Chapter 31 – Carolina
The double doors open into the reception area. Erin can’t look up at me. I can see hives forming on her neck from anxiety. If I weren’t the one putting her in this situation, she would ask me for a massage, to help her deal with it.
She is trying to be inconspicuous but she is very ready for major drama to ensue. She answers a call.
“Marks, Sanchez, Reed and Mack, how can I help? Of course, one moment please.” Then she presses a button and warbles, “Mr. Mack. Uh. Sorry… Mr. Mack, uh Garrett… uh someone, uh. You have a package. Um, someone is here to drop off… uh, hand deliver to you a package.”
I mutter, “Smooth.”
Erin hangs up, rolling her eyes at me, and says under her breath, “and she brought company.” I ignore her. It was funny, but this is no time for levity, especially not the Erin shit-stirring kind of levity.
Phlegm threatens to come up as bile forces me to very loudly clear my throat. A belch slips out in the process. Oh, the genius timing of pregnancy.
Katie laughs. I say nothing.
I clear my throat again and ready myself. Vomit, or Garrett Mack, is about to emerge. Which will come first, I have no clue. So, I just wait. Whichever one makes it to the finish line ahead of the other, that’s what I’m going to go with, I decide instantaneously.
Pick and choose your battles, Carolina, pick and choose.
Then, just as I go in close to the desk to whisper something to Erin, I see him coming out. It’s Garrett, all right. I can tell by his broad shoulders and confident swagger, even when I first spot him all the way down the hall.
I pretend this is all business. I can see he seems nervous, not that he would ever show it. I realize that the desk is in front of my belly, so I stay sort of covered. He walks to my side of the desk and smiles professionally. I can tell he feels shaken but that he’s trying not to show it. As he is just about to ask for the package, Erin, being the busybody that she is, interrupts.
“Not out in the open area guys. I have strict instructions from the firm that this is to remain confidential, thanks. Please don’t involve me. Carolina, was it not explained that way to you by Karen?”
“Um, yes. Yeah,” I answer her. “Yes, that’s correct.”
I smile at Garrett. I’m still hiding my belly. He has no clue. At least, I don’t think he does. Men are usually slow to grasp these things.
He nods and replies, “Oh, okay. Not a problem. Carolina, why don’t you follow me back and I’ll take it back there?”
Erin mutters, “You sure will.”
She is very lucky that Garrett did not hear that or I would have cold-cocked her right there. Garrett pivots on his heels and walks back towards his office. I follow him.
As we walk, he says, “Uh, it’s nice to see you. Quite unexpected, but lovely to see that you are well.”
I wait until he is somewhat out of range, following a good distance behind him. I realize he has no clue about my pregnancy and I’m suddenly afraid of his reaction should he find out right here and now by seeing my baby bump.
Mid-walk, he turns around as if I had said something. Well, I hadn’t obviously, and you could have heard a pin drop in the silence of his full recognition of me.
I almost drop, myself. He doesn’t say anything. Nothing. He says nothing. His reaction, while in some ways a giant relief, also leaves me at a complete loss.
I hand off the item quickly and make my way back to the front. Just as I turn, I catch hot-bod Gina out of the corner of my eye approaching his office. She had been the new hot chick who had started as a clerk that final week before it all blew up with me and I gave my resignation.
So, I say nothing to her or her walking sweater of boobs. I avert my glance and simply walk. Garrett couldn’t have been more aloof.
Maybe she is his “new girl.” After all, he acts as if he doesn’t know me. He is being so godawful formal. It’s off-putting. This is the same man that made me climax to the point of leaving my body. He knew me! He knew every inch of me. Indeed, he knows me—in the biblical sense. I don’t get it.
As I walk away, I can feel him watching me. On second thought, maybe it is Gina watching me leave. I had always thought she felt threatened. Who knows? I am not about to look back to verify it either.
Does Garrett think it’s someone else’s? Still, would he not even ask? Or at least congratulate me? Damn hormones …
I can feel myself beginning to cry. I press the elevator to try and escape quickly while Erin is on a call, but she waves me to stop, stop! So, I wait begrudgingly.
I need her to hurry. I don’t know what I had expected. The fairytale ending? I don’t know at all, but this feels very, very painful. I just want to run. How could he not even care? I fight my emotional self as I often do, but now it feels like I’m wrestling with two sides of myself.
Of course, he doesn’t care. You were nothing but an office romance. You were a notch on the peg. Did you really think this would be a different encounter after the way it ended?
But he did care. I know it. I felt it.
Erin interrupts my brain battle. She hands me a tissue, which kind of floors me because I didn’t know I was so obviously emotional.
“Thanks. I can’t really take Benadryl in this condition, ya know… So, yeah, my eyes are pretty watery from those fuppin’ allergies.”
Now I’m beginning to cry. Who am I kidding?
“It’s okay, girl. It’s only me.” Then she whispers, “What happened?”
“Nothing. He didn’t even ask or care. Oh, God. What am I going to do?”
“Maybe he can’t tell. I mean, you aren’t that big.”
I turn to the side, and she almost snorts since from that perspective there is a second being protruding about two feet off my hips.
“Right, okay, but that’s a side view. And he’s a guy. They are oblivious to everything. Look, maybe you should go back and tell him.”
The elevator has come and gone by now. I hit the button again hard and say, “No. I am not going to do that. He could not have been more aloof toward me.”
The doors open. I smile at Erin and just before they close over my face I say, “Tell him to tell Gina I say ‘hi’.”
And then I leave the office once again, this time for good.
As the elevator makes its way down slowly, it does occur to me that he might have assumed it was someone else’s baby. Perhaps a random one night stand or even my ex-husband’s. But then I just shrug that thought off. It isn’t even rational, not even rational at all. Still, he could have asked.
If it looks like a duck, it is a duck. I was trying to make his actions reasonable, and they just aren’t. He simply doesn’t care to know— whatever the case is— and that is devastating. All I can think about is burying my feelings in a bowl of ice cream. Then the self-destructive “me” shows up to have a conversation.
Forget him! How could I have been so stupid? What was I thinking? He must have never really wanted to be with me at all. How ridiculous to think I was anyone different than any of his many conquests.
Suddenly, that type of debate with my emotional self is exactly what I need. The silent demons in my head are now making me much happier about it all with this “screw him” approach.
Then it hits me. Conclusively, I am glad I hadn’t told him about the baby. Maybe Gina and Garrett are hot and heavy.
Great, let her have him. I know there is no one on the planet who made him that hard, so let her fake-tittied-self have him. Look, girl, I know him. He’s told me many times, he hates that fake look. So, Ms. Gina, you will only be another notch.
As the doors open, I don’t realize I was speaking aloud until I say “bitch” and the mother and teen girl getting onto the elevator shoot me looks—the mother’s, stern, the girl’s, confused and in awe.
Good, I think, maybe that girl will think twice about getting knocked up by her boss.
I smirk at her and walk toward the parking lot, but not before I let out a tiny belch. What a grand day it has been, and this involuntary bodily function just tops it off.
As I walk to my car, the saner side emerges with my lunch from earlier.
Why had I been so hard on him? Even if he wasn’t the love of my life, maybe just using me for a little office fun, that could be okay. I was using him as well. Neither of us knew a baby would be the result.
Should I expect him to suddenly be responsible and caring? It’s silly.
This time, the debate in my head isn’t working so well to cheer me up.
For some unknown reason, my heart is broken. Shattered into a kaleidoscope of a hundred lifetimes of pieces, it has broken into thousands of irreplaceable shards, all of which I leave on the parking lot floor this evening before I’m to embark on pre-maternity leave.
As I open my car door, I don’t even bother to wipe the tears from my eyes. They are puddling up too fast. Simply put, I can’t contain the heartbreak and the utter aloneness I felt at this moment.