13
Remy
It was three weeks later when the waves of nausea began, jolting through my stomach and causing me to nearly double over at the bar. Quintin’s eyes were heavy, watching me over the top of his beer. He grunted, drawing up from his seat and snapping his inventory notebook closed. “I can’t fucking believe it,” he said. “That asshole really did it.”
The morning after Wesley had slept at my house, we’d spoken about it. We sat in the drenching sunlight, steaming in from the window, and said that, for the good of the contract, it was probably best that we didn’t see one another for a bit. That we allowed our hearts to grow outside the boundaries of what was happening—so that we could fuel up for our separate identities. “Rem, I know you need to work on the script. That’s your heart and soul, baby. You can’t get bogged down with me. You know I’ll disappoint you. I always disappoint you.”
My heart had been heavy, hearing it. I’d wanted to verbalize to him that all I wanted was to care for him, to raise our baby alongside him. To sleep beside him in bed. But I’d felt myself nodding, whispering, “You’re right. All we have is a contract. We’ve signed it. It’s with the lawyer now. Love—or whatever we’re trying to do—would complicate it.”
It was true. I needed to fight these urges. I knew they were primal, from a different time. I was a creative, an artist, a woman of the world. I had to rise above my emotions.
“You haven’t seen him, have you?” I asked Quintin now, at the bar. Again, a wave of nausea pummeled through me. I drew my hand over my mouth.
“You’re literally green, Rem,” Quintin sighed. He reached into the side cabinet, drawing out a bucket of antacid tablets. “Take one of these?”
I chuckled slightly at his lack of understanding. Tilting my head, I took the bucket of pills. “I don’t think these help, if there’s really a baby in there.”
“Well dammit, Rem, I don’t know how to help,” Quintin sighed, collapsing at the edge of a stool. Just beyond him, a few mid-afternoon drunks gazed up at the television, watching a game show. We were of no worry to them. Our lives didn’t glitter like the screen. “If you just tell me what to do,” Quintin said, his voice lowering.
“I’m going to take the test tonight,” I told him, my chin set. “And then I’ll contact him. Do you—um.” I paused, hating the hesitation in my voice. “Do you know if he’s still in town? Or did he go out traveling?”
“Sure, I saw him a week ago,” Quintin finally muttered, tilting his head from side to side. He looked so much like a younger version of himself, trying to amble through a lie. He’d clearly attempted to keep this information from me, perhaps not wanting to worry me. Perhaps not wanting me to think that Wesley had abandoned me all over again.
I began to speak, but Quintin interrupted me, his hands firmly planted on the bar top.
“You can’t trust him, Rem. You know you can’t. If you’re really going to have his baby, then you have to do it for the money. Take it and run.”
His words echoed through my brain. But immediately, I fled back toward the bathroom, collapsing over the toilet. Wave after wave of nausea punched me in the gut. But I clenched my eyes closed, my stomach already empty after a morning and afternoon without food. The money, I told myself. It was important.
But this potential baby? This baby brewing inside me, with Wesley’s eyes, his boyish curly dark blond hair? This baby with my sharp wit, with a life of creativity and zeal in front of him?
It filled me with hope.
I emerged from the bathroom minutes later, darting toward the sidewalk. On a Saturday, the streets of the Mission were brimming, wild. Girls in heels clattered in front of me, their short skirts easing along their upper thighs. At one time, I would have been jealous of their youth. Of their vitality. In the business of acting, that had been my only currency.
But now, I had something more.
Racing toward my apartment, I brought my phone from my pocket and splayed it against my cheek. Sam picked up on the second ring.
“If you’re calling to ask about my date with Chad last night, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her voice shiny, almost too bright in my ear. “You told me over and over again that the sex wouldn’t get more exciting unless I offered my own, erm, insights. But you know what? Chad doesn’t like butt stuff. Said he wants to keep things simple. Do you think that’s a reason to get out?”
I snickered, sweeping up the steps of my apartment building and bolting through the door. In the bathroom cabinet, I’d already organized four pregnancy tests, still stuffed in their packaging. I’d been too anxious to take a test too early, knowing it could reveal an incorrect result. It had been like waiting for Christmas. Waiting for the New Year to come.
“I think there’s a whole lot of reasons you should never see Chad again,” I said, tearing open the bright pink box and gazing down at the sterile-looking stick.
“I mean, he makes more money than I’ll ever see in my life.” Sam sighed. “And it’s not like I’m going to get any more commercial work, Rem. I have to think of my future. And how many cruises I want to go on. You know I love a good cruise.”
“Sam, listen,” I said, tearing a knife through her strange dating banter. “What if I told you I might have made a huge and wonderful mistake?”
“I’m… intrigued,” Sam said, her voice darkening. “You didn’t get bangs, did you?”
“Just get over here,” I said, pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door. The toilet awaited, a bright orb beneath the sunlight, streaming in from the window. “I need you here, OK? As soon as you can.”
Sam arrived within fifteen minutes, anxious, her cheeks scrunched up in a curious smile. She bolted through the door and threw her arms around my thin shoulders, her red curls quaking. But as she held onto me, I slipped the still-bright-white pregnancy test into the air between us, shaking it. Immediately, her smile faltered.
“What the hell?” she asked, her voice quivering. “What the hell happened to ‘always use protection’? We swore we’d be safe. That we wouldn’t have any surprises,” she said.
I clicked the door closed behind her, pressing my arms tight against my chest. Sam collapsed against the wall, swimming a finger through her curls. “Who’s the guy?”
“Before I say anything,” I began, “Just promise you won’t lose your cool. OK?”
“My cool?” Sam asked. Her eyes seemed electric, the whites showing on all sides. “Jesus, Rem. Who did you fuck?”
I pressed my lips together, waiting. As seconds ticked along, Sam’s face scrunched tighter. We’d known each other so long, she felt the information swirling in the air. “That bastard.”
“No. It’s not like that,” I said.
“He knocked you up and now he left town, didn’t he?” Sam demanded. “Jesus, Rem. I thought you had a better head on your shoulders now. We’re not eighteen years old, for god’s sake. What about your script? What about getting back on your feet after Tyler—”
“He’s paying me,” I stammered. “To have his baby. To extend his father’s line. And honestly…” I felt a wave of emotion fill my stomach, my heart. I couldn’t suppress a smile. “Sam, I’ve wanted to have Wesley’s babies since I was a teenager. This could be my last shot at motherhood.”
“Your last shot? You’re really thinking of motherhood this way? Like some kind of—of acting gig?” Sam demanded, smacking her fists on both sides of her waist.
“I don’t even know for sure yet. Let me just—Let me just find out. I didn’t want to be alone.”
My eyes drew back toward the waiting bathroom. With slumping shoulders, I swept across the room, closing the door with a click. Outside, Sam continued to rattle on about my irresponsibility. About “not bringing another Wesley Adams into this godforsaken world.” But I crouched over the toilet, my eyes pressed closed so tightly I saw bright orange and pink and yellow spots.
After peeing, I clicked the test closed and placed it on the sink, linking my fingers together. Outside, I could feel Sam on the other side of the door, finally silent. Her shadow shifted back and forth just beneath the doorframe. Despite her anger, her confusion buzzing through the air, I still felt her partnership. Love was a confusing, at times volatile, thing. She just wanted the best for me.
After just a minute, the two lines were sure: bright pink jolts against the white. Immediately, tears streamed down my cheeks. Reality smacked me in the face, and yet I felt open to it, welcoming it. I imagined telling Wesley the news. Would he wrap his arms around me and hold me against him, the vessel through which he’d bring a baby into this world? Would he understand just how intimate this was?
As much as we told one another it wasn’t intimate. As much as we told one another that this was “just a contract.”
It couldn’t just be that. Could it?
But it had to be.
Sam rapped her fist on the door, clearing her throat. But instead of sounding like an angry mother, her voice was meek, questioning.
“You know now, don’t you?”
Instead of answering, I opened the door. Sam’s thin arms cranked around me, on cue, holding me against her. I shivered, pressing my cheek against her shoulder. It felt so much like those days back in Los Angeles, when one of us either did or didn’t nab a big acting gig. When we either felt the grandness of the world opening up for us, or felt the brunt of the door being closed in our faces.
I swiped my fingers over my cheeks and gave her a half-smile. “I have to tell him,” I said. “And I don’t want to do it over the phone.”
“You know where that asshole is, you mean?” she asked, her voice heavy with a sigh. “Seems like it’s hard to pin him down.”
“No, I’m pretty sure he’s still here,” I whispered. I took quick, rabbit steps toward the door, slipping my feet into sandals. “Quintin saw him a week ago. I think he’s been hiding out. Waiting for this.”
“And you really don’t think he’s just wherever he is, sleeping with whatever girl comes his way?” Sam asked, her eyes rolling back. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, babe, but this guy. You know you can’t trust him.”
“Sam?” I said, my voice clear. I held my hand against the doorknob, poised to crank through. “I love you. I really do.” I swallowed sharply, feeling the weight of my Adam’s apple. Every second that pulsed before me felt so sure, filled with love. This baby. This human. He actually existed. “But you can’t possibly understand what this means to me.”
“Maybe I do,” Sam whispered. “Maybe that’s why I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I gave her a small smile. As I slid through the crack in the door, I called back to her, my voice muffled. Still, tears flecked my cheeks. “I know that, Sam. But everything’s about to open up for me now. I’ll have this baby. I’ll make my film.” With a jolt, I spun back toward her, my eyes swimming. “And I think I know who I want to make the lead.”
“Don’t do this,” Sam sighed. “Don’t promise me the lead in your movie, just because you want to get me off your back.”
“If you aren’t careful, I’ll make you the godmother as well,” I teased, unable to constrain my wild, brimming smile. I felt I was crawling from my skin with happiness, that the sunlight had opened up, almost angelic, onto my shoulders.
“Now, wish me luck. I have to go tell this baby daddy he’s stuck with me, according to the paperwork we signed and sealed together.”
“As if that would keep him around” were the finally words Sam tossed toward me as I raced toward my crooked red car, scraped up against the curb.
I couldn’t listen to her fear, despite its wisdom. I had to churn forward, to grab at whatever life thrust at me. I had to choose this path. Because before—when I’d been part of a “team,” sleeping beside Tyler against our thousand thread count sheets in the ritzy area of Los Angeles—I’d felt more alone than ever. With Wesley’s baby, I was something more. I was a mother. A woman who’d been chosen to create life.