The Opposite of Love (21 page)

53

CHASE

Chase wandered down the jewelry aisle of the Simi Valley Target, his sneakers squeaking against the shiny floor. He'd put off his holiday shopping until the last possible day, Christmas Eve. Trying to pick gifts for Daisy and Candy totally stressed him out. Candy liked big earrings. Hoops. Dangly ones. Chase touched a pair of silver ones, long and thin until the bottom, which looped around. He held them up to his ears and looked in a mirror.

“Just your type,” someone teased from behind.

Chase whirled around, feeling his cheeks redden before he even came face to face with Mrs. Rosenberg, the assistant rabbi at Becca's synagogue. “Just looking, uh, for my mom,” Chase stammered.

“I figured.” She smiled, showing her horsey teeth. “I haven't seen you in so long, Chase. I didn't even know you were back in town.”

Chase put the dangly earrings back. “Yeah, I came back to spend the holidays with my mom and sister. And I'll stay here for this last semester so I can graduate with my friends.”

“That makes sense. Welcome back. Hey, if you need a job while you're here, let me know. The day-care kids loved you.”

“Thanks.” Chase pushed the hair out of his eyes. He felt awkward or shy or something, but he didn't know why. “Well, nice to see you. Merry Christmas. Oh—oops, I mean Happy Hanukkah.”

She chuckled. “No worries. I
will
enjoy Christmas. We always eat Chinese food and do a movie marathon.” She paused, like she was trying to decide whether to add something. Then she went on, “Hanukkah has actually been over for a couple weeks.”

Damn.
“So I guess that means Daniel's present is late.”

“I think he'll forgive you.”

“Yeah,” Chase agreed. He waved her off and turned back to the earrings. His eyes caught on a pair of small, round earrings with layers of folds. He picked them up and brought them closer. They were roses. Small roses. Immediately he thought of Rose and remembered the heart-shaped necklace he'd gotten her last year. But she hadn't returned any of his emails. She didn't want anything to do with him. Still, his fingers lingered. He could buy them and leave them hidden in that planter on her porch. Tape a note on her bedroom window to let her know they were there.

He turned them over to look at the price tag. Shit. If he bought those, he wouldn't have enough money to get something nice for Candy and Daisy. Slowly, he set the rose earrings back on the rotating display.

He shook off a nagging feeling. It made no sense to buy them, he told himself. He'd probably never talk to Rose again, anyway. She'd made it crystal clear that she was not interested.

54

ROSE

Rose breathes in the unique odor of stale cigarettes, sweat, and Lysol. There's something about a cheap motel that makes her feel at home. She must have stayed in a few as a little girl. No little wrapped soaps by the sink, and no tiny bottles of shampoo or hand lotion. It seems clean enough, but she sure wouldn't eat a cookie that fell on the rug—three-second rule or not. Between the taxi and the one-night motel stay, Rose has dropped over a hundred dollars in an hour and a half flat.

It could have been more, though, she reminds herself. If she'd taken the taxi all the way to the Lutheran church off Hollywood Boulevard, she'd have spent most of what she'd stashed in the backpack.
Besides, even if I'd shown up on the steps of the church, I might not have been able to find anyone who remembered my mother, who knew whether she might have been the unidentified twenty-one-year-old prostitute murdered and dumped eleven-odd years ago
. Rose's stomach aches. She isn't sure what hurts more—thinking her mother is dead, or thinking she
isn't
but still hasn't come to rescue Rose from the Parsimmons.

Shit
, her stomach hurts. Her stomach hurts so bad she almost can't think. The world weighs heavily on her, like a two-ton weight dragging her down by the middle. Never mind, she thinks. I don't want to do this anymore. I changed my mind. She feels Nala rub against her ankles and wind her way around her feet, trying to comfort her, but it doesn't work. For a split second, Rose wishes she hadn't turned Chase away.

Her stomach muscles tighten, and a wave of ache washes over her. The aching started out dull. But now the ache takes her breath away. Like it really is an ocean wave washing over her, and she can't breathe until it passes.

When it does pass, Rose sinks onto the bed. Nala leaps up next to her, licking Rose's hand with her rough tongue. Rose feels the pressure of tears backing up in her throat and her eyes.

Rose wishes for the thousandth time that she had a picture of her mother. She could squeeze out a few tears if she could just see her mother's face. She wants to remember the things that have started to fade from her memory. The way her mother's nose has a slight crease at the tip, hardly noticeable unless you really look for it, as if someone had taken a cookie cutter and pressed it into her soft skin ever so gently at birth. She remembers the way her mother's eyes catch the light in the sunshine, the way they sparkle when she isn't working, when she wears no makeup at all. She wonders how much she resembles her mother now.

Two sounds make Rose jerk up her head. They happen at the exact same second, so that afterward she isn't sure whether they were two distinct sounds or one and the same. A soft but determined knock of knuckles on the motel door. A muted
pop
that Rose feels almost more than she hears. She stands up and freezes, unable to move or even to think. Then the gushing of water. Like a bathtub faucet.

She looks down at a growing puddle on the floor. She hadn't realized there would be so
much
. The gushing slows and then her stomach settles, like dirt adjusting after an earthquake, and out comes another mini flood. “Well, shit,” she says out loud. “My freaking water broke.”

55

ROSE

In the split second before Daniel's Ford misses the traffic light, the full reality of what's happening slams into Chase. He feels like an idiot for not seeing it before. Chase grips the door handle the way a panicked thought grips his heart.
She isn't getting rid of it, is she? But if she isn't getting rid of it, why is she hiding it from me?

“Why didn't you go for the yellow? You could have made it!” Becca squirms in her seat like she wants to climb right out of her skin. “We're going to lose her now!”

“Relax. I didn't want to kill us.”

Chase turns his whole body on the truck seat to face them. “We
can't
lose her.” He steadies himself. “I just figured out what's happening … and
we can't lose her
.”

Becca's voice takes on an irritatingly high pitch, reminding Chase of a wayward garden hose filled with water and flipping around—until Daniel punches her in the arm. Chase's eyes scan the road while he brings them up to date. They sit quiet, thinking. Digesting.

The red light lasts nearly a minute. Daniel floors the gas through the intersection, but the taxi has long since disappeared. Chase's heart accelerates like he's just chugged a keg of Red Bull.

After what seems like hours but is probably only minutes, Chase spies a taxi exiting the driveway of a Sleepy Nite Inn. Or is it a Motel 6? Or a Comfort Inn? All three are right next to each other. Who knows why some idiot would decide to build three motels right in a row like that. Probably the same logic that makes gas stations pop up on opposite corners, so that their customers can stare at each other while they pump gas and wonder whether they got the best deal.

“Turn here!” Chase demands. “We're splitting up. We each take a different one. Go to the front desk and try to find out if Rose has checked in.”

“Van Nuys Hospital is right down the street. Shouldn't we check there?”

“I'm just following my gut. If I'm wrong, we'll hit the local hospitals next.” Chase nudges Becca out of the truck as soon as it slides into a parking space. He points her in the direction of the Motel 6 and heads for the Sleepy Nite. Standing in front of the registration desk, he realizes no hotel employee will tell him where Rose is staying. He could be a stalker for all they know. Besides, Rose wouldn't have been stupid enough to register with her real name.

As a birdlike woman with a raspy voice greets him, Chase's mind calculates and recalculates options. “Can I help you?” she asks. If there ever was an antismoking poster child, it is this woman. She reeks of tobacco. Her teeth are yellowed in the front but blackened on the inside, and her voice sounds like throat cancer is knocking at the door. He should drag Becca in here for pure shock value.

“Yes. I just dropped a young lady off about five minutes ago, and I realized she left an earring in my cab.” Chase stands in front of the desk so the woman can't see his pajama-bottom pants. “The earring looks expensive, so I thought I should bring it back.”

“Young girl?” The woman's eyes keep flicking back to a television screen in the background.
It's a Wonderful Life.

“Yeah. Hair in braids like an Indian princess.”

“Oh, her. Room 22.”

“Thanks. Merry Christmas,” Chase calls over his shoulder.

“Don't celebrate it. But I get time-and-a-half for working on a holiday, so you don't hear me complaining.”

Chase makes a noise he hopes sounds like agreement and heads back out to the cold early morning air. The cold seeps into his flannel pants, and he shoves his hands into the pockets. Room 22. He knocks softly the first time, not wanting to have the wrong room—not wanting to come face to face with some hick in a wife-beater tank top, irritated at being woken up in the middle of the night. He hears a female voice curse inside, though, and it sounds like Rose.

The second time he knocks, he puts a little wrist action in it. Still no answer. He makes his next move before he fully thinks it through, which is good because if he had, he never would have had the balls to do it. He simply leans into the door and turns the handle. It must not have been fully closed, because the door opens.

Rose sits in the middle of the cheap motel rug, halfway in between the plaster-chipped wall and the bed, right smack in a puddle of water. Her cat is perched on the bed, watching him, poised and ready to flee. Rose lifts her chin toward him, like she's looking at him, but her eyes are far away. “Leave me alone,” she mumbles.

His heart climbs into his throat and makes it tighten up like a corkscrew. “Is it mine?” He barely squeaks, standing in the doorway, halfway in, halfway out.

“Leave. Me. Alone.”

“No.” He steps in fully, pushing the door closed behind him. He kneels down to her level, and it's all he can do to keep his eyes from tearing up. “Rose, you owe me this. Are you having my baby?”

“Leave me the hell alone.” She stares at him now, her eyes hard.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“You would've wanted me to get rid of it.”

Oh my god. It's mine.
Chase tries to steady his voice. “No—I would have
wanted
to consider some options. I sure as hell wouldn't have moved to Bakersfield and left you alone to figure it out.” Chase takes a deep breath and grabs a couple towels from the bathroom. He tosses one to her.

“Oh, come on. You're no better than any other teenaged accidental sperm donor. You would have pulled together money for a clinic. Guaranteed.”

“Maybe you don't know me very well.” Chase sits down in front of her so she can't avoid his eyes. “I'm all for pro-choice and that shit, but I can't imagine being okay with
erasing
my
own
child.” She looks away. Chase shifts his position once again so he can see into her eyes. They still seem distant. “And I'm here now. What's your plan?”

“My plan?” She laughs almost, but it isn't an oh-that's-funny laugh, it's a life-is-shitty laugh. “Well, I wasn't supposed to go into labor today, that's for sure.” She hesitates. “It sounds stupid now, saying it out loud.”

“Tell me you weren't planning to have this baby in a dingy motel room.”

She looks at him for a long time. “If I go to a hospital, my parents will find out.”

“Okay, so I'm new at this whole childbirth thing. But back in the day when women used to birth their children at home—and, by the way, they had mothers and sisters and aunts all there to help them, and sterile sheets and boiled water—back in the day, women
died
giving birth. Babies
died
being born.” Chase feels a new rush of adrenaline, and he straightens up. “No offense, Rose, but this isn't all up to you. This is half my decision.”

Rose clenches her teeth. “There is no
freaking
way I am letting my parents get their hands on this baby. I'd rather die.”

“So you want to keep it?”

“Well, I'm certainly not going to dump it somewhere, if that's what you think.” She stares at him, but his gaze doesn't falter. “And you know how I feel about being adopted. How could I do that to someone else? What else can I—” Rose breaks off, doubling over, groaning so loud that Nala leaps from the bed and darts into the bathroom. Chase can see now, as she hunches, a distinct roundness in her middle. Amazing how much big, baggy clothes can hide.

“I'm getting you to a hospital.” Chase stands.

Rose glares at him from the floor. “Screw you. I'll refuse to go.”

“Then I'll call the cops. You'll be endangering the life of a child if you try to do this on your own.”

Rose looks like she is about to come back with something caustic, but instead she grabs for his hand and holds on tight. She looks up at him. Her eyes are no longer distant. They are right there with him and wider than he's ever seen them. Terrified. The dark centers looks like a black holes. “I don't know what to do. I thought I did, but now I don't. I just … I promised myself I'd give this child a better start than I had.”

“You don't have to give your real name at the hospital. Just say you have no insurance. They have to help you anyway if it's an emergency.”

“Yeah?” Rose whispers.

“First we'll make sure you're both safe, and then we'll worry about what to do, okay?” Chase boosts her to a standing position. Rose doesn't answer. He finds her eyes again. “You're not alone with this anymore. We'll figure something out. Okay?”

“Okay.” She mouths the word, but no sound comes out.