As we listened to the waves roll in, I described the scene around us: the l
adies in their bikinis, the colorful towels spread on the sand, the surfers trying to catch a wave and doing a shit job of it. It was not weather for surfing. I told her about the kids and the sandcastles they were building down the beach. I told her the sky was so blue it looked almost unreal, so clear that if I stared at it too long, I would get dizzy.
Condensation ran down the ice bucket in little rivulets of cold. I ran my fingers through it and then touched Lara’s thigh. She jumped and laughed at me. “Stop being so evil.”
I leaned in and kissed her. “Wanna beer?”
“Yeah,” she said.
I opened it up with a delicious hiss and handed the ice-cold bottle to her. I opened up my own and looked over at her. She raised her beer in the air and tilted it toward me.
Her wedding band flashed in the light. “To Roger,” she said.
“To Roger.”
“I wish I had met him.”
“He would have loved you. Maybe too much. I might have got jealous.”
I watched as she took one long pull of the beer. Then she casually handed her almost-full bottle to me. “That was delicious.”
I was puzzled. “Just one sip?”
Lara smiled and leaned back on her chair. “As soon as I have this baby, you can bring me an ice-cold beer at the maternity ward, and I promise I’ll drink the whole thing.”
I sat straight up, my heart pounding. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” she said smugly.
I stared at my wife. She leaned her head back and smiled up at the sun. The news hit me in the gut and gave me the strangest feeling, a warmth that was entirely different from anything else I had ever experienced. I reached over to take her hand. “You’re sure?”
She nodded and pulled my hand up to kiss my fingers. “And I was thinking … if it’s a boy, we can name him Roger.”
Tears stung my eyes. This woman had brought everything I ever dreamed of into my life, and now she was giving me even more. I looked at her flat belly, thinking about how wonderful it would be to see it grow.
“I love you,” I said against her hand.
“I love you too,” she replied, and we sat together in our little cocoon of happiness, with our little secret deep in her belly, and somewhere, my old friend Roger was laughing, and sipping a beer in our honor.
Lara
Six months later
“Hey. How’s it going in Cloneland?” I asked as soon as I heard Elaine’s voice on the phone.
Cloneland was Elaine’s nickname for Hollywood. When she first arrived there she was stunned by how uniformly beautiful, blonde and tanned all the women were.
“It’s shocking how white everyone’s teeth are,” she whispered the first time she called back. She claimed their teeth were so blinding she had to buy her first pair of sunglasses.
For the last two months she had been, her words, not mine, working her ass off twelve hours a day, six days a week, doing whatever anyone asked her to do for a production designer friend of Haverbrooke, but she was happy. So happy, in fact, she forgot to ask for the latest gossip, not that I’d know any.
“You’re not going to believe what just happened to me,” she squealed excitedly.
I sat down. “What?” I asked, smiling.
“I think I just sold my screenplay. Remember that production designer friend I told you about?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember how she was going to mention to a producer friend of hers that I had a script?”
“Yeah?”
“The producer asked for the script.”
I screamed with joy for her. “So you have to take it to him?”
“It’s moved along a bit farther than that.”
“What?”
“I didn’t want to tell you in case he didn’t bother to get back or said he hated it.”
“Well.”
“He said he loved it that I had a blind heroine, but could I rewrite to make her 13 instead of 17 so she will be more appealing to the tween market.”
“Your heroine is blind?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the story about?”
“It’s a story about a blind girl who finds a hurt baby deer in the forest and saves it from the hunters.”
“I’m so happy for you, Elaine.”
“I owe it all to you. Thank you, Lara.”
“Owe it to me? I didn’t even know you were writing screenplays.”
“You got Haverbrooke to help me, didn’t you?”
“No way. I don’t even know the man.”
“Lara. You are such a lousy liar. I mean, how obvious can you get? I tell you I want to go LA and Haverbrooke’s secretary calls me up to offer me a job, and wait for it, in Hollywood, working as what? Oh, yeah, a production director’s assistant.”
“If your screenplay hadn’t been good enough the producer would not have wanted it. You do know that, don’t you?”
She laughed. “Yeah, I know that. Okay enough about me. How’s the baby coming along?”
“Just fine. We went for the 20 week scan the other day. Kit says she is gorgeous. He says she has my nose.”
“That’s a good thing. His nose would be too big on a girl.”
“Her eyes were closed, but her eyelashes are really long. He said they were so long they were almost an inch long. For the first time in my life I felt sad that I couldn’t see.”
“Oh, Lara. You will see her soon.”
“Yes, I know. I can’t wait to feel her little body, her little face, her little hands, hug her, kiss her, smell her. I’m counting the days before I can be her mommy.”
“Oh fuck. Someone is calling me. I gotta go, but I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay, and congratulations, Elaine. I’m real proud of you.”
“Thanks,” she sang, and making a loud kissing sound, rang off. I lay the phone back on the table and stroked my stomach. I heard the front door open and I began to smile.
Kit’s footsteps came across the room towards me. He knelt beside me.
“How are my two girls today?” he asked.
“Missing you,” I whispered.
“I got a surprise for you,” he said.
I grinned. “What?”
He took my hands and put them in my lap. Then he put something that felt like a plastic or silicone square wrapped in a napkin in my hand. “What is this?” I asked.
“It’s your daughter’s face.”
I frowned. “What? How?”
“It’s a 3D printed ultrasound. I sent the ultrasound files to Poland and they produced this.”
Speechless, my fingers mapped the little raised face. Her little nose, her lips, her eyes, and then I began to cry with joy.
“Oh, Kit. Thank you. Thank you,” I sobbed. “She is so beautiful. Our daughter is a little miracle.”
He held me close. “Yes, she is as beautiful as her mother.”
“Oh no. She is far more beautiful, and her eyelashes. My goodness. I never thought a baby could have such long lashes.”
“I love you, my sweet and wonderful wife,” he whispered in my ear.
“I love you too, my wonderful husband, and little baby Carson is the most amazing and splendid treasure I could ever have dreamed of. I’m so glad fate delivered you to Durango Falls, and you went and put up that weird advert at the library.”
I felt his breath close to my temple, then he lifted me into his arms.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, laughing.
“I realized I’d better take advantage of the last few quiet moments we have left before the little one comes.”
“What did you have in mind?’’ I asked as he carried me upstairs.
“I thought I’d put you on your back for a little rest, Mrs. Carson, since you must be very tired, what with being pregnant and all.’’
Mr. Carson was wrong. Turned out I wasn’t tired at all!
THE END