“How about Jeddy’s?”
“You bit my head off when I suggested it.”
“I changed my mind. Blame the hormones.”
“You never had pregnancy hormones before when you couldn’t make a decision.”
“I’m milking this pregnancy for as many excuses as I can.”
“So does that include excusing why you’re depriving this baby’s father of the right to know about it— excuse me, her—and be part of her life?”
Ouch. Josie hopped on the turnpike and flew through the EZPass tollbooth. The little green light mocked Laura. Green for go. Go tell them. Tell them now.
They have a daughter.
Daughter.
Uh, no. One of them has a daughter. One.
“I don’t know what to do, Josie. How am I supposed to tell them I’m pregnant?”
“You say ‘I’m pregnant.’” They had been fighting about this for the past three months, ever since that day in her apartment when the test was positive. Josie insisted the men had the right to know; Laura insisted she needed more time.
“You don’t understand.” Tall wooden retainer walls lined one side of the pike, while the commuter train moved in the opposite direction on the left, making Laura a bit disoriented.
“Understand what it’s like to be pregnant? No. Understand that you are lying to them? Yes.”
“It’s not...” Laura couldn’t even cry about this anymore. Waiting had made it harder, each day, to consider telling them. She wasn’t heartless. At some point she’d let them know. Then they could face the question of which man was the father. Cringing at the thought, she turned away from Josie and pressed her forehead against the cool window glass.
Silence. Laura tried to explain, her forehead flattening and the pain of pressing it, hard, somehow helpful. “After what Ryan did, I just figured I was damaged goods. That I send out vibes that draw demented jerks. And then here come Dylan—and Mike!—and it seemed too good to be true.”
Traffic slowed suddenly as they drove under the hotel that stretched, literally, across the pike. “So when the guys double-teamed me at Mike’s place, and then seemed to laugh about it, it felt like I was being suckered. So I ran away, then I let them back in. God, they were so convincing.”
“Laura.” Josie’s voice was so mature and wise it made Laura close her eyes. She knew what came next. Josie moved over into the left lane to get off the pike at the split. “You are Ryan right now.”
OK, not what she expected. “What?” she shrieked, outraged.
“Ryan kept critical information from you about a life-altering fact that made moving forward impossible.” Josie stayed left and kept her eyes on the road, though she sighed. “And you are doing the same thing to Dylan and Mike. They have no idea that one of them is going to be a father in four months. And you are making it impossible for the father of your daughter to go forward, to step up and do the right thing, to have a role in raising her.”
“I’m not Ryan!”
“You are totally Ryan.” Laura knew they were close to Jeddy’s; she started drooling at the thought of their asiago cheese foccacia with chipotle maple sausage.
“Ryan,” Laura practically screamed, “lied about having a wife for nearly a year. He talked about marrying me. He created an entire relationship with me that was permanently hopeless and never, ever possible.” How dare Josie compare the two? In fact, she was the one who had been lied to again by Mike and Dylan!
“Look,” Josie said flatly, pulling into a parking space and rummaging for quarters. Laura opened the glove box and pulled out a roll, the paper unraveling from earlier parking jobs.
Josie interrupted herself. “Jesus, you’re organized!”
“How hard is it to go to the bank and get a roll of quarters?”
Josie got out of the car and shouted, “How hard is it to tell the two men you were sleeping with that one of them might be the dad?”
“Uh, not even close?” Laura sputtered, grabbing the edge of the car door and hauling herself up and out. Two women walking a golden retriever stood, staring at her belly, mouths forming perfect little “O”s, one with short salt-n-pepper hair, the other with a shaved head and the wilted look of recent chemo treatments.
Laura wanted to crawl into a hole. Josie looked over, saw the scene, and came to her rescue. As well she should, since she’d dumped her into this fiasco. “What are you staring at?” she snapped at the women, throwing an arm around Laura, guiding her to the Jeddy’s entrance. “Haven’t you ever seen lesbians go to desperate measures to conceive?”