Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [54]
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“If you’re sure . . .” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it over. “See you soon.”
“Why?” I called toward his back. “In case I need to investigate another stepmother?”
He waved without turning, and I heard his voice as he descended down into the subway station. “You never know!”
I walked home along Fifth Avenue, through throngs of tourists gawking at the skyline, past the boutiques with their windows filled with feathered hairbands, sequined purses, eye shadow, pearl necklaces. Maybe I’d just wait for a few days more. I’d talk to my brothers and try to reach my mom. But when I got off the elevator, my father and India were standing in the foyer, waiting for me, the way they’d waited in Bridgehampton. Her arm was around his waist, his arm was around her shoulders, and both of them were beaming.
I set my bag down on the antique ebonized table. As usual, there was a towering floral arrangement at its center—calla lilies and hydrangeas in shades of orange and cream. Twice a week a florist would come and distribute flowers throughout the two stories of the apartment, from the big arrangement in the foyer to the roses that my mother used to have in her dressing room, like she was an actress on opening night. The apartment had been photographed for Architectural Digest and featured in Metropolitan Home, but I’d long since stopped seeing its grandeur, the important art on the walls, the views of the park and the river and the city’s skyline. To me, it was just home.
“What’s going on?” I asked my dad.
He turned to India, beaming. “I’ll let India give you our good news.”
I studied her, wondering, again, exactly what she’d had done to go from the girl in the mug shot, with a big nose and a bad perm, to the sleek creature who’d snagged my dad; how long it had taken, how much it had hurt. I was so lost in my thoughts that I barely noticed India crossing the room until her arms were around me.
“Guess what,” she cried, sounding as happy as I’d ever heard her, “we’re having a baby!”
PART TWO
Great Expectations
INDIA
Marcus and I had gotten married in September. Our wedding was a tasteful affair that included forty guests and cost fifty thousand dollars. No bridesmaids, I’d said, giving him a small smile tinged with regret. I’m too old for all of that. This, of course, got me out of having to include Bettina in the festivities. I cringed, just imagining her coming down the aisle, pinching my bouquet between her fingertips like it was diseased, giving me the side-eye when her father said I do.
We honeymooned for a week in Hawaii—we would have gone even farther away, but seven days was as long as Marcus could take off from work. Six weeks later, I was still tawny, my honeymoon glow maintained and improved with a little spray tan, and Marcus would occasionally twirl the gold band on his finger, like he hadn’t gotten used to it being there. We were having a quiet dinner at home, watching the leaves spinning down to the lawn in Central Park, when he pushed his veal away, half eaten.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He rubbed his hand against his chest. “Just heartburn. We brought in Mexican for lunch.”
I felt an icy prickle at the back of my neck, but I kept my voice calm as I asked him, “How long has it been hurting you?”
“I don’t know. Since this afternoon, I guess.” He stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly. In our time together, I’d learned that Marcus seemed incapable of accomplishing a yawn, or a sneeze, or any other involuntary action at a volume less than deafening. It should have driven me crazy, but, somehow, I found it endearing. “We got any Pepcid?”
I hurried to the medicine cabinet. When I came back Marcus was rubbing at his chest with his knuckles. Fear tightened screws in my own chest. “I’m calling the doctor.”
“Honey, don’t. It’s nothing.”
Lightly, I said, “We’re paying for concierge service. Might as well use it.”
“It’s nothing,” he said again . . . but the