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I was goddamn clueless.
“Well, what did we talk about?”
She shook the money in my face again for emphasis. “Ah-ah! You told me I couldn’t say. In case you asked.”
This was getting crazier by the second.
“This is ridiculous,” I began. “Look, just tell me what we talked about.”
She shook her head as she continued to get dressed.
“No.”
Clenching my jaw, I winced from the hangover as my frustration with her built. I shook my head.
“Um,” I muttered. “So what is this about? You want some more money or what?”
I walked back over to get some from my billfold. As I did, she grabbed my arm.
“No,” she said as shook her head. “I don’t want any more of your money. And, I’m not going to tell you. Listen, you seem like a decent guy. Don’t worry about it. You’re sweet.”
Sweet?
She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. No sooner had her lips left my skin than she turned and began to walk away. I watched her until she left, closing the door behind her.
Sweet?
GREY
I spent most of the day in meetings again, only with a nasty hangover. I didn’t make a habit of negotiating in such a state, but I sensed I had the upper hand. We broke early that night and headed out to grab a bite. I had no reason to think I couldn’t get the deal done over dinner. That’s how confident I was.
Anyway, I took a cab across town and reflected on what the whore told me earlier that day. It didn’t make a goddamn bit of sense to me. I’d have nothing to say to her. She’s a prostitute. There was no way I discussed the deal I was doing. Why would I? It was going according to plan and there wasn’t a thing to worry about.
Still though, it bugged me I couldn’t remember and it bugged me even more she wouldn’t tell me.
Just then, the cab pulled up outside the restaurant. Stepping out in the goddamn rain, again, I paid the driver and hustled toward the entrance. As I approached, the doorman stepped forward and let me in.
“Sir.”
I nodded. “Thanks pal.”
As I walked inside, I shook off a bit of moisture from my coat and began to remove it when I heard my cell phone ring inside my pocket. I figured it might be the guys, so I craned my neck around the entrance of the restaurant. They were nowhere in sight. I grimaced, reached inside my coat to retrieve my phone and turned it over.
Katy?
I stepped aside a bit, just out of the flow of foot traffic. Pinning my finger against my open ear to drown out the clink of silverware against fine china, I answered. The hiss of long distance crackled over the line.
“Grey!”
“Yeah,” I began. “Katy? I’m busy. Can it wait?”
“No, Grey. It can’t.”
It was still way too noisy for me to hear much of what she might say.
“Hang on, Katy.” I said as I placed my hand over the phone. Glancing around my immediate vicinity, I spotted a corner off to the side of the coat room. I paced towards it and once the din from the restaurant faded, I lifted the phone back to my ear.
“Okay, now what the hell is the goddamn problem?”
“It’s Maddie, Grey.”
“Maddie? What about her?”
“What do you mean? What about her?”
I shook my head. “Katy what the hell are you talking about? Look, you’ve got about five seconds to tell me what the hell is going on or I’m hanging up the phone.”
“It’s the baby, Grey. The complications, they’re…”
“Whoa, whoa!” I said as I raised my right hand in the air. Pointing my finger at nothing in particular, I continued, “What complications, Katy?”
“Uhm,” she sputtered. “Well the complications with the baby. The FAS?”
“Katy, I have no goddamn idea what you’re talking about right now. What. The. Fuck. Is FAS?”
“Fetal Alcohol Syndrome,” she stammered. Her voice had a sudden tone of remorsefulness to it. “Ohhh, oh no. Grey, please tell me you know about this. Please.”
Biting my lip, I straightened my spine. The fingers of my free hand flexed, threatening to curl into a fist. My silence didn’t go unnoticed.
“Oh Grey,” Katy began as her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry. I thought you knew. I thought Maddie told you.”
“Out with it, Katy. Right now. Tell me everything. You have my word I won’t hold it against you.”
With that, she swallowed and proceeded to spew out all of the ridiculous nonsense Maddie kept from me. The fact that her drinking probably would result in permanent birth defects to the child. And that’s if it even lived! There was the risk she posed to her own life by going through with this whole fucking charade. And for what? Why?
I thinned my lips as she finished speaking.
“Did you know about this?” I demanded.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. But almost as quickly she lowered her voice. I had no idea why. “But, I thought you did, too. I thought Maddie told you. When you came to the apartment? I thought that’s why you stormed out.”
“No, she didn’t tell me anything of the sort, Katy.” I said as I fought the urge to yell in the phone. “You really think I would have walked out on her? If she’d told me the truth? That my goddamn child was likely to be stillborn or if it lived, brought into this world with crippling birth defects? Um, no Katy. Just so happens she left that out. Fuck!”
Without thinking, I put my knuckles into the wall. The drywall crumbled around my fist sending bits of plaster and dust in every direction.
“Shit!” I yelled. Shaking my all-white knuckles, I glanced around the immediate area and noticed no fewer than ten sets of goddamn eyeballs trained on me.
“Grey? What is it? What’s going on?”
I disregarded her question as I dusted away the evidence from my hand. “It’s nothing, Katy. Just forget it. What is going on with her right now?”
“Grey, the doctors think she will probably…”
I swallowed. “Goddamn it, Katy. Spit it out. Probably what?”
“I…” she began. “You should come. I’ll explain everything when you get here and…”
“No, Katy. I’m not doing anything of the sort.” I fired back, interrupting her. “I-if this is some kind of ridiculous ploy you and Maddie have cooked up to get me back there, I’m telling you right now…”
“Oh Jesus, Grey! Get over yourself!” she screamed, cutting me off in return. “Maddie needs you! Can you for once, just once, put the needs of someone else ahead of your own?”
I scoffed. But before I could say another word, she continued.
“She’s probably going to lose the baby, Grey. Okay? Is that enough of a motherfucking emergency for you, you selfish prick? She’s in intensive care right now!”
“Jesus Christ.” I muttered.
I wiped my palm down my face. A sickening feeling of helplessness overcame me. I was angry, furious, she’d kept this from me. Enraged though I was, flying off the handle right now wouldn’t get me the information I needed. If nothing else, at least Maddie sounded as if she were in competent hands.
“All right, Katy,” I said with an exhale. “Tell me everything you know.”
She proceeded to recount the story of how Maddie fell ill at the apartment after I’d gone. The doctor had laid out her options which were scarce but before she could make decision about any of it, they had to rush her in for treatment. It was all Katy knew. I could hear it in her voice.
There was no reason not to trust her.
GREY
A little more than fourteen hours later, I arrived at the hospital. Katy met me at the entrance in tears. She collapsed her weight against me as heavy sobs poured from her.
“Katy? What’s going on? Where is Maddie? Is she okay?”
A few minutes later, I entered her room. They’d only just put her there moments earlier after having transferred her from intensive care. I looked across the room and saw Maddie lying there. On one side of her stood a nurse and on the other, an older man; looked to be a doctor. Maddie had wires connected to every part of her goddamn body.
“Come on,” I said, as I turned to Katy, who still wept as she stood next to me. “It’s gonna be okay.”
She looked up nodded, her eyes stained red from her tears.
As I walked to the bed, Maddie’s appearance stunned me. Ashen, she looked half-dead as she lay there, motionless. I hardly recognized her. For a moment or two, I just stared, unable to mutter a sound or even form a goddamn thought. At last, my awareness returned as I shook my head and took my focus off of her for a moment.
“Excuse me,” I said, as I looked at the man standing on the other side of the bed. “Are you the doctor? Who the hell’s in charge here?”
The man leaned away from me and arched a brow.
“I am. Dr. Matthews,” the man replied. “And you are?”
“Grey Sinclair.” I said. I pointed towards Maddie. “What is going on with this woman?”
Dropping his clipboard down to his side, he turned his head in a deliberate manner from me to Maddie and back again. “Well, um, are you a relative of Miss Olsen or…?”
“No, I’m the father,” I interrupted.
“Oh,” he replied. His tone darkened. “I see.”
