Chapter Thirty
In which nothing says “Congratulations!” like a geyser of vomit.
Iris…
The next day…
I'm listening to Rose's latest tale of outrage from a Facetime she and Jeremy endured with his parents last night.
"His mother gave me the scrunch face. You know the scrunch face?"
I screw up my mouth and summon an expression of supreme disapproval. "Like this?"
She nods irritably. "That would be correct. She tells me that she's concerned if I'd be the right partner to, ‘further Jeremy's career’."
"Oh, my GOD!" I shriek, squeezing my phone. "She didn't!"
"Yes! And then-"
A surge of nausea hits me and I race for the bathroom, dropping my phone. I make it to the sink at least, which is still gross. There's a very strong feeling that my body just told me, "Move over. I'm taking the wheel."
It's violent.
I haven't thrown up like this since I had the flu when I was eighteen. I hack and heave until my body decides it's finished, and not one second before.
Rinsing out the sink and splashing cold water on my face, I rest on my elbows on the counter for a moment.
What the hell was that? I haven't eaten anything weird.
I felt fine last night after Andrey fucked me again in a "judicially celebratory way," as he put it, on the kitchen counter.
And then this morning, in bed, before he got up to lift weights.
Other than the persistent soreness between my thighs, I'm just fine.
Staightening up, I wipe my face with a towel, and I'm okay again.
Rose is calling from the phone, her voice frantic.
"Oh, shit." I hurry back into the bedroom, picking my phone off the floor. "I'm sorry."
"What the hell was that?" She's anxious. We always get worried when the other twin is sick. "What the hell did you eat? Egg salad from the buffet line at Mike's All-You-Can-Eat?"
She has a basis for that accusation, since we'd been hooked on Mike's enormous buffet for months before we realized it was slowly poisoning us. Mike's got closed down by the New Jersey Department of Health a month later.
"Because holy shit," she's still talking. "I'm pretty sure you lost some intestines in that torrent of puke."
"I'm okay now." I frown. "I don't know. I was just fine yesterday and this morning. It came out of nowhere."
"Do you have a temperature?" Yeah, she's worried.
"No, sweetie, I'm fine, I promise. I'm not even bothering to lie to make you feel better," I promise. "I really am." Her face clears a little, and she laughs. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. "So, tell me the rest of the story."
"I'm inches away from driving out to suburbia and stabbing his parents," she says crossly, and I settle back on the bed again. "See, it's making me so frustrated, because he just, like, cowers to them," she complains.
He cowers all the time, I think, but I don't share that information. "Maybe you need to take some time?" I offer. "Maybe wait a little before he actually puts that ring on your finger.” Her face goes into mutinous lines. God, she's stubborn. I'm not, of course. Not at all.
"No! I want to marry him," she protests. "I just don't want his parents to be dicks about it." We discuss the unpleasant qualities of certain potential in-laws, and decide to meet up tomorrow for yoga and a visit to our favorite used bookstore.
Two days later...
I almost vomit all over the table at lunch.
This couldn't be a worse lunch to do it, it’s all the sisters-in-law.
Every one of them leans forward in concern as I turn green.
Violet's the quickest. She has me out of my chair and an arm around my waist, speed walking me to the bathroom, getting me there in time to save my dignity, if not my lunch.
"What's going on?" She wipes my face like I'm a toddler, and I'm so weak that I let her. "Have you been day drinking again?"
"No, I haven't been day drinking!" I groan. "I haven't eaten anything weird. I'm not sick. No temperature, see?"
She puts her hand across my forehead like she doesn't believe me. "Have you thrown up recently?"
I shrug, "Just a couple of days ago, but that's it."
Violet's lips purse thoughtfully as she eyes me. "I know it's only been three months, but do you think you could be pregnant?"
"What are you even thinking? Don't say that." I back up against the bathroom divider, waving my hands like that will make the words dissipate into the atmosphere.
She's having none of that. "Your cycle's always been irregular," she says with the knowledge of a sister who bought me my first menstrual supplies, and explained how everything worked - to my acute embarrassment - when I was eleven. Because even then, Mom was losing her interest in raising us.
"It's about the same," I admit. "I'm sure it's nothing."
We head back out to the table. All the women are laughing and a little giddy because no one brought the babies this time. I was kind of disappointed about that, because they all have such freaking adorable kids.
"You okay, Iris?" Ava squeezes my arm.
"Oh, yeah," I deflect. "What was this about Nantucket?
" I sip water and smile as the conversation swirls around last minute warm weather trips to the family's two mansions in Nantucket.
A new Book Baby outing at the library is discussed.
It's amazing to me that while these women are all billionaires, they still enjoy the basic activities of any moms with little kids.
Goat Yoga turned into Mommy and Me Yoga.
Trips to Gstaad for skiing have turned into trips to a warmer climate where they can dip their kiddos' toes in the water. Everyone is so happy.
It's then, surrounded by their laughter and their warmth that I realize I'm happy to be here, too.
This cursed nausea returned with a vengeance tonight.
I am mortified when Andrey immediately races into the bathroom, holding my hair as I vomit helplessly.
"Do I need to call one of the doctors or take you to the clinic?
" he asks with a frown. He strokes my back soothingly as I gasp and heave again.
"It is so mortifying that you're in here," I whine. "Could you maybe go away and let me die quietly alone?"
He shakes his head, holding my hair with one hand and getting a wet washcloth from the sink with another. "No, you're stuck with me. You had lunch with the girls today, do you think you caught something? They all have kids, which are essentially toddling petri dishes of disease."
"Rude." I manage to laugh weakly. "Did you just compare all of your nieces and nephews to like, a leper colony?
" He shrugs, and I admire the movement of his broad shoulders under the thin sweater he's wearing.
Even though I look like a wretched, wrung-out mess, Andrey remains almost impossibly beautiful.
His biceps bulge against the sweater. He even manages to kneel elegantly behind me as he hoists my pathetic self up to my feet.
Insisting on keeping his hands around my waist while I brush my teeth, he then scoops me up, carrying me back to the bedroom.
"I can walk, you know," I say, but I put my head against his shoulder just the same.
"Do you want me to take you out onto the terrace?" he asks. "It's warm tonight, maybe the fresh air would feel good. Well," he amends, "as fresh as New York City can offer."
I chuckle weakly. He carries me out, sitting on one of the lounges and keeping me on his lap. "I had no idea that you could add soothing caretaker to your repertoire," I say sleepily. "A man who can hold back your hair when you're throwing up your toenails is a rare gift indeed."
His hips move under me, getting comfortable.
"Dasha had a terribly weak stomach when she was younger," he says.
"She would throw up at the slightest provocation.
Nikandr and I got very good at keeping a bag on hand so we could catch it in public.
And then she would sob, mortified, for an hour until we distracted her. Usually with a video or a new stuffie."
"Did you just say the word stuffie?"
He arches a brow, glancing down at me. "I'm sorry to disappoint you. While I am ninety-eight percent emotionless robot, I occasionally manage to carve out a small fraction of tenderness from inside my frozen heart."
I settle against his chest again. "I don't think it's so frozen."
Taking my hand, he laces my fingers with his, and we listen to the evening traffic symphony of Manhattan.
Violet shows up the next day with a tote bag and a determined expression. "We'll do this in your bathroom." She's careful to make sure that Melina is nowhere in sight as she marches me up the stairs.
"Okay, this is ridiculous," I protest. "It was only two times." I question why I'm leaving out the third one last night.
Am I really afraid I'm pregnant? I don't feel different, I don't think. My breasts have been more sensitive. I chew my lower lip. Andrey made me come by playing with my nipples alone last week, but that's just him being a sex god, right? I don't realize I'm saying this out loud until she laughs.
"Yeah, I don't need you to be more specific, thank you. Here are four tests." Violet lines them up neatly on the counter after unwrapping each one. "Pee on them all."
"Aren't we supposed to do this in the morning?" I'm eyeing the sticks.
"Any time of day is fine. After all, that morning sickness thing is a myth," she groans. "Pregnancy vomits are happy to visit you at any time of the day or night."
"Please don't give me something new to look forward to," I say wryly. She shuts the door and waits outside.
"This is ridiculous," I mumble. "I'll just pee on the sticks. They'll be negative, and she'll get off my back." I awkwardly handle the tests and put them on a piece of toilet paper and call her back in. "How long?"
Violet checks her phone. "Four minutes." We talk about Avros and his new words.
We talk about Andrey's coronation/swearing in, and how Roman showed up at 2 AM, soaked in blood and staining the kitchen tile until she shoved him into the downstairs bathroom to shower off.
"I swear, I think he bathed in it," she says crossly.
"As if he’d taken a shower in human blood.
I really don't want to know exactly how this was accomplished. "
Shuddering, I agree. "I wouldn't either. But you know, the man is enthusiastic about his work."
The alarm on her phone goes off. I'm frozen on the toilet seat. I don't want to look. "Get your ass up," she says crisply.
Two pink lines. On each stick.
Aggressively pink lines, glaring at me as if they want me to be absolutely certain I understand what they mean.
"Wait. I can't," I stammer, backing away like they might fly off the counter and attack me.
"I can't be pregnant. I've only been married for three and a half months.
I'm twenty." I turn in little circles. "Everyone's going to think he married me because he knocked me up.
I'm not ready for children. I don't even know if Andrey likes children.
Does he like children? He said something the other day about babies being tiny petri dishes of disease. "
Violet grabs my hands, and I realize I've been waving them around, off-kilter like a scarecrow in a windstorm.
"Take a breath." I do, realizing I've been wheezing.
"Sit down." I sink down on the seat and stare at the tests again.
She's trying to be calm, holding back to see how I'm responding, but I can see the delighted smile spread across her face. It's hopeful.
"I'm pregnant, too," she offers. "We were going to tell everybody at twelve weeks, but you know I can never hold out.
I'm eight weeks now, I was going to tell you and Rose this week.
We could have our babies together," she says, shyly.
There are tears pouring down my face, and I don't know if I'm happy or sad, but...
I lunge for her, we hug. We cry together.
Eventually pulling back, she smooths the hair off my face.
"If you want this baby, we will all support you," she says.
"But if you feel like you're not ready, if this is something you don't want, this is your choice.
" Her eyes are sad as she strokes her hand over my hair.
"You've had so few choices in the last few months.
But this is yours, and no one else's until you make the decision, all right? "
"I want it," I say after a second, a little shocked at how fast it comes out. "I want this baby. I'm- what the hell! I'm on the pill, how could this happen?"
She frowns. "Didn't you take antibiotics for an infection in July?"
"Yeah," I agree. "But... Oh, shit."
She laughs. "I hate to tell you this, but we're a horribly fertile bunch. You're going to need more than measly birth control pills if you don't want the Morozov super sperm to batter right into your ovaries."
"Okay, please never say those words in that combination, ever again," I groan. "That is horrifying. Also, I don't want to know about my brother-in-law's sperm!"
She shrugs unrepentantly. "We need to take you in for a quick checkup, or would you like to have Andrey go to the first one with you?"
I shake my head so fast that I'm a little dizzy. "No, not Andrey. Not yet."
Eyeing me warily, she asks, "You don't want to tell him?"
"Not yet." The words push out between my numb lips. "I want some time. I have to get it set in my head, how I'll tell him."
"Are you worried he'll be angry or upset?" she asks.
"I don't know what he'll do," I admit. "With Andrey, I usually have no idea. Sometimes, we're both just winging it to see how the other one reacts."
"This is a big step forward in the relationship," she admits. "You know Rose and I have your back. Why don't you let me set up something with my gynecologist? We'll make it sound like it's just an annual checkup so Melina doesn't get suspicious."
Violet stays with me for the next hour. We eat two of my cinnamon roll cupcakes each. She packs two more up for Roman. I don't remember a thing she said. I don't know how I answered. I don't even remember how the cupcakes tasted, and that is the greatest tragedy of this day.
Then, the penthouse is quiet again. I sit on the floor in front of the enormous windows in the living room. My hand creeps back to my stomach. I really want this baby. But will Andrey?