Page 8 of This Baby Business
A few hours and flights later, Levi headed home to Grace. This this had already become his routine, and it had become comfortable. On some mornings, he smelled garlic wafting from the closest town, the garlic capital of the world. He drove down Monterey Road toward his residential development on the other end of Fortune. When he’d landed here weeks ago, he’d discovered a three-stoplight town. A bedroom community just south of San Jose. Even so, here in Fortune, Levi had immediately noticed a strong sense of community, reminiscent of a small town.
It was no Lubbock, even though there were still a few small mushroom farms hanging on for dear life. This was the mushroom capital of the world, after all. The smell of fertilizer didn’t faze him at all. Instead, it was the high cost of living. The price of gasoline. The heart-attack inducing price tag on ownership of a single family home. He could go on, but why depress himself?
He definitely felt squeezed like an orange, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t familiar with sacrifice. One way or another, he’d find a way to make it work.
CHAPTER4
Carly
Athousand orso years later, I had changed Grace’s diaper about five hundred times, give or take, and fed her all three bottles. Levi had better get his cute butt here on time, or someone was going to blow a gasket. At this point I really couldn’t say whether it would be me or Grace. Possibly both.
Oh, yes, because I had cried at times right along with Grace. Turned out to be kind of cathartic. It had been a while since I had had a good cry. I’d always been guided and driven by my emotions, despite my attempts to think with my head and not my heart. I was a full-grown, twenty-six-year-old woman who’d always struggled in school, seen my career go up in flames, lost my mother from a sudden heart attack and had my father nearly confined to a wheelchair due to a hip injury. I considered myself a survivor. But today I’d been reduced to sobs because of a helpless baby.
As it turned out, Grace did sleep. Occasionally, that was, and only when the spirit moved her. It seemed to move her every half hour for about forty-five minutes, give or take. I had tried to get work done during that time, but I was so tense and exhausted that all I could do was sit and stare at the blank computer screen. Where to begin?Practice safe sex. Don’t have a baby until you’re ready to be tortured by a fifteen-pound human with a set of lungs that should belong to a six-foot-three male.But probably my audience wouldn’t appreciate that. All of my readers were already stuck—correction,blessed—with babies.
Regardless, I had made it through the day, and I couldn’t help believing I deserved an award for that. A badge or a trophy. Something. I’d certainly received an education. This baby business was so much harder than it appeared from a distance. Right now my living room looked as if someone had stood in the middle of the room and thrown everything I owned up in the air. I hadn’t had a shower yet. I’d barely eaten any breakfast, much less lunch. In fact, I hadn’t even managed to change out of the clothes I had on since this morning.
“When your daddy gets here, if he so much as thinks about judging me…I’ll—I don’t know what, but it won’t be nice.”
The good news was I’d narrowed down my favorite brand of diaper with Grace’s help. The bad news? I still had to write the blog post, because they didn’t write themselves. The fact that I’d struggled all my life with the written word, fighting and working around my dyslexia, meant that it would take me twice as long as it had ever taken my mom to write a simple blog post.
Interesting. I had dared to set Grace down on the activity blanket that a brand-new baby start-up had sent for a review. She hadn’t made a noise in about five seconds. Might be a record. She kept blinking as if she couldn’t quite trust her eyes. She seemed fascinated by the plastic mirrors sewn to the blanket, as if she’d just found a friend she wasn’t sure she liked or hated.
“I guess that makes two of us.”
I wasn’t sure that I liked Grace. She was way too loud, for one thing, and had the manners of a chimpanzee. Once today, she’d looked me straight in the eye and spit up all over my shirt. I thought for sure Grace had been aiming for my eye and missed. She’d been changed twice and now wore a red velvet dress that a new baby fashion company had sent.
But I had learned something significant today when I’d pulled out Mom’s baby bible during one of Grace’s power naps and tried to get through some of the entries in it. Crying wouldn’t hurt a baby. Grace would still be in one piece when her daddy came to pick her up.
And because I wasn’t actually Grace’s mother, just the babysitter, in a few minutes, her clueless dad would pick her up. I would be able to give her back. I’d take a shower, clean up my house, write my blog post and go to bed, where I would sleep without interruptions. I had an end in sight.
Maybe, just maybe, Grace could help me a little bit longer. Just until I got Mom’s company in the black. Because Grace could go a long way toward solving my authenticity issue. She could turn me into a serious baby expert.
I wasn’t sure Levi would be interested in my proposition, but why couldn’t I just fill in until he found a new babysitter? I was right next door. Easy. And good grief, if Levi even went through half of what I’d been through today, heneededmy help. I would suggest—no, demand—that he allow me, a bona fide baby expert (in training), to help him.
Incredible. It had to have been four whole minutes and Grace was still on her belly, blinking into the mirrors. She gurgled, reached out with her chubby hand and tried to grab it.
“You like that, don’t you? It’s something new. I think I’ll give it a five-star review since it’s keptyouquiet.”
The doorbell rang.
Levi. Right on time. Great. I shot up from my chair, but I didn’t know if I should take Grace with me to answer the door. What if something happened to her in the two seconds I would be out of the room? And what would Levi think? But if I picked Grace up now, I risked opening the door with her crying again. That also wouldn’t look too good.
The doorbell rang again. Impatient man!
I picked Grace up off the blanket again like a delicate china plate, taking the blanket along.
“Please don’t cry, baby. I need to make a good impression. You don’t know this, but you and I could be partners. I know you don’t like me, but to be fair, the feeling is mutual. You threw up on me and I know you were aiming for my eye. Don’t even try to deny it.”
So far not a peep from Grace, who had a piece of the blanket in her mouth and seemed to be gumming it. I was going to write a glowing review for this blanket and title it Lifesaver.
I opened the door to Levi, as suspected, and watched as his gaze went immediately to Grace. The way those blue eyes lit up gave me a little smackdown right in the chest, but then he noticed the dress.
“You changed her?”
“Do you like it?” When he didn’t answer, I waved him inside. “It’s a new dress and my gift to you both. And also, she spit up on two other outfits.”
“Uh, thanks. And sorry. Welcome to my world.”
