Chapter 13
AFTER LUNCH, JESS headed to the writer’s room to read through her script again for the afternoon’s filming. Thankfully, she’d just be supervising this time, rather than participating. Although, once she got into it, thanks to Nate, acting was a lot of fun.
The lead writer, Lilia, sat with her head resting on her hands, her flame-red hair spread out on the table. Jess had only ever seen her working at full speed, like the embodiment of her roadrunner tattoo. Concerned by the change, she touched her on the back, lightly.
“Hey, Lilia. Are you okay?”
As if it pained her, Lilia lifted her head and sat up. “I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty dead all of a sudden. Maybe I’m coming down with Sarah’s stomach bug?”
A new fullness rounded out the slim woman’s face. Lilia’s hands rested on the table, also visibly puffier.
“That’s not good. What’s hurting?”
“My head is giving me hell.” Lilia curled back over, her arms wrapped around her stomach. “And my eyes are acting weird.”
“Do you think you’re going to vomit?”
“I don’t think so. My stomach just hurts. But this headache is awful.”
Jess made mental notes—puffy, sore head, blurry vision, pain in the abdomen—the symptoms quickly added up to preeclampsia, a medical emergency she regularly watched out for in her job, but she hadn’t heard Lilia was pregnant. Perhaps she hadn’t announced it yet.
“Any allergies? New medications?”
“No.”
“Are you pregnant, by any chance?”
“No. Not pregnant.”
Whatever it was, it was clear to Jess that the younger woman needed medical attention.
“We need to get you to a doctor, okay? There’s a drop-in clinic in Rangiora. I could—”
“No, I hate doctors. I’ll be fine.”
“It would be good to get your blood pressure checked, at least.”
“Don’t you do doctory things? Can’t you check it for me?” Lilia looked up at her, pleading.
“Um, I have my kit in the car, but—” It wasn’t her place to be the onset doctor, but if her suspicions were right, Lilia could be in serious danger if she didn’t see someone quickly. What choice did she have?
“I’ll be right back,” she said. Jess rushed to her car to grab her medical kit, bumping into Nate on the way back in. He glanced at the medical kit and gave her an ‘everything okay?’ look.
“Might want to hang around nearby,” she said. He nodded, understanding her with nothing else needing to be said.
When she returned, Lilia was still curled forward, hugging her stomach.
“Are you sure you won’t let me drive you to the clinic?” Jess asked again.
“Totally sure. They’ll just make me wait for hours. No, thank you. Have you got the blood pressure whatsit?” Lilia held her arm out, her forehead now against the table.
Wrapping the blood pressure cuff around Lilia’s upper arm, Jess listened carefully with the stethoscope pressed to the inside of her elbow, counting the pulse beats in her head like she’d done a thousand times before.
She knew almost instinctively what she’d find and her instincts were spot on.
Lilia’s blood pressure was far higher than it should be.
“Can you show me where your stomach hurts?”
Lilia leant back in the chair and pointed to the right side of her stomach, just under her ribs. “There. That’s where it hurts,” she said, wincing.
Inspecting where the young woman pointed, Jess could see a distinctive roundness to her stomach that didn’t fit with the rest of her slim figure.
“You sure there isn’t any chance you’re pregnant?”
Lilia shook her head, her eyes closed in pain. “No. No. Definitely not. Dan and I…we’re careful.”
In her job, she saw couples all the time who thought they were careful. All signs were pointing to preeclampsia.
“I would really like you to go see a doctor.”
“Those disgusting waiting rooms full of sick people. No way.”
Lilia was putting her in a tough situation, but she couldn’t risk leaving her and hoping it would be okay. If she knew for sure—
“Would you mind if I listened to your stomach?” She held her stethoscope up.
“Go ahead.” Lilia lifted her loose, black Metallica shirt and, placing the stethoscope against her stomach, Jess confirmed her suspicions. She knew what was going on, and it was definitely not a stomach bug, but how to tell Lilia that?
“Can you wait there for a sec?”
Lilia nodded in agreement, her eyes squeezing closed again.
Finding Nate in the hallway nearby, she leaned in and whispered the situation, grateful to have a medical colleague onsite.
“She’s refusing to go to the medical centre. I don’t feel it’s my place, but should I do a pregnancy test to convince her? Everything is in my kit.”
“I think you have to,” Nate agreed. “If she’s pregnant and has the symptoms she’s describing, she’ll be heading into the Christchurch emergency department.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“Thanks, Nate.”
Jess returned to Lilia’s side in the meeting room, pulled a urine test pot from her bag and held it out. “I know it’s not the most fun thing, but do you think you could go pee in this for me?”
“You want me to pee in a cup? For a stomach bug?”
A urine test would be her next step at the hospital and the easiest way to prove to Lilia what she already knew to be true. If she knew how serious the situation was, it would be easier to convince Lilia to get medical attention.
“It’s a pregnancy test.”
“But I’m not pregnant?”
“Humour me? It’s important.”
“If you say so.” Lilia took the pottle, and Jess walked with her to the bathroom, making eye-contact with Nate as she passed—the silent communication between them already so natural.
Her stomach flipped at how comforting she found it.
It was hard to remember the last time she’d trusted a man. Who would have guessed it would be him?
Jess waited near the sinks while Lilia went inside the cubicle.
Clutching a little tube of dipsticks, she rehearsed phrases in her head, trying to work out the best approach for this situation.
“Nasty. I peed on my hand.” Lilia said from inside the cubicle. “Why do they make these pots so ridiculously small?”
“Designed by men,” Jess said, eliciting a laugh from Lilia.
Lilia exited and held the pot of urine out to her. “Where do you want this?’
“Just here,” she pointed to the shelf next to the sink, and Lilia plopped it down.
While Lilia was busy washing her hands, Jess took out a dipstick, lowered it into the pot, and waited, counting to sixty in her head.
She’d done this so many times with so many women, it usually just confirmed what she already knew.
As expected, two tiny lines appeared.
Lilia finished drying her hands as Jess dropped the dipstick in the wastepaper basket, rinsed the urine pot, then washed her own hands.
“Let’s go back to the writers’ room and sit down. You look like you need to,” she said, guiding Lilia back out of the bathroom with a hand on her back.
When they reached the writer’s room, she was relieved to see it still empty, everyone at lunch. Lilia returned to her seat at the table, looking exhausted, and Jess took the one next to her.
“Lilia, I did the test because I don’t think you’ve got a stomach bug.
” She’d told dozens of women they’re pregnant, but most of them already suspected it.
Or hoped they were. She’d had all sorts of responses to that little line in the test. Some women cried because they were finally getting the dream they’d longed for.
Some cried because their fears had been confirmed.
She’d never had to tell someone quite the news she was about to tell Lilia.
“The test shows you’re pregnant, Lilia.”
“What? No. Those tests can be wrong, though. False positive?”
“Well, it’s not just the test. I can hear…you’re probably about 25 weeks along or more.” Jess suspected closer to 27 or 28 weeks, but she didn’t want to freak Lilia out too much. “And your baby’s heart-beat is strong, but—”
“Wait, what the…? The heart beat of my baby?” Lilia flopped her head forward onto her arms on the table in front of her again. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled.
“Lilia, I hate to have to tell you this, but there’s more. We need to get you to a hospital. You’ve got all the symptoms of preeclampsia. There’s protein in your urine and your blood pressure is really high. That’s why you’re not feeling good.”
Lilia swore quietly, her face still up against the table.
“How is this…How did I?” she sat up now and stared at Jess. “I’m 25 weeks pregnant and I didn’t even know? How is that even possible?”
Jess wondered that herself. When she placed the stethoscope on Lilia’s stomach, she could feel the baby moving, so she had no idea how Lilia had ignored that, but she knew it happened.
“It’s called a cryptic pregnancy. It’s rare. I’ve never come across it before myself, but I’ve heard of a few. Did you notice that you’d missed your periods?”
Jess tried to read Lilia’s face to see if a baby was good or bad news for her and Dan, but she stared into the distance, wide-eyed and pale.
Completely stunned, which was fair enough.
That would be Jess’s reaction if she’d found out she was over halfway through a pregnancy.
Her next reaction would be freaking out over who the father might be.
Thankfully, this was Lilia’s predicament, not hers.
“My periods are so irregular and I’ve been so flat out with the show, I just assumed it was stress…” Lilia fell silent and Jess patted her hand, comforting her.
“It’ll be okay. Do you mind if I talk to Laney and we’ll get you to the hospital, okay?”
Lilia shook her head, still wide-eyed. “I don’t want to tell Laney, yet.” she said. “It’ll stress her out. She’s already had a messy day today.”
Jess blushed. Messy partly because of her.
But she’d have to tell someone. They couldn’t both just disappear.
Laney expected them on set this afternoon, but she also needed to make sure Lilia was safe.
Preeclampsia could be dangerous for both mum and bub, and wasn’t something to take lightly.
Nate was a doctor, so he’d know to keep things confidential.
“I’ll be back soon.” Jess left Lilia resting and headed for Nate, still waiting in the hallway.
She hadn’t told Nate’s secret to anyone yet and would prefer not to, but now might be the time for Nate to reveal the real doctor behind the T.V.
one. Terrified she might be replacing herself, she remembered Laney mentioning several times how important the next scene was.
She’d helped with Sarah’s role, Nate might just have to help out with hers.
She crossed her fingers and hoped she’d have a role to return to when she got back.