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Of course, there was Phillip to consider now, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“Try to wear something appropriate,” he said.
And with that little ego crusher, he was gone.
4
I was running late. As usual. And Mom was not helping.
“No,” I said, tucking the phone between my ear and my shoulder and locking the door behind me. I clicked on the lamp by the door and a puddle of warm light spread around me. “Mom, we’re not…serious.”
“But that thing in the paper, and now this? Dinner?”
“Yes, Mom, it’s just dinner.”
“At Bola? That’s not just dinner.”
“It is. It’s just a fancy dinner.” A fancy dinner that required a fancy dress. “He’s sort of a…fancy guy.” I winced; that wasn’t right at all. He was the opposite. He was stark and serious. Fancy like a rock face, maybe. Or an oak tree. I ran to my bedroom, shedding clothes as I went. Yoga pants—my pregnancy uniform—just weren’t going to cut it tonight.
“And how long has this been going on?”
I rolled my eyes and pulled open the accordion doors to my closet. “Not long,” I said, yanking the ribbon attached to the small chain on my overhead light. I was trying to be vague, like Carter had told me, but my mom was a hound dog. “A month, maybe. Honestly, we’re just friends.”
“Honey, why didn’t you say something? I thought…” Penny trailed off, her voice leaving behind a little wake of pain mixed with guilt.
A delightful combination that my mother specialized in.
I sighed and sat down on the mess of pillows and blankets I called a bed. I quickly bounced up and pulled a cereal bowl out from the duvet before settling back down. I didn’t like lying to my mother, and I really didn’t like hurting her, but at some point there needed to be some distance. Some breathing room.
Not for the first time, I doubted my decision to come back to Baton Rouge to have this baby.
“I mean, you used to tell me everything. But recently, you’re so different. The baby—”
I didn’t want to talk about the baby with my mom. Not again. For four solid months it had been all we talked about, and now the subject was closed. Closed.
“Mom, listen to me. I sort of blew it with the whole standing on the chair thing, and now we have to go public. It’s not a big deal.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I took a deep breath and jumped right into the new cold waters that swirled between us. “You know why, Mom.”
“You’re going to be a single mother, Zoe. Dating isn’t—”
“And there you go,” I said, standing up and wiggling out of my bra. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I don’t need another chapter from your How To Be A Single Mother textbook.”
There was a pause, the silence long and slow, like colliding with an iceberg, and I bit my lip to keep from apologizing. I was right on this.
“Do you like him?” Mom asked, her voice quiet. “Is he nice to you?”
I nearly laughed. Nice? Carter O’Neill? The word simply did not apply. “Of course.”
“All right, just…be careful with yourself, honey.”
“I will. I have to go, Mom. Bye.” I hung up and tossed the phone on the bed.
I approached my closet like Napoleon taking over a battlefield. None of my pants fit, and I didn’t have the money for new special maternity ones, so I shoved aside a small quadrant of black, white and denim pants. It wasn’t a terribly formal sort of place so I pushed away the turquoise beaded gown and the black sheath from my days at the Houston Ballet. Ballerinas needed gowns for those fundraiser things, but why I still kept them I had no idea. Well, they were glittery and I did like glitter.
“This is a disaster,” I moaned, flicking hangers back and forth, contemplating my pink cowboy shirt with the lassoing hearts. There was the red-and-white maternity tent dress my mother had bought me a few days ago, which honestly made me look like a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant. I pushed aside a few cardigans and dug way back into my closet, my stomach sinking farther and farther into my feet.
I wanted to look good tonight. Smokin’, even. Because Carter had mocked me and had made my heart flip over in my chest when he’d held my hand.
The combination stung like salt in a wound.
But it didn’t look like glamorous me was going to make an appearance tonight. Or any other night for the foreseeable future. I was five months pregnant, a political prisoner of my own making, and I was attracted to the stone-cold warden.
Wedged into the back of my closet between my old prom dress and the remnants of my flapper phase, I found a clear plastic garment bag.
