“Yeah, sure.”
The longer I had to think about it, the more I realized that that’s probably exactly what happened. I could picture her, standing in the bathroom, pushing the little pills out, dropping them, one by one, down the drain. Then having me fuck her six ways from Sunday. Women were always going on and on about how the world was sexist and they didn’t get a fair shake, but they had this power they could use whenever they wanted. They could be deceitful and manipulative and trap men by claiming to be on birth control when they weren’t. Fuck!
“Fine,” I said. “I obviously can’t make you have an abortion. But listen to me now and listen good—I am not getting together with you. Notice I didn’t say back together, because we would have had to be together in the first place. You and I are not going to have some happy little family. You can go ahead and have a kid if you want. Ruin your life. Have fun with that.”
“You’re such an asshole,” she said, and she sniffled, and she was probably crying. “This kid will be yours, too.”
“Yeah, well, I want a paternity test when it’s born. How the fuck do I know you weren’t out banging half of Boston?”
“I wasn’t. You were the only one I was with.”
“Go ahead and do what you want. I don’t even know why you called me to begin with when it’s clear that you’ve already made up your mind. I’m telling you, though, I don’t want to have a kid right now, and I certainly don’t want to have a kid with you. So if you want to go ahead and become a single mother, then by all means.”
“You don’t want anything to do with this baby? Really, Ian? Well, you’re at least going to have to pay child support. You’re right, I won’t be going on welfare or moving back with my parents—you’ll be paying child support, and don’t think for a second—”
I threw the phone across the room, where thankfully, it shattered, ending the call. I didn’t know how long I stood there for, trying to take deep breaths, waiting to wake up because surely this was just a horrible fucking nightmare, but after a few minutes, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. My phone was still smashed on the ground, the cereal I’d been eating was a soggy mess in milk. I’d been feeling so good that morning when I woke up, eager to get to work to see Daisy, and now suddenly that had all been completely obliterated.
God fucking dammit.
I was not in a good mood when I got into the office, and even Daisy’s smiling face didn’t do much to improve it.
“Good morning,” she said, and I tried to return her smile, though it probably came out closer to a grimace.
“Hi there.” Jonathan, of course, was right there, next to her desk; they’d been talking about something when I walked in but had stopped when they saw me. “I’ve got some business to take care of this morning.”
I strode on past them and into my office, closing the door behind me. I hadn’t shut the door since Daisy’s first day when I’d been changing my coffee-stained pants; I needed it shut right now, though. With it shut, my office turned into a controlled environment, almost a cocoon of sorts, and as I sat down in my chair and placed my hands on my desk, I felt a sliver of stress slide away. Only a sliver, but I’d take it.
The feeling that wasn’t going anywhere was the fact that Annie had trapped me.
I wasn’t sure exactly how much time had elapsed when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened slowly and Daisy peeked her head around. “Are you busy?”
“No, come in,” I repeated. She stepped in and closed the door behind her, though she didn’t push it all the way shut.
“I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay,” she said. “You’ve been in here all morning.”
“It is my office. I do have work to do,” I said. But I was touched, actually, that she’d come to check up on me. Which was strange, because if Annie had done the same thing, I would’ve found it completely annoying, overly cloying, kind of pathetic. I smiled. “There’s just some stuff I’ve had to take care of. How’s it going out there?”
“It’s good. Jonathan had to take some stuff to the post office and then was going to meet up with Dan at the civic center, but he said to tell you he’ll be back late afternoon. There was something he wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. He didn’t tell me what it was though.”
“All right. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Sure.” She put her hand on the doorknob and started to pull the door open but then stopped. “Are you sure everything’s okay? You seem a little . . .
I don’t know, stressed, maybe.”
She stood there, today wearing a slightly shorter, more form-fitting gray skirt, with a white short-sleeve blouse, the top button undone. There was nothing more I would have rather done at that moment than told her exactly what had happened on the phone with Annie, but that wasn’t the sort of news you shared with the woman you were planning to sleep with next. Was that even a good idea at this point? Maybe taking the path of celibacy would be better for right now.
But no. I’d have to fire her if that was going to be the case, because there was no way I’d be able to have her around like this and not get with her. It was like I could feel it radiating off of her skin, this intense desire that she probably didn’t even know she had. What was it Jonathan had said when he was trying to get me to give her an interview? She’s a freak in bed. She probably was a freak in bed. I’d be the one to bring it out in her.
“Yeah, you know, things can get a little stressful at times,” I said. “But that’s just how it goes. I try not to let it get me down.”