When in Doubt, Add Butter (29 page)

“Hey, you,” he said. He set down the bags and crouched down to her level. “I’m Paul.”

She stepped out a little bit. Even she seemed charmed by him. “I’m Charlotte.”

“That’s a nice name. Do you like Chinese food?”

She nodded.

Of course she did. My cousin, who ate nothing but chicken fried rice in college
and
throughout her pregnancy with Charlotte, would have stood for nothing less.

“What do you like?” he asked her.

“Rice,” Charlotte said. “And honey chicken.” She fiddled around, like kids always do when being asked about themselves.

Paul opened his mouth. “Well, isn’t that lucky? I picked some up!”

“Really?” It was me who asked. How could he have known?

“Yep. My niece likes honey chicken, too, and she’s about your age.”

“What’s her name?”

“Susannah.”

“Cool,” said Charlotte. She immediately started to giggle and then ran back to the couch to watch
The Flintstones.

I eyed Paul. “So you got me sweet and sour, and you got her honey chicken. What are you, some kind of Chinese food whisperer?”

“Maybe.” He reached around my waist. “Or maybe you told me once on the phone that I had better like the sweet and sour chicken you were making me because it was your favorite, and so you
knew
it was good. And then maybe you said that if I was going to be a big baby about it, then I could just go out and get myself some honey chicken, because that’s what the child in
your
life liked.”

“Very clever, Detective.”

He smiled and tapped his temple.

“What else you got going on up in that brain of yours? Anything I need to know about?”

“Shh! Guys!” Charlotte had turned to us and held a finger to her mouth.

“Let’s go in the kitchen,” I said, and led the way.

I took the bags and prepared a little plate for Charlotte. I cut the pieces into bite-sized ones, and gave it to her. “Thanks!” she said.

I went back into the kitchen, which had a full view of Charlotte and the living room.

I sat down at the island, and Paul sat across from me. We both opted to eat straight out of the cartons.

I took a bite, and I swear it may have been the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. “God, this is awesome. I can’t believe you’re willing to leave this town and go to Seattle, when you have
no idea
how good the Chinese takeout will be!”

He laughed. “Chinese takeout is the least of what I’ll miss.”

“So what’s the most?”

His eyes met mine. “Until a few weeks ago, I would have said your cooking.” He smiled. “Even your chicken with five million cloves of garlic.”

“You
love
my chicken with five million cloves of garlic.”

“I do. But I think it’s possible there might be something I love even more.”

My heart flipped. I knew what he was going to say. I knew it, and I couldn’t wait to hear it. I could barely find my voice. “What’s that?”

“You know what it is.” He touched my nose. “You. I almost wish I hadn’t gotten that job.” But before I could question if he was wobbly on taking it, he went on, “Professionally, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened in my career.”

A petty little voice in me wanted to say,
Seattle’s rainy and depressing,
even though I’d never been and had no idea if the stories were exaggerated. Instead I just said, “Do you think you’ll come back to this area to visit sometimes?”

He considered me. “I do now. As often as I can. And maybe you’d like to get a change of scenery every now and then yourself?”

Oh, yes. Under normal circumstances, I would have, of course. But I was well aware of what the year ahead looked like for me. A lot of changes, and not the ones that could be overlooked on visits spaced weeks or months apart.

“We’ll see,” I said to him.

And it was clear: Somehow I was going to have to tell him the truth.

Chapter 24

About a half hour later, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s a boy!” Dell shrieked, barely giving me time to get the
o
out on my
hello.

“Congratulations!” I smiled and felt the most curious surge of feeling. It was as if the full impact of this miracle was finally hitting me. “Ten fingers, ten toes, one nose?”

“He’s perfect,” Dell said, and I could hear the beaming smile in his voice. “Just perfect.”

I was thrilled for them. “And Penny?”

“Hungry.”

“That’s a good sign!” The only time I’d ever seen Penny
not
hungry was when she was in a lot of pain—like when she’d fallen off a horse and broken her arm at Potomac Stables—or completely depressed. That she wanted food now was a good sign that labor had gone well, despite the problems at first. “Let me get Charlotte together, and we’ll come right over.”

“Third floor, room 321.”

“We’ll be there!”

I hung up and found that my eyes were welling with tears.

Paul smiled. “Congratulations on the new first cousin once removed.”

I laughed and wiped away the tears. “I have no idea why I’m crying.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“Okay, maybe I do.” I went into the other room. “Charlotte! You have a brother!”

She started jumping up and down. “Yay yay yay yay!”

“Let’s go to the hospital!” I said jovially. It’s about the only time you can say that in a positive way. “Go get a coat on, and some shoes, okay?”

She darted off for her room.

I turned to see Paul packing up the Chinese. “I’m sorry—”

“No problem. Obviously.”

“I mean, I missed work and—”

He laughed. “Like that’s what I’m thinking about right now.” He must have seen something in my expression, because he walked over to me and kissed me. “You go. I’ll take care of this and lock the door behind me when I leave.”

“Let’s
go
!” Charlotte said, going to the door.

“Charlotte, wait a sec!”

“No, go, it’s fine,” Paul said. “Come over after if you want. I’ll have the Chinese in the fridge. It’s always better after a little time in there, anyway.”

“That’s because of the onions,” I said. “They sweeten overnight. That’s why everything oniony is better the next day.”

He touched my cheek and said, “You’re a nut. But I like it.”

Half an hour later, Charlotte and I were getting off the elevator onto the third floor of the hospital, flowers in hand and excitement in our hearts. The nursery was the first room on the left, and we stopped in front of the wide band of windows to look at the little wiggling bodies in their Lucite bassinets, each with a pink or blue label announcing a last name.

“Look for your last name,” I told Charlotte, pointing at the babies. “It’ll be a blue label.”

She pressed her face to the window. “There he is!”

Sure enough, there was the bassinet marked
BABY BOY HOFFMEYER
.

I barely got a glimpse of him when a nurse came in and started fussing with him and rolling him out of the room.

“Where are they taking him?” Charlotte wanted to know. She was already being protective of her little brother. That was a good sign.

“Probably to your mom’s room,” I said. “Let’s go there.”

We went down the hall, took a wrong turn, then backtracked until we found ourselves behind the nurse and the baby. We all entered the room together.

“Look who’s here!” Penny said, holding her arms out for Charlotte, who went running to her. “Did you come to see me or Alexander?”

Alexander! He was named after our grandfather. Penny’s eyes met mine, and all of them filled with tears.

“Do I have to call him
Alexander,
or can I call him Alex?” Charlotte asked.

Penny gave her a hug. “You can call him whatever you want, baby. Now, come over here so you can get your first good look. You, too, Gem. Get over here.”

I laughed and went to the side of the bed where the nurse had wheeled the bassinet. I stepped over some wires and tried to stay out of everyone’s way, but as soon as I saw little Alexander’s eyes, I lost interest in all else.

His eyes were a milky blue, and even though he was only a few hours old and I knew—absolutely
knew
—he couldn’t really see me, I was positive he looked right into my soul.

Funny how that moment of connection with a newborn can have a more profound effect on you than the same sense of recognition in an adult. Maybe it was because there was no weight to this connection at all—the baby didn’t want anything from me, and the guilelessness in his eyes clearly wasn’t the practiced move of a manipulative adult.

It was pure honesty.

And at that moment, for the second time in as many weeks, I felt jealous of Penny.

Then that jealousy morphed into something more like excitement. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t just happy about where I was in life. I was completely excited for the years ahead of me.

Chapter 25

I called Paul later that night. “I want to see you,” I said, “but I should sleep, shouldn’t I?”

“Are you tired?”

“Not really.” Which was weird because I usually was lately.

“You want me to go there or you to come here?”

I thought of the delicious comfort of his dark, cool apartment. Nothing could have suited me more. “I’ll be there in ten.”

And I was. I pulled up and parked in my usual parking spot and walked up the stairs like I usually do. Then I knocked on the door, arms unburdened by groceries for once.

“Hey,” he said, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Are you hungry?”

For the first time, I realized I was. Starving. “Yeah, I’ll heat something up.”

“Just because you’re
used
to cooking in my kitchen doesn’t mean you have to. I may have hired you to cook, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely helpless in here.”

“Good.” I laughed and melted onto the sofa.

“So how’s your cousin?”

“It’s so strange. Penny was just a stick figure with a beach ball in her stomach yesterday, and now there’s just this … small person that looks like her and Dell. It’s so
amazing
!”

I heard him shut the silverware drawer and press some buttons on the microwave. He came back into sight and leaned on the doorframe.

“That’s pretty much how it works, you know. Pregnant, then not pregnant, and there’s a baby.”

“Well, yes.” This was it, this was it, this was the perfect time to introduce the subject. “Actually—”

The microwave beeped. “Hang on.”

He returned a minute later with a plate of hot leftover meat loaf and mashed potatoes and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said. And opened my mouth to
try
to come up with the words, but his phone beeped.

He looked at it and frowned, then looked at me. “I hate like hell to say this,” he said. “But there’s been a mix-up with some of my paperwork, and I need to redo it and get it faxed over to the new office as soon as possible. Can you give me a half hour, forty-five minutes?”

“Of course,” I said reflexively. “Yes, go! Don’t worry about me.”

“I won’t be long,” he reassured me.

But the moment, at least
that
moment, was gone. “Don’t give it another thought,” I told him. Suddenly I was very tired. “I’ll just lie down here and watch some TV.”

“You’re the best.” He kissed my forehead. “Absolutely the best.”

The next morning, I awoke in his bed. He must have guided an embarrassingly zombielike me to his room at some point the night before. He was gone already for work, I was sure.

I blinked around blearily. I’d never seen his room before. It was dark and sleek, like the rest of his apartment, and smelled good. Like men’s shampoo and clean laundry.

I sat up and noticed a note on the nightstand. The familiarity of his handwriting made me smile.

G—

First, you look beautiful. Second, you are impossible to wake up in the middle of the night, even to be directed toward a bed. Third, I can’t wait to see you again.

—P

P.S. Left the water bottle on the floor so you wouldn’t knock it over onto this note.

I smiled and looked down. Sure enough, there was a bottle there. Adorable and wise. Good combination in a man.

I got dressed and went home, wishing I could stay there forever.

*   *   *

I went to the Olekseis’ on Thursday night, feeling like I could just scream at any moment.

I walked into the dark house and could already hear the distant shouts of Cindy and Viktor in another room. I set my bags down on the counter and got to work.

My mind was reeling as I boiled noodles and browned ground beef for dinner. I couldn’t stop thinking. All I
wanted
was to stop
thinking.

Suddenly my old fallback thought was creeping up on me.

I was about to be broke.

Broke.

I needed more work at a time when I was becoming rapidly less able to handle it.

I couldn’t have a
baby.
I was good at only one thing—cooking. That was as multitasking as I could be. And countless times, I’d burned a sauce because I got tangled up in a problem with frying or something. How could I cope with a baby? I pictured myself turning my back on it for just a second, and it falling off the couch. What was he doing on the couch alone to begin with? I imagined it screaming in the night and me not hearing anything because of how deeply I slept.

What would I do with him or her when I was at work? Day care? In the late evening? Would I bring him with me? Surely not. Would I make enough money? I remembered a poster in my high school that said something like:
A BABY COSTS $750 A MONTH. CAN YOU AFFORD THAT?

And that was
years
ago!

Good scare tactic for teenagers, but unfortunately, it also seems to work pretty well on thirty-seven-year-olds. I mentally kicked myself again for not having savings.

It wouldn’t always be a baby, either. Someday, it’d be a teenager. It’d have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. And I’d be …
Mom.
Then suddenly I’m old, and making way for the next generation—my
kid.