Three Girls and a Baby Read online

  Three Girls

  and a

  Baby

  Rachel Schurig

  Copyright 2011 Rachel Schurig

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Madeline.

  Thank you for ridiculous amounts of inspiration and support.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Andrea, Michelle, Madeline, and Katy for all of your help, advice, and support.

  Thank you to Nicholas J. Ambrose for proofreading services.

  Book cover design by Scarlett Rugers Design 2011

  www.scarlettrugers.com

  Special thanks to my family for being so very supportive. I love you guys!

  Like Ginny, I also worked as a nanny after college. However, I was lucky enough to work with many wonderful families. I thank them for letting me be a part of their children’s lives.

  Chapter One

  Eight Weeks: Congratulations! By the eight week mark, most moms-to-be have discovered that they are in fact pregnant! Even if you have taken a test at home, it is important to make an appointment to visit your doctor at this point to confirm the pregnancy and check your overall health. At eight weeks of pregnancy, morning sickness (or all day sickness!) is very common. You may also feel more tired than usual throughout the day. You may even begin to notice a change in your waistline! Enjoy those skinny jeans while you still can, ladies! —Dr. Rebecca Carr, A Gal’s Guide to a Fabulous First Pregnancy!

  My life ended on a Saturday morning.

  Oh okay, my life didn’t end. Technically. But it sure felt like it did.

  And yeah, I suppose you could make the argument that the whole mess technically began six weeks prior to that, when my ex-boyfriend, Josh, waltzed back into my life and created—with my willing and eager help—such havoc. But if you want to look at things that way, then I guess we could just as easily go back five years to when Josh and I started dating in the first place. To me though, that Saturday in January, the day I found out, was really the beginning of the event that completely changed my life.

  On that day, I woke to amazing smells wafting from the kitchen. Bacon, definitely bacon, and possibly…maple syrup? Yes, that was it. Snuggling deep into my duvet I smiled. Jen, my housemate, was cooking breakfast.

  Annie, second housemate, and I were what you might call minimalists in the kitchen: pasta with sauce from a jar was an impressive meal for us. Jen, on the other hand, was a wonderful cook, though she had little opportunity to show off her skills. Jen was somewhat of a party girl and most of her dinners and lunches took place at smart restaurants with work colleagues—or with her latest conquests. But every so often she would wake up on a weekend morning determined and enthusiastic to set to work in the kitchen.

  When Jen cooked, she never half-assed it. I could expect a breakfast feast of French toast, bacon, fruit salad…she probably would have even squeezed us fresh juice. Annie and I love these mornings.

  After pulling on my robe I stumbled down the stairs, meeting Annie on the way. Her reddish blond hair was a frizzy uncombed mess around her shoulders, and she too was pulling on a robe.

  “Morning,” I yawned.

  Annie nudged me with her elbow. “I’m sorry to have to tell you,” she said in mournful tones, “but Jen is my favorite roommate. I would kick you out and never speak to you again if she wanted me to.”

  I nodded seriously. She had a point.

  Arriving in the kitchen it was just as I expected: Jen was busy turning several pieces of French toast on the griddle. A large platter held cut oranges, strawberries, and melon chunks. The smell of bacon hung heavily in the air. Annie moaned and closed her eyes. “Jen Campbell, if you would have me I would turn lez for you, marry you, and do anything I could to keep you happy and cooking food for me.”

  Jen snorted. “Right, I’m sure. Grab some plates would you? These are about ready.”

  Per usual, Jen looked drop dead gorgeous, even for nine a.m. on a Saturday morning. While Annie and I were prone to lazing about all day in flannel PJs and fraying terry cloth robes, Jen was already wide awake in a turquoise silk dressing gown, her sleek brown hair neatly twisted up in a clip. It was pointless to even be jealous of her innate style and togetherness—I could just never pull it off.

  As Annie got the plates from the cupboard, Jen pointed her spatula at me. “Silverware, lazy. Chop chop!”

  Jen hummed to herself as she dipped another piece of bread. As I squeezed past her to reach the silverware drawer, I happened to glance down at the bowl holding the dipping mixture of eggs and milk. Immediately, I felt my stomach lurch violently and I knew I had seconds to get to the bathroom. Pushing away from the counter I stumbled as quickly as I could out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, falling to my knees in front of the toilet just in time.

  When I was sure there was nothing left in my stomach to throw up, I flushed the toilet and leaned back against the cool tile wall. I felt shaky and sweaty. What was going on? I reached up to grab a Kleenex only to find the box empty. I knew there should be a new one under the sink: I had put it there myself only last week. I leaned over and opened the cabinet—but it wasn’t a Kleenex box my fingers brushed first. It was a carton of tampons.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Oh no, oh no...” Frantically I tried to count in my head. True, I had been a bit of a basket case lately, but I was fairly confident—no I was pretty damn sure—that I hadn’t had a period in more than two months. And between then and now there was that night, that one single, horrible night with Josh…

  For a moment I was sure that I was going to faint. The outlines of my fingers seemed to blur before my eyes and I felt my entire body start to tremble. This can’t be happening. Please God, let this not be happening.

  “Gin, you okay?” Annie called from the other side of the door. Okay? What did that word even mean? Would anything ever be okay again? “Ginny?” I could hear the worry growing in Annie’s voice. How could I tell her what was happening? How could I tell her what I had done?

  “Ginny, open the door, you’re freaking me out.” Her voice was firmer now, and somehow I found some strength in it.

  Wiping my mouth I began to tell her that I was fine, but discovered I couldn’t manage those words. “Come here please, Ann,” I said instead. My voice sounded strange to my ears, the way it sounded when I heard myself on the answering machine.

  I heard the knob turn as Annie peeked around the door. I didn’t look up as she entered but I could picture the look of worry and confusion on her face as she took in my position on the floor. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She was crouching in front of me before I could respond.

  I looked up into her eyes, my very best friend, and I wished desperately that I wouldn’t have to tell her what I suspected. I knew that Annie loved me, knew that there was no one better to have in my corner in a crisis. But there was something else I knew: Annie would judge me. She would be unable to understand how I could have been with Josh after everything. She would never say a word against me, but she would think it. She would think less of me, and I was terrified to see that in her eyes.

  So, like the coward that I am, I closed mine.

  “I think I’m pregnant,” I whispered.

  Chapter Two

 
Looking back on that Saturday, I would always be surprised that it was Jen that took control of the situation. Annie, usually so in charge of herself and the people around her, seemed almost as panicked as I was. After I told her she didn’t talk for a very long time. When I finally opened my eyes and looked at her she appeared to be hyperventilating. It wasn’t until Jen came to investigate that either of us managed to get up off the floor.

  Now Annie was pacing endlessly around our tiny living room, literally ringing her hands. “You look like an old woman,” I snapped from my seat on the couch, where Jen had deposited me with a glass of ginger ale while she went to put on clothes and find her car keys. Annie barely seemed to notice me, dazed as she was.

  Jen walked briskly back into the room. “I’ll be back in ten,” she said, touching me briefly on the arm before she walked out of the front door. I heard her car start a moment later and leaned back into the couch, closing my eyes and trying not to lose it. After a few minutes, Annie finally seemed to remember that I was there.

  “How do you feel now?” she asked, sitting down across from me on our old thrift store recliner.

  “Scared shitless,” I muttered.

  “I’m sorry I freaked out,” she said quietly. “I was just…shocked.”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “Do you…do you wanna tell me what happened?” she asked hesitantly.

  “You mean whose is it?” I snapped.

  She shrugged. “If you want to tell me.”

  I sighed deeply. “Josh came back, like, a month and a half ago. We talked, it got emotional, we kissed. Things got out of hand.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She sounded hurt.

  “I was afraid you’d think I was pathetic,” I admitted. “Hell, I thought I was pathetic. Even before it happened I knew it wouldn’t mean anything had changed. I was kissing him, leading him to my room, and I knew it wouldn’t change a thing. But I did it anyway.”

  “Is that…is that why he hasn’t called lately?”

  I looked at her sharply. “How do you know that?”

  “It was pretty obvious you were still talking to him, Gin; we all knew it. And it was pretty obvious that it stopped.” She paused, thinking. “Right around the time we had our little fight in fact.”

  “Yeah, he was here the week before that.” I flinched. Even now the memory of that night could still cut deep. “After it was over I told him to leave me alone, to stop calling. When you got mad at me, I guess it only confirmed to me that I needed to try to move on.”

  “If I would have known that had just happened, I never would have said—”

  “I know, don’t worry about it. You snapped me out of it, it was a good thing.”

  She started to say something else, but we both heard a car pulling up into the drive. Jen was back.

  She walked in, all business-like, and ushered me to the bathroom. “Okay, we’re going to do this real fast and try not to think too much about it until it’s done, deal?”

  Honestly, I was a little too afraid of her and her new no-nonsense briskness to argue, so instead I meekly took the plastic stick she handed me out of the small box in her hand. “It says you pee here,” she said, pointing, as she read aloud from the instructions. “Then you set the stick on the sink and wait for three minutes. No biggie.” She squeezed my hand. “Come out when you’re finished so we can wait together.” I nodded mutely and she left.

  They didn’t give me the chance to come out. No sooner had I started pulling up my PJ pants and they were barging through the door. “Sorry, we were listening,” Annie explained unabashedly. They pulled me down on the floor between the two of them, our backs leaning against the bathtub. Jen had set the timer on her iPhone and for a moment I couldn’t take my eyes off the descending black numbers.

  “This ceiling is really filthy,” Jen noted mildly, her head tilted back.

  “We’re crap at cleaning,” Annie agreed. “I told you we should have hired a cleaning service.”

  “Why would we spend good money to have someone else do something we’re perfectly capable of doing ourselves?” Jen asked. This was a fight we had had before. Though, granted, never under quite these same circumstances.

  “Do you think we could talk about something else?” I wondered aloud.

  The girls were silent for a while. “That whole breakfast is probably ruined now,” Jen said eventually. Annie laughed. Before I could decide if I was amused or annoyed, Jen’s iPhone started beeping. “That’s three minutes,” she said quietly.

  I couldn’t move so instead I just sat there. “Um, do you want me to..?” Jen began. I nodded, closing my eyes. Annie squeezed my hand, hard, as Jen stood and reached for the test. I knew, before she even looked at it, what the verdict would be.

  “Plus sign,” she said evenly, calmly. “Pregnant.”

  * * *

  I spent the rest of the day on the couch, buried underneath the thick quilt Jen’s grandma had made for her about a million years ago. Annie and Jen kept trying to get me to eat or talk to them. I kept telling them to fuck off. I watched about five episodes of Top Chef (there was a marathon on) before Jen finally took control, again, this time by wrestling the remote away from me and turning off the television. Annie joined in and stole the quilt and my pillow. Then they each took an arm and pulled me into a sitting position, taking a seat on my either side so I couldn’t flee.

  “I know that you don’t want to talk about this,” Jen started. “But I think we should.”

  “Why?” I asked petulantly. “Why can’t we just forget about it?”

  “Ginny,” Annie said patiently, in her talking-to-toddlers voice. “Forgetting about it won’t make it go away.”

  “You don’t have to decide anything yet,” Jen continued. “But you should probably start thinking about your options, and about getting in touch with Josh.”

  “I’m not telling Josh,” I said quickly. “No way.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jen asked. “You have to tell him.”

  “No, no way. He’ll think I did it on purpose. Everyone will. They know I was desperate to get him back; they’ll think this was my plan all along.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jen scoffed, at the same time Annie said, “Well, was it?”

  Jen glared at her. “Kidding, kidding!” Annie said quickly, holding up her hands.

  “Ginny, regardless of what he, or anyone else, thinks of your motives, you have a huge decision to make, and he should have some input.”

  “What do you mean, huge decision?” I asked Jen. She and Annie exchanged a look.

  “I mean, what are you going to do about the baby?”

  “Do?” Everything felt fuzzy to me and I couldn’t understand what she was talking about.

  “Ginny, you need to decide if you want to have this baby,” Jen said softly. “And if you are, how you’re going to take care of it.”

  I stared at her, her words finally sinking in. She wanted me to decide if I was going to have it or…or get rid of it. Get rid of Josh’s baby. I shook my head quickly. “I’m having it. You know I could never have an…an…”

  “An abortion?” Annie said bluntly.

  “Yeah. I couldn’t do that. It would be…it’s wrong.”

  “Aw, how sweet. Catherine would be so proud,” Annie said mildly. Catherine was my mother.

  “I don’t think proud will quite be what she feels when she hears about this,” I moaned. “Oh God, I’m going to have to tell my mother!”

  “And your dad!” Annie said cheerfully. I glared at her, as did Jen.

  “You’re really not helping,” she hissed.

  “I’m trying to lighten the mood!” Annie protested.

  “Listen, you guys,” I said. “I get that I have a lot to think about, and a lot to decide. But it’s kind of a lot to take in all at once. And I don’t have to figure anything out tonight, do I?”

  “No, of course not,” Jen agreed. “I just want to make sure that y
ou know…Annie and I…well.” Jen seemed uncomfortable. I looked at Annie, confused.

  “Oh Christ, Jen, you’re allowed to get a little sappy when you’ve just found out your best friend is knocked up,” Annie scoffed. Then she turned to me, her eyes solidly on mine. “What she’s tying to say, Gin, is that whatever you decide, we’re here. Right here. We’ll help you with whatever you need. You don’t have to worry, okay?”

  Jen grabbed my hand, squeezing it and nodding. I felt a lump come to my throat. I loved these girls so much. “Okay,” I whispered. We sat in silence for a moment, each too overwhelmed to say more.

  Jen pulled herself together first. “Ginny,” she asked kindly, “would you like me to turn Top Chef back on?”

  I smiled for the first time since that morning. “Yes, please.”

  Chapter Three

  Six short months ago, my life had been very different. Before graduation, before moving home, before losing Josh. Back then, a pregnancy surprise probably would have been a cause for celebration: two people creating life from their love for each other, and all that crap. But now…Now I was alone.

  Alright, alright, I’m being melodramatic again. I’m not alone: I have Annie and Jen, the two best girlfriends anyone could hope for.

  Annie Duncan and I grew up together. I know we became friends in kindergarten but I honestly can’t even remember the first time we met—it seems like we’ve always been friends. It should surprise no one that Annie is an actress: she’s loud, funny, expressive. Annie can come across as cynical and sarcastic, and I know that a lot of people are intimidated by her—but if you’re lucky enough to get to know her, you’ll find that she’s the perfect girlfriend. There’s no one I know more loyal than Annie.

  We met Jen Campbell in high school, when her family moved to Royal Oak, the small suburban town outside of Detroit where Annie and I grew up. Jen fit in with the two of us perfectly. We share the same sense of humor, the same interest in fashion. Most importantly, the three of us share a love of fun—parties, traveling, concerts, adventure. It wasn’t long before we were inseparable.