Maybe Baby (26 page)

“Lovebirds,” Babs said, sitting down on her lounge chair. “I’m going to bring them out here every afternoon. They like the fresh air.”

“Oh, they tell you this, do they?”

“We speak the language of love,” Babs said with a grin, then sipped her gin and tonic. “Speaking of which…”

Dana held up her hand in warning. “Don’t.”

“What?”

“You were going to bring up Nick.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were. I can tell when you’re about to talk about Nick because your right eyebrow raises just a notch above the left.”

Babs’s right eyebrow raised a notch. “I was just going to say that I saw a moving truck outside the wine bar today.”

Dana snapped her fingers. “I knew it!” She lowered her hand. “Really? A moving van?”

“I didn’t go inside. I am completely loyal to you, darling. But I thought maybe you might want to go over there and talk to him.”

Dana looked down. “Mom, I told you. It’s over.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“You know why I’m here. I’m just taking a break until the money goes through.”

“Which it did yesterday.”

“Yeah. So? What’s your point?”

Babs sighed. “It’s not that I don’t absolutely love having you here, dear. I do. We’ve hardly fought over anything during this whole extended visit.”

“Except Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“I’m telling you, they didn’t die, they got away,” Babs said with a smile. “But that’s not the point. The point is…”

“…you want your adult daughter out of your guest room. I get it. I’ll pack.” Dana pushed herself up from her kneeling position, then sat down next to Babs on the lounge chair. “Right after tonight’s episode of
Queer Eye,
I swear I’m outta here.”

“You’re not a very good listener, you know that, Dana?”

“I blame my mother.”

Babs smiled softly. “Go see him, Dana.”

Dana leaned her head on Babs’s shoulder. “Mom. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because he made his choice.”

“Did you make yours?”

Dana raised her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly that. Did you ever tell him you wanted to marry him?”

“Well. No. But… Melanie. And the ultimatum—” Babs patted her daughter’s hand. “Dana, if I’ve taught you anything, it should be that you shouldn’t live a life with regrets. If you let Nick go to California without telling him how you feel, it’ll always be there, hanging over your shoulder, nagging you.”

“Kinda like a parrot?”

“I’m not joking, Dana.” Babs pushed up off the lounge chair. “I have some errands to run. I want you to think about what I’ve said. Will you promise me to think about it?”

She stared down at Dana, an expectant look on her face.

“Okay,” Dana said. “I’ll think about it. I promise.”

Babs smiled. “That’s all I ask.”

She picked up the cage. The birds tweeted sweetly as Babs hustled them inside. Dana stood up and walked over to the terrace railing, staring out into the city as the late-afternoon sun painted it orange.

Nick was really leaving. She’d kinda hoped that he’d track her down at the penthouse, come by in a surprise move and tell her he’d changed his mind, he wasn’t going to California. When she’d checked her account the day before to find the hundred thousand there, it felt like all the air had rushed out of her world.

He was really going.

She stared down into the street and thought about what her mother had said about regrets. She was already full of them. She regretted running out on Nick at their wedding. She regretted letting six years go by before telling him she still loved him. She regretted telling him no when he asked her to marry him at the winery, and she regretted letting him make the deal with Melanie.

And now came the choice. She could allow one more regret to land on the pile, or she could go tell him she loved him and beg him not to go to California and take the chance of getting moving van tread marks all over her heart.

It was pretty much a no-brainer.

***

Finn skimmed through the
Times
want ads at his kitchen table. He’d found a couple of decent prospects, but nothing that would pay as well as the birds. Still, if getting knocked out, duct-taped, and almost shot didn’t get him to quit birds, nothing would.

And that thought was just too damned depressing.

There was a knock at the door, and he dropped his red pen and pushed up from the table. He peeked through the security viewer and chuckled to himself before flipping the bolt and opening the door.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Very likely.” Babs McGregor said, stepping inside and pushing the paper against Finn’s chest as she walked past him. “I read in the paper where a conservation guy named Simon Burke was found on a cargo ship to New Zealand. Thought you might find that interesting.”

“Come on in, Babs. Good to see you.”

“Apparently, he e-mailed a confession to the New Zealand Kakapo Wildlife Conservation, stating how he stole a Kakapo with intent to sell it, but then changed his mind. That’s how they knew to look for him on the ship.”

“No kidding.” Finn held up a Dunkin’ Donuts box. “Donut?”

Babs sat down at the table. “Jelly, if you have it. Darnedest thing, though. They can’t figure out how he got himself into the belly of the ship, considering he was all trussed up like a Sunday pig. And apparently, he’s not talking.”

Finn put a plate with a jelly donut down in front of Babs. “What a world.”

“Also interesting—it seems a Kakapo, missing since 1973 and presumed dead, was on the boat with him.”

“Sounds like quite the tale.” Finn sat down opposite Babs and watched as she bit into her jelly donut. “Good?”

“Mmmmm,” Babs said, then daintily dabbed at her mouth before speaking again. “And I saw Vivian.”

“Really? Where?”

“On the street by her house, arguing simultaneously with her lawyers and the people who were moving her stuff out onto the street.”

“You must have enjoyed that.”

“You have no idea how much. Unfortunately, I think she’s going to be able to have the old coot declared insane and get the money anyway, but she’ll be living on government cheese between now and then, and that makes me happy inside.”

“Not to change the subject, but what brings you here, Babs?”

“I have this burning curiosity…”

“I hear they have an ointment for that.”

“Why’d you send the bird back?”

Finn didn’t say anything. Babs leaned her elbows forward on the table and eyed Finn.

“I mean, there you were. Bird thief. Valuable bird. A buyer at the ready. All that money. And yet, you chose to put the bird on the boat. Why?”

Finn met her eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I sold that bird. Went to Fiji. This conversation is actually just a figment of a vibrant but somewhat deranged imagination.”

She smiled. “You grew a conscience, didn’t you, Pinocchio?”

Finn leaned back in his chair. “Impossible.”

“You knew there were only eighty-six of them left on the planet, and you felt bad.”

“That’s it. No more
Murder, She Wrote
reruns for you.” Babs grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her lips. “You know what I think?”

“I have a feeling I’m gonna find out.”

She grinned. “I think someday you’re gonna be a real boy.”

Finn pushed himself up from the table.

“Well, not to be rude, but this real boy has to go to real work if he wants to make real rent.” He walked over to the door and grabbed his
Chez Animaux
jacket from the hook on the back of the door.

“Yes,” Babs said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a slip of paper. “You do.”

Finn nodded toward the paper. “What’s that?”

“Nothing really. Just a little favor I need done.”

Finn paused for a moment. She didn’t look like she was kidding. “You’re asking me for a favor?”

“It’s for charity,” she said with a bright smile, then leaned in slightly and winked at him. “Good for your karma.”

Finn chuckled. “Lady, my karma ceased to be an issue a long time ago.”

“Blah blah tough guy blah,” Babs said. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you receive a generous fee for your services. But I need your help and you need a job and I believe what we have here is a case of fortuitous timing.”

She pushed the piece of paper toward him. Finn eyed her for a moment, then took it from her. He unfolded it and read, then raised his eyes to hers.

“You want me to steal a baseball glove?”

“Not steal, pick
up,”
Babs said. “So, what do you say? Are you interested?”

“Can you guarantee I’ll never have to look at another bird again?”

Babs shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good enough,” Finn said, and hung the jacket back on the hook.

Twenty-eight

Dana got out of the cab at the end of Nick’s street. She figured the walk would be good for her. And if she chickened out and wanted to run the other way, there’d be time for that, too.

Just in case.

She walked slowly down the street, her eyes on the moving van parked in front of Murphy’s, right next to Oscar the hot dog guy. The back of the van was open, and when she got close enough, she could see boxes inside labeled in Nick’s hand with black magic marker, K
ITCHEN
.

B
EDROOM.
M
USIC AND
DVD
S.

“Oh, God,” Dana said, as her stomach did a flip.

“Yeah, guy’s been living there six years, and that’s all he’s got,” Oscar said. “Sad.”

“Dana?”

She turned to see Nick standing behind her, a box marked B
ATHROOM
in his arms. He just watched her, not smiling, not calling her Diz, not giving her anything to indicate if she was about to completely humiliate herself in front of God, Manhattan, and Oscar the hot dog guy.

“Did you need something?” he asked.

“No,” she said, her voice registering at an embarrassingly high pitch. She cleared her throat and continued. “No. I just wanted… to wish you luck.”

“Oh,” he said. “Really?”

“No.”

They stared at each other for another moment, then Nick said, “Is that it? ‘Cause I have to be out of the place by midnight.”

“Don’t go to California.”

There was a painfully long moment of silence in which Nick said nothing. He seemed genuinely surprised, but still. He could say
something.
Dana waited, her heart beating louder and louder until she finally worked up the nerve to go on.

“The money went through,” she said. “I checked my account yesterday and the money’s there and I can walk away and go back to the winery and live my life.”

Nick’s face was tight. “Good. That’s great.”

“I don’t want it.”

His eyebrows knit. “What?”

“Not if it means losing you,” she said. She felt her throat start to close on her and her eyes heat up and people were starting to gather, but she didn’t care. “I would rather give her every dime back and live out here in that box with you than be in the winery without you.”

Nick walked over to the van and pushed the box inside, then leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest. “You mean that?”

She nodded. She reached out, grabbed his hand, then knelt on one knee as the small crowd erupted into a simultaneous, “Awwwww.”

“Dana?” he said, his fingers tightening on her hand.

“It’s a cheesy gesture, I know,” she said. “But I’m going with it.”

Nick glanced at the crowd, then back at Dana. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes. I do. Remember how I ran out on you at our first wedding?”

“Yeah, but…”

“And when you proposed again, I yelled at you and threw you out of the winery?”

“Yeah.”

“Trust me, Nick. I’ve earned this.”

He smiled. “Okay. Go ahead.”

She looked up at him and smiled, trying to remember everything she’d planned to say in the cab ride over.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about us, and here’s the thing. Marriage scares the hell out of me. When I think about it as an institution, I break out in a cold sweat. But when I think about you… I don’t.”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled down at her. “This is your big romantic speech? Cold sweat?”

“It gets better. Where was I? Oh, yeah.” She shifted on her knee and tightened her grip on his hand. “Every time we’ve been about to make it work, I think about marriage and divorce and I run because I don’t trust marriage. But you, I trust. I know you don’t think I do, but I do. And I’m not running this time. You can pack up that van and go to California, and I don’t care. I’ll follow you until you believe me. For better or worse. It’s you. Only you.” She felt the tears fall over her cheeks, and it sounded like someone in the crowd was crying as well, but she kept her eyes on Nick. “Will you marry me?”

The crowd went, “Awwwww,” again.

Nick squeezed her hand. “Get up.”

He pulled her up to standing and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her until her leg muscles went weak as the crowd around them cheered.

“All right,” he said to everyone. “Show’s over, people.”

“So…” Dana said, moving his chin with her finger until he was looking at her again. “That’s a yes?”

He reached up and nudged a curl away from her forehead. “What do you think?”

“Oh, thank God,” she said, and swiped some tears off her face. “I was going to have to kill myself if I got turned down in front of Oscar the Hot Dog Guy.”

“Diz, you’re crazy, and you’re a massive pain in the ass, but I love you.” He pulled her close and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’d never turn you down in front of Oscar the Hot Dog Guy.”

“That’s good. I guess.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Do you need to call Melanie and tell her you’re not going?”

“I’m proud of you. You waited a whole fifteen seconds before bringing that up.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to get past my pettiness, but I’d really love to hear you tell her she lost.”

He shook his head. “She already knows I’m not coming.”

“Wait,” Dana said. “She already knows?”