The Complete Groupie Trilogy (97 page)

Their mood was light as they got to the doctor’s office where the test was to be performed. They were ushered back into a dark and private room, where Holly was instructed to bare her stomach for the routine. She since was wearing a dress, the assistant draped a white sheet across her legs before she left them alone.

She cupped her tummy in both hands. “I look so fat,” she said with a playful grimace.

“You look pregnant,” he corrected as he moved closer to the table. She took his hand and placed it on her abdomen. The warmth of his hand contrasted with the coolness of her tummy, and with widened eyes he felt their little miracle slide easily under her skin.

“I felt it,” he told her with a grin.

She nodded as she laughed. “I’ve been feeling it move for about two weeks now. I wanted to call you but… I didn’t know if you’d want to know.”

“Of course I want to know,” he chastised gently. “I want to know everything.”

“Okay,” she said softly, and then she squeezed his hand.

The technician entered the room before she could say anything else. During the twenty minute procedure, they were shown all the results on the screen. The baby’s gestational age was about twenty weeks, as they thought, and its size was a bit small but still within reasonable expectation. With each new discovery Holly squeezed Vanni’s hand. There were tears in her eyes as she watched their baby with awe.

“Care to know the sex?” the tech asked.

Her eyes met Vanni’s. “Do you want to know?”

He gave her a smile. “I’d love to know.”

The tech pointed out on the screen, “There’s his penis. It’s a boy.”

Holly burst out into happy tears. “A boy,” she said as she turned back to Vanni. “Your son!”

There were tears in Vanni’s eyes, too. He had never expected to have a boy, but there he was on the screen. He squeezed her hand. “Our son,” he corrected.

After the test was over he took Holly out to lunch to celebrate. She was beside herself as she tossed names around, especially after he shook off any suggestion to name the baby Giovanni, Jr. “One Giovanni Carnevale is enough,” he said with a chuckle.

“We should make it Italian, though,” she said as she caressed her tummy. “Like his daddy.”

After lunch he took her to a baby boutique so they could start a registry for the things she would need. He bought their baby his very first outfit, one she swore he’d wear as they came home from the hospital.

It was much different than buying all the pretty, frilly, pink things he had bought for his little Bean. But he did insist on making his son a special keepsake bear, just like he had made for his daughter. Holly was in tears as they went from station to station, putting in all the special little touches that made Angelo – as she insisted the bear be called – unique to their son. They made their choices based on their upbringings, which they shared through the process that spanned the entire afternoon.

By the end of it, Angelo had a microphone, a skateboard, a hoodie, T-Shirt and sports cap, and sound chip that said, “I love you,” so their baby would always know how much he was loved.

Holly cradled it on the drive home, and carried it lovingly back up to her darkened apartment. Julian wasn’t home yet, so Vanni decided to make her a snack while she rested on the sofa. He joined her and they watched the spectacularly sunset outside her large window.

She turned to him. “Thank you for today.”

He smiled back. “My pleasure. We have a lot to celebrate,” he said as he toasted her with sparkling juice.

She giggled, but then grew quiet. “I honestly hadn’t let myself believe I was truly going to have a baby until I saw that ultrasound,” she confessed. “I’d been disappointed so many times before.”

“How many times have you been pregnant?”

“Three,” she said. “All miscarriages.”

“What happened?”

She took a deep breath. “The first happened when I was fourteen. I was really sick, like I was when you first found me. Only I didn’t get any medical care.”

He nodded.

“The second time I got pregnant, my dad…”  She paused and then winced at the memory. “It was a bad fight. He lost his temper in a drunken rage and pushed me down a flight of stairs. It was why I left home.”

She had told him about her abusive father before. As much as Andy wanted to believe Holly lied about everything, Vanni always sensed these stories were true. Her pain was just too palpable to be an act. He said nothing as he waited.

“The third time was only a few years ago. I found a boyfriend just like my dad. I dunno, I guess I thought I deserved it. I got pregnant by accident, which freaked him out. We were broke and living on the road and had nothing whatsoever to offer a baby. But I wanted it so much, Vanni,” she told him with a catch in her voice. “I just wanted someone I knew would love me and never leave me, whose love didn’t have to hurt.”

He squeezed her hand.

“So I did whatever I could to protect it. I watched what I ate; I stayed away from the drug scene my ex was so involved in. And when he’d try to have his way with me, I’d always shut him down. But one day he was really messed up and he didn’t stop when I said no.” A tear ran down her cheek. “He kept pounding and pounding at me until I started to bleed. I miscarried in a motel tub while he slept off his bender in the other room.”

“Oh, Holly,” Vanni said softly. She sobbed in his arms as she clutched Angelo to her full stomach.

“That’s why I wanted so badly to believe I was pregnant with your child,” she said. “No one has ever been as good to me as you,” she said as she looked up at him, her eyes rimmed red with her tears. “I wanted to give you a baby. I wanted us to be a family, one like neither of us ever had before.”

“Holly…”

“I know I don’t deserve it,” she said quietly. “But I don’t want to be punished again by losing another baby. I couldn’t handle it, Vanni. I think I might go insane.”

“You don’t have to worry about any of that,” he assured. “He’s healthy and strong, you heard what the doctor said.” She nodded. He brushed her hair from her face. “And I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll protect both of you. I promise.”

She touched his face with her hand. “Oh, Vanni,” she sighed, before she reached up to kiss him unexpectedly on the lips.

Vanni immediately pulled back. “Holly, no.”

“But why?” she asked as she abandoned the bear and turned fully toward him to take him into her arms. “We were so good together. Remember?”

He grabbed both her arms and pushed her away gently. “Holly, no,” he repeated in a firmer tone of voice. “I am marrying Andy. I can be here for you and I will be here for our son. But my heart – and my body – belong to someone else.”

She nodded as more tears spilled from her face. “I understand,” she said as she reached again for the bear. “It was my stupid mistake to believe someone like you could ever love someone like me.”

“Holly,” he called for her as she disappeared behind the bedroom door. He waited for long minutes afterwards but she never came back out. With a sigh he left the apartment and headed back home to his fiancé.

Holly was in her nightgown, curled up with Angelo and watching a movie in bed, when Julian returned to the apartment that night. Though it had separate bedrooms, they had always shared the one. He kicked off his shoes when he entered the room. “Where’s dinner?” he asked.

“I wasn’t hungry,” she said in a small, sad voice.

“What’s wrong with you?” he wanted to know. “Wasn’t your sonogram today? I figured you’d be jumping with joy over your little miracle. So what are you having, anyway?”

She dragged herself up into a sitting position. “A boy,” she answered flatly.

“Cool,” he said as he stripped out of his shirt, and then landed on the bed beside her with a flop. “Name him Julian,” he said with a crooked smile as he reached to toy with her tummy.

She brushed him away. “He’ll be named after his father,” she told him as she scooted from the bed and headed for the bathroom.

“Whatever,” Julian said as he picked up the bear. “This has got to be the gayest bear I have ever seen. Don’t tell me you’re going to turn your son into a raging fag, Hol.”

“So what if I do?” she called back from the bathroom. “I’d love him no matter what he was.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” Julian told her as he turned the TV from the movie she was watching to a wrestling match. “I’d beat the homo right out of him.”

She glared at him from the doorframe. “You won’t lay a hand on my child,” she informed him in a deadly serious voice.

He just laughed. “Whatcha gonna do? Get your boyfriend to beat me up? Oooh, I’m so scared. Although I bet he can pack a punch, giving all the workouts he gets fucking that whale of his. Talk about heavy lifting.”

“Shut up, Julian,” Holly snapped as she went into the kitchen. She put together a sandwich for him and grabbed a soda from the fridge. Julian preferred beer but she was dead-set against having any in the house.

She served him his dinner and snatched Angelo away before he could mess him up. “Where were you anyway?”

“Leo took me out for some drinks,” he said as he wolfed down the sandwich. “I needed to blow off some steam.”

“Why? Did something happen at the studio?”

He snorted in disgust. “Didn’t happen is more like it. We’re in a fucking holding pattern as long as Vanni is prancing around on that TV show.”

“And he’s getting a whole lot of money to do it,” she reminded as she climbed into her side of the bed. “That benefits us, or so you keep telling me.”

“I don’t want his goddamn money,” Julian snapped. “His pansy-ass gets to play the star when people like Yael and I are the ones that make him look good. And get this, he won’t even let me get any press or anything. If he thinks he can shut me out of the band as some sort of paid flunky, he’s got another thing coming. I’m going on tour and I’m going to be a star in my own right, one way or the other.”

“Just give it time,” she said as she snuggled with the bear. “I got you in the band, didn’t I?”

“Half-assed,” he pointed out.

“It’s more than you had a few months ago,” she bit out. “You have no patience, Julian. You never did.”

“You’re damn right,” he snapped as he tossed the plate onto the floor. “I’m too talented to wait this long. People like Vanni fall ass-backward into fame when they haven’t got any talent at all. Why do I have to be the one to wait? He lives in his fancy beach house, driving his expensive car, getting life handed to him on a silver platter. We’ve lived hand to mouth since we were kids, Hol. It ain’t fair.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “But what other choice do we have?”

“We light a fire,” he said. “There’s gotta be something we can do to kick-start things.”

She yawned. “Wait till the baby gets here. You didn’t see him today. He’s already in love with this kid. He’ll do anything to make him happy.”

“Fuck!” Julian exclaimed, which made Holly jump. “I’m tired of waiting!” he yelled before he slammed off into the bathroom.

He stayed in there so long that Holly dozed off a bit. She didn’t wake up until he was on top of her.

“Julian, what the hell are you doing?”

“I told you,” he said as he nuzzled her neck. “I’m tired of waiting.”

His hands slid her nightgown up as he parted her legs.

“Julian, no. I told you we couldn’t have sex until after the baby is born. It’s not safe.”

“You think Vanni is waiting around for his precious Andy to deliver? If he doesn’t have to wait, why should I?”

She wriggled against him but he was too big and too heavy. The only defense left was reason. “Because they didn’t have a miscarriage like we did. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said as he pinned her arms down. “You made me wait then, too, didn’t you? You’ve always made me wait. For everything. From the first time I met you when you were stealing money from that store, you wouldn’t even give me my share until the next day, when I helped you get out of your daddy’s house when he was drunk. There’s always a price with you, isn’t there, Hol?”

She wanted to remind him that the price she had to pay was being with him. He had always used her to get whatever he wanted, from the day they met when she was nine years old. He would blackmail her with all the things she’d do so that her family wouldn’t starve, just so she’d do what he wanted her too. She taught him how to pick locks, how to shoplift, how to pick pockets – in return he’d shown her how to use her feminine ways to coax things out of older men. That was how she got pregnant twice by the time she was seventeen.

But she hadn’t given in to him until they ran away from home. When they messed up and she got pregnant, he was livid. She was going to squash all their plans. Who would want her as some fat, bloated bitch with a string of kids trailing behind her? He wanted her to have an abortion, but she was dead-set against it. When she finally miscarried, he was relieved. But he knew then how they could trap men with means. That became their new goal: Holly could have her babies, and he could have her money. He was her “brother” and little sis always had to protect his career.

It was the perfect scam.

But ever since she met that pussy Vanni she had been keeping him at arm’s length. She said it was so they could trap him, but they already did that. She was getting fatter by the day with his bastard child.