Baby Business: Baby Steps

She flinched. “Me? How?”

“Because when I’m with you, I don’t want to be who I was before, either. I mean, before tonight, I can’t remember ever being angry enough on someone else’s behalf that I wanted to hurt another human being. Not that I’m going to go off the deep end and start beating up little old ladies—”

“Good to know.”

“—but my point is, since Ethan came into my life, I suddenly … care. About how someone else might feel.”

She tilted her head. “Empathy?”

“Yes! That’s it! I mean, yeah, I’ve always felt I needed to help people who were down on their luck, or who’d gotten a raw deal, but never on a personal level before. And tonight, the more I realized how hurt you were, the angrier I got.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And yet you weren’t inviting me to this charity thing because you felt sorry for me.”

“No, dammit, I invited you because I like you! Because I want to beat people up for you! And that’s not all!”

“It … isn’t?” she said, looking slightly alarmed.

“No! Because I grew up in a house where nobody talks to anybody, and it sucks. Which is why I’ve always preferred to live alone. But Ethan’s here, and you’re here, and if you need to vent, I’m not going anywhere. In the meantime, get out of here, go write or whatever you want to do while I clean up.”

“Lord have mercy,” she said after a long moment, “but you are one strange man.”

“Yeah, well, if you felt like somebody’d just removed your brain, rearranged all the parts and crammed it back inside your skull, you’d be strange, too.”

She blinked. “Maybe … I’ll go sit out by the pool for a while, then.”

“Fine.”

She walked to the door, hesitated a second, then turned back around. “Okay, I’ll go with you. To the charity thing.”

“Taking pity on the strange man, are we? Hey, don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m not. Like you said, it’s been a while since I’ve been out.”

And she left. Fifteen minutes later, however, he was finishing the washing up when he heard the muffled double-shushing of the patio door opening, then closing. C.J. watched as she padded over to the fridge, pulling out a jug of orange juice. After pouring herself a small glass, she slid up onto one of the barstools.

“See,” she began quietly, “the skinny people of the world look at people like me and think, What’s wrong with her? Why can’t she control her weight? They never stop to think that, you know, maybe I have tried every diet known to man, maybe I’ve even gone to doctors about it, maybe I do exercise and eat right ninety-five percent of the time.” Her mouth pulled into a tight smile. “That maybe I would have done anything to stop the other kids from calling me Fatty when I was a kid. Except it doesn’t always work that way. For some of us, it’s not just a matter of eating less, or exercising more, or having willpower.”

“You’re not fat, Dana,” he said, meaning it.

“Oh, but according to every chart out there, I am. I weigh thirty pounds more than I ‘should’ for my height. Which, by the way, is thirty pounds less than I weighed about five years ago, when I finally realized scarfing down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every time I got stressed was a bad idea. Then again, the thought of never again eating real ice cream, or a piece of cheesecake, or mashed potatoes with gravy, or a cheese enchilada …” She shook her head. “Now that’s depressing. But God forbid I go into a restaurant and order something besides a piece of broiled fish and a salad, hold the dressing. People look at me like I’m a criminal.”

“That’s their problem, honey. Not yours.”

“And most of the time I do know that. But every once in a while it gets to me, what can I say? Just like the other thing. Not being able to have kids. And with all this about Ethan … you happened to catch me at a bad time.”

“Lucky me,” he said, and she smiled. Not a big one, but enough to see the dimples. God, he loved those dimples.

“Okay, your turn,” she said, her expression brightening. “If I have to open up, so do you. So what’s your story … oh, shoot,” she said as Ethan’s reedy cry came through the monitor. Her gaze touched his. “Coin toss?”

“No, that’s okay, I’ll go,” C.J. said, barely managing to keep from jumping off the stool. “And anyway, it’s late, and I’ve got a seven-thirty breakfast meeting tomorrow, so maybe we should call it a night, anyway.”

Still smiling, Dana shook her head. “You are so transparent, C. J. Turner,” she said quietly. “But you know something? You can run, but you can’t hide. Maybe from me, but not from yourself. And one day, you’re gonna have to face whatever you don’t want to face. And deal with it, too.”

But as C.J. tromped down the hall to see what was up with his son, it occurred to him that “one day” was already there.

“Sorry I’m late,” Dana shouted to Mercy over the Friday-night crowd chatter in the little bistro by the university. “Traffic tie-up on the freeway.”

“It’s okay, there’s a fifteen-minute wait.” Mercy held up a small pager. “They’ll call us when the table’s ready. Outside or bar?”

“Your call.”

“This was a great idea, by the way,” Mercy yelled over her shoulder as they pushed their way through the throng. “If a surprise.”

“Yeah, well, it occurred to me that C.J. needed some one-on-one time with Ethan,” Dana yelled back. “And I needed the night off.”

“So naturally you decided to spend it with someone you already see five days a week,” Mercy said, slithering up onto a bar stool. “Makes total sense.”

“Says the woman who pounced on the idea like a cat on a grasshopper.”

Shortly thereafter, as Dana reluctantly sipped a glass of white wine and Mercy tackled a margarita larger than her head, her partner nodded appreciatively at Dana’s outfit, a low-cut blousy top tucked into a long, tiered skirt. “The cleavage is seriously hot.”

Dana glanced down. “Not too much?”

“No such thing, chica. Really, you should take the girls out more often, they look like they could use the air. Well, look at you, Ms. Techno Babe,” she said as Dana set her cell phone on the bar. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

“C.J. insisted I needed one. Because of the baby.”

“And you love it already.”

Dana smirked. “And I love it already.”

After a chuckle into her drink, Mercy poked Dana’s wrist with one long fingernail. “So. Have you slept with the guy yet?”

“Honestly, Merce. You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you?”

That got an unrepentant grin. “I live to yank your chain, you know that. But seriously. How’s it going? It’s been, what? Nearly a week, right?”

Dana took a small sip of her wine, flinching when some man brushed against her as he got up onto his bar stool. “Not quite. Five days. Seems longer.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure. In some ways it’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. I mean, we’ve worked out a pretty good routine, C.J.’s been a real trouper about taking care of the baby …”

“But?”

“But …” Dana frowned at the slightly trembling liquid in her glass. “No matter how gracious C.J. is, I’m still a guest.” She lifted her eyes to Mercy’s dark, sympathetic gaze. “And the question is, for how long?”

“Because of Trish, you mean?” Dana nodded. Mercy fingered the rim of her sombrero-sized vessel. “So you haven’t heard anything yet?”