Confidential(72)

Two hours later, at an old-school Italian joint in North Beach, we were stuffed full of pasta and cannoli and three cocktails apiece. “Once you’re knocked up,” Michael said, “there won’t be any more evenings like this, not for a long while.”

“Are you trying to scare me off, Baylor?” He laughed. “I can afford all the babysitting I want. I might get an au pair, brush up on my high school French.”

“Is that the language you want the little one to pick up? Not sure it’s got the most practical applications.”

I polished off my martini. “I’m not sure you get to have an opinion on matters of the little one. Isn’t that what we were just discussing with my attorney?”

“We haven’t signed anything yet.”

It was a high-voltage version of the sparring we used to do in session. Funny to think where we could take it if we wanted.

Did I want? Not tonight, good as I imagined it would feel. I didn’t like dating, but I did like sex, with an actual human, and I hadn’t had it in well over a year. Tonight, though, was too soon. Too fraught. As Michael pointed out, we hadn’t signed anything yet.

“I’m not going in for all that your-life-is-over talk,” I said. “Honestly, I feel like my life is just beginning.”

He held up his cocktail as if in contemplation, ruby liquid glinting. I couldn’t even remember what he’d ordered. “Don’t be one of those women who lives through her kids, though, okay? I can’t stop you; you’re going to have all the control, but promise me.”

“Was that the kind of mother you had?”

“Hey, I told you I’d give you my medical history. I didn’t say I’d let you psychoanalyze.”

“Oh, so you can do it, but I can’t?”

“You paid me for it.”

“Now I’m paying you for something else.”

He leaned forward, his eyes intent on mine. “And what’s that?”

“My future. I deserve to know.”

“Know what?”

“Who and what shaped you.”

“Isn’t it enough that you’ve seen the shape I’m in?”

He could act cute—he was cute—but he wasn’t going to skate out of my grasp that easily. He needed that $100,000, and he was going to earn it.

“Okay,” he said finally, “what do you want to know?”

I stroked an imaginary beard and made my voice deeper. “Tell me about your mother.”

He told me that she’d been the opposite of mine—utterly suffocating. Her happiness entirely depended on him. He was terrified to disappoint her. He had to move across the country to escape the weight of her expectations, and even now, her neediness could feel overwhelming, but still, he tried. You would have thought that with a mom like that, he would have retreated into a selfish profession, but instead, he tried to help even more people.

The waiter dropped off the check, and Michael grabbed for it. I appreciated the gesture, though it was a little silly given the apparent disparity in our finances. Not that I’d asked him for a bank statement, or that I would, but if all was well and solvent, I liked to think he would have donated gratis.

I didn’t want to insult his manhood by insisting on paying. I thanked him and suggested we go to a bar up the street. “I’m buying,” I said, “and I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Somehow, I knew that about you,” he said, and we both laughed.

We stayed at the bar until closing. I found out more about his childhood and about how he sowed his oats into adulthood. He confessed that he’d been with a lot of women. “But when I’m committed, I’m committed. If anything, I try too hard to make it work. I hang around too long. I’m the one who’s saying, ‘Don’t go, let’s give it one more chance.’ I don’t want to give up if there’s even a single ember burning.”

“So you’re needy and pathetic, basically.”

He laughed, but I realized it was nervous. “Have I scared you off?”

I shook my head. I’d already sensed he was complicated, and I didn’t want to create a simple human being.

No, there was nothing simple about any of this, and that suited me fine.





CHAPTER 57





LUCINDA


Michael’s (ex?)-girlfriend wasn’t in her car when I arrived, and I knew that because ever since my boss hacked my computer and my mother showed up on my doorstep, I’d been twitchy, perpetually looking over my shoulder, stomach pretzeled. I couldn’t write anymore. I could barely think, except that I was thinking all the time at a terrifying velocity. I was panicked, wondering who knew my past, my secrets, who could see my shame, which was back, full-force, like riding a bike.

My mother took full responsibility, said everything had been her fault, she’d been derelict of duty, but somehow, that had made me feel the opposite, like I was entirely to blame. Now I was all pure, roaring feelings, every one of them bad. It was like I was back in those men’s houses—there was no place to hide.

I didn’t even know who I was upset with anymore, if there was anything or anyone I wasn’t upset with, and of course that included me. For the first time, it also included Dr. Baylor/Michael.