A New Lu (15 page)

“Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”

“You love me so much you're going to share my house while I work for you.” The tinge of sadness in his gaze says he knows he's just talking to make us both feel better.

Thankfully, the first of the appetizers arrive: scallops with black truffle sauce. This is only the beginning of a steady procession of some the best things I have ever put in my mouth!

To steer clear of Cy's view of my future I begin to talk about any and everything. Pretty soon it's clear my focus is motherhood, and I blabber about shopping for babies online and the weekly baby yoga classes I may look into.

After an hour and a half has passed, the headwaiter, seeing a lull both in the conversation and service, toddles over and says with a small smile, “May I recommend one of our desserts?”

“Something chocolate,” we answer in unison. On that much, we can agree.

21

“There are three men in my house. I didn't invite any of them.”

“Sounds interesting.” Andrea rarely takes social calls at work, but I need to be humored. “Who are these daring males?”

“There's a contractor, who's searching for studs and talking about load-bearing walls. The plumber is looking for ways to tee off my main line to plumb a full downstairs bath. Cy is moving back and forth between them, with his sketch pad, drawing up plans.”

“How is darling Cy?”

“About two minutes from being tossed out on his ear.”

“That was your first mistake, letting him in.”

“No. That was my second mistake. The first was to tell him I had an appointment with a real estate agent today.”

“So how did it go?”

“It didn't. Cy waylaid her on the way to my door and then hung around. He was so rude that she finally asked me, ‘Are you certain your father is ready to sell the family
home?' I won't repeat what he said to her. I'd never heard it put that way before. Of course, I'll have to find another real estate agent.”

Andrea laughs at my expense. “You're too nice.
Muy estupido,
and too nice. Now I got to go be an attorney. Big client's got a hard-on because the judge sent his case to arbitration. I should start a side business. Escort service for uptight clients who need to get laid before they come busting down my door!”

And with that felonious thought, Andrea hangs up.

I hear doors slam, followed by male laughter. Fine. Cy thinks he's going to renovate. Meanwhile, I'm learning how to clean up my act.

While Cy and I may have thought our evening was haute cuisine heaven, Baby put a whole other spin on the term “hellish experience.” I will never ever again consume that much butter, salt and cream at one time!

It was 10:00 a.m. before I could sit upright in bed. Shortly after the agent stomped off and before men in work boots arrived, I browsed the neonatal aisles of my nearby bookstore. Every book and magazine that looked even remotely related to maternity health and nutrition came home with me. For the past two hours, I've been holed up in the window seat of my upstairs bedroom, ignoring the arrival of Cy and his cohorts, reading about eating for two. My grocery-shopping list is a healthy three columns long.

Another perk of
Five-O's
forward-thinking enterprise was that every worker, full- or part-time, could buy into the company health insurance plan. My next job may pay twice as much, but chances are generous health benefits won't be part of the package.

Which makes my walking out at
Five-O
even more of a kamikaze act.

I don't even look out to see who could be ringing my doorbell. It's 5:00 p.m. No doubt more of Cy's co-conspirators
who've signed out at their day jobs. If he wants to waste their time, let him. I haven't seen him this excited in years.

A few minutes later, I hear footsteps on the stairs and then a low knock.

“Come in!”

The door opens and Cy comes through. “Sorry to interrupt your—you're not napping?”

“I'm reading, almost as good.”

“So then I won't bother you.”

He is halfway out the door before I say, “Wait? Who rang the bell?”

Cy shrugs. “Some schlemiel. Says he's a photographer at
Five-O.
He looks like a hoodlum.”

I'm out of my cushy window box in a flash. “Curran's here?”

“Maybe that's what he said his name is. Who can tell, the way the young speak these days? He said he's here to ‘give props to my Boo.' Do you understand that boy?”

“Not always. But he's a good guy, Cy. Send him up.” If Curran came to see me for any reason to do with
Five-O,
it will require privacy.

“His pants don't fit properly.” Cy leans near to whisper. “I saw his shorts. They look clean. But that hair? In your condition, you can't be too careful.”

My assurances that Curran uses conventional hygiene, and that dreads are not necessarily “infectious disease centers,” send Cy away muttering under his breath.

After a couple of minutes I hear Curran taking the stairs two at a time, and then he's standing in the doorway. He's wearing a Rastafarian brightly knit baggy cap, a long white T with some sort of pieced-together knit vest, brand new baggy denim cargo pants and Jesus sandals with army socks. His attempt to grow a goatee has sprouted a few reddish hairs that he has twisted into tiny dreads about his mouth. He looks perfectly silly, and perfectly safe.

“Who's the old dude?”

“My neighbor.”

“Pops needs to chill. He made me wash my hands before I could come up.”

I'm so glad to see him I give Curran a big hug before saying sternly, “Did you really tell Cy you'd come to give props to your Boo?”

He grins.

“Well, save it for young women, like KaZi. She's your Boo.”

Curran shakes his head. “Not after she went all Britney, ‘I'm not that innocent' on me over this Marc poser.”

I slide back into the window seat and point to the lounge chair that was once Jacob's. “Tell me.”

Curran squats on the edge. “The mess got freaky after you did that Gloria ‘Swansong' on us. Gwendolyn up and took some personal days. That was after this Marc poser asked if she would “ethnic up” her column for the more hip reader. She told him finances were finances, and you can't ‘ethnic up' numbers. I didn't cop to what he asked Crescentmoon. But, damn, sistah's got a mouth on her! I was like peepin' notes.”

I shouldn't be smiling. I shouldn't be happy that my actions caused a rift in the ranks. “Anything else?”

“Most def. Last three days, the shizz is thick. Tai's so ticked she can't let up long enough to get over it. Brotha can't live like that. Damn!”

“Okay, stop.” My head is spinning. “I admire the linguistic virtuosity of hip-hop but I need standard English now. Okay?”

“Awright.”

I frown in warning. “What are you doing here? Nobody at work knows my home address.” Jacob had always said a column like mine needed a certain amount of distance from fans. I use a PO box for all business correspondence.

Curran grins. “You can put a cell phone number on the Net and come up with an address for just about anybody, you know how to look.”

Now I feel really unsafe. “Okay, so this visit was your idea?”

Curran looks embarrassed, trying not to stare at my middle, but his gaze keeps tracking back. “So is it true? You're going to have a kid?”

I lean back so he can observe the curve. “Yes.”

“That's phat!” It takes me a second to realize he's not talking about my belly. “You're way cool, Lu. At your age. Alone. Having a kid and, like, telling people to sit on it if they don't like it. You're, like, my hero!”

His earnest honesty reminds me that I'm now two for six in the happy-for-you department. Cy and Curran, bless them!

“Do you mind?” He points to his camera. When I shake my head, he whips it out. “I want to keep a photo journal of your progress. This is the most amazing thing!”

“What? Don't they make babies back in Omaha?”

He just clicks away, sliding off onto his knees to the floor to get a closer to me. “This is life. Only better. It's like Euro life. As you know, Catherine Deneuve had two children out of wedlock.”

“Too bad we can't sell tickets. I need a job.”

He grins and gives me some sort of bent-arm hand signal. “That's what I'm saying. I got your back, Boo—Lu.”

I'm grinning, too, though I couldn't say why. “How so, bro?”

He lowers the camera. “I squared things with Tai. You can come back to
Five-O.”

Not that I believe him for a minute, but I say, “I'm all ears.”

“I figure it like this. Tai needs you.”

“Needs my head on a platter, maybe. You saw her face when I made that remark about her doing the column.”

“Straight up.” Curran smiles. “Only Tai's over that. Said that's when she knew you were telling the truth about being pregnant. ‘Only some crazy—' Well, you know.”

“You mean the crazy-pregnant-lady defense?” I think about all the things she might have said and decide I can live with that. “So she's not angry?”

He scuttles to my right side. “I didn't say that. Tai's got control issues. But Rhonda found out that Tai sold this ‘New Lu' angle to her higher-ups on the guarantee of her bonuses, so they'd sign off on it.”

“Wow.” That explains why she was riding me so hard. “Guess my little stunt pulled the rug out from under her.”

Curran's head bops behind the lens. “Yup.”

Now, I feel bad, sort of. “I said at the beginning that it wasn't something I would do. Now that I'm otherwise occupied, it's impossible.”

“Exactly.” He pauses and perches his camera on his knee. “Now, this is how I figure it. Tai can't go back to the higher-ups so easily and say, my gal Lu done a one-eighty on us, so deal.”

“I wonder what she will do?”

“That's where yours truly comes in. I kinda had a talk with Tai this afternoon. I said, so what, we can't do the makeover? I thought that was whack. Anytime you see it on TV, it's so over for the market share. Except, sometimes TV's ahead of itself. Like with reality shows. Catch my drift?”

“Not even slightly.”

“I've been at the magazine awhile. So like, what's a fifty-year-old woman's worst fear? Being dumped by hubby, right? But shit like that happens every day. Only with you we can go high concept. Sell it as a midlife ‘survivor' scenario.” He raises his hands as if he's framing headlines. “She's fifty…abandoned by her spouse! Left alone she must deal with a
real
shocker: The Big
P
!” Curran flushes with his inventiveness. “I call it ‘The Pregnant Pause.'”

I have to admit, his thought process impresses me. I'm appalled by the idea, but impressed he thought of it. He may have a future in the Big Apple, after all.

“So you're suggesting I ‘prime time' my very personal life? Who do you see as the audience for this tell-all?”

“Every woman, pro or con. I peep
People.
You've got your late-life pregnancies popping up everywhere. Geena Davis, again. Julianne Moore. Cindy Crawford. Joan Lunden had twins at fifty-two.”

“She used a surrogate.”

“But you're a signed check. The real deal. You can give Tai an exclusive behind-the-scenes, blow-by-blow look at a late-life birth.”

“And Tai bought into this?”

Curran nods vigorously. “Tai bought into it. Totally. Well, mostly totally. She's willing to parley.”

“Parley? As in I might need to crawl across broken glass to get my job back?”

Curran shrugs. “The way Tai sees it, you didn't quit. You just took a few personal days.”

Me at Tai's mercy? I won't do this. Because I don't need the money? The job? The security of insurance? Okay, pride be damned! Solvency is not to be sneezed at.

“I'm making no promises.” But my head is already swimming with column inches. “I have to think about everyone involved. This baby isn't a negotiating ploy. And I don't know that I want any part of a ‘reality fix' for people who are long on free time and short on dealing with their own real lives.”

Curran nods, but I can tell by the fixed expression on his face that he's dying to ask
the
question.

“And I have no intention of divulging the name of the sperm donor. Ever. Are we clear?”

“That's cool.” I think my admiration stock just went up another notch. The young love mystery. “Whatever you decide, Lu. I'm there for you.”

“Thank you.” I am touched by his show of loyalty. “Facing Tai was no small thing.”

His expression loses its playful quality. “You're really okay?”

“This is my life, Curran. I'm okay with it.”

“Then let's get some reality on film. Right up through the delivery.” He must read my expression because he adds, “Just think about it, Lu. That's all I'm saying.”

Uh-oh.
I've heard this before. “Think about what? You can't expect me to pose nude for you?” His expression gives him away. I'm out of my seat in a second. “You're nuts!”

“Not now, Lu, not now! In the ninth month. The Demis of the world think it's about a toned body and peekaboo sex. I want the earthy, gritty truth on film.”

“The truth would be more like a ‘Saggy Baggy Elephant' story. Forget it.”

“Okay, okay.” He rises from the floor. “Don't go off on me.”

“What's going on?” Cy comes barreling through the door, looking like thunder. “He's bothering you, he's out of here.” Cy points a finger at Curran. “Now.”

Curran is half again as tall as Cy but he doesn't have
the presence.
He lifts his hands in mock defense. “Chill, dude. I just came to tell Lu she still has her job.”

“Is this so?” Cy looks at me, and I nod.

Cy's expression alters to the pleasant one I know best. “Well then, sit down, young fellow. I was just about to order dinner. You like calamari?”

“Oh, no.” I take Cy's arm and steer him back into the hall. “You've done quite enough for one day. Thanks. Be a dear and go home.”

Cy cocks his head toward my bedroom. “You are putting that one out, too?”

“Eventually. We have work to do.”

Cy cups my chin. “You will be careful?”

“He's a lamb, Cy. I know his girlfriend.”

Cy shrugs. “I'll call you later.”

“Now what?” Curran is standing with his camera ready. A flash from it hits me squarely in the eyeballs.

“You're going to drive me to the supermarket, because you've blinded me. Then I'm going to break my rule about not cooking for uninvited guests and make us dinner.”