie, a state-of-the-art wipe warmer, and more diapers than I'd need for a year.
”Who cares what people think?” Val asked impatiently. ”Jeez. You can't worry about that. You should see what they say about me on the Internet.”
I grinned at her new-and-improved, postKey West att.i.tude. The truth was, Jordan and I had talked about it. He'd told me I was worrying too much-”buying trouble” was how he put it. There were kids who didn't look like their parents all over the place now, and nontraditional arrangements were normal-”practically normal,” I thought he'd said. He knew of kids with single moms, with two moms, with two dads, which meant that n.o.body would look at us strangely, or comment on how the two of us and the baby didn't match. ”If anyone asks, tell them you got her at Target,” he'd said. I figured at some point I'd have to come up with an explanation: for the world, for my daughter, maybe even for Vijay, whom I hadn't been in touch with-but that could wait. For now, I was painting the bedroom, a.s.sembling the stroller and the crib, installing the car seat, taking cla.s.ses in infant first aid and CPR... and being with Jordan, who came by every night after work.
Val stood up, groaning dramatically (she'd been weeding for all of seven minutes). Then, shading her eyes, she looked out across the street. ”Check it out,” she said, pointing across the street. ”New neighbors.”
”Really?” The DiMeos' house-for that was how I would always think of it, no matter how many times it changed hands-had gone on the market in April. The FOR SALE sign had come down six weeks later, but in the euphoric blur of my pregnancy and being with Jordan, I hadn't spared the new homeowners a thought. Now I watched as a moving van pulled up to the curb, and two men got out of the cab. One of them had a braided goatee and an iPod strapped to his arm. The other had rubber plugs the size of wine corks in his earlobes. They walked around to the back of the truck and pulled open its gated door.
A hybrid car whispered to a stop behind the moving van, and a man and a woman got out. She looked to be about our age-in her early thirties-and she was pregnant.
Valerie squealed and gave me a little shove. ”Oh my G.o.d, it's perfect! Go say hi!”