Page 83

As if it’s bad enough keeping the secret from Jake, now I’m going to keep it from the only man in my life I actually consider a friend.

Great. Just great.

Sleep doesn’t come easy tonight. In fact, it doesn’t come at all. I call Sahara, thinking that she’ll be the ear I need, but before I can blurt out that I’m pregnant she apologizes because it’s summer finals and she is up to her tits with work and study.

“But I’ll call you after this is all done, okay?” she says, sympathetic but rushed. “I promise.”

“No problem,” I tell her, even though I want to beg her to stay up with me and listen to my bitching and moaning.

“I love you, though, okay?” she says, insistently. Something in my voice, I’m sure. Like the echo of my secret.

“Love you too. Kill those exams. I need you to come down here so we can be rich bitches together, okay?”

She laughs, and after a few more goodbyes she hangs up first.

I have a number I can call. One that I rarely use because every conversation is fraught with potential pitfalls and some of them neither of us are aware of until we stumble into them. But, then, I have it for situations exactly like this, right? A confidant who loves me and wants the best for me, but who’s as a safe distance. So I gather up my courage, and call.

It rings. I’m not sure what time it is over there. It’s too many rings to be a cell phone, so it’s probably a land line, and for all I know it’s waking up the whole house. It’s got to be at least morning over there, right?

By the eighth ring I’m about to hang up. Bad timing, and probably for the best.

But then, he answers in French, of course. “Oui, allô? Ici Michael Hall.”

“Daddy?” I ask. “It’s Janie. Um… can we talk for a bit?”

Chapter 53

Janie

I can’t bring myself to tell him everything right away, so we dance around the subject. Neither of us is entirely comfortable talking on the phone yet.

“So this taste… test event is going well?” he asks when I catch him up on the stuff that seems, at the moment, pointless to talk about.

I’m pacing my living room, struggling with every word. “Taste Teaser, we called it and… yeah, it’s going really well. There are some reviews on Red Hall’s Facebook page, links to the articles they’ve been writing. Have you… been following along?”

“Of course I have, Janie,” Dad says, softly chiding me for thinking he might not. “I’ve seen all sorts of stuff lately. What was that with the guy you threw out?”

My eyes roll, and I groan. “Gloria…” I mutter.

“Who?”

“Uh… yeah, there was this guy causing trouble and I threw him out, and… this woman that works for me was the one that mentioned I was… you know…” I guess there’s some things it doesn’t matter how old you are — I can’t bring myself to talk about my period with my father.

“Ouch. Did you fire her?” he asks. At least he’s on my side.

“Uh, no… she’s a friend of a friend, so…”

“I gotcha,” he says. “Listen, Janie… I’m glad you called and I want to catch up, but did you really call just to let me know what’s going on?”

“Can I not?” I ask.

He sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. You’re sure there’s nothing else wrong, though? It’s just… we haven’t spent this much time on the phone, well… ever. If you need to talk to me, you know I’ll listen, right? Whatever it is.”

I hold my breath until there are spots in my vision. That’s probably bad for the baby. It’s certainly bad for me, but if I let it go, everything will come pouring out.

I need that to happen very badly, though, so I exhale and with it comes the story.

Dad doesn’t speak the whole time. He doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t judge me, or stop me, or laugh or even sigh meaningfully into the phone. At times I’m not even sure we’re still connected, but I keep talking anyway until it’s all out.