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“Areyoulate?”
“Late?” I said. “What do you mean, late?”
Doctor Pelekai was a short, fit woman in her mid-forties. She looked at me and immediately took off her white doctor’s coat.
She sat down next to me, where my legs dangled off the examination chair. It made me feel oddly childish.
“I mean, are you late for your period?”
“I …” I said, then thought about it.
I didn’t have the world’s most regular cycle. But yes, I hadn’t had my period. I remembered now that I’d been worried about getting it before I began the shoot last week. But I was late.
And now, according to Doctor Pelekai, I was having symptoms of morning sickness.
“I think you should take a pregnancy test,” said the doctor, smiling rather wistfully.
So, an hour later, after I’d drunk a pint of water, I sat in the bathroom, staring at the tiny pair of red lines before me.
I was pregnant.
And Alex was the father.
As I sat there, breathing heavily, there was a knock on my door.
Maybe it was Alex. Maybe Krista had told him, or maybe he knew. How would I explain it to him? I mentally rehearsed a series of explanations as I strode toward the door of the hotel room and opened it.
But when I finally plucked up the courage to turn the handle and open the door, Alex wasn’t there. It was Janine, one of the stylists I’d been working with last night on the photoshoot.
“Mr. Alson’s asked me to come over and do your hair,” she said, grinning.
“My hair?” I said, utterly bemused.
“That’s right. For the party tonight.”
“Party?” I muttered. “What party?”
“Not really sure. I was actually just on my way out when he caught me. He came and spoke to me personally,” said Janine.
I could tell it was a big deal for her that she’d been asked to do the job by Alex.
“Sure,” I said, opening the door and motioning for her to come in. “Let me just jump in the shower and I’ll be right out.”
I ran into the bathroom and hid the pregnancy test underneath a pile of my things. I didn’t want anyone to know. Not now.
Not before I’d told Alex that I was carrying his baby.
Halfanhourlater,I was sitting in front of the mirror. Janine had cut and styled my hair into a beautifully textured bob. She worked quickly and cleanly, making no mess on the plastic sheet which she’d placed under my chair by the wide, old-fashioned dresser in my suite. She was an incredibly talented stylist, who normally worked for celebrities and supermodels, and as I turned my head in the enormous oval mirror which sat on top of the dresser, I felt unashamedly happy with the way I looked.
It was so like Alex to think of this kind of thing, I thought, so nice of him to help me get ready …
Stop it, said a voice inside my head.He’s not your fiancé.
But he is the father of your child, said a different voice, and I shook myself out of it. I was cracking up for sure. Too many lies, too many secrets, floating around in my head.
“How do you feel?” said Janine. She was incredible like that. Janine never asked, “How does it look?” Instead, she always asked, “How do you feel?” She knew, like any professional in the fashion industry, that confidence is the key to success.
“I feel …” I said, but I truly didn’t know what I felt. Did I feel amazing, at the prospect of becoming a mother? Did I feel disheartened, or ashamed? I’d always wanted kids, but I pictured having them in a few years, not now, with a loving, supportive husband. Did I feel excited at seeing Alex, or nervous, for what would no doubt turn out to be another of the strange situations we kept getting ourselves into together?
