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She patted the girl’s head. “This is Hallie.” The little girl was a mini version of her mother, with dark hair and porcelain skin. The photographs in Elizabeth’s office didn’t do her justice.
“I’m Nikki,” I said, waving.
The girl waved back.
“That’s Danvers.” Elizabeth pointed into the stroller, where the baby looked up at me with a toothless smile.
I didn’t want to be a suck-up and tell Elizabeth that her children were beautiful, but they were indeed gorgeous. It figured. The damn woman got whatever the hell she wanted in life. “Your kids are adorable,” I managed.
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. “You were supposed to send me a copy of the yoga story this morning. Why haven’t I seen it yet?”
The nanny cleared her throat. “I’m going to get going before Danvers falls asleep.”
Elizabeth placed her hand on the nanny’s arm. “Wait—I’ll walk out with you.”
The nanny and I made eye contact again. Though no words passed between us, I knew she was telling me that Elizabeth was a huge pain in her ass too.
Elizabeth looked back at me as if she’d just remembered something. “My apologies,” she said. “Nikki, this is the children’s nanny, Casey.”
Casey ...My knees buckled, and I stumbled forward.Casey? The name is a coincidence. Has to be. Casey is a common name, after all. Oh no, it really isn’t.My eyes flew to her abdomen. Her shirt ballooned over her waist, giving nothing away.
“Nikki, are you okay?” Elizabeth asked. “You’ve gone white.”
I took a deep breath in. “You look familiar,” I said to Casey. Though she really didn’t. With her copper hair, fair skin, perfect cheekbones, and bright-green eyes, she was someone people remembered, I was sure.
“It’s a small town,” Casey said. “We’ve probably been at the same place at the same time before.”
“The Penalty Box?” I asked.
“Yes! I’m there all the time. I sing there.”
I felt light headed and reached toward the wall to steady myself.
“She has a lovely voice,” Elizabeth said. “Sings to the kids all the time.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I stood there staring at Casey, my mouth open. She was so young, a kid practically, somewhere in her early twenties, beautiful enough to attract any man she wanted. What would she see in a fortysomething married man?
“I, um, I should get the kids home.” She turned her back to me and pushed the stroller toward the elevators, leaving Elizabeth and Hallie behind.
I wanted to shout after her. Ask her if she knew Kyle. If she really was pregnant. If she were sure Kyle was the baby’s father. If he was, had they really only slept together one time? Maybe if I weren’t at work or maybe if Elizabeth’s kids weren’t there, I would have grilled her. Instead, I raced toward the bathroom, sank to my knees on the grimy floor, and dry heaved into the toilet.
Chapter 31
Sharon didn’t notice me moping in her backyard. I stood by an azalea bush bursting with purple flowers, watching her push Noah on a swing. Her horizontally striped shirt accentuated the bump in her belly. By the end of summer, she’d be a mother of three.
“You’re flying,” she cooed as Noah’s swing swayed back and forth.
As I watched my best friend play with her son, memories of us teetering on a seesaw in the playground when we were eight or nine flashed through my mind. Our mothers had sat on a bench as they watched us. Dana slept in a stroller that my mom rocked back and forth as she spoke to Mrs.Driscoll. Sharon and I were trying to break our record for the most times going up and down, which was 503. We’d made it to 442 when Dana woke up, screaming. “We have to go, Nikki,” my mother called.
“A few more minutes,” I said.
“Right now.” My mom’s tone made it clear not to argue. I hopped off the seesaw.
“Babies ruin everything,” Sharon said. “I don’t like them.”
She had come so far since then, created her own family, while I was about to be on my own again.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Sharon called out. “Everything okay?”
