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Maura looked to Amy for final approval.
Amy shrugged.
Maura turned to Catherine and her father and reluctantly nodded. “Okay, I guess.”
Jason felt like he’d just won a major victory. He wanted to stand up and shout alleluia, possibly turn a few cartwheels, but he merely nodded at his daughter to indicate he’d heard. “Ten o’clock Saturday morning?” he asked Catherine.
“Sounds good,” Catherine said.
Jason looked at his plate. Somehow, in the midst of all the negotiations, he’d managed to clean it up. He pushed back his chair. “Good. Maura and I will pick you and Amy up. But for now we’ll help you clean up, and then I’m afraid we’ve got to get going. Maura’s got homework to do and I’ve got some paperwork waiting for me. Maura, you clear the table and put all the plates in the trash, and I’ll close up the containers and stash them in the fridge.”
“You don’t have to—”
“We insist, don’t we, Maura?” Her dad arched that impressive brow in his daughter’s direction.
“But—”
“Forget it, Ms. Nicholson,” Maura said, whisking Catherine’s plate away from in front of her. “Dad’s a real stickler about not taking advantage and always pitching in when somebody’s done something nice for you.”
“Oh, well...”
The table was cleared and the leftover takeout already in the refrigerator. Catherine was still in her chair. The man worked fast. She’d have to remember that. “I guess I’ll see you Saturday, then,” she said weakly.
Jason nodded, Maura was more verbose. She had her arm around Amy, and they walked to the door together. “We’ll still have fun on Saturday, even with my dad along,” Maura bubbled, her head close to Amy’s. “You’ll see. There’s just this one little problem I need to figure out.” She looked furtively over her shoulder.
Jason was no more than two steps behind. It would have been impossible not to hear, but he was getting good at pretending. In dealing with a preadolescent, he had discovered it was the better part of valor. There were enough big things you had to make a stand on that if you included the non-life-threatening stuff, as well, there’d never be a moment’s peace. So, he kept his head up and his eyes straight ahead, pretending not to hear. If his daughter thought she and her friend were going to ditch him once they hit the mall, they had another think coming.
“We’ll talk about it at school,” Maura told her friend, much to Jason’s disappointment. Oh, well, Maura wasn’t very good at keeping secrets. He’d find out sooner or later.
Catherine’s store was closed Mondays, which was why she’d chosen it as a moving day. The next morning found her back at her shop, Hand Arounds, doing her best to concentrate on the work in front of her rather than on the boxes waiting to be unpacked at her new house.
“Yes, I’m quite sure that you paid $16.00 for that blouse brand-new, Mrs. Conroy, but I’ll only be able to get $3.00 for it secondhand, which means I can only pay you $1.50 for it. The jumper would be $3.50 and I’d be able to do $1.50 for the pants. See where they’re slightly frayed? If you want to change your mind about selling your daughter’s things, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”
While Catherine waited for the balking Mrs. Conroy to make up her mind, she thought about Jason Engel.
Was her sister right?
No, of course not. Monica was a nutcase. She was never right.
Well, she wasn’t totally wrong, either, Catherine admitted. The idea of trying to find a sperm bank and implement her idea was nerve-racking as all get-out. That much she’d give Monica. But Jason Engel as husband and father of her dream child? Uh-uh. No way. She’d liked Gerald, but the decision to marry him had been almost intellectual. She’d weighed the pros and cons carefully then made her choice. Her heart had been involved, certainly, but not to the extent that her feelings had overridden her intellect.
Somehow she doubted she’d get away with such lukewarm responses to any involvement with Jason Engel. Which meant that if she ever lost her heart to a virile specimen like that, she’d certainly never recover.
Catherine rang up two pair of booties at seventy-five cents each and a terry cloth sleeper for $2.50 while she pondered the problem.
She liked Maura. Under all that preadolescent angst, Maura was a decent kid who’d turn out just fine provided her dad stayed on top of things. She had a pretty little face. She’d seen it when the child had briefty stopped scowling. It would be nice if Catherine’s baby, when she came, had hair as nice and thick as Maura’s.
The girl had nice-colored eyes, too. They matched her dad’s, and the gene for brown was dominant. She could live with that, Catherine decided. Especially if they came with the same dark, spiky lashes that Maura had.
Catherine made change for a five-dollar bill and handed over the sack of clothing. “Thanks. You come in again. We get new merchandise all the time. Still thinking, Mrs. Conroy? No problem. I’m not going anywhere. Take your time.”
When it came right down to it, Catherine would like a daughter just like Maura Engel. Maybe what she should do is simply make a list cataloging all the things she liked about Jason and Maura and present it at the sperm bank. See if they had anything that would come close. She sure would like a little girl baby that would grow up with all the promise of beauty that Maura Engel displayed. Catherine looked over at the rack of pink sleepers in the newborn section.
Yes, she sure would like that.
Chapter Three
Catherine thought of little else but her new neighbor for the next two days. It didn’t really affect her work. She could sort baby things in her sleep. Someone brought in a pair of little booties crocheted to look like brown-and-white saddle shoes complete with baby blue socks, and a second pair that looked like Mary Janes also having the sock crocheted right into the pattern. They were too cute to sell. Catherine paid the woman two bucks a pair and brought them home with her Thursday after she closed the shop. She put them up in the spare bedroom with the still-unassembled “heirloom” crib. Then she called her sister.
“Monica? Hi, it’s Cath. I’ve been thinking. Since my next-door neighbor seems to have taken over this trip to the mall and claimed driving privileges before I could open my mouth, maybe it would be best if Amy stayed overnight tomorrow night. What do you think?”
“Sounds like fun. Don’s got some kind of business function that’ll probably last till late. Maybe I’ll come, too, but just for the evening. We could order in pizza and rent a chick flick, just the three of us. You don’t think Amy’s too young for a girls’ night out, do you?”
“Depends on the flick we pick.”
There was a thoughtful pause. “Yeah. Well, we’ll be careful, that’s all.” Monica cleared her throat delicately. “Uh, Cath, I’ve been doing a little investigating for you.”
Catherine closed her eyes and leaned against the kitchen wall for support. “No. Tell me you haven’t been out there asking obvious questions and embarrassing me. Monica, how could you?”
“Take it easy, I didn’t use your name. I said it was for a friend.”
“Oh, yeah, right. We’ve only lived here forever. Anybody you asked knows me and is going to put two and two together real quick.”
“Will you stop? What’s done is done. Now just listen to what I’ve found out. Cath?”
“What?” Catherine concentrated on opening a can of soup. She poured it into a bowl and stuck the bowl in the microwave. She remembered to take the spoon out at the last second.
“I really wish you’d at least consider waiting a bit longer, see if there’s a chance of things working out with the new next-door neighbor or somebody else before, you know, you go do the other thing.”
Catherine took her soup out of the microwave and stirred it a bit. “You mean before I go to the sperm bank?”
“Yes. The information I got isn’t complete, you know, because I was being so subtle and everything, but what it boils down to is there are a few things we failed to consider the other night when we were talking about this.”
Catherine retrieved the bowl of soup and carefully sipped a spoonful. “Like what?”
“Your ob-gyn is the one who would know where the closest sperm bank is. In fact, you’d probably have to get a referral from him, I bet. At least that’s what Alice Moran thought.”
“Oh, God, you weren’t talking to Alice about this, were you? Tell me you didn’t do that to me.”
“Yes, I did, and I can’t unask her, so cool it and think about what she said. It makes sense.”
Catherine forgot to blow on the next spoonful in her agitation and ended up burning her mouth. “Oh, damn,” she moaned. “Monica, I’ve been going to him for years. He knows I’m not married. What’s he going to think?”
“That you want a baby. Come on, Catherine, even if you go the live male route, you’re still going to have to get prenatal care. He’s going to figure it out either way. I’m telling you, if you stick to doing things the way you’re talking about, there’s a lot of this kind of thing you’re going to be faced with.”
Catherine slumped over the countertop. “Oh, God. This is all getting to be too much. I had planned to find a place where nobody knew me and I didn’t know anybody and have it done, I don’t know—anonymously.”
“I get the feeling that if you want to be anonymous about this, you’re going to have to wear a bag over your head,” Monica warned.
Catherine poured the rest of the soup down the disposal, unable to finish it now. Well, she’d known the sperm bank approach would be clinical and unromantic. But then again, there wasn’t much romantic about finding out your fiancé was two-timing you, either. So she’d cope with the embarrassment. There was no viable alternative as far as she was concerned. “I’ll think about it,” she said, knowing she wouldn’t
“That’s all I ask. We’ll come by around six-thirty tomorrow night, okay? That should give you just enough time to get home. I’ll order the pizza on my way out the door so you’ll have time to change before it gets there.”
“Fine. Thanks.”
“See you then.”
Catherine hung up the phone feeling disgruntled and put upon. Man, this simple little project—having a baby—was starting to develop a life of its own and turn ugly on her. How was she ever going to work up the courage to do this?
“I’ll pick up some paint Saturday afternoon after we’re back from the mall,” she told herself as she rinsed out her soup bowl. “Yellow. That can go either way, boy or girl. I’ll paint the nursery and set up the crib. That’ll make it more real and give me courage.”
With that, she turned out the lights and went upstairs to run her hand along the beautiful canopy crib leaning against one of the walls. Then she took out the Mary Jane booties and studied them for several minutes. Baby things. Her baby’s things. Her up-until-she-did-something-about-it, nonexistent baby’s things.
She went to bed, exhausted.
Amy and Monica showed up promptly at six-thirty the next night, the pizza man on their heels.
“Well, you two certainly didn’t waste any time getting here.”
“Heck no, we’re starved,” Amy informed her aunt. “We got a bag of baby carrots at the store and some crackers with spinach dip. Mom says we have to have more vegetables than just the tomato sauce on the pizza.”
“Sounds reasonable, I guess.”
“Did Maura call yet?”
Catherine’s brows rose. “No, are we expecting her to?”
Amy shrugged out of her windbreaker and dropped it on the floor by the kitchen door next to her sleeping bag and a plastic bag with her pillow and overnight stuff. “Well, yeah. I happened to mention that Mom and I were coming over here, and she was going to see if her dad would let her come over for the pizza and movie part and then maybe even sleep over, if it’s okay with you. You always fall asleep so early, Aunt Cath, you know you do.”
Catherine glanced at her sister. “Did she just tell me that I’m getting old?”
Monica shrugged and set the pizza she’d taken from the delivery boy on the kitchen countertop. “You already knew it, anyway, Cath. Isn’t that why you decided on an alternate route to your goal?”
“I know, but—”
“Pick up your coat, Amy. You dropped it on the floor right underneath the hook where it’s supposed to be hung. How much extra time would it have taken to put it where it belonged instead of on the floor where someone will step on it...and right after I just washed it?”
“Don’t worry, Mom, nobody’s going to walk on it.”
“I’ll make a point of walking on it myself if you don’t hang it up.”
Amy seemed unconcerned. She lifted the corner of the pizza box and sniffed deeply. “You’d just be creating more work for yourself, because then you’d only have to wash it again. Can we eat now?”
Catherine had to turn her head to keep from laughing at her sister’s frustration. Monica’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “Pick the coat up now, Amy Marie.”
Amy rolled her eyes and stomped back over to the door. She snatched her jacket off the floor and jammed it onto a hook. “There. Satisfied?”
Monica, paragon of virtue that she was, simply nodded and said, “Yes. Thank you. Now you can have some pizza.” Then, with her daughter safely occupied stuffing her face, she turned to glare at Catherine. “You can afford to laugh now,” she whispered to her sister, “but just wait. If you go through with this you’ll find out. Babies are just like kittens and puppies. They grow up and turn into—” Monica waved a disdainful hand at her own progeny “—that.”
“You mean a typical teenager?”
Monica shuddered. “Yes. And let me tell you, it’s a whole lot easier to put up with when they’re just visiting, and you can send them back to wherever they came from when you feel the need for some peace and quiet. It’s a different story when there’s no place to go to escape them. Twenty-four hours a day, they’re there right on top of you, driving you nuts, making you question your own sanity.”
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