Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (5 page)

Right. The best. The best wouldn’t be let go, though, right? Alexander, to his credit, insisted “the best” had nothing to do with “upstairs” and their nutty decisions. Policy was stupid policy and he’d assured her any of the papers in the city would grab her up. Except they hadn’t. “Not hiring, sorry” was the refrain she’d heard from five newspapers. But then Alexander had started saying that getting laid off was a blessing in disguise, that it was time to start a family, to move on to the next stage of their lives.

She wasn’t even sure which had been more shocking—losing her job at
New York Weekly
or seeing the pink plus sign.

How had this happened? Gemma had taken her birth control pills like clockwork, at exactly seven o’clock every morning. Six weeks ago, she’d been prescribed an antibiotic for bronchitis,
and when her doctor told her that antibiotics lessened the efficacy of birth control pills, she’d made Alexander use condoms, which elicited a deep sigh from her husband.

And now she was pregnant. One stupid condom that had torn. Whammo.

She wouldn’t tell Alexander until she came up with a solid plan to present to him, one strong enough that she could refute any argument of his. For two days she’d been working on it. They’d stay in the city. They would not move to Westchester—let alone to the same town as the overbearing Hendrickses. She’d send out a fresh batch of résumés to her second-choice news outlets. She’d find a great new job, work until the day before her due date, have the baby, then go back to work when the baby was three months old, a great day care or full-time nanny long arranged. She and Alexander would draw up a schedule of who would take off work for baby sick days and pediatrician appointments. For the past two days, when Gemma thought about it this way, she could at least breathe a bit easier, even if the part about the baby scared her to death. She had no idea how to be a mother, how to want to be a mother, how to want any part of motherhood.

But there was no way Alexander would say yes to any of her plan. For months now, all he talked about was wanting a completely different life: a baby, a house in the suburbs, a safe, sturdy car, like a Subaru, instead of their snazzy little Miata. According to Alexander Hendricks, they could be on their second child by now, like his brother, who had a two-year-old and another on the way. Alexander was sick to death of New York City—the crowds, the noise, the car alarms, the crazy cabdrivers, the subways. For the past six months, he’d been telling her “this isn’t
all about you, there are two of us in this marriage.” She’d say the same back to him. Stalemate.

She glanced at her neighbor on her terrace, still blowing raspberries on little Jacob’s belly. But suddenly Jacob’s expression changed and his face got kind of red. Lydia laid him down on the padded chaise lounge and started moving his legs in bicycle formation. The baby stopped fussing.

How does she know what to do? Gemma wondered. Maybe it was as easy as Lydia always made it look. Maybe motherhood was about instinct.

But Gemma didn’t have any maternal instincts. And Lydia Bessell was no help in Gemma’s plan; the woman was a former Wall Street investment banker who wasn’t planning on going back to work. The Bessells had already found their dream home in Tarrytown and were moving at summer’s end. “See,” Alexander would tell Gemma, since he knew she generally liked and respected Lydia. “Even Lydia gave up her three-hundred-thousand-dollar salary to be a stay-at-home mom in the burbs. It’s the dream life, Gemma.”

Once Alexander knew she was pregnant, he’d take over. He suffocated her now? She couldn’t even imagine how bad it would get. The hovering, the nagging, the constant calls. Did you, are you sure you, don’t forget to . . . The campaign for the life he wanted. Case closed.

“Gem, if you want to get to Maine before dark, you need to hit the road,” Alexander called from his home office. “It’s past eleven.”

She absolutely did need to hit the road. Alone in a car for seven blessed hours. Heaven. She could think, formulate her plan, her arguments. She could figure out how she felt about
being pregnant in the first place. Right now, all she had was one emotion: panic.

As Gemma turned to go back inside, her neighbor’s mother, who visited practically every day, came out on the terrace. She beelined for the baby, scooping him up carefully in her arms and making more baby talk at him. Gemma’s heart squeezed as it always did; she couldn’t imagine ever sharing such a moment with her own mother, who was cold and kept to herself, always had. Even Alexander, who’d met some of the shadiest characters in his work as an assistant prosecutor for the state of New York, was taken aback by Gemma’s mother’s lack of warmth and social skills.

She went back inside the apartment and over to Alexander’s makeshift office that he’d created and hated, two pressurized walls that reminded him on a daily basis he didn’t have enough room and had to resort to fake walls. He was staring at his computer screen. For a moment she was startled, as she sometimes was when she looked at her husband, at how good looking he was—tall and muscular with all that sandy-blond hair and intelligent dark brown eyes that missed nothing.

She’d loved his overbearing ways when she’d first met him, loved how his family welcomed her on their third date as though they were already married, when Alexander had brought her over to meet the loud, opinionated Hendrickses. Unused to a happy, boisterous clan, she’d adored them all. During the first month they’d been dating, his mother had called her for her opinion on everything from what color shoes to wear with a brown dress to what she and Alexander’s father should get Alexander for his birthday. Gemma loved being drawn in by the Hendrickses, loved every minute of how overbearing they were
with their thoughts and opinions and family get-togethers during the week for no reason at all. Her own family life had been so lonely, her mother a French professor who spoke French most of the time at home despite Gemma and her sister never quite picking it up, and her father a businessman who traveled during the week. When her parents divorced when Gemma was eleven, Gemma was almost relieved, thinking the dead silences would end, that both parents would suddenly become warm and loving in their separate homes, but that hadn’t been the case.

So yes, Gemma had been crazy about the warm, tell-me-your-every-thought Hendrickses. But a few years into their five-year marriage, it all got to be too much, and they wanted her to change, become more like them. When she and Alexander argued, he’d strike below the belt with what he knew would hurt the most: “You’re acting like your mother, Gem.”

She’d been so in love with him once—and she still loved him—but she was grateful to be getting away this weekend. The timing—at least on this—couldn’t be better. Maybe a weekend apart would make him miss her, make him see her again as a separate person who had her own ideas, her own opinions, her own dream life that didn’t include moving to Westchester and being a stay-at-home mother.

That panicky feeling returned, and Gemma reminded herself that in about seven hours, if traffic wasn’t too bad, she’d be in Boothbay Harbor, sitting on that beautiful white wooden swing on the porch of the Three Captains’ Inn with her old friend June, and her smart, insightful friend would help talk her through this. Thank God for girlfriends who owned beautiful old inns in Maine.

“I’m all set to go,” she told him, eyeing his computer screen. Real estate listings.

“You look so tired,” he said, studying her.

“Just worried about not being able to find a job—a job I really want. It’s been keeping me up at night.”

He stood up and hugged her. “Everything’s going to be fine, Gem. You know why? Because I made an executive decision.” He glanced at her, as if bracing for her reaction. “I put in an offer on a house in Dobbs Ferry. It’s practically next door to my—”

Steam circled in her ears. “Wait a minute. What? You made an offer on a house? When you know I don’t want to leave the city?”

“Gemma, something’s got to change, and you’re being really stubborn about this.” He gave her the printouts. “This house is perfect for us and I didn’t want to lose a shot at it. It’s practically next door to my parents—that means when we have a baby, my mom can help out on a moment’s notice. It’s walkable to downtown. There are a few regional newspapers you can apply to for part-time work if you really insist on working. It’s a good commute for me into the city. Just look at it, okay?”

Part-time work. If I insist on working
. A shot of anger hit her in the gut. “You shouldn’t have made an offer without talking to me, Alex.”

“We’ve been talking for months now. Nothing ever changes. So we’re just going to stay here because it’s what you want? What about what I want?” He let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t want to argue before you leave, Gem. Just take the listing and information with you,” he said, handing her a sheaf of papers. “Just promise to look at them, okay?”

Fury gripped her. How dare he? “Promise me right now that you won’t buy the house if your offer is accepted. Promise me, Alexander.”

“I’ll promise that if you promise to look—really look—at the information.”

Let it go for now, she told herself. Just get in the car and drive away. But before she could even think it through, she blurted out, “Alex, I’m going to stay up in Maine for the week instead of just the weekend. I think it’ll do me some good.”

He stared at her, then his expression softened. “Actually that’s a good idea. All that fresh air, the beautiful cottages, the water. I think you’ll see life in a small town is pretty great.”

That wasn’t what she’d meant at all. She glanced at her watch. “Like you said, I’d better hit the road if I want to get to Maine before dark.”

He gave her that look, the look that said they weren’t done talking about this, but they’d both been over this so many times that there was little left to say. Alexander had gotten the thing he needed to tip the scales in his favor; she’d gotten laid off and couldn’t find another job. The pregnancy would send the scale plummeting down on his side. In a flash, she’d be in that house in Dobbs Ferry, her mother-in-law breathing down her neck, Alexander making to-do lists for her and creating feeding and napping schedules. Gemma pictured herself nine months pregnant, asking herself what the hell had happened to her life.

She got her suitcase, already packed, from the bedroom, wondering if she had to think about how heavy it was. She wouldn’t drink at the wedding reception, of course. There were probably a hundred other little things she needed to know about
how to live as a pregnant person. Foods she couldn’t eat, like Brie and Caesar dressing, she was pretty sure.

But this was Alexander Hendricks, who’d taken the morning from work to see her off, so, upset with her or not, of course he carried her suitcase down to the garage of their building and put it in the trunk of their car. Then he hugged her good-bye and reminded her to look at the listing. Only when she was on I-95 did she finally exhale.

The moment Gemma arrived in Boothbay Harbor, she relaxed. She hadn’t been here in years, but she knew this place, it was inside her. Starting at age eleven, she’d spent a month every summer here with her father after her parents’ inevitable divorce, running up and down the docks with her friends, getting crushes on boys, living for tans and new wave music. She’d always felt like a different person in Boothbay Harbor—carefree, lighthearted, happy, instead of tiptoeing around her mother back home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, walking on eggshells for fear of saying something her mother would deem stupid. Here in this picture-postcard-perfect summer town, where you wore flip-flops all summer and your biggest problem was what kind of ice cream to choose, Gemma had always felt most herself. She’d even charmed the
Boothbay Regional Gazette
editor into allowing her a kid’s column for the summers, polling people on the best fish and chips, who had the best ice cream, and favorite places to jump in the bay. Gemma smiled as she drove slowly through downtown, crowded with tourists, the harbor and the boats glittering just beyond. Yes, she could think here. She could never live in Boothbay Harbor year-round; she loved New York City
with its grit and beauty and eight million stories, but she was very relieved to be here now.

Gemma lowered her car windows and breathed in the scent of summer, of the Atlantic, of nature. The bay shimmered in the late June sun as Gemma drove up Main Street with its one-of-a-kind shops, then turned onto Harbor Hill Road. The Three Captains’ Inn came into view on its perch two winding streets above the harbor. Gemma loved the inn, a robin’s egg–blue Victorian with white trim and a white porch swing, pots of flowers blooming everywhere.

She pulled up in the small parking lot beside the inn, her gaze on the woman on the porch swing. She held a baby on her lap and was swinging gently. A guest maybe. As Gemma carried her suitcase up the three steps the woman stood, put the baby in a baby swing on the porch, then slipped on a BabyBjörn and had the baby inside in under ten seconds. Gemma felt the usual rise of panic at how easily mothers seemed to do these things. There was so much to learn, so much to know.