40. Alba
FORTY
ALBA
Elena sat back in her chair, tapping the end of her pen on her chin. She looked me up and down, and it took all my muscle memory not to fidget. She was as intimidating as anyone I’d met at a white tie affair, and I’d just asked her for a huge favor.
“I need coverage for the brunch crowd on Sunday. You can do a shift, and then we’ll talk.”
“Thank you!” The words burst out of me, and I forced myself to take a breath. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”
“Mmhmm,” she replied, turning to mark my name down on this week’s schedule. “Be here at seven a.m.”
“No problem.” I turned toward the door, relief making my knees weak.
“And Alba?”
I met her dark gaze. “Yes?”
She glanced down at my midsection, giving me a small smile. “Congratulations.”
She was the first person I’d told, so it was the first time I heard the word. I swallowed thickly, then dipped my chin. “Thank you. For everything.”
“If you talk back to customers the way you did before, I won’t hesitate to take you off the schedule again. Baby or not.”
“Understood.” A broad smile spread across my face, and I darted out of the office before she could change her mind.
It wasn’t my dream job, but it would give me a lifeline. I said goodbye to the cooks and made my way outside, lifting my face to the spring sunshine.
I still didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if it was possible to make it on my own. I didn’t know how to talk to Vaughn when even thinking about him made my chest feel tighter.
But I had a job. That was a start.
Elena didn’t treat me like I was made of glass.
After my second double shift in a row during my third week back at work, I stumbled through my apartment doorway and collapsed on the couch.
My feet were killing me, but Deena had gifted me a foot spa bath after listening to me complain about it every day for three weeks.
As my head lolled on the couch, still nauseous even though it was evening, the sight of that little tub sitting next to the couch was my salvation.
I smiled, hauled myself off the couch, filled it with water, and then soaked my feet and fell asleep where I sat.
I turned sideways in the mirror, running my hand over my lower stomach. If my pants hadn’t been a touch harder to button this morning, I might have thought I was imagining the slight swell of my belly. I bit my lip, heart thumping. There was no way I could do this on my own.
I had no choice but to do it on my own.
I would do it on my own.
The sonographer tapped her keyboard and angled the ultrasound wand, the clear jelly warming on my skin with every passing minute. The whooshing sound of a tiny, fast heartbeat echoed in the room.
“Do you want to find out the sex?” she asked, moving the wand so the black-and-white image on the screen sped to a new view.
My heart clogged up my throat. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’d like to know.”
Sweat drenched my back, my front, my underarms, and my unmentionables. Summer had blasted into the city, mugging us all with humidity and heat. I pushed open my apartment door and propped it open, then turned to drag in my latest purchase.
The bassinet was used, but it was serviceable. It was a soft gray with a thin white mattress, and the woman who’d sold it to me had thrown in a few sleep sacks she no longer needed. I hauled the whole thing to my home office—soon to be nursery—and tucked it into the corner.
It was still early to be buying things—I was barely out of my first trimester—but I hadn’t been able to pass up the deal. With most of my time spent at Carmine’s to save up what I could in what little time I had, I knew I couldn’t afford to wait until the last minute.
After I’d guzzled a glass of water, I tiptoed back into the room and picked up one of the sleep sacks.
It was soft green, with darker green leaves dotted over the fabric.
It looked impossibly tiny. I carefully folded it, put it back on the pile of baby things, and then closed the door and went to get ready for work.
I read the email three times, and still I couldn’t believe it.
“Deena!” I screeched when she picked up my call. “One of your clients just emailed me through the website you set up!”
“Which one?” she asked.
“Brian Hull.”
“Oh yeah, he needs your help, big time,” she said, and we both laughed.
I lay on the grass and watched the leaves of a nearby tree flutter in the warm breeze.
To my left, Deena licked a drip from her ice cream cone before it reached her fingers, then used the pinky finger of the cone-holding hand to turn the page of her book.
I closed my eyes as a child screeched and laughed on the other side of the park, my palm resting lightly on my stomach.
A notification popped up on my phone. The payment from Brian Hull had come through. A minute later, an email came through from him. He’d written an email testimonial and attached before-and-after photos of his new look, giving me permission to add them to my website.
Three days later, one of Brian’s coworkers sent me an inquiry, requesting more information about my services.
It was hard to fall asleep after a late shift at the restaurant.
Exhaustion made me loopy, but my brain wouldn’t shut off.
I stared at the wall in my bedroom, curled on my side, knowing that every minute that passed was one less minute I’d get to sleep before my opening shift at Carmine’s. The dreaded clopen.
In the stillness of the night, while my mind raced, there was a flutter. I frowned, unmoving, wondering if I’d imagined it.
And then it happened again. I put my hand to my belly and the flutters stopped, but tears had already sprung in my eyes.
“Hello, baby,” I whispered.
It was twilight when I got home from my day shift, which meant the days were getting shorter.
As I pushed open my apartment door, the baby somersaulted inside me.
It was still a foreign feeling, the movement of a separate being within me, but I’d come to rely on the movements to mark the passing of the days.
But the days were indeed passing, and I still hadn’t done what I knew needed to be done. The longer I left it, the harder it was to think of the right words, to brace myself for the conversation I owed to Vaughn.
I’d become braver these past months. Without the weight of my shame and hurt, life away from the people of my past was hard but worthwhile. My emergency fund was growing, my belief in myself with it.
If I could survive the gauntlet of this pregnancy on my own, I could tell Vaughn about the baby.
I wasn’t the broken, resentful woman that I’d been when we met.
I faced my problems head-on—for the most part.
I could look at myself in the mirror and be proud of how far I’d come, be comfortable in the life and future that had opened up before me.
Some days, I was terrified of that future—terrified I’d made one too many mistakes, and I’d be paying for them soon.
But mostly, I believed in my own abilities. I wasn’t bested by laundry or bills or a difficult customer. I had bigger things to worry about now—and bigger things to look forward to.
But some of my old cowardice still remained, because I found myself unable to pick up my phone to send him a message.
Instead, I found a piece of paper and I began to write.