I called Liz earlier in the day and asked her if I could come over. I had news that I wanted to share with her. It was good news for a change. I parked on the street since this wasn’t my home any longer and walked up to the front door. Maybe I should say waddled. I hadn’t really gained that much weight, but my belly seemed to protrude a little further out every day. I was five months along now and definitely showing. My balance wasn’t what it used to be and I know I had to look at least a little funny when I walked.
It had been three months since I was served with papers by Alexander that said I had no rights to any of his money or anything in his estate. I really couldn’t spend much time dwelling on it because it only served to make me angry all over again. I didn’t want his money or his estate and I was appalled to believe he thought I did. It had been two months since I moved out of Liz’s apartment and in with Jason. He’d offered to help me save money since I had no job and an army of lawyers to pay. He was being so sweet and supportive that I thought it was a good idea. It wasn’t. Jason was still Jason and supportive or not, I’d probably made a mistake. It had been a few weeks now since I’d run completely through my savings though, so moving out at the moment was not a real viable option. I was twenty-three, pregnant, unemployed in the middle of a court battle and I’m pretty sure my boyfriend is cheating on me… again.
I pressed the doorbell and a woman about my age with pretty brown hair and giant blue eyes opened the door. “Vicki?”
“Yeah, hi. You must be Gloria.” Gloria was my replacement. Liz’s new roommate. I felt a pang of irrational jealousy in my chest every time I thought about it. I’d left her high and dry. Of course she needed another roommate to help her pay the bills.
“Come on in, Liz is expecting you but she just got home from a run so she’s in the shower. You want some coffee, or tea?”
“No thanks,” I said. Caffeine was not on my list of approved food items. I was doing my best to follow a strict, healthy diet. If nothing else good came out of this mess I was in, I at least wanted a healthy baby in the end.
“I almost didn't recognize you from the photos Liz has of the two of you. Your hair is different, I think.”
“I’ve been out of work for a while and with the baby coming I’ve been trying to save money wherever I can,” I said. I was embarrassed to admit it, but I wasn’t going to lie. I knew that I didn’t look my best. I had to have priorities though. “I started playing kitchen beautician. It’s awful.”
“Oh no it’s not!” Gloria said, sincerely. “It’s cute. You’re gorgeous, so I doubt it would matter if you shaved it all.”
Great, she was nice too. Now I couldn’t even hate her for taking my place in my best friend’s heart. “Thanks,” I said with a smile.
“Hey! Is that my former roommate I hear?” Liz was coming down the hallway. She stopped when she saw me and cocked an eyebrow.
I knew exactly what she was looking at… my hair. “Stop it, I was just telling Gloria that I know it’s awful.”
She laughed. “It’s not… awful…” She tilted her head to the side to look at it from another angle.
I laughed too. Liz was the only one who could insult me and make it fun. “I took a little too much off the top.”
“We can fix it,” she said, confidently. “Gloria, would you mind getting our customer set up in one of the kitchen chairs with a cup of juice or something disgustingly healthy? We have to take care of the bun in the oven too. I’ll grab the supplies.”
“Not at all,” Gloria said with a grin, “Right this way.” Shaking my head and smiling, I followed the pretty brunette into the kitchen. I took the seat she offered me and chose apple juice from her list of “healthy” drinks. She tied a towel around my neck and a few seconds later Liz appeared with a small box in hand.
“What’s in the box?” I asked her.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” she said in a conspiratorial tone.
I laughed again and said, “What makes you think I trust you to do this?”
She looked at my hair with the eyebrow cocked again and said, “At this point, honey I think you’d trust my Uncle Bernie.”
I guess I couldn’t argue with that. She went to work on me. She touched up my roots and had me rinse and blow dry before beginning the cut. While she was cutting, Gloria brought out her gel nail manicure set and went about doing my nails. “So where is Jason today?” Liz asked me while she worked.
“He had a thing at his friend’s house out in Santa Monica,” I said.
“A ‘thing’?”
“I don’t know a barbecue or something.”
“Why aren’t you with him?”
“Um… I just wasn’t in the mood…”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said. “I always know when you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Your nose is a foot long, Pinocchio.”
I laughed, and then sobering quickly I said, “He is uncomfortable explaining the baby.”
Liz sighed and rolled her eyes. Gloria looked up from my nails and started to say something, but changed her mind. “You can say it,” Liz said. “Vicki knows how I feel about Jason. You may as well join me.”
Gloria smiled sadly and said, “I was just going to say that I’m sorry for you that he feels that way. I’m sure you don’t like being hidden away.”
“I don’t think of it like that,” I said. “He’s a professional and most of his friends are young up and comers. They’re married with kids of their own. Here I am carrying my billionaire boss’s illegitimate child.”
“Jason broke up with you and forced you into Alexander’s arms. Then, Alexander didn’t want any part of taking responsibility for his part in this. You’re the only one here stepping up and they both need a kick in the pants.” Liz’s face was red. She got passionate when she was defending someone she cared about. More than one boyfriend had also burned her over the years, so men were not high on her list at the moment.
“I’m stepping up because no matter what part either of the two men played in this, I played mine as well. I’m choosing to have this child, not to punish either of them, but doing that anyways in a way. Jason’s been way more supportive than most men would be in this situation, I think.”
Liz snorted again and I saw Gloria bite back a smile. She stuffed whatever she had left to say on the subject. I was sure it was plenty and I loved her for caring so much. “There,” she said. “Finished. You are so pretty, Victoria. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“You’re smart and funny and resourceful and you have a great heart. Neither of those jerks deserve you if you ask me.” Okay, she didn’t completely stuff it.
“Thank you,” I said. She waved a hand in front of her face.
“Stop it, you’re going to make me cry.”
I laughed, “You started it.”
“I know. I’ll stop. Go look at yourself.”
I went into the bathroom and was shocked by what I saw. My hair is naturally a dark blonde. I’d gone lighter over the years when I was able to afford to have it done. Liz had lightened my roots and put some gold highlights in it. She’d also layered it softly around my face to get rid of the bluntness that I had put into it when I tried to do it myself. It was all even and soft and pretty now. I loved it. Her face appeared in the mirror behind me and I smiled. “I love it! Thank you.”
Liz hugged me and said, “I love you and remember that you’ll never have to put up with a man if you don’t want to. This will always be your home. I will gladly clean out my crafts room today if you want to move back in.”
Still smiling but with tears in my eyes I said, “And you’ll listen to a baby screaming at three a.m. every night in a few months, or try and have a date while he eats mashed peas in his high chair?”
She nodded, “All that and more, gladly… wait… he? You’re having a ‘he’?”
I smiled, “That’s the reason I stopped by,” I said. I turned to the mirror and fluffed my hair and said, “I didn’t know I was going to get the beauty treatment too. I got the ultrasound yesterday. It’s a boy.”
Liz grabbed me and we hugged again. “Yay! I’m so happy, Vicki. I know things are hard right now, but I’m so proud of you for following your heart. Just promise me that you won’t raise him to be a man.”
I laughed again, “I’ll see what I can do,” I told her. It was so nice that someone was happy. As it would turn out, Liz was the only one in my life who felt that way. I was so grateful for her. I was even more so about an hour later as I sat in the booth of a downtown diner across from my mother.
“Your hair is… interesting,” she said as I sat down.
“Hello to you too, mother.” My mom is forty-six. She looks like she’s twenty-five. She has the same blonde hair I do but she has hers professionally lightened and styled. She never misses an appointment, even when I was young and we were struggling financially. She said her looks were her only asset. She tried to make me believe the same thing but I’ve resisted that notion so far. I’d hate to think that all I was good for was to look at. My mother wasn’t growing old graciously either. Everything about her had been lifted, tucked or sculpted. The picture left is beautiful, but you really don’t want to peel the canvas back and see what is underneath.
“Don’t be snippy!” she said. “You just look… motherly with that haircut.”
“Well I guess it’s good that I’m about to be a mother then,” I said.
“It will be, when you can get that cheap bastard of an ex-boss of yours to pay up.”
She was team Jason on that point although there was no love lost there either. “Mom, are you not even a little bit happy that we’re having an addition to the family?” I asked her. I knew she wouldn’t be happy about a baby. She wasn’t the grandmotherly type… or the motherly one.
She frowned and said, “You’re broke and unmarried. I’m too young to be anyone’s grandmother. What is there really to be happy about, Vicki? I’ll be happy if that bastard pays you what he owes you… unlike your father who got away Scott free.”
She was hopeless. My father and the men she danced for and now served had ruined her outlook on family and love a long time ago. We ordered our lunches and when I asked for the club with avocado on sour dough she frowned again. At least I’m assuming the face she kept making was frowning. She’d had so much Botox that it was hard to tell. “What’s wrong now, mother?” I asked.
“I’m just hoping you know that weight’s not going to drop off by itself when you have that kid. I was out of work for six months after I had you just trying to get my figure back.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve gained ten pounds mom and I’m more than halfway through my pregnancy. Besides, I’m not a pole dancer.”
“Ten pounds can make all the difference,” she said, taking a sip of her lemon water.
With a sigh I almost asked her, “What difference?” but I didn’t. I knew it would have something to do with me catching a man who could “support” me. She was an independent businesswoman… albeit the owner of a strip club. She should understand that all women do not want to be “taken care of.” No matter how good she looked or how hard she tried, she’d never achieved it even at almost fifty. I simply said, “Thanks mom, I’ll keep it in mind,” as I did with so many other things.
“I have a client who is looking for a housekeeper if you’re still looking for a job.”
That got my attention. I definitely needed a job. I’d spent so much money on this lawsuit that I wasn’t even certain that I wanted to pursue any longer that I was having trouble paying my own bills. It was one thing I had to be grateful to Jason for… at least I had a roof over my head and food in my belly. I’d feel so much better though if I were contributing to that. Plus, my lawyer wasn’t going to take my I.O.U. much longer. But this was one of mother’s “clients.” I was a little concerned about that. “Someone you know well?” I asked her.
She shrugged and said, “We had a brief affair a few years ago but then his wife found out…”
“Yeah, thanks Mom, but no thanks,” I said. I’d met a few of her “clients” over the years. I’d fought off advances from a few of them as well. Not upstanding citizens in the least. She just rolled her eyes at me. “I found out that I’m having a boy,” I told her, trying to change the subject and hoping to get some kind of emotion out of her about the baby.
“Hmm,” she said. The waitress had just brought our lunch and left. She had taken one bite of her salad. “This salad dressing tastes like it’s loaded with calories. I don’t think that porky waitress gave me the light stuff…” And that was how the rest of our meal together went. I left there with most of the happiness I’d had when I left Liz’s house gone.
I left the diner and went to the one place I’d always felt good, Seal Beach, to the pier. I browsed through a few of the small shops, but mostly I just stood on the edge of the pier and looked out at the ocean. The sea was an unbroken, calm underneath the gentle sun. The small ripples of water that lay across it were sprinkled with millions of light fragments; each one tiny, but together they were intense and beautiful. I slipped out of my shoes and stood there like I did when I was a kid, with the feel of the rough wood underneath my bare feet and began to feel nostalgic. My life had never been much to be excited over but it had never seemed as lonely as it had since Alexander turned his back on me. I know that we never had a real relationship, but before that day we spent in the basement, I was able to look forward to at least one smile or one kind word from him almost every day. He was never anything but kind and respectful and I missed that. Jason wasn’t mean or abusive, but I always get the feeling that he’s never harbored much respect for me either. When we were together before any of this happened with the pregnancy he was always quicker to point out my flaws than he was to say anything kind. Usually, he just said nothing at all and he touched me even less, that’s what led me to believe maybe there was another woman in the picture. Maybe I’m wrong… either way; I was beginning to quickly recognize that moving back in with him had been a mistake.
The sun was beginning to get low in the sky and I still had some things I needed to do before nightfall. I turned and began heading back down the pier towards the lot where I parked my car and in the distance I saw the shadow of a man who looked very familiar. He was strolling along slowly, dropping pieces of sourdough for the pigeons and seagulls and every so often stopping to look at something that had caught his eye out in the water. It was Alex. The direction he was facing put his eyes looking directly into the sun. I hoped that also kept him from being able to see me. As much as I wanted to see him, I was sure he wasn’t interested in running into me. I put my head down and walked quickly on the far side of the pier, I passed him and continued to head for my car. I was almost to the end of the pier when I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. I knew it was his before I turned around.