be so strange? he wonders. After all, she was their caseworker once, and they never thanked her properly.
Eva is struggling to sit up straighter as he and Chloe explain at once, on top of each other, that they met in the hallway, she’s here for a baby.
“But I’ll be here for hours,” Chloe repeats. “She’s not four centimeters, but they’re keeping her anyway, ’cause she’s a little…” Chloe twirls her finger by her ear. “We’ve been here all night, and I think it’s going to be another long day.” Chloe dumps a stack of sugar packets into her coffee. “In fact, I should probably go check on Penny, I mean, the birth mom. I should probably go check on my client.”
“Penny?” Eva’s head snaps up. “Francie’s birth mom? She’s here?”
Paul can see Chloe is torn, but she has already given them too much information. She nods, sits on the foot of the bed.
“Listen, are you guys still close? To the McAdoos? I remember, Paul, you said, when I saw you at Thanksgiving…”
A look passes over Eva’s face, but Paul ignores it. He never thought to tell her he had run into Chloe that night.
“I only ask because there are some problems. Francie says John’s out of town, making some excuses, like he can’t be reached by phone, but we really need him here. The birth father’s slamming around, my boss is all over me, Penny’s freaking, Francie’s not even going to be here for another hour because she says she doesn’t have a car seat. I told her she could buy one later, but then she freaked, like she thought I was trying to tell her not to buy one, like things weren’t going to go through, and who knows, so now she’s driving around trying to find a Target open. Things would just be a lot better if one of them would show up like they want this baby.”
“Is it going to go through, then?” Eva asks, and poor Chloe suddenly looks very tired, like she has been the one physically laboring all night.
“Once again, wish I had my crystal ball,” she says, yawning into her wrist.
“Well, you’re an angel to bring us coffee and bagels,” Eva says.
She doesn’t know, will never know, exactly how much of an angel Chloe is.
10
The Vultures Are Circling
CHLOE
Chloe is pacing in the lobby, the coffee churning in her stomach, when Francie McAdoo arrives, slipping as her wet loafers strike the tiles. Her ribbed black turtleneck clings to her birdlike torso, her thin blond hair fluffed out on her shoulders, a perfectly done face of peachy foundation makeup, gold hoop earrings. She is clutching a dripping arrangement of irises, a large Gund teddy bear, and a chic paisley Petunia Picklebottom diaper bag.
“I couldn’t find anyplace open with a car seat,” she yells shrilly from across the lobby. Chloe is anxious not to attract attention; Jason had said he was going out for a smoke and could be skulking around anywhere.
“It’s okay.”
“No, I know it is, I just spoke to friends of ours who had their baby this morning as well and he said we can use their car seat, that he’ll give me a ride home. Is he here?”
“Paul Nova? I just saw him.”
“No, the baby!”
“Oh, no. She’s got a long way to go. You don’t go from two centimeters to ten in forty-five minutes, not in the best scenario,” Chloe says, not caring how Francie takes it. Read a pregnancy book! she thinks. “Come on up.”
They walk together toward the elevators, Francie’s cheeks flaming.
“Where’s John?” Chloe asks.
“I still haven’t been able to reach him. He left at four this morning for Singapore and isn’t answering his phone. If he turns it on in L.A., I’ll have a chance of getting through.”
“Wait a minute.” Chloe stops, grabs Francie’s forearm like they’re best seventh-grade girlfriends. “John left this morning?”
“Yes, his flight is in a few minutes, seven ten, I think.”
“But I called you last night, when we got admitted. I told you we were in the hospital.”
Francie doesn’t say anything, pats at her hair, shifts the diaper bag to her other arm, makes like she wants to keep walking toward the elevator.
“Francie, he went anyway?”
“It’s a very important meeting. And you hear so much about false labor—”
“You don’t understand. Your son is going to be born today. If you were in labor, would he hop a plane to Asia?”
“Of course not. Of course he wouldn’t,” Francie says, her eyes darting around the hallway. “But this