Before You Get To Baby...

“Never mind, Frannie, I get the idea,” Drew said. So his nose took a slight left hook halfway down his face, she didn’t have to rub it in, did she?

“It’s just that you assume your face is the same on both sides, you know? But look. I wouldn’t even recognize myself as me from this.” She pointed to the image where Drew had taken one side of her face and, using its mirror image, made a whole. “Pretty amazing.”

Yes it was. Pretty. And amazing. Drew traced the image with his forefinger. And not all that far off. He’d have recognized her from the shot. He took another look at his own composite and grimaced. Talk about unsymmetrical. Maybe he’d be the one who never got married. Maybe the women who’d pursued him had been more impressed by the uniform he’d worn and hadn’t gotten around to taking a good look at his face. Who understood women, after all? He should feel relieved. Heck, he did feel relieved. Absolutely he did. Then Drew took another look at Frannie with her hair all loose and curling around her face and the dimple she swore she didn’t have peeking out at him.

“Hell,” he said.

“Don’t take it so seriously,” Frannie advised. “I’ll just have to work a little harder at this than I thought, that’s all. Besides, if you’d just let me take an extra minute to comb my hair the way I wanted to I probably wouldn’t look like such a wild woman in the pictures. But no, you’re always in such a rush. Anyway, it’s my problem, not yours.”

Drew turned away to put the digital camera back in its box. He cleared his throat. “So,” he began, “speaking of your, uh, problem, have you taken a job for the summer yet?”

“Not yet,” Frannie responded thoughtfully but with a small smile. “But I’ve got some good prospects.”

Drew turned back. Hope that he wouldn’t have to have her around driving him insane all summer warred with the fear that anything Frannie had come up with was bound to be crazy. Possibly dangerous as well. The woman worked with seven-and-eight-year-olds for a living, for crying out loud. What did she know about protecting herself from the wolves and weasels of the world? “Oh yeah? What kind of prospects?”

“Well, for one, you know that billboard you see off on the right side of the road just before you get downtown?”

Drew thought for a minute. “The one advertising the Venetian Festival? Frannie, that’s an old advertisement. Venetian Nights are over.”

“No,” Frannie said, her exasperation evident. “Why would I be interested in that one?”

With Frannie, who knew? Her brain was, to be kind, different, but Drew was just bright enough to keep that tidbit to himself. Come on, now, who picked their future spouse by shopping billboards?

“I’m talking about the one for the dentist.”

Drew wracked his brain. “The we’re-there-’cuz-we-care-How’s-your-bite one?” he asked carefully. It was a totally dippy ad. He sank down into his computer chair, bracing himself.

“Yeah. What about it?”

Frannie leaned forward eagerly in the chair she’d taken. “So I know we haven’t done the symmetry test or anything, but he was kind of cute, don’t you think?”

Now she thought he went around checking out guys? He didn’t think so. He did remember the hygienist on the far left had been kind of fat, but that was about it. “I really couldn’t say, but I don’t like the way this conversation is headed. You’re after the dentist, right? With nothing more to go on than a four-foot-wide billboard smile. Frannie, he could be married. He could be a pervert. He could be into women’s underwear, for crying out loud, like this guy Rick knows.”

Frannie sat forward in her chair, fascinated. “Rick has a friend who wears ladies’ lingerie? Who? Tell me it’s Bill McCain. I always thought he was kind of strange.”

“Never mind. My lips are sealed.”

Frannie laughed and shrugged. She’d get it out of Rick later. “Anyway, I’ve got an appointment for an interview set up for this week. If he’s wearing a wedding ring or has family pictures on his desk, I’ll know not to waste my time there and politely turn the job down.”

“And if he’s single, you take the job and he turns out to be an idiot, then what?”

She moved her shoulder in a gesture of dismissal. “Nobody said this was going to be easy. I can’t really expect to hit it right on the first try, after all. But if I don’t try at all…And, I’ll have made more money than teaching summer school. I need a break from the kids anyway. This’ll be good for me.”

Aha! Drew jumped on that. “You want to get away from children? I thought the whole point of this operation was to get you with child.”

“It is. I do want babies of my own. But I want them one at a time. Twenty-five at once can get to be a bit much. Especially when it’s raining and they’ve had indoor recess three days in a row.”

Drew shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Anyway, I’ve also been going through the phone book looking at dentists’ advertisements. You wouldn’t believe how many ads have pictures. I thought I’d call some of the better-looking ones to see about setting up interviews.”

Drew simply stared. My God, the woman was a menace. Rick was wrong, Frannie was a danger to herself and everyone else, but by the time Rick realized it, it would be too late. Frannie could find herself engaged to a silk-panty-wearing weirdo. Women and their stupid biological clocks. Like the world would really suffer if a few of those alarms were left to ring until the battery wore out.

Well, it looked like it was up to him to take charge here. Which was, no doubt, exactly what Rick had hoped for, darn his hide.

He sighed. “Listen, Frannie, since you’re so determined to go through with this, I’ll tell you what. I’ve got some nice guys working for me. Guys who’ll play straight with you.” God help them. “I always put on some seasonal help. You might want to consider coming with me for the summer instead of the dentist.”

Frannie eyed him uncertainly. Something was wrong. This was too easy. She might have to rethink this whole thing. Did she want a guy who was so easily led? “You really want me to work for you this summer?”

Drew feigned nonchalance. “It could work for both of us. You could meet some of my engineers. They’re good guys.” Not that any of them would look too hot blown up larger than life on a billboard, but Frannie didn’t need to know that. “And you could genuinely be of help. Looks like I’m going to have a lot of wetlands to put in. Couple of sewage-processing plants and a pig farm for sure want their yucky stuff naturally purified. Maybe a couple of septic fields as well.”

Frannie’s nose crinkled. “Pigs? Sewage?”

“Hey, I’m an environmental engineer. This is what I do. The stuff’s got to go somewhere. You flush the john and it doesn’t just magically disappear. Pigs don’t just turn into bacon, you know. There’s a lot of by-product while they’re growing into pork roasts. Didn’t you just do Earth Week with your second-graders? Didn’t I come in and talk to them about the importance of wetlands in recycling wastes? I’m one of the good guys, lady, and I’m giving you a chance to be on my team for the summer.” Digging in muck ought to keep her out of trouble. And eau de swine was particularly hard to get rid of. Wouldn’t be too many guys come sniffing around once Frannie started smelling like a sow, now would there? “Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen, see what we can dig up. I’m hungry.”

Damn shame about her smelling like a pig, though, Drew thought as Frannie breezed by him. She sure smelled good right now. Like chocolate and vanilla with a smidge of some kind of flower mixed in. Lilac or something. Weird combination if you stopped and thought about it. But on Frannie, it worked. Frannie was like that, Drew mused. What would be strange for somebody else was just right for her. Bizarre.

“You got any brownie mix?” she asked. “I could whip some up.”

Drew sighed with anticipated pleasure. “Yeah, I’ve got a box.” Frannie made some darn fine brownies. Drew had never quite been able to pull the skill together. The edges were burnt or the center was gooey. Something always went wrong. “I’ve also got lasagna noodles and ricotta. Maybe you could make a pan of that too?”

She snorted. “Sure, why not? I get to make everything. What’s in it for me, buster?”

“I don’t have your touch,” Drew defended as they entered the kitchen. “And I’m going to make something. I’ll make…”

“What? Exactly what will you make?”

“Salad,” Drew proclaimed triumphantly. “I’ll make some salad.”

She didn’t look all that impressed.

“And garlic bread.” He upped the offer.

“You’re also doing the dishes.”

He sighed, but nodded acquiescence. It was still a good deal and probably the best he’d get. Frannie was nobody’s pushover. No doubt came from being the only girl in a household filled with older brothers.

Thirty minutes later Frannie was layering a main dish of spinach lasagna. A pan of brownies was on top of the refrigerator, cooling, hopefully out of range of a certain twenty-nine-year-old with sticky fingers still unable to delay gratification.

Damn, those brownies smelled good. The smell of hot chocolate literally hung in the air in a rich perfume. Drew inhaled deeply, then moved to get the milk from the refrigerator. He pulled a hotpad from a nearby drawer.

“They’re for dessert,” Frannie said when she saw what he was doing.

“Some now, some later,” Drew said.

“You have to eat the good stuff first,” Frannie insisted.

“I’m not one of your second-graders, Frannie,” Drew shot back. “I think I can take a little personal responsibility for my own well-being.”