“I…God, Margery. I think I’ve made a horrible mistake.”
***
“I thought you could use some tea,” she said, handing Amanda a steaming mug. Margery had come right over to her place, like the cavalry, and Amanda was eternally grateful for that.
On the way home from the restaurant, Amanda had purchased a pregnancy test. She’d even gone through with the actual test once Margery was over at her place. The stick in question was waiting to be ready on the bathroom sink. Okay, so it had been ready about twenty minutes ago, but she still hadn’t been able to get herself up from the couch to go over and see it. It was stupid. She could already tell from so many of her symptoms what it had to be, even if it seemed so nuts that one night could have such lasting consequences.
So final.
“Do you want me to check first?” Margery asked.
Would that even be better?
She found herself nodding, somehow feeling it might be easier. Hell, she would definitely be able to deny it if she didn’t see the plus sign with her own eyeballs. Holding the tea mug in her hands, letting the heat shift through her palms, Amanda felt adrift. She needed the heavy mug to ground her to a world that was pressing in on her. As she kept her head down, she heard Margery’s measured steps to the bathroom, followed by her sharp intake of breath.
Amanda didn’t need to be told what that meant, even though her friend was back a bit later, her deep brown eyes full of concern. Margery stood before her and put a hand on either shoulder. “Honey, you’re pregnant.”
The reporter set the tea down immediately, scared she’d drop it in her shock and scald her best friend. Blinking up at Margery, Amanda felt her head spin. It felt as if she’d pass out right then and there.
“Are you sure?”
“We can get another box. I can get like five different kinds. I know they’re not all accurate, and you’ll have to go to your doctor and double-check. They can do all those really accurate hormone tests and—”
Amanda chuckled ruefully. “Of all the times for you to nervously ramble, this is not exactly the best time,” she pointed out. “Trust me, Margery, I know about having to see my doctor. I just…”
Margery nodded fiercely, her head seeming like one of those bobblehead dolls. “Are you going to keep the baby?”
Amanda blanched. It was such a funny thought. Even as nervous as she’d been waiting for the result, feeling its inevitability, she’d never once thought of anything else but keeping her child. Part of it was the years of catechism ingrained in her, things she thought she’d mostly left behind when she’d stopped attending mass. But some of it was just the thought that, as fucked up as everything had become between them, as ugly as their end had been, the night she’d shared with Amir had given her some of the deepest happiness and pleasure she’d ever known. There had to be something good that came from that.
The baby might be the one good thing that their chaotic meeting and affair actually produced.
Almost unbidden, her hand covered her stomach as she shook her head. “I have to keep him.”
“Him, huh?”
“I know this will be a boy,” she said, her voice still shaking. “I just…I didn’t plan it and my life’s such a mess. I mean, I’m nominally working as a waitress like I’m back in college to keep my apartment and blogging because no real paper will hire me.”
“You can finally move in with me. Together we can get a bigger place and every kid needs a cool Aunt Margery,” she started. Then her friend narrowed her thoughtful eyes. “Except that’s so stupid of me. You’ll need to find some way to contact Amir, maybe even fly back to Abu Dhabi and go directly to the casino.”
“I can’t tell him,” she replied, standing and starting to pace before her friend. “Don’t you get that? I rushed out on him. We had an affair that embarrassed both of us and sent negative press after him for over a month in the middle of his grand opening.”
“So?”
“I can’t do that. How many times do you think sheikhs and other royalty have affairs? How many have children they never claim as heirs? Everything we did was a mess. It was not a mistake, but he probably doesn’t want anything to do with me after how I left it,” she finished, pacing a hole in the floor as she threw her hands up over her head.
“But he has a right to know,” she countered.
“I can’t try contacting him and then be blocked out or sent away. Even if I could reach him, he’d probably tell me, ‘So what am I supposed to do about it?’” Amanda wasn’t completely sure he’d be that cold in his rebuff, but she knew he would reject her…and their child. Amir had been more than clear that he didn’t want children, that it was nothing that would ever interest him. Showing up months later and being pregnant would hardly change his tune on that. “I just have to go this alone.”
Margery’s frown deepened and she opened her mouth, as if she were about to say one thing, but then shut her jaw again. Maybe she’d thought better of it. It was one of the things she loved the most about Margery. She was a good friend, always supportive, but also willing enough to give you room to make your own decisions and not lecture.
“Alright, but we so have to get you booked with a doctor and start apartment shopping. We need a place that has a good spot for a crib. I…we’ll make this work. Besides,” she said, reaching down and rubbing at Amanda’s belly (she had a feeling she needed to get used to that over the next few months), “I’m going to be the best aunt out there.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
***
She swiped at her eyes with her shirt sleeve. Margery and she both had set aside this Sunday for crib painting. It had taken two months to find and move into a suitable place. It was in Southern Maryland, out in the suburbs. Both of them had to take the metro into the city, but prices there were just too high for what they neede