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A mental check of my current state tells me that whatever other holistic bullshit Annie does, there really is something to the idea of a belly massage — whether the lavender helps or not. “I don’t know about Mama,” I tell her, “but you’ve got some kind of magic, for sure. Much better.”
“Good,” Annie says. “It’s not good for either of you to be stressed like this. If you’re going to stay uptight, maybe I should see you a little more often. I can get you in three times a week, if you don’t mind a kind of weird schedule.”
“You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” I tell her. Three times a week is almost three grand for Annie. Over nine months? She’d be losing more money than I can possibly ask her to give up.
“It’s no trouble,” she insists. “Let me put you on the books. Just promise me you’ll follow the schedule. I’ll lay it all out through your due date and push it to your calendar.”
I sigh. Am I a charity case? I suppose I must be. “You’re too good to me, Annie. I don’t deserve it.”
“If not for you, I wouldn’t be where I am,” she tells me. There’s a pause after that.
I know what’s coming.
“It’s your decision,” she starts out, “and you know I support you no matter what, but… have you been in touch with Jake?”
“I have been the opposite of in touch,” I admit. “It’s insane, Annie... it has to be the hormones. I see him everywhere. Everywhere, Annie. I was in the bathroom the other day at the gym” — she gives me an approving nod, because the gym was her idea — “and I couldn’t hear the person in the stall next to me, and could not shake the idea that it was Jake, that he’d somehow followed me in and was waiting for me to come out so he could confront me about the baby.”
Annie bites her lip. She looks concerned, and with a sigh she tells me why. “Hon, I have to be honest with you.”
“Please do,” I sigh. It’s not like Annie has the ability to not say what she’s thinking, even if she does have infinitely better tact than I do.
“Paranoia? High stress? Irrational fears? Does that sound familiar?” She says it gently enough, but it still sends a shiver down my spine.
“Shit,” I breathe. “I didn’t even…”
The story about the gym? Seeing Jake in the grocery store even though I know damn well that man doesn’t buy his own goddamn groceries…
Those are the sorts of things my mother might say; the kinds of irrational things she’d call me about to come and dispel.
“You just need to manage your stress, Janie,” Annie says, one hand on my bare belly. “So come see me, three days a week. An hour at a time. Keep going to the gym, and…”
She doesn’t finish, but I know what she wants to say.
Tell Jake.
“I can’t, Annie,” I whisper. “Not after what he did.”
“It won’t stay a secret forever, hon,” Annie tells me. “Just make sure it comes out on your terms, or it’ll be more trouble. Either way — I’m here.”
“Thank you for that,” I say. “You’re the only ally I feel like I’ve got right now.”
“An even better reason to tell him.”
For all her gentleness, I can see in her eyes what she thinks.
Maybe because I keep looking at myself in the mirror with the same expression.
Janie
Freshly chastised, albeit gently, I leave Annie’s office feeling at odds with myself — much more relaxed, yes, but somehow more guilty, and more worried about what exactly I plan to do. So far, I haven’t given it enough thought.
But Annie’s absolutely right. I can’t hide a pregnancy forever. I have a tight body — for now, anyway — but I’m not some gymnast that can go nine months without showing and then have a surprise baby. I have another month at the most before there’s no hiding it. And that assumes that I can somehow convince Gloria to keep her trap shut, which will more than likely involve something ridiculous like making her part owner of Red Hall.
No. Over my dead body. Or hers. How much does a hit man cost?
I’m indulging in the macabre humor of that thought when I freeze. My heart crawls right up into my throat and before Jake even crosses the street it’s clear what’s on his mind.
He knows.
