15
Remy
The first text came that night, as I snuggled beside Sam in her Mission District bedroom. Guilty after her initial reaction to the pregnancy, and simmering with excitement for me—which she said she simply couldn’t resist—she’d assembled a tray of crackers and cheese and chocolate chip cookies, my favorites. We snacked together and half-watched a comedy, talking about the baby. What he or she would be like. And, most specifically, “How we can ensure he won’t run away, like Wesley did?”
“He won’t leave his momma,” I said, giggling.
The text was from Wesley. I bit my lip with excitement, a rush of feeling.
“Hey, pretty Momma,” the text read. “How are you and my baby doing tonight?”
“Oh my god,” I whispered to Sam, pressing my hand against my chest. I felt my heart fluttering. I was almost woozy with emotion.
“Don’t tell me you’re falling for his charms again,” Sam sighed. She tilted her head toward me, dipping her forehead against mine. “I was there last time this happened. And I won’t let you dive that low again.”
I tapped a cookie against my tongue, chewing it slowly, really relishing the flavor, and avoiding answering Sam. Everything seemed to taste different now. The light caught the curtains in a brighter way. Even the comedy felt funnier, with my stomach clenching tighter with laughter.
“Because you know he’ll never change. Please tell me you know that!” Sam said, giggling as I wrapped my arm around her neck, holding her in a slight headlock. After being best friends for so long, our bodies almost felt intertwined. I was unsure where I ended, where she began.
I couldn’t believe in it, despite sharp rises of hope in my heart. I continued to try to press those emotions down each time my phone lit up with messages from him.
“Please, Sam,” I sighed. “It’s just a contractual thing. He probably feels like he owns me now, or something, because I’m carrying his kid. Men always get so territorial.”
“Well, you need to let him know that you don’t owe him anything except this baby. That you won’t be hanging around waiting for him to text you,” Sam said, dragging her head out from the headlock. “Otherwise, you’re going to get your heart trapped in all of this.”
“Come on, Sam. I think I’m stronger than that,” I told her.
But when I returned to my apartment that night, the texts between Wes and I continued almost nonstop. I felt a chaotic energy, the way I had when we’d been teenagers and I’d sat at home, burning with desire for a call. Often, when I’d learn he was out riding bikes with Quintin, I would simmered with jealousy, wishing so much that I could be the kind of girl to keep up with the guys. Once I’d thrown myself onto my bicycle and raced toward them, but I’d fallen on the curb, ripping my dress. Quintin scoffed at me, watching the blood ooze down my knee. But Wesley tore a piece of fabric from his T-shirt and wrapped it around my knee, catching the blood.
“I’ll take care of you,” had been the look that he’d offered me, then. It would contrast with what happened later. The abandonment. The fight for another life. But in that moment, it had been really true.
The dinner with Wesley’s father was to happen that Wednesday night. I asked Wesley what he’d told his dad. He said he’d kept it simple, telling his father that he just had a “surprise.”
“Surely he knows what that surprise is,” I’d laughed to myself, rolling my eyes. Happiness bubbled up in me, even as I sat alone with my phone. “I mean, it can only really be one thing right now,” I texted. When he didn’t respond, I continued. “Can you imagine his face when we tell him? This is the single greatest thing in his life right now. He doesn’t even know it yet.”
I spoke for myself, as well. Despite still maintaining long hours scriptwriting, as well as already lining up my first round of auditions and interviewing a cameraman, a sound engineer, and a few crew workers, I simmered only with thoughts of the baby. What would we name him? Would Wes and I stew over names, cultivating a list, bantering and bickering as we’d done as teenagers? Bickering over what to eat for dinner, over where to make out as twilight stretched over our heads and our bodies ached with lust.
I dressed in a simple, classic white dress, buttoning it to my neck. I brushed my hair long, allowing it to stretch straight down my back, and swept a bright red lipstick across my lips. Minutes before Wes’s arrival, I smeared it off and went with something a bit more simple, a little less of an exclamation. A light pink. I suddenly saw myself as a character in a movie, straining to make all the right moves. Straining to win some kind of approval from Wesley’s father.
Although I knew it didn’t matter. It was an obligation to the baby. To ensure that the baby had the money he needed to have a good, bountiful life. And to make sure that Wesley’s father believed in us enough to give Wesley the cash—providing me with my own cash flow to get filming started.
“Don’t get your hopes up about him,” was the near-constant refrain from Sam, even as the dinner crept closer and closer. “You have to think of yourself as an actress. It’s a game, just like it always was back in Los Angeles.”
“It’s a game,” I whispered to myself in the mirror, smacking my lips.
I heard a car creak up along the edge of the curb. Blinking into the dying light of the late afternoon, I watched as Wes popped out from a dark red Chevy. He was dressed in an immaculate suit, his muscles straining against the fabric. His dark blonde hair was curled back over his ears, and his eyebrows were dark, low over his eyes. As he took a step toward the door, my heart pattered brightly. But within seconds, he reeled back. Suddenly, I felt a wash of fear. Was he going to leave me like this? Flee?
But no. Wes eased into the back of the car and drew out a bouquet of flowers, bright pinks and reds, with baby’s breath peeking at the top. My knees nearly gave out. Rushing to the door, I whirled it open, feeling breathless. He stopped short, staring at me. A smile stretched across his face. This was the first we were seeing one another after days of cute messages.
“What’s with the car, Adams?” I asked him, giving him a half-cocky smile. “Don’t think I’ve seen you drive one of those in, well, years.”
Wes stretched forward and splayed the flowers in my arms. I sensed he wanted to kiss me, could feel it simmering behind his eyes. But instead, he held back, kissing me on the cheek. A blush crept across my face.
“You know. Maybe it’s those ridiculous paternal instincts,” he said, laughing. “Can’t have no baby of mine on the back of a bike. Not till he’s at least eight years old.”
“Oh? Is that when you’re going to start teaching him the ways of the road?” I asked.
“Baby, he’ll be born with that fire in him. I already know it,” Wes said.
We paused for a moment, both of us breathing slowly, captivated. I gestured with the flowers. “These are beautiful.”
Wes didn’t answer. After a long pause, he brought his elbow outward, allowing me to slip my arm through it. Linking us. Our small, contractual family. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
The drive was longer than I remembered. I’d been out to the mansion only a few times, just before Wes and I had parted ways. Days before they’d filled it with high-end design, with chandeliers and ancient texts and grand books, with portraits and landscapes, Wes and I had ambled through, hand-in-hand, speaking in faux-grand language. “Well, Marcia, I can’t imagine how we can abide to have anything but lobster and the finest champagne tonight, darling,” Wes had said. “If we’re going to impress the Rockefellers, we have to up our standards.”
“Oh?” I’d snickered, drawing myself taller. “Only the best for the Rockefellers. And darling, make sure to wear that paisley tie I picked up for you at Ralph Lauren. I can’t abide you looking like a slob, wearing your normal designer fare.”
We’d kissed against the exposed brick wall, his lips grazing at my neck as we imagined this false world that neither of us ever wanted. We lived not for money, but for freedom, for artistry, for the world. Now, we were older, a bit wiser. We understood that a lack of money led you to dull jobs at bars, to working odd gigs across the continent, and shrugging at your filtering bank account. Art wasn’t made unless it was funded. And, at least in Los Angeles, the only artists fulfilling their “dreams” were the ones with thick bank accounts. The jealousy? The rage? It didn’t align with my seventeen-year-old self’s vision of reality.
“It’s bigger than I remember,” I whispered as Wes parked the car out front, cutting the engine. We gazed up at it as the sun crept deeper behind the house. At the door, Baxter—the same hired hand from twelve years before—lurked, his eyes scanning us. “Although Baxter seems exactly the same.”
Wes cackled lightly. I was grateful that I could break him. Slipping my fingers through his, I gave his hand a firm squeeze. “It’s going to be over before you know it,” I whispered, speaking to both of us. My stomach swam with apprehension.
“Oh. Wait. That reminds me,” Wesley said, slipping his free hand into his pocket. He drew out a black box, popping it open to reveal a glittering diamond ring. My breath caught in my throat. I’d daydreamed about being engaged to Wesley hundreds of times as a girl, each time a bit different: beside the ocean, as the waves crashed against the sand. In bed together, naked, without a care in the world. Here? In front of his father’s mansion, before we embarked on lying to one of the richest men in the world?
“Where did you get it?” I hated that my voice caught, that it wavered with emotion. I wanted to stamp it out. To prove I was up for this.
“I borrowed it from an old friend who got divorced,” he said. “She just moved back to San Francisco from Austin, ready to toss this thing to the pawn shop. I told her I’d give her a pretty decent sum, when I finally got the money from Pop.”
“What a game this all is,” I said to him, watching as he slipped the ring over my finger. My eyes grew watery as I spoke. “What a strange, bizarre game.”
“You’re damn good at it,” Wesley said to me, holding my eyes with his for a long moment. He tapped his finger atop the diamond, making it flash in the sunlight. “We always did make a pretty fucking good team. When we weren’t fighting.”
I sniffed, drawing myself out of my reverie. “Watch yourself. You know I’m ready to start a fight any second.”
“Oh, I know. I’m always on alert,” he teased.
When we reached the end of the stony path, Baxter opened the door and bowed slightly, his eyes addressing me with a kind of animal mistrust.
“Remy. I can’t imagine it’s been anything less than ten years,” he said, his voice distant, so firm.
“More like twelve, I think,” I told him, stepping into the foyer. I glanced toward the large portrait of Hank near the window. His hands were folded at his waist, his blue eyes centered, and his chin set. In this photo, he looked almost nothing like Wes. They could have been perfect strangers. Men from opposite ends of the earth.
I watched as Wes shook Baxter’s hand, maintaining an almost-too-erect posture. He wasn’t the gruff man who’d bolted into the bar six or so weeks ago, exploding back into my life. Now, he was playing a role, a part. “You’re damn good at it,” he’d said of the game. Jesus, he was good, too.
“Your father’s in the dining room, awaiting you,” Baxter said, leading us through the dark hallway, toward the small, yet regal, dining room. My heart pattered wildly, with my fingers twitching, itching to touch Wesley’s. But I held back, keeping my chin high. I yearned to walk with the regality of a woman meant to walk these halls. A woman like Hank’s fiancée.
A woman who deserved the money in her account to make this film.
Beyond the table, Wesley’s father stood facing the water, a scotch in hand. His hair was much whiter than it had been years before, and his skin sagged slightly at the cheeks—showing the steady trek of time. Wesley and I stood in the doorway, facing him, as Baxter addressed his employer.
“Sir. Your son and Miss Remy have arrived to dinner.”
He spoke the words as if the old man couldn’t hear us. On cue, he turned, his eyes connecting with mine first. A wave of fear tore through me, and I yearned to step back. Pressing my hand against my stomach, I bowed my head.
“Hello, sir. It’s been a long time,” I spoke, breaking the silence. My words echoed behind us, through the high-ceilinged hallways.
“It certainly has,” he said. He spoke as if he towered above me. “You’re looking rather well, Remy. Although you always were such a pretty thing. Someone I was rather proud to have Wesley dart around the city with, even if he was neglecting his studies.”
I shifted my weight, trying to hide my shock. I hadn’t known the old man had thought of me as anything but an annoyance, a thorn in his side. One of the reasons his son refused to grow up.
“Please. Sit,” he said, stretching his free hand outward. “The first course will arrive shortly.”
Wesley still hadn’t spoken. He reached and brought a chair back, allowing me to sit. I did, feeling that my legs would have collapsed with fear if I’d been forced to stand another moment more. Beside me, Wes sat, still eyeing his father. Silent seconds ticked past. His father poured him a stiff scotch, and they clinked glasses, almost challenging the other to speak. I so wanted to fill the silence, to explode the tension. But it didn’t belong to me.
As the soup cooled in front of us—a dark green soup, with a cheese glazed on it—I brought my hand to Wesley’s on the table. This revealed the glinting diamond ring, so weighted on my finger. His father drew back, tilting his head.
“Dad, I mentioned we have something to tell you,” Wes said, lifting his chin.
For the first time, the old man’s face crumpled up, his eyes glistening. He swallowed sharply, placing his utensils back on the table. Bowing his head, he whispered, “Please. Please tell me it’s true.”
Wesley’s smile was genuine, wide and stretched out across his face. He leaned his head forward, almost playfully. And he whispered the news.
“She’s my fiancée, Pop. And yes. She’s pregnant. With your grandchild.”