Olivia continued to be her dear heart. It was like the pregnancy was drawing them closer. The pediatrician was in clear support of her “project” but was focused on Christine’s emotional well-being more than anything.
The biggest change in her life, though, was the few times a week she met up with Jamie Howe. They’d have a bagel downtown, meet up at a big box store if they both had shopping to do. A couple of times he filled her car at a gas station, saying that this was part of her living expenses. She’d argued, telling him that she was receiving a monthly stipend that covered those, but gave in when he agreed to only catch a few of the tanks full along the way, because of the extra driving she was doing to meet him.
He’d been to her house once, to interview a plumber with her because it was someone she didn’t know, but whose bid had been the most economical, and with her pregnant he hadn’t wanted her alone in the house with a stranger, but he’d left almost as soon as the plumber had. They’d agreed with a look and a mutual shake of the head that she wasn’t going to hire the guy. Sometimes the lowest bid wouldn’t be the cheapest way to get the job done in the long run.
The sale on his house had closed, but a week before he was to give up vacancy, thirty days after closing, the inspection on the home he was purchasing came back with possible foundation problems. His old home’s new owners had made a deal to allow him to stay put, renting the house for two months, while possible repairs were completed. She’d been with him to meet the inspector at the new house only because they’d gone three days without seeing each other and that was the only time they both had free.
She’d taken the baby to see his or her new home. To hear Daddy’s voice. Jamie didn’t have to be speaking with her to make that happen. She only needed to be near.
Their arrangement could be considered a bit overkill. She got that. And yet, with current studies showing how much a baby could be affected by environment in utero, she wanted to give Jamie every chance to bond with his child.
They tended to do things where there was no chance for a lot of personal conversation, and instead they ended up discussing how their days had gone, how his math as a way of art design classes had overfilled and he’d agreed to open one more to take up the slack. They kept a professional boundary between them, separating them at all times.
And that was good.
When Jamie called the Sunday morning before their twelve-week ultrasound appointment the upcoming Friday, inviting her to lunch at the country club, Christine balked for the first time.
“You really think that’s a good idea?” she asked him. “I mean, downtown, anywhere we’re out and about, we’re going to be seen together, but at the country club...that’s your tribe. You’ll know pretty much everyone and...”
It just seemed awkward to her.
“I spend a lot of time there, and we’ve never been. The baby’s going to be growing up there. And...they have a phenomenal Sunday brunch. We used to go every week. It was like a thing. You’d see a lot of the same people. I’ve been avoiding it since Emily died and figured that now would be a good time to get back out there. In another week, I’m going to start telling people that I’m going to be a father,” he said. “My employers. My associates. Friends. My mother and stepdad. It’s not like I’m just going to start showing up in everyone’s lives with a baby in tow, like it appeared in the night by immaculate conception.”
She’d wondered how he was going to handle that. But...
“A lot of these people are going to hear through the grapevine, Christine. I’d like them to see that I’m out, I’m fine. To have a heads-up, sort of, before they hear the news.”
“I just...don’t want people to think that you and I...that we...”
The thought of people seeing them together and thinking they were a couple... Assuming they were...
She and Jamie had been out and about for weeks. She’d never worried about what people thought. Those who knew her knew what she was doing.
So why did she suddenly think it mattered what people thought?
She didn’t know what she was thinking. Just...the country club...the sense that everyone knew everyone...the gossip of powerful people...
The idea that what they’d think wasn’t true and that she didn’t want them to know it wasn’t...
Because she wanted it to be true?
She gave her head a vigorous shake.
“How about if I introduce you as a business associate?” he asked. “Then people won’t try to make us out to be more than we are.”
Maybe. It could work.
But the country club...
She’d been there for business purposes before. In a group, not one-on-one. Those tables for two—they’d always seemed so romantic to her. People living a life she’d never have—not because of the cost, but because she wasn’t going to be part of a couple.
It was a life she didn’t want.
Those couples at those tables, they’d seemed so intimate. Letting themselves be seen out together in a room filled with their peers. Not just with patrons, but with people who knew them. Like they were making some kind of announcement.
She had no real reason to object. But felt pressure closing in on her. Because when she pictured herself with Jamie at the country club, she’d suddenly wanted to be there as herself.
Not as the body carrying his child.