Chapter 13
Presley
"I'm running out." I walk into Clarabella's office. She is sitting at the table that faces outside. She is on her iPad uploading pictures of the food she took this weekend to the website. "I have an appointment at one."
"Appointment?" She looks over at me. "What appointment?"
"It's private," I say to her and she shakes her head.
"Shelby!” she yells for my other sister and I roll my eyes. I knew that I should have just told them I was going to work from home.
"You rang,” Shelby replies as she walks into the office and heads straight for the couch.
"Presley has an appointment." Clarabella leans back in the chair and Shelby's head probably has whiplash the way she looks over at me.
"What appointment?" she asks me with worry in her voice.
"It's nothing," I say, folding my arms over my chest. "I have to go in and meet my OGBYN." I try to keep my voice stable. They both gasp out. "And this is why I didn't say anything to you guys."
"Oh my goodness,” Shelby says, putting her hand to her chest. "I can't wait."
"No." I point at her. "No one is coming with me.”
"You're not going to the appointment alone," Clarabella tells me.
"I'm not going alone," I mumble and then quickly want to walk out of the room.
"Ohhhh," Shelby teases, clapping her hands. "Are you going with your baby daddy?"
"That's going to be his new nickname." Clarabella smiles at me and I walk over to one of the chairs next to her and sit down. "I'm going to change it in my phone right now."
"Can you not call him that," I say, shaking my head, not adding that he's more than just my baby daddy, he's also probably one of my best friends. And if things were different, I stop the thought right away. "And can we just like, not, you know"—I wave my hands—"go crazy."
"I spoke to Mom this morning,” Shelby says and I glare at her. "Relax. I didn't tell her you are with child."
"Yeah, what is up with that?" Clarabella asks.
"Nothing is up with that, it's just I want to speak to the doctor before I say anything to anyone." I tap the table with my finger. "Imagine telling Mom and then finding out it's a false alarm."
"Five pregnancy tests are not a false alarm." Shelby laughs. "I mean, one maybe, but five."
"Even if I tell her, she's going to ask me all these questions and I'm not going to know any answers, so I'm going to go to the doctor and then go and see her."
Shelby picks up her phone. "What are you doing?" I hiss at her but can't say anything else before Mom picks up the phone.
"Hey, Mom, it's me,” Shelby says. "I'm really craving some home cooking."
"Is that so?" my mother says, and you can tell from her tone she doesn't believe her. "Then go home and cook."
I can't help but laugh quietly and flip her the bird. "Presley called a family meeting,” Shelby informs her and I glare at her. "And I figured you would want to be included. But," she sings, "it’s fine. I'll fill you in on the details later."
"What do you mean a family meeting?" my mother says. "Presley," she calls my name knowing that I'll be in the room.
"It's nothing, Mom," I say while I mouth the words “I fucking hate you” to Shelby. "I'll come over after work."
"Why can't you girls leave me in peace?" my mother shrieks out. "Why do you all do this to me? My blood pressure is already through the roof."
"Can we be a little bit more dramatic?” Clarabella says, rolling her eyes.
"Don't you even start," my mother snaps at her. "Mrs. Rutherferd said she was walking down the street the other day and caught you and Luke on the front porch going at it hot and heavy." Shelby and I both whip our heads to her.
"It was dark outside,” Clarabella says. "And no one saw anything; we were under a blanket."
"In the front yard!" my mother shouts. "You have a whole house to do that in." I can just picture her hands going crazy in the air.
"We started outside and finished inside," Clarabella clarifies for her. "It's like we were dry humping, it's fine." She smirks. "We kept it PG-18."
"I'll see you all at six," my mother says, disconnecting, not even continuing this conversation.
"You're welcome," Clarabella says and I laugh. "She's so distraught about me, you having a baby out of wedlock might be the least of her worries."
"You are insane,” Shelby declares. "Her having a baby out of wedlock will push her to cover all the mirrors in her house and mourn."
"She's going to walk down Main Street with a veil over her head and sit in the park feeding pigeons," Clarabella cuts in. "Like the girl from Home Alone 2."
"Oh, God, you are both ridiculous." I get up. "I'll call you when I'm done."
I walk out of the meeting and walk into my office when I hear the front door open. I'm grabbing my purse when I hear my name being called over the speaker. "Presley, your baby daddy is here." Clarabella giggles. "And he's looking dapper AF."
I groan and walk out of my office, seeing him standing in front of Clarabella laughing. He's wearing a black suit that molds to him, with a light gray button-down shirt. His hands are in his pockets and it makes his arms even bigger. "What are you doing here?" I ask, walking to him.
"I figured that we can go to the doctor together," he says to me. "And then maybe go for lunch."
"Is that code for go and put more baby batter in you?” Clarabella says, laughing.
"You are so gross," I retort, turning and walking out of the office, ignoring the fact that I'm so nervous I feel like I'm going to vomit. I walk over to his car and feel him right behind me. "I really wish that you would have told me you were coming here today."
"Well, if you didn't sneak out of my house this morning," he says, opening the door for me, "I would have told you."
"Oh, now it's my fault." I get into the car. "If you think of kissing me right now, I'm going to…"
"I would never kiss you out in public," he says sarcastically, "and have people think we actually like each other." I roll my eyes. "We are having a baby together, people are going to know we've kissed."
"I don't want to be late," I state and he just nods his head, shutting the car door and walking around the car.
He gets in and neither of us says anything to each other after I give him the address. His phone beeps about fifty times on the way to the doctor. "Someone is a social butterfly," I tease when he parks as he grabs his phone.
"I'm in the middle of a merger," he tells me, looking down at his phone. "I'll turn it off."
I reach for the handle of the door and push it open, stepping out. Every single step feels like this overwhelming dread coming to me. I've been nervous and anxious for the last two days and I'm ignoring all the screaming that is going on in my head.
We walk into the waiting room and I give my name to the secretary, who smiles at me and tells me to come on back. Bennett puts his hand on my lower back as we walk into one of the examining rooms. "The doctor will be right in," she says. "If you can undress the bottoms." She hands me one of those blue big paper sheets.
I look over at Bennett, who is reading one of the posters on the wall that shows the baby in different stages. "We should get one of these," he says as I slip off the skirt I'm wearing, "and put it in my office at home."
"Or we don't and just look it up online," I suggest, wrapping the blue sheet around me and it doesn't even fit. I walk over to the examine table and sit down. The sound of crinkling has Bennett looking over at me.
"Are you okay?" he asks me. I roll my eyes only because my heart is beating so fast in my chest that I'm afraid if I say something, anything, it'll come out with a tremor.
His phone beeps and I just glare at him. "Sorry, I thought I turned it off," he says, taking the phone out of his pocket but looking at it for a second.
"You don't have to be here." The words come out of my mouth and his head whips around to me. "I mean, if you’re busy, it's fine. I can get an Uber."
He doesn't have a chance to answer me, and maybe it's a good thing, because I'm afraid that at this rate I don't know what else is going to come out of my mouth with all these nerves. "Hi there." A woman comes in. "My name is Cynthia and I'm the nurse." I smile at her as she walks over to the desk and moves the mouse, which makes the computer screen open. She goes over my name and age. "When was your last menstrual cycle?"
"Six weeks ago," I say, my legs now moving with the nerves in me. I look over at Bennett, who stands there trying to read the screen to make sure that she's putting everything in right. His hair is perfectly set today and he looks so handsome. The nurse gets up and walks out. I look over at Bennett and I'm about to tell him that I'm not feeling myself but I don't have a chance because the door opens again.
"Presley," the other woman says, coming in. "I'm Dr. Wellington." She smiles and then looks over at Bennett. "You must be daddy."
I can't help the smile that comes on my face looking at Bennett’s face light up. "That would be me," he says, standing by my side now and putting a hand on my back. She sits exactly where the nurse did, reading the notes in the chart. "It says your last menstrual cycle was six weeks ago."
"Yes," I tell her as she turns the lights off in the room. "If you will lie back and put your feet up, we will get the show on the road." I nod at her, lying back until my back hits the table. I put my feet in each stirrup, my stomach lurching now. " Since you are under eight weeks," Dr. Wellington says, "we are going to go in with the wand." She rolls over to the middle of my legs grabbing the white piece from the machine beside her.
"Is that going to hurt the baby?" Bennett says, stepping forward holding out his hand.
"The baby will not feel anything," she calmly tells him while she rolls a condom down on this white wand. "I'm going to insert this in and you will see the baby, hopefully," she says, putting lubricant on the wand. "It might be too early to hear the heartbeat but we can see the heart beating on the screen." Bennett stands beside me and puts his hand in mine. "This might be cold," she says, and I squeeze Bennett’s hand when she sticks the wand inside me.
"It's okay, gorgeous," he says softly, rubbing my head with his hand.
"There he or she is," the doctor says and we look over at the monitor. "I'm just going to check a few things," she informs us as she clicks away on the machine.
"Is everything okay?" I ask, my heart speeding up and the tears pouring out of my eyes as I look over at what is my baby.
"Yeah, everything looks okay," she says, taking the wand out of me. "I'm going to check you out this way," she explains, grabbing a white bottle, pushing the blue paper down, and squirting gel on my lower stomach. She grabs another thing and puts it on the gel. "Okay, so this is your baby's heartbeat," she says and the sound of galloping fills the air. I can't stop the tears that come to me, even if I tried to fight them off. I look over at Bennett, who just stares at the screen, his own tears running down his face. "I'll take a couple of pictures," she states and she snaps and presses some buttons. She wipes off my stomach and then the machine, going over to turn on the lights. "Okay, well, everything looks good," she confirms and then looks down, and I can sense that she is holding something back. "But from my calculations, you are just starting your eleventh week."
I open my mouth and look over at Bennett, who just stares at her with his own mouth open. "No, I think there is a mistake. I had my period."
"That is normal," she tells me. "It's not abnormal to get your period the first couple of months. Were they heavy?"
"Um, I know that one month was more spotting than a full-blown period and it lasted a couple of days." I look at her and she smiles.
"Well, that could have been a clue," she says and I can feel the back of my neck burn.
"But I just got morning sickness," I inform her, knowing that she must be mistaken.
She shrugs. "The human body is our biggest mystery." She laughs. "Regardless, you are almost done with your first trimester." She gets up now. "Congratulations." She hands Bennett the pictures that she took. "I'll see you in a month." She walks out of the room and the only thing that is going through my head is the fact that I'm almost three months along.
"We are going to need to get a second opinion," I whisper, getting up. "She obviously has no idea what she's doing." I put the blue sheet on the changing table as I get into my thong and skirt. "Almost eleven weeks," I mumble to myself, shocked, and look up to see Bennett still looking down at the pictures in his hand.
All he can do is look at me as he smiles from ear to ear. "I need to get a frame."