In front of her is a receipt from the gastropub where they held their summer outing last night in their world, and from the size of the bill, apparently in this one too. She riffles through the invoices and papers beneath it. Raw bar, paddleboards, dung cleanup, everything but the flamingo. Perhaps this Ilena weighed in before they signed the rental agreement.
“Knock, knock,” precedes an actual rapping against the open office door. Felix smiles. He’s wearing his usual office attire of slacks and a pressed button-down, and she can’t help thinkinghow good he looks. So does James, who enters behind him. His freckled skin is more deeply tanned, his red hair more ginger, like he lets himself spend more time in the sun here. Perhaps playing tennis with her husband.
“Brought the real muscle to finally get this stuff home now that the nursery’s painted.” Felix grips James’s upper arm, and his cheeks flush.
Ilena feels like a fraud, an intruder, and she really has to pee—again. “Thanks,” she says. “Thank you, James.”
“My pleasure. And last night’s party was quite the shindig. As always with you,” James says sweetly, though she’s pretty sure, as he picks up a Diaper Genie, he rolls his eyes.
The baby kicks, and her body jerks, less from the honeydew’s foot and more from the realization that James may not be a teacher in this world, but he’s still in love with Felix. This isn’t right. She’s not like Mallory, immune to guilt, able to pick and choose what lies to tell and what truths to keep secret.
But then Felix is at her side, kneeling, hand on her belly. “You’ve always been fun in a bottle.”
No, she hasn’t. Not even in college, not really. And especially not compared to Mallory.
Felix adds, “Pop the cork, and we’re off! Runs in the Cohen family.”
She stiffens. The only thing that runs in her family is Chardonnay.
“I really should get back to work,” she says brusquely.
Felix jerks back, confused, before nodding slowly. “Oh, Ilena, it’s just us. No need to put up a front that the baby isn’t as important as it is.”
“The complex life of a working mom. So on trend,” James says, smiling politely, but those eyes judge every inch of her, and she feels like James knows she’s a fraud.
The baby lobs a grenade at her midsection, and she places herhand on the spot. Felix covers it with his, laughing and smiling and making her smile. Then she looks up. James’s jaw tightens as he rolls the diaper-filled stroller out the door. Felix dated both men and women in her world before settling down with James, and James’s reaction is making her wonder if the same is true here. And if it is, how could he have possibly wound up with her instead of James?
Felix stands and begins gathering more baby gifts. He snuggles the giraffe in the BabyBjörn on his chest and piles baby clothes in the one he slides onto his back. All the items are neutral colors, no pinks or blues, no indication of the baby’s sex, which is fine, which is good. She doesn’t want to get attached to what isn’t hers.
Felix leans in to kiss her goodbye, and she tenses, but his lips simply brush against her cheek.Act normal, Mallory had said, but she’s not the one carrying the child of a man who should be living a life with someone else. She takes a deep breath, readying herself to confront Mallory, when she sees a clear plastic box on her desk. Encased inside is a pregnancy stick, those two lines she’s been desperate to see staring right at her. Underneath is a note signed by Felix:I’m now positive too.
Which could mean there was a time when he wasn’t. When he was scared. Just like her.
10
Ilena
Harvard University
Nineteen YearsBeforethe Outing
Ilena sat, scared, on a toilet surrounded by empty bottles—water and beer, a fairly even proportion because Mallory suggested it, and Ilena needed both the hydration and the liquid courage. Though guilt twisted her insides with each sip of the cheap, watery beer. Because what if it hurt the baby? Mallory searched the internet and told her it wouldn’t, that it was too early. And, she pointed out, Ilena wasn’t keeping the baby even if there was a baby anyway. But one, Mallory lies, and two,wasIlena not keeping the baby?
She had fallen for Jonah the moment he’d stuck his arm in between the closing doors of the Red Line train at the MGH stop two years ago when they were both freshmen. He’d kept the subway at the station long enough for Ilena to run across the platform, arms laden with the artisanal cupcakes she’d special ordered for Mallory’s birthday. She’d thanked him by opening the box and letting him choose one. He hadn’t hesitated. Chocolate–peanut butter, he’d said, if Ilena didn’t mind. Shedid. That was her favorite too. But then she caught a glimpse of those unruly brown cowlicks and suddenly she didn’t mind so much. They ended up sharing the cupcake on the train. Jonah later admitted he had purposely missed his stop so they could keep talking. And it was talking, but it was also the most arousing foreplay she’d ever experienced.
She’d never been able to look at cupcakes quite the same way again.
The artisanal confection had been her father’s go-to “surprise” when she was little—every birthday, every Hanukkah, chocolate–peanut butter and lemon-raspberry and key lime. That was, until her dad stopped being there for every birthday and every Hanukkah.
Jonah had reminded her of her dad, or her dad before he became a word, simply a noun, something she knew of but that had no bearing on her life, like Vegemite. She saw her dad not in Jonah’s cowlicks that would forever curl every which way, but in his motivational-poster way of looking at life.
On the train, Jonah had pulled a coffee shop napkin from his backpack before Ilena could reach for the one in hers. He’d split the napkin in two, and they’d each wiped their fingers.
Then he’d said, “If I kept a bucket list, I’d be able to check off ‘eating the perfect cupcake.’”
“Oh, are you morally opposed to bucket lists?” Ilena had asked.
“Principally. I prefer to be focused on what’s right in front of me.”
