Page 13 of Expecting an Argument
I patted my belly from within my hoodie pocket. All my favorite coping mechanisms were out the window now. If I hadn’t been fired, I don’t know how I would have survived the stress and long hours while being pregnant. Sacrificing my own health while pushing toward the finish line was fine, but I couldn’t do that to my baby.
I would just have to be like Mom and…make it work somehow.
“Regardless, don’t worry about us—we’ll figure out how to fund the renovation,” Ashley promised. “We have over a million followers across all our platforms, I’m sure we can get some of them to chip in. Maybe we’ll give donors exclusive renovation content or something.”
I glanced at Ashley as she took another sip of her seltzer. Going viral our senior year of college with that clip of her strangling me had been like catching lightning in a bottle. What would have been a week of internet fame for most people, Ashley and Tyson had turned into a career. That one viral moment snowballed into recognition when they started filming their house renovation, then became credibility when they documented turning the abandoned department store into Copeland’s Corner.
If anyone could get the eyes and support needed to turn Miss Kaye’s house into the most-booked event venue in the state, it was Ashley and Tyson. They had better fortune than anyone I had ever known.
I ran my hand across the swell of my belly. If only I could be so lucky.
Ashley spared me the embarrassment of squeezing between Tarik’s and Kierra’s car seats by letting me ride shotgun as Tyson drove us to his mother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. I balanced the pies Ashley had baked on my lap while Tyson led the entire car in the Plains State school chant.
“Ride on, Stallions!” Tyson chanted as he pumped his arm.
“Ride, ride, ride!” cried Ashley and Kierra from the back seat.
I wanted to chant along with them, but I was too afraid I would vomit if I opened my mouth. Besides, I couldn’t stop thinking about my upcoming meeting with Beau.
Beau had sent me the address of where he wanted to meet to discuss the pregnancy, but I couldn’t find any information on the place. My phone’s map showed that it was near a small lake—maybe the brunch spot didn’t exist and he was going to fill my shoes with concrete and throw me in the water to cover up a scandalous pregnancy.
I tapped my nails against one of the pie dishes. As much as we hated each other, Beau was too cowardly to kill me. No, he was probably sending me to an exclusive lakeside country club—so exclusive that thepoorsweren’t able to even look at it online. We’d probably sit at a table with crisp white linens and drink grapefruit juice from crystal goblets as I explained that I was carrying his child.
My cheeks grew hot as my slightly puke-stained hoodie felt even grungier. Beau wasn’t going to hurt me, he was going to humiliate me. The thought of walking into this meeting when I was about to be a multi-millionaire was tolerable, but now that I again had nothing…
No, I didn’t have nothing. I had savings. Ashley and I were going shopping before our meeting. I could get a new outfit so I could charge into the battle of the brunch with some confidence.
But could I still afford my favorite stores? Maybe with their Black Friday sales, I could get a few pieces…practical pieces…maternity-friendlypieces…
Memories of cabinets full of plastic restaurant cups and packs of ramen weighed on my mind. I wiggled my toes in my sneakers if only to prove I wasn’t just pretending they weren’t too tight. I mentally ran through my morning routine—I had showered and put on deodorant so I was sure I didn’t smell, I had brushed my teeth in the sink of Ashley’s guest bath and not with a bottle of water I had filled from the school drinking fountain, and the only reason I hadn’t eaten breakfast was because of my nausea and not because it was the easiest meal to skip.
I grounded myself in the pressure from the glass pie dishes against my thighs. I was an adult now. I had control over my life and my finances. My bills were paid. My car wasn’t about to get repossessed. My Thanksgiving dinner was coming from Tyson’s mother and not out of a cardboard box from the Beau L. Fontaine Family Center.
The back of my head fell against the headrest as I stifled a groan. When I was in school, not a year had gone by where my mother’s name wasn’t on a list for holiday meals at the F.F.C. I had always told myself that it was Beau’sgrandfather’sname on the building to spare myself the mortification that I was only eating thanks to his charity.
But even if Beau had never set foot in the F.F.C. and never seen that highlighter-yellow clipboard with undeniable proof that my mother relied on his family, he knew what I was. He never had to say it, but I saw it in the way he looked at me and how he talked to me—I was poor, dirty, and worthless.
It didn’t matter that I had beaten him in the valedictorian race, or that I had cleaned up enough for him to want to fuck me on a couch, or even that I was bearing his child, Beau Louis Fontaine III was never going to let me forget that I was beneath him.
I set my jaw. No, I hadn’t let him win when I was a kid and I wasn’t about to let him win now that I was about to be a mother.
I would fulfill my moral obligation to let him know he had a child on the way and leave. I wouldn’t ask for his money or his involvement. My dad wasn’t around and I had turned out fine, and my child was going to be just fine too.
My child would grow up knowing we were strong, independent, and worthy. I had a long road ahead, so I needed to set that examplenow.I would walk into our brunch meeting, dressed my absolute best, and hold my head high.
I still had my dignity, damnit.
Tyson parked in front of his mother’s house and we all got out of the car. Everyone except me was dressed to the nines. Kierra wore the sparkly dress her Aunt Destinee had sewed for her and her hair was pulled into two curly puffs accented with adorable orange bows. Baby Tarik even wore an orange button-up shirt and tiny black leather shoes.
Ashley had complained about how tough it was finding “Sunday best” clothes in PSU orange and black, but Tyson said we needed school spirit to win the Thanksgiving game and no one was going to argue with the man who had secured our first national championship.
Tyson opened the front door and the cacophony of smells of the Thanksgiving meal hit my nose. My mouth watered. My stomach knotted. Ashley had only just taken the pies from my hands before I turned on my heel and sprinted off the porch.
I threw myself on my hands and knees on the lawn as the first wave of vomiting tore through my throat like liquid fire. My stomach jerked painfully as it purged all my crackers and water from earlier.
I coughed and spat into the brown grass once the sickness finally stopped. If I vomited in front of Beau at brunch, I was going to fill my own shoes with concrete and jump into the lake.
Beau Fontaine wouldnotsee me bleed...or barf. I had to get my shit together.
