Father Knows Best (20 page)

“No need. This one’s on me.” Chloe smiled.

“Oh. Thanks,” I said, suddenly feeling shy. But then a brilliant idea struck me. “Hey!” I aimed my thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of Inner Power. “Why don’t I just go get Jennifer and she can come with us?”

Chloe looked confused for a second, then said, “Oh, that’s right. She’s been hanging out with Meryl at the shop.”

I nodded eagerly.

Odd how that fact didn’t even bother me anymore.

Chloe hesitated. “Do you think you should wait to see if she wants to speak to me directly? I don’t want to put her on the spot.”

“Trust me, she’s eager for info. But I’ll ask her. If she’s not down with coming, she doesn’t have to.”

She considered this, then nodded. “Okay. You run ahead. I’m going to let Alan know where we’re going and take their drink orders. We’ll bring everyone something back.”

I smiled. Genuinely.

See? That’s the kind of boss Chloe is.

No, that’s the kind of person she is.

Dang it all, I was liking her more and more, despite the fact she’s my boyfriend’s mother and my dad’s main squeeze, which, in a perfect world, would be diametrically opposed identities. “Meet you there,” I said, bolting out the door.

Two seconds later, it seemed, I busted my way into Inner Power, totally jacking up the Zen of the place, I might add.

Meryl must’ve been restocking displays. I heard a clunk as if she’d dropped something. She peered wide-eyed around the corner of a shelf, saw it was me, then blew out a breath. “Lila, geez. You scared me. No one ever bursts in here that way. I thought we were getting robbed.”

“Right,” I said, wryly, then lowered my tone to something allegedly menacing and held out my index finger gun-style. “Give me all your meditation supplies and some patchouli incense, and no one gets hurt.”

Meryl giggled. “Very funny. What’s up, smart aleck?”

“I need to talk to Jennifer.”

Holding up one hand, Meryl smirked. “Wait. I’m replaying this surreal moment in my head.”

“Shut up.” I craned my neck. “Is she here?”

She angled her head toward the corner with the chairs.

I nodded once, lowered my tone, and said, “I’ll tell you all about it later. Promise.”

“Can’t wait,” she replied, going back to her work.

I found Jennifer in a chair, engrossed in a book, and let me just say, sitting cross-legged while sporting short-shorts is just an eek!-producing pose, what with the protruding preggo belly and the even more disturbing watermelonous boobs. Jennifer seemed bigger than she should be at her stage, but Meryl told me that Jennifer had told her the women in her family carry large for some reason. Divine justice?

Stop it, Lila.
SO hard to rein in the snark.

“Hey,” I said, silently thanking God for bestowing me with minimal boobage. I’d never whine about being flat again.

She blinked up, obviously surprised. “Oh. Hey.” She closed the book and set it aside. “What’s up?”

“Come to the Mountain Lion with me,” I said without preface. “I found you a source who knows all about private adoption.”

She unfurled her legs in an ungainly way and hoisted herself to her feet. “From your dad?” She smoothed her babydoll top.

“No, from his…” Girlfriend? Bad. From your ex-boyfriend’s mother? Also bad. I settled for, “From my boss.”

She lumbered closer and lowered her voice to a rasp. “Chloe Sebring? Dylan’s mom? Have you lost your mind?”

Maybe. “No, but listen. She thinks it’s responsible that you’re looking into this and she’s willing to help.”

Jennifer looked dubious at best.

I flapped my arms once. “Look, she can give me the scoop and I can relay it, but wouldn’t you rather hear it from her directly? What if I screw up an important point and you end up selling your baby into slavery or something?”

That wouldn’t really happen, folks. I’m not a complete imbecile. But I so wasn’t into playing the middleman. Please, God.

“How embarrassing.” She exhaled, then picked up her (designer, of course) purse. “Okay, let’s go. You’re positive she won’t talk to my parents?”

“She said she wouldn’t, and I trust her.”

“Fine.” Her eyes shone with fear and vulnerability. “I can do this,” she said, mostly to herself. “Ugh.”

A pang of…something gooey and un-Lila-esque struck me, and I actually reached over and squeezed her hand. I know! Crack in the town’s water system, folks, it’s the only explanation I have. “It’ll be fine. Chloe’s cool about the whole thing.”

Jennifer took a deep breath, held it, then blew it out. “Okay, let’s do this.”

We got past the awkward hellos at the coffee shop quickly, thanks to Chloe leading the pack on that front. Once we had our foamy-yummilicious double espresso drinks (and Jennifer had her boring-ass cocoa), we settled at an umbrella table on the outdoor patio.

“So, tell me what’s going on, Miss Jennifer,” Chloe said, then watched her over the rim of her paper cup as she sipped.

Jennifer cleared her throat and adjusted her position in the metal chair. Back straight. Shoulders tight. Chin high. “Well,” she started clumsily as though she were giving a presentation in school for which she hadn’t prepared, “as you know, I’m pregnant.”

“Really?” Chloe asked, all wide-eyed. “I thought you’d smuggled a stolen crystal ball out of the metaphysical shop under your shirt.”

Jennifer froze, her face pale, then glanced toward me.

I laughed, no help whatsoever.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, with a regretful smile, as though just then realizing her gaffe. “That was sarcasm, not to mention a poorly timed joke.”

Poorly timed? She’d been dead-on if you ask me.

“Working with Lila is rubbing off on me.” Chloe winked my way, then turned back to Jennifer. “I know you’re pregnant, honey.”

Like the whole world didn’t? I thought. Hello, protuding gut!

“Oh.” Exhale. “Okay. You scared me,” Jennifer said.

She and I shared one of those forced, nervous “heh heh heh!” laughs until that ever-intrusive (at least to me) question, “how do you end your laugh?” entered my brain (remember?) and made me cut mine off abruptly to dive into my latte.

Jennifer took my cue, sorta, and let her laugh taper off with all the grace of an untied balloon farting its way empty through the air until it landed limp and embarrassed on the ground. I couldn’t blame her, because, apparently, she’d never been introduced to the whole “how do you end your laugh?” conundrum. I’d school her about it later.

“So, I know a prospective couple who have been trying to get pregnant through, um, artificial insemination, but it’s not working. And they’re banging their heads against the brick wall of bureaucracy when it comes to adoption.”

Wow, she actually sounded sort of smart. Who’da thunk?

She cleared her throat. “I’ve talked to them a little about adopting my daughter. Just with a ‘what if’ kind of tone.”

“It’s a girl?” Chloe asked gently, with a smile.

“Yes,” Jennifer said, shyly. “The thing is, I don’t want to give her up to some big, impersonal adoption agency where I’ll never know anything about her again, and she’ll never know about me. Plus, I want her to have these moms.”

Chloe blinked twice. “Moms?”

“Reese and Kelly,” I said.

Jennifer’s mouth opened as if to defend any forthcoming argument, but Chloe didn’t even startle. “Oh, that’s sweet. Reese and Kelly are good people. They’ll make amazing parents.”

“If they ever get to be parents. They’ve gone through hell trying.” Jennifer blew out a breath, sipped her cocoa, regained her questionable cool, then said, “Anyway, that’s what I think, too. That they’re the perfect parents for the little goober. In fact, I’m completely obsessed with making it happen at this point.”

They smiled at each other, and I concentrated on my java again. Dude, they so didn’t need me here. In fact, maybe I could melt my way under the table, then low crawl outta there. They wouldn’t even notice.

But—odd as this sounds—I really wanted to find out about the whole adoption process, too. Sure, it felt squirm-worthy to bandy about terms such as “insemination” and “trimester,” with my boyfriend’s mother, but still. Curiosity got the better of me. It seems weird to just sort of give the baby to people you know. I mean, what if you woke up one night and decided you wanted her back? What then?

“It sounds as if you’re interested in open adoption,” Chloe said. “Is that right?”

Jennifer darted a furtive glance toward me. “Um—”

“That means you’d be able to see her even though Reese and Kelly would be her moms. You’d have contact,” I said, all informed and whatnot. I glanced at Chloe. “Right?”

She nodded. “There are basically three types of adoption. Open, mediated, or confidential.” She reached up and brushed her hair back from her face. “Confidential means you’d have zero contact, zero information. You wouldn’t even know where the baby went.”

“No way,” Jennifer said.

Chloe inclined her head. “I don’t think mediated adoption would work in this case, because you live in the same small town as Reese and Kelly. You couldn’t very well keep all your contact with them through a mediator, like a caseworker or attorney, because—”

“I hang out at their store.”

Chloe laughed softly. “Right. So, the question is, are you—the three of you—prepared to deal with open adoption?”

Jennifer tucked her long hair behind her ears. “Well, I don’t really know what’s involved.”

Chloe nodded once. “A close friend of mine has an open-adopted baby. They’ve had regular contact with the birth mother, Mimi, since day one.” She held up a hand. “Let me make it absolutely clear, my friend and her husband are the sole parents. The legal relationship of parent / child between Mimi and her baby was permanently severed when the papers were signed. Period. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“But MiMa, as the child knows her, visits regularly, babysits on occasion. She’s part of their family life without any parental duties or rights whatsoever. She never assumes a parental role with the child, and that’s imperative.”

“That’s exactly what I want. I’m not ready to be a mother. I don’t even want to be one.” Jennifer gulped. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to watch the baby grow up with good parents who can give her the life she deserves.”

“How do Reese and Kelly feel?”

Jennifer bit her lip. “I’d have to talk to them more.”

“If you’re serious, you should do that. We’re talking tons and tons and tons of paperwork, sweetie. All of the interaction details and rules have to be hashed out with separate attorneys for each of you up front and put into an agreement. Of course, things can be modified as the child gets older and her needs change.”

“Oh.” Jennifer’s chin quivered, and tears glistened in her eyes. “I don’t have money for an attorney, and there’s no way my parents would foot that bill. They’d rather the baby just disappear so they can pretend she never happened.”

Chloe reached across and squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. Usually the adoptive parents pay for both attorneys.”

A beat passed. “Really? Oh—whew. Okay.” Jennifer visibly relaxed.

“The whole point of open adoption is to minimize the loss of relationships for the baby,” Chloe said. “There won’t be all the questions like, who is my birth mother? Or, why didn’t she want me? You can also make sure she has access to genetic information. That’s so valuable.”

“Yeah,” Jennifer said, wistfully.

“Also, and most vital, an open adoption will allow your birth daughter to maintain connections with all the important people in her life, and that includes you, the young lady who actually gave her the gift of life.”

Jennifer’s tears came in earnest then, and I started to fidget in my chair. Soooo uncomfortable. Chloe, though, she had a handle on it.

Thank God for Chloe! Wait—did I just think that?

“Talk to us, Jen,” Chloe said, in a gentle voice. “What’s going through your head?”

“Everything is just so messed up. My parents—” She punctuated the half-statement with the classic eye roll / head shake combo, which said it all, really. Then she waved her hand. “Don’t mind the tears. It’s a hormonal thing, according to my doctor. I absolutely sob watching reality television these days, even when it’s not sad.”