Maybe Baby Read online

  Maybe Baby

  Lani Diane Rich

  Copyright Lani Diane Rich 2005, 2012

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Second Edition: July 2012

  www.LaniDianeRich.com

  Dedication

  To Toni, aka Blonde Betty, whose great gifts of foresight and clairvoyance were freaky-deaky cool a long time ago in a blogverse far, far away…

  To the Kakapo,

  a beautiful, unique, and fascinating bird that takes a lot of hits in the course of this book.

  You are not a fat, ugly, smelly, obnoxious green chicken.

  I take it all back.

  One

  “I, Dana Elizabeth Wiley, take you, Nick…”

  Her groom blinked. “Um, who?”

  A fly zipped past her eyes, and Dana swatted at it with her bouquet, then puffed up a breath of air, fluffing her bangs away from where they tickled her forehead. It was another moment before she realized everyone in the rec room at the Rosemont Home of Central New York was watching her expectantly. She blinked.

  “Hmm? Sorry? What?”

  Her groom, a seventeen-year-old kid from Laundry with the longest and skinniest neck she’d ever seen, leaned forward. “Who’s Nick?”

  Dana felt her heart take a tumble at the mention of the name.

  “What? Nick’s no one. No one’s Nick. Why? Did I say Nick?”

  The groom gave her a small smile. “Yeah. Kinda.”

  She turned and looked at Milo, her boss and daily tormentor. The Bible he was holding was upside down.

  “Did I say Nick?” she asked him.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Milo sing-songed through clenched teeth and a plastic smile as he nodded toward the guests. “There’s a cross-stitch event at eleven. Let’s move it along, people.”

  A cross-stitch event. Ah, Milo.

  Dana glanced around. Two dozen aged, happy faces stared back at her, none of whom knew who she was or would even remember by dinnertime that they’d been to a wedding. According to Milo, gatherings such as weddings, graduations, and baptisms—even pretend ones—raised the morale of the Alzheimer’s residents by fifty-three percent. Of course, it was patently ridiculous to quantify morale, but who was she to question? As Milo liked to remind her, she was just a secretary with a wedding dress that still fit. Nothing more.

  She blew another noisy puff of air toward her forehead and looked at the groom, who had been recruited at the last minute when her usual groom, Mark from Accounts, called in with a bad case of I-really-don’t-feel-like-it. The Laundry Kid was heavily freckled and looked a little out of his element in Mark’s faded tux, which was two sizes too big, ruffled at the neck, and powder blue. Poor kid. She pulled on a smile and leaned toward him. “I’m sorry. What’s your name again?”

  He tugged at his collar. “Um, Chad.”

  Dana leaned back. “I, Dana Wiley, take you, Chad…” She paused, waiting for Chad to cue her with his last name. He stared at her blankly. She improvised. “… O’Laundry-guy…”

  “Oh, sorry!” he said, realizing his omission. “Actually, it’s McCamish.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Milo admonished through a false and overly toothy smile. Dana exchanged a look with Chad. Ah, Milo.

  “To be my lawfully wedded husband,” Milo prompted.

  “To be my lawfully wedded husband,” Dana recited. She felt a tension pain in her shoulder, followed by a roiling in her stomach.

  Had she really said Nick?

  Why would she say Nick? Not that it mattered much, except that if her subconscious was trying to get a point across, having her say her ex-fiancé’s name in the middle of a fake wedding was a really rude way to do it, far as she was concerned.

  “For richer, for poorer…” Milo read.

  “For richer, for poorer…” She ran one satin-gloved hand over her hip, smoothing the skirt of her dress. It was a lovely dress; a clean, sleeveless A-line, no lace or decorative hoo-hah sewn in to clutter things up. She always imagined that she looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn in it, with its ten-foot train and satin gloves that didn’t give up until they reached her upper arm. And she would be Hepburnish, if she was taller and less curvy and could pull off the short hair thing without looking like a boy.

  Regardless, the dress was lovely. Damn shame it was cursed. On the first day she wore it, she got into a fender-bender with a cop, accidentally set a priest on fire, and ran out of a church, leaving a stunned Nicholas James Maybe in her wake.

  And yet I put it on twice a week to get out of filing, she thought. I’m so cheap.

  “Dana.”

  She blinked. “Hmm?”

  Milo gave her the death glare and enunciated his words carefully. “In sickness and in health…”

  Oh. Yes. “In sickness and in health…”

  Although really, if she looked at things practically and analyzed all events with an unemotional, objective eye, Dana would have to admit that the problem was probably not the dress.

  It was her. She had a tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, dress or no dress. Take the night of her would-be wedding, for instance, when she’d come back to the house she shared with Nick on the edge of the family vineyard. After an afternoon of self-loathing and excessive drinking among the lonely reception trappings at the Wiley Wines bar-slash-gift shop, she ran to the house to tell Nick that she’d made a horrible mistake, and found him in the embrace of a half-naked woman. And not just any woman, either. Melanie Biggs, Dana’s nemesis since high school, and quite possibly the third Antichrist of which Nostradamus spoke.

  Yeah. That had been bad. And Dana had changed into a nice little sweater-and-jeans ensemble by that point, so… probably not the dress.

  Milo cleared his throat with obvious irritation, and Dana snapped back to the moment. She’d missed another cue. Ah, well. What did it matter anyway?

  “Love, honor, and obey,” she rattled out, “from this day forward, ‘til death do us part, yadda yadda yadda.” She smiled at Chad. “Your turn.”

  Milo’s face tightened with irritation, but he just gave a martyr’s sigh and moved on. “I, Chad McCamish…”

  The first couple of times she’d done the fake weddings, she really played it up, the blushing bride and all. Now, pfffft, morale-schmorale, no one cared. She could show up in a T-shirt and jeans singing “La Cucaracha” and residents would be just as happy. The cynic in her believed the buffet was the actual culprit behind the 53 percent jump in morale—Gladys from the kitchen made a killer Waldorf salad—but it didn’t matter. The residents were happy, Milo got his funding, and Dana got out of filing.

  Everybody plays, everybody wins.

  “…take you, Dana Wiley, to be my lawfully wedded wife…”

  Had she really said Nick? Why would she do that? She hadn’t even thought about Nick in… well, okay, not since last night, but that was just because she’d caught a glimpse of Charlotte drinking white wine in a Sex and the City rerun and… well, Nick managed a wine bar in Manhattan. But before that it had been a while. Days, even. Weeks probably. And since she’d actually seen him, it had been longer. Much longer.

  Six years as a matter of fact.

  Wait.

  Six years?

  Dana gasped and put one daintily gloved hand to her mouth.

  “What’s today’s date?” she blurted.

  “In sickness and in… what?” Chad said, then glanced awkwardly at his watch. “Uh… the fifteenth.”


  Her heart sank. “October fifteenth?”

  Milo cleared his throat. “May we continue?”

  Dana nodded and swallowed hard. It wasn’t just six years since she’d seen Nick. It was six years to the day. Six years since what was supposed to be the best day of her life had turned into the worst day of her life. She felt heat rise up the back of her neck, soon to be followed by the cold sweat. How had she forgotten?

  Well, actually, she hadn’t forgotten. She’d said Nick.

  Stupid subconscious.

  She closed her eyes, and time slowed as the memory of that day hit her in one powerful wave. Suddenly, she was back in St. Christopher’s, at her own wedding, pulling Nick aside while Father Michael doused the fire out of his robes with the holy water.

  I can’t do this.

  ‘Course you can, Diz, he’d said, using his pet name for her—a play on her first and middle names.

  No, she’d said, feeling all her breath go out of her body as she took a step backward. I can’t.

  Nick’s eyebrows knit together. What are you talking about?

  What I’ve been talking about for the past year, Nick.

  Understanding washed over his face, and he sighed. Come on, Dana. We’ve been through this. We’re not your parents.

  No, she said. We’ll find our own special way to destroy each other. But it’ll still happen.

  Nick put his hands, warm and strong, on either side of her face. He leaned his face down toward hers and smiled, his eyes sparkling at the edges the way they did whenever he looked at her. That was when it occurred to her that he’d probably never touch her that way again, and she started to cry.

  It won’t happen, he said. I promise you. You’re just panicked. It’ll pass, and when it does, I’ll be right there with you.

  She swiped at her face and glanced at Father Michael, who was patting a towel on the singed, wet sleeve of his robe.

  But I set the priest on fire. It’s a sign.

  Nick smiled, brushed her bangs away from her forehead. Don’t read anything into that. It was an accident.

  No. It’s an omen. Don’t you see that? I can’t do this, Nick.

  His eyes stopped sparkling, and his smile disappeared.

  Dana. I won’t let it happen. Just trust me.

  For a moment, she’d considered just sucking it up and getting through the ceremony, but the very idea made her chest constrict, and she couldn’t breathe. She touched Nick’s face and knew in that moment that her heart would never beat right again.

  She opened her mouth to tell him she loved him, that it wasn’t him she didn’t trust, it was marriage, but it was all too pathetic to say out loud. Sure, she loved him, so much it made her soul hurt, but that wasn’t going to keep her from running, so what was the point in saying it? She wheeled around and ran down the aisle, the wrong way, the faces of the stunned guests flowing together as she rushed past them, the only sound in her head that of her elegant, Hepburnish, cursed dress swishing behind her as she negotiated the church steps two at a time.

  She opened her eyes, crashing down back in the rec room of the Rosemont Home. Panic gripped her heart as the knowledge she’d been fighting for six years suddenly descended on her in a heart-stopping moment of razor-sharp clarity.

  Dana Maybe. That’s who I should have been.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “Are you okay?” Chad whispered, a concerned look on his face. “You kinda look like you’re gonna hurl.”

  Dana nodded and let out a squeak that might have passed for, “Fine,” if she could have gotten some breath in her lungs.

  No, no, no, she thought. I’ve made my peace with this. I did the right thing. It was best for both of us. It was… a mistake.

  Dana put her hand to her chest. Her heart pounded out a lopsided rhythm as she fought the clarity washing over her.

  Dana Maybe.

  “Oh, crap,” she breathed.

  “Till death do us part.” Milo slammed the Bible shut and shot a look of stem disapproval at Dana. “You may kiss the bride.”

  Chad leaned forward awkwardly, he and Dana exchanged a lightning-quick half-lips, half-cheek smooch. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, tell him to take his youth and run, that adulthood was for the birds, and that once you hit the age of consent one bad choice could effectively ruin your whole life, but Milo clapped his hands together and broke the moment.

  “Buffet time!”

  The residents shuffled over to the buffet table, and even the random choruses of “Wasn’t she just lovely?” and et cetera didn’t do much to allay the panic that was winding its way through Dana’s gut. She stood, riveted to her spot. Tears crowded behind her eyes, and she blinked hard, reminding herself of the morning after the wedding that wasn’t, when Melanie Biggs had found Dana at the winery to tell Dana not to worry, she’d been there to comfort Nick.

  All night long.

  She swallowed again. Somehow—despite Melanie, despite the deaf ear Nick had turned to Dana’s concerns about marriage as an institution—the certainty that she’d made a mammoth, life-destroying mistake lodged itself in her gut and showed no signs of leaving.

  And there she was, in the rec room of an old-age home, where she was doomed to repeat forever the one thing she hadn’t been able to get right when it mattered.

  Chad approached her, holding a plate with a piece of cake on it.

  “You’d better get over there,” he said, motioning toward the buffet table with his plastic fork. “You wait any longer, there will be nothing left.”

  Dana swallowed hard against the panic rising in her throat, and the clarity faded away, leaving a hollow coldness in its wake.

  “You know what?” she said, gathering her train in one arm and whipping the veil off her head with the other. “I have a headache. Cramps. I think I’m coming down with something. A flu. Tell Milo for me, will you?”

  Chad blinked. “Um. Okay. You gonna be all right?”

  “Anything’s possible.” She grabbed her bag from behind the altar and hurried out of the room, oddly comforted by the familiarity of the swishing sound the dress made when she ran.

  Two

  Nick Maybe drummed his fingers against the bar at Murphy’s, the sound echoing across the polished wooden surfaces in the empty room. Despite having managed the place—and having lived in the apartment directly above it—for six years, he couldn’t get used to it in the daytime. At night, it was full of trendy Manhattanites who came for the wine tasting, the food, and the opportunity to show everyone that they were both willing and able to drop fifty bucks on a glass of wine. But at least then it was alive. During the day, it was just…

  … lonely.

  He tossed a disgruntled glance at the clock on the wall. Eleven wasn’t early for people with regular jobs, but considering his day didn’t start until five at night and often didn’t end until four in the morning, eleven might as well be the crack of dawn. Most people knew better than to call him before one.

  Babs Wiley McGregor, however, wasn’t most people. She called whenever she felt like it, and when she did, it was usually for the same reason. Well, this time, Nick decided, it would be different. This time, he’d just say no and go back to bed. Then he’d do his last shift at Murphy’s, spend the next five days packing and getting rid of non-essentials. Then he’d hop his flight on Saturday, and that would be that.

  This phase of his life would finally be over.

  Nick pushed himself up from the bar and walked over to the espresso machine. Dealing with Babs at this time of day definitely called for him to be on his toes. He felt a twinge in his neck as he tamped the fine coffee grounds into the metal portafilter and craned his head to the side to work out the kink. It was way past time to get out of New York, way past time to get away from Babs Wiley McGregor and everything she represented.

  Like, for instance, her daughter.

  Dana. A flash of her face shot through his memory. Chestnut curls catching fire
in the sun. Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. Crisp blue eyes, somehow hot and cold at the same time. Full lips, smiling to reveal a wicked sense of humor and slightly crooked teeth.

  And, of course, there was the view from the back, as she ran down the aisle of St. Christopher’s, leaving him holding a set of meaningless rings in front of a hundred and fifty of their closest.

  Nick shook his head.

  “Way past time,” he muttered.

  There was a tap on the door. Nick glanced through the window and saw the outline of a woman he knew was Babs. Tall, thin, graceful. Clad in a white outfit with clean lines and wearing, if he wasn’t mistaken, a tremendous white hat with some sort of pink fluff sticking out of the top.

  He situated two espresso cups beneath the filter and headed for the door.

  “Morning, Babs,” he said. “Nice hat.”

  “There was a man on the street outside who just told me I was a hottie,” she said, lifting up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek as she entered the bar. “He was buck-ass naked, so I didn’t respond, but I was flattered just the same. When you get to be my age, you take your compliments where you can get them.”

  Nick laughed and shut the door behind her as she floated into the bar. She was skating over the back end of her fifties, and still she moved like a girl. Maybe not as quickly as she used to; she’d definitely slowed down some in recent years. But there was a weightlessness to her step, as though there wasn’t a worry in the world that could hold her down.

  Unlike Dana, who worried about everything, who never took a risk, who held to the status quo like it was a damn life raft.

  Let it go already, Maybe, Nick thought. Life’s too damn short.

  “Whatever you’re here for, Babs,” Nick said as he rounded the bar and tended to the espresso, “the answer is no.”

  She put her purse on one stool and settled herself on another. “Well, that’s rude.”

  “Sorry. No time to be polite. Espresso?”

  “Please,” she said. “And how do you know I was coming here to ask for something? Maybe I was just stopping by to spend some time with you before you abandon me for California.”