Following Trouble (10 page)

Of course, once she did, the rest of the women—like the one with a loud toddler she kept trying to quiet by offering him the breast, flashing everyone every few minutes, a fact that had Rob buried behind a copy of Sports Illustrated—would rush over too. There were two other women there, and only one had a man with her. He had a Sports Illustrated too, but I think he was actually reading it. Rob was just hiding behind his.

“You know that’s the swimsuit edition, right?” I smiled at him as I leaned in to whisper in his ear.

“Is it?” Rob sat up straighter, flipping the page from a Jack Daniels ad to find Kate Upton rolling around in the sand. “Hey, look at that, it is! Is this incentive to lose the baby weight or something?”

“Shh!” I laughed, glancing over at the teen. She was getting up her courage. “Listen, I’m going to ask them to take us back now?”

“Why?” He smirked. “I handle far more women than this at one time.”

“Yeah
, but these are pregnant women.” I reminded him. “Hormones.”

“Sabrina?”

“Thank God,” I whispered. “Come on.”

I got weighed—which wasn’t all that fun, in front of Rob, but he didn’t even bat an eyelash at the number—and then they gave me a cup to pee in. Also not so fun with Rob around, but at least he waited in the room while I filled the cup with my name on it and left it in the little cabinet.

“All set?” he asked when I came back into the room. He’d tossed the cap and sunglasses on the counter and was talking to the nurse.

“Yep.”
I slid up onto the examination table and the nurse, a cute, short-haired blonde with big brown doe eyes, put the blood pressure cuff on my arm. I noticed her looking at Rob and I wondered if she knew who he was.

“So any issues?” she asked as she pressed the button on the mechanized cuff. “Nausea, heartburn? Any cramping or bleeding? Fatigue? Constipation or hemorrhoids? Vaginal discharge?”

Oh for God’s sake.

“No, nothing.” I shook my head, watching the blood pressure number rise and avoiding Rob’s eyes.

“Your BP is slightly high.” The nurse frowned, taking off the cuff. “Probably a little white coat syndrome. But I want you to lie on your left side until the doctor comes in. Then we’ll take it again.”

“Okay.” I reclined, using the pillow to support my head. “The doctor said she was going to do an ultrasound today.”

“Yes, you’re…” The nurse checked my chart. “Just about sixteen weeks. She might even be able to find out the gender. Do you want to know?”

“Definite
ly,” I replied.

“Have to know if you’re shoppin
g for pink or blue, right?” The nurse dropped me a wink. “The doctor should be in shortly. Thanks for the autograph.”

This last was aimed at Rob.
So she did know.

“No problem, Ellen.
”

“Ellen?” I raised my eyebrows when she was gone. “You’re already on a first name basis with the nurse?”

“She had me sign ‘to Ellen.’” He laughed, rolling his eyes. “So is this Dr. Goodman actually good?”

“I like her.” I shrugged, sitting up on my elbow. “
She wants all her patients to call her Barb.”

“I didn’t see any degrees on the wall.”
He looked around at the poster of a non-pregnant uterus and fallopian tubes on the wall, a plastic model of a bisected pregnant woman with a removable plastic fetus.

“She’s good, Rob.” Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “
Check the other hallway on the way out, by the way. Unless you think Harvard is below your standards?”

“Harvard?” He raised his eyebrows. “W
hat in the heck is she doing in Detroit?”

“This is
Birmingham, not Detroit.” I snorted. “And I think she has family here.”

There was a brief knock before the door opened and Dr. Goodman came in. She was a petite women with dirty blonde hair that I’d always seen pulled back into a ponytail. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and, although she had to be forty-something, she wore those “invisible” braces, which made her speech slightly lispy.

“Well, Sabrina, how are we doing?” she asked, my chart in her hand.

“Good.”

“I see your BP was a little high. Let’s take that again.” She rolled the machine back over and wrapped the cuff around my arm, pushing the button to inflate it. “This must be Daddy?”

“
Rob, this is Dr. Goodman,” I said, making the introductions. “And yes, he’s the… father.”

Wow, it was still weird to say that out loud.

“Call me Barb.” She reached over and shook Rob’s hand.

“Hi Barb,” Rob said. I could tell he was sizing her up.

“Nice to meet you. And before I forget…” She pulled a prescription pad out of her pocket. “Can you sign this? Make it ‘To Chris.’ It’s for my niece. She just loves your music.”

“Sure.
” Rob accepted the pad and pen she offered. “How do you spell that?”

My blood pressure was back to normal so the doctor had me roll to my back so she could “measure” my uterus. She stretched a tape measure—something else she kept in her pocket—from my pubic bone up toward my navel, feeling for the top of my uterus with her fingers.

“Perfect. Right on for sixteen weeks,” she remarked, smiling at Rob and accepting the signed pad back, slipping it into her pocket along with the tape measure.

“Your pee looked great, your blood
work from last time came back fine. You’re not anemic.” She flipped through my chart, making notations. “Anything else you want to talk about? Any questions or concerns?”

“No.” I shook my head, glancing at Rob. “You?”

“Not at the moment.”

“I’d normally use the Doppler to hear baby’s heartbeat,” she told him. ”But we’re going to do an ultrasound today, yes?”

I nodded, my own heart skipping in my chest.

“Well are we ready to see this little munchkin?”
She smiled, pulling my shirt up and tucking a strip of paper towel under the elastic of my yoga pants, pulling them low on my belly.

I’d had one ultrasound at my first visit. That one had been transvaginal, but thank goodness they were doing this one on my belly instead. Baby’s first photo was hanging on my fridge. He—or she—looked more like a lima bean than a human. But I’d heard the heartbeat that day, proof that he or she was alive and well in there.

“Come on over here, Dad.”

Dad.
She kept saying that. The word stunned me but it didn’t seem to faze Rob.

“Can you get the lights for me?”
Barb asked. Rob flipped the switch, coming to stand beside me. “It’s easier to see when it’s dark.”

“This may be cold.” She used a squirt bottle to ooze some blue goo onto my lower belly.

“Yikes!” I shivered. She wasn’t kidding!

“What’s that for?” Rob asked, watching as she
ran the transducer over my belly, a scratchy sound coming out of the speakers.

“Helps conduct the ultrasound waves.
” She turned on the monitor. “Okay… let’s see if we can find you… oh look at that!”

I was. During my last ultrasound, I couldn’t really make anything out. Dr. Goodman had to point everything out to me and even then, it wasn’t that clear. But today, I saw everything. The baby’s head was big, its body small, but I could see arms, legs, even fingers!

“He’s already found his thumb,” she pointed out, showing us the outline of his head, the hand up to his face, thumb firmly in his mouth.

“You go
, boy.” Rob laughed, leaning in to get a closer look.

“Actually…
” Barb moved the wand over my belly, pushing this way and that. “Do we want to know the gender?”

“Yes.” I nodded eagerly, my eyes on the screen.

“See this?” She pointed to three faint white lines on the screen with her fingertip between what was clearly a set of baby legs. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is a labia. We’ve got a little girl here.”

I couldn’t breathe. A girl.
A girl.
I looked up at Rob, feeling his hand slip into mine.

“A girl,” I said out loud.
“What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s fucking amazing.”
He leaned in to kiss me. It was just a brief thing, but it thrilled me. I couldn’t help the tears slipping down my temples and I blinked to clear my vision—I didn’t want to miss a minute of this experience.

“Well if you like that, check out this.”
The doctor did something and suddenly the screen changed. The black and white fuzzy image transformed into something sharper, clearer. Suddenly the baby’s face wasn’t just a vague profile but a 3D image. I could see her nose, her lips, her little fingers curled up. We watched her sucking her thumb, her eyes closed—still fused shut, according to all my baby books.

“Oh my God… Rob.
” I looked up at him and saw his eyes were wet too. “That’s her. That’s our baby.”

“She’s beautiful,” he whispered. “
Just like her mama.”

“And she’s got the hiccups.”
Barb did something and the screen changed again, giving us an expanded view. Now we could see her chest and belly too. “See that? See her chest moving?”

“I can feel that!” I watched the rhythmic movements, incredulous.
“Rob, here, feel.”

I took his hand, pressing it to my belly.

Barb moved the transducer so he could put his hand on my lower belly. I pressed it there, hard, holding as still as I could.

“Sorry, it’s messy,” I apologized.

“I don’t care,” he scoffed, head cocked like he was listening for something, hand cupping my belly. Then his face lit up, his eyes meeting mine. “That’s her? That’s really her?”

“That’s her.”
Barb smiled, handing him some paper towel to wipe the goo off his hand. “Any names yet?”

“We were waiting to narrow down our choices,” I said, smiling at Rob.

“Well now you know.” She squirted more cold stuff onto my belly, moving the transducer around again. She started taking measurements—baby’s head, leg, abdomen. She took several 3D snapshots, typing “Hi Mom and Dad!” on one.

“So
I have a question for you, Doc,” Rob said as she finished up, wiping the goo off my belly.

“Barb,” she reminded him.

“Barb, right.” He smiled, flipping the light on when she asked him to. “The thing is… I’m taking a trip to Europe next week. We’ll be there for about three weeks. I was wondering if there would be a problem for Sabrina to travel?”

“Shouldn’t be.”
She helped me sit up. “If you were further along, it would be a problem. We’d have to worry more about blood clots and, of course, you going into labor. But the second trimester is the perfect time to travel. You can fly, you can drive. Plus you’re over morning sickness and your energy is coming back and you’re not too big yet.”

“Enjoy this time.” Barb reached down, taking something out of the machine and handing it to me. “
Make it your honeymoon.”

I wish, I thought.

“Thanks,” I said, looking at the disc in my hand. “What’s this?”

“That’s a CD of your baby. I recorded quite a bit of the exam for you.”

“Wow, thank you!”

“I would like to
see you as soon as you return,” she said, opening my chart. “You should be getting prenatals once a month at this point.”

“I’ll have a doctor on staff to take care of her.”
Rob slipped his arm around my shoulder.

“Well then, yo
u definitely have my blessing,” she replied, closing my chart with a smile. ““Congratulations you two. This baby is very lucky.”

“We’re very lucky,
” I replied, looking up at Rob with shining eyes.

“Does this mean you’ll come with me?”

I had a lump in my throat, thinking about brave Katie.

It was time for me to be brave too.

“Yes.” I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Let’s go buy something pink.”

I didn’t know until we got to the airport and I actually considered turning around and going straight home when Rob “surprised” me with the tickets.

“It will be okay.” Rob squeezed my hand. We were fly
ing first class so we had two big seats all to ourselves. “They’re excited to see you. And meet me.”

“
But…” I didn’t have to words to protest. My whole body was protesting. I felt shaky, dizzy, sick, nauseous. I had been planning on a ten hour flight to Ireland, where the tour started in three days—not a two hour flight to Florida to visit with my parents.

“Y
ou have to tell them some time,” he whispered, glancing up as the stewardess set our drinks—a Coke for him, Vernors for me—on his tray.

“You d
idn’t tell them about the baby, did you?” I closed my eyes, praying he hadn’t.

“No, of course not.” He slipped a hand into mine, squeezing. “
Just that I wanted to surprise you with a trip to Florida to see them.”

I breathed a sigh, opening my eyes to meet his.
“And they didn’t ask who you were?”

“I said I was your boyfriend.”

“Right.” I blinked at him. “The boyfriend they’ve never heard of before that I’m now bringing home to meet my parents. You think they can’t guess?”

He shrugged.
“So what if they do?”

“I just…
I guess I wasn’t ready.” I swallowed, reaching for my Vernors. My mouth was suddenly very dry. “It’s a big step.”

“So get ready.” He grinned. “
It’s time. Take my hand and we’ll jump together.”

“We aren’t staying with them, are we?”

“I’m not crazy.”
He snorted. “Besides, this little belly is so sexy, we have to have our own hotel room.”

He slipped his hand below my navel, dangerously close to my crotch.

“Stop.” I smiled, pushing his hand away.

“You make me so hot,” he whispered into my ear, letting his hand travel upward instead, over my ribs, to cup my breast.
“You think your parents are going to like me?”

“Rob!” I hissed, pushing his hand firmly down into neutral territory. It wasn’t like we were on a private plane—
this was a Delta flight full of other passengers. “Everyone likes you. It’s me they’re not going to like.”

“I
like you.” He kissed me softly, tasting like Juicy Fruit—he bought it in the airport gift shop. He said his ears popped on flights.

“I like you too,” I breathed as we parted. Every time he kissed me, I forgot. My body soared, my mind quieted, and my world belonged to him. He was my world.

But then everything else slowly flooded back in.

“Do I look fat in this?”
I sat back, pulling my shirt down over my yoga pants. I couldn’t comfortably wear my jeans anymore.

“Really?”

“I mean, do I look pregnant?”

“You
are
pregnant.”

I sighed.
“Can I borrow your jacket?”

“Sabrina, they’re going to know.”
He laughed, shaking his head.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I pouted, crossing my arms over my chest. This was a disaster. An absolute disaster. How could he expect me to do this, to take him home and introduce him to my parents?
“Hey, this is Rob Burns the rock star, yeah, the same one I plastered posters of all over my walls, well, we’re dating, oh and he’s married, and by the way, I’m pregnant!”
It was impossible.

“Listen to me.” He turned my face to his, tilting my chin up so he could look into my eyes. “
You’re pregnant with my daughter. You’re going to be my wife. We’re going to tell your parents so they can congratulate us. Nothing more.”

I loved it when he said stuff like that. But I also hated it, because it reminded me.

“Reality check,” I whispered as the stewardess passed close by. “You’re still married and I’m four months pregnant with a rock star Baby Daddy.
That’s
how the rest of the world sees it. Did you not read that stupid Inquirer article?”

“Well the rest of the world can go fuck themselves.”
His eyes darkened and his jaw worked as he ran a hand through my hair.

“I wish they would.”
I sighed. “What in the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I’d surprise you.
” He cupped my face in both hands now, focusing my attention completely. “I was thinking I love you and our little girl and I wanted to share that news with the people who brought you into the world. Was that so wrong?”

How could I argue with that logic?

“No.” I swallowed. “Thank you. It… it will be fine. I love you.”

What else could I say?

He kissed me and I could only close my eyes, cross my fingers and hope.

* * * *

When I said everyone loved Rob, I wasn’t kidding. Even though he was a rock star, which I was sure my former history professor mother and my retired cop father would disapprove of, I knew once Rob started talking to them, they’d like him.

And they did.

We sat on the patio while my dad grilled steaks in his sandals and socks—a fashion choice that appalled me and made Rob grin—and my mother bustled from the kitchen to the table, forgetting every five minutes about one more deli dish or snack she’d forgotten about, until the table was full of food. We chatted about my job, my dad’s golf game, my mother’s book—she was writing about the Great Depression—and eventually got around to Rob.

They knew who he was, of course—his posters had been plastered all over my walls since I was sixteen. Rob had been eighteen at the time, lead singer of Trouble, a brand new band unlike anything else out there. They called him the new Jim Morrison and girls everywhere went crazy, including me. I’d been in love with him for eight years before I even met him.

But Rob set them at ease, the way he did with everyone, telling stories about the music business that made them laugh and shake their heads. My father seemed impressed with his investment ideas, all of which went over my head. We didn’t, however, tell them about Tyler’s heroin addiction, or Katie’s adventure and subsequent crash.

It was after dinner we finally broached the subject, when I was stuffed with steak and roasted potatoes and salad and could barely move. My belly was even more obvious and our little girl was wide awake, fluttering around and doing acrobats in there. But I wasn’t the one who brought it up.

“So you two…” My mother came back from carrying plates to the kitchen, a task she refused any help with, and sat beside me. “When are you getting married?”

“Well…” I glanced over at Rob, feeling his hand squeeze mine under the table.

“I assume you’re going to make an honest woman of my little girl?” My father sat back in his chair, puffing on a cigar, his silver hair thinning even more on top. I had been a late-in-life surprise baby for them both, an only child, and my father was pushing seventy. My mother was ten years younger and probably would have had more gray in her dark hair, but she had an arrangement with Miss Clairol.

“When are you due?” my mother asked, cocking her head at me, her gaze dipping down to the peasant blouse I’d worn to cover my growing belly.

“November twenty-second,” I answered softly. Of course she knew. She’d probably known since the minute she saw me. Maybe even before that—when Rob had called them and said we were coming to visit.

“Big commitment, having a child together.” My father puffed on his cigar, looking thoughtful. Behind him, the sun was a fiery orange, just starting to dip toward the horizon. Florida sunsets were some of the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

“Yes, sir.” Rob nodded in agreement, lacing his fingers with mine. “That’s why we wanted to come see you… I wanted to officially ask for your daughter’s hand.”

“How
sweet.” My mother smiled. He’d appealed to her old-fashioned sensibilities.

“I assume you have the means to take care of her?”
My father was clearly going to take full advantage of Rob’s chivalry.

“I do, sir.”
I’d never heard Rob be so deferential before. He was Mr. Confident, all the time, no matter what.

“And of course you love her.” My mother chimed in.

“Very, very much.” Rob took my hand under the table and I smiled.

“Well you seem like a smart, sensible young man, and my daughter doesn’t make rash decisions… usually.”
My father puffed and glared at me and I felt his disapproval like a wave, a tsunami of feeling.

Of course they were disappointed. They expected me to bring home a nice boy, a man like
my ex-boyfriend, Josh, someone who would get a “real job” in the “real world” and make a “real life” for me and our children.

Instead, I’d brought home a married rock star and an unexpected pregnancy.

“Daddy, I… I love him.” There wasn’t anything more I could say. To me, that was all that mattered. But I knew it wouldn’t matter to him. Love was impractical. I’d asked him once why he married my mother and he said, “She was smart, kind, and she thought like me. We valued the same things.” No mention of love. My mother said something similar. “He’s a good man.” Those were her exact words. And he was. But he didn’t place much weight on such ephemeral things as “love.”

I sat, waiting for his response, my breath held.

“That much I can see.” My father looked between me and Rob. “But are you sure you’re ready for this? I don’t know if I would have been ready for a child in my mid-twenties. You’re so young.”

“I know.” I smiled.
“But not everyone can wait until they’re in their forties to have babies, Daddy.”

“Y
ou were a miracle, sweetheart,” my mother piped up. “The doctors told me I’d never have children. And we almost lost you twice.”

I winced.
I’d heard this story a million times, but I didn’t want Rob to be subjected to it.

“Well I’m glad you didn’t lose her, Mrs. Taylor,” Rob said softly, squeezing my hand.

“So are we.” My father agreed. “She’s been a blessing to us.”

I squirmed in my chair at all the attention, opening my mouth to change the subject, but it was Rob who redirected things.

“It must be nice to have a family who loves you.” Rob looked around the table at all of us.

“What about your parents, Rob?”
my mother asked.

“Oh, my parents are dead.”
He shrugged and I glanced at him, trying to read his expression. He’d told me his mother had been arrested for drug possession—crack cocaine—when he was just twelve and he never knew his father. But was his mother dead? Still in jail? I was ashamed to say I didn’t know for sure.

“I’m so sorry.”
My mother frowned, shaking her head. “So sad.”

“Do you have siblings?”
my father asked.

“No.”
That was an outright lie. I knew he had a brother and sister, somewhere. They’d all been taken into foster care and ultimately separated.

“An only child,
then,” my mother said. “Like Sabrina.”

“I guess so.”
Rob looked at my father, head cocked. “So, sir… about that question?”

My father puffed on his cigar, a smell I would forever associate with him, a haze of blue smoke hanging above him in the glow of the sunset. Finally he sighed, shook his head, sat forward and put his cigar in the ashtray on the patio table.

“Yes, son.” My father met Rob’s eyes and gave him a nod. “You can marry my daughter, if she’ll have you.”

“Oh
I will!” I cried immediately, so stunned by his response I couldn’t believe it. I had been readying myself for more questions, a lecture, a rant about the state of this country and the dissolution of the traditional family, but I hadn’t expected this.

“Will you?”
Rob turned toward me, his face alight in the setting sun. The sun had hit the horizon, spreading a fiery orange across the water in the distance—my father’s boat was docked out there—reflecting in his eyes.

“Rob… what are you…
?” I blinked at him as he pushed the chair back and sank down to one knee right there on the patio. In front of my parents. And then he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a square, blue velvet box.

“Sabrina…
” He opened the box so I could see inside, revealing the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen—a giant, marquis cut diamond in a vintage, platinum setting. I gaped at it. At him. “You are the most amazing, beautiful woman I’ve ever known and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you be mine?”

Would I be his? I was already his. I’d been his long before he even knew I existed. There was no question that I belonged to him, with him. I looked at the ring, knowing what it meant, maybe more than he did. It didn’t mean that I was his.

It meant that he was mine.

“Yes,” I breathed. “
You know I will.”

I put my arms around his neck and buried my face there, drying my tears on his collar, feeling his body trembling, heard his voice catch. Had he really doubted?