Black Ties and Lullabyes (7 page)

Bernie just stood there in that bathroom, staring at that stick and watching her life come to an end.

“Come on, Bernie!” Bil shouted. “Give us the verdict!”

She wondered how long she could survive in there on tap water and toothpaste. Nine months, maybe?

She opened the door. Slumped against the door frame. They al turned around to look at her. Bernie knew her expression said it al , but she couldn’t seem to wipe it away. She waited for the taunts, the laughter, the ridicule, but strangely, none of it came.

They just sat there staring at her, and suddenly Bernie knew why. They were no longer looking at a col eague. A security specialist like themselves. Just one of the guys. They were looking at a
pregnant
woman
, and the very idea of it short-circuited their brains. Even Teresa couldn’t hide her expression of disbelief.
You? Bernadette Hogan? Pregnant? How
in the hell did
that
happen?

Okay, so the
how
was pretty obvious. It was the
who
they were al wondering about, but they’d get that information out of her only over her dead body.

“Bernie?” Teresa said.

She opened her mouth to say something, but the words got lost between her brain and her lips.

Teresa turned to the men. “Okay, you guys. Out.” They looked at her dumbly.

“I said out!
Now!
”

“But I live here!” Bil said.

“All of you!”

Bil and Lucky took flight like a pair of startled birds, scraping their chairs against the tile floor, stumbling over each other in their haste to get as far away from the pregnant woman as they could. Gabe was more measured in his exit, but Bernie could tel he’d stil rather be anywhere else. Max, who never got in a hurry to do anything, stared at her a long, analytical moment before picking up his winnings and fol owing the other guys to the door.

“Wait!” Bernie shouted.

They froze. Turned back.

“If one of you so much as breathes a word of this to anyone,” Bernie said, her voice low and malevolent,

“I’l rip your eyebal s out and squash them with my bare hands. Are we clear on that?”

Bernie didn’t make threats often, and these guys knew it. If they opened their mouths, they were blind men.

Bernie turned away and col apsed on the sofa, and the guys took that as permission to clear out, closing the door behind them with a solid
thunk
. The sudden screaming silence and Teresa’s sympathetic expression as she sat down beside Bernie made her want to duck her head under a cushion and leave it there until she asphyxiated herself.

“How accurate are those tests?” she managed to croak out.

“It depends. When was your last period?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t real y keep track al that wel .”

But it had been a while. Maybe more than a month.

Maybe more than two months. Maybe she didn’t know.

“Who’s the… I mean, do you have a boyfriend?” Teresa said.

As sick as Bernie had felt al day, the very idea that there was only one candidate for fatherhood made her stomach curdle with dread.

“I real y can’t talk about it,” she said.

“So if it’s true, would it be a…” Teresa paused, wincing as she spoke. “
Bad
thing?” Bernie turned slowly to look at her, feeling her own face

fal ing

into

a

you-gotta-be-kidding-me

expression.

“Okay, then,” Teresa said. “You don’t have to panic just yet. Real y. It was just a dumb over-the-counter test. Sometimes they’re wrong. Get another test. Do it again. It’l probably be negative.”

“Have you ever had a false positive before?”

“Wel … no.”

“Ever known anyone who did?”

“No, but I’ve heard that it does happen.”
I don’t want anecdotes!
Bernie wanted to shout.
I
want somebody to tell me that these tests are
worthless pieces of crap!

“I’m thirty-six years old,” she said. “Don’t the odds of getting pregnant diminish with age?”

“Yeah, if you’re forty-five or fifty,” Teresa said. “But thirty-six-year-olds get pregnant al the—” She stopped short. “But I’m sure not
this
time. It’s probably just—”

“I need to go.”

“Uh… yeah. Okay.” They rose from the sofa, and Teresa opened the door. “Let me know what happens. And tel me if I can… you know. Do anything for you.”

Bernie nodded. “Thanks. But I think it’s a mistake, you know? I’l probably be laughing about this in the morning.”

“Probably,”

Teresa

said,

just

about

as

unconvincingly as Bernie had ever heard anyone utter a single word.

She left the house and headed for her car parked at the curb. There was no sign of Lucky or Gabe—

apparently they’d
really
cleared out. Bil came back up the sidewalk, passing by her without a word, and returned to the house. Only Max remained, leaning against the driver’s door of Bernie’s SUV, his arms folded, staring at her.

No.
No.
She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

Not even him. She stopped in front of him. “Go home, Max.”

“Not just yet.”

“Get out of my way,” she snapped, “or I’l
move
you out of my way.”

“Under normal circumstances, I’d take that threat seriously. But right now you don’t look strong enough to beat up a kitten.”

“You’re right. So I don’t feel like arguing. Wil you just let me go home?”

“Nope. We’ve been watching each other’s backs for years. I don’t intend to stop now.” for years. I don’t intend to stop now.” He was right about that. The military had brought them together. Delgado & Associates had kept them together. They were friends, nothing more, but she’d always been able to count on Max, like the big brother she’d never had. The way she felt right now, though, she’d rather count on him
tomorrow.

“There’s no reason to get al worried about this,” Bernie said.

“I’m not the one who’s uptight.”

“I’m not pregnant, you know.”

“The test was positive.”

“The test was wrong. I can’t be pregnant. No way.” Max nodded thoughtful y. “Uh-huh.”

She threw up her hands. “I told you I’m not pregnant!” Then she closed her eyes in frustration.

“Damn it, would you at least try to be as oblivious as other men? Just once?”

“I’d ask who the father is, but I’m guessing you’d rather keep that to yourself.”

She started to say that there wasn’t a father because she
wasn’t pregnant,
but it would have fal en on deaf ears. And first she had to believe it herself.

“Do another test,” Max said.

“I intend to.”

“Tonight. If it’s negative, maybe you can actual y sleep.”

A nice thought, but Bernie could hear what Max wasn’t saying.
And if it’s positive, you’re screwed.

“You okay to drive home?” he asked her.

“Of course I am.”

Bernie clicked open her car door. Max stepped aside and opened it. As she settled into the driver’s seat, her stomach did a slow, sickening heave. Good Lord. If this was what pregnancy felt like, how did the average woman stand it?

“Can I count on you to keep this quiet? Not a word to anyone? You know—until I find out for sure what’s up.”

“Hel , yes, I’l keep it quiet,” he said with a tiny smile.

“You think I want my eyebal s squashed?”

“Come on, Max. You know I wouldn’t
really
squash your eyebal s. Lucky’s maybe. Never yours.” Squashed eyebal s notwithstanding, she didn’t know why she worried about Max. If the population dwindled away and there was only one discreet person left on this planet, it would be Max Delinsky.

“Don’t sweat this until you’re sure there’s something to sweat, okay?” Max said. “Get another test, rule it out, and then you can forget about it.” Bernie nodded. She got into her car, and at the first red light she came to, she grabbed her iPhone and found a twenty-four-hour drugstore. It was twelve miles away, but she didn’t care. She tossed her phone to the passenger seat and drove there, where she picked up another pregnancy test. She was careful to get a different brand from the one she’d already taken just in case that particular manufacturer wasn’t quite up to par. As she made her way to the checkout counter, she felt as if everyone in the store was looking at her, so she also grabbed a Snickers bar, a bottle of shampoo, and a pack of razor blades, as if those would distract from her real intent:
I’m hungry,
my hair’s dirty, I have hairy legs, and… oh, yeah. I
need to see if I’m pregnant.
The teenage girl behind the counter didn’t blink as she rang the stuff up, but Bernie stil felt as if a gigantic spotlight had appeared from nowhere to shine directly on her.

Al the way home, her heart beat like mad at the same time her stomach flip-flopped like a fish on the deck of a bass boat. She came through her apartment door and headed straight for her bathroom, where she yanked the directions out of the box and read them from beginning to end, including a statement about the effectiveness of the test.

“Supersensitive in detecting hCG levels” and “99

percent accurate after seven to nine days” didn’t exactly fil her with hope.

A few minutes later, there it was. Corroborating evidence. She was going to have a baby.

In dazed disbelief, she tossed the test into the trash. She made her way to the living room, where she plunked herself down on the sofa. She stared straight ahead, her hand on her stomach, trying to reconcile the test she’d just taken with the reality of an actual baby growing inside her. She’d always been proud of the fact that she had a job that one in ten thousand women couldn’t have qualified for, yet here she was in a situation any brainless teenager in the backseat of a car could have gotten herself into.

Then she thought about Jeremy. Oh,
God.
What was he going to say when he found out?

She couldn’t think about that now. Not when the majority of her energy was consumed with trying to keep from throwing up. Morning sickness? Wrong damned time of day. And it sounded so benign. There had to be another name for it, something more like
bubonic plague.

She lay down on the sofa and tucked a pil ow beneath her head, stifling a groan as she curled up in a semifetal position. She closed her eyes, wil ing the nausea to subside, only to hear a knock at her door.

No! Whoever you are, go away! I want to die in
peace!

She closed her eyes again, only to hear more knocking. Final y she got up and staggered to her door, intending to open it only if somebody was carrying a five-foot-long Publishers Clearing House check for a mil ion bucks. She looked out the peephole.

Oh, God.
Her mother?

More knocking. “Bernadette? Open the door. I saw your car. I know you’re home!”

Bernie felt a twinge of panic. If her mother saw her looking like this, she’d cal 911.

The flu. She’d just say she had the flu, because she sure couldn’t tel the truth. Not until she had a chance to think about it when she felt better. Whenever that might be.

She opened the door. “Mom? What are you doing here this late? You know you shouldn’t be driving after dark.”

“I tried to cal you, but you didn’t answer. I got worried.”

“You cal ed? I didn’t hear—” She stopped short.

“Oh. I must have left my phone in the car.” And what a dumb, dumb move
that
had turned out to be.

Eleanor came into the apartment, her brows drawing together. “Oh, my. You real y are sick. I can tel . You’re feeling worse, aren’t you?” She pressed her palms against Bernie’s cheeks. “Hmm. Stil no fever. Do you have a headache? Muscle aches?”

“Yeah. I think it’s the flu.”

“Are you nauseated?”

Just hearing those words was al it took for Bernie’s stomach to turn upside down one more time. She yanked herself away from her mother and hurried to the bathroom. When she reached the toilet, she dropped to her knees, flung up the lid, and started to heave. A few moments later her mother was beside her, sitting on the edge of the tub, holding her hair and patting her back. When Bernie final y stopped throwing up, she took the wet towel her mother offered her and wondered what she’d done in a former life that was so bad that she’d get stuck with karma like this.

“Poor baby,” her mother said.

“It’s just the flu,” Bernie croaked. “I’l be over it in a few days.”

“Don’t you usual y get a flu shot?”

I do. But flu shots don’t prevent pregnancy.
“Yeah.

Usual y. It just got past me this year.”

“You need water. Fluids wil help you feel better. I’l get you a glass of—” When she stopped short, Bernie looked up to see her staring down at something. The trash can. When her mother reached inside, Bernie froze with dread, but there was no stopping her now.

She pul ed out the box the pregnancy test had come in.

She looked at it. She looked at Bernie. At the box.

At Bernie. It was as if she was finding it impossible to reconcile the two, but feminine barfing in the presence of a used pregnancy test would eventual y lead anyone to the truth.

“Bernadette,” Eleanor said final y, her voice quivering. “It isn’t the flu, is it?” Bernie scoured her brain for a real y good lie, but absolutely nothing came to her. “No, Mom,” she said on a sigh. “It’s not the flu.”

When Eleanor slid her hand to her throat, her eyes wide, her jaw slack with disbelief, Bernie actual y began to tremble with dread. After al , how had her mother reacted when Sharon Binkley, the biggest slut at Bernie’s high school, had gotten pregnant?
What’s
wrong with these girls?
she’d said in a hushed, horrified

whisper.
Having relations outside of
marriage? Do they have no shame? No shame at
all?
Then came the lecture she subjected Bernie to, the one about boys and their motives and the dreadful things that happened to any girl dumb enough to fal prey to their manipulation. Eleanor had done her best to pray for poor Sharon, but Bernie knew the truth as her mother saw it: The shameless, spineless pregnant girl was going straight to hel .