17. Loren
17
LOREN
L ate Sunday morning, as soon as I felt confident that my stomach wouldn’t threaten another upheaval, I went to the nearest drugstore and grabbed a few pregnancy tests. They all looked the same, yet not, and I felt overwhelmed with the choices. Didn’t they all use the same science? Wasn’t it an identical process?
My confusion might have been rooted in a sense of panic, that I was actually buying a test to see if I’d gotten knocked up. It seemed surreal that this could be me and this was happening in my life. This sort of stuff happened to others, not me.
I couldn’t help but assume the same general feeling of naivety that I felt when I went over the product descriptions for the Gammon baby products that the team was working on. I had no experience with anything baby-related, even in the potential pre-baby stage.
Floundering and feeling out of my comfort zone, I purchased three different brands and then called Hailey. It had to be better going through this with someone else. Hailey was a good friend, but also as I was coming to learn, a huge office gossip. I wouldn’t be able to tell her who the baby’s dad was. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. When it came to Matt, it seemed I didn’t think at all. I let my body do all the deciding.
She’d ask. Of course, she’d ask who the father could be. And I’d have to hedge. I’d need to tell her that I wasn’t ready to share that information with her—yet. If I was going to be expecting a child, there was no chance I’d give it up. No abortions or adoptions from me.
If this was a false alarm, though, and it was just another situation of my periods being weird and skipping, I didn’t want to have to reveal my headache about Matt without needing to. If I wasn’t pregnant, I didn’t have to tell her that I'd slept with him at all.
That seemed so defeating, though, to keep it to myself. Like he was a dirty secret to keep hidden from the rest of the world. He was. It was forbidden on the basis that he was my boss.
But we can’t be the only two people to hit it off there. Hailey said she’d dated a coworker, someone in the billing department, the first seven months she’d worked for Richards Consultation. And their supervisors knew.
Having him suck me in the conference room is a bit much, though.
I paid for the tests, feeling armed and dangerous as I left. Returning to my small studio felt daunting, and taking the tests there seemed so scary.
Mind made up, I called Hailey as I left the drugstore, already walking en route to her apartment that she shared with another woman who was out of town for the rest of the month.
“What’s up?” Hailey greeted.
“I’m coming over.”
She laughed once. “Sure!”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I mean, can I come over?”
“Yeah. You don’t have to, like, call and announce it or anything!”
“I wasn’t sure if you had plans or something.”
“Nah. I’m just being lazy and bored.”
Not for long.
I walked the rest of the way, and she buzzed me up to her floor. Overall, her place was nicer, but I imagined all the things that seemed so expensive in the city could be nicer and more affordable when roommates were a possibility.
She looked lazy and bored, sitting on her couch and sipping an iced tea when I arrived and entered through her front door that she'd cracked open. “Want some?” she asked once I got into the living room and sat. I couldn’t let myself get comfortable. I wasn’t going to stay here and chitchat about an idle, fun topic. She hadn’t waited for a reply before jumping and walking to her kitchen.
“No. Thanks. I’m fine.” This might have seemed like a social call, a casual pop-in to ward off her boredom, but this would be much more than two friends hanging out.
Staying on the edge of my seat, hunched over and anxious, I watched her come back to sit down after getting more tea for herself.
“Whatcha got there?” She plopped down and tipped her chin at the plastic bag clutched in my hands.
“Um…” I looked down at it as if I’d magically find an answer there.
“Is it a surprise for me?” she asked, feigning a goofy look like she expected to be brought something.
I cleared my throat, so nervous just to say it. “Maybe.”
“It might be a surprise for me?” She furrowed her brow but smiled. “You don’t know ?”
“It might be a surprise for me, too.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What?”
Here goes. I reached into the bag and pulled out the boxes of tests.
Her eyes opened wide, saucer wide, as though they’d bug out completely. With her stare locked on the slim boxes in my hand, she stuttered.
“What—Is that—Are you…?” She squinted, deepening the creases around her mouth as she tried to compute what I was holding up to show her. Pointing one finger at the containers, she gasped as she tried to connect the obvious dots.
“I don’t know if I am.” I shrugged.
“But you think you might be?”
“I do.”
“Seriously?”
“I wouldn’t have bought the tests if I didn’t seriously think I could be.” I sighed. “And I’m scared and nervous and?—”
“Hold on.” She held up her hand. “How?”
I shot her a look. “What do you mean, how?”
“Okay, not how. Who ? And when?” She leaned over. “Someone back home? Before you came here?” Lowering her face, she furrowed her brow and seemed pensive. “No. That can’t be right. You’ve been here for almost three months now.” Another gasp left her lips at that scandalous thought. “Someone here ? You slept with someone in the city? When did you even have time to meet someone?”
I pulled my lips in between my teeth, not answering.
“You’re always working late. I can’t imagine when you could’ve had the time to meet someone and?—”
“I don’t want to say who,” I replied. “That’ll be a whole other hurdle to jump. If it’s an issue.” I lifted the boxes again. “I’m still stuck at square one, nervous that I am .”
“Wow. Just… wow!” She stood, no longer bored at all. “Well, do it. Take the test!”
“You’ll wait for me?” I stood, and my heart raced faster as I knew what was coming. “I didn’t want to be alone and…” I exhaled a long whoosh. “I’m so damn nervous, Hailey. So scared.”
“Okay. Okay,” she said, taking my hand and leading me toward her bathroom. “I can tell. No need to panic yet. First things first. See if there is something to be nervous about first. You’ll feel better knowing, right?”
I winced, walking with her. “I don’t know. Will I?”
She cringed. “I think I would feel better knowing. The worry of a guessing game would drive me insane.”
Yeah. It does. It is driving me insane.
Just knowing that Hailey was out in the hallway helped. I wasn’t alone. And if I was carrying my boss’s baby right now, she would be an ally I could lean on.
I followed the instructions and peed on the sticks. It was overkill, but I did every brand of the tests I bought. By the time I washed my hands and picked them up to bring them out to her so we could check them together, one was already processed. Maybe it was a rapid test. Or something.
All I knew was that the plus sign meant it was a positive. No doubt about it.
I almost dropped the whole handful of sticks as I squealed.
In surprise. Shock. Fear. Any or all of the above.
“What? Loren? What did you say?”
I grabbed the doorknob and thrust the already done test for her to see before I got out.
“Oh, my God,” she said slowly, taking the stick by the clean handle as I passed her by.
My heart raced as I exited the bathroom. In a daze, I returned to her living room. I couldn’t think. I could only feel shock and numbing fear.
I was pregnant.
Pregnant!
Me. I am pregnant.
It was a sobering discovery on its own. Knowing it was Matt’s child, though, made it so much more alarming. It was scarier, more meaningful, and just so much more to process.
What would he think? How will he feel? Is he going to be happy about this? Or mad?
The only things I knew about Matt’s views on parenthood was that he had no experience. He was clueless about babies, almost as much as I was.
He hadn’t given me any indication that he’d want to have a child anytime soon. Not with me, at least. We seemed prone to losing control with each other out of an instant brand of lust. Not love. Not because we wanted a family. We weren’t even a couple!
“Oh, fuck.” I covered my face with my hands, stunned that this was my life. That when I embraced all the changes happening in my life, changes I had tried to make happen, this would be one of them. That I’d need to shift from being a single adult in the city to a soon-to-be mother.
“Hey, it’s okay. It will be okay. Totally surprising and not what I expected today, but ohmigod! Loren! You’re going to have a baby !” She dropped onto the couch right next to me so she could pull me in for a big, squeezing hug.
She was definitely one of those baby-crazy kinds of women, because as she realized I was sinking into a numb state of shock, she rambled on and on, talking me down from the ledge of panic. It all seemed like too much to absorb. So many details and things to do and what to plan for and just… all of it. I was overwhelmed, but she remained at my side, calm and sure that I could handle this all, even as a single mom if I had to.
I refused to tell her that Matt was the father. I could skirt by and never tell her who the father was. But he would know. He damn well would know. The moment he did the math, he’d be clued in to the fact that the timing would prove him to be my baby’s daddy.
My boss.
My baby daddy boss.
It didn’t sound right at all. I couldn’t believe that I was a statistic, a single woman knocked up from a one-night stand.
In order to see if he might be open to the idea of being something more, I had to broach the topic of us already on our way to becoming parents.
I cringed, comforted by Hailey’s comfort and company but in the back of my mind, tormented with the thought that I had to share this life-changing news with Matt.