This Much Is True (27 page)

“Because you weren’t eating enough.”

“Maybe.” I sigh. “Anyway, this guy does a lift with me for another rehearsal and he’s teasing me that I’ve gained weight. His remark gets me to thinking. Five pregnancy tests later, it’s all but confirmed. I’m not panicked, not quite. I console myself with the idea of an abortion because I have up to twenty-four weeks to decide. But when it comes down to a decision like that? I can’t do it. I kept thinking of Holly. Life is precious. I couldn’t just take it away.
I know.
Who knew Tally Landon could ever have a conscience about anything?” I laugh a little. “So, the weeks just pass on by, and here I am…nine months pregnant.”

“You’re amazing,” Rob says. His hand rests near mine.

“Not so amazing.” I hang my head and swallow hard.

“Marla’s been a great friend, but I’m holding her back from everything she really wants. She struggles with the modeling thing. She thinks I don’t notice.” Rob nods, confirming for me that Marla’s confided in him, too. “She stays in New York for me. I owe her so much for doing that, but she belongs with Charlie. She went home to work things out with him. I’m just trying to keep it together, have this baby, and get on with my life.” I take an unsteady breath. I should probably be out with all of it. “We had a disagreement about Tremblay a few days ago. Allaire came by the apartment with an offer to adopt this baby.”

“Allaire Tremblay wants to adopt your baby?” He’s taken aback. “That’s pretty audacious.”

“I thought that, too, at first. How do you know so much about Tremblay?” I look at him uncertain, and then it comes to me. “Oh. Holly.”

He nods. “She used to fill me in on the stories about Tremblay,” he says dryly. “The woman is…detrimental. Yeah, she’s detrimental in all senses of the word—a
detriment
and
mental
.” He laughs at his own joke. I can’t quite bring myself to disagree with him because I’ve wondered as much about Allaire Tremblay myself.

“I’m not sure I can do it.”

“Do what?”

“Give this baby up to complete strangers. Not after learning what Holly was going to do…I am thinking of letting Tremblay adopt her. That’s a win…for almost everyone.”

This conversation has become too personal. He looks surprised and then disappointed again.
In me? Of course.

I walk away from him because suddenly the idea of being suspended on this bridge above the water below and talking about this baby
with him
is too much for me to handle.

“I can help you,” he says from behind me. “Let me help you.”

“What do you mean?” I whirl back around and stop him in his tracks with my sudden rage. He looks surprised by it. I’m sure Holly never lost her temper with him. Holly never got mad at anyone for long, including me.

“This isn’t like buying a house or purchasing a car or deciding which college you’re going to attend. This is
big
. It’s life. It’s a child. A commitment for a lifetime—a commitment that I’m not willing to take on. I’m not ready. I’m not good at this kind of thing.” I grimace and turn on him further. “Please don’t stand there and judge me because I’ve come up with a solution that works for me. Please don’t do that. It’s not like I haven’t judged myself enough as it is already. I really don’t need you doing it, too.”

He looks disillusioned. He seems to search my face looking for a different answer. Finally, he says, “What does Marla say?”

“Like I said, Marla’s not happy with the idea of Tremblay adopting this baby or
me
for considering it. There’s this couple she found that want to adopt a child. We’ve worked out an adoption contract with them. Tremblay just showed up a few nights ago with this solution, and Marla didn’t like it. Her life has been turned upside down by all of this, by being away from home and hiding my secrets from everyone we know, especially from Charlie. New York.
Me.”
I look up at him directly. “It’s all a bit much for all of us.”

Rob nods slowly and looks at me more intently. “I can help you.”

I ignore what he’s said. “Let’s face it…I’m a drain on everybody I care about.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes. It
is
. It is true.” I force myself to smile and then shake my head at him. “You’ve been warned.”

“Your sister warned me about you a long time ago.”

He gets this determined look that I’ve come to recognize in the past few hours. He’s not going to take no for an answer—
any
of my answers. I’m bothered on a few different levels that he and Holly used to talk about me.

“What did she say? About me?”

“She said you were the most beautiful girl in the world—inside and out.” He gets this little smile. “Talented? Oh yes. Amazing. Stubborn. Wicked. A rebel in every sense of the word but that underneath the edgy exterior, you show the world is this amazing wonderful girl, who just wants to love and be loved.”

“She told you all of that? When?” I ask, incredulous and skeptical at the same time.

“That day. You were out there waiting in your car. I saw you from the window and asked what you were doing there with her. I was angry with you, especially when she told me how you had
concerns
about me and New York and NYU. About me ‘
tagging along
’, as she said you put it. Holly insisted we all had to get along, or I couldn’t come.” He frowns. “I wanted to be with her, so I promised her I’d try to get along with you. We’d work out our differences.”

“That’s quite a promise.”

Now he looks really unhappy. I’m a little put out and confused by the direction this conversation is going. I think it must show in my face. He sighs deep and so do I.

“Tally, I haven’t been completely honest with you. I saw you a few months back. I saw that you were pregnant, and I should have—”

“You knew I was pregnant?” I step back from him while this weird vertigo sensation comes over me. “How?”

“Like I said…I saw you a few months ago. You were out running, and I saw that you were pregnant. I…I thought you still hated me, and I wanted to wait for the right time to talk to you. My parents were visiting that weekend. I had to sign some stuff for my dad. He took a hit in the stock market and had to move some funding around, and he bought a few places, here in New York, just after the market tanked last fall. We’ve just finalized a deal on an apartment by NYU, by SAB, by you and Marla. And I thought I could help. I want to help because I figured out you hadn’t told your parents when you didn’t go home at Christmas, and I thought…I could help. And then, you called. I know it looks bad, but I was going to call you this week anyway—”

“I don’t believe you.” He isn’t making any sense, and he sounds too much like a stalker at this point even for him.

“I know it looks bad, strange. She said I needed to understand you better. Holly wanted us to all get along and be friends. She’d told Marla she was pregnant, and she was going to tell you. That day. She wanted us all to be happy and live in New York together. And so I came to New York last fall—like we’d planned—and tried to put my life back together and keep an eye on you and Marla. I thought maybe we could eventually be—”

“What? Be friends? Live happily ever after? What, Rob? Jesus, you lay all this on me in a public place.” I angrily sweep my arm across the general area. There is green grass and trees and sidewalks everywhere but not a soul in sight. Strange, given the time of day. It’s after one in the afternoon after all when New Yorkers seem to be everywhere. “You can’t just ride in on a white horse and rescue me, Rob Thorn. I don’t even know if I
like
you.”

He winces and so do I because I sound harsh and bitchy and ungrateful. I hesitate and take a breath while my mind races and my body contacts and my anger soars.

“I have a life.” I look at him hard, ensuring he understands. “I’m going to be a star ballerina. You’re not a part of that. I don’t even know if I
like
you. I’m not Holly. You can’t just
buy
your way into my life.”

I race down the sidewalk, gripping my protruding front and try for a dead run. Within three minutes, my right side begins to ache with the fast pace and this alarming pain starts up between my legs. I won’t be able to keep this up too much longer, and it frustrates me that I can’t physically do what I need to do. It’s been this way the last month, and I hate admitting it to myself, let alone to anyone else. Tears of frustration blind me. I wipe at them with my right hand and keep a tight grip on my stomach with my left. I feel off balance. I almost trip. The stupidity of the situation wins out.

Why am I running? What am I so afraid of? Rob Thorn? Surely not.

I am Tally Landon. I am doing it my way. I will be myself. I will do this thing.
Alone. Naturally.

I will do this thing alone.

I stop running.
The sidewalk materializes with people—regular people who mill their way through their lives and Central Park with little regard for me. There are only a few who offer no more than a cursory glance in my direction. I’m sure the out-of-breath, pregnant girl gripping her sides and staggering around on the sidewalk is only distracting for some of them and a non-event for all the others.
I am alone. Naturally.

A hand touches my lower back. I look up into the dark-blue eyes of one Rob Thorn, not Lincoln Presley’s dizzying light grey-blue ones.
No. Not Elvis’s eyes at all.
There’s this fleeting disappointment that comes along with that single crushing thought. Heartbreak crosses my features before I’m able to completely hide it.

But then?

He smiles. That smirky smile. Oh, God, the smile. It’s distracting enough and endearing enough that it shores me up a little. It’s crazy. I think I’ve all but drowned, and his smirky smile rescues me from the depths of myself and the despair of losing Holly, of losing Linc, of possibly losing Marla, and of giving up this baby. None of these losses quite touch me when he smiles like that.
At me.
I could stare at him forever when he smiles like that. I could possibly forget the loss of everyone else. It comes to me then.
That’s what Holly must have loved best about him.

“Well,” Rob says, and then he pauses and gulps at the air. It almost makes me want to laugh. “She always said you were hard to keep up with. I guess Holly was right about everything, especially you.”

“What do you want from me?” I ask somewhat gingerly while this unidentifiable emotion slowly makes its way through me.

This feeling is like a rush of warm air over bare skin, and this soothing calm soon follows. I gasp at the unexpectedness of it all. He makes me feel something new, however foreign. And then it comes to me. It’s this undeniable feeling of hope.
He gives me hope.
It’s overwhelming…this feeling.

All my life, I’ve known how to remain indifferent. Since I was fifteen, I’ve known how to kiss a guy, have sex with him but keep him distant. Since I was ten, I’ve known how to command a stage, get the lead, and perform perfectly. I’ve known how to take and receive and take again. My whole life up to now, I’ve known how to love or not to. I’ve known how to be me, and I’ve known how to be Holly. What I haven’t recognized or understood or felt until this singular moment as I gaze up at Rob Thorn is the amazing capacity that hope brings.
Hope.
He gives it to me so easily. It’s there in that smirky smile of his, in the way he gazes down at me, and then again, as he gently kisses my forehead. I frown with the gesture, close my eyes, and hide my face in his shirt.

My mind succumbs to the weight of uncertainty even as this unfamiliar feeling of hope races through me and proves to be a much bigger force to deal with. I can actually feel it extinguish the uncertainty. It’s like a rush of air that inevitably snuffs out a candle flame.

Hope? I feel hopeful? He makes me feel hopeful?

It would seem he gives it freely without a requirement for anything of me in return.
No.
He just holds onto me in this loose embrace with his arms reaching ever so lightly across my shoulders. My head meets up with his chest in this perfect stance, and I can hear and feel his beating heart.

We’re standing so close together that when the baby decides to interrupt the moment and kick, he feels it, too. I hear his soft laugh and his simple happiness travels straight through to me.

“What do you
want
…from me?” I mumble the harsh words against his chest and then quickly step back and scan his features in a desperate search for honesty, truth, and some indication as to what kind of price I will have to pay for all of this.

“I want to help you.”

“What else?” I ask cautiously. “What else do you want from me?”

“I want to be your friend.”

The words are sincere enough to make a girl cry, or laugh, or both equally in my case.

* * * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Tally ~ Power shifts

N
o one has to explain to me how life can turn on a dime—how it can change in a single day or the next explosive second. My water broke just as Rob and I arrived back at the apartment. I blame it on the endless flights of stairs we judiciously climbed back up to the apartment. Both of us shared wisps of terror at what lay ahead of us (me), as we piled into a taxi and raced to the nearest hospital where drugs were quickly administered to me for pain, while the explanation was so easily given that it was too late for an epidural. That seemed flimsy to me. Yet, there was little time for debate because I was going too fast according to the rather cute ER doctor who first took care of me. A cute ER doctor was about the only good thing I could come up with in those first precious hours. Yes, in between those first few seconds when the reality of my situation made itself known and finally enveloped all of me—and in addition to the seven hours that have passed since then—I’ve managed to become a mother to one perfect baby girl because life can change on a dime. And it does.

Again.

The baby stares at me from the bassinet that the on-duty nurse has placed right next to my hospital bed. Rob has taken a much-needed break for food and coffee. I am left alone with this infant because our frantic change of plans led to Lenox Hill Hospital in lieu of New York Hospital where my original birth plan is on file.
True.
No one here knew about my plan to give this baby girl up for adoption. I was the one that urged Rob to step away and take a break. I needed one, too. From him. From
this
. All of it. I require this alone time with this baby I’m not supposed to keep or want or love. Yet I recognize this unexpected gift, and I want at least thirty minutes with her all by myself in order to take it all in.
Her.
Alone.

My mind races with all these incongruent euphoric thoughts. I could raise her. I could find a nanny. I could get a job, at least one that
pays
. Hire a nanny. Get a job. Dance during the day. Work at night. Pay a nanny. I could become the cliché working mom in every love story ever filmed. And when would I see this baby exactly? I could go home. Give up ballet. Come clean with my parents. I can do any or all of these things. Any of these things. None of them. Options. Choices.
I can do this. Can’t I?
How would I do this?
I can’t.

I stare at this baby, who stares back at me awaiting answers—
needing them,
in fact. She is so perfect. She is this angel, who seems to smile at me, although Rob read somewhere that this is impossible. Babies don’t smile until they’re almost three-months-old, he assured me of this earlier.

My hand languishes in mid-air, a mere six inches from hers. I’m afraid to even touch her, afraid of falling further in love with her—this miracle. I turn my aching body more fully onto my left side and just continue to stare at her. Eventually, she sighs deep and closes her eyes. I mimic her sleeping sounds from my ever-watchful position.

Allaire Tremblay’s face comes to mind. Earnest. Determined. Serious. Ever calm. All these good qualities—a mother has—that seem to evade me. I can still recall Tremblay’s understated joy from a few days ago when she offered to take this baby after explaining how the idea had just come to her the night before. She’d been thinking about my situation. It dawned on her that she was in a perfect position to raise a child, unlike me.
True.

I shake my head. She probably won’t name her Cara. Tremblay’s favorite ballet is
Swan Lake
. I’d probably have to learn to live with the name Odette, or worse, Odile, because hands-down Tremblay’s favorite ballet production is still
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake
. Maybe I could talk her into Juliet. Probably not. Tremblay would most likely come up with a name that conveyed something sentimental or tragic or both, even if it wasn’t after a character in a production. She’d hire a nanny, move back to San Francisco, and would ensure that I have the chance of a lifetime to pursue my dance career with NYC Ballet. She’s hinted at that much.

Life would go on.

Life would move on.

I would…move on.

Logical. All of it.

I could live with that. Couldn’t I?

I reach out and trace the baby’s little fingers with mine. She stirs in her sleep and emits this angelic sigh.
She’s going to be okay.
I smile at this vacant thought, even as my body vaguely throbs with this fresh shimmer of heartbreak. Then I reach for my cell phone and dial Tremblay’s number.

The searing pain that came with delivering this little child dissipates with every passing moment she’s here, but there’s this other pain—this tangible heartbreak—that I recognize and honestly accept. It is so much worse. I’m already convinced of its permanence.

* * *

Allaire Tremblay doesn’t waste time. Ever. Not even now. She bursts into my hospital room with this barely-veiled euphoria. She is a woman with a purpose and in awe of her unexpected gift—from me. I watch her struggle to hide her outright joy now. Her dancer’s strut across the room to grab my hand does little to diminish the sudden anxiety Rob and the newly-arrived Marla display at her whirlwind entrance. Tremblay seems momentarily taken aback at their very presence. The duo takes an unconscious protective stance against the prima ballerina’s unwelcome entrance, while I am restored, somewhat bolstered up, by her obvious happiness. I revel in it. In my decision.
This is good. This is right for all of us.

“Oh,” Tremblay says with a touch of dismay. “I didn’t realize you were here, Marla.” There’s an unmistakable frozen quality in her tone and words. Her eyes narrow in the all-familiar, critical way that we know only too well, although these circumstances are far from the usual inspection of Tremblay’s dance criteria, even for the woman herself.

I flew back in early this morning after Rob called me.” Marla rewards both Tremblay and me with a warning look. She’s not happy with either one of us. Me—for not calling—and Tremblay because of her very presence here.

I sit up a little straighter in bed, profoundly aware of my intended power. I can change my mind at any moment in the next forty-five days and there’s not a damn thing that Allaire Tremblay could do about it. No matter that I’ve pondered this consoling thought for the past half hour even as Rob and Marla have taken turns raging at me about my decision to give up the baby to Allaire Tremblay. With admitted reluctance, I had to confess to them that I already called her and told them my decision was final. I’ve tried not to let Rob’s earlier derisive assessment of Allaire Tremblay about being
detrimental
influence me again, but it’s hard.
All of this is hard.

The room overflows with tension from all four of us while the little baby right next to me sleeps on. The crying infant stage has yet to materialize. Once I announced that I would be bottle-feeding this baby, the nursing staff (after one last carefully coordinated effort of convincing me otherwise) reluctantly produced a bottle of formula, and the baby was fed without mishap by Rob. I’m sure there have been private discussions at the nurses’ station about my lack of mothering interest, but, so far, no one has said anything openly about it to me.

I’ve successfully checked off most of the things on their little chart that I must show I can do before being released from the hospital.
Eat. Go to the bathroom on my own. Eat. Drink. Be Merry. I’m a Christmas card.

Dr. Shimmer swung by, apologized profusely for missing the baby’s birth and adroitly made the hospital staff aware of my adoptive wishes. She assured all those concerned that I am properly informed and have consented and willfully give up my child in an open adoption arranged with the private-practice lawyer of Allaire Tremblay’s choosing. This has diminished the questioning but not completely erased it. After Dr. Shimmer left, a few good souls ventured in inquiring, “If I was sure?” My assurance didn’t exactly placate them.

There were more than few who looked beseechingly at Rob, hoping he could talk some sense into me. Until finally, at one point, I ungraciously said in exasperation, “He’s
not
the father.” This turned them around.

Now, with Allaire Tremblay on scene, things will finally move forward instead of backwards in deference to the general open concern for my well being.
Was I sure? Is anyone really sure?

I’m adrift from it all. I fight lapses of overwhelming sorrow that combines nicely with this newfound mommy guilt. I can barely combat these two feelings that seem to be competing for my very soul, let alone spend more than few cursory seconds thinking through the ramifications of my decision. I experience all these unexpected thoughts of Lincoln Presley. These assail me in all these persistent ways and ignite this rising doubt that I’m doing anything right in giving up our baby for adoption to Allaire Tremblay.

It’s true that the mind can handle only so much, and mine is maxed out.

“Do you have a name for her?” Tremblay clears her throat and gets this nervous smile. She’s anxious, and I’m caught off-guard because I’ve never seen her like this before. It makes me feel closer to her somehow.

“Cara. I was thinking Cara. It’s simple. It means—”

“
Beloved
. I love it.”

“Cara Landon Presley Tremblay,” I say in rote. All those names have been on my mind, and they tumble out of my mouth before I can take them back. I look up anxiously at Tremblay for an entirely different reason—to gauge if she heard what I just said. “Too much?”

She gleams at me but all she says is, “No.”

Her hand trembles in mine. I glance down and watch her fingers collapse and convulse with nerves. The power has just shifted, and we both know. I just gave away Linc’s last name. I know she’ll trade upon that tidbit of good fortune. I don’t have a choice now.

I swallow slowly and try to follow what she is saying.

“Cara is a fabulous name. Cara. A little girl named Cara could have the world at her feet; n’est pas? But no need to decide right now.” She practically purrs with her newfound power.

I lean back against the pillows defeated by my slip-up somehow already knowing that this mistake will cost me everything if I’m not careful. “Cara’s good. I love it,” I say into the stillness of the room. Marla is looking at me funny as if she just doesn’t quite get what’s going on here. I’m half hopeful that maybe Tremblay has missed what I said like Marla obviously has; but then, I look at the older woman’s face. She hasn’t missed a thing.

“It’s perfect. Cara it is,” she says with a clap of her hands.

Marla steps toward me, catching my eye. “What are you doing, Tal?”

“Everything’s fine. It’s good. We’re good.” I flash Marla a wide smile. We can’t afford to upset Tremblay right now on any level. My eyes tell her this and signal with my left hand our familiar
we’ll talk about this later
. Marla’s eyes go wide. I think she’s beginning to figure it all out—what I just revealed—and how it affects all of us.

“We can keep this as open as you like,” Tremblay is saying. “However, you want to do it.”

“Right. I don’t know.” I glance up at her. She withdraws her hand completely from mine. “Can we talk about it later? I just want to…I just want to get back to normal. Start dancing again. You know?”

“Of course.” Tremblay licks her lips and gets this tight smile as if this is all a bit much for her as well. It makes her seem endearing somehow although these little warning bells go off in my head at the same exact moment.
She’s playing me, and I’m falling for it.
“Anyway, no decisions right now. I have things in motion, but you can do what you want. A nanny for when I’m working. A pediatrician—unless you have one in mind. My place is big enough. All the baby’s things are being delivered as we speak.”

She looks a little uncertain now. I’m taken aback and then slowly realize how badly she must want this. The power between us shifts again. My mind races with this insight and these somewhat accusing thoughts that I’ve done
nothing
to prepare for a baby.
Nothing.
Allaire wants this. Maybe I never did. At least, I never thought about it—about being a mom and taking care of this baby.

“No. That’s fine. That’s good.”

“Looks like you got it all worked out,” Rob says from across the room.

We all glance over his way, temporarily stunned into silence by his surprising, insolent tone. He leans against the East wall with his arms crossed. His anger seems to reach for all of us. I can’t tell if he talking to me or Allaire or Marla. Tremblay turns and acknowledges his presence for the second time since she entered the room and gives him a withering look.

“Rob,” I say quietly in an attempt to diffuse the situation. “
Please.
”

“Tally knows what she’s doing. We’ve talked about this. She’ll be as involved as she wants to be. We have an agreement. Cara will be told she’s adopted as soon as she’s old enough and Tally can be involved as much as she likes. She’ll know who her birth mother is…always. I think that’s fair for everyone involved.”

“
Fair.
” Rob lets the word hang in the air among us. Even Marla shifts uncomfortably at the harsh implication that underlies his derisive tone. “She’s
eighteen
. She’s making zero income; you’ve made damn sure of that. You wait until the last
days
of her pregnancy before stepping in and offering her this
perfect
solution. You’ve all but ensured that she’s hopeless and desperate. Yet you have the audacity to stand there and stipulate you’re being fair.
Fair.
Well, fuck the fairness of it all, Tremblay. I’m not buying it.”

I’m speechless. Although I don’t really know him all that well, I’m pretty sure that I’ve never heard Rob swear like this or look so angry. He pushes off from the wall and comes directly over to me and holds my stunned gaze with his the entire time.

“If you want to hand over your kid to this witch, that’s your prerogative, Tally Landon, but I won’t be a part of it. I told you. I can help you. The offer still stands.” Rob gives me one last imploring look.

It’s a look so insistent that it conjures up this profound new sense of heartbreak and takes my breath away. I jump out of the bed forgetting for a moment my scantily covered backside with the hospital-provisioned gown and step toward him. I’m determined to convince him of my decision, entreating him for approval, and needing his support for all of this for some inexplicable reason. My body rails with the sudden movement and all I manage to do is collapse into his outstretched arms.

“No,” I manage to say. “No. Don’t do this. Don’t say that about her. She’ll be good with her. She’s helping me.”

He grips my forearms to steady me and gently kisses the top of my head. “
You’d
be good with her, Tally.” He sighs deep and just looks at me. If disappointment were a physical object, I can feel its direct transference from him to me. Disillusion forms in his eyes. It seems permanent and takes my breath away for a second time. There’s a long silence throughout the room. Marla stares at the two of us and so does Tremblay. “Marry me, Tally. I’ll take care of you and Cara.”