And now, here I am, a week later, in the freezing cold, waiting on my stoop in New York for the father of my unborn child. My toes are slowly turning into frozen baby carrots in my boots while I glance up and down the block, feeling like I swallowed a pineapple.
And there he is all of a sudden.
He’s carrying a big, flat box under one arm and squinting up at house numbers.
“Ethan!” I call, and wave one arm over my head.
There’s that familiar moment of genuine happiness when he sees me. Those first few seconds when he recognizes me and his whole demeanor bursts into a sunny hi.
He’s at the bottom of my stoop, looking up at me. I’ve probably mentioned he’s attractive, yeah? Well, he is. That shiny hair and one of those low browbones that bring to mind Tarzan and the kind of sex that makes one of your hiking boots get caught ten feet up in a nearby tree.
“Hi,” I say. With any luck he thinks I’m normal. And not currently beating away thoughts of Tarzan sex.
“Happy New Year. Thanks for letting me come over.”
“Sure thing. Want to come up?”
He bounds up the stairs and puts one arm out. He gives me the Can-I? eyes and I melt. Of course he can.
I get an absolutely fantastic New Year’s hug and then I’m leading him inside, up the wooden steps towards my second-floor unit.
“I love these old brownstones,” he says, whisking one hand along the ornately carved banister, stopping for a moment to look at the tinny brown corners of the ancient mirror that lines one wall.
“I know. They each have their unique charms.”
“How’d you find this place?”
We creak up the stairs and pause at my front door as I dig my keys out of my pocket. “The old-fashioned way.”
“Craigslist?” he guesses with his head cocked to one side.
I laugh. “Bingo.”
I let him in and hold my breath. New people don’t see my setup very often and I’m vain enough to admit that I live for this moment. The one where a newcomer sets foot in my house and reevaluates all their own life choices because my apartment is just that awesome.
“Dang,” he says as he toes off his shoes. “Nice place.” He lifts up the flat box. “Okay, so…this is—”
“Hold on.” I hang up my coat and stalk towards him. “That’s all you’re gonna say? ‘Dang, nice place’?”
“Oh.” He blinks down at me. “You wanted more?”
“Are you kidding?” I throw my arms out towards my living room. “My throw pillows pick up the accent colors in those prints—which are in handmade, antique frames by the way. Those flowers are real, which means I stopped by my flower guy on the way home from the airport. Look at my bookshelf! It’s a work of art! Hold on. Hold on. I know what the problem is. You need the full effect. Here. Go over there. Stand there. No. Sit down. That way you can see into the kitchen area and down towards the bathroom and bedroom. You can see it all from there. And wait. Just wait. Do you like lemonade? Homemade raspberry lemonade?”
He looks dazed. “Um, sure?”
“Great.” I go to the fridge and pull some out. “Admire this pitcher, please. It’s an heirloom. Probably. I got it at a yard sale. And these glasses are actually an heirloom. They were my great-aunt’s. Here. Here’s your lemonade. Enjoy it, and while you’re enjoying it, please appreciate the incredibly aesthetically pleasing and super relaxing aura of my home.”
“Incredibly relaxing,” he assures me as he sits on the edge of a wooden chair that’s basically in a hallway in order to better appreciate the long, skinny view of my apartment. He takes a big gulp of lemonade, winces as he swallows it down. “Yum.”
I eye him for a long moment. “You don’t like raspberry lemonade, do you?”
His cheeks pink up. “Um. No. I don’t.”
My hands fall off my hips and I dance sideways to lower myself down into my favorite armchair (I had it reupholstered with a limited-edition Italian satin I scraped and saved for six months to afford, but I decide not to mention this tidbit to Ethan). “Any chance we can blame the last four minutes on me being very, very pregnant and thus a bit more loopy than usual?”
And then he says the exact right thing: “We can blame whatever you want on being pregnant.”
I grin at him. He grins back. His phone buzzes in his pocket and his grin disintegrates. He pulls his phone out so fast I’m surprised his pocket doesn’t rug-burn the skin off the back of his knuckles. “Sorry,” he mutters to me. And then he type-type-types on his phone. He looks up at me. It buzzes. And then he’s type-type-typing again. “Sorry,” he says again, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Eleni is…still getting used to this whole thing. The least I can do is make sure I’m available when she reaches out.”
I decide not to touch that one with a fifty-foot poker.
He clears his throat. “So, uh, you have a flower guy?”
Yes, good idea, Ethan. That’s actually a fantastic way to placate me right now. He’s smarter than he looks. “Yup. Ted. He’s an absolute gem. He calls me when he has extra blooms from someone else’s arrangement, so I usually get these very unusual bouquets. They’re cheap too. Sometimes they’re amazing and sometimes they’re duds, but I like that they’re—”
“Unique? Yeah. I gathered that. That’s the cool part about antique-y or heirloom stuff. It’s usually pretty one-of-a-kind.”
He stands up and walks over back towards the front door, where he’d leaned the box he’d brought over. “Um.” He clears his throat. “Speaking of unique…”
He brings the box over to me and sets it at my feet. He looks miserable. Or mortified. Or both.
“Um. What is it?” I ask him because the thing he’s doing with his face is not typically how you want someone to look right before you open a mysterious box they’ve just presented to you.
“My mom,” he croaks, and then clears his throat again. “Is an artist and…yeah. After I told her about you, she painted this and wanted you to have it, but she wouldn’t let me see it first and she does some pretty out-there stuff and—” He drags both hands down his face. “And so all I can do is preemptively apologize.”
My fingers are now gripping the box so hard I’m shocked it doesn’t puncture in ten tiny points. I immediately could not care less what this is a painting of. This could be a nude portrait of John Travolta and I would hang it on my living room wall. Because this painting is physical proof that the man standing right here in front of me told his family that he’s going to have a baby with me.
DNA tests and solo doctors’ visits immediately seem like teeny-tiny little ants next to the elephantine painting that’s resting up against my knees.
“I guess I didn’t realize you were going to tell them, um, yet.” (Or at all.)
“Well.” He rocks back onto his heels. “You told your family. It seemed only right.”
Right? I file that word away for later inspection.
“So she told you not to look at the painting and you didn’t?” I find this almost nauseatingly endearing. I’ve learned more about Ethan in the last minute and a half than I have in all the preceding months since I met him.
He shrugs and puts a hand up to the back of his neck. “She has kind of a sixth sense about these things. She always knows when I try to pull one over on her. Anyhow…”
He’s grimacing at the box as I start to tear it open.
“How did your family take it?” I ask him.
His eyes flick up from my hands to my eyes. “Oh. Pretty well. They were surprised, because it’s, you know, surprising. But they took it well.”
“They don’t think it’s weird that you’re having a baby with someone who isn’t your girlfriend?” I don’t know why I poke at that, but I do. I test to make sure it still hurts. And yup, doesn’t feel great.
“Well, like I said, it’s a surprise, but no. They know that Eleni and I weren’t together when you and I…So, it’s not like they’re disappointed in me morally or something.—Oh, thank God, it’s just a sunset.”
I’ve pulled the painting out of the box, but the painted side is facing Ethan. He takes it out of my hands and faces it towards me.
“It’s a sunrise,” I correct him. Because I’m absolutely certain I’m correct. I take a long moment to just look at the painting. It’s pointillism, acrylics, great color sense, and an interesting, blurryish point of view. “It’s a sunrise right before you’ve had your first sip of coffee,” I decide.
He nervously looks from the painting in his hands to me. “Do you like it? It’s okay if you don’t. Just stick it in a closet or something.”
“I really like it.” And I’m not placating him. I actually do. It’s not my usual taste, but I was serious when I said that anything that came out of that box I was going to love. “Put it up over there, please. You can take that big print down.”
I know I’ve said the right thing because as he’s turning away I see that his eyes have lit up with relief and…pleasure, maybe? It seems like it might be sort of a rare experience for someone to respond positively to one of his mother’s paintings.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table (bespoke, fifty bucks from a farmer’s market in Virginia, had to buy an extra bus ticket to haul it up here), but Ethan thinks it’s his phone and he dives into his pocket, nearly bobbling it in his scramble to answer Eleni at warp speed.
“Hello?” I say pointedly into my phone, one eyebrow raised at him. He quickly turns back to the painting and fiddles with the balance on the frame just a bit more.
“Happy New Year’s, you pregnant floozy!” Willa shouts into my ear.
“Hi! Happy New Year’s!”
“Buzz us up, we’re downstairs.” I had plans to see Willa and Isamu later today, but apparently they’re early. My eyes flick to Ethan, currently standing with his shoes off in my living room.
“Oh.”
“Wait, are you not home yet? I probably should have checked on the timing.”
“I’m home.” I gulp. “Ethan’s here too.”
“Oh. Well then you definitely have to buzz me up.”
“Hold on.” I cut her off because Ethan is waving his hands at me.
“I was just gonna leave,” he tells me. “Don’t worry about me.”
“All right,” I tell Willa. “Come on up.”
He bends and starts quickly clearing up the box. I’ve never seen someone fold a cardboard box into neater squares. It’s the size of a milk carton in about six flat seconds.
I buzz open my downstairs door. “That was Willa,” I say.
“Your best friend.” He hands over the remains of the box to me. “Does she…know?” He glances at my clearly pregnant belly. And then scrapes a hand over his head. “Of course she knows. Sorry. Does she know who I am? Should I introduce myself?”
“Yes and yes. She’s intense but it’s gonna be fine.”
My front door sails open and there’s Willa. She’s in leather boots up to her knees and a trench coat that’s open at the waist. Her beautiful blond hair is tumbling everywhere. She completely ignores me and lioness-pounces Ethan using only her eyes. If she were a single panel in a comic, the caption would read Jury’s Out, Bitch.
“Uh. Hi?” That’s Ethan, he’s probably just seen some key scenes from his life play before his eyes. I step between them.
“Ethan, this is Willa Balder. Willa, this is Ethan Rise.”
“It’s nice to finally put a face to the name,” she says, leaning down to unzip one boot and then the other.
“Willa, just go inside already.” She’s gently shoved aside and then—WTF—there’s Shep. When Willa said “we” I automatically thought she meant Isamu.
I feel like one of those Technicolor soap bubbles floating on the breeze. And Shep is a toddler’s pudgy finger. Pop.
My first time seeing Shep since he cuddled me in a lovely dark room and it’s in front of Ethan. I’d love a chance to blink out of existence for a little while, please.
“Hey, hi.” Shep says the first to Ethan and the second to me. “Happy New Year’s, everybody. Ethan, it’s good to see you again.” Shep has kicked his shoes off and strides towards Ethan with his hand out. Which is a good thing because if he’d strode towards me with his hand out I might have jumped straight into it. I go back to my armchair before anyone has a chance to see the look on my face.
“You too, man.”
When I finally look up, I’m alarmed at suddenly how tiny my living room looks. It’s because there’re three extra people here—oh, who am I trying to kid. It’s because there’s one person in particular and he had his hand up my shirt the last time I saw him.
“So…sorry we barged in,” Willa says, not looking sorry in the least, her eyes on Ethan, testing his reaction.
“I thought you were coming over later?” I glance at Shep. “With Isamu?”
“Isamu got a last-minute gig, so I’m stuck with this loser.”
“Is that raspberry lemonade?” Shep asks, spotting Ethan’s mostly untouched glass across the room.
“Yup,” I say.
“Your homemade raspberry lemonade?” he clarifies.
“The very same.”
He could drown a canoe with the wake he leaves behind. He emerges back from the kitchen already halfway through his glass. “Oh. Sorry,” he says, looking around. “Anybody else want some?”
“I already have some,” Ethan says. And then he crosses the room and gets his glass and gulps some down.
His eyes are on Shep. Shep’s eyes are on me. Mine are on Willa. Who, unfortunately, is my best chance at making this situation at all handle-able.
“We wanted to see if we could convince you to go out for a little bit. I know the plan was to hang at home, but if you’re up for it we thought it would be fun to hit the town. We haven’t done that in forever,” Willa said.
Actually, the last time we did that, I went home with Ethan. The only person who puts that together is Shep, and I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. “Oh. Sure. I can’t promise I’ll stay out too late, but sounds fun.”
“Come to Good Boy,” Ethan says, and I blink at the now-empty glass in his hands. He looks around at us. “I have to work tonight, but I’ll make sure you get a great table and even on the rowdier nights, it’s never too crazy in there. It could be fun.” He stands up and pulls his coat on, steps into one boot and then the other, bending to tie them. “If you want, I mean. Just an idea.”
First he polishes off the lemonade and now he wants me around for New Year’s?
I can see in Willa’s eyes that she thinks it’s the best idea anyone has ever had. A VIP table where she can freely judge Ethan from on high? He’s willingly opened himself up for her scrutiny and she shan’t be passing up the opportunity. It’s all a girl like her could ever ask for. But before she can say a hell yes, I’m up and meeting Ethan on my doormat. “Hold, please,” I say to the Balders.
I duck out into the hallway of my building, closing my door behind me so we can get a second of privacy. Ethan, looking thoroughly confused, frowns down at my bare feet on the hallway floor.
“Will Eleni be there?” I ask him. “Because I should probably meet her someday, but I think tonight might be a little soon for me. And on a big drunken holiday, I just think it might be a little chaotic and—”
He gently takes my shoulders and gives them a quick squeeze before he drops his hands away. “No. She won’t be there. I wouldn’t do that to either of you. I know…” He pauses. “I know I haven’t made this easy for you, but I swear, Eve, I’m not trying to make it harder.”
I nod. Nod again. Then I push my door open and lean my head back into the living room, where Willa and Shep are engaged in some sort of whisper fight. They freeze and glance up at me guiltily. “We’re going tonight,” I tell them.
Willa breaks into a semi-evil grin.
Ethan ducks back in as well, says a quick see-you-later, and then he pounds down the stairs and is gone. I didn’t get a Can-I? hug, but then again Willa probably would have scissor-kicked him if he’d tried.
I close the door, lock it, and sigh. “Instead of going to the bar,” I ask them. “What if we all just fell asleep and woke up when the baby is about ten years old? That should be enough time.”
“We’re going to the bar,” Willa says before producing her phone from her pocket. “Oh, this is Isamu. Let me take this. I’ll be one sec.” She heads into the bathroom and lightly shuts the door, and Shep and I are more or less alone.
“I guess I should go get ready, then.”
I head into my bedroom. And I just know that Shep’s followed me to the doorway. I can feel it.
“How do you do this?” he asks, and I turn to see him, one shoulder on the doorframe, peering around my room.
“Do what?”
“Make a room look like this?”
There’s enough awe in his voice that I begin to feel the glow of pride. And the glow of something else. “Is that the proverbial you? Or me in particular?”
“Yes, both. Teach me your ways.”
I go to my closet and start rifling through it, looking for something to wear tonight. “Well, you have to really consider it. Like, it can’t just be something you decide to get done all in one weekend. You have to think about what style you want, how you want to feel when you’re in the room, what colors you like. And then you choose things one by one. And slowly you get it right.”
“Sounds impossible. What was wrong with that one?” He’s watching as I take blouse after blouse out of my closet and then put them back in, fully nixed.
“The red one? Won’t go over the belly, I don’t think. I haven’t done a ton of wardrobe updating yet.”
“Ah. Shame. I like that shirt…I’ve been thinking about what you said. About moving out of Willa’s.”
“Really?” I stop my clothing perusal and turn to face him. “And?”
“I’m ready to start looking at options, I think. I think it’ll make me happy to be somewhere, uh, on my own. Even if it’s a ton of work to do that.”
“Really! You should look at that email list I mentioned. A bunch of people I know have found their place through it.” I scamper across to my little desk in the corner of my room and sit him down in front of my laptop.
“Wow. Okay. Yeah.” Shep is bemused but he immediately leans forwards to start scrolling through listings. I head back over to my closet.
I really, actually, might not have anything to wear tonight. I’ve been able to get away with structured jackets and flowy blouses and big shapeless dresses so far, but I’m realizing that with all this newfound poppage I’m not sure I’ll be able to button any pants.
I stop putting things back into my closet and start piling them on the bed instead.
“This one might actually work,” Shep says, and I turn around to see him holding up a fuzzy sweater and squinting in my general direction.
“That’s—no. Just no. I’m not going to the bar looking like Cookie Monster. And are you already done with the listings? Nothing piqued your interest?”
“You look good in blue!” he insists, then studies the sweater again, seeming to eventually agree about its Cookie Monsterishness and tosses it back on the bed. “I did. I just emailed one to see about getting an application and a viewing time.”
“What? You were only over there for like three minutes!”
He shrugs. “The apartment looked nice enough and it’s close by. Works for me.”
He goes to my closet and tugs on the hem of a gray dress.
“This one,” he says,
I consider it. “Well, I guess a dress would solve the pants situation.”
I pull it out and study it. I haven’t worn it in a couple years but it’s simple enough to not have gone out of fashion. In my current state, it’ll be skintight.
“You’re having a pants situation?” he asks, looking thoroughly amused as he pushes aside a pile of clothes to sit down on my bed.
My brain shorts out. I’ve been doing a decent job up to here of pretending like everything is coolcoolcool between me and Shep, but…now he’s sitting on my bed and I’ve got skin-memory of exactly how warm his palms are.
“Ah. Pants. Yeah. None of mine fit.”
“They make those expander bands, you know. They’re like an elastic band that goes around the top of your pants so that you can keep them unbuttoned but they still stay on.”
“Right, but I haven’t gotten around to all that. I’ve just been kind of…wearing my oversized stuff and—” I freeze, lower the dress out of my eye line, and turn to him. “Wait. How do you know about expander bands?”
He shrugs but it is not nonchalant. He starts messily folding the pile of clothes. “I dunno. Common knowledge.”
I playfully slap his hands away from my poor clothes. “You call that folding?”
He blinks down at the sloppy stack of clothes he’s just made. “What would you call it?”
“Piling.”
Willa calls out, “Sorry that took so long!”
“In here!” I yell to her. “Just despairing over the fact that nothing will ever fit me again!”
She appears in the bedroom door and if she thinks it’s weird that Shep is sitting on my bed, she doesn’t say anything. Which must mean she doesn’t think it’s weird because Willa always says something. Why isn’t she saying something? It is weird, right?
“Ooh. The gray is a good choice, I think. It should stretch, right?” She crosses the room and tests the fabric. “Shep, turn around.”
And then she’s reaching for the hem of my shirt and Shep barely turns around in time. He’s obviously seen my bump before. Heck, he was on his knees in front of it a little over a week ago. But still, stripping my shirt off while he watches feels like an entirely different matter.
The stretchy pants go next and then Willa is bunching up the dress and lining up the neck hole like I’m four years old. Frankly, it’s delightful to be manhandled.
Willa, take the wheel.
We struggle me into the dress and she straightens it where it narrows tightly at my knee. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s a yes from me. Shep?”
He turns back around and I busy myself with flattening a wrinkle at my hip. “Yes,” he says with a slight cough.
“Mmmm,” Willa says, turning me ninety degrees. “I don’t know, actually. We’ve got some underwear lines back here.”
“I never understand why women are so concerned with underwear lines,” Shep says. “Underwear lines are great. They show you where the underwear are.” He squints at my bottom half. “Or aren’t.”
“Thank you for that invaluable insight, Shep. Moving on!” Willa claps. She’s the cruise director tonight. “We should power up. Is that Cuban place on the corner still around?”
“Yup.”
She turns to Shep and they automatically shoulder-hunch down into rock-paper-scissors stance. The words choose your fighter dimly echo through my subconscious. The rounds are viper-fast and just as vicious. Ten seconds after they start Shep stands, two fists raised in the air, his head back, surely thanking God.
“I’m getting you a dirt sandwich,” she tells him, stalking over to her coat and punching it on. “And for you I’ll get the rice and beans platter,” she calls to me. And then, in a shocking move, she strides over, bends down, and addresses my stomach in a perfectly normal voice. “And don’t worry. For you, I’ll get some plantains.”
My hands automatically smooth over my bump. Damn these Balders, the only two to talk directly to the baby and making me go all squishy inside.
“Back in a few,” Willa says, and she’s gone.
I start trekking back and forth from the bed to the closet, resituating all my clothing.
Shep hands things to me, piece by piece, getting them ready on their hangers. “You really do look…nice,” he says.
“Thanks.” I still haven’t looked right at him since I put the dress on. I can’t be sure, but I think he might be doing enough looking for the both of us.
“But your legs might get cold,” Shep says quietly.
I look down at the pair of legs that Shep is officially looking at. “I have tall socks and tall boots. And a long coat. I’ll be all right.”
He doesn’t look convinced but he doesn’t say more. I reach up to put the final hanger back in place and turn to the mirror on the inside of the door. “Why is it lumpy up here?” I ask as I try to smooth down the bunched-up fabric at my shoulder.
Shep turns to inspect the issue. “Oh. I think your bra strap…”
I lift the dress at the collar to try to untwist the bra strap that must have gotten candy-caned in Willa’s vigorous dressing of me. Shep watches me one-handed fail for a patient ten seconds before he steps to my back, leans down, and smooths one finger down my bra strap, straightening it out. He sets the dress back into place.
He’s painted a luminescent line over a bra strap and suddenly my shoulder is having a conversation with my entire body. Even my cheeks have gone pink. I watch him in the mirror and he’s watching my shoulder and then, without moving away, he meets my eyes in the mirror.
There’s a slow zoom-in, a sway, no more oxygen left in the entire world.
He’s quiet for a long moment. And then, in a very low voice, he asks, “Did you tell him?”
My brain immediately transports me back to the lavender room, Shep’s even breaths, the best movie ever playing in the background while his big hand makes subtle movements under my shirt. He can’t possibly be asking if I told Ethan about that night, can he?
“Told him what?” I ask, wishing my voice could just play it cool.
“That the baby kicked.”
“Oh.” Right. “No, actually.” I turn to him and I swear, I swear, I don’t intend for these next words to mean more than one thing. “I haven’t told anyone.”
But the sentence lands hard between us and we’re finally looking in each other’s eyes, no mirror between us.
“Why?” he asks eventually, and I’m almost positive he means more than one thing just like I did.
“Because…” I’m searching for words like a beached goldfish gasping for water. Because it’s private. Because it’s too new to talk about. Because it’s a secret I don’t want anyone to spoil. Because I want to protect it just a little longer.
There’s no answer I can give that doesn’t sound blatantly like Because I’m apparently horny for you and have no idea what the fuck to do about it.
Willa slams back through the front door. “I’m back!” And I’m out of the bedroom in a flash. Leaving Shep, and the moment, behind.