“Somehow,” she said, “you ended up trapped in the house on the other side of the forest. I don’t know how you ended up there”—she looked at me out of the corner of her eyes and twisted her mouth into a wry smile—“since I clearly remember we’d agreed not to get involved with those horrible people anymore.”
“I clearly remember not agreeing to that,” I said.
Sasha nodded. “Yes, we noticed.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then these brave boys,”—Sasha motioned to The Savage Seven—“went into enemy territory and saved you.”
“And the medicine that brought me out of my coma?”
“Yes, I had that flown in by helicopter from Scotland.”
It wasn’t exactly the answer I was looking for, but I was humbled. “Thank you,” I said to Sasha. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“It turns out,” said Trevor, “that medicine is quite the aphrodisiac.”
Sasha smiled. “Being surrounded by seven gorgeous, brave, muscular men probably doesn’t hurt, either.” She winked at me.
“I have a feeling that these gorgeous, brave muscular men are not being one hundred percent honest and forthright with me.”
Sasha looked surprised. She turned to them. “Is that right?”
“Well,” said Trevor. “we still need to have a talk.”
“You mean,” said Sasha, “You haven’t...”
Trevor shook his head. “No, we haven’t. Not yet.”
“Haven’t what?”
“We’ll need to talk,” said Christian.
“After dinner,” said Trevor.
“All of us,” said Noah.
It sounded quite ominous. The first thing I thought of was the photo I hadn’t been successful in stealing back. Has the photo gotten out? Has a scandal erupted?
Sasha seemed happy and stress-free, so I didn’t linger on it for too long. Dinner was great, and I had a ravenous hunger.
After dinner, the boys were anxious to show me the work they’d done on the documentary. I suspected it was just a diversionary tactic, but I was dying to see it, so I indulged them.
They’d cut up my interviews with Sasha and interspersed bits of them into the expose of Fay Energy with Ben doing some nice voice-over work. Juxtaposing Angelica Fay’s public declarations with the court transcripts that told a completely different story was a nice way to build to the climax.
“We don’t quite have the ending,” said Ken.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s building nicely, but…”
“We’re just missing the smoking gun,” said Noah.
“Or a shot of Angelica Fay being taken away in handcuffs,” I said.
There was a long moment of silence while I thought about how we could end the film without a real ending.
“What do you think?” asked Ken.
I shook my head. “I think what we have is great, but we need more. I also think that’s enough of the film for tonight.” I swiveled in my chair to face them standing in a semicircle around me. “I do believe there is a talk we’re supposed to have.”
No one moved.
“How about we go to the Polar Trinity, and you guys can tell me what it was you wouldn’t tell me at dinner?” I stood and walked out of the room.
The men followed.
I plopped myself onto a plush loveseat. The men remained standing.
“So,” I began in the most casual voice I could muster up, “what was Sasha referring to at dinner?”
They all looked at each other. No one spoke.
“What is it you haven’t told me yet?” I asked as if it were the most mundane question ever.
They looked at each other again until finally Noah turned to me and blurted out, “You’re pregnant.”
My first thought was: Did I touch the wine at dinner? I remembered I was going heavy on the water; I couldn’t get enough, but no wine. My second thought was: Oh shit! I’m pregnant.
The father could be any one of them.
“I’m pregnant,” I said in a rather matter-of-fact tone. Saying it out loud didn’t make it feel any more real. I put my hands to my belly. “I’m pregnant.”
“That’s why we had to helicopter in the corticosteroid,” said Will.
I furrowed my brow. I wasn’t putting the pieces together. “I don’t get it.”
“If we’d used your medicine,” Ben explained, “then we would have lost the baby.”
Reflexively, I put my hands to my belly again.
“But the corticosteroid worked,” said Christian. “You woke from your coma, and the baby wasn’t harmed.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Even when I was in a coma, my life was changing faster than I could keep up. Christian tried to elaborate, but my mind was racing. I barely registered anything he said.
Noah tried to explain what had happened. I registered the name Dr. Crumb and some references to Scotland. Nothing more.
They each took turns talking to me. I stared, glassy-eyed. Finally, I shook my head. “Let me get this straight: you debated on whether to wake me from my coma or keep me unconscious and use me as a sort of incubator? Did I get that right? You took a vote on it?”
“Well,” said Trevor, “we didn’t know what to do.”