The Foretelling (Charlotte Bloom #1) (3 page)

He paced the bathroom as I squatted over the toilet, being sure to hold the small stick under a steady stream of pee. This wasn’t unusual for us: after being stranded in a tropical storm in Hawaii on our honeymoon with food poisoning and without working toilets, Harry and I didn’t really have any secrets. After I was finished, I set the stick down in the sink. I pulled my pants up and set a timer on my phone. Two minutes. I walked over to Harry and he held me from behind as we both silently looked at the test, face down, until my timer went off.

"I love you – let’s see if we’re having a baby!" Harry’s voice cracked as he said this. I didn’t have time to analyze the tone of his voice. The anticipation was killing me. I flipped the test over.

One line.
Not pregnant.
An achy disappointment set in and I felt my stomach drop. Not pregnant.

"Damn." I threw the test in the trash and walked over to our couch. I felt Harry’s hands on my shoulders.

"It’s too early. Let’s take another test next week and we’ll keep trying, OK?"

He rubbed my shoulders as he said this and I smiled. I
could
still be pregnant. It
was,
in hindsight, probably
too early to tell. That thought made me ease up a bit. I knew I was being a bit hasty taking a test this early. I nodded and kissed Harry on the lips. Just as I was about to lead him into our bedroom (I’d be damned if we weren’t going to have unprotected sex whenever we could), I heard the clinking of my cell phone from my purse. I was going to ignore it, until I realized it was Amara’s ringtone.

"Sorry babe, it’s Amara. Let me just make sure she’s OK and I’ll tell her that I’ll call her back." I winked at Harry. I heard him groan as I pushed myself off of him and answered my phone that was still sitting on the bathroom sink.

"Hey Mar, can I call you back? I was just—"

"WILL YOU BE MY MAID OF HONOR? SAM PROPOSED!!!"

It took me a few seconds to register what she had said. For the second time today I felt my stomach drop. Lainey had been right. Sam had proposed. I gathered my wits and walked away from Harry. Somehow, knowing Lainey had been right about Amara’s proposal made me feel uneasy around him.

"Amara, that’s fantastic! Of course I’ll be your maid of honor. How did he propose?"

I forced myself to sound upbeat and cheerful, and of course I was, but I couldn’t fight the nagging feeling in my gut.
Lainey was right.
I felt blind-sided; I had NOT been expecting her to be right about this. It was just a coincidence. It had to be.

"CHARLOTTE, I’M FREAKING OUT! LAINEY WAS RIGHT – OH IT WAS SO ROMANTIC! I CAME HOME TO A HOUSE FULL OF CANDLES AND FLOWERS, AND, OH, THE RING! IT’S HUGE!"

I laughed. Of course it was. Sam was a movie producer and he made good money.

"Amara, I am so happy for you! Let’s get lunch soon to celebrate?"

As I said that, I heard Amara squeal in agreement on the other end of the phone. She yelled something about having to go, and then she was gone. She must’ve called me right after the fact. Of course they were still bouncing off of the walls — I was the same way right after getting engaged. I’d felt high for about two weeks straight.

I heard the call disconnect, but I stood there with the phone up to my ear for several seconds, avoiding Harry. I had walked into our kitchen while talking. I set the phone down on the white marble counter, the counter that Harry and I had picked out three years ago when we bought and remodeled the house. I pulled my long cardigan tight around my body and leaned against the stove. I heard Harry call out to me and I yelled back that I was getting a snack. As I opened our fridge, still in complete shock that my best friend was actually engaged, I entertained the idea of a future without Harry, just in case Lainey was right. But I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t picture myself with someone else. I just couldn’t. As I grabbed a spoon and some yogurt, I told myself that Lainey was right about Amara and wrong about Harry and me. A fifty percent success rate. That seemed about right for a no-good psychic. I made a vow to myself right then and there that I wouldn’t keep letting Lainey’s psychic reading consume me. I had to put all of my energy towards conceiving a baby. I walked back into the living room, where my perfect husband sat on our perfect couch in our perfect house, and I made a conscious decision to act as if that reading had never even happened.

***

I took three more pregnancy tests the next week before getting my period on that Friday. I’d been reading up on ovulation and fertility windows, so perhaps we'd missed the window because I hadn't been tracking when I was fertile. It seemed plausible. We had only started trying two weeks ago.

I pulled up to Amara’s apartment in Toluca Lake the next day, in hopes of taking my best friend out for a celebratory weekend brunch. When I walked up to her door on the third floor, I heard what could only be described as mid-orgasm sex noises.

I didn’t know what to do. We’d made plans a few days ago. I should’ve texted her before heading over. Just as I was about to walk down the stairs, I heard the door open. Sam tumbled out, obviously in a rush to get somewhere. His shirt was still unbuttoned and his tie was around his neck, undone. He carried his shoes in his hands. He didn’t see me at first, and I was torn between running back down the stairs, and casually walking up to him as if I hadn’t just heard him having sex with my best friend. I chose the latter.

"Hey, Sam!" I tried to sound nonchalant, like I’d just walked up.

He looked up, surprised to see me, but then a warm grin broke out on his face.

"Hey! You here to see Mar? She’s… uhh… probably in the shower, but feel free to go on in."

Ew.
I tried to get the image of them out of my head. I took in his appearance and shrugged.

"Maybe I should wait a few minutes?" I giggled, trying to sound cool.

His face got a bit red, which, for someone who was Peruvian was a big deal. He laughed uncomfortably. I laughed uncomfortably. I’d never really clicked with Sam. He was really nice and we’d spent a good amount of time together over the last two years, which was how long he’d been dating Amara. From what I’d heard from other people, he had a killer work ethic as a movie producer. He treated Amara with respect and, from what she told me, he seemed to absolutely adore her. But we had never gotten along as well as I would have liked. A couple of weeks ago, when Amara had been in the midst of thinking Sam was cheating on her, I couldn’t help but hate him a little bit, and I lost my trust in him, even though I hadn't been sure he was cheating. It had killed me to see Amara so hurt, and that feeling hadn’t really dissipated. I smiled at him, trying to get him to say something.

"Welp, I should get to work. Go on in. I think I just heard the shower turn on." He ducked around me and waved behind him, heading down the stairs to the parking lot. A small part of me was disappointed that we hadn’t had a heart-to-heart or something. I hadn’t even seen him since the proposal. I hadn’t even congratulated him on the engagement.

I waited a minute before heading in. Luckily, I had a set of keys, so Amara probably wouldn’t be surprised to see me. I yelled out to her to let her know I was there, and I got some water and sat on her couch. It smelled musty and a little bit like sweat. With a sudden, disgusting realization, I got up off of the couch and opened some windows before sitting down on the hard, wooden chair in the corner. Amara walked into the living room in only a towel, looking slightly surprised to see me. I guess amidst the engagement excitement, she’d forgotten we had brunch plans.

"Hey, Char! What’s up?" She was tousling her long hair with her hands.

"Brunch, remember?"

"Oh fuck, I forgot. Would you mind running an errand with me before we go? I just have to make a stop. I’m so sorry – it totally slipped my mind."

"That’s fine! Where are we going?"

"I’ll drive. Just this venue I wanted to check out. Sam was supposed to go with me, but he just got called into work, so it’s just me, and now you!"

I nodded, silently wishing my irritation was just a part of my period. I couldn’t pinpoint why I was slightly irritated. I chalked it up to mild jealousy. But also, the reality of the wedding was becoming clearer, pushing what Lainey said to the front of my mind:
"Around Amara's wedding in June, things will start to unravel."

Amara quickly got dressed. She required the least amount of maintenance of anyone that I knew, which wasn’t fair because she always looked so put together. I thought maybe it had something to do with her Portuguese ancestry. Her long, wavy brown hair and olive skin always looked made up; when in reality she rarely wore makeup. We hopped in her jeep and headed through Laurel Canyon into West Hollywood.

"Have you guys set a date yet?" She hadn’t mentioned anything on the phone the other day, but I was curious.

"Not yet. It all depends on the availability of the venue. I think this place is
the
place. It’s great, Char. We want to do a small, intimate wedding. 30 guests at the most. Hopefully, sometime this summer."

"Really? I always pegged you as a fall wedding chick." I laughed, trying to sound casual.

"Well, we thought about that, but honestly, what are we waiting for?"

"Yeah, totally…" My words drifted off into thin air. I peered out of the window as we passed Mulholland.

"How’s the baby-making going?" Amara turned on some background music. Classical. She always loved classical music.

"Eh. I got my period yesterday, so that put a damper on things. But, we also
just
started trying a couple of weeks ago, so I have hope."

"Of course. Also, Sam told me that you’re only fertile four days out of the month.
Four days!
How crazy is that? I feel like that information would’ve saved me a lot of grief in college."

"Tell me about it."

"It’ll probably happen next month."

"Yeah. Probably." I sipped my bottle of water and stared at my hands. I was getting that uncomfortable feeling again. "So, tell me about the dress!"

Amara had emailed me earlier in the week to say that she’d already found a dress. Leave it to her to have a quick and effortless planning process. I had tried on a million dresses before finding
the one.
It didn’t surprise me she’d found hers on her first try. Amara laughed.

"You’re going to make fun of me when you hear where I found it."

I scoffed.

"Never. Tell me!"

"Well, I was helping Sam’s niece pick out a prom dress, which, I’m sorry, starts way sooner now than it did when I was in high school. She’s only fourteen, but they have prom for freshmen now!"

"That’s crazy. Please tell me you aren’t wearing a prom dress for your wedding."

She bit her lip and looked at me apologetically. I saw her slowly nod and I started laughing hysterically.

"What can I say? It was cheap, it’s white, and it’s fancy! But not too fancy. It was just something I was going to try on for fun, but it actually works perfectly. They say once you find the dress to stop looking, so I’m good on the dress!" We both laughed again. Once I had composed myself, I grabbed her hand.

"I’m sure it looks beautiful on you."

We turned on to Fountain and Amara parked in a nondescript parking lot. She pulled me toward yet another nondescript building. I looked around. So far, I couldn’t tell what kind of venue this was. It was industrial, which wasn’t really Amara’s style, but hey, I was only along for the ride.

Harry had proposed a year after we had moved to Los Angeles. I’d just gotten a job at the PR firm I still worked for, and Harry was working his way up at Intelligentsia. He’d rented a boat in the Ventura Beach harbor, and he’d taken me out for a romantic dinner to celebrate our anniversary. I was completely taken by surprise. I don't even remember saying yes. I just cried. And cried. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I still smiled when I thought about that night. We’d gotten married in Malibu, in a state park. At the time, we were dirt poor, so we opted for a park setting, and luckily, had found a perfect little woodsy, meadowy clearing that suited our needs perfectly. We rented white plastic chairs and tables, and I spent weeks making all of the decorations. It was, and still is, the happiest day of my life.

We walked in the back door of the venue, and suddenly we were in a garden oasis. I couldn’t believe it. This little gem of a place was hidden behind a shoddy alley. It was perfect. Amphitheater bench ceremony seating gave way to a lush, overgrown altar with a wall of greenery behind it. Off to the left was an open area with a bar and long, raw-wood tables for the reception. Flowers, plants, and potted trees were everywhere. It felt as though we were in a forest. Vines rose up and covered the string of lights along the ceiling. This would be breathtaking at night when the lights were illuminated. I imagined Amara in her white prom-dress-slash-wedding-gown, and I started to tear up. Weddings were awesome.

"Mar, this is absolutely stunning." I grabbed her and hugged her tight. If anything good came out of all of this, it would be that my best friend was so happy.