Chapter Sixteen
Dean
After the security guy unlocks our phones, Solange and I skip down the front steps of the sex lair masquerading as a quaint row home in the middle of Northwest DC.
“So, same time, same place, next Saturday?” I ask nonchalantly.
The tension in my chest eases when I catch the hint of a smile that appears on her dewy face. She looks as though she’s recovering from a burst of physical activity. As if she’s just taken a quick lap around the block and needs to catch her breath.
“Dream on, Chapman,” she says, simultaneously waving me off and fanning herself. “Dream on.”
I feel lighter on my feet knowing nothing’s fundamentally different between us. Sure, I’m growing accustomed to my attraction to Solange. Doing something about it, though, would be game changing. It’s a challenge, but if I can withstand the temptation of being within inches of her at a sex party, there’s literally no scenario I can envision that would break my resolve not to get thrown off course by Solange’s allure.
She doesn’t seem all that fazed by the encounter anyway. And it’s entirely possible her reaction was nothing more than an indiscriminate response to being in a highly arousing situation. Admittedly, an extremely small and selfish part of me hopes that’s not true, but that part of me can fuck right off.
“Did you drive?” I ask her once we reach the sidewalk.
“Yeah.” She points up the street. “I’m a block over that way.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
She nods, and we wordlessly stroll side by side, the air on this balmy evening in July adding weight to even the smallest physical movement.
“So, what are you going to do about Peter?” she asks, finally breaking the silence.
Peter deserves to suffer for this stunt, no question. Yet confronting him about it might provoke questions I’m not prepared to answer. If everyone canceled, why did we attend the party? And what did we see or do once we got there? I’ve never been a fan of sharing my private business with colleagues, but this experience between Solange and me is superpersonal, and I don’t intend on sharing it with anyone, let alone my dirtbag coworker who’s obviously dead set on getting me fired. “I’m not sure. Still working out the possibilities in my head.”
“Let’s think about this for a minute.” She narrows her eyes and twists her lips back and forth. It’s her pensive expression. The one that tells me I’m about to get the benefit of her singular wisdom. I love that she wants us to work this out together.
Quickening her pace, she sticks an index finger in the air. “Scenario one: Peter didn’t know it was a sex party. I bet lots of people hated him in law school. He’s the guy everyone resented because he had a mean competitive streak and monopolized every class discussion. We had someone like that in grad school. So maybe this was all a prank, and he would have been just as surprised as you were. He’ll assume you decided not to go and that’s that.”
“I wish it were that easy to explain, but knowing Peter, I doubt it is.”
“Okay, fine, so let’s consider the second scenario,” she says, holding up two fingers. “Peter knew it was a sex party, and he was hoping Kimberly and Nia would be offended by the night’s festivities and blame you for taking them. Once he discovers they canceled, what then?”
“The stunt becomes pointless.”
“Exactly,” she says, painting double check marks in the air. “Which means he won’t say anything unless you do. If you think about it, not saying anything and keeping him guessing will secretly infuriate him. He’ll spend weeks wondering if you’re going to retaliate in some way.”
I give her a devious smile. “That’ll torture him.”
She rubs her hands together. “It’s deliciously vindictive. Beneath you, really. And yet it has the potential to be extraordinarily satisfying.” Then she reaches into her purse and pulls out a set of keys with a fob. “This is me.”
Well, one thing’s clear: Solange isn’t inclined to discuss the party. And I suspect her willingness to brainstorm how to tackle the Peter issue was meant to prevent us from even acknowledging what happened back there. Can’t say that I disagree with her approach; maybe that’s the best way to handle this anyway. Pretending does seem to be our fallback position.
I’m poised to watch her drive off, but as she’s climbing into her pint-size cherry-red Mitsubishi hatchback, her phone rings. With the door still open, she answers it and immediately tries to calm the caller. “Hang on, hang on. I can hardly understand you. Breathe.”
“That’s what I’m fucking trying to do,” the person on the other end of the line—a woman—yells.
“Where’s Paulo?” Solange asks.
She listens intently, then blows out a slow breath. “Okay, I’m coming to get you. Be there in twenty-five minutes, twenty if the stoplights cooperate.” With the car door still open, she hunches over and rests her head on the steering wheel.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
She looks up at me, her expression anguished. “It’s Natalia. She’s going into labor, and her husband’s stuck on the other side of the Bay Bridge in Maryland because he had a meeting out there.”
Contending with Bay Bridge traffic is a way of life in the area. An accident or even heavy fog can leave commuters stranded for hours on the Eastern Shore. Depending on what’s happened, Natalia’s husband could very well miss his child’s birth. “Is Natalia all right? The baby?”
“Oh, she’s fine,” Solange says flatly. “She knows my car is reliable. Lina’s might break down.”
“Makes sense . . . but why the long face?”
She gives me an incredulous expression. “It’s Natalia. She’s having a baby. You don’t know my cousin like I do. She’s the kind of person who could make her childbirth experience go viral.”
“That dramatic?” I ask.
“Oh, Dean. She’s going to torment us all.”
“What can I do to help?”
Solange tips her head to the side, her brows pinched together. “Trust me. You don’t want any part of this experience.”
I see what’s happening here: She’s boxing me out. Pretending to be her boyfriend in front of my colleagues is one thing; interacting with her family is quite another. But I’d like to think we’re friends, and I wouldn’t abandon a friend in a time of need. “C’mon, Solange. I’m a strapping young man. That may come in handy.”
She considers me for a moment, then reaches for the inside door handle. “Okay, get in. But listen, whatever happens tonight, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Damn, I’m not having the baby, am I? What the hell is she envisioning? If anything, I’d say Solange is the one being overdramatic here.
Solange
As I hightail it to my cousin’s place in Wheaton, Dean helps me triage the phone calls to the family network.
“You call Max and Lina first. They’ll be able to keep her calm if need be. I’ll call her mother at the store. She’ll let the tias know what’s going on.”
I place Viviane on speakerphone. “Oi, Tia. O bebê vai nascer logo.”
I hear Tia Viviane suck her teeth. “Sim, já estou sabendo.”
Well, if she already knows, why isn’t she scrambling to get to her daughter?
“I need to put my makeup on first,” my aunt explains. “I can’t go to the hospital without something on my face.”
I glance at Dean before I return my attention to the road. He scrubs a hand down his face to hide his smile as he waits for Max to pick up. Yes, by the looks of things, he, too, is now fully aware of the depths of my family’s wackiness.
“Just meet us at Natalia’s,” I tell Tia Viviane. “Where’s Mãe and Tia Mariana?”
“They’re getting themselves together,” she says. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon.”
I can’t with them. Not now. Sure, they may miss the birth of Natalia’s child, but at least they’ll look cute when they eventually join us.
Twenty minutes later, Dean and I pound on Natalia’s front door. She swings it open, her sweat-slicked face twisted in a grimace. “Hey, you two.”
I immediately pull out my phone. “I’m calling 911. You need an ambulance.”
“No,” Natalia forces out through clenched teeth. “They’ll figure out a way to charge us ten thousand dollars for a ride on a glorified ice-cream truck. Don’t do it, Solange.”
“Okay, so what do you want us to do?”
“I’ll get in your car. Drive me to Holy Cross. My OB is on call there. The contractions are like six minutes apart, so we should be good.”
“Fine. Let’s get your stuff together.” I turn to Dean. “We don’t have time to wait for everyone. Can you call Max and Lina back and tell them to go directly to the hospital instead? Ask them to update the tias too.”
He nods, his eyes softening as he lifts the phone to his ear. “On it, Captain.”
I appreciate that he isn’t offering suggestions or activating the mansplaining gene. Instead, he’s patiently waiting for any instructions, and that in itself makes me less anxious about my limited role in the situation. I reach out and give his hand a squeeze. “Thanks for being here.”
“Of course,” he says with a wink. “Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“Honest?”
“Honest.”
Natalia sucks her teeth. “Oh my gosh, you two. I’m the one having the baby. If you can get your heads out of each other’s asses long enough, I might be able to get to the hospital to pop this monster out.”
She waddle-stomps up the steps to the second floor of her and Paulo’s townhome. I scurry after her, appreciating the excuse not to meet Dean’s gaze.
In the bedroom, Natalia’s muttering to herself as she double-checks the contents of her overnight bag.
I throw up my hands. “What do you need Sudoku for?”
“To pass the time,” she says between breaths.
“Natalia, I think you’re going to be a little too busy for Sudoku. And when the baby arrives, you’ll be lucky if you have enough time to wipe your ass properly.”
“Oh my God. Just shut up. Shut up,” she says, scrunching up her face and placing a hand on her lower back. “And here I thought I was the drama queen.”
Wrapping her in a loose embrace from behind, I rest my chin on her shoulder. “I’m kidding, prima. Just trying to distract you. You’re doing great, and I’m in awe of your strength.”
“Thank you.”
“Now what else do you need?”
She squirms her way out of my arms and takes a slow spin around the room, her gaze bouncing around as she tries to gather herself. Her eyes grow wide when they land on a device in the corner. “Oh, the electric stimulator! I definitely need that.”
I flinch my head back. “The what?”
She dons a devilish expression, then huffs and puffs. “Paulo and I took this New Age birthing class that encourages the partner who isn’t in physical labor to experience simulated contractions. It’s supposed to bring us closer together and teach him empathy. Supposedly it reduces my pain too.”
“No shit!”
“Who knows?” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “But it’s the least he could do considering he’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
I can’t help grinning at her ridiculousness. “Wait. Why is he to blame?”
“Because he makes me do things,” she says, glancing furtively at the door, then lowering her voice to a whisper. “Things I’d never imagined doing. Like agreeing to a process that makes my vagina large enough for a watermelon to fit through it.”
I mentally cross my legs. Ouch. “To be fair, some people can manage that outcome with their dicks alone.”
She draws back. “Mulher, what kind of dicks have you been fraternizing with?”
“None, unfortunately,” I grumble. “I hear stories, is all.”
“Anyway,” she says as she crosses the room to grab the stimulator, “if the contractions start coming faster, I may need you to strap on a few of these electrodes. I don’t want to change anything else about my birthing plan. It’s already bad enough that Paulo may not make it in time.”
Yeah. No. I’m not doing that. “Dean!” I shout loud enough for my voice to reach the downstairs living room.
He appears at the door in a flash. “What do you need?”
“I’ll explain on the way to the car.”
He did say he’s a strapping young man. That’ll come in handy, indeed.