Page 26 of Seven Minutes In Heaven
Chapter 9
Claire’s life was a rollercoaster of unfathomable emotions for the next five weeks. It didn’t help that said life continued down a destructive path of one sickening reveal after another.
Wish I could say that not getting the role was the worst.Ha! More like it was the easiest thing to digest since, as her agent always reminded her, there would be more roles and auditions. Failing to get one forgettable rom-com role was hardly the end of the world. Even if Jake had written the script with her in mind.
Fuck. Jake.
He was quietly relentless in his pursuit of Claire. Whenever their paths crossed at the Carter mansion or at the one industry party they both happened to attend, he was the consummate gentleman who only asked polite questions about her career and the wedding planning. Yet when she went home, she was subjected to unsigned letters, bouquets of her favorite flowers and, if she could believe it, the occasional mixtape comprised of soundtracks to movies they both loved. He called the first one, “Thoughts of You, Set to Late ‘90s Romance.” Songs fromShe’s All Thatand10 Things I Hate About Youwere at the top of the list. At least he forewent theTitanicmusic, even though that was how Claire felt about their mutual attraction.
Because itwasmutual. Agonizingly so.
She dreamed about him almost every night. Sometimes they were simple, sweet dreams like going for walks on the beach or having dinner at the top of a building. Other times she woke up so hot and bothered from how good he felt between her legs, that she flung herself over the edge of her bed and screamed into her nearest laundry pile. No matter what, she woke up with a tightened chest and a heart that asked her to please forget about that man.
She often woke up sick. It got to the point that her mother gave her dirty looks every time Claire raced to the toilet to be sick out of one of her orifices. The fact she missed two periods in a row was chalked up to stress. The alternative was something she couldn’t bear to think about.
Until she couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Just buy it.Claire stood in the middle of a Malibu pharmacy, sunglasses on and black scarf wrapped around her head. The tabloids had run an article about Claire and Arthur planning their May-December wedding of a lifetime, and it sparked a new slew of think-pieces on the internet. Was Claire a victim? Was Arthur a predatory creep, or just a creep? Whatever happened to Carmen, anyway? Hey, had anyone seen Jake recently? Wasn’t hecute?
So Claire was not in the mood to be spotted in the family planning aisle… not buying condoms or Kotex.
Buy the fucking tests!Two missed periods, enough puke to last her a lifetime, and constant, rabid thoughts of the last man she had been with? Pregnant. She was fucking pregnant, and it wasn’t even her fiancé’s child.
It washis son’schild.
Claire bought three, because why the hell not? She wanted two to be sure, and one extra because… why? To make her feel better? Sure! Why not!
The clerk didn’t look twice at her. She went home and snuck into her personal bathroom before any of her family or staff knew she had returned. The waiting game began.
What if I am pregnant? What if I’m fucked? What do I do?
She sat on the edge of her tub, face in her hands and phone playing songs of her childhood.Take me back to those simpler times, please.Claire was a robust twenty-five, yet she suddenly felt ancient. The weight of the test results weighed so heavily on her mind that she felt she had lived a whole lifetime and had missed the past fifty years. If only that were true. It would mean she was too old to be pregnant.
Both the first test and the backup test told her the same thing.
Pregnant.
She slumped onto the bathroom floor, numb.
***
“What do you think?” With his arm firmly encircled around his fiancée, Arthur brought forward a piece of red velvet cake and held it up to Claire’s lips. “I’ve always been a fan of things red and soft. Like your lips, Claire-Bear.”
She accepted the bite of sample cake and pretended to find it miraculously delicious. In truth, it made her sick. Everything sweet made her sick now. Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting was liable to make her lock herself up in the bakery bathroom and pray she didn’t lose her whole lunch.
“Maybe we should stick with the chocolate with vanilla frosting,” Claire said. “A classic.” Even better if it meant she didn’t have to sample any more cake.
The head baker nodded in approval. “Our chocolate cake is world famous. It comes in three main types that are excellent for weddings. I’ll have my assistant bring out the samples.”
Gag.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Arthur muttered into his fiancée’s ear. “All I had to do was pull a few strings, and now we’re getting a wedding cake by one of the most celebrated bakers in LA. So nice of them to do this at the last minute after the last baker got shut down, huh?”
“Yeah, really nice.” Claire had put most of the wedding plans into Arthur and the planner’s hands. The only thing she was semi-interested in was picking out her dress, and that had fallen by the wayside now that she would be about four months pregnant and probably gaining weight by the day.I’ve already gained five pounds.That could’ve been the stress, though. Like the stress of keeping her pregnancy to herself for the past two weeks.
She hadn’t told her mother, her friends,orArthur, that was for sure. She had a doctor she thought about going to, but had yet to drum up the courage to call him. That would be admitting what had happened. How stupid she had been.
How guilty she should have felt – but she didn’t.
