Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (34 page)

The kid was right. He
had
ruined everything.

Which meant that it was up to
him
to fix it.

“Ohmigod!”

Lucas dropped to his wife’s side. “What is it, are you okay? Is it the babies?”

“No, no.” Mike waved him off irritably. “I just saw my
feet
for the first time in three weeks.” My ankles look like
tree trunks
! And I’m talking
redwood
here, not aspen.”

“Jeez, give me a heart attack,” Lucas muttered, collapsing into the gunmetal-gray folding chair beside her. “You shouldn’t have come today.”

“Right.” She snorted. “Like I’m not going to see Jo graduate.” From her uncomfortable perch on the uncomfortable metal chair, Mike looked up at her family, all of them trying to spot Jo through the rampaging crowd. Thank God, everyone had been seated during the actual graduation ceremony, or Mike wouldn’t have been able to see a thing. “She looked great, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, covering her hand with his. “She did good.”

Mike grabbed hold of his hand and held on. “Damn right she did, and she didn’t need that dumb SOB here, either.”

“Give it a rest, Mike,” Lucas sighed.

“Give it a rest?” She blinked at him, eyes wide, mouth hanging open in stunned shock. “Hello, have you met me? Mike Marconi?”

“Gallagher,” he added with a smile.

“Okay, yeah, you’ve met me.” She smiled back at him and wondered if falling in love had really mellowed her out. God, she hoped not. She really liked . . . “Ow.”

“Ow?” He went pale. “Ow
what
?”

“Nothing. Just a backache. It’s these crummy chairs . . .”

“You’re sure.”

“Course I’m sure.”
Sort of
. A few pains. A couple of twinges. All normal when you’re carrying around, like, a bazillion extra pounds of weight. Right? She was fine . . .

Changing the subject, she reached out and tugged on her father’s shirt. “Do you see her, Papa?”

“Too many people,” he grumbled, then helped Grace stand on one of the hideous chairs so she could see over the heads of the crowd.

“Issa no good for you, Michaela, so many people with the bambinos so close.” Nana leaned over her, planting both aged hands on Mike’s belly, as if communing with the children inside. “Issa too much.”

“That’s what I told her,” Lucas complained.

“You’re a gooda boy,” Nana pronounced.

“I’m not going home,” Mike said to no one in particular, then muffled another groan as a sharper pain shot from her backbone straight through the center of her. She was only surprised it didn’t dart right out through her belly button like a bolt of lightning.

“What?” Nana’s radar was on high alert.

“Nothing,” Mike lied. “It’s nothing.”

“There she is,” Grace shouted, and started waving both arms high in the air while screaming,
“Josefina! Over here!”

“Gonna make a fine Marconi out of her,” Mike said, approving of the near hysterical shouting, but no one was listening.

“Aunt Mike.” Emma squeezed out from her father’s grasp and plopped down on Lucas’s lap. “Did you see my new puppy?”

“Sure did, kiddo.”

“She’s so soft, feel.” Emma held the squirming golden retriever puppy out to receive a pet.

“I can’t believe your mom let you bring the puppy.”

“She couldn’t stay home,” Emma said, horrified at the idea. “I just got her yesterday, she woulda been scared without me.”

Emma’s face was wreathed with that ferocious fire of puppy love.

“What was I thinking?”

“Emma?” Sam’s voice, worried, carried over the laughing, shouting, talking people. “Where’s Emma?”

“She’s here,” Mike called back.

“Emma, don’t you go anywhere. Stay right by Aunt Mike.”

“I’ve got her,” Lucas yelled, wrapping one arm around his niece’s waist for good measure.

“Where’s Jo?”
Mike demanded, getting really tired of her view. All she could see were butts. Denimcovered, silk-covered, wide ones, narrow ones, fat ones, and toned ones. People talked, people moved around, and here she sat, trapped by her own humongous weight, unable to stand on her
tree trunks
to join the crowd. Stuck in this chair, she wouldn’t be able to see Jo unless her sister were kneeling in front of her.

“Here she comes, here she comes!” Grace shouted louder, waved her arms, then wrapped one arm around
Papa’s neck for balance. Still shouting, she called out a description. “Oh, Mike, she looks so
happy
! She’s carrying the flowers you gave her, Henry. And—Oh dear.”

“What?”
Mike shouted.

“Did you
see
that?” Sam demanded. “Jeff, go hit him!”

“Hit
who
?” Mike slapped her father’s back, trying for information.

“I’m not going to hit the poor guy,” Jeff was saying. “I know what it’s like dealing with Marconi women.”

“Amen,” Lucas shouted.

Mike glared at the man she loved. “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on?”

“It’s
Cash
,” Jack yelled, and pushed through the crowd of family members to come to Mike’s side. Leaning down, his grin was wide and excitement danced in his eyes. “Cash
came
. He went up to get Jo and started pulling her away, but she was pulling back and then she hit him with the flowers.”

“She
did
?”
Damn
. And she’d missed it.

“Twice,”
Jack said, holding up two fingers just in case she missed his shout.

Mike loved it and wanted to know more. Quickly, she urged the kid up onto the chair next to her. “Get up there, little brother. Give me a blow-by-blow description.”

“A what?”

“You know, like on
Monday Night Football
? A play-by-play. Pretend you’re John Madden,” Mike urged, ignoring her husband telling her to butt out. Like any Marconi was going to butt out of this.
Hah!

“Okay—” Jack jumped a little and held on to his father for stability. “I see ’em.”

“What’re they doing?” Mike yelled, absently wiping puppy drool off her arm.

“Jo’s yelling at him!”

“Way to go, Josefina!” Sam crowed from the front of the crowd.

“What’d Cash do?” Mike bit her lip as another, stronger pain hit her like a sledgehammer. Starting at the tips of her toes, it shot straight up her body until it funneled out the top of her head.
Wow
. Okay, that can’t be good. She took an experimental breath and didn’t pass out, so she figured she had a few minutes yet.

“I wanna see,” Emma shouted, squirming on Lucas’s lap. “If Jack gets to see, I get to!”

“Oh gross . . .” Jack groaned.

“What?” Mike shouted, pain forgotten in her frantic need to
know
. “What’s happening?”

“He’s kissin’ her!”

“Fighting dirty,” Sam said.

“Way to go, Cash,” Lucas called.

“Now what?” Mike demanded, jamming an elbow into her beloved’s ribs.

“He’s talking to her,” Jack said, a tone of hope in his voice.

“Is she talking back?”

“Nope,” Jack said, sounding just a little disappointed. “She’s shaking her head hard. Her dumb hat fell off.”

“Mortarboards aren’t really hats,” Grace said.

“Not the point,” Mike reminded her.

“Oh, hey, he’s kissing her again,” Jack yelled.

“That’s nice,” Emma sighed. “Like a fairy tale.”

“Is she kissing him back?” Mike asked.

“How do I tell?”

She opened her mouth.

“Michaela . . .” Papa’s warning voice rumbled out.

“Fine, fine . . . Is she hugging him?”

“Nope,” Jack yelled. “Oh, she just kicked him!”

“Score one for our side,” Sam said, and leaned through the crowd to slap Mike’s upraised hand.

“I wanna see Aunt Jo, too.” Emma crawled out of Lucas’s lap, and climbed onto the folding chair beside Jack. The little girl’s black patent-leather shoes were slippery, though, and when she fell, the puppy tumbled free and took off like a shot. The last anyone saw of her was a small white ball of fluff, darting between hundreds of pairs of legs.

“Missy!”
Emma’s squeal, pitched only slightly lower than a dog whistle, slammed through every head there.
“Daddy, catch her!”

Everyone moved at once. Jack jumped off the chair, helped Emma up, and threaded his way through the sea of people crowding around the graduates. Even from Mike’s vantage point, she saw people jump out of the way as the puppy careened past. A woman in a white sheath with violent purple pansies all over it stumbled back, crashing into a graduate, who then toppled onto an old man, knocking his walker into the fray. The walker caught another woman’s skirt and lifted it high enough for her to get the mother of all gooses.

Then the rest of the family jumped into the fray. Jeff was already in pursuit of his daughter’s puppy while Grace shouted directions to him and Sam was hanging on to Emma while the little girl sobbed her heart out.
Lucas patted Mike’s hand and Mike tried to ignore the vise tightening around her middle.

“There she is!” Grace shouted. “Just past the statue of the ugly thing!”

Jeff took off at an angle, dodging people, keeping his gaze glued to the ground. He didn’t see the flower cart in time and did a head-first somersault before popping back up again like a circus acrobat.

“Way to go, Jeff!” Grace yelled.

“Go help.” Mike let go of Lucas’s hand and smiled at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he was off and running.

“Left, Lucas, go
left
,” Grace called out, gesturing wildly with both arms now. “Head her off at the pass! Oh!” She winced. “That must have hurt, poor woman.”

“Oh, Mommy, she’s gone,
she’s gone
!” Emma’s wail was reaching heights Pavarotti would have envied.

Mike shifted on her chair and squeezed her eyes shut as one more pain soared through her body. When she got her breath back, she shouted, “What happened to Jo and Cash?”

“I’m right here,” Jo answered, appearing out of nowhere, holding a bouquet of stems with a few battered petals still clinging to them. Her hair was a wreck, her mouth was all puffy from what must have been a heck of a kiss, and there was fire in her eyes—which to Mike’s way of thinking was
way
better than the misery she’d seen there earlier this morning.

“Where’d everybody go?” Jo asked.

“Chasing the puppy,” Sam said, still patting Emma’s back.

“The puppy made a break for it,” Mike said, and
rubbed her belly, as if trying to calm the kids down just a little.

“She could be
dying
,” Emma screeched.

Everyone winced.

“Issa no good, all this excitement for Michaela,” Nana said, and crossed herself to show them all she meant business.

“You okay, Mike?” Jo dropped into a chair next to her.

“Sure. Fine.” She was breathing a little heavily but no way was she going to miss all of this.

“Jo, damn it, you have to listen to me,” Cash said as he pushed through the crowd, stopping to apologize to the woman whose hat he’d knocked off.

“No I don’t,” she said.

“I’m sorry!” He threw both hands high. “How many times do I have to say it? I’m an idiot. Like you said.”

“He is pretty convincing,” Mike said.

“Mike, you’re looking a little pale,” Jo whispered.

“I’m feeling a little—”

“Its’a the bambinos!” Nana shouted. Then, drawing up to her full four feet nine inches, she stretched up her arms toward heaven and yelled, “The bambinos! They
come
!”

“Anybody miss that?” Mike asked, cringing a little as people started turning to stare.

“I told you not to deliver at the graduation!” She smiled, patted Mike’s face, then jumped to her feet, demanding, “Where the hell’s Lucas?”

“He’s chasing the puppy,” Papa said, sitting down to take Mike’s hand in his.

“We’ll find him!” Grace shouted, then bailed off her
chair and dived into the crowd, a white-haired tornado on a mission.

“Aunt Mike, are your babies coming now?” Emma asked, coming closer to stare at the hem of Mike’s dress, as if expecting to see little heads pop out to say howdy.

“Oh, dear God,”
Mike moaned.

“Sorry, Mike,” Cash said, “but I’ve got to get this said. Jo, you have to listen.” He grabbed her, but she shook him off.

“I can’t listen to you now, Mike’s having her baby and we need to get her to the hospital.”

“Issa no need to worry,” Nana said, kneeling down in front of Mike. “I am here. I take care of the bambinos.”

Horrified, Mike stared at the wizened little woman already getting into position. “Nana, I love you, but no way! Oh God, where’s Lucas?” She grabbed her father’s hand and squeezed hard enough to break bones.

“He’s coming!” Sam said from her perch on one of the chairs. Then, to someone else, she snarled, “Mind your own business, haven’t you ever seen someone give birth?”

“Oh God, not giving birth,” Mike moaned. “I want a hospital. I want
drugs
.”

“It’s okay, Mike, we’ll get you there,” Jo promised, trying not to look at Cash, trying not to read too much into his being here. She’d almost fainted when he came up out of the crowd, insisting that he’d had to be a part of her big day.

“Getting a little serious here, people!” Mike groaned and tried to lever herself to her feet. No way. Wasn’t gonna happen. Not under her own power, anyway.

“No stand up, sit, sit, stay
quieta
,” Nana said, still looking ready to play doctor.

“Mike? Michaela?”

“Lucas, oh, thank God.” She waved a hand at her husband. “Get me to the hospital, will you?”

“Right. I’ll get the car.” Lucas stood up, turned in a fast circle, stared at Jo and shouted,
“Where’s the car?”

“Relax, Rocket Man,” Mike laughed at her husband’s panic, but ended up whimpering.

“Oh, my God. Get a car,” the calm, logical, sensible scientist shouted. “
Anybody’s
car!”

“We need hot water,” Nana said.

“Nana, you’re
not
a doctor,” Jo reminded her.

“Emma baby, I found your puppy!” Jeff rushed into the family group, cradling a happy, thoroughly excited retriever.