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asy stomach was morning sickness, plain old anxiety or a little of both. Today, however, she’d decided to stop procrastinating.
It was the morning of the AMAs and Ivy was scheduled for a video interview at eight thirty. As soon as her twin slapped on the headphones, Mia made a break for the door. In ten minutes she’d bought the pregnancy test and returned to the television studio. Although taking the test in the bathroom there wasn’t ideal, it was better than taking it at home.
She now had ten more minutes until Ivy would be done. Fortunately, she had a full bladder and the test took only three minutes to show results.
She sat on the toilet to wait. Head down, eyes closed, Mia sorted through her tangled emotions for a bright thread of certainty. How did she want things to turn out?
Pregnant? Joy at the possibility filled her like a crystal-pure note perfectly sung. But almost immediately anxiety rose up in her, drowning out the happy emotion. If she was pregnant, her life as she knew it was over. Nothing could possess her to keep being Ivy’s assistant, and when Ivy found out who’d fathered her child, Mia would probably find her relationship with her sister over, as well.
And what if she wasn’t pregnant? She’d feel a mixture of relief and disappointment. Everything would be easier. She wouldn’t have to change a single thing about her life.
But was that really what she wanted? How long did she think she was going to be Ivy’s assistant? Was she going to be forty or fifty and still following her sister around? Fetching for her. Putting up with her insecurities. With no husband and children and few friends.
Tears welled up in her eyes. She fought them off by taking several deep breaths and stabbing her fingernails into her palms. A baby would change everything. She could make a case for choosing her child over her sister. The guilt her parents heaped on her shoulders would lose its power.
Three minutes had never felt longer. Mia watched the seconds tick by on her cell phone; she’d started the stopwatch as soon as she took the test. While the seconds ticked off, she stayed in the stall, too afraid to stand in the bathroom proper and get caught with a pregnancy test in her hand. Not that anyone would know who she was or care what she was doing. Sometimes being invisible was nice. But there was that tiny chance that someone would be interested in what was going on and that information could leave the bathroom and cause her a lot of trouble.
When the time was up, Mia found herself unable to look at the test. She sat with it in her lap, the indicator facing downward. She didn’t need to look to see the answer. She already knew. She was pregnant. Her phone buzzed, scaring her. She dropped the test. It clattered to the floor and landed faceup.
These days the tests were easy to read. No more questionable results. Depending on which one you chose, there was a line, the word yes or the word pregnant. In Mia’s case it was “pregnant.” She swallowed a hysterical laugh. Her whole life had just changed inside the bathroom of a TV station.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Her whole life had changed the day she’d met Nate.
Mia had about thirty seconds to absorb the reality of her situation before the bathroom door opened and two women entered with a gust of animated chatter. She recognized the voices and quickly snatched the pregnancy test off the ground and dropped it into her work tote. She would just have to dispose of it later, when no one was around. Opening the stall door, Mia stepped out.
Skylar and Riley were standing at the sink, touching up their already flawless makeup. The key to being one of Ivy’s friends was to be beautiful without being too beautiful. No one was allowed to outshine Ivy Bliss.
That had never been a problem for Mia. She barely had enough time in the morning to shower and brush her teeth. Maybe apply a little eyeliner. A slash of neutral lipstick. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she’d don her uniform of black skinny pants and some sort of blouse. Her only jewelry was a pair of diamond studs she got for her sixteenth birthday.
“What are you two doing here?” Mia asked as she exited the stall. She stepped to the sink to wash her hands, avoiding eye contact with either of Ivy’s friends.
“We’re here to spend the day with Ivy and help her get ready for the AMAs.”
“She doesn’t need your help.” Mia didn’t make any effort to hide her impatience and didn’t care if she sounded rude. She’d had enough of these two. “Ivy has a team of professionals to get her ready.”
Skylar pouted. “She wants us.”
“She told us to come,” Riley echoed.
Mia wasn’t sure what to believe, but didn’t get a chance to argue further because the bathroom door opened and Ivy walked in. She glanced from her two friends to Mia and frowned.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded. “I’ve been looking for you all over.”
“I was explaining to these two that you don’t need them around today.”
Ivy pouted. “I invited them.”
“You need to focus on tonight.” Mia eyed Skylar. “They will just distract you. Come on. Jennifer is going to be at the house in an hour for your massage and Yvonne and her team are coming by at eleven.”
“In a second.” Ivy headed toward one of the stalls. “Can you go get the car? My feet are killing me in these shoes and I don’t feel like walking all the way out to the parking lot.”
“Fine.”
Mia didn’t want to argue with her sister. She was too excited about her own plans for later that day. Nate had pulled out all the stops to make her AMA experience special. He’d arranged for her to have a hotel suite where he was staying, and his stylist would be there at two o’clock with a designer dress and all the trappings to get Mia award-ceremony ready.
Ten minutes later, after Mia had fetched the car and picked up her sister, they were heading back to Ivy’s house. “How did the interview go?”
“It went okay. Didn’t you stay to watch?”
