Two Steps Back (4 page)

Six

The phone rang
, causing Jaylah to awake suddenly. She blinked, adjusting her eyes to the burnt orange light filtering through her curtains and tried to figure out if it was morning or dusk.
What time is it?
Jaylah thought, as she rummaged through the covers and under her over-stuffed pillows for the phone. She cursed whoever it was who had the nerve to interrupt her sleep; it was such a scare commodity these days. Even though her belly hadn’t exploded into a watermelon, she still couldn’t seem to sleep through the night. Tossing and turning and getting up to pee had become commonplace these past few weeks as the blob—now baby—had taken over her body.

She located her mobile just in time for the caller to gi
ve up. Jaylah checked the time: 6:47 a.m., Saturday.

“
Saturday? What happened to Friday night?” she asked herself, before remembering she’d decided to take a nap after struggling to finish an article the previous evening. Apparently, she had fallen into a coma.

This baby was not only wreaking havoc on her body, but it was also causing her to lose focu
s. Writing had once come easy; she would enjoy getting lost researching a topic, and then compiling her thoughts. But since the blob came to town she’d found it difficult to sit still, to think, to write, or to work.

Sitting in front of
the computer now felt akin to torture, her mind getting stuck on
what the fuck am I going to do?
instead of the task at hand, her column. Hillary, her editor at
Glamour,
had been accommodating, allowing Jaylah to file articles while she returned to the States to get matters settled before moving back to London. But would she be as accepting of a pregnant writer who couldn’t seem to keep two thoughts, let alone anything poignant, in her head at once?

Pregnant w
omen have been working for centuries—running companies, writing books, teaching school. Surely Jaylah could pull it off, but she wasn’t sure she even wanted to try.

“It’s not fair,” she whined to Jourdan during their last conversation. “My life was just starting to
get fun. Now this!”

“Oh get over it, J
ay. You’re not the first woman to be up the duff. You’ll survive.”

“But I don’t want to
survive,
” she said, rolling her eyes. “I want an extraordinary life.”

“And y
ou can have that with a baby.”

“Maybe, but do I have to have it r
ight now? I mean, look at Oprah. Look how awesome her life is and she doesn’t have kids.”

“She has a billion dollars. She could have 80 kids and her life would still be amazing.”

“Whatever. I read that she said if she had kids she wouldn’t be who she is today. Can you imagine?”

“So you want to be Oprah?” Jourdan teased.

“Don’t you?” Jaylah retorted. “But seriously, I just don’t want to feel like I’m being held back, and babies hold you back.”

“They
can also give you wings, Jay.”

Jaylah checked her missed call log—Johnny.

She lay in bed and waited for the drowsiness to subside before returning his call. They hadn’t spoken since her doctor’s appointment, the heartbeat interrupting her plans and confusing things even further.

He called
four times since then, leaving messages and even sending an email, but she hadn’t called him back, too unsure of what she would say.

I love you but
maybe not the baby. I’m totally confused. I’m scared out of my mind. You better have moved out or else. I can’t do this alone.

All of Jaylah’s thoughts
seemed so desperate, so weak, so opposite of who she was becoming.

She dialed Johnny’s number and held her breath. Her stomach lurched when she hear
d his voice seep into her ear causing her to lose focus and get lost in her uncontrollable longing to be next to him.

“Hello Mr. Poku,” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

“Hey. Did I wake you?”

“
Of course.” Jaylah snuggled further into her pillows, wrapping her arms around one of them like she would do to Johnny if he were there.

“Sorry
, babes. I tried not to call too early. I took a chance. Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

“I’ve been busy. I decided to sell my things instead of ship them to London, so I was handling that.
And the time difference makes it hard to connect.”

“Are you sure that’s it?”

“What else would it be?” She wanted to add:
other than the fact that I have absolutely no clue what to say, and I’m sick of you pressing me for an answer about this baby?

“I just feel like you’re avoiding me.”

“Why would I be avoiding you?”

“I don’t know, which is why I’m asking. Maybe I’m just
paranoid, babes. I miss you. I wish I could be there with you.”

She rolled her eyes.
“And why aren’t you?”

“I wasn’t invited.”

True
, Jaylah thought. She hadn’t asked Johnny to come to L.A. with her, afraid he might just take her up on the offer. Can you imagine how her mother would react to her daughter’s married boyfriend who had fathered her child? Chaos would certainly ensue.

“
Well, consider yourself invited,” she said.

“
Seriously? I will get on a plane, Jay. Don’t tempt me.”

“I’ll see you when you get here.
” Jaylah chuckled to keep from sounding too intense, but she
was
serious, at least partially. She wanted to see him in the worst way, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Johnny let out a rush of air. “I’m in a hotel, you know. I’m at the Hoxton and I hate it. I feel like I’m living in a box.”

Jaylah smiled, pleased Johnny heeded her warning to move out of his house without putting up a fight or plying her with excuses. She made a mental note to call the hotel and ask them to ring his room—she had to be sure; she couldn’t
just
rely on his word, could she? Not when he neglected to tell her about his wife until she was already in way too deep.

“Then you better find an apartment quickly.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that. I was thinking that maybe I should hold off on finding a place until you get back. We can look for one together.”

“I already have an apartment,
Johnny.”

“
I know, babes, but it’s not really big enough for three people.”

“Three people?”
Jaylah scrunched up her face.

“You, me, and the baby.”

Jaylah sucked her teeth. “Johnny, don’t start.”

He ignored her protests.
“We might even be able to buy a flat right there in Highbury Stadium. I spoke with an agent and they’ve got some open units. You like that neighborhood, yeah?”

“
I do, but it’s super expensive and I can’t afford to buy anything right now. I
just
got a permanent job for Christ's sake. I can barely make the rent on my own flat.”

“I’m not asking you to
pay for anything, Jay, I can handle it,” he said in the same tone superheroes use before striding into a burning building to rescues the screaming, but insanely beautiful, woman trapped on the top floor.

Jaylah wondered what letting Johnny rescue her would feel like.
Would she have to give up her dreams in exchange for a comfortable life? Did she even want him to swoop in and save her from this mess (that he helped create) or did she want to flex her own muscles and save herself?

“Listen,” he said, snapping her out of her thoughts, “
just think about it, okay? I’m going into a tunnel. I’ll call you back in a few, babes. Love you.”

I love you
too
failed to escape her lips but Jaylah felt it spreading through her body like a gentle nudge pushing her to surrender. Six days—the amount of time it had taken her to become completely obsessed with the gorgeous Ghanaian man she met on the dance floor of the Mau Mau bar. Six nerve-wracking days, and a ride on the London Eye was all it took for her to fall—hard.

Five months had passed since
the night Johnny entered her life, but it had felt like five years. Their relationship—so hurried, so intense, so anything unlike she’d ever experienced before—had resulted in an unexplainable bond that could only be described in clichés. Love at first sight. Soul mates. Better halves. Kismet.

Pick one.

What Jaylah felt for Johnny did not make any sense. But the day he showed up on her doorstep and found out she was carrying his child, she stopped trying to figure it all out.

Before
Jaylah gave in to the tide of emotions she Googled the number for the Hoxton and rang the front desk—just in case.

“Hello, I’m calling for
one of your guests, Mr. Jonathan Poku,” she told the clerk. “P-O-K-U.“

“
Okay ma’am, give me a moment to check,” the cheerful woman said. Jaylah listened as the woman’s fingernails clicked rapidly on the other end of the line and she kicked herself for being one of
those
women. The needy, distrustful kind who filed away every bit of information their man ever told them so it could be verified later.

She didn’t
want to become one of those women, but Johnny had not given her much of a choice. She had to be sure he was telling her the truth. She had to be sure he wasn’t trying to have his wife and Jaylah on the side.

She couldn’t
just
take his word for it, right? Not now at least. Not with her whole life on the line, and not until she was sure that this thing was actually for real and not just a temporary blip, or an itch he needed to scratch before running home to Fiona.

Jaylah hated herself for becoming a stereotype—the snooping,
suspicious woman—but she hated Johnny for planting these thoughts in her head in the first place. Although he’d been straight up with her since coming clean about his wife, she found it hard to believe everything he said without giving it careful consideration, or checking the story for holes.

Jaylah knew that she couldn’t go on like this.
She knew they were on a slippery slope that would end in checking Johnny’s pockets, his phone, or breaking into his email to find evidence of lies. That was certainly not a life she imagined, or wanted, for herself but she had to be sure—at least for now.

“
Ma’am?” The woman’s voice was back on the line. “He’s in room 528, I’ll connect you straight away.”

She let out an audible sigh; Jaylah
didn’t realize she had been holding her breath.

“Thank you.”

Seven

“I’ll be back, mom.”

“Where are you going,
sweetie? The Sampsons are in town and your daddy and I are having dinner with them. They haven’t seen you since high school, why don’t you tag along?”

“Not really in the mood for a reunion, but I’ll let you know.”

Jaylah hurried out the door and got into her car. She clutched the steering wheel and took three deep breaths, exhaling hard like she was in a yoga class before cranking up her Honda. It had been two weeks since she’d been back in L.A. holed up in her parents’ spacious View Park home, and although it was roomy enough for the trio to not to see each other for long stretches of time, Jaylah was beginning to feel like a caged animal who needed to break out or die.

She sat in her car trying to decide where to go, everything
she could think of seemed
too
L.A. for her taste. Though she was born in the City of Angeles, Jaylah had always been a peculiar Angeleno who most assumed had migrated to the city from the east coast. She hated going to the beach, didn’t care about celebrities, and rolled her eyes every time she met someone “in the business,” which was always because, technically, so was she. After moving to New York for college Jaylah preferred her winters brisk, her summers sticky and unbearable, and relished the ability to ditch her car and hop on a train to go anywhere she pleased. Los Angeles was certainly her birthplace, but it had never really felt like home.

Jaylah
pulled out of the driveway and onto Angeles Vista heading up the hill. She passed blocks and blocks of stately homes, and a few McMansions, before spilling out onto Slauson, which was the thoroughfare that connected the ‘hood and “Black Beverly Hills,” making each more interesting in the process.

“Hmm, right or left?”
Jaylah asked herself at the stoplight. When she felt her stomach growling she decided to head west toward the ocean.

Jaylah snaked her way up Slauson until she came to an onramp for the freeway. She merged onto the four-lane beast and prepared
to inch along for miles on end but, to her surprise, traffic moved at brisk clip and she was in Santa Monica before she knew it.

Instead of grabbing a bite and walking
along the Promenade with the rest of the tourists, Jaylah kept north on Highway 1, stealing glances at the water that crashed against the shore. Though she hated most of the beaches in L.A. she had always been drawn to the ocean and could gaze at it for hours on end, wondering what was going on below the waves.

At
10, Jaylah read a book about mythology and learned people once believed Poseidon was the God of the Sea. But having spent most of her summers gazing at the ocean she thought the Greeks had gotten it completely wrong.
How could a woman not rule the ocean
? she wondered. The water so perfectly mirrored how women actually are—calm on the surface until they’re pushed too far, and a flurry of activity just beneath the skin.

Jaylah had always felt like the ocean—enticing those around her with soft edges, good grades, fine manners, and
a reliable work ethic, while silently planning to smash them to bits and tear down the façade when the opportunity presented itself. The problem? The time never seemed to come.

After college she slipped right back into her role as dutiful daughter, brunching with her moth
er on weekends instead friends; throwing herself into work at the
L.A. Weekly
despite knowing she was too brilliant a writer to cover Twitter trends and indie bands; and allowing sometimey men to share her bed because she was too afraid to be alone and too unsure of herself to demand more.

Getting fired and moving to London had caused an earthquake in her
sea, and Jaylah could feel a tsunami building that would send everyone scrambling for higher ground.

Jaylah saw a sign for El Matador State Beach and decided to stop. She pulled into the parking lot, paid the toll, deposited her car, and walked to the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. She stared out over the magnificent view, taking in the gigantic rocks jutting out of the sand and marveling at the translucent blue water that she thought was impossible in L.A. Jaylah took a moment to thank the Goddess of the Sea, then strode toward the hiking path that lead down to the shore.

When she got to the bottom of the
hill, Jaylah ambled along the coastline and through a cave before coming upon a family of seals sunning themselves on the rocks.  She watched as the mother gently groomed her pup, carefully nuzzling its slate-gray body with her whiskers while it lay on the jagged rocks. She looked on as an overeager photographer crept a little too close to the baby to snap a picture, and was startled by the mother’s piercing bark telling the man to stay away.

She
eyed the pair, transfixed by their bond and wondered if she could ever love the blob like that. Would her primal instincts kick in and push her to protect her baby at all costs if someone got too close? Could she put her child’s needs above her own? Could she and Johnny really have a life together and raise a child?

In that moment,
Jaylah finally realized what she wanted to do. Now, all she had to do was tell Johnny.

Jaylah pulled her phone out of her pocket and called him up. She didn’t care that it was
nearing midnight and he had to work in the morning; she had to speak to him
now
.

“How soon
can you get here?” Jaylah asked the moment he answered the phone.

“What?” he stammered, “a
re you okay?”

She could hear the
panic rising in his deep voice and it comforted her. Despite her doubts, despite her uncontrollable need to check and double check whatever he said, she knew that he loved her.

“I’m fine, Johnny.
I’m at the beach and I was looking these seals, and—“

“
Seals? I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“I made up my mind,
Johnny. I know what I want to do about the baby.”

“Oh,” he hesitated
, “and what have you decided?”

“How soon can you get here?
I want to tell you in person.”

“Why can’t you just tell me now?”

“Because,” Jaylah said slightly annoyed. “Anyway, you said you would come. When can you get here?”

Johnny let out a deep sigh. “Saturday. I can probably be there Saturday.”

“Okay. See you Saturday.”

Jaylah hung up the phone before he could take back his promise to see her in two days. She knew she probably sounded crazy, but
Jaylah had finally made up her mind about something that would affect their lives in one of the biggest ways imaginable. Telling him over the phone seemed to be wholly impersonal and inadequate, and well, she ached to see him.

Jaylah hiked back up the hill and asked the Goddess of the Sea for strength. She and Johnny were certainly going to need it.