“Oh God. What are you thinking?”
“Not telling.”
“Wren, you’re scaring me. This is an innocent child you’re talking about.”
“You’ll never guess in a million years.”
She’d gone full Rumpelstiltskin on him.
“What if I don’t agree to your terms?” he asked skeptically.
“I’m the mom. I can tell them whatever I want on the birth certificate and they’ll just write it. No one will even ask you.”
She had him there, and he knew it. His only choice was to placate her.
“Look, fine. I agree. I’m just saying, not nagging, justsaying. There are better uses of our time when a quick Google search will tell you that pregnant women cannot go skydiving.”
“What exactly is the problem? If my chute fails to open and I go splat…”
Arthur winced. “Please…”
“…what difference does it make? If I were some childless cat lady, it would be totally fine for me to risk my life. But because I’m some holy vessel now, I suddenly lose all agency?”
She was being snarky on purpose, but there was somethingabout it that annoyed her. Every day women got beaten, groped, and insulted in every corner of the country, the world even, and no one gave a shit. No one particularly cared about her when she nearly flunked out of school years after her parents died, for example, and when she had a brief phase of lashing out, getting into fights, smoking, drinking Smirnoff Ice out of paper bags like the world’s frilliest little drunkard. The only intervention ever suggested was to send her to one of those Scared Straight camps for troubled teens where you sleep in a barn and they throw things at you and spray you with a hose until you agree to shape up. So the way everyone was suddenly fawning over her protectivelynow, it made her more than a little ill.
“I’m not making a moral judgment, OK? It’s just the facts,” Arthur said. “The act of free-falling out of a plane apparently puts a lot of stress on your body, and so Big Skydiving, their lawyers, the insurance companies, I don’t know,whoever, has decided that it’s not a risk they’re willing to accept. I don’t make the rules, but they do exist for a reason.”
Wren stroked her chin for effect. “I’ve been thinking a lot about redneck names lately. I think they get a bad rap. Like Skyleigh, now, there’s a good name. Or how about Kennedy with a bunch of randomh’s thrown in there? Bri’anne with an apostrophe?”
“Look, we’re here, OK?” He held one hand up as if to say,Don’t shoot, and then returned it to the wheel to make the final turn. “We can ask them and see what they say, if that’s really what you want.”
She unclicked her seat belt with a satisfiedhmphas they parked in front of a ramshackle building called Velocity Skydiving.
“But I still don’t understand why we couldn’t do this overthe phone,” Arthur added. He just had to get that little comment in there.
“My particular brand of charm and charisma doesn’t translate as well over the phone. Plus, I can’t do this.” She flashed him her best puppy-dog, Disney, Bambi-just-watched-his-mother-die doe eyes.
They parked and walked inside, the door chiming behind them. A preposterously handsome instructor fellow manning the check-in counter flashed them a quick smile, his triceps actively testing the tensile strength of his Velocity Skydiving polo.
“ ’Ello.” And he had an Australian accent to boot, like he was literally made in a lab to be a poster child for adventure sports. “Can I help you?”
Wren stepped forward and gave Arthur a “follow my lead” nudge.
“You can, actually. I just had a question, about the—”
He cut her off. “No.”
“Sorry?”
“The answer is no, pregnant women can’t jump. No, there’s no special waiver you can sign, and no, I can’t make any exceptions.” He smiled again. “You’d be surprised how often this comes up. But, sincerely, congratulations.”
Wren’s face ran hot with embarrassment. It was over, already, before it even began. She started to look over at Arthur, as if for backup, but stopped herself. He’d surely be giving her that little look, the half smile with his lips tucked in,I told you so. She wasn’t going to give up that easily, nor was she going to give Arthur the satisfaction. She was just inquiring, after all, so who was this guy to shut her down? Wasn’t she allowed to ask questions? She didn’t know how they did things Down Under, but this was America the last time she checked.
“You have some nerve, sir. I am fat, and I’ll have you know that I’m not ashamed of it. It’s 2026 and I will not adhere to your toxic nineties beauty standards.”
If he looked close enough, even through her shirt, he could probably see the distinct impression of a foot pressing against the inside of her belly. She folded her arms over her stomach just in case it might help.
“Good for you, but, lady, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s policy.”
