Raw Deal (Beauty for Ashes: Book One) (57 page)

The next present was from Carl’s parents. It was a pearl jewelry set. I wasn’t impressed. I was too young for pearls like that!

Carl took my presents upstairs for me and then came to show me my car. We went outside to the garage, and Carl covered my eyes while the electronic garage door opened.

When he removed his hands, I gasped delightedly at the sight of my Porsche. It was a two-door convertible type. “Cool!” I breathed. “I love it, I love it, I love it!”

I wondered if Carl was going to actually let me go places now that he’d bought me a car. “Where’s my old car?”

“I sold it.” Carl ran a hand over the body of my Porsche. “Isn’t this a hottie?”

“Yeah, let’s go for a spin.”

I unlocked the doors, and we jumped in. Carl showed me how to put the top down, and we drove around LA.

In the evening, Carl took me out to dinner. He was being so sweet, I almost forgot he was a psycho.

***

“So have you decided what you’re doing about college?” Carl asked me the week before college was to start. We were watching a movie in the den, and Louise was cooking in the kitchen. Whatever it was smelled good.

My pregnancy was showing a lot more now, but it could still be disguised with a baggy shirt. “I’m carrying on.”

“Why? It’ll be too much for you.”

“It won’t.”

“It will,” Carl argued. “You can continue with college next year.”

“I want to continue with college now.”

Louise came into the room and left again when she realized we were arguing.

“Well, I guess I have to say that I won’t allow you to continue college while you’re pregnant.”

“I’m continuing college, Carl. Get over it.”

“You’re not, and don’t try to defy me.”

I burst into disbelieving laughter. “Defy you? Carl, you’re funny. You’re not my dad, you know?”

“It’s best you stay home, and you
are
staying home. If I have to chain you to something I will.”

“You actually sound serious.”

“I am serious,” Carl said firmly. His phone rang, and he left the room to answer it.

I wondered why he was so adamant that I stop college. I knew it was just another of his manipulative tactics to get full control of everything I did. I still didn’t have a cell phone, and the Porsche he’d bought me was pretty much just furniture for the garage, since whenever I wanted to go out, he wouldn’t let me. I felt suffocated.

I heard Carl leave the house and wondered where he was going. He still wasn’t back by the time I was going to bed at midnight, so I guessed he was probably out at a bar or something with his friends. I wondered why he thought it was okay for him to do as he pleased, but it wasn’t okay for me to go to college. All I wanted was to study. Was that too much to ask?

When I woke up the next morning, he wasn’t home. I wondered if he’d come home during the night and gotten up early to go out. I asked Louise, and she said she hadn’t seen him. I barely saw him for the rest of the week.

The day college was to start I got up early. Carl still wasn’t home. I wondered where he’d been spending the night. I dressed up and went to make breakfast. Louise was off for the week, visiting her daughter in Chicago.

When I finished my breakfast, I went to get my car keys from the closet in the hallway. I couldn’t believe I was going to be driving a Porsche to college. If Dan Black saw me he’d think I was the biggest hypocrite ever.

I narrowed my eyes at the empty key dish. My keys weren’t there. Well, I would get a taxi. I called it, grabbed my house keys, and made my way to the front door.

My house key didn’t fit. I tried again, still to no avail. I looked at the key to make sure I had the right key. I did. I tried to insert it again, but it still wouldn’t go in. I wondered what was going on. Could Carl have changed the locks? I knew he was insane, but was he that bad?

I went to the back door and then to the side door, and their locks had been changed too. The windows also had new locks on them. I officially had no way of getting out. I was a prisoner in my own home.

I canceled my cab, and went to the den and sat down feeling sick. What if there was a fire or something? How did Carl expect me to escape in such a situation? He obviously wasn’t thinking. His obsession with control was making him senseless and irrational.

He didn’t come home that night, and I didn’t see him again until the weekend. Even then we didn’t speak. The sight of him made me so angry. I thought it best to just stay away from him, so I stayed in the spare room that I was in the process of transforming into my sanctuary.

Louise phoned and said she’d need another day or two with her daughter, and I told her to take another week. She wasn’t really needed, although I did miss her cooking.

I stayed in my new room all weekend, and Carl didn’t bother me. Whenever I emerged to get something to eat or to get a book from the study, he ignored me.

On Monday morning when he went to college, I went downstairs and made myself breakfast. I sat down at the kitchen table with my toasted waffles and started crying.
God, I’m fed up!
I cried internally. I had never felt so alone like I did now. I was cut off from all my friends, and my mom was miles away in another city busy with her consultancy. I had no one to talk to.

After breakfast, I went back to my room and lay down on the bed. I resigned myself to my isolated state and decided to just accept to start college next year.

When Louise returned from Chicago, Carl and I were forced to talk to each other. He eventually gave me a set of house keys. Why we were trying to keep up an appearance of normality, I didn’t know. Our relationship was far from normal.

As the weeks passed by, my strength waned gradually. I became more and more lethargic as my baby’s due date approached. I found it difficult to even get up and down the stairs, and my stomach still wasn’t even all that big!

I worried about whether it was Carl’s. Maybe if it wasn’t, he would divorce me, and I would be free from him. In November, Carl and I received an invitation to Sam and Shawna’s wedding in January. Carl tore it up and threw it away. I observed him through cold eyes. My hatred toward him was growing with every second.

Christmas approached, and my mom called to say that she was fully booked up. She wouldn’t be able to come for Christmas. She sounded terribly sorry, but I assured her it was okay. I knew she was really busy.

I wanted to tell her that I was pregnant, but I didn’t want to say it on the phone. Plus, I knew that she would drop everything and come if I told her, and I didn’t want that. I’d have to apologize later for not telling her.

Chapter 63

“Louise,” I panted painfully, staggering into the kitchen, while she was loading the dishwasher. “I think the baby’s coming. I need to get to hospital.”

Louise took one look at me and grabbed her cell phone. “I knew it would happen when Carl was out. I wish I could drive. Do you know where Carl is?”

“No.”

I leaned on the kitchen table while Louise called an ambulance. “They should be here soon,” she said hanging up after giving them the address.

“I feel like I’m going to die,” I whimpered.

“You’re not going to die,” Louise assured me. “I’ll call Carl to meet us at the hospital.”

The ambulance arrived in good time, and when I got to the hospital, the midwife checked me over and said she was sending me home. I started crying and begged to stay. I couldn’t go home. I was convinced that I was going to die if I went home. It was a good thing I begged because I was only in labor for another two hours, although it seemed like an eternity.

By the time Carl arrived, I’d had the baby. He came into my room looking apprehensive. He thanked Louise and told her to go home. I gave him a tired smile, forgetting about our troubles momentarily. The baby girl I held in my arms was so beautiful, and I felt this strange happiness as I watched her sleeping. I held her delicate frame protectively. She was so tiny and fragile.

Carl came and peered at her. “I think she looks like you,” he observed.

I thought she looked like me too, although it was still too early to really tell. Carl touched her silky black curls and smiled. It was the first time I had seen him smile in what seemed like ages.

“Can I hold her?” Carl asked. I let him take her from me, and he held her awkwardly. “What should we call her? I was thinking Crystal.”

“I like that,” I agreed. I hadn’t really thought of a name, since I hadn’t really been happy about the whole thing.

“Crystal Anais Layton.” Carl said.

“Where’d you get Anais from?”

“It’s Cuban. I figured she should have a Cuban name because you’re Cuban.”

I was impressed. So Carl had been thinking about the baby after all. He kissed Crystal’s cheek. “Hey, Crystal. I’m Carl, your daddy. How you doin’?” he whispered.

I watched him, surprised. I’d expected him to march in there and demand an immediate DNA test. I decided that I didn’t know Carl. He was strange, complex, and confusing. I would probably never fully understand him.

Carl left that evening with a promise to get Crystal’s room ready and do some baby shopping.

I was discharged the next day, and Carl came to take me home. He and Louise had more or less sorted Crystal’s room, and I couldn’t believe it. “How did you manage to do all this in a day?”

“I got a couple of guys around to help. We still need to do the walls, and there’s still a lot of stuff to buy. We only bought the basics.”

He showed me the buggy he’d bought. It was pretty cool, and I couldn’t have chosen a better one myself.

“I’ve set up a crib in our bedroom too so that Crystal can stay with us until she’s old enough for her own room,” Carl said.

I followed him to our bedroom and nodded. “You’ve done a great job.” Did this mean he wanted me to move back into our bedroom? I’d been sleeping in my own room for a while now.

Louise took Crystal and told me to get some rest. I called my mom when they left me alone, excited to tell her about Crystal, but I couldn’t get through to her. I dialed again, and it still didn’t go through. I decided to try again later.

***

Louise had just left when the doorbell rang. I went to open the door, and I was taken aback to see Dan Black standing on the doorstep.

“Yeah, I heard you had a baby,” Dan said looking at Crystal. He pushed past me into the house.

It was past eight in the evening, and Carl could get home anytime. “Dan you can’t stay,” I said. He ignored me and went to the den, and sat down.

“You have to leave before Carl gets home.”

Dan looked at Crystal who was gurgling restlessly in my arms. “I want a DNA test.”

“Huh?”

“I know that baby is mine.”

“She’s not,” I said although I didn’t know.

“Well, I want a DNA test.”

“She’s Carl’s.”

“How old is she?” Dan asked.

“Three months.”

“So you got pregnant last April,” Dan said doing the math in his head. “You stayed with me for about a week last April. Remember? Carl brought a girl home, and you came to me.”

“This baby is Carl’s.”

I heard the front door open, and my heartbeat accelerated. Carl was home. He was going to see Dan. I was in trouble.

Dan’s eyes were on Crystal.

Carl entered the den. “Whose car is that in the driveway?” he began. Then, he saw Dan.

“Hey, Carl,” Dan greeted.

Carl looked at Dan and then at me. He turned on his heel and walked out. We heard him leave the house, and Dan grinned. “Is that how he treats guests?”

I went to the window and watched Carl get into his car. He made no move to go anywhere. He just sat there, probably waiting for Dan to leave.

“You think this is funny, don’t you?” I asked angrily. “You’re not the one who’ll have to deal with his anger later. It’ll be me.”

Dan removed a piece of paper from his pocket. “Here’s the DNA test form.”

I didn’t bother looking at the form. “Get out, Dan, now!”

“I want to be a part of my baby’s life, and Carl is not going to stand in my way.”

“I’m going to call 911 and have the police come and get you out if you don’t leave.”

Dan placed the form on the table and stood up. He came and touched Crystal’s hand. She grinned and grasped his finger. “She’s too dark to be Carl’s.”

“Maybe she gets it from me?”

Dan kissed Crystal’s cheek. “You’ll be hearing from me.”

He left, and I watched him drive away from the window. Carl waited a few more moments in the car, and then he came out. I quickly went to sit on the couch, trying to look like Dan’s visit was no big deal. I rocked Crystal and buried my face in her mass of thick dark curls. She had lots of hair compared to other babies.

I heard Carl go upstairs, and I was worried. I switched on the TV and cradled Crystal in my arms, rocking her gently. It was time for her to sleep.