22
22
SHOCK AND AWE
A n awful quiet overcame us. Idling engine. Blaring vents. Ringing alarm bell. Some might’ve said a pregnant pause happened where his words should’ve been. But not me. I wasn’t in the mood to pun at this point.
Pete had kind of frozen up on me, and I felt a new kind of sick. Then he slowly began to reanimate, nodding his head at me. He followed that up by swiping his forehead, which had just sprouted sweat, like mine. Finally, he looked me in the eye and smiled. It was thin, but still, his lips lifted graciously. He grabbed my twisted hands from my lap.
“It’s okay, Kate. Don’t panic. We’re in this together,” he said, his voice stronger than his smile.
I nodded, swallowing down something other than sick with my saliva. He averted his gaze to stare out the windshield at the lively beach scene going on out there. He let out a little edgy laugh. “I mean we’ve been fucking like rabbits since we started . . . something was bound to leak through.”
He sharply returned his gaze to my face, something flickering in his eyes. A little doubt maybe. Or panic he couldn’t quite commandeer. “It’s mine, right?” His voice went thick. “I mean . . . can you tell?”
I was an awful kind of quiet. Anyhow, my ears were still all clogged up from the ringing.
Pete talked over where my words should’ve been. “You guys just did it the one time. Right?”
“Right.” I grasped on to that.
“And you were on the pill. Right?”
I quick-nodded truthfully to both questions. Then used my words: “Right.”
“So, it’s mine. Right?”
And then I knew just what to do to stop that incessant ringing. I pushed the snooze button and bought myself some relief and a few more blissful days of living in denial. “Right,” I breathed.
“You sure?”
I nodded again. Added a smile.
“Can you actually say the words, Kate, so I can breathe again?”
“It’s yours.” I was really on a roll today.
Pete blew out some air, his taut face, slackening with relief. He banged his head on the steering wheel. “Thank you, Jesus!” He quickly came to his senses and swiveled full-torque back at me. “I mean . . . of course if it wasn’t mine, it wouldn’t matter as long as I had you,” he said with as much sincerity as the words warranted.
I swallowed back some hurt with my sick saliva. Pete just lied to me—his first of the day. Something on my face must’ve registered with him.
“It’s okay, honey.” He took my limp, clammy hand in his warm, strong one. “I think some happy is starting to break through the shock now.” He said just the right thing before pulling me into a much-needed hug. And he was telling the gosh-danged truth now.
So it’s true: every day is a winding road. We wound ourselves through the streets of Santa Monica to find a pharmacy. We needed some new supplies. Once there I wound around the aisles, pushing one of those mini carts, while Pete jibber-jabbered in my ear, and I tossed in stuff like Saltines and ginger ale. And some prenatal vitamins, which rattled me like tiny bombs. A couple of aisles over, Pete grabbed a couple of different pregnancy tests. I paused midstride to raise my eyebrows at this.
“Hey.” He spread his hands. “I’m a science kind of guy. I need to see some physical proof.” He gave me a rueful smile and followed up with a mini shoulder massage. “Plus, I want to commemorate the day I became a father with a preserved pee-stick.” He broadened his smile into a grin. “So move it along, Mama, so we can find the plastic baggy aisle.”
It’s funny how a belly full of growing baby could feel so hollow.
In the end, I persuaded Pete to stay for almost all our vacation. So we ventured out to Malibu and landed on Zuma beach. I rubbed sunscreen on his back while he rubbed it on my belly. Then he rubbed some more wax on his board, and I watched him surf and never grew bored. I spent three days soaking up my fill of sun, sand, and surf. But not Pete. I knew I would never get my fill of him.
I watched him come crashing out of the ocean with the foamy waves. He strode towards me with his board under one arm and a broad smile splitting his face. He paused to toss back some hair that had flopped forward. I smiled and took a mental picture. Didn’t bother with my camera phone—it would only be confiscated.
“Hey, hot mama!” A salty kiss followed this new standard greeting.
“I can’t believe it—I’m a friggin’ PT.”
“A what?”
“Pregnant teenager,” I answered morosely.
Pete offered up a frowny kind of smile before leaning over to kiss the baby blues away. After which, he tugged on the string dangling down his back and unzipped his wetsuit. My greedy eyes watched him peel it off halfway. Downright hated to hand him a towel.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“I think you can drop the eating-for-two bit for now.”
He laughed merrily, seeming to be honest-to-God happy about the situation now. My stomach either clenched or churned every time I thought about it. No wonder I was so nauseous.
Pete squinted against the late afternoon sun as he worked some wet out of his hair with the towel. “How does Mexican food sound?”
“Fabulous,” I replied truthfully, stomach-clenching and stomach-churning be damned.
We packed up to go, kicking up sand behind us as we trudged back to the pier. Some clever seagulls, sensing an easy mark, swooped around us, wondering if we had anything to offer from our cooler. I tossed them some crackers and waited with our stuff while he showered off murky seawater. I turned back around to find Pete putting on quite a show. Once again, the entrepreneurial spirit took over—I thought about holding out a cup and charging money from the clumps of women suddenly hanging around the communal shower, bumming a looksee at my boyfriend.
One such woman eyed me appraisingly as she reluctantly sashayed away. I read the look and nodded in agreement. I already knew: I was a lucky bitch. Pete backed up and picked up the cooler at my feet, then relieved me of the beach bag.
“You know,” I said a little caustically, “I’m perfectly capable of carrying that.”
Pete retrieved his sunglasses from the bag and slipped them over his twinkling eyes. He dropped his mouth down, and I took another mental picture. “A woman in your condition should be taking it easy.”
I snorted.
“What? I’m serious. And we need to seriously rethink your work schedule when we get back.”
I started to protest, but he pulled me in for a lip lock. That shut me up. I sighed into it, winding my arms around his neck and pressing into him. This elicited a knowing smile.
“Wanna head back to the hotel first?”
I shook my head, laughing. “If you can believe it, I’m cravin’ chips and salsa even more than that!”
Pete threw his head back and laughed. “I’m jealous already.”
“Don’t be,” I replied. “No one could ever take the place of you.” I patted my gently bloated tummy. “Not even this little guy.”
And then I realized what I’d said at the same time Pete’s face came undone. “Little guy?”
“Or girl,” I countered quickly.
“You said guy.”
“Then I said girl.”
“Maybe it’s both?” He grinned, and I grimaced. He confiscated my hand, and we started walking. “If it’s a girl,” he mused, “something pretty with Lee, after her mama. If it’s a boy . . . Peter Anthony Davenport, the third.” He tried it aloud and clearly liked the way it sounded. “Whadoya think?”
He turned to me, and I burst out crying right there in the parking lot. He hugged me to him while vacationers streamed around us like we were a rock in their river of fun.
“Hey, hey. If you hate it that bad, we can simply call him Trey.”
I didn’t laugh at his numerical clever; I continued to boo-hoo into Pete’s T-shirt. He smelled like the ocean. He smelled like love. He was home.
Pete continued on. “Or, we could go with something a little more trendy, like Jagger or Blade. I know—how about Billy Bob Bad Ass?”
I finally huffed out a chuckle through my tears. Then kind of bapped on his arm while he tickled me. I sniffed a couple of more times and tried to drum up some gumption. I lifted my face to his. He removed his sunglasses, so I could stare into his dark, fathomless eyes—love as far as my eyes could see.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Pete I—” I shook my head. “I’m so scared!” And that was the plain, honest-to-God-truth.
He rocked me back and forth. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
It was another dadgum lie. He just didn’t know it . . . yet.