Underwater (16 page)

The technician looked up. “Good morning, doctor. We have two heartbeats, and they’re both strong.”

Dr. Russell grabbed Helen’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “All’s well. No worries. What do you think happened to cause the bleeding?”

“I don’t know,” said Helen, her eyes glassy.

Dr. Russell smiled. “You need to take things easier. Do you have help with your toddler?” She glanced over at Monty.

“She goes to day care while I’m at work.”

“What about when you’re not at work?”

Helen shut her eyes. “She’s not that much trouble. Really.”

“Well, you need to let others help you with her. Like your husband.” She turned to face Monty. “You can do that, can’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good. You both know that this is a high-risk pregnancy—all multiples are. We all need to work together to make sure everything goes well, and Helen gets as close as possible to her due date. That means a lot of rest, and less stress. Okay?”

Monty nodded, narrowing his eyes.

Dr. Russell turned back to her patient. “Helen, you’re not going to work today. I want you to rest for the day and don’t go back to your regular schedule until you’ve seen no blood for twenty-four hours. Now, would you two like to know what they are? Or not?”

“Yes,” said Monty.

Helen nodded.

“Paint the room blue!”

“Both boys?” asked Monty.

Dr. Russell smiled and nodded at Helen.

Thirty minutes later, as they rode the elevator down together, Monty made an announcement. “I’ve picked out their names. You named Adele, first and middle.”

They weren’t married when Adele was born. Helen was still Helen Piper, and she had named her baby Adele Marie Piper. When Monty became her husband, they had changed the surname to Carawan.

Monty watched the floor numbers change and spoke again, almost talking to himself. “Broden Henry, and Parker Owen. We’ll call them Brody and Park.”

Helen gave him a quizzical look. “How did you come up with those?”

“They’ll play football, too. Those are good names for football players. And they don’t sound like each other. I don’t want twin-sounding names for them.”

The door to the elevator opened on the ground floor, and Monty stepped out first. “I have some things to take care of,” he said without looking at her. “See you at home later.”

Monty slipped behind the wheel of the BMW, locked the car doors, and placed both his private phone and public one between the two front seats. After picking up a fully caffeinated latte at Starbucks, he drove over to the high-rise Midtown condo building and entered the underground garage. The woman who currently occupied his newest real estate investment would just now be getting up, or, if he was lucky, she’d still be in bed.

He had met Rachel Benton last summer at a bar in Buckhead. Eight weeks later, he’d purchased the condo for a song, paying cash, and by December, he had filled it with expensive, modern furniture. Rachel worked as a decorator for the most affluent Atlanta residents and was able to find unique pieces and art—the best of the best. Twenty-five years old, she had moved here from Philadelphia three years ago and had gotten started in the design business with the help of a rich, society-conscious aunt.

Rachel had an amazing body and her youth was intoxicating. She was almost as tall as Monty and had gorgeous legs and the best ass he had ever seen—and he had seen several. She had long, silky blonde hair and perfectly formed, perfectly sized tits. He felt a stiffening as he imagined her naked, lying in the queen-sized bed, waiting for him.

He ran through a light that had just turned red on Peachtree. He was in the mood to celebrate: he was going to be the father of twin boys. How awesome was that! He’d send his sister an email later today announcing the news, while Rachel was away at a client’s home.

He parked the car and took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor, then bounded down the hall, unlocked the door, and almost raced into the bedroom. She wasn’t there. Then he heard the shower running and entered the luxurious Italian-tiled bathroom that was quickly filling with steam. Through the glass doors he could see the profile of her flawless, nude body. He watched for just a second or two, then stripped quickly and stepped inside, startling her. Grabbing her around the waist, he moved his arms up just under her breasts, pressing himself against her back, her wet hair in his face. She turned around, pulling him toward her.

An hour later, she sat in front of her vanity applying makeup, wearing only her pink bikini underwear. From the bed, he studied her reflection. Her only imperfection was a faint rose birthmark on the side of her face, just in front of her ear. She camouflaged it with makeup and covered it with her hair, normally pushing her tresses forward—she never pulled her hair back. She didn’t wear earrings, but she loved necklaces and bracelets, and over the last year he had indulged her with many.

“Monty,” she said. “Stop staring at me. You know I have an appointment with a client.”

“When will you be finished?”

“I’m going to the gym after.”

“And then?”

Satisfied with her mascara, Rachel put the wand down and turned to face him.

“You’re killing me, baby,” he said. “Let’s go again—”

“I don’t have time, and you know it.” She stood and walked over to the dresser. “If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late. I’ll see you tonight. And don’t forget the cash you said you’d give me.”

“Yeah, I’ll call you.” Annoyed, he gathered some clothes to put on. “I have a meeting, and I have to catch up on email.” After getting dressed, he regarded his image in the mirror. He’d get in a workout today, too. He certainly didn’t want to hang out at Arcadia Lane with Helen lounging around. He had promised to pick up Adele after school, but once he delivered her to her mother, perhaps he would just come back to the condo and hang out. He could take Rachel out to dinner, and after another round in bed, he’d go home after Helen and Adele were asleep.

His public phone vibrated with the receipt of an email. David Shepherd. Fuck. He wouldn’t read it right now. He didn’t want anything to spoil his good mood.

12

Exit

A
fter a working lunch with Amanda and Darlene, Candace returned to her office, closed the door, and checked her inbox for messages. A new email from Monty with the subject line “Twins” caught her attention. Candace shook her head slightly as she opened the email, skimming it. Her brother had chosen not to reply to David’s message marked with a red flag, the one she had edited and finalized this morning. Without even acknowledging receipt of that email, Monty had sent her a two-paragraph personal update.

In the first paragraph, he outlined in dramatic detail another emergency rush to the doctor this morning. Evidently, Helen was prone to bleeding during her pregnancy, but this second episode was another false alarm; a sonogram revealed that the babies were fine.
Perhaps all women carrying twins were more likely to experience spotting.
Having never been pregnant, Candace had no idea.

In the second, shorter paragraph, Monty announced that both of the babies were boys. Of course, he and Helen were thrilled and “couldn’t wait to share the news.” Apparently, they could wait to share the specific financial information Candace had just had David request again in writing.

She dismissed her frustrations for the moment and refocused her attention to more urgent company issues. She needed to make a decision about whether to ratify Darlene’s position that no advertising was necessary to promote the new swimsuit line. The company had never engaged in advertising, print or otherwise, but in recent years a presence on social media had been key. Darlene was in charge of the marketing team under Amanda’s sales and marketing division and had proven her worth as a valuable employee. She was in charge of the website, Facebook page, Twitter account, and all public relations. In Darlene’s opinion, any money spent to promote the new swimwear line in magazines or other print media would be a waste of money and utterly unnecessary.

Amanda held a different view. With years of retail sales experience and a traditional professional background, she was probably the most old-school employee in the company. She had worked in Texas and California before moving to Atlanta to join SlimZ. Candace felt she understood Amanda professionally, but on a personal level she had little in common with the woman.

Amanda was in her late forties and was divorced with a teenage daughter. She dyed her longish hair a peroxide-ish shade of blonde, tanned excessively, and often displayed a muffin top above too-tight pants. More than once, Candace had seen her with camel toe. Amanda was a former smoker and was on the slim side but not fit. An array of cigarette wrinkles fanned out from her hard, thin lips that she coated in red lipstick. But she was a hard worker, focused on results, and very confident. She was also blunt, which was both a good and bad quality.

Today, it hadn’t been good. Whenever friction surfaced between Amanda and Darlene, Candace felt annoyed. The underlying tension between the two women had been a problem for some time, and today’s meeting seemed to showcase their differences. Candace wished they and all her employees could work together more like men did: once men resolved a conflict, a clear winner emerged and all parties continued to show professional respect for each other.

With women, it was different, and being a woman, Candace understood that. But that didn’t make dealing with personnel and management issues any easier. Candace hadn’t created her company to be a referee or to tap-dance around people’s feelings. She glanced out the window, then began composing an email to both women. She would back Darlene’s opinion.

At thirty-six, Darlene was closer to Candace’s age than Amanda was. Darlene was from Atlanta, had married young, and had a middle-school-age son; her husband was an engineer. She was tall with a proportional figure, dark hair, and a pale complexion, as if she regularly wore sunscreen. Her professional wardrobe was more conservative than sexy, with a not-trying-too-hard French touch. She wore attractive high heels and scarves of all lengths in an unconscious, effortless manner. Her thoughtfulness and poise perfectly reflected the company image Candace had worked hard to construct. Darlene’s group had jumped on a social media marketing plan after Shelly’s very astute product development team had come up with the SwimZ tech pac (technical package, or actual samples of the new line, complete with patterns, fabrics, and size specifications).

Shelly’s people had worked closely with the designers, viewing their swimwear designs via the company’s internal computer-aided design (CAD) system—these were the swimsuits that design wished to “sample,” or show to buyers, in September. Shelly reported to Paula, the head of design, and their close working relationship was ideal. Candace was grateful for it and wished that Darlene and Amanda could develop the same type of bond. The CEO had been very satisfied with the marketing work done by Darlene’s group in the past; Darlene’s leadership and vision had been one of the key components in their success and in the company’s bottom line.

Candace buzzed Jess with a request for water and a cup of green tea. The green monster, jealousy, factored into today’s testy session with Darlene and Amanda, Candace believed. Despite Amanda’s talents, she was flawed with a deep insecurity that manifested itself in her pushy attitude. But she was valuable, and Candace couldn’t afford to lose her. She’d have to massage her ego. Yes, Candace was sure that in male-dominated businesses, the typical hierarchy experienced jealousy, backstabbing, and grudges, too. However, that didn’t compare to the cattiness and even nastiness of a group of ambitious, high-achieving women. Her team was smart, though, and very good in a crisis. Perhaps that was because of the way they were wired as women: adaptable, resourceful, and clever.

Candace opened David’s email to her brother, which David had copied her on, then forwarded it to Rob. Monty was going to respond to her questions. If he didn’t, she was done with him. No matter how many babies he and Helen produced.

On Thursday afternoon, with Candace safely on a commercial jet bound for LaGuardia, Jess skimmed her task list for the week and checked off the last assignment. She would tackle the next few items today and then have all day Friday to work on the rest. With her boss away, Jess might even be able to take some personal break time and relax. Normally, Candace bombarded her daily with urgent messages to get this or that done. In between, Jess stayed busy anticipating her orders and frantically putting out small fires before they became explosions. It was exhausting at times.

Tomorrow morning, Candace would be on her way out of the country and wasn’t due back in Atlanta until almost the end of the month. Candace planned to spend a long weekend in France with Rob, then would be in New York for a week. Rob’s assistant Julia had emailed Jess the itinerary. Through NetJets, Julia had booked a private jet departing New York at nine o’clock in the morning and arriving in Nice seven hours later, at ten p.m. local time. Jess knew that for Candace, it was the only way to travel across the Atlantic: much shorter and more comfortable than first class on a commercial carrier overnight. An added bonus was the avoidance of crowds and their germs. When the jet touched down in France, it would be only four o’clock Eastern time, so the couple would be fresh and ready for cocktails.

The itinerary showed they planned to stay at Château Eza, a five-star boutique hotel in Èze, a village just east of Nice. Jess pulled up the website Julia had linked to in her message and clicked through the photo gallery. Located at the height of the Moyenne Corniche and perched on top of steep rock cliffs, the Château boasted panoramic views of the French Riviera from private terraces floating high above the Mediterranean. For Rob, the trip was combination business and pleasure: he had a client meeting in Monaco on Monday. Candace would be checking in with the office then, but tomorrow she’d be out of touch for most of the day.

Jess pulled up her Facebook page and settled back in her chair. She hadn’t checked it in days—she was just too busy to post much on it. Since her twenty-fifth birthday was in two days, she expected to get lots of Facebook birthday wishes. Beau was taking her out to dinner to celebrate that night, and on Sunday they planned to go to Lake Lanier.

She had a new friend request. It was from Beau’s uncle, Chip Duncan. Jess checked him out. Jeez. He looked to be in his late thirties or forties. His profile picture was of him and his family: he was married with two kids, one of them a baby girl. Jess recognized his wife: she was Beau’s mom’s younger sister, Kristin. The kids were named Sonny (how original) and Sawyer.

Jess shook her head slightly. Who named their baby daughter Sawyer? It must be Kristin’s maiden name. Jess had met her at a family thing last winter at Beau’s parents’ house, and then they had friended each other. Chip had only ninety-one Facebook friends. Jess had over nine hundred.

Most of her Facebook friends were her age and younger—very few were her adult family members. Why did so many married adults insist on getting on Facebook, and worse, on friending young, single people like her? Didn’t they realize that Facebook was developed for people in college and in their twenties, primarily single people?

Jess believed that older, married (and divorced) people who had a Facebook page (and who friended people who weren’t relatives) had one of two motivations: to reconnect with their high school friends or to establish themselves on the dating market. Well, maybe Chip Duncan felt that since he was Beau’s uncle, he was almost like family to Jess. She didn’t feel that way, and wouldn’t until she and Beau were married, or at least engaged.

Although she was sure that Chip’s reason for friending her on Facebook was benign, she was now in the position of having to accept or deny his request. She much preferred Twitter. There, when someone followed you, you could choose to follow or not to follow them—no questions asked, and no hard feelings. As for Facebook, no matter what group of people it was intended for as a social media, it was used by zillions of people now. Jess was kind of over Facebook, anyway—she was drowning in stupid updates and photos.

She looked over Chip’s page again, hovered the mouse over the “accept” icon for a few seconds, clicked on it, and forgot about it.

Helen arrived at Vreden Management on Friday morning a few minutes early. She had taken off Tuesday and Wednesday, returning to work yesterday. The spotting had disappeared twenty-four hours before, and since then she’d had no more issues. She must have really needed the rest, especially with two babies in her womb.

She had bought Clorox on Monday evening, but after Dawn’s admonition, was wary of using it to scrub the mold off the walls. What if just smelling the bleach triggered another episode of bleeding, or caused something worse? Then again, living in a dank, moldy basement couldn’t be good for her, either. She would get Monty to take care of it while she took Adele to a park or something. She’d have to pick the right time to ask him.

She picked up her coffee mug and clicked on her email inbox. She was over the worst of the nausea she had experienced earlier in the pregnancy, and coffee tasted good again, thank God. She wasn’t a big coffee drinker, but she needed a little caffeine in the morning to get going. No one at work had suspected her pregnancy yet, which was fortunate. She smoothed her loose, dark blue dress over her expanding abdomen. Pretty soon she would have a serious babies-bump, but she didn’t plan to wear tight, stretchable clothes that would show it off, as was the fashion. People could just think she was getting fat. It wouldn’t bother her in the least.

A new email popped up from her supervisor, Peter McPherson. She was to come and see him in his office as soon as possible. What could this be about? The brochure she had been working on this week was almost ready, despite her time off. She had planned to finish it this morning and have it ready by noon, even though it wasn’t due until five o’clock. Had something more urgent come up? Had she forgotten about another assignment that was overdue?

With a nervous step, she made her way to Peter’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” he called.