“I’m sorry.” April looked at him apologetically. “I know it’s a mess. We’ll be back at my place soon.” In a single afternoon, the baby had moved in. For the first time, he felt the way he had after the sonogram, and he looked it, which worried April more than a little.

“We can’t live like this. For chrissake, April, the baby will weigh five or six pounds. Why does it need all this furniture?” Her mother had bought what she would have for a magazine layout, and it was lovely stuff, but it had taken over Mike’s postage-stamp-sized apartment, and was a warning to him that this seemingly tiny being was about to take over his life, in ways he hadn’t understood till now, even in his panic.

“Why don’t we put the crib together? And then the bedroom won’t look so crowded,” April suggested. As it was now, they couldn’t even go to bed that night until they assembled the crib, because the bumpers and mattress and a white eyelet canopy were lying on their bed. “I’ll help you.”

“Do you realize that I have no mechanical skills?” he said miserably. “I don’t know a screwdriver from a hammer and I can never read instructions. Whenever I get something that has to be assembled, I wind up throwing it out. I can never figure out what to do with the nuts and bolts. You need an engineering degree to put this shit together.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she said soothingly. “We’ll do it together.”

“I need a drink,” he announced, and went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine. “What’s that thing?” he asked, pointing at the changing table as he came back into the room. He looked extremely crabby and completely panicked.

“It’s to change the baby on,” she said, embarrassed.

“Why can’t you change the baby on your lap, or on the floor or something? Do you realize the Olympic equestrian team doesn’t use this much equipment?” April herself was living out of one small bag, and had three dresses in his closet. All she wore now were jeans, T-shirts, and rubber boots.

April went into the bedroom then to get started on the crib. She tore the cardboard away, looked at the instructions, and realized that Mike was right. Putting it together was more complicated than it appeared, and Mike came in a few minutes later and set down his glass of wine. He didn’t mention the rocking chair or the mess in the room. He just walked over to her and put his arms around her as she wrestled with the boxes.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared for this. And neither were you. You’ve got enough on your mind with the restaurant. You don’t need me making it worse.” He knew she had met with insurance adjusters the day before, and they had been a pain in the neck. “Give me the instructions,” he said, looking at them, and then went to get his tools.

It took them two hours of hit and miss, and several false starts, but they finally got it together. The mattress was in, the bumpers were attached, with little lambs on them, and the canopy was even on the crib. They both looked as though they’d run a marathon as they collapsed next to each other on the bed.

“Childbirth must be a snap compared to this,” he remarked, and then was sorry the minute he said it. He looked at her mournfully, missing the restaurant for exactly the reason he had written about in his review. “I need comfort food,” he said unhappily. April smiled at him and got off the bed.

“That’s the easy part,” she said, as she kissed him and left. Mike lay in bed watching TV, and fifteen minutes later she appeared in the doorway. “We may not have the restaurant. But you have me. Monsieur est servi,” she said, bowing as low as she could given the beachball at her middle.

He followed her into the living room where she had set the small round table they ate on, and a stack of her delicious pancakes were on a plate with warm maple syrup beside it. She had even made a plate of them for herself — the menu sounded good to her too.

“Ohmigod,” he said, like a man dying of thirst in the desert. “That’s just what I needed.” He sat down without another word and devoured them, and then sat back in his chair with a profoundly satisfied look. “Thank you,” he said, looking peaceful finally. “Maybe everything will be okay.” And then he shook his head as he looked around. “I had no idea babies needed all this stuff.”

“Neither did I,” she said honestly. Neither of them had thought about it, they were too busy dealing with everything else.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Mike said sensibly. “We’re moving out anyway, and thank God your place is bigger than this.” She was relieved by that fact too. Living as tightly as this long-term would have been miserable for them. She hoped to be back in her apartment by July, after the worst of the reconstruction was done and they wouldn’t be breathing plaster dust day and night, which wouldn’t be good for the baby either. Too much furniture in a cramped apartment had never hurt a child, even if it unnerved Mike.

He helped her do the dishes after dinner, and they went back to their bedroom. They brushed their teeth and got into bed, and lay looking at the rocking chair at the foot of the bed, and the elaborate crib beside it. Valerie had bought them beautiful things, just too many of them.

“It’ll be weird when there’s someone sleeping in that crib,” he said softly, and looked at her in the moonlight streaming into the room. They could no longer get to the window to pull down the shades, unless they stood in the crib to do it.

“Yes, it will,” she agreed, nodding, but their baby was a very real presence to her now. It was bouncing all over the place at the moment, probably from the pancakes and the sugar from the syrup. She had noticed that whenever she ate sweets, the baby hopped around for hours.

And then without another word, he reached for her, still shocked that he could want her so much even though she was so extremely pregnant. There was something so tender about her now, and so womanly, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. He wasn’t sure if that was normal or not, and he worried that it was uncomfortable for her, but she was touched by it, and always responded to him. They made love in the moonlight and forgot about the baby for a little while, and clung to each other, swept away by their passion.

Chapter 21


When Valerie and Jack got back from Europe, they were busy with a mountain of things they had to do. She had decisions to make about some of her licensing agreements, shows to plan, and an offer from her publisher to do another book. And she had to attend to the last details of April’s wedding, and still had to pick the wedding cake. And Jack was just as busy.

She spoke to April the night they arrived, who said that the reconstruction of the restaurant was off to a good start, although it looked a mess, but she sounded happy. She was excited about the wedding. Valerie told her that Dawn had done a great job handling the details before her return. She had talked her through them in dozens of calls from Europe.

Their schedules that week were relentless, but by Friday night, Valerie felt as though she had a grip on things and that all was under control. Her first days back from a trip were always a nightmare. She managed to order April’s cake on Friday afternoon, since April had explained exactly what she wanted. She wanted a delicate almond-paste icing and a chocolate and mocha filling with a hint of orange. The baker wasn’t happy about it but he agreed to do it to April’s specifications. She would have made it herself if she had time, but she had no kitchen to do it, and Valerie assured her it would be fine.

When she left her office on Friday, Valerie went back to Jack’s apartment. They were spending the weekend there. Their back-and-forth life between the two still seemed to be working, although their lives were hectic. There had been a photograph of them together in Paris, and People magazine had called her office that afternoon to find out what was going on. Dawn had cleverly acted like it was no big deal, and explained nothing. They would find out on their own anyway.

Valerie got to Jack’s apartment before he did, and she thought he looked serious when he walked in. She was taking a bath, and he sat down on the edge of the tub with a somber expression. He didn’t say anything at first, and then he kissed her. She thought he looked depressed, which was unlike him.

“Bad day?” she asked sympathetically, and touched his hand.

“Yeah. Kind of. Just the usual hassles after a trip. You have to pay the penalty for all that fun, I guess.” He smiled at her, but it was wintry. She didn’t press him about it, and figured he would tell her what was bothering him eventually.

It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon, as they walked in Central Park on a beautiful warm May day, that he did. He had been quiet for a long time as they walked along, and then they sat down on a bench and he looked at her and spat it out.

“The network wants to move me to Miami.” He looked devastated, and they both knew what it meant for them. Her show was here, and she couldn’t move with him. They could commute on weekends if they wanted to badly enough, but it wouldn’t be the same.

“Why?”

“God knows. They think it makes more sense. It’s a bigger job attached to the network there. I’d be commentating more stuff, not just football. I’m happy with what I’m doing, and I guess I should be flattered. It’s more money, more prestige.” He hesitated then. “But I don’t want to leave you. I love what we have, and I love you. Long-distance relationships are hard and most of the time they don’t work. I don’t want to be commuting at my age. And I don’t want to live in Miami.” He looked desperately unhappy.