of whipped cream, a sombrero for some reason. Emily gives me a wink. I stifle a laugh.
“Is here okay, miss?” Ubert asks, nodding at the table.
“Yes, thank you, Bertie.”
Ubert smiles and tips an imaginary hat. “Cecilia loved the latest book, Miss Emily. I have a copy for you to sign whenever you’re ready.”
“‘The latest book,’” Emily teases. “I take it you didn’t read it, then?”
He grins sheepishly. “You caught me. I like books about fish. Fishing. Lures and things. Anyway, see you.”
When Ubert disappears down the elevator shaft, Emily spins and starts sorting through her mess of a shopping trip. Finally, once the floor is a minefield of convenience-store crap, she thrusts three packages at me. I grab the pregnancy tests and head for the en-suite bathroom.
“Wish me luck,” I call back over my shoulder.
But I’m not sure what good and bad luck mean in this scenario. I can’t be pregnant. I know that much. Well, scientifically, I can. But I can’t be. It just doesn’t fit in my life. In my past.
I do my business and set the tests on the counter. In the mirror, I look wide-eyed, skittish. My hair is all curls and waves flaring around my face. I don’t look like a mother. I’ve never thought of myself as young before, but right now, I look young. Too young to have a life depending on me.
Emily knocks. “How’s it going in there? Need some help?”
“Help?” I laugh.
“Yeah, some water, some prodding.”
I open the door and she wheels inside, right over to the tests.
“Can you do the honors?” I croak. “I don’t want to look.”
“Sure, but this isn’t a bad thing, Hazel.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who might have a parasite feeding off your insides.”
“Yikes. Gruesome. That’s not how you really feel, is it?”
“No,” I sigh. “But I wish it was.”
Downright hatred would be easier than this confusion and half longing, twisted wanting. I drop onto the closed toilet seat and stretch my legs out. My hairs are standing to attention all over my body. I feel like screaming.
“Well?” I ask.
“It hasn’t been five minutes yet.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
Emily giggles. “It’s only been a minute.”
“It feels like a freaking century. Stop messing with me.”
“I’m serious!”
I wait. My skin crawls. This is intolerable.
“Has it been five minutes yet?”
“You sound like a little kid on a trip. ‘Are we there yet?!’”
Yeah, maybe I do, but the difference is I’m not sure I want to get to this destination. “Emily?”
“Okay, yes, here we go …” She leans forward.
I close my eyes, turning away.
“Positive.”
I clench my fists. My belly gets tight.
“Positive.”
There’s a baby in me. A real human life. A child. A part of me and Carlo.
Oh God.
“And … yep, positive.”
Suddenly, Emily has her arms around my shoulders, half-slumped out of her chair. I hug her back because it’d be rude not to, and try to smile as she showers me in kisses, as she makes oohing and ahhing noises and tells me she’ll be the most doting aunt who’s ever lived.
“But you can’t tell Carlo until I’m ready,” I whisper. “You have to promise.”
“Of course,” she says. “It’ll be our secret. But, Hazel, he’ll be just as happy as I am. I know he will.”
I hope she’s right.
But I don’t know if Emily is right about Carlo being happy because, as one day turns to two, and two turns to three … I don’t tell him.
I look for opportunities, but it just feels like I’d be throwing an atom bomb into this sort-of alliance we’ve made. This silent agreement that, okay, we might not be Romeo and Juliet, but we’re at least heading in the right direction. We eat dinner together most evenings. I spend my days on Skype with Lucille or Johnny and Max, cooking with Alda, painting in my studio, gossiping with Emily.
Life falls into a steady rhythm that would’ve seemed surreal weeks ago when Carlo first brought me here.
This afternoon, after working on a painting about a tiger cub hiding under a rock as a bunch of shadowy monsters attack it—the symbolism isn’t lost on me—I walk through the mansion to Carlo’s office. I’ve been doing this a lot lately when I know he’s in. If he’s working, I’ll sometimes just sit in the big chair by the bookcase and read, both of us just content to be near each other. Sometimes we have sex. Sometimes we play Scrabble.
The room is empty when I get there, but I know he’s been here