Once Around (2 page)

"
Did you speak to your attorney about this?"

A sense of unease danced across the back of her neck.
"Robert called me out of the blue and—" She stopped and regrouped. "It was after business hours. I meant to call a lawyer this morning, but..."

The doctor capped his pen and slipped it back into the pocket of his white lab coat.
"Robert's not on your side anymore, Molly, and the sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be."

"
You sound like my neighbor Gail," she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"
If your neighbor Gail is telling you to protect your interests, then I'm in agreement."

"
I promise," she said. "As soon as I get home, I'll call my attorney." What she didn't say was that she had to find one first.

"
Get dressed," he said. "We'll talk in my office."

But I don
't want to talk in your office
, she thought as she ducked behind the screen. She was so tired of hearing all the divorce horror stories. Being pregnant and alone was bad enough. If she had to worry about Robert doing something terrible behind her back, she'd go crazy. Besides, he'd already left her for a younger woman. What more could he possibly do to her after that?

She pulled on her perfectly tailored black maternity pants
, the cream-colored silk blouse, the beautiful sapphire blue jacket. They felt more like a suit of armor than clothing, which was exactly the effect she'd been looking for. "Put your best foot forward;" her mother used to say, back when Molly was a little girl with a mouthful of braces and bad skin, "no matter how bad you're feeling about yourself."

She wondered what she was going to do when her belly outgrew her current wardrobe. Her part-time income as a first reader for a New York publishing company was barely enough to pay the utility bills on her house. Unless Robert paid his fair share of the mortgage and upkeep and obstetrician bills
, she and the baby would end up living in her Jeep Cherokee.

She used to believe she knew exactly where her future would take her: the two-story suburban home
, the family car, the baby, the golden retriever, the husband who came home the same time every night and left the same time the next morning; stability, security, someone to grow old beside.

She had the house and the car and pretty soon she
'd have the baby. Beyond that it was anybody's guess.

Dr. Rosenberg didn
't spend much time instructing Molly in the fine art of divorce negotiation. He had other more important issues to discuss with her.

"
I'm concerned about your pressure, Molly. We have to bring this down to a more acceptable level."

"
It's stress," she said, placing her hands over her belly, as if to shield the baby from bad news.

"
I think it's more than stress, but we won't know for sure until we run some more tests."

"
Tests?" She met his eyes across the desk. "I can't afford tests."

"
That's not something I like to hear."

"
Then we're even, because it's not exactly something I like to say. I don't have insurance." Check and mate. Now she'd see how concerned he really was about her pressure.

"
I've known you a long time, Molly. I'm not going to let this stand in the way of your health."

Tears filled her eyes.
"Damn," she murmured, blinking quickly.. "I wish you wouldn't be nice to me. Yelling at me I can handle, but this"—she waved her hand in the air—"does me in every time."

He let her cry for a few moments
, until she managed to pull herself back together.

"
I won't tell anybody about this if you won't," she said, forcing her usual cheerful grin. The one Robert used to love so much. Unless he'd lied about that, too.

"
Maybe you
should be telling somebody about this," the doctor countered. "Your parents. Your divorce attorney."

"
My parents don't know Robert is gone," she said. "Let's keep it that way."

Dr. Rosenberg sighed loudly and leaned back in his plush leather chair.
"Pregnancy isn't the time to decide to go it alone, Molly."

"
I didn't decide to go it alone. Robert decided it for me."

"
Point well taken, but you don't have to be alone. You have a family. Let them help you. This isn't just about you, Molly. There's the baby to consider."

She sat there and nodded
, pretending that every word he said made sense. He meant well. She had no doubt about that. Dr. Rosenberg was a good man, and he wanted the best for her. It was something they had in common.

#

Molly stopped at the supermarket for milk, eggs, and bread. Three items, she told herself as she pushed the cart up the cereal aisle. She wasn't going to be swayed by the seductive displays of ruby red raspberries or the leafy green Boston lettuce or the plump containers of creamy chocolate ice cream that cost more than a phone call to Tokyo.

Robert used to look at her as if she were crazy when she came home from Super-Fresh with radicchio and ice-cold plums and without the milk she
'd meant to buy in the first place. Other women didn't make those mistakes. They drew up lists, organized their coupons, and set forth to do battle. No random radicchio for her stalwart neighbors. They bought what they needed and turned a blind eye to the rest. Maybe that was the problem in her marriage, she thought as she
pushed the cart up one aisle and down the other. She was too scatterbrained, too disorganized.

Too im
pulsive.

Wha
t was it her Grandma Jean used to say to her? "You've got to quit listening with your heart, Molly, and start listening to your head." Her heart was always getting her into trouble, rescuing stray cats, nursing injured birds, hanging onto a husband who no longer loved her. Her neighbor Gail wouldn't have made that mistake. Gail had a sharp eye for reality. Gail would have recognized the signs right from ,the start and set out to save her marriage.

Molly hadn
't a clue until it was too late.

She paused in front of a display featuring imported Belgian chocolates. The packages were beautifully wrapped in navy blue foil with silver stars. Two of them leaped into her shopping cart.

Milk, eggs, and bread, she told herself again, staring down at the chocolates. That was what she needed and that was all she'd buy. Except for the chocolates.

Robert used to tell her they couldn
't afford Belgian chocolates, not until he got himself settled in with a good law firm. Well, he was all settled in at Dannenberg and Silverstein now, wasn't he? She should be able to buy any damn thing she wanted. By the time she reached the checkout counter, she had added two containers of Hagen-Dazs and a super-sized jar of Nutella. She didn't have enough cash to pay for her purchases, so she fished her wallet out of her enormous tote bag and pulled out the handy-dandy plastic rectangle that made all things possible.

"
Swipe it again," the checkout clerk said. "It didn't go through."

Molly dragged the magnetic strip through the reader once again.
"I probably had it upside down," she said by way of apology to the five people on line behind her. "I'm always doing that." She was always apologizing. Once she'd apologized to a step stool for bumping into it. She got as much of a response from the step stool as she had gotten from Robert near the end.

The woman closest to her
, the one with the full shopping cart and two small children tumbling together on the sticky tile floor, sighed loudly. Molly turned away.

It could have been worse. She could have been on the eight-item-only express line with her two dozen items. That would really have given the woman something to sigh about.

The clerk motioned for Molly to swipe the card a third time, which she did. She hoped the sighing woman didn't notice that her hand had started to shake. She wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea.

"
I use that card so often it probably has whiplash," she announced to no one in particular. "I'm surprised steam isn't rising from it."

An older man in a g
ray fedora laughed. Encouraged, Molly met his eyes and smiled.
See?
her smile said.
There's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing happens all the time.

The clerk reached for the telephone receiver adjacent to her register and said a few words into the mouthpiece.

Molly's smile faltered for an instant. "What now?" she asked, keeping her tone light. "Am I over the Haagen-Dazs limit?" When in doubt, make fun of yourself before anyone else has the chance.

"
The manager will be here in a sec," the clerk said, avoiding her eyes. "Just wait."

Her mind went blank. She could almost hear the air whooshing between her ears. She told herself to take a deep breath
, but her lungs refused to cooperate. Things like this didn't happen to her. They happened to other people every day of the week, but not to her.

The manager
, a harried-looking man with an overgrown mustache and tired eyes, approached. His khaki trousers rode low over an enormous belly that strained against his white cotton shirt.

"
Your card was rejected," he said without preamble. "We've been asked to confiscate it."

Her backbone stiffened in response. This used to happen to her mother ever
y time outgo outstripped income. It was always an error, the kind that a call to the bank rectified one, two, three. "There must be some mistake. I just used it yesterday, and there was no problem."

"
There's no mistake," he said. "We'll be keeping your card."

"
No!" The word shot from her mouth like a bullet. "You can't do that."

"
We have no choice," he said, sounding bored, as if he'd done this a thousand times before. "Now, if you'd like to pay cash for your groceries, we can all get back to work."

If she could pay cash
, why would she have whipped out her plastic?

"
I can give you a check."

"
We'll need two forms of ID." He paused. "A driver's license and something other than a credit card."

"
I don't have anything other than a credit card."

"
Then you'll need cash."

Her eyes burned
, and she felt the telltale twitch in her chin. Oh, God, she was on the verge of crying. And not just crying, but sobbing like a baby. She had to get out of there fast.

"
I'm afraid paying by cash is impossible," she said in as calm and cool a voice as she could manage. She placed her hands on her nearly flat belly and let her gaze sweep over the manager and the clerk and the nosy people on line behind her. "I didn't think I'd need cash when I went to see my obstetrician today." It was a cheap shot, and she knew it, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice. They wouldn't embarrass a pregnant woman, would they?

Head high
, she turned and walked slowly past the pimply-faced clerk at Express Line One, paused a half second until the electronic door swung open, then strode through the parking lot to her car. She couldn't let her control falter for an instant, or they'd see right through her.

Her
hand shook so hard that it took three tries to fit the key into the ignition. "Damn," she whispered, keeping her head down. The key had worked a half hour ago. There was no reason it shouldn't work now. She almost cried with relief when the engine started up.

Her
mind was a tangle of questions. Had she paid last month's credit card bill? Come to think of it she wasn't sure she'd paid the mortgage or the phone bill or the other utilities. Hadn't Robert said not to worry, that he'd take care of everything? For all she knew, she'd get home and she'd have no phone or electricity. What on earth was the matter with her? She wasn't a stupid woman. How could she have let this happen?

She backed out of her parking space and headed for home. Robert had said he would take care of everything
, and she'd believed him. Same as she'd believed him when he said he'd love her forever and always, until death did them part. A horn honked behind her, and she realized she'd been stopped at a green light. "Get with it," she muttered, moving forward again. "Pay attention."

The last few weeks had been an endless loop of Robert
's voice telling her he'd never really loved her at all. She heard him saying those words when she went to sleep at night, and he was still saying them to her when She woke up in the morning. But no matter how badly he wanted out, he wouldn't turn his back on his own child. No decent man would.

And Robert was a decent man. No matter what else he w
as, she knew that for a fact. "It's a mistake," she said out loud as she tried to concentrate on the road. Computers were only as good as the people operating them. A payment must have been overlooked or posted to the wrong account. She was getting herself upset over something that would probably turn out to tie nothing more than a minor blip on a computer screen.