A Pact For Life (9 page)

The toilet flushed. He puked once more. The toilet flushed again, and again he tried to puke, but nothing came out. He was empty inside.

He curled up on the bathroom floor and tried to find any sort of comfort. He missed Diana. Despite all their problems together, she kept mornings like this at bay.

With Diana, everything was better.

The sound of Sunday morning traffic of downtown Denver woke up Diana from the sleep she didn't remember entering. It wasn't the first time she fell asleep at her desk, and by now her body knew all the little tricks like arm placement, head position, and posture to provide a good night's sleep.

She sat up and felt a lurch in her stomach. It was somewhat like nausea, only different. Barefoot, she got up and ran to the bathroom in the same black dress from the speed dating event. Opening the first stall, she neatly vomited into the toilet, doing her best not to make a mess. As she bent over and let it all come out, she knew what was going on. The pregnancy test was wrong, it was morning sickness.

She was pregnant.

Fucking Cale, she thought to herself. Fucking Cale Dawkins has ruined my life.

A SERIES OF HAPPY MOMENTS

The Diana Young Pregnancy Update 

Estimated weeks till delivery: 35

Shape of stomach: The most toned and flat it will ever be

Food Craving: Coffee

Mood: More furious with each unanswered call

Diana gripped the phone tighter as the ringing continued without an answer. It was the eighth time that day she tried to reach Cale, and the eighth time she got his voice mail. So much for telling him the news.

She was calling on a Monday, one day after waking up with morning sickness. Throughout that Sunday she had bought, took, rebought, and retook pregnancy tests. They all came up positive, and she felt like suing the manufacturer of the original negative test not only for false advertising, but for the emotional stress caused by negligence.

In her earlier calls, a few voice mails were left, and the importance of the message was stressed, but she didn't explicitly say she was pregnant. A message of that importance didn't belong in a voice mail. That is, until her eighth call.

Cale was in his studio/apartment which was actually a converted warehouse hangar. In his right hand were various commission proposals he was forced to accept in order to pay for Diana's ring while his left hand held a Bombay on the rocks. His face? Dread with a dash of the abyss. The week long marijuana binge was over, and his sluggishness went with it, but he still felt lost and abandoned.

As it had done many times earlier, his cell phone lit up but didn't make a noise or vibrate. Those functions were turned off after Diana's third call. Still though, he couldn't help but notice the screen lit.

He reached over and hit 'ignore'. Each call was tougher than the last to ignore, but he saw this dismissal as doing both of them a favor.

Obviously, she had second thoughts about separating forever, and was calling to reconcile, but Cale knew the pact would be meaningless if he picked up the phone. He needed to be strong enough for the both of them. It was Alcoholics Anonymous, she was desperately in need of alcohol, and he was her sponsor. It was his duty to save her.

The voice mail icon had been on since her first call, and he decided to go ahead and erase them while he was sober rather than take the chance of being drunk, playing them, and succumbing to his own drunk, lonely, lost mind.

First message, 7:55 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, it's Di...”

Message deleted, next message, 8:47 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, it's me agai...”

Message deleted, next message, 10:11 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, I assume you're awake by...”

Message deleted, next message, 11:22 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, Please call me...”

Message deleted, next message, 12:07 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, this is import...”

Message deleted, next message, 12:14 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, I don't mean to scar...”

Message deleted, next message, 12:33 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Cale, I just talked to Nick and he said he saw...”

Message deleted, next message, 1:00 AM, Monday, November 8th

“Listen, asshole! I don't know what your problem is or why you haven't called me back, but you've forced me to do this over the phone. I'm pregnant. The test was wrong. God, what the hell is wrong with you? Why won't you pick up? I was going to see if you wanted to get together and talk about it, but if you are going to keep avoiding me, then never mind. I just thought I would do the right thing, and... fuck you!”

Message saved, no new messages

“Diana, your 1:30 is here,” Jenny announced to Diana through her phone.

Diana opened her drawer and pulled out a pocket mirror to check how she looked. With everything in order, she walked out to the reception area where Dr. Andrew Finnegan was sitting in a black suit, white shirt, and red tie. It was a quite a change from the last time she saw him – jogging shorts and a race T-shirt.

Sticking out her hand, she said confidently, “Dr. Finnegan, hi, I'm Diana Young. It's nice to finally meet you.”

Andrew stood up and never seemed to stop rising. Diana was too busy focusing on his height that she didn't notice the look of surprise on his face. He shook her hand with his right hand and with his left, pointed at her and asked, “You were at the race on Saturday, weren't you?”

“Yes... I was there.” Diana couldn't hold back her smile as she asked, “Did Jamie tell you that?”

Trying to act casual, Andrew said, “He might have said something about it. Oh, and from one professional to another, you can just call me Andrew.”

Even though he asked her to be informal, Diana still had a tough time turning the switch off. “Well... Andrew, if you're ready to begin, please follow me to the conference room, and we can go over your case.”

“Sounds good. I brought over a summary of my assets, my ex-wife's history, the last five year's tax returns, and a signed power of attorney. Is there anything else I can get you?”

Diana was surprised at how prepared he was. Usually it's a fight for her with accountants, other lawyers, and ex-family to get this information, but Andrew had taken care of everything for her. It reminded her of something she would do.

In the conference room, they sat across from each other at a table built for twenty. After several back and forths of boring legal talk and customary document signing, Andrew said, “Could you mark on that asset summary sheet that I would like to keep my house in Vail? I also have a condo here in the city, but Kristen can have that if I comes down to one or the other.”

Diana read over the appraised value of the condo, $600,000, and the house, $2,770,000, and said, “Since you didn't have any kids, I should be able to retain whichever property you prefer. Without a prenuptial agreement though, we might have some problems with alimony, but that will depend on who she has for representation.”

“I'm not sure if she has hired anyone, it was always my job to handle those things. Hopefully, I'll let you know sometime this week.”

And just like that, Andrew had handled everything Diana needed to do for the initial meeting. She didn't know why, but she wanted to stall him from leaving. Just a few more minutes to learn more about him. Alas, nothing came to her, and she said, “Andrew, this might sound unprofessional, but we can end this meeting right now if you'd like. Usually these initial consultations are to inform you what documents we need, to have you sign those forms, and to pay the retainer, but you've already done all that. As of now, you're set until I hear from your ex-wife's lawyer.”

Andrew handed her all of the signed forms and said, “Do you have a second to talk non-business?”

Diana's heart skipped a beat, but she hid it well with a smile and a nod.

“I actually have a confession to make. Jamie didn't tell me about you at the race. I saw you in the crowd when I was up on stage. You're... pretty distinctive.”

Usually calling someone 'pretty distinctive' would be a polite way of saying 'weird as hell', but that wasn't Andrew's intention. He wanted to say 'unforgettably beautiful', but was too much of a professional to hit on his lawyer.

Diana fiddled with her hands under the table unsure how to take the comment. With courage, she said, “I remember seeing you on stage too. You had quite the following there.”

Andrew's tan face turned a little red and he said, “Sorry about that. I used to play basketball at Kansas and a lot of them are alumni. It's hard to tell them I'm not interested without being rude. Most of those women are just like my ex-wife. Kristen wasn't exactly the sharpest knife...” Andrew paused for a moment in order to think of something less rude to say about his ex-wife. “It's amazing how some people can make you appreciate an intelligent woman.”

Although he wasn't dumb by any means, this comment made Diana think of Cale. Why didn't he answer his phone? The more Diana thought about him, the more she wanted him out of her mind. Luckily for her, the man sitting across from her made this rather easy, The more she talked to responsible, polished Andrew, the more Cale disappeared.