Jackie’s smile grew even wider; greed glinted in her pale green eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve spoken to the Hope Channel execs, and they’re willing to burySanta, Babyif we give them something even better in return. Like an exclusive sit-down alongside Michael.”
I stared. “I don’t want to burySanta, Baby,” I said slowly. “I loved working on it. I’m proud of it. I’m proud of everybody’s work on it.”
My dad scoffed next to me. “You can’t be serious.”
“What he means,” Jackie put in smoothly, “is that we are going to find you fulfilling work inside of your old brand. We know you want to feel proud of what you do, and that’s why we’ll make sure you have plenty of creative input on the projects you choose.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not shutteringSanta, Baby, and I’m not trying to squeeze my way back into True Vine’s good graces. And as much as you might want me to fit back into my old brand, I can’t now. I’m having a baby with someone I’m not married to. There’s nothing more contrary to the old brand than that.”
“Actually.” My mother cleared her throat. “We have a way around that.”
I laughed. And then stopped because she was completely serious. “There’s no getting around the fact that I’m going to be a mother,” I told them. “It’s kind of inevitable at this point.”
“What if,” Jackie said, “you weren’t going to be a mother, but rather, a sister?”
“I’m sorry, I think I’m not...” I paused, looked at my parents. They looked back, my father putting his hand on my mother’s shoulder from where he stood behind her chair, and then it clicked.
“You want to take the baby,” I said, hoping I was wrong. “You want to raise the baby as your own.”
“An elegant solution to a thorny problem,” Jackie said. “And then there will be no need for the world to know you’re pregnant at all. We’ll have anyone who already knows sign an NDA, and we’ll make sure those agreements are ironclad. From the outside, it will seem as if your parents have decided to welcome a new child into their family, and you are its attentive, doting sister. And from the inside, well, you’ll be able to see your baby as much as you want, play house as much as you want. The brandandthe baby in your life. That’s a win-win if I’ve ever seen one.” Jackie sat back, satisfied with herself.
I was so upset I could barely breathe.
“And before you say no as a knee-jerk reaction, really think about this, Winnie,” my mother said. “What would be better for this baby? Having a mother who will be famous for tawdry movies—and a father who makes his money with the same tawdry moviesandpizza—or having us as his or her parents? When we could give this child so much more stability and guidance?”
“I don’t want this,” I said clearly. Without hesitation. “I don’t want any of this.”
Words I hadn’t been able to say until just two years ago. Words that still somehow were a surprise to everyone hearing them. But at least they came easily. At least I didn’t have to rehearse them, shape them in advance, scrape together every ounce of courage in me to speak them.
They came as naturally as breathing now.I don’t want this.
My father stiffened, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with a tight, angry frustration. He hadn’t been expecting me to have an opinion, and why would he? Until the divorce, I’d done everything he and Mom had wanted.
“Hasn’t this rebellion run its course, Winifred?” he demanded. “How much further can you change—can you fall—before you admit that your pride has led you astray?”
I stood up, both hands shaking. All of me was shaking. But not with fear, not with uncertainty.
With sharp, angry clarity.
“And what about your pride?” I asked them. “You’d rather lie to the entireworldthan admit you have a daughter you can’t control any longer? You’d rather see me unhappy than offer your love freely? This is how I know I’ve changed, Dad: I can’t think of anything moreastraythan that.”
And without another word, I left the room, left them alone with each other and their horrible plans.
“LA roadsss, take me hooome,” Addison sang as she pulled her G-Wagon into her driveway that afternoon. “To the place! Where I belong!”
She kept singing as she parked and the tall metal gates swung shut behind us. We had a brief fight about her carrying my bag, which she won, and then we trooped to the pool house, where she tutted at me to sit down as soon as possible.
“Thanks for picking me up, Addy,” I said as I sank onto the sofa and pulled a throw pillow to my chest. “I couldn’t stay there anymore.”
I’d left the house by sneaking out my window, which was not very bed rest of me... or very thirty-two of me. But I figured in the long run, it was less stress for the baby if I was back home. My real home, however small and technically not mine it was.
“You betch,” Addison said. She threw herself on the couch next to me and her iced pomegranate juice spilled on her hand. She licked it off her fingers like a cat. “You doing okay?”
Strangely... Iwasdoing okay. “I’m still a little rattled,” I admitted. “But two years ago, a day like today would have broken me. Instead, I feel... stronger? I had to saynoto two people I never used to say no to, and I had to do it without any warning, and I was still able to do it.”
“You’re anomachine now,” Addison said approvingly.
“I wanted them in my life so much, even before the baby.” I looked down at the pillow. “And just when I’d learned how to stop wanting it, they showed up again. They were there when I needed someone to be there for me. I guess I’d hoped...”
