It Happened One Night (12 page)

The problem was that she
still
didn’t feel pregnant. She was twelve weeks along, and her body was changing—there was no denying the way her nipples had
darkened, the way her belly was no longer a taut vertical plane, the way her appetite raged. She’d googled pictures of other
women’s bellies to see how she compared, and if there hadn’t been such a surprising disparity from one woman to the next,
she wouldn’t have known that she was quite small for being so far along. Her belly was noticeable, but easily hidden.

She stretched her arms over her head, trying to loosen the tension in her back. She wondered: What had her father thought
when Ellen told him she was pregnant? Was he glad? Did he have one single moment of genuine joy about fatherhood?

She took in a deep breath, exhaled. She needed to try to find Ron. That much was clear. She owed it to him. And to the child.
The baby deserved a father. And if Ron wanted to do that job, who was Lana to stand in the way?

If only she could talk about how she felt with someone. But Karin was involved in her own pregnancy issues, and Eli… Eli was
gone. How many times a day did she catch herself thinking,
I need to remember to tell this to Eli,
only to realize that she wouldn’t be telling him anything at all?

She was off-balance and empty without him. And yet she
had
to stay away.

He deserved a chance to be happy. He deserved the chance to get clear of her, to break away from the mess she was making of
her life. But she needed him. More now than ever before. She needed him to reassure her that everything was going to be okay
with this baby, with Karin, with Calvert. She couldn’t do this on her own.

She wondered where he was and tried to imagine him—to picture what he was doing—but she couldn’t. Wherever he was, she hoped
he was happy. Only that would make her longing for him worthwhile.

July 22

On Wednesday afternoon Lana was on her knees outside the Wildflower Barn, tugging tiny weeds from hard soil around the post
of a split-rail fence and sweating in the bright sun. She wore old, grass-stained overalls and a purple bandanna to cover
her hair. Charlotte, who was on her lunch break and too dressed up for weeding, was sitting on a Victorian wrought-iron patio
chair, thumbing through a Sierra Club magazine.

They’d just come back from the doctor’s. Of course Lana knew how it must have looked, two women who could complete each other’s
sentences going to the obstetrician. At one point the nurse had referred to Charlotte as Lana’s partner, and Lana hadn’t corrected
her. She felt better having Charlotte there by her side, and she would take whatever kind of partner she could get. The doctor
had listened to the heartbeat for what seemed a very long time; though her belly was small, the baby inside it was developing
fine.

“So when are you going to tell Karin?” Charlotte asked.

Lana sat back on her heels. “I tried once already.”

“If you don’t tell her, she’s going to figure it out. I can’t believe she hasn’t already.”

Lana nodded. “I think she’s depressed. It’s like a vicious cycle. But I’m just the little sister. What do I know?”

“About having babies? Apparently more than you’d think.”

Lana rolled her eyes and went back to weeding. A shadow fell across the earth before her, and when she looked up and held
her hand up to block the sun, Kelly was there, wearing a short denim skirt, a hot pink tank, and sunglasses so big they covered
most of her face.

“Hi, Kelly,” Lana said, smiling and getting to her feet. Hope swelled within her. She looked toward the parking lot, expecting
to see Eli coming toward her across the grass. But no. She felt his absence like a cold soaking rain, but she smiled on. “Do
you know my friend Charlotte? Char, this is Kelly, Eli’s friend.”

“Girlfriend,” Kelly corrected her, taking Charlotte’s hand.

Lana felt the word like a punch to her gut. “Of course. Sorry.
Girlfriend
. So what brings you this way?”

“I need a bag of those little white stones—what’s it called? Limestone.”

“No problem. I can certainly help you with that!”

“No!” Kelly said quickly, her fingers resting light as a butterfly on Lana’s shoulder. “I need a twenty-pound bag. Isn’t there
some young set of muscles around here to help?”

“Well, there’s Meggie…” Lana saw a look flicker over Kelly’s face, a narrowing of her eyes, the hint of a smirk. Or maybe
Lana imagined it. She pulled at the fingers of her glove and tossed it to the ground. “But I don’t mind getting it for you.
They’re just right over he—”

“Really,” Kelly interrupted. “I know you’re not supposed to lift anything too heavy. I can find someone else.”

Lana stopped taking off her glove, her gaze darting to Charlotte. Her friend was scowling with the rage of a hundred wild
bulls.

“How are you feeling?” Kelly asked. There was no mistaking the righteousness in her smile now. “Is everything going okay?”

Lana finished pulling off her glove and tossed it on the grass with its mate. Anger and hurt stretched her apart, a slowly
splitting seam. This was betrayal, pure and simple. Eli,
her
Eli, had thrown her to the wolves. “You know?”

“Yes. But don’t worry. I know it’s not
Eli’s
baby. He said he doesn’t find you attractive. Obviously.”

Lana smiled to cover her discomfort, but it was entirely fake. She hoped her hurt didn’t show on her face. Of course Eli wasn’t
attracted to her anymore. And yet the fact seemed oddly painful when it was said out loud.

“I think you should go,” Charlotte said.

“But my limestone…”

“Forget it,” Charlotte said.

“I really don’t see what the problem is.”

“I do,” Charlotte replied. “And it has terrible taste in sunglasses.”

Kelly smiled, showing her teeth. “Good-bye, Lana. I’ll let Eli know you said hi.” There was a little bounce in her step as
she walked away.

Charlotte spoke once Kelly was out of earshot. “Are you okay? What hurts?”

Lana was puzzled for a moment, then realized that sometime during the conversation, she’d put a hand on her belly, her palm
pressed against the hard, comforting warmth. It was a gesture of protection as well as comfort, one that caught her off-guard
because of the odd question of who was comforting whom. “I’m fine.” She dropped her hand and sat down on the bench.

He doesn’t find you attractive
. The words stung.

Charlotte crouched to look her in the eye. “You need to talk to him. This isn’t healthy for either one of you.”

“Eli and I will get through this.”

“I mean you and the baby.”

Lana closed her eyes for a brief moment, gathering strength, and when she opened them, Karin was charging toward them from
across the yard. She was covering ground in long, fast strides, her brown-red hair bouncing around her shoulders and blowing
back.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“Eli’s girlfriend happened,” Charlotte said, rising to stand.

“What did she do?”

Lana panicked. She could feel Charlotte’s gaze on her, her friend’s silent communication that she should tell Karin
now
. But if Lana confessed right this second, she would have to explain the whole story, about how Eli knew, about how he’d told
Kelly, about how Charlotte knew as well—and then the only thing Karin would be able to think of was why everyone was told
but her. The bad news would be hard enough to take without the added injury of being the last one to know.

“Turns out Kelly is nastier than I thought,” Lana said. “She came over here to flaunt her thing with Eli. I guess she just
wanted me to know that… that he picked her over me.”

Karin nodded and put her hands on her hips, as if she’d expected this. “Have you been seeing him?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t. You need to give them some space.”

Charlotte put an arm around Karin’s shoulders. “Maybe what we should do is give
Lana
some space.”

“I give her plenty of space. Don’t I, Lana? Is something going on?” Charlotte tried to steer Karin back toward the Barn, but
she shook off Charlotte’s arm. “Lana, tell me what’s happening. Are you… are you in love with Eli?”

“No!” Her heart was thudding hard in her chest and her palms were damp. “Of course I’m not in love with… with him. Why would
you think that?”

“Why else would you get so upset about his stupid girlfriend?”

Lana couldn’t take it anymore. Karin obviously thought she was jealous. But she wasn’t jealous of Kelly. She was just… just…

She was jealous of Kelly.

She was out-of-her-mind, tear-her-own-skin-off
jealous
of Kelly.

That had been the truth all along. But even if she was jealous, she wasn’t
in love
with Eli. She couldn’t be. She was attracted to him occasionally—it was bound to happen, really, since they were so close.
And maybe being away from him had sort of… augmented that annoying little bit of attraction. But she wasn’t in love with him.
It was insane to even be considering love when Eli went around telling people she wasn’t attractive,
and
he’d gone behind her back and told the biggest secret of her life.

Karin hesitated. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. She could see that Karin knew she was missing something, and she wished her sister could hear her thoughts:
Please just trust me. I’ll tell you very soon. I promise.

Karin nodded, then allowed Charlotte to take her arm and walk her back inside.

Lana took a deep, cleansing breath. She wasn’t in love with Eli; what she felt was just a passing longing. She knew it, but
she felt the need to reassure herself of her feelings somehow.

There were reasons people didn’t let themselves even think of having mushy feelings about their best friends. If friendship—that
most durable, trustworthy, and lasting kind of relationship—could make a person hurt as badly as Lana did right now, then
she couldn’t imagine actually letting herself fall in love with Eli. Losing a friend she was also in love with would be the
devastating burn of lost passion coupled with the hollow, unendurable chill of losing a part of herself.

She couldn’t be in love with Eli. But she was hurt. And lonely. There was only one thing to do: confront him. If he confessed
what he’d done, she would forgive him. And if not…

If not, maybe it was time to sever her life from his once and for all, and end the torture of this long, slow pulling apart.

That evening, after Karin had sent her sister home and closed up the store by herself, she stopped at the grocery store to
pick up bread and milk—and a Payday, Lana’s favorite candy bar. She walked toward the back of the harshly lit store and pulled
open the glass door of the refrigerators.

She did feel a little bad for what had happened this afternoon. She hated when she felt kept out of things, and she supposed
she’d asked if Lana was in love with Eli more out of desperation than any belief that it could be true. She hadn’t known the
question would upset her sister as much as it did.

She noticed the price of milk had gone up by a few cents yet again. She shook her head and reached in for a half gallon. When
she had shut the glass door and turned around, she heard someone say her name.

“Evening, Karin.”

The door banged closed.

Calvert. She felt as if she’d been knocked down by an enormous wave. Dry one moment, dripping the next. He was standing in
the aisle, blocking her way to the register. The milk was freezing cold in her hand. “Did you follow me?” she asked before
she realized that was impossible, since he didn’t have a car.

He turned a can of soup around so its label faced front on a shelf. “Don’t suppose you’re heading over in the direction of
the Madison after you check out? Give an old man a lift?”

She nearly laughed out loud. His audacity was almost impressive. Then she walked completely around the aisle he blocked to
get to the register on the other side of the store. By the time she made it back to the parking lot, she was shaking.

She wanted to believe he was a nonentity in her life. That he didn’t matter. But that wasn’t true. From the day she arrived
at his home, Karin had always secretly wanted them to be a family—Calvert, Lana, and her. On a practical level she’d managed
to cut herself off from him. But while she’d disciplined herself to stop
expecting
his love, she never could stop herself from hoping for it.

As a teenager she’d tried to turn Calvert’s busy house into a place where a family, a real family, could live. She cooked
meals and forced Lana to eat with her at the kitchen table, where they were very visible and where Calvert could join them
if he saw fit (he never did). When winter came it was Karin who made sure Lana was bundled up nice and warm for school, Karin
who bought, set up, and decorated the Christmas tree in Calvert’s living room. Karin had never attempted to invite Calvert
to school functions—plays, chorus concerts, softball games—but she sometimes put flyers on the fridge about upcoming events,
just so he knew they were happening. The only side effect was that what Calvert knew, the boarders knew too. And it pained
Karin to watch them one by one respond to Lana’s overtures of friendship—only to see them leave every time.

She got into the car, locked the door, and backed out of her parking space as quickly as she could. There was no question
that Calvert’s appearance was affecting Lana for the worse. Lana was gaining weight—not a lot, but enough to notice. It was
mostly visible in her face, but Karin knew that if her sister ever wore anything but sundresses and overalls, she would probably
be able to see it in her hips and thighs too.

Karin headed toward home. She wondered if Calvert’s presence was contributing to her physical stress level too. The doctors
told her she needed to stay relaxed and healthy if she was going to get pregnant the natural way. And Calvert was definitely
not making her feel relaxed and healthy. If she wanted to have a baby, she would have to end all this stress, to get rid of
him. What she needed was a plan.