Random Acts of Hope (31 page)

The snake stopped moving, and the camera zoomed out for a wider, panoramic shot, showing all
the
band members, Darla, the stagehand and the two guys in khaki in a freakish pose, like a stylized
Vogue
cover.

The spotlights all moved to the snake, who was now one long, smooth line of reptile with a chicken-shaped bulge
at its head
.

“Dinner and a show,” Garrett gasped through a mortified giggle.

Some lighting technician with a sense of humor turned a spotlight on Esme 2.
0
,
who flopped helplessly on a stool, her face appropriately surprised. Someone nudged her enough to make her fall within a few inches of the snake’s head.
 

It reached by biting her, the ensuing hiss of her popping like a giant fart.

Trevor jumped on the snake and straddled it, right over the giant bulge o’ Mavis. The chicken was clearly thrashing and the two men in khakis screamed orders at him, but Trevor was a blur of focus. Like a trained navy SEAL (
do they train them
o
n removing a chicken from a snake?
), he pulled the snake’s head up just enough for a very angry chicken to emerge.

Mavis walked over to Esme and began pecking at her dead, deflating eyes.

The men in khaki quickly subdued the snake and Trevor picked up Mavis, whispered something in her ear, and turned to Darla with a look I couldn’t describe if promised the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in exchange for the words.

“That’s not really your
fiancée
!” Darla screamed.

The crowd jumped to its feet with a roar of approval and clapping and catcalls so loud you’d think they were calling for an encore.

Which they kind of were.

Liam

“Upstaged by a chicken, a snake, and a sex toy doll,”
Joe groused during intermission. “We’ll never live this down.”
 

“How’s Mavis?”
T
revor asked nervously.

“It’s not like the handlers
we
re getting out the jaws of life for her, honey,” Darla snapped. “
You went out there and nearly killed yourself over a chicken that isn’t even the one you kissed!”
 

S
everal techs turned their heads at that one, but wisely said nothing.

“She’s fine,” Sam said with finality. “What the hell happened out there? The handlers were idiots.”

“It’s not the handlers’ fault,” Darla said with a weird, sheepish look on her face. Her eyes were shifty, and it made the hair on my neck stand up.

“You arranged this?” I asked.

S
he looked at me with surprise, then a kind of admiration that I figured it out. “Yes. I just told them to bring a big snake and
a chicken
…”

“You
j
u
s
t
put
a hit out on Mavis!”
T
revor shouted. “
Are you seriously that jealous of a chicken?”
 

“
I
t’s not the real Mavis, you dumbass!” she argued. “
And she was your fiancée! You and Joe have particularly poor taste in who you propose to.” Memories of Suzy and the island of Eden hit me.
 

“She’s got a point,” I said to no one, because they were ignoring me.

“But it…what? Then why did you…?”
Trevor
seemed truly perplexed.

“You need a shrink, dude. You’re abnormally attached to that fucking chicken,” I said.

“Fuck you.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.”

T
he animal handlers had removed the snake from stage, and Esme had futt-futt-futted out into the crowd, where people were blowing up #RAOCROX on Twitter and Facebook. Snapchat was full of pictures from the performance, and Darla couldn’t keep up with all the new video
s
on YouTube.

We even got a q
u
ick visit from the venue’s general manager, who couldn’t stop laughing. “Glad the animal handlers have liability coverage for that one, because the chick
e
n’s owner is furious.”

“We can pay for a new chicken,” Joe said.

“
I
t’s a
t
rained chicken, so our estimate is around $5000.”

“A
$5000
trained chicken? How do you train a chicken?” Darla asked. “Teach it to cross the road? Make it flap its wings? Have it learn the fine art of
happy ending massages? For five
thousand dollars I’ll breastfeed a chicken from birth and train it to do play Mozart on a kazoo.”
 

“I’m thinking it wasn’t just the peyote that made you fall in love with a chicken,” Joe mumbled, looking at Trevor with a wary eye.

“Great work!” the general manager said, giving Darla the hairy eyeball. “You’re welcome back here any time. Just don’t bring anything too dangerous.” His laughter rang down the hall as the crowd began to chant louder. And louder.

W
e got ready for the second half of the performance, but who the hell could top that?

Charlotte

“
That show was finger-lickin’ good,” I said.
 

Liam’s groan was my reward.

The drive from the concert to Liam’s new place was mercifully short, and the ginger ale and pressure-point combo, plus my weird noctur
n
al rhythm that made the nausea go away
late at night
, meant this was probably the best hour I’d had in weeks.

The craziness of the chicken-snake-Esme incident had faded into a profound sense of exhaustion in me, and three times Garrett had gently nudged me awake in the second half of the concert. Liam didn’t take any offense from it, fortunately. I’d woken at the end to thunderous applause and my cheek resting on Garrett’s jacket, which he’
d
stuffed under my face as an impromptu pillow.

Eight
weeks into the pregnancy and everything looked fine. Two more
weeks
and I’d be at the same point I was at more than five years ago. Liam was with me now, and we were making the leap into the unknown, but we were doing it together.

“
Garrett thought that was amazing,” I told him, yawning.
 

“We’ll never top it,” he said bitterly.

“Maybe a cow and a sword swallower…”

“Ha ha.”

“He really thought you were so good,” I added.

“Great.” He focused on the road and I struggled to get my point across. Being blunt was best.

“You don’t have to work for your dad,” I said as he pulled into a parking spot on the road, right in front of his building. I took that as a sign of great luck.

“Huh?”

“You were amazing on stage. A rock star.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“No, Liam,” I whispered, and touched his arm. He went still. “I mean it. You belong up there with the rest of them.”

Conflicted chaos greeted me, those bright eyes so alive and full.

His palm reached for my belly. “I belong right here,”
he said gruffly.
 

“You can be here without being chained to a desk at your dad’s dealership. I have health insurance. I can work. We’ll find day-care—plenty of residence life people have kids and families. You can move in and—” I stopped cold. We hadn’t talked about this at all, but it had been spinning in my mind since that day he came to find me, dressed up and so eager to make this all work. So responsible.

So
there
.

He wanted to get married, to make it all official, but I needed more space. It was too much, too soon, and a part of me was, well…

Still not quite convinced this was all really happening.

His head turned slowly toward me. Sweat tickled the ends of his hair at the neckline, where it was still so short. He looked more like a Sp
e
cial Ops military dude back from field training than a guy who’d just spent an hour and a half grinding on stage.

“You want that?” His words were low and choked with emotion.

“Yes.”

The hand that reached for me was sure and steady. “I can’t move in with you and not be the one to take care of the family. You don’t have to work,” he said.

“I want to work!”

The laugh that poured out of him was one of mirth and overwhelm. “I didn’t say you
couldn’t
work. I don’t have the right to dictate that! I’m just saying you don’t
have
to work. I’m here for you. I’m this baby’s father. I never, ever thought I’d be able to do this, Charlotte. You’re giving me a gift I didn’t know I could receive.”

The car felt stifling, like I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. He sensed it, opening his car door and walking around to help me out.

“I can get out of a car without help.” I laughed.

“You won’t say that in eight months!” His arms cocooned me and he smelled so good, like fire
and sweat
and dust and work. His chin rested on the top of my head and I relaxed into the
em
brace, just starting to let myself trust that this really was happening. That Liam was here, our new baby was here, and that I could just be.

“In eight months the only reason you’ll have to be out at
2
a.m. will be to
go
and get me pickles and ice cream.”

“My dad said my mom’s big thing was shrimp rolls and pork rinds.”

“Ewwww.”

He shrugged. “It built a body this awesome.” He preened. I punched his shoulder and he led me to his new place.

Which was—and I’m being generous, here—the size of a janitor’s sto
r
age closet in my residence hall.

“Um, wow.”

“Don’t get lost.”

“I need a trail of bre
a
d crumbs.”

“Uh, you do that and the roaches will come.”

“Nice. See why I want you to move in with me? Where would we put the baby?”

He pointed to the wall next to
a
window. “I was thinking a nice hanging basket, right there.”
He got another punch for that one.
 

I yawned, the tug of the little futon so inviting. My head spun a little with dizziness, and my stomach had settled down, leaving me with a strange, not-quite-normal feeling. I was that tired.

“You need to sleep,” he said softly.

“I need more than sleep,” I said, contradicted by yet another invasive yawn.

He laughed. “How about we get naked and see what happens next: sleep or sex?”

“Deal.”

Liam

I still wasn’t used to this new apartment, and the futon on the floor thing meant my face was blasted by a big ray of sunlight every morning.

I woke up and was instantly blinded, but comforted by the slow, steady breath of Charlotte in my arms.

What a night. We killed it. Darla t
we
eted me and said we blew out all attendance expectations, and the December
c
oncert would clinch it. Summer tour next year, and if that went well—showtime. The big leagues. Record contracts and rights negotiations and opening for big, BIG acts.

All at the same time I was going to become a father.

Long shots line up in all the right ways sometimes, but that didn’t seem to be my path.
Playing the odds meant I got the shaft most of the time.
 

My hand ate up the warm, fresh expanse of Charlotte’s back. So
m
etimes the odds were in my favor, though.

Something was stuck on my leg, a weird, sticky feeling. Sex last night had been amazing. Powerful and vulnerable and like a deep-cleansing ritual. Cleared the air and more between us, and I felt hopeful. Like this was really going to work.

A
s
I nestled in, spooning behind her, that stickiness made the hair on my shin feel weird. I pul
l
ed the sheet back and—

“Holy shit! Oh my God, Charlotte. Charlotte!”

Blood. Everywhere. Coating the tops of her t
h
ighs, running down to our mingled calves. I shook her, lightly at first, then hard. She didn’t move, but her breathing was steady.

I jumped up. Where the fuck was my phone? Naked and half covered in blood, I fumbled for it, dialing 9-1-1.

“Charlotte,” I shouted, shaking her. Eyelids fluttered and she shook her head slowly, coming awake.

Th
a
nk God.

“Liam? What?” But she wasn’t just sleepy. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. My eyes jumped from her face to her belly, the slick of blood all over my bed making me crazy.

The baby. The baby.

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“Why are you calling…?” Charlotte asked, trying to sit up. She slumped back down.

I gave the operator the barest of details,
forgetting my own address for a minute, grateful to find a piece of mail in a stack on top of a box, the address right in front of my face. The operator
dispatched an ambulance.

A primal instinct to protect and preserve kicked in. Ignoring the blood on me, I shoved my body into jeans and a t-shirt, kicking on my flip-flops. “Don’t move, honey. Don’t move yet. An ambulance is coming.”

“Ambulance? Wha?” Her speech was slurred, and when she opened her eyes it was like she looked past me. “The residents can’t—” And then she looked down and screamed, a cry that etched itself into my brain forever.

“Charlotte! Charlotte!” I choked out, grabbing her clothes. Phone. Wallet. What else would we need? Oh, yeah—her purse. I gathered her shit and put it by the door then raced back to her. She w
a
s sitting up, a big clot of deep red blood on the mattress under where she’d just been lying. The sheets looked like someone had dumped a bucket of tiny leeches there, all coated in thin, dark blood.

The baby.

She started to grope, feeling the blood on her hip, her ass, then looking down and seeing her rust-colored thighs.

“Oh, no. No,
n
o, NO!” she screamed. “Not again. Not again.
Not again.
The baby, Liam. The baby.”
Her cries pierced the cold morning and mingled with the sound of emergency crew on the way.