Ethan, with his pinstripe suits and wire-rimmed glasses, cuddling a child. At first, the image was a bit peculiar. All I could come up with was the look of disgust on Ethan’s face as the imaginary child upended its breakfast on his Italian silk tie. But then I mentally put Ethan in a T-shirt and jeans, set him in a lush suburban backyard tossing a ball to a tow-headed little boy and, suddenly, a warmth swept through me, taking me by surprise. I could do this. If I had to.
In this quasi-calm state I returned to the bedroom. Ethan sat up on the bed, looking at me with anticipation. Though he was still naked, he had put his glasses on, and I felt a sudden urge to laugh. What was it about a naked man in glasses that looked so surreal? I wondered as I flopped down on the bed beside him, a kind of gleefulness swimming inside me. Then I looked up at Ethan’s handsome, well-chiseled face, studied his usually cool gray eyes and saw the panic still frozen there.
“Well?” he said, staring down at me.
Oh, right. The condom. I remembered the issue at hand. The issue that up until ten minutes ago might have caused me the same kind of terror I saw in Ethan’s eyes.
“I found it,” I said, gazing up at his usually adorable face and suddenly realizing how very much like a hamster he looked when he was nervous, all pursed mouth and squinty eyes. I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow to hide the smile that threatened to tug at my lips. After all, I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t worried. I was—in a fashion.
I gathered myself together. Then confessed. “It was…torn.”
“Torn?”
I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Down the middle.” Then I shrugged, as if to say, These things happen.
I felt him lift off the bed, heard him pad out of the bedroom, then across the living room. Knew when he had reached the bathroom with all the damning evidence in the faux marble wastebasket I kept there. “Oh, God,” he said again.
I was surprised at how quickly the hurt stabbed at me. I knew we hadn’t planned this. It wasn’t something we discussed while sharing moonlit walks and cozy little dinners at all the best restaurants New York had to offer. Yet, I never expected Ethan to react as if I’d just passed him a venereal disease. Just what, exactly, was so horrifying about the idea of us having a child?
By the time he came back to the bedroom and stood before me in all his bespectacled naked glory, I was angry.
“What do we do?” he said.
“Do?”
“Maybe you should…rinse or something.”
“Or something,” I replied, my voice thick with sarcasm.
“Hey, isn’t there that pill? What’s it called again? It’s just for emergencies like this,” he began, his face filled with a frantic hope. “Yes—the morning-after pill. How do we get our hands on something like that?”
The hamster suddenly morphed into a rat. I wondered what I had ever found so incredibly handsome about Ethan Lederman the Third, as he called himself whenever he got pompous after a few martinis.
Then his face changed, as if he remembered something. That something quickly became apparent when he kneeled next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry, Gracie, I didn’t mean…it’s not that I didn’t want…that is… We can’t have a baby together. I can’t. It’s just not part of the plan….”
But it was too late. The wall had risen up, thick and unyielding. And I did the only thing a self-respecting woman could do.
I threw him out.
“You broke up with him?” Lori said, gawking at me from her desk just outside my office.
“Not exactly broke up,” I replied. I instantly regretted sharing this bit of news with my admin, who had inquired about my Saturday night date with Ethan the moment I walked into the office. With a shrug that I hoped made my indifference obvious, I had blithely replied, “He’s history.”
Now I realized that I had opened myself up to a conversation I didn’t want to have. Trying to deflect Lori away from the subject that had caused her perky little features to go slack with shock, I placed the bag I carried on her desk. “Guess what I brought us?” I said, pulling out one of the two giant muffins I’d bought. “Your favorite—chocolate banana chip,” I continued, setting it before her.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, barely acknowledging the muffin, which I had spontaneously decided to pick up this morning. Things at work were so hectic lately, I’d decided we could use a treat. The powers-that-be at Roxanne Dubrow, the family-owned cosmetic line we all slaved for, had been calling meetings two and three times a month, all in the name of a new product line and—hopefully—higher profit margins. Though my boss, Claudia Stewart, was under the most pressure, as she was supposed to come up with the next Big Idea, Lori often took the brunt of the workload, as Claudia and I had been sharing her ever since Jeannie, Claudia’s own assistant, had gone on maternity leave. I sometimes felt guilty. After all, Lori was twenty-three years old and made a third of what I made—and probably a quarter of what Claudia made.
“So what happened?” Lori asked, jumping up and going to the coffee machine to make a pot.
I sighed, dropping my pocketbook onto an empty chair and sliding off the light jacket I wore as a concession to the surprisingly cool September morning before I headed for the hall closet to hang it up. What could I tell her? That I realized Ethan was a selfish bastard who cared nothing about anyone but himself? That there was a possibly—albeit a remote one—that I was carrying this cretin’s child? That the very idea of sharing anything grander than body fluids had nearly caused dear Ethan to lose the filet mignon he’d dropped a wad of cash on at dinner all over the Italian loafers he’d parked under my bed?
She was too young for the truth. It would only disillusion her. And since I firmly believed a woman needed some illusions in order to have any sort of romance in this fine city, I lied.
“He got a job offer,” I improvised, “in Fiji.” A smile almost curved my lips as I tried to imagine Ethan, with his pasty white skin and perspiring brow, weathering a tropical climate. What had I ever found attractive about him anyway?
“Do they even have accounting firms there?” Lori asked, bewildered.
“He’s, uh, he’s going private.”
“Oh,” she said, still studying me. She turned away to the coffee machine, but I could sense that the wheels were still churning in her head. Pulling the now-full coffeepot off the warmer, she filled two mugs and handed me one. Hoping to make my escape with my muffin and my sanity, I thanked her for the coffee and stepped toward my office door. But her next words stopped me.
“He didn’t ask you to go with him?”
I paused in my doorway, realizing I was getting in too deep with this story meant to keep me from getting in too deep. “He, uh, he wanted to make a clean break,” I said, realizing how much more accurately those words applied to me. “You are the queen of the pre-emptive breakup,” Claudia was fond of telling me, commenting on my knack for ending it all succinctly with my man of the moment before said man could do the deed himself.
This answer seemed to satisfy Lori, for she sat down at her desk and began thoughtfully picking a chocolate chip off the top of her muffin. Still, the sight of her concerned frown filled me with unease. I crouched down by her desk and looked up at her. “You okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m fine. I just thought you and Ethan were, like, meant to be.” Then she blushed, causing a strange ache to fill my chest. “I guess I’m just a dopey romantic, huh?” She forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. Eyes in which I found myself searching for all those emotions I couldn’t somehow muster up myself about Ethan.
Thankfully, Claudia stormed in at that moment, preventing me from pursuing any dangerous thoughts. I could tell by the way Claudia blew past us with barely a glance that she was not in a good mood. Which didn’t bode well for Lori…or me.
I