Happy Birthday (28 page)

“What did you tell them?” She still looked woozy, but a lot better than she had the night before. She had color in her face again, and she said her arms and hands weren’t too painful. The burns weren’t as bad as they’d feared when she came in. She’d been very lucky, and so had he. He could have lost her.

“I told them I was your husband. I want us to make that true,” he said gently, and then kissed her. Her hair reeked of smoke, but he didn’t care. “Will you marry me, April? Let’s do it before the baby’s born. It would be a nice thing to do for him.”

“Her,” she corrected him with a grin, and then grew serious as she looked at him. “You don’t have to marry me because I’m pregnant.”

“I want to marry you because you’re a menace and I want to keep an eye on you. The next time you try to put out a kitchen fire yourself, I’m going to kick your ass, April Wyatt. So will you do it?”

“What?” She was smiling at him. He was right. They were both crazy. But they always had been, right from the very first night. “Yeah actually, that sounds nice. Can I wait till I’m skinny so I can wear a pretty dress? I only plan to do this once.”

“Me too. But I don’t care if you wear your bedspread. Let’s do it before your due date, if that’s okay with you.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a June bride.” She was smiling broadly and still couldn’t believe he had asked her. It felt like a dream.

“You’re a nutcase. Maybe that’s why I love you. But I’ll say one thing, you’ve got more balls than a Christmas tree,” Mike commented about her attempt to fight the fire. A part of him admired her for what she did, and another part of him wanted to yell at her for doing it.

“Can I call my mom?” she asked in the same hoarse croak, but she was beaming. He dialed the number at the Ritz again and handed her his cell phone. He was relieved that she looked so happy. The night before she had looked half dead. And their baby could have died too.

April asked for her mother’s room, and Valerie answered the phone immediately, afraid of more bad news. She was relieved to hear April’s voice.

“Hi, Mom,” she said hoarsely. “I’m engaged.”

“Are you on drugs, for heaven’s sake?” Valerie asked her, still deeply upset by the news of the fire, only moments before.

“I don’t know,” April said honestly. No one had told her what was in the IV, and she felt giddy. “We’re getting married.”

“When?”

“In June, before the baby.” She was holding Mike’s hand as she said it, and he smiled.

“Could you please calm down until we get home?” Valerie said, her nerves frayed. “First you try to put out a fire, then you get engaged. Just sit tight and don’t do anything till we get home. Sleep or something.” She smiled then. At least it was good news this time. And she thought it was the right decision. She liked Mike, even if he had gotten off to a bad start. But she had always hoped he’d pull through, and he had. “Can I give the wedding?” her mother asked her, and April laughed.

“Of course.”

Jack was gesticulating as she asked April about the wedding, and Valerie nodded at him. “Jack says we can give it at his apartment, it’s bigger,” her mother told her, beaming.

“Whatever,” April said vaguely, it was hard to talk. “We only want a few people. We can do something bigger later, after the baby. When I can wear a decent dress.” And then she wiped tears from her eyes. What had happened had been so scary, and she was worried about the baby too. “I love you, Mommy. I’m sorry I did something so stupid. I won’t do it again.” She sounded like a little girl as she said it, and looked up at Mike from her bed.

“I know you won’t, sweetheart,” her mother said kindly, with tears in her eyes too as Jack held her hand. “I hope nothing like that ever happens again.” She knew how distraught April was going to be when she realized the condition the restaurant was in. She was still pretty dazed. It had been an enormous shock for
her. “Just be a good girl now and take it easy. You have a wedding to get ready for, and a baby. Get some rest.”

“I will,” she said, and hung up, and handed Mike his phone back. And after he kissed her again, she smiled and went to sleep.

Chapter 18

T
hey let April go home the next day. The baby was fine, and she wasn’t having any contractions. And her oxygenation was back up to normal levels. She was still hoarse from the smoke, but other than the bandages on her arms, she was fine. Everyone kept telling her how lucky she was, and she knew it too, except for the restaurant.

They went to Mike’s apartment, and he wouldn’t let her go to view the damage on the way. But two days later he couldn’t keep her from it. She stood and sobbed as she surveyed the debris. There was broken glass and water everywhere. They had knocked the plate-glass windows out to get in the hoses. The water had done far more damage than the fire. She didn’t even know where to start fixing the place up. But Ellen’s husband, Larry, came over and met with her. He assessed the damage and promised to line
up subcontractors for her. He offered to do the job, and said he was sure they could complete it in three or four months. That meant August 1, or Labor Day, worst case. She said she could live with that, and the insurance money would pay for it. It had been an honest kitchen fire, there was no question of arson. Now she just had to sit it out for the next three months, or four at worst.

She was depressed when she went back to Mike’s apartment, but he kept reminding her that it could have been a lot worse. And with Larry taking care of everything, she knew her restaurant was in good hands. She didn’t know what to do with the employees, but offered to keep them all on. The only one who decided to go back to his old job was Jean-Pierre, but she thought it was the right decision and accepted his resignation with relief. His feelings for her made it too difficult for him, and for her. She was in love with Mike, not Jean-Pierre, no matter what his hopes had been about her. He was a great sommelier, and she was sad to see him go, but it was better that way. She had felt him watching her all the time with longing, and hostility whenever Mike was around.

Mike stayed home with her as much as possible. Her obstetrician had told her to take it easy for a week, so the contractions didn’t start again. And she had nothing to do now anyway. She knew that Larry was meeting with subcontractors for her. And the restaurant had to be cleared of the debris. They weren’t sure yet, but it looked like nothing could be saved.

She was lying in bed, thinking about it one afternoon, aware that Larry was seeing an electrician at the restaurant at three.
Mike was at the paper, and she was feeling fine. It seemed stupid to just lie around. She put on jeans and a T-shirt, braided her hair, and left Mike’s apartment. He called her on her cell phone, and she told him she was in bed. She stopped on Third Avenue at a Walgreens to buy some gardening boots, and ten minutes later she got to the restaurant just as Larry and the electrician drove up. She was standing outside, looking mournful. She had brought her keys and unlocked the door. She’d given Larry a second set and he was surprised to see her there. He knew she was supposed to be resting.

“I thought you were home in bed,” he said suspiciously, and then introduced her to the electrician. The three of them walked inside together, and the acrid smell was enough to make all three of them choke. They were standing in eight inches of water. “We’ve got to get this place dried up,” Larry said. The basement, with all her wines, was flooded too. None of the bottles were actually on the ground, but in racks, so presumably they were okay. April made her way down the basement stairs to check, while Larry showed the electrician around. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the wines were safe, and lumbered back up the stairs.

They were standing in the kitchen when her cell phone rang again. It was Mike.

“What are you doing?” he asked casually.

“Nothing,” she said innocently. And just as she said it, there was a tremendous crash in the kitchen, as the electrician pulled some boards away.

“What was that?” Mike asked, sounding worried.

“The TV,” she answered rapidly, as she walked away from the others, so he couldn’t hear their voices.

“There’s something I’ve got to do. I’ll be home a little late,” he said mysteriously.

“That’s fine. I’m just taking it easy here,” she said, climbing over a pile of debris.

“Why do I have the impression that you’re lying to me?” he said, as another board came down. This one made only slightly less noise than the first one. She almost told him the truth about where she was, but didn’t dare.

“Don’t worry so much. Honest, Mike, I’m fine.”

“I don’t trust you,” he said, and she laughed. He was right.

“I love you. See you tonight” was all she answered. He had been wonderful to her since the fire, but he couldn’t be with her all the time. He had to go to work, and he said he had a review to write that night. He still had to go back to the restaurant from where he’d bolted the night of the fire, but he hadn’t had time to set it up yet, and he hated leaving her alone at night.

“See you later. Take it easy. Is there anything you want?” He was trying to be helpful, and had been really sweet to her. Now that he had decided to get on board, he was fussing over her all the time. The fire had scared him to death. He knew in an instant how much she, and the baby, meant to him. Every minute with her seemed like a precious gift to him now.

“Yeah, I want my restaurant up and running again,” she said glumly, as she looked around.

“It’ll happen. You heard what Larry said. Worst case by Labor Day. With luck, maybe three months.” He knew how impatient she was, and how devastated she was by what had happened. But it could have been a lot worse. She and the baby could be dead.

“It looks a much bigger mess than that,” she said.

“How do you know?” Mike asked, suspicious again, and she caught herself quickly.

“Uh … that’s what Larry said. He and the electrician just called.” He didn’t believe her, and he had a sudden instinct about where she was. She was incapable of sitting still for five minutes, or staying away from the restaurant she loved so much.

“So did they change the reopening date?” he asked, sounding worried.

“No. I just don’t see how they can do it in three months. He still thinks they can, or in four. But he promised we’d be open again by Labor Day.” She sighed. It seemed an eternity to her. Four endless months.

“Why don’t you try thinking about it as maternity leave? That’ll give you two or three months with the baby while they put Humpty Dumpty back together. It’ll be over before you know it. And summer is always a little slow.”

“No, it’s not.” She sounded insulted. “We get all the people who don’t go away for weekends. And even our regulars come in during the week.”

“Sorry. Well, you’re just going to have to take the summer off this year, or the better part of it. The baby will keep you busy. Maybe we can go to Long Island for a couple of weeks in July.” He
was trying to make suggestions to comfort her, but she would have none of it. She wanted April in New York open again, as fast as it humanly could be done.

“I don’t think so,” she said cautiously, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but she was a woman of determination, with a plan. “I should be here to oversee the work.”

“I’ll bet you will.” He laughed. “Just try not to overdo it for now. You can watch, but don’t lift anything. I don’t want you to get hurt, April.” They both knew she was in the home stretch, so to speak. The baby’s due date was in just over four weeks. Now that they were together, time was moving fast. It had been two months, and he couldn’t have been more loving to her if the baby had been planned. He was still nervous about it, but much less so than he had been before. The therapist he was still seeing had helped. Mike was totally on board. He talked to his friend Jim about it frequently, and he said he was proud of Mike. “See you tonight,” he said, and signed off.

Mike had called his parents about the baby too. It was the first time he had called in years and predictably, it was a disaster. His mother was drunk when he called, didn’t recognize his voice, and didn’t care about the baby. She didn’t even ask if he was married. His father was out, and he left his cell phone number, and they never called him back. Mike talked to his therapist about it and decided to close the door on that part of his life forever. They hadn’t changed, and he had April and the baby now, and the opportunity for a happy life with them.

April went back to Larry and the electrician, who said he
could give her a better electrical setup than the one she’d had before. He told her where and how. It would be slightly more expensive, but she thought that it was worth it. He wanted to give her more built-in safety features, and greater electrical capacity than her old system had allowed. He said it would take two months to do the work, and he could start in two weeks, after he finished a job he was working on right now. Larry had put pressure on him to help her out. He had made a point of saying that she was unmarried, pregnant, and the restaurant was her only means of support. He was willing to play the violin if he had to, to help her get the job done, and she thanked him warmly after the electrician left.

“What do you think?” she asked him honestly. “You think we’ll really get it up and running again?” He didn’t doubt it for a minute, knowing her. She was a woman who, when she set her mind to something, would stop at nothing and overcome every possible obstacle in her path.

“It’ll be even better than before,” he promised, and he assured her again that it could be done in the time that he’d allowed. “I know you,” he teased her, “you’ll have the baby, put the restaurant back together, run for mayor, and open in the Hamptons in July. Maybe this would be a good time to look into that second restaurant you want, April. You can check out locations and see what’s around.”

“I just want to get this one going again,” she said, looking anxious. Her mother called on her cell phone while she was talking to him, and she told her where she was.

“Aren’t you supposed to be home in bed?” She was upset to hear what April was doing.