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"I'm going to be a father," I said. The words came out matter-of-factly, which didn’t sound right in my head. I took a second and repeated them after allowing the idea to sink in just a little bit more. “I’m going to be a father!”
My mom shook her head. "Not if you can't find her, you won't."
"I could email her again," I said. "Send a follow up. Is that what you’re saying?”
My mother let out a sound like a horse whinnying. "Are you applying for a job or trying to win back the love of your life? She doesn't want you to check in on her in a few days, she wants you to prove you care and take her away like a knight in shining armor."
I laughed. "Mom, it's not the 1950s anymore."
"No, but women still want to be wooed. I may be old, but I still hear about all the young'ns from my magazines. They may be out of the homes and out of the kitchen, in jobs that women never would have dreamed of in my day, but they still want a man who can win them over."
“So, this is a test? Is that why she’s doing it?”
“Not exactly,” my mom said. “If I had to guess, I’d say she was having doubts and you’ve done nothing to help her with those doubts. You need to convince her that the uncertainty in her head is ridiculous and that you’re not only the man for her, but the father to her child.”
My mother was right, which was something she had a nasty tendency to be so much of the time.
“Okay,” I said. “So, what do I do. How do I find her?”
The look she gave me was one of moderate loving frustration. “When she filled out paperwork to join your office, she had to include an emergency contact, did she not?”
“Yes, but I can only access that in the case of emergency. It would be completely unethical—”
“Go find who she listed as an emergency contact,” my mother continued, interrupting me and ignoring any moral qualms I might have had with her suggestion. “That’s almost certainly who she’s staying with. And, if not, they’ll know where she is.”
“But Mom,” I said. “You don’t understand. That’s a major violation of privacy. If she reports me, I could lose my job. This is serious business.”
“Wesley,” she said, “if you’re not willing to break a few rules to win over your princess, then you don’t deserve to be her knight. Perhaps you can lose your job if you do this, but if you don’t, then you will certainly lose her.”
Again, my mother was right.
“Besides, what’s love without a little bit of risk?”
I nodded. “You may be right.”
“There’s no maybe about it!” she said. “So quit your hemming and hawing and go out there and win her back!”
She shooed me out with her hands and when I went to kiss her goodbye, she said, “Go! I don’t have time to repeat myself. I have a date with Lawrence in unit 14C and I’m already late.”
I left her room and ran back to the office. If this worked, I’d come back with a dozen magazines for my mom.
And, if not, I suppose at least I’d have plenty of time to spend playing backgammon with her.
CHAPTER25
***SLOANE***
Idon’t know why, but doing nothing was particularly draining to me. After a long day of doing nothing, I felt more tired than I would have if I'd been running around and working during that time. In fact, working often energized me, especially if I felt like I’d accomplished a lot.
I spent all day — my first day of not working — laying on the couch at Mila’s place watching TV. Terrible TV that didn't interest me in the slightest, though it did provide background noise to help me from feeling too alone. At the same time, the TV had a nasty habit of airing Judge Lauren throughout the day, often waking me up from a daze with her announcing, “You are the father!” which always shot my anxiety through the roof.
The hope was that living at my sister's would give me a break from life and, to a certain extent, it did. Unfortunately, certain necessities carried on and I still had to eat and sleep. Sleep was fairly easy (I spent the early part of the afternoon taking an unplanned nap), but food was trickier. I’d sustained myself so far throughout the day on nuts, crackers, and potato chips that I found in Mila’s pantry, but I knew that I’d need to fill my body with more than just simple carbohydrates. If not for me, then for the baby.
Sooner or later, I would go to the doctor, and they'd probably scold me for all the wrong food I was eating and all the terrible habits I had that were terrible for the baby. But right now, the best thing for the baby was for me to rest and try and get in a better mood. And, historically, nothing would get me in a better mood than Thai food.
So as 5:30 rolled around and my sister still wasn't home from work, I pulled out my phone and ordered some Thai food from a food delivery app. I wasn't super familiar with the amenities offered in North Hollywood, so I just went with the first option that got three stars. And then, because I was hungry and feeling sorry for myself, I spent the extra fifteen bucks so that the order would be rush delivered to me in forty-five minutes instead of the standard hour or so.
Once the order was placed, my eyes were glued to my phone, counting the minutes as they passed, hoping that the meal would arrive impossibly early. It didn’t. The magic food app hadn’t taken LA traffic into account.
