But in the end, canceling felt right. It wouldn’t be fair to Nina if he went out with other women while her love life hangs in limbo until next summer.
He didn’t miss the relieved expression on her face when he told her he wasn’t going out with Susannah after all. He’s been telling himself that it’s not because she was jealous. Why would Nina be jealous?
Just as he wasn’t jealous of the burly guy she went out with. But he has a vested interest in anyone who spends time with her, since his child is tagging along . . .
Not that he knew yet that Nina was pregnant when George told him about that date of hers . . .
THEY TURN DOWN Thirty-third Street. The air is heavy with the scent of simmering tomato sauce. Joe’s mother always made homemade pasta on Sundays, as did Nina’s mother. Overcome by nostalgia, Joe is suddenly filled with longing. For the old days, for a homemade spaghetti dinner, for his mother . . .
When he spoke to her yesterday, it was all he could do not to blurt out the news about the baby. But he and Nina agreed to wait to tell everyone—at least until the first trimester is past, and the fear of miscarriage is behind them.
“You know what would be better than Central Park?” Nina is asking. “New England. Wouldn’t it be great if we were in New England?”
“Yeah, I guess. Did you remember to take your prenatal vitamin this morning?”
“You mean my horse pill that makes me gag every time I try to swallow it? Yeah, I got it down. And it came right back up again,” she says with a shudder. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s talk about New Hampshire, or Vermont. I’d love to be riding a bike along a country road there right now, with all those glorious trees above me, and woodsmoke in the air . . .”
Joe looks at her, struck by the longing in her voice. “You always wish you were somewhere else, don’t you?”
“Not always. Although I do right now. My grandmother’s still here. She’s driving all of us crazy, especially Pop. But she makes him feel so guilty he’s not bringing her back to the home until tomorrow.”
“That stinks.”
“Yeah. And I definitely wished I was somewhere else earlier when Father Tom was going on and on about the ‘epidemic of unwed motherhood.’ I felt like he was looking right at me.”
“Nina, he’s half-blind. He can’t see past the first pew.”
“Well, I feel like he can see right into my soul.” She stops short and bends over.
“What did you drop?” he asks, touching her elbow. “I’ll get it.”
“No, look, Joey.” She holds up a pinkish-red fallen leaf. “Isn’t it beautiful? Where did it come from?”
He looks around. Trees are particularly sparse on this stretch of block, aside from a couple of evergreens in a nearby yard.
“It’s like it was dropped from heaven,” Nina says dreamily. “Here I was, longing for fall foliage. It’s like a sign.”
“What kind of sign?” Joe asks as they start walking again, Nina clutching the leaf along with her shopping bag.
“I don’t know . . . maybe a sign that next year at this time, I’ll be somewhere glorious.”
Joe doesn’t want to think about that.
“Well, next year at this time, I’ll be buying a tiny Halloween costume,” he informs her. “Maybe the baby can be a little pumpkin.”
“A pumpkin?”
“Sure, one of those tiny costumes with a little orange hat with a green stem on it.”
“Nah, that’s boring.”
“That’s not boring. That’s cute.”
“Too Anne Geddes,” Nina says. “You should come up with something more original.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . I don’t know . . .” She breathes in, and the lightbulb goes off. “Like, how about a little meatball or something?”
“A meatball?” He can’t help laughing.
“I’m serious,” she says, but she’s laughing, too.
“I know you are. And all I can say is that it’s a good thing you’re not going to be around, Neens, or this kid would have major problems.”
He means it in a teasing way.
But a shadow crosses Nina’s face. Only for a second, and then it’s gone, and she’s grinning again. But not as brightly.
“You’re right, Joey,” she says. “If I were around, the kid would be the neighborhood outcast. It would be like, ‘oh, look, there’s the Materi kid with the crazy mother.’ ”
“Nina . . . I was only kidding.” He stops walking again and touches her arm. “You’d be a great mom.”
“No, I wouldn’t, Joey, and you know it. For one thing, I’d always wish I were somewhere else. You said it yourself.”
“Well, do you?”
“Do I always wish I were somewhere else?” She tilts her head, considering it. “You know what my plan is, Joey. And I’ve had that plan for—”
“That’s not what I asked, Nina. I said, do you always wish you were somewhere else?”
“Maybe not always, but—”
“Do you ever wonder if you might be happy just staying here, in Queens, after all?”
“Do you ever wonder if you might be happy leaving Queens?” she returns.
“Sure, I wonder about it. It’s not like I’ve never considered it, Nina. But . . .” He shakes his head. “This is home. It’s always been home. And . . .”
“And you’re not leaving.”
“Right.” He shrugs.
“Well, it’s the same with me,” she says simply. “I’m not staying.”
He nods. “Right. I know.”
And they start walking again. In silence. All the way home.
Chapter Eleven
“NINA! ARE YOU almost ready?” Joe shouts up from the foot of the stairs, for the third time in the last ten minutes.
“Would you relax?” she calls back, even more annoyed with him than she is with the fact that nothing in her closet fits her.
“We have to go!”
“The doctor’s appointment isn’t for an hour!”
“What if it takes awhile for the train to come? Get moving, Nina.”
She rolls her eyes and grabs the footboard of Rosalee’s bed, stepping into yet another pair of jeans.
“Nina?”
She erupts with a curse that encompasses both Joe’s impatience and too-snug jeans.
Belatedly remembering the baby, she pats the exposed vee of bare stomach above the gaping waistband and mutters, “You didn’t hear that.”
Then she raises her voice and yells down to Joey, “Stop rushing me! If the subway takes too long to come, we can always get a cab!”
“But what if—”
“If we can’t get a cab, then we’ll walk, Joey!” she hollers, exasperated.
Sheesh! You’d think they were embarking on an Alaskan wilderness hike instead of their first prenatal visit to the OB-GYN. Not only did Joe insist on her rescheduling the appointment on a day when he could take off from work, but he showed up on the stoop a half hour early, armed with a bag full of supplies: crackers, bottled water, magazines, a camera, and—the scariest thing of all—a notebook full of questions he’s been jotting down over the past few weeks.
Nina tosses the jeans aside and jerks open one of Rosalee’s dresser drawers.
The doctor’s office is a mere subway stop away. In fact, maybe they should walk. She can use the exercise . . . not that she’s going to be losing weight anytime soon. If anything, she’s gaining pounds by the minute.
“Nina?”
She clenches her jaw, ignoring Joey as she pulls a pair of jeans from her sister’s drawer. Examining the tag, she sees that they’re a size twelve. Well, if the waist is too big she can wear a belt.
“Nina?” Joe’s
footsteps sound on the stairs.
She notices the S after the number 12. 12S? What the heck is 12S?
She’s about to step into them when Joe appears in the doorway.
“You’re not even dressed yet?” he asks, looking dismayed.
Conscious of the fact that she’s wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of panties, she scowls at him and holds the jeans in front of her legs. It’s not so much that she’s modest as she is reluctant for him to see evidence of the weight she’s gained.
“I would be dressed, if I could find anything to wear.”
“What’s wrong with jeans and a T-shirt? You don’t have to get all dressed up just to go to the doctor?”
“Nothing’s wrong with jeans and a T-shirt,” she says, giving up on modesty and stepping into Rosalee’s pants, “except that every pair of jeans I own are two sizes too small. And these . . .”
“Are way too short,” he says, gazing at the ankle-baring length, casually chewing the ever-present wad of gum in his mouth.
“Which is obviously what the S stands for on the label.” She doesn’t bother to see if she can zip them, but lets them drop around her ankles. “I might as well move on to Ralphie’s closet. At least those baggy jeans of his might—”
“Hey, Nina!” Joe sounds as though he’s just made an astonishing discovery.
She looks around, confused. But he’s looking at her. “What?”
“You’re showing! You have a belly!”
“Gee, ya think?”
Joe steps around the clothing strewn across the floor and comes over to stand beside her. He gazes down at the slight bulge of tummy in the space between the waistband of her panties and the hem of her T-shirt.
“Belly’s a cute word, Joey. This doesn’t look cute. It doesn’t look like a belly. It looks like a gut,” she says glumly.
“I think it’s cute. Can I . . . ?” He reaches out to lay a tentative hand across her stomach, on top of the T-shirt. His touch takes her by surprise.
Oh. Oh, wow. She hasn’t felt this way since . . .
Well, since he got her into this predicament.
The warm weight of his fingers sends unexpectedly potent ripples of arousal through her. Her eyelids drift closed. He’s so close to her that she can smell the cinnamon on his breath.
Suddenly, all she can think about is what it would be like to pull Joey down onto the bed and . . .
And have your way with him?
What the heck do you think you’re doing? What the heck are you thinking, Nina?
Well, she isn’t thinking. And, regrettably, she isn’t doing, either. Not yet, anyway.
She’s merely feeling.
Feeling all hot and bothered, and utterly certain that there’s no reason in the world why she shouldn’t seduce her good friend Joe right here, right now.
Go for it! Nobody’s home, a lusty little devil on her shoulder pipes up. You’ve got the whole place all to yourself for at least a couple of hours.
That’s true. Pop and Rosalee are at work; Ralphie’s at school; Dom is back at college.
There’s nothing to stop Nina and Joe from taking this a step or two further. In fact, Nina’s already half-undressed, having dropped Rosalee’s jeans around her ankles, and Joe’s already made the first move by touching her. All it would take is for her to suggest . . .
“Joey . . . ?” she whispers dreamily.
“Hmmm?” He sounds distracted.
She opens her eyes.
Oh. Right. He’s still busy looking at her stomach. Touching her stomach.
And the thing is, he’s not touching you, he’s touching the baby, the chaste angel on her other shoulder—who happens to look a little like Sister Mary Agnes—points out.
All righty then.
That certainly does the trick.
Her sensually charged moment evaporating, Nina pulls away from Joe. “What am I going to do?” she wails.
“About?”
“About the fact that nothing fits me. I can’t just hibernate for the next few months.”
“No, you can’t. That reminds me, I’m supposed to tell you that Danny and Barb are having people over on Saturday night to watch that fight on Pay Per View, so when you get off work—”
“Yeah, great, but Joey, I’m not planning my weekly social calendar, here. I’m trying to find something to wear. Now.”
“How about sweatpants?”
“Sweatpants?” She leaves Rosalee’s jeans crumpled on the floor with her own discarded clothing. “Sweatpants out in public? Yeah, right.”
“You wear them to the gym. That’s public.”
“It’s the gym.” She stares morosely at her reflection in the floor-length mirror inside the closet door. “I can’t wear sweatpants to—”
“Listen, Nina . . .” Joe checks his watch. “Put on the sweatpants, and after we go to the doctor’s, we can go shopping for maternity clothes.”
“You mean ugly smock tops with bows at the neck, and corduroy jumpers?” she asks in utter despair. “Because sweatpants sound more appealing than that, Joey. Hell, Sister Mary Agnes’s habit sounds more appealing than maternity clothes.”
He laughs.
“Please don’t, Joey. This is serious.” Nina realizes she’s close to tears.
“I won’t laugh at you, sweetie,” he says, coming up behind her to face the mirror. He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Look at you.”
“I am looking. Ugh.”
“Not ugh. You look beautiful.”
“I’m fat.”
“You’re pregnant. You’re beautiful,” he says again.
She looks up at his reflection over her shoulder. Her eyes meet his in the mirror.
“You’re the only one who thinks that,” she tells him, her voice a little breathless.
“Well, I’m the only one who matters, right?” His tone is flippant, but his expression is serious. He leans closer, almost as though he wants to kiss her.
Nina twists her head to glance up at the real Joey, thinking that maybe the mirror is playing tricks on her. But this Joey looks as though he wants to kiss her, too.
And when he does—when he bends his head lower and captures her mouth with his—Nina finds herself sensually charged all over again.
“Why are we doing this?” she asks when he lifts his head.
“Because we can’t help it.”
Yeah. Yeah that’s it. Good answer, she thinks, as he kisses her again.
He stops to remove the gum from his mouth and pitch it into the trash can, then pulls her closer, so close that she can feel him, hard beneath his jeans, pressing into her bare skin. She shifts her weight so that his arousal makes more intimate contact, then begins fumbling with the top button on his shirt.
“I’ll do it,” he whispers raggedly, shedding his clothes in a rush, then tugging her T-shirt up over her shoulders.
“Nina . . .” He gazes almost reverently at her pregnancy-swollen breasts, then lowers his mouth to one.
“Careful,” she says, flinching out of instinct and not pain.
He pauses to ask, “Are you sore here?”
“A little bit. More like . . . heavy.”
He pulls back. “Do you want me not to touch . . . ?”
“No!”
He smiles, then bends his head to lap gently at her tender flesh until her nipples ache with need.
They find their way to her rumpled, unmade bed, feverishly kissing until Nina wriggles out of her panties and pulls him to her.
“Now, Joey,” she says urgently.
“Are you—”
“Yes. Now!”
He moves rhythmically into her, his breath damp against her neck.
She has never felt anything like this. Never. Not with Joe, not befor
e him, not ever.
It’s just . . . intense. It’s as though Nina has awakened from a dull sleep to find herself in somebody else’s body—a soft, lush, profoundly alive body that responds wildly to the slightest stirring of his warm breath against her bare throat, to the lingering taste of cinnamon in his kiss, to the pleasurable, slippery friction of his body against hers, inside hers. All of her senses are heightened.
Never before has Nina experienced anything like this utterly intimate awareness, this effortless physical and emotional melding. Joey’s every movement, his every breath, is in sync with her own.
Tension builds between them, glorious, promising; and then comes the simultaneous eruption, wave upon wave of unbearably spectacular quivers.
Nina clings to Joey’s shoulders, rocking with him, gasping his name, until the shudders subside and he collapses against her, panting.
“That was amazing.” She strokes his hair.
“Amazing,” he echoes.
“Even more amazing than last time. And the time before that.”
“Have you noticed that this is getting to be a habit with us, Nina?” He lifts his head to look at her.
“Yeah, but like you said, we can’t help it, Joey. It’s like we’ve opened some kind of floodgate or something. Whenever I see you lately, I find myself thinking these thoughts . . .” She trails off when he raises his brows, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
“What thoughts, Nina?”
“Never mind.”
“Tell me. Because I’ve been having thoughts, too.”
“Really? So this—just now—this didn’t come out of nowhere?”
“Not for me. I mean, it was spontaneous . . . but it’s not as if I haven’t thought about it. A lot.”
“So have I.” She sighs. “It’s so strange. It’s like you’re still Joey . . . but you’re also this seductive stranger.”
“I feel the same way about you.”
“Yeah?”
He nods.
“Well . . .” She ponders the situation. “Do you think we got it out of our systems now, Joey?”
“Nope,” he says promptly, kissing the hollow of her neck. “I think one more time will do the trick, though. Maybe a couple more times, just to be sure.”