Stone Cold Fox (81)

“That’s enough. I get it. You’re really not going to help me.” Syl was starting to cry. She’d completely lost her nerve, but I had all of mine.

“Escaping one unsavory legacy for another? After everything you’ve been through as Jane Wink? That’s what you want? Sylvia Austin, sexual assault victim, for the rest of your life? What would John say? Your dad? Everyone? You have to care about everyone’s opinion, Syl. You don’t have a lifeboat like I do. So it’s in your best interest to maintain some decorum, even as an alleged victim. Look, I’m only saying all of this because I actually do care about you, even with your foul behavior today. I like you and I respect what you’re trying to do here. We all have to look out for ourselves, but the only person this scheme of yours will reflect poorly on, if you even got that far, is you. So save yourself the trouble, Syl. Please. Don’t give it another thought.” I paused for dramatic effect, waiting for her gaze to meet mine once more. “I know I won’t.”

Syl’s lips quivered as she looked up at me. She was about to say something in response, but it came out only as a stifled sob before she ran out of the bar. Mission accomplished.

I wondered if I’d ever see Syl again. Would she go through with it, despite my scathing yet likely true warning? Something told me she wouldn’t. After that display of hers, it didn’t appear she had blackmail in her at all. It wasn’t like her. She was trying it out to get what she wanted, her venue an inspired choice, obviously meant to help her immerse herself in the dirty deed at hand. Fake it till you make it. Method acting. Anyone can play at being a shifty character in a seedy bar, but what about the follow-through? See, what most people don’t realize is that conning and scheming and extorting and doing downright dastardly business is not for the faint of heart. Most people, suffering from a good conscience, cannot do it, and that’s why the people who can do it are often successful at it. Put simply, it’s hard for anyone to imagine they’re being taken for a ride because who would actually do such a thing?

Most people are trusting. Their first mistake.

I so badly wanted to order a drink. I deserved it after losing my first real friend of my whole life, but it was time to go.

Girls like Bea Case didn’t belong in seedy bars like that.





CHAPTER


    18



MY FIRST RESPONSE was “No, no, please God, no.”

I said it out loud in the restroom at work, decorum be damned. Two women I hardly knew from Accounts Receivable were washing their hands, talking shit about Colleen’s vegan brownies in the break room, cut short by concern for me in my stall.

“Oh, honey. Next month.”

“Don’t lose hope.”

I didn’t say anything, waiting for them to leave. After an excruciating thirty seconds, I heard them click-clack away in their sensible and hideous two-inch heels. They thought I was trying to get pregnant? I suppose that would have been the normal thing, being a newlywed and all, especially one in a family where legacy was the only thing that seemed to matter. But instead of being thrilled about the heir apparent in my womb, I was in utter and complete shock.

Collin and I hadn’t even talked about children. It was never part of our premarital discussions, but I just assumed that Collin assumed I would want a child as well. When he’d realize that wasn’t altogether true, we’d have to indulge in a heated conversation. I would push the envelope as far as I could, just to see what might happen, what I could get away with, but I envisioned myself being the one to ultimately relent. I finagled my way into the family to get everything I wanted, so I’d give him what he wanted in return without much of a fuss, but I would certainly not be the instigator. And a small part of me believed that perhaps I’d get lucky. Maybe Collin didn’t really want to have children either and we could go on being one of those fabulous child-free couples that are well-dressed, well-traveled and actually happily married until their deaths.

I would not be so lucky.

I was pregnant.

How? It had happened so fast. So soon. Completely unplanned. I was firmly on birth control. I never missed a dose.

And yet, there I was . . .

The strangest feeling.

It’s not like I grew up playing with baby dolls or babysitting the neighborhood children. I imagined what a normal mother might be like, but I knew I didn’t have one. How could I become one? I was rarely around children at all as an adult and when I was, I avoided interaction as best I could. We didn’t have anything in common. What would we even talk about?

I knew it was unsavory to resent children, but I did just the same. Privately, of course. Any child I came across with Collin, or the rest of them, had it made. Must be nice. Must be really, really nice. To have a childhood at all.

But I also knew I couldn’t resent my own child.

Because I wasn’t like Mother.



* * *



? ? ?

    I WENT BACK to my desk to finish out the day, hoping to think about literally anything else, but of course the baby was all I could think about. I could do this, right? It’s all focus. Just had to focus. I was excellent at being focused. What kind of mother would I be? A good one. It wasn’t hard, was it?

Oh, please. Of course it’s hard. It’s all any mother talks about when in the company of other women. The hardest job in the world. No, thank you. Life was hard enough. And what if I ended up like my mother after all? Did having children make Mother who she was? I had no earthly idea what she was like before children. Do children make some women snap in some way? Would I snap like her? What would she have to say about all of this? What did I have to say about all this?