“It was a very nice event,” Laura said. “Faith would have been pleased.”
“We got some great footage for the special, it’s going to be kickass,” Perry said. “Faith would want it that way, you know. I need to talk to you about who is going to take over as our main met. For now, Matthew will be interim and Chuck will do weekends. I’m looking for a freelancer to round out the staff until we hire someone.”
“OK, sounds good,” Laura replied, standing up. She started to carefully maneuver Quinn into the BabyBjörn on her front. It was strange to talk to her boss about totally normal things, as if she weren’t strapping an infant to her, and it also felt jarring to be talking about Faith’s replacement already, but she knew that the TV wheels kept grinding and that Perry was doing what needed to be done for the business. Picking up her diaper bag, she wiped her brow. It was hot out, even in the shade of the gazebo.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said, starting to turn away.
Perry grabbed her elbow and Laura, startled, looked back. Perry’s face was serious, and he stared right into her eyes in an unnerving way that he did to everyone.
“Laura, there’s something else I want to tell you, something hardly anyone knows. I’m telling you this in confidence,” he whispered.
Something else? Laura’s throat tightened. What else could there be that was so serious? Didn’t they have enough bad news?
“What is it?” she asked warily.
“The medical examiner told us something and we asked him to redact it before going public.”
Laura had absolutely no idea what it could be, but her mind started to flip through guesses: A toxic level of drugs in Faith’s system? An undiagnosed disease? An abnormality in some organ? Or could it be the findings of a sexual assault? She shuddered at the thought of the last one.
“Laura, none of us were aware of this…” Perry said, taking a deep breath. He was still staring her right in the eyes. “But Faith was six weeks pregnant.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Steve
June 3
He knew that people from the Fair-Weather Friends Fan Club didn’t believe that he was Faith’s boyfriend. Steve could sense it even though he brought along the picture of the two of them at the beach as proof of their relationship.
It didn’t matter what those idiots thought, he knew the truth. Faith was his girlfriend and he got her pregnant. They had even talked about names: Zeus for a boy and Charity for a girl. They both liked strong boy names, and Steve knew Faith would want to name a girl after her sister.
He remembered when Faith had shown him the pregnancy test, how she cried with joy and how they made wild love on the silk sheets of her king-sized bed in her fancy apartment in the sky.
It all started when he opened that first letter from her, the day he was getting the mail at the end of the driveway. He read and reread the letter probably two hundred times, kissed and then licked her eight-by-ten photo all over, and tucked both under the pillow of the twin bed he’d had since childhood. He couldbarely sleep, he was so excited. Faith was going to be his soon! He would be touching her, caressing her. His face flushed and he stayed up until fiveAM, masturbating more in one night than he ever had.
She said she would write to him and for him not to write to her so he waited anxiously, debating what to do if she didn’t make that next move, but just three days later another letter came.
His heart soared when he saw it. She was as good as her word! When he opened it he was thrilled that she had really ramped it up: She said she had set up a private email address for the two of them to converse away from the eyes of management. And she said she was starting to fall in love with him.
His thought wasOh my God, oh my God, oh my God.He ran (for the first time in twenty years) as fast as he could from the mailbox to the house and straight to the laptop computer his mom and dad kept on a desk in a corner of the dining room. Panting, he frantically typed in the email address. He fired this off:
You’re the best Faith. I love you too. When should we meet?
An hour later came the response:
Let’s just flirt like this for a while. It’ll be fun. I’ll go first. Here’s a picture of me in my bedroom. Do you like what you see?
The photo was a selfie taken in a full-length mirror. It was from the neck down and she was wearing a very short silk bathrobe that was showing cleavage. He almost fell off his chair but was conscious that his mother was in the kitchen one room over making dinner.
“Stevie,” she called. “Food will be ready in twenty minutes. Did you get the mail?”
“Yeah, uh… I’ll uh… I’ll leave it on the table for you. I’m not hungry. I’m going to hang out in my room.”
“Not hungry? But it’s your favorite, meat loaf,” she said, and he noted a tinge of pleading in her voice. She had been using that tone since he was a child, always with him, never with his sister who was married with kids and had a job she enjoyed as a dental hygienist.
“Maybe later, Ma.”
He needed time alone with Faith, time to examine every inch of that photo and to take a selfie of his own to send back.
