23. Lana
CHAPTER 23
LANA
“ C an you imagine being so rich you don’t work all summer?” Alice stood in the window watching the street, nigh empty now the summer was over. “I don’t get how they do it. How do they not lose their jobs? Are they all teachers, or something? Or do they all just commute? Duh , they commute. It’s not that far to Boston. Or I guess some of them could work from home.”
I sat not listening, sipping my coffee. It tasted weird, sour, and I pushed it away.
“Did we get different beans this week?”
Alice glanced at me. “What?”
“The coffee tastes different.”
“It’s the same coffee. Maybe the cream’s off?”
My stomach did a flip-flop. “I didn’t use cream.”
Alice went back to watching the road. “I forget every year, how quiet it gets. I can’t even sleep at night without the beach noise.”
“When they come back, you’ll say you can’t sleep with it.”
“Because change is hard. I like things the same. That’s why I don’t get it, the whole… summer impulse. This whole need to pick up and go somewhere else. You’d spend the first month just settling in, then you get maybe two carefree weeks. Then you start thinking about going back home. Even the ones who stay through September?—”
I gasped. “Wait, shut up.”
Alice frowned. “Rude.”
“No, but September. But it’s been two months.” I stared at my cooling, bad-tasting coffee. “Sam’s been gone two months now.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Brad.” Alice rolled her eyes. “I told you, you’re too good for him. If he ghosts you, it’s his loss, Lana.”
She wasn’t getting it. “He’s been gone two whole months .”
“What are you saying? Time to move on? Because, my cousin has this friend?—”
“No, Alice, I…” I gripped the counter and shut my eyes tight. The room spun around me like the rides at the fair. Eight weeks had slipped by since Sam kissed me goodbye, eight weeks that had felt more like eighty. Long days of waiting, checking my phone. Staying up late in case he might call. Then when we were over, the wait didn’t end. I waited to smile again. To lose that reflex to call him. To see something funny or silly or cute, and not right away want to share it with Sam.
“Lana? You okay?”
“It’s been eight weeks ,” I said. “And I haven’t had…”
Alice arched a brow. “Sex?”
“No, not sex. I haven’t had…” I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t let it be true.
“Are you saying you’re late?”
I tried a sip of my coffee, still sour. Still gross. But no one else had complained, not even Alice. Didn’t things taste weird when you were… when you were?—
“Are you saying you’re pregnant? ”
I shrieked. “Shut up!”
“Nobody’s in here! It’s just you and me!” Alice ran round the counter and peered at my midriff. “You don’t look pregnant yet, but I guess you wouldn’t.”
“Stop saying ‘pregnant.’ You’re making it true.”
We stared at each other, then both burst out laughing.
“If you think that’s how it happens, no wonder you’re pregnant.”
“Shut up, shut up.”
“I’ll get you a test,” she said. “Two to make sure.”
I grabbed her arm. “Not from next door. Go to the mall, go on your lunch hour. This can’t get around. Not till I’m sure.”
“We’ll go to my place,” said Alice. “We’ll go right now. I have a couple of tests there. I had a fun summer.”
I flipped the shop sign to CLOSED and locked the front door. Any reading emergencies would just have to wait. We slipped out the back way and Alice drove us to her place, and ten minutes later, I was locked in her bathroom.
“You just pee on it,” she called through the door.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I can’t with you standing right there.”
She backed off a step or two. I did what I had to. Then I sat and waited, and waited some more. How long did these things take? Two minutes? Five? I’d heard they sometimes took extra time, up to ten minutes. You’d think you were safe, then bam. Two pink lines. Was that even true, or an urban myth?
“What does it say?”
I closed my eyes. “It’s not time.”
Alice huffed. “It’s two minutes. It’s time.”
I sat where I was, on the lid of the toilet. Pictured myself turning the stick in my hand, turning it over so I could see. I pictured one line. Two lines. No lines. A tiny pink troll face grinning up from the stick. What I couldn’t picture was what would come next. If I was pregnant, or if I wasn’t. Which did I even want it to be? A kid in the shop, growing up like I had, making forts in the shelves, would that be so bad?
“The lines fade if you leave them. You can’t just not look.”
I pictured the window blank, no lines. Not pregnant. My shoulders sagged. Relief? Disappointment? It didn’t matter. Neither was real. Nothing would be till I looked, till I knew.
“I can look for you.”
“No. No, I’m looking.” I turned the stick over, eyes still tight shut. Then I sucked in a long breath and opened them, and looked. And I kept looking till I had to blink. There. Now I knew. Now it was done. Now I could?—
“Lana?”
I dropped the stick in the trash, stood up, washed my hands. Braced myself for Alice and opened the door. She practically tackled me.
“So? Where’s the stick?”
“I tossed it.”
“And?” She shook me by my shoulders. “Am I an auntie or not?”
“We’re not related.”
She rolled her eyes. “Details. Now, are you going to tell me, or am I digging through the trash?”
I let out a long breath. “Yes.”
“You mean…?”
“It’s yes.” I still couldn’t say it. Yes, I’m pregnant.
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I have to, don’t I?” A tiny, traitor part of me was jumping for joy. I’d be seeing Sam again! I could go today. He’d sweep me into his arms and say something perfect, and somehow, somehow , we’d be us again.
I squished down that part of me as hard as I could. Sam hadn’t changed his mind, and neither had I. I couldn’t live in his world and he’d walked out of mine. Wasn’t there some middle world where we could meet? No. If there had been, we’d already have found it.
“I’ll come with you,” said Alice.
I shook my head. “I’m not going in person. It would be too hard.”
“You can’t tell him by text , though.” Alice grabbed at my phone. I held it away from her.
“I’m not. I’m just… See?” I held up my screen so she could see what I’d sent: We need to talk.
“Checkmarks. He’s read it.”
I flipped my phone back to look for the dots, but Sam wasn’t typing. I watched the blank space.
“You need to say more than that so he knows it’s important.”
I tapped out another text. Backspaced. Bit my lip. Settled on Please. This is important.
The checkmarks appeared again, but again, no dots. I waited and still no dots, and dropped my phone in my purse.
“Let’s get back,” I said. “I’ll talk to him later.”
Later came and went, and then even later. I texted again that night, and then the next morning. Then I tried calling, but I bounced straight to voicemail. I got as far as “Hello, this is,” and then I hung up. Sam would see my number on the missed call. I had nothing else to say to him that was fit for voicemail.
“I need to borrow your car,” I told Alice at lunch. “I’ll pay you for gas, and?—”
“Are you going to see him?”
I nodded, eyes prickling. I didn’t want to see Sam. But what choice did I have, if he wouldn’t text back? Maybe it would be better not to tell him at all, to spare our child a father who didn’t call back. I could see it already, four years from now, a little boy or girl waiting for Daddy. Waiting on the front steps for him as the morning dragged on, the light slowly going out of their eyes. I’d try to explain to them, Daddy’s just busy, but what they’d hear would be too busy for you .
Still, three hours later, I was in Boston, finding a parking space at Elkins Tower. I sat for a long time, hands on the wheel, trying to decide, was this the right thing? Sam was rich. He had lawyers. What if he took my baby? I didn’t think he’d do that, but what if he did? What if he offered to pay to “take care of it?” What if he laughed at me? If he wouldn’t see me at all?
I let out a shaky breath and pushed off my what-ifs. All I could do was what I thought was right, and right now, I felt like I had to tell Sam. He’d told me he wanted kids. He could be a good dad. I’d seen that in him, his kindness. His caring. I couldn’t keep his child from him if he wanted to be a father.
One step into Elkins Tower and I felt my throat close. My heart raced, my skin crawled, and I broke out in a sweat. I felt suddenly small and impossibly shabby, though I’d come in my best, most professional skirt. Even the lobby here was shiny and luxe, huge soaring windows, planters full of green. A whole indoor koi pond with its own little bridge. The receptionist was watching me with cool, judging eyes, one hand on her headset, her lips pressed together. Was she calling somebody to throw me out?
I shook my head to clear it and marched up to her desk. “I’m here to see Sam,” I said. She held up one finger. I realized she was listening to someone on her headset. Nodding along with whatever they said.
“Sorry,” she said at last. “You’re here to see who?”
“Sam? Sam Elkins?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
I blinked. “An appointment? Uh, no, but?—”
“You’ll need to call back and make an appointment.” She thumbed her headset back on.
“Wait, no. He’ll see me. Just tell him Lana’s here. Lana Stamey?”
“Hold on.” The receptionist tapped on her headset. “Sorry, Lana, was it? You’ll need to call his office and make an appointment.”
It hit me, she’d never heard of me. Neither had the legions of suits streaming by me, headed to their offices high above. Boston wasn’t like Haverford, where everyone knew your business. Here, it was like me and Sam never happened. I was out of place, an unseemly intruder.
“If you could just call him? Tell him I’m here?”
The receptionist ignored me, intent on her headset. A phone burred on her desk and she pressed a button.
“Good afternoon, Elkins Group. How may I direct you?”
I backed away from her desk, but I couldn’t just leave. I’d come all this way, and I’d come on a mission. Sam would hear me out, and he’d hear me today. I wasn’t about to make an appointment.
I looped around the koi pond and joined with the suits, with a dark group of them headed for the elevators. They didn’t seem to notice me trailing along, and neither did the receptionist rapt in her phone.
“I hate squash,” said one of them, and brushed lint off his sleeve. “I miss the days when we all played golf. Whoever started this squash trend?—”
“You’re just sore you lost.”
“On purpose, you dolt. It’s a fine art, trying to lose to some of these morons.”
I swallowed hard, hating their frat-boy chatter. The elevator light ticked down floor by floor. Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…
“Golf’s good as well, because if it rains you can’t play. You go to the club and you have a nice meal; you do your business, no need for games.”
“But you’ve got all your golf clubs you’re lugging around.”
The receptionist called out, “Excuse me? Ex- cuse me!” I stiffened and glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was waving at a man in a blue pinstriped suit, holding up a billfold. “Sir? You lost this.”
The elevator dinged and the suits all got on. I got on with them. The golf-hater scowled at me.
“Miss? Which floor?”
I coughed, dry-mouthed. Which floor was Sam’s office? Wouldn’t the big boss be at the top?
“Top floor,” I said. The doors slid shut. We rode up at a dizzy pace, stopping twice in the upper floors to let off one of our number. The rest of us got off on the top floor, which I realized with a jolt wasn’t quite the top. I spied two more elevators, one just like ours. The other was locked behind a card reader, and that one went up one more floor. If Sam was on that floor, I really was sunk.
“Could you press ten for me?”
I jumped. “Sorry, what?”
A woman had come up on me with her arms full of boxes. She bounced them to show me her arms were full. “Press ten for me.”
I pressed ten for her and got out of the way. If Sam was on this floor, where would he be? The lobby had been swanky, decked out to impress, but this floor looked mostly like what it was. A floor in an office tower, boring and gray. I followed a series of discreet brushed steel signs promising conference rooms and suites A through E. Maybe Sam was in one of the suites.
“Lana?”
I whirled, and he was behind me. He looked like I remembered him, but at the same time, he didn’t. He’d combed his hair different and put on a suit, and he had a headset like the receptionist. I hadn’t been hoping he’d look bad , exactly, but it felt strange to see him looking so fine. So clean-cut and glossy, like nothing could touch him. Like I hadn’t touched him or changed him at all.
“It is you,” he said. A smile tugged at his lips. “What are you doing here? Can I?—”
“Sam. There you are.” One of the suits from before hurried up. He touched Sam on the arm. “He’s waiting in four.”
“Two minutes,” said Sam. I wilted inside. I’d come all this way and all I got was two minutes? He turned back to me, harried, impatient. “I’m sorry. Can we, uh… Can you come back in an hour? Or, there’s a café?—”
“I’m pregnant.”
“—down the street, and I’ll… What?”
I couldn’t say it again, so I said nothing. He’d heard me. I could tell by his eyes bugging out of his head. He would’ve looked funny if it weren’t all so sad.
“I’m sorry. Did you just say you’re?—”
“Sam!” His carbon copy popped out of a meeting room, same suit, same haircut, same douchey headset. “Sorry, I didn’t see…” He looked me up and down, then appeared to dismiss me. “Anyway, he’s waiting.”
“Coming,” said Sam. His eyes had gone glassy. “Look, it’s my dad’s official last day.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “What are you saying?”
Sam stepped away, not meeting my eyes. “Wait here, okay? Just, uh… just wait. My assistant can get you a drink or some lunch. Have her order you something. Whatever you want.” He backed away as he spoke, and into the meeting room. I stood dumbfounded, gaping as the door swung shut. Anger lanced through me, an icy-hot spear.
“Sam!”
No answer. The gray door stayed shut.
“Sam, are you serious? Are you, are you…” I trailed off, feeling stupid. People were staring. And I had my answer, didn’t I? I’d told Sam I was pregnant and he’d walked away.
I turned away myself, back the way I’d come. I went slow, still hoping he’d change his mind, but I pressed for the elevator and he didn’t come. It dinged up floor by floor and nothing. No Sam. This was his life, white walls and meetings. This was what mattered to him, not us, not me. Not even his child. I blinked back tears.
The elevator slid open and I got on. I reached for the button, but I didn’t press. I held my breath waiting, but nothing. Silence. Sam didn’t come and the steel doors slid shut, and the car started down without my input. I was back in the lobby in under a minute, swept down, spat out, out of Sam’s world. The receptionist spotted me and half-rose from her desk.
“Excuse me, miss? Miss? You can’t go up there.”
“Too late,” I muttered, too low to hear.
“I’m calling security.”
“No need. I’m leaving.” I started to walk out, back straight, head high, but it was lunch hour and the lobby was crowded. People were staring. Rolling their eyes. I ended up fleeing like some dirty trespasser, out of Sam’s tower and out of his world. I’d been a fool to think I had any place here, or Sam in my life. We were from different planets.