Dating da Vinci (28 page)

“Sounded serious, too. Think he'll ask me to move in with him?”

I had to blink back tears. “I don't know. Is that what you think? I didn't think you were that serious.”

“He probably likes me more than I like him, you know? But his house is gorgeous, isn't it? And it would be nice for Zoe to have a sister to play with.”

“Wait a minute. You'd just move in with him for his house? Are you insane?”

“Chill, sis. God, you make it sound like I'm committing a crime. I wouldn't be the first woman to shack up for prime real estate. Besides, I could grow to love him. Unless I meet Brad Pitt at the party this weekend. Think he and Angelina will stay together long?”

I dug my nails into the leather seat. “Did it ever occur to you that you should let him go so he can find someone that might like him as much as he likes her? That you could be standing in the way?”

“Don't be ridiculous. Who could he possibly like more than me? He has been acting awfully strange the last couple of weeks, though. He didn't even invite me back to his house after dinner at Monica's. Who in their right mind would pick going to bed early to get rested for a surgery over being with me?”

I laughed. Rachel believed it was because she was right, but I was laughing because Cortland was obviously very much in his right mind. What if he was going to break up with her on Saturday night?

“Rachel, there's something you need to know about Cortland.”

But she pulled into my driveway and put her index finger up— her sign to make me hold my thought. She began making a phone call. “Guess who's going to party with Leonardo DiCaprio this weekend?” she squealed into the other end.

I rolled my eyes and got out, my sister waving goodbye as she pulled down the drive, obviously not caring what I was about to confess. “I kissed your boyfriend,” I shouted in a big wave.

She rolled down her window, obviously not having heard me. “Love you, too, sis. I'll drop Zoe off Saturday. And let me know what I can bring for Thanksgiving dinner next week.”

Thanksgiving dinner at my house? I tugged at my coat and opened the garage door where I stared at Joel's tools, bike, and sports equipment cluttering half of the garage, with the other half full of holiday décor. A perfect way to spend my Saturday afternoon while my starlet sister was off to Hollywood.

“I'm home,” I sang as I entered the house.

“
Benvenuto
, honey,” da Vinci said from Joel's den, which I decided I should refer to from now on as my den.

I found da Vinci bent over a stack of books, clearly tired. “I talked to Panchal,” he said. “Promised no more missing English class.”

“Good for you,” I told him, noticing how much his English had improved since he had joined the frat house. He had picked up slang terms, but he was much more conversational. I felt a pang of jealousy that I hadn't taught him, but then, every bird has to fly on its own eventually. I hadn't instructed him to talk to Panchal. He had taken his own initiative. Maybe he was more responsible than I had given him credit for.

I left him to hang my coat in my closet and slip into more comfortable shoes, when I noticed Joel's side was no longer empty, but cluttered with a pile of clothes and a few hung shirts and jeans. Da Vinci had moved himself in.
Without my permission.

I held onto the dresser drawer for support, my forehead perspiring. I couldn't blame him. After all, it was the next logical step. Just as Rachel assumed Cortland would ask her to move in with him, da Vinci had assumed he could move a few of his things into my closet. After all, he slept here nearly every night. What kind of a girlfriend would I be to make him traipse back and forth between the studio and the bedroom when he could just as easily keep his things close at hand in the closet?

I went back to the bathroom and opened Joel's drawer to find da Vinci's toothpaste, toothbrush, and cologne sitting inside. I didn't have the heart to tell da Vinci I didn't like his cologne, let alone the idea of him becoming a permanent staple in my bed. Did I?

“You can't be sick,” I moaned to Monica Friday evening. We had made plans to get a glass of wine, but apparently it doesn't mix well with cough syrup.

“It's these damn depositions,” Monica said, her throaty voice even sexier. “I always get sick around the holidays. I should just quarantine myself from November through January.”

My mom was already over, playing Scrabble with the boys. “Chicken soup, then?”

“I'm afraid I can't even lift my head off the pillow. It's that aching, stuffy-head, fever thing. I don't want to expose you and the boys.”

“Well, if it's that bad,” I said.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit
. “We'll just have to get together after you're better.”

Monica coughed into the phone. “Gonna have to be after T-day. We're traveling to Missouri to be with Jonathon's family.”

My heart sank. Another week. “Fine. You just get well, then.”

I hung up, wondering if da Vinci and I should go on a
date
date but remembered he was going to a frat function—some mandatory pledge thing—and that Anh was on a secret date with Michael, who
was upset Rachel hadn't asked him to keep Zoe, because she
was
his child, after all, and I didn't want to spend another Friday night playing Scrabble. I'd had too much Scrabble in my life. It was high time I put some of those words I placed on the board into action.

Next I called Judith with the excuse that I wanted to bring a box of Joel's things over to her house—his great-grandmother's quilt she wanted back and a copy of his high school yearbook—and I'd get her to tell me everything she knew about Monica. She would know if her son ever got over Monica, wouldn't she? He seemed to tell her everything. They'd talked on the phone once or even twice a day. I'd often wondered if his mother was more of his best friend than I'd been. Besides, I couldn't just trust Monica's side of the story, could I?

“I have plans,” Judith said a moment later. “We're doing the prep work for the Thanksgiving dinner at the homeless shelter. Why don't you join us?”

“Who'll be there? I mean, besides the homeless.” Spending a Friday night helping my mom-in-law peel potatoes was not exactly what I had in mind.

“Oh, just a bunch of Lifers,” she said, which made me cringe. Lifers was the nickname she'd given to anyone who attended Life Church, but it came off sounding haughty. I wanted to remind her the term had been used in prisons long before she started using it.

Scrabble began sounding pretty good again, but my curiosity got the best of me. After a quick kiss to my kids, which was promptly wiped off by Bradley, I was out the door.

A HOMELESS MAN WEARING socks for gloves and a stained Longhorns knit hat greeted me with a toothless smile as I entered the back door of the makeshift homeless shelter that once housed a mid-century clothes manufacturer. I imagined the place had been alive with the buzz of a hundred sewing machines before technology wiped out the need for so many human laborers. I refused to think the same clothes were now being produced in a sweatshop in a third-world country, which was probably the case. I made my way through the maze of cots, which were blocking the route to the kitchen, due to overcrowding from a bout of hurricanes that set the homeless awash in Austin.

A curious Hispanic boy noticed me and followed me to the kitchen. He looked to be about William's age, dirty but happy. I remembered why I didn't like helping in soup kitchens: I always wanted to take the children home with me.

“
Hola, señora
,” the boy said, tugging on my jacket.

“
Hola, muchachito
.”

The boy grinned, revealing both his front teeth missing. I asked him if he spoke English. He shook his head. He told me he and his parents had just arrived in a truck, and his mother was going to have a baby.

I had the sinking feeling they were illegal aliens and they would be out of the homeless shelter before INS arrived the next morning. I congratulated him on becoming a big brother and handed him a carrot that Judith had just peeled. I kissed my mom-in-law on the
cheek and removed my jacket. The boy crunched the carrot like Bugs Bunny but didn't take his eyes off of me.

“I think someone has a crush,” Judith said. “Poor thing needs a bath like no one's business. Don't tell me. Illegal, right?”

“
Ssh! Mom,”
I scolded.

“What? He can't speak English. What difference does it make?”

I asked the boy if he needed anything else and he repeated that his mother was having a baby. A terrible scream rang through the metal warehouse. “Oh, God,” I said, looking at the small group of volunteers in the kitchen. “He means his mother is having a baby
right now!
”

Judith threw down her peeling knife. “I'll call the hospital.”

The boy's eyes widened. “
Mi mamá dice que el hospital nos llevará a la cárcel
.”

“What did he say?” Judith said, rummaging through her designer bag for her tiny phone.

I thumped my forehead. “He's right. He says they can't go to the hospital because they'll deport them.”

“Well, the law's the law,” Judith said with a terse smile. I marveled that a woman who believed volunteerism was saintly and would spend hours peeling potatoes for the homeless would so quickly turn against them.

I grabbed the phone from her hand. “No hospital. We can't have a new mom deported. She'll be terrified. And she'll only go kicking and screaming.” I'd seen my share of illegal immigrants at the Panchal Center. While you had to have documentation to work for Panchal's temp agency, anyone could learn to speak English, green card or not.

The boy tugged at my arm as his mother's wails continued. “
¡Ven! ¡Ven!
”

“I'm coming,” I told him. “We need a doctor.”

“Oh, Lord,” Judith said. “Unless you have some midwife skills I don't know about …”

“Is there a doctor in the house?” Cortland said, traipsing through the door with a bushel of potatoes.

I caught my breath. “Thank God! A woman is having a baby. Out there.”

Cortland plopped the heavy crate onto the counter and rolled his shoulders back. “A baby, huh? Might be a lot more fun than peeling potatoes.”

“You can't be serious,” Judith said.

“I'll need hot towels, some rubbing alcohol, and clean sheets.”

The volunteers rushed to carry out his orders, while I shook my head in amazement. Cortland and I followed the boy, Manuel, out into the main room where his mother's screams were even louder.

“What did she just say?” Cortland asked,

“She said, 'Get this baby out of me,'” I translated, suddenly feeling faint as we came upon the woman lying on her back on the cot, legs bent in delivery position. Her husband asked me if his wife Maria was going to be okay.

“
Sí
,” I told him. “He's a doctor.”

The couple made the sign of the cross as Cortland spread the sheet over her, then knelt down to check her progress. “I can see the head,” he said with a grin.

“Okay, I'm just going to go over there at a safe distance,” I said, backing away.

“Oh, no, you're not. I need you to translate for me.”

Maria pulled me down by my arm and squeezed my hand until it was white with pain. “Fine. Powerful grip,” I said, wincing myself. “Just get her baby out now for all of our sakes.”

“I'm glad you came,” he said to me, then concentrated on Maria. “Push hard now.”

“
Empuje!
” I told her, and she squeezed my hand harder as I held one knee and her husband held the other. Maria bore down, grunting and filling the air with Spanish curse words.

A moment later, Cortland pulled a bright pink baby from under the sheet, turned it over and tapped it three times on the bottom, causing it to wail. “It's a girl!” Gently, he handed off the baby to its mother.

Judith had prepared a makeshift crib out of a box, and another Lifer handed him more hot towels and a suture kit.

Cortland handed me a pair of scissors and nodded toward the umbilical cord. “You want to do the honors?”

“Me? What about the father?” The baby's father shook his head, and I took the scissors. Two snips and the baby was free of its mother.

An hour later, we sat around the kitchen, drinking coffee while the potatoes sat on the counter unpeeled. “Well, it's a little anti-climactic to peel them after what we've been through,” I said, putting my feet up on an empty seat.

“Pretty handy to have a doctor around,” Judith said proudly, rubbing Cortland's shoulders. “You just never know what life will throw you.”

He seemed tired but happy. His chill had worn off.

Judith grabbed her old coat that she always volunteered in and wrapped a red scarf around her neck. “I'm beat. Only so much excitement an old lady can take in one night.” She winked. She only joked about being old because she didn't look old at all.

I'd nearly forgotten my purpose for coming there. “Mom G., I wanted to ask you about something.”

She swung her purse over her shoulder. “What is it, darling? Is it the boys? I can sit tomorrow if you like.”