Hi all,
Please read this little intro before you just dive in, because some of what I say here might determine whether you even want to read this.
Here I tackle a subject that's been done, done and done again-and again-in fanfic, but I've had several requests to write it. So here's my take on a popular subject, within the universe of the multi-chapter fics that I've posted over the past year at LiveJournal. This is a one-shot.
It takes place in March 2011, as Daniel and Betty are leisurely planning a September wedding and hard at work in their respective jobs.
There are reasons it's rated M, but a big hot sex scene is not one of them. I'm generally uncomfortable posting stuff that's even this vivid to the general public, but I need fanfic's technical capabilities tonight . . .
Fanfic visitors who are not members of WritingFromAnne, my writing community at LiveJournal, some of this will make no sense to you, as it includes a couple characters and some references to Daniel/Betty history that I've not published anywhere outside of my members-only community. But LiveJournal is screwed up-posting capabilities have been down for days for anything longer than a few sentences-so I've posted a link there, and people can read the story here. WfA members, I'll be updating the LJ site as soon as I can actually post there.
WfA'ers, I'm not sure who all is still reading. I've been pretty AWOL as I've been hunkered down, preparing for my big writing workshop next week. But I hope some of you are still around, still reading, and still commenting!
I'd love to hear from any and all readers, either here or at WfA! (I believe comments are working at LJ.) I hope everyone's having a good weekend.—Anne
hed: Girl Trouble
Considering that Betty had been living with Daniel for six months, sleeping with him for nine, and friends with him for four and a half years—and they were now engaged to be married—it made no sense that she was suddenly reluctant to tell him her period was late.
It wasn't like she was even worried about being pregnant—she took her pill every night before bed without fail, even the inert ones that led her to start trickling every fourth Tuesday morning at 10:30. She wasn't exactly shy about discussing such matters with him—after all, in their tiny, one-bathroom flat, bodily functions were hardly a secret. But she didn't want to alarm him—or drive his hopes up—over nothing, so she didn't mention it when Tuesday morning, March 23, came and went with no sign of her monthly friend.
Things remained clean into the evening, when normally by dinnertime she felt sodden and crampy. Knowing what was coming—what else could her weighted breasts and belly mean?—and to pre-empt a middle-of-the-night flood, she shot in a tampon at bedtime and was thankful Daniel dropped off to sleep seeking nothing more than a warm snuggle. Wednesday morning dawned with Daniel up early, noisy in the bathroom with his toilet flushing and his shower and his electric razor, to meet a potential client for a breakfast meeting across the Westminster Bridge. When he finally left and she could get in the bathroom by herself, she was surprised to extract the little bullet and discover it white as a cotton ball.
Throughout the day Wednesday, Betty kept checking. She was in the ladies' so often that Susmita—who she had to pass to get there—finally inquired if she was all right.
"Yes, fine, " Betty replied, injecting some pique into her tone to let Susmita know she didn't appreciate the nosy routine. Susmita shrugged with a "well, excuse me" sneer, which made Betty wish she hadn't been snotty herself. Ever since Susmita's budget-driven demotion to receptionist in November, their relationship had been a little cool. It had recently begun to thaw, if only because Susmita loved to hear about Betty and Daniel's wedding plans, and Betty regretted sending it back into chilly zones.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier," she told Susmita Wednesday evening on her way out. "I'm really fine. Just . . . too much water, I guess."
Susmita nodded and grinned. Anyone could relate.
The same excuse deferred Daniel that night when he glanced away from the ball game after her third trip in an hour and asked if she was feeling okay. With her reply, he nodded and grinned just like Susmita had, and Betty felt a spur of guilt for lying and vowed to quit checking so often. But she kept feeling twinges—an ache on her left side or a warm sensation that suggested things had begun—and she would sneak away to peek. Luckily, the soccer game's intensity kept Daniel from questioning her further.
But when she woke to the same circumstances Thursday morning, she began to think maybe she ought to tell him she was late. But since there was no chance she could be pregnant, what did it even matter to him? Usually they didn't discuss her cycle unless he made a nooky move on a bad day, and then she simply said conditions were unfavorable—their little code-phrase—and left it at that. Not elaborating seemed like a way to maintain some civility and preserve a little romance. Just because they were in love didn't mean he wanted to hear about girl trouble, did it? For that kind of talk, she had Hilda and Christina and Alice.
So on Thursday at lunchtime, she shut her office door and phoned her sister, catching Hilda shooing Bobby and Justin out the door of their Manhattan apartment. She listened as Hilda kissed them goodbye; something soft and hairy nibbled at her gut when she looked around her glass-walled office, out at Tracy and Patrick frowning over their computers, takeout containers standing at attention beside them.
"Okay, mama." Hilda said, sounding out of breath. "I'm here. I'm alone. Got my coffee . . ."
"I can't believe you're drinking coffee." Betty imagined Hilda, gamey and weak-eyed before her morning beauty routine, wrapped in Papi's old plaid robe and resting on the couch with a mug on her belly.
"One cup won't hurt me. The doctor said. Besides, less than a month to go."
"You feeling okay?"
"Tired. Big. And, God, the boobs. Scary thing is, they'll get even bigger when my milk comes in."
Betty couldn't imagine. She looked down at her own, so heavy they were throbbing inside her bra.
"Speaking of such things," Betty ventured. "You've been on the pill, right?"
"Uh, yeah. You remember—I went off when I was with Archie because I was bleeding all the time."
"Did you ever, um, not bleed at all?"
Hilda was silent for a moment. Then: "What's going on, Betty?"
"Nothing. I just seem to be . . . skipping." She sang it like Justin's catty—and skinny—girlfriends did when they decided they were too fat to eat their lunch.
"Are you on the off week? When you don't take the pills?"
"Yes."
"And nothing's happening?" Hilda seemed astonished.
"No."
"You take them every single day?"
"Yes."
"Really. Every. Single. Day."
"Yes, Hilda. Every. Single. Day." Now Betty second-guessed whether she even felt like talking to her sister. She didn't need to be interrogated about her level of responsibility. Not that Hilda would have any room to criticize. She'd gotten pregnant with Justin when she was 17, in the back seat of a rented Camaro on prom night, and had another unplanned pregnancy with Bobby—which ended in miscarriage—before they got engaged.
"Well, I never skipped when I was on the pill." Hilda made it sound like it was impossible.
"I looked online and it said not to worry if you skip one if you've taken it every day. But it's weird because this has never happened."
"They have Be Shures in London?"
Betty sighed. "I'm sure they have something comparable."
"What does Daniel have to say about this?"
Betty didn't answer.
"Chica?"
"What?"
"What does Daniel have to say about this?"
"Nothing . . . exactly. Look, Hilda, I better go. I'm at work—"
Now it was Hilda's turn to sigh. "Okay, Betty, but you need to tell him."
Betty should have known she couldn't lie to Hilda.
Thursday night when Betty got home, she was delighted to discover Alice Morris stretched out on the sofa. Daniel and Alice had done a presentation at a huge all-girls boarding school out in Surrey Downs, where a substantial arts program already existed, but with nothing like Alice's work. They had spent the afternoon with the headmaster, then taken the man and several board members to an early dinner.
"Daniel was a dear and brought me back here to have a wee and a lie-down before I get on the train for Luton," Alice said, waving to Betty. Reclined on the couch in a flowing skirt and long sweater, Alice didn't look four months pregnant. But Betty had seen her last week and knew her wispy waist had thickened significantly.
"So you're going to Jonathan's tonight?" Betty gave Alice a hopeful smile. "Does that mean good things?"
"It means I'll spend the night with him. Probably have some sex I shouldn't have." Alice sighed and thanked Daniel for the glass of water he handed her.
"Why shouldn't you?" Daniel asked, his eyes roaming to Alice's belly.
"Oh, not because of the baby." Alice waved her hand. "Just because I tend to feel very attached after Jonathan and I have sex, and I don't believe he feels the same."
"He must," Betty said. She knew that Alice, despite her insistence that she could raise her baby on her own, wished Jonathan would commit to an active father role. "Otherwise he wouldn't be wanting you to come to Luton."
"Perhaps." Alice shrugged. "Mostly, it just feels unwise. But that won't stop me tonight."
Daniel cracked an ale. "You two mind if I take a quick shower?"
"Don't mind me," said Alice. "I'm just going to lie flat out for 30 minutes."
"You're welcome to stay," Daniel said. "It's not the worst couch in the world."
"No, thank you, though. The sex is better at Jonathan's." Alice shot Betty an impish grin.
"Oh, I would have to disagree-ee-ee." Daniel singsonged from the hallway, where he was digging a towel out of the closet, and they all laughed.
When the bathroom door had closed and Betty heard the shower pounding the tile, she plopped down at the end of the couch and picked up Alice's foot, inside knit tights, and worked her thumbs along the arch. "Can I ask you something?" she asked.
"Of course, love. You keep rubbing my feet and I'll allow anything."
Betty smiled. Alice closed her eyes.
"Did you ever take the pill?" Even as she asked, Betty knew the answer.
"Lord, no!" Alice's eyes flew open. "Please tell me you're not taking that poison, Betty!"
Betty didn't say anything; she continued to massage Alice's foot.
Alice narrowed her eyes then, and Betty could tell she was biting back on an urge to say more. "Why are you asking me?"
Betty took a deep breath. "Because I am taking that poison and I'm late."
"It's dangerous." Alice studied Betty's face so hard that Betty looked away. Alice wiggled into a sitting position and grasped Betty's hands. "Your dear sweet mother died of breast cancer. Those synthetic hormones . . . that big study in America proved that they can increase breast cancer rates. You mustn't do that to yourself." Then, she added, "And it's not foolproof, you know."
"I can't get pregnant right now." Betty lifted her eyes to Alice's and for the first time all week felt a pinch of worry that she might actually be pregnant.
"There are other ways to prevent that."
"I know. But Daniel and I . . . well, it's not a good idea for us to mess around with anything too cumbersome."
Alice's gaze still did not waver. "I could help you."
"Help me what?"
"Stop taking the pill and be perfectly safe. You just have to know your body."
"I do know my body."
"Why are you late?"
"I don't know!"
"Then you don't know your body."
"Alice, that's not fair." Betty pulled her hands away and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Just because I don't know why I'm late—"
"You can't know it, Betty, if you're tricking it with chemicals. It's not only very risky, but you're missing out on the wonders of nature. Have you ever had sex without sheaths or chemicals or fake hormones, just you and Daniel . . . ?"
"Yes. And it was very risky."
"Get to know your body and it won't feel risky."
Betty jumped when she heard the soap bar hit the floor of the shower. She glanced at the bathroom door.
"What does Daniel have to say about this . . . tardiness?"
"I haven't told him."
"Why the fuck not?"
The fact that Alice rarely swore elicited Betty's honesty. "I'm . . . not sure," she stammered.
"He would love to have a baby with you, you know."
Betty nodded, and wondered whether Daniel had actually said as much to Alice. She knew they were good friends, often traveling between meetings on the train together. Daniel sometimes came home with what they dubbed "Tales of Alice"—always something a little outlandish, like the story she told him about how her mother took her to Greece the summer she was 13 and they lived in a secluded hut by the ocean, swam naked, washed their clothes in the sea and walked into a little town for groceries and art supplies each day. "I asked her what else they did all day," Daniel reported, incredulous, "and she said her mother wrote poetry freehand and she drew and painted and that it was the most perfect summer an adolescent girl could have." Betty, who had spent the summer she was 13 simultaneously mouthing off to her mother and eyeing her, terrified, for signs of relapse—all while obsessing about a boy who wouldn't look at her—had felt a stab of envy.
"Betty." Now Alice's voice was back to its gentle lilt. "You must share this with Daniel."
"Like you did with Jonathan?" Betty's steadfast gaze rivaled Alice's.
"Huh." Alice threw her head back, a gesture of disgust. "Actually, I wouldn't recommend waiting til your friends spill the pudding."
"I'm sorry about that." Now Betty regretted playing tit-for-tat.
Alice waved it away. "He had to find out sooner or later. But my point is, together you and Daniel must find out what's going on with you."
"I know." Why did Betty feel like crying?
"Would it truly be so bad if you were pregnant?"
"Right now? Yes." Betty thought of her job at Dunne Publications. Of the tiny flat. Of Hilda. Papi. Justin. And oddly, of Claire.
"Why?" Alice took her hands again.
"I don't want to wear a maternity wedding dress?" Betty tried to slither away from Alice's stare. It was partially true, and she couldn't help but consider the irony: Here she and Daniel were planning a September wedding, delaying it from spring or summer in part because of Hilda and Alice.
Daniel's shower shut off, so Alice lowered her voice to a whisper. "How do you feel?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your body."
"Puffy. Tired coming up the three flights of stairs. Achy. Sore." Betty cupped her breasts. "Crampy."
"So it could be any minute."
"I figure."
"Or you could be pregnant. Those are all symptoms." Alice twisted her mouth. "What about your heart?"
"My heart?" Betty put her hand to her chest. Beating, like always.
"No, love. Your feelings. Do you feel more connected to Daniel? To the earth?"
"I don't know." Truth be told, Betty felt impatient. With Alice's prodding. With her own body for delaying what was normal. As much as she groaned each time her period started, she also took for granted the status quo it represented. Although she'd never acknowledged it, there was comfort in those reliable streaks of red.
The bathroom door squealed open, then the bedroom door stubbed closed, too swollen in the moist climate to shut tight. Betty whispered, "I'd rather not tell him; just wait this out."
"Remind me how this works." Alice kept her voice low. "You take the poison for three weeks, yes? And the fourth week you bleed."
"Supposedly."
"So when do you start the poison again?"
"Sunday."
Alice glanced at the clock over the fireplace and sat up. "You can't start up again Sunday if you could be pregnant."
"I'm not pregnant."
"Well, you are stubborn." Alice glared at her. "Land alive, Betty, you annoy me."
Betty couldn't help laughing. Who else in her life besides Hilda would just say that? Even Daniel would walk away to avoid an argument before he would bluntly tackle her for irritating him. Where she and Hilda would be sniping at each other by now, Betty found Alice's tactlessness completely disarming.
"What's so funny?" asked Daniel, padding through in sock feet and age-soft jeans, smelling like steamed skin and floral shampoo. "Come on, Alice, if you want to have that sex tonight, let's get you to the station."
"I'll walk her over," Betty said, standing up. "You're all wet and it's cold outside."
"No—it's dark out. I'll come with you guys."
"It's a couple blocks. We'll be fine."
Daniel squinted first at Betty, then at Alice. "Suit yourselves," he said, shrugging. "I've got to get that proposal done tonight."
"So . . . help me figure this out," Betty said as she and Alice passed Nelson's Column. "It's too early to do a home test til next week. If I can't take any pills til I know, I could get myself into all sorts of trouble."
"That's true, until you get rid of the poison and back to your own cycle." Alice stopped by the fountain, her sweet face lit up by the streetlights. "This is a perfect opportunity to go off those things, though. Use another method for a month or so, til things get back to normal. Then I'll teach you everything I know."
"I actually know a little already," Betty said. "My mother was a great believer of the rhythm method."
"Catholic?"
"Yes."
"No disrespect to your mum, but she probably simply abstained for half her cycle. Which can work, but it's unnecessarily unsatisfying." Alice shook her head. "Let me teach you, love, and it will be so wonderful for you. No chemicals or poisons or rubber skins between you and sweet Daniel."
Betty argued, "There's nothing between us now."
"But there is," Alice insisted. "You just don't know it. You will get to know every nuance of your lovely self. Your own hormones will determine your desires, and you'll soon be having the very best sex of your life on the days you can't go all the way, because that's when your body wants it most."
"That makes no sense." Betty followed Alice as she began walking again, her long skirt whipping in the moist wind.
"No, it forces you to get creative."
"We're already creative." Betty thought about the paint scene on her inner thigh, and the bathroom at Harrods, and the dress-like-Daniel's-assistant sex in his old office at Mode.
"Perhaps, but I bet it nearly always leads to the same old thing: intercourse. Take yourself out of commission for three days when you're naturally at your most aroused and you'll discover new tricks to pleasing each other."
"It is not just . . . intercourse." Betty felt mutinous—and slightly resentful that Alice always managed to get her talking about subjects she was typically embarrassed to discuss.
At the entrance to the tube station, Alice stopped and took both Betty's hands. "Just think about it," she said. "You will awaken your body and your heart. You love Daniel now. Wait until you love him with your whole and natural body." Alice shivered. "You have no idea how intense and wonderful it will be. You have to believe me."
Betty looked down at her toes. "Okay," she whispered. "I'll think about it."
"All right." Alice hugged her quickly. "I must run. Go home now and tell Daniel you're late. He should know, even if it's nothing, because . . . well, because it's you two, a mighty team. And besides, behind all these clouds—" Alice flung her arm to the sky. "It's a waning gibbous moon and that's good luck."
"It is?"
"Well, I don't rightly know, but it sounds good, does it not?"
Again, despite her crabbiness, Betty found herself grinning. She pushed Alice toward the turnstile. "Go, you lunatic," she said.
"Off to have a merry hump!" Alice called, unfazed by the man who stood nearby, gaping.
Betty didn't have to think about it. There was no way she was going off the pill. Those first few days with Daniel, before she dashed to the clinic for a prescription, had been stupid. While it was true that familiarity and real life had interfered a bit since then, putting sex a little lower on the list of priorities, it was still high enough—and explosive enough—that they weren't good candidates for anything that required stopping mid-foreplay. She thought with a pleasant shudder about the porch on Fire Island, when he was so desperate and insistent, the act they'd since termed "the one-second coming."
She didn't want to start her next rounder of pills if there was any chance she could be pregnant. This possibility filled her with sickening chills and strange hope—on the one hand, she was so not ready. On the other, she had watched Hilda and Alice and their pregnancies thus far with a slight undercurrent of envy, and the idea of creating a new life with Daniel nudged her deep in her belly. Alice would say it was nature, pure and simple, and that it was what men and women were meant to feel together. But she'd never felt it with Matt or Henry or Walter. The thought that Daniel's fluids could mix with hers and create a new human being—it made her shiver.
Back at the flat, Daniel looked up from his laptop when she let herself in. He had changed into his holey gray sweats and an old Harvard sweatshirt. "She get off okay?"
"Yeah."
"I would've walked you guys over, but it seemed I wasn't wanted." Daniel searched Betty's face.
"Just girl talk."
"Anything I need to know?"
Betty squinted at him, trying to read whether he could have heard her conversation with Alice. He had turned back to his computer, though, and was hunched over the screenful of type. It was clear that his question had been perfunctory.
"No," she replied, heading into the bedroom to change into her pajamas.
"Actually, yes," Betty said, sloughing into the dining room in her slippers, pajama pants and a sweatshirt. She sat down across from Daniel, who looked up from his laptop, his eyes so vibrant above his navy-blue sweatshirt that she actually gulped. In the bedroom, she had thought about what Alice said about her and Daniel being a team.
"Yes what?" he asked. Obviously, his mind had tumbled through a thousand lifetimes, probably all related to primary and secondary school art programs, since she had last been in the room.
"I'm late."
"For what?" Daniel glanced at the clock. "It's 9 o'clock and you're in your pajamas."
Betty couldn't help smiling. "No," she said, gesturing at her lap. "I'm late."
Daniel still looked nonplussed, so Betty raised her eyebrows and jutted her chin forward in a nonverbal exclamation point.
"Ohhh." Daniel left his mouth open ever so slightly, an almost juvenile expression of surprise. His eyes dropped to her lap, then wandered back up to her face.
"I'm sure it's nothing," she said, standing up and rounding the counter into the kitchen.
"How late?" Daniel stayed seated, but he watched her the way his mother's cat tracked birds through the window.
"Couple days."
"So . . . that happens, right?"
"Umm . . . not since I've been on the pill. Every fourth Tuesday, 10:30 a.m." She pushed her glasses up her nose and reached for a water glass. "Without fail."
"Why would it fail now?" Now Daniel stood up. "Are you worried?"
"Not really."
Daniel moved behind her in the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her, capturing her arms at her waist. "They got Be Shures in the UK?" he whispered.
She giggled. "That's what Hilda asked."
"Come on," he said, nudging her with his head. "Let's run over to Sainsbury's before they close."
"No . . ."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll just be disappointed." Betty turned so their bellies touched. "Besides, it's probably too early."
"Either way, I wouldn't be disappointed."
"You wouldn't?"
"No, of course not. I know you're not ready. I also would rather we get through the wedding without that kind of complication." Daniel cupped his hands along her jawline and tilted her face up to his. "But if it happened, I'd happily make the adjustments. We could fly home and get married this month if we wanted. It's not like we have to worry about reserving a venue."
"Isn't your mom's back yard just one big muddy bog right now?"
"Yeah, probably. We'd have to move it indoors."
"And Hilda would have to wear a maternity bridesmaid gown, which she would never forgive me for."
"Even if it meant cousins who are close in age?"
"Even if."
They both snickered, and Daniel leaned down to kiss Betty. "Come on," he said. "Let's go get a test."
"But I'm in my pajamas."
"So? I'm in my sweats."
Within a few minutes, wearing running shoes and jackets over their baggies, they were hurrying through the mist toward Sainsbury's. Inside, Daniel looked a little green in the fluorescent lights, but every time Betty glanced at him, his eyes danced and his smile broadened. She hated that he was going to be disappointed.
"So," he said as they turned onto the aisle with the Depends and feminine protection products, "if you're not, then why would you be late?"
"I don't know."
"Do you feel different?"
"No. Just like I usually do before things start."
"Not sick?"
"No. Just . . . fat."
Betty stopped in front of the pregnancy tests and yeast infection creams.
"Hey, check this out," Daniel said, pulling a box off the shelf. The bridge of his nose wrinkled with mischief. "Warming gel."
"Uh, no." Betty snatched it and put it back.
"Why not?" Daniel grabbed it off the shelf again. "I bet it would be fun."
"It sounds . . . burny. Like a lot of unnatural chemicals."
"Now you sound like Alice." Daniel held onto the gel, but scanned the shelf.
"Well, I'd rather not have things feel like they're on fire." Betty took a pregnancy test in a blue and fuchsia box from the shelf and read the fine print. "Here," she said, waving it at Daniel, then reciting: "'Accurate as early as four days before a missed period.'"
"Sounds like the one." Daniel glanced around. "You want some ice cream while we're here?"
"Chocolate brownie."
Daniel sighed. He liked vanilla. "What's the condition of the freezer?" he asked.
"One carton." Betty made a face. Then, knowing Daniel would be crestfallen by the pregnancy test results, she said, "Okay, get vanilla. As long as we can get some chocolate sauce."
"Deal."
Betty dragged the Clearblue from the Sainsbury's bag and gave Daniel the ice cream and chocolate sauce. He headed for the kitchen with the bag while she beelined to the bathroom and shut the door. On the toilet, she read the instructions for the Clearblue—just like the Be Shure she had done with Matt, this didn't involve rocket science.
"Betty?" Daniel called. "Let me in."
"No. Actually . . . bring me a glass."
"From the kitchen?" Daniel sounded horrified.
"Where else?"
"Don't you just . . . use the stick?"
"Just . . . bring me a glass." Betty didn't feel like explaining that she wasn't sure she had the required five seconds worth to devote to the stick. Better to soak the tip of the stick in whatever she could produce.
Daniel knocked on the door and she opened it just far enough to take the glass. "Now go away," she said.
"Why?" He pushed to widen the doorway.
"Because."
"Betty, it's me."
"Just . . . I know. Humor me."
Peering through the space between the door and the frame, Daniel dropped his eyebrows in a familiar expression of hurt. "Fine," he said, and she could tell he was attempting to sound light. "So much for my attempts at involved parenting."
"Tell you what," she said, as she gently nudged his face away so she could shut the door without clipping his nose, "I'll let you read the results."
She could feel Daniel pacing outside the door while she worked with the cup and the stick, flushed the extra, washed her hands. When she had only the stick with a just-turned-pink tip that showed it was saturated, she opened the door.
The minus-sign appeared almost immediately. While they huddled in the bathroom together, waiting to see if a perpendicular line appeared, Betty swore Daniel was holding his breath; she, too, felt a little bit of unexpected tension. What if it was positive? She imagined Tracy taking over her job at Dunne, performing such magic during Betty's three-month maternity leave that Betty's return, weighed down by child care problems and a breast pump, would be endured rather than welcomed. She envisioned the grouchy old woman from the flat downstairs meeting her in the stairwell while she carried a squalling, stinky baby in one arm, a stroller in the other. Daniel repelled by her sagging belly and leaking breasts. Pacing Trafalgar Square with a fussy infant, in hopes the sounds of rushing people and fountains would lull it to sleep. Now a hollow loneliness swept over her.
But as the blue negative continued to show no signs of transforming itself into a positive, her manufactured loneliness ebbed away and she peeked at Daniel in the mirror and shrugged. "Like I said."
"These things are accurate, right?"
She put her arms around his waist and squeezed. "I'm sure this one is," she said, pushing him out of the bathroom. "Come on. Let's have some ice cream."
In the kitchen, Daniel was quiet while he ripped the shrink-wrap off the ice cream carton. Betty didn't say anything, either, as she tore the plastic from the fresh bottle of chocolate sauce. Side-by-side in the kitchen, he scooped the creamy white balls into bowls and she drizzled his with a thin ribbon of chocolate, then her own with such a thick cascade that the bottle farted under the pressure. When Daniel didn't snicker like he usually did, or make a snide remark suggesting she was responsible for the noise—another boyish antic of his—she worried that he was truly devastated.
"Daniel," she began, licking chocolate sauce off her finger. "Do you want me to go off the pill?"
"What?" He stopped, his arm halfway in the ice-caked freezer.
"Do you want me to go off the pill?"
"I heard you, honey. I just don't know why you would ask. You're obviously really relieved this has been a false alarm." He shoved the ice cream, getting an armful of snow on his forearm.
"Well, yeah. I am." She handed him the chocolate sauce to put in the refrigerator. "But you're not."
"Actually, I am." Daniel turned and leaned on the sink rim. He cast a disdainful glance around the kitchen and into the dining area. "We're not ready for children. For one thing, I'd like us to be married first. For another, we can't have a baby in this flat."
"The baby doesn't care about the size of the flat," Betty pointed out, even though she, too, had entertained similar thoughts. "Or whether we're married."
"Well, maybe not, but I do. Sorry—maybe it's my snooty upbringing coming out. And I also realized something else tonight."
"What?"
"I love it here, in London." Daniel held out his hands to her; when she took them, he pulled her forward so his breath warmed her forehead. "But if we're going to have a baby, I want to be in New York, near our families. I want my mom to have a real grandmothering experience and for our child to be a regular fixture at the Casa de Suarez and to have cousins to play with and trips to Fire Island and the creek out behind the mansion and white candles and tamales on Christmas Eve—"
"Really?" Unexpectedly, Betty's voice broke. With his words, she knew she, too, wished this. Tremendously. This was why she had been thinking of her family earlier. Of Claire.
Daniel didn't need her to spell it out. He brushed her hair back from her forehead and ran his fingertip over her eyebrow. "We're not ready," he whispered. "We're not done in London."
"No."
"But maybe we should start thinking about it."
"Okay, but I want to put in at least another year at Dunne and you just picked up those two new foundations . . ."
Daniel wrapped his arms around her back and hugged her. "So maybe in a year," he said, squeezing, "we start thinking about heading for home."
A flicker of excitement danced in Betty's belly—she felt a little like she had when she accepted Lindsay Dunne's job offer last May. She still loved her job at Dunne—although some of the shine had been stripped off by the hassles of middle management in a down economy—but the prospect of returning to New York with Daniel, plan in hand, excited her so much that she fought an urge to start throwing her underwear into suitcases.
"Not til I've been at Dunne for two full years," she said.
"Next summer," Daniel said. "Meanwhile, you better stay on the pill."
"Yeah." Betty laughed. "But Alice says it's poison and that I should go off and have the full experience of my natural body."
"And is Alice in any position to be giving us birth control advice?"
"Uh, yeah, maybe next summer."
Daniel laughed, throwing his head back to Betty could see the bottom of his unblemished molars. If she could trap that carefree laugh in a box, she would. She wondered what he had been like as a boy, besides soft-hearted and ambitious, and how his basic personality traits would meld with hers to create a whole new person. Athletic or bookish, or a little of both? Optimistic like she was, wry like Daniel? And, for that matter, what would their child look like? Blue eyes or brown? Short or tall? Pink and freckled or smooth and tan? Straight and strong, curvy and soft?
She said none of this aloud, but Daniel did. "Our babies will be beautiful," he whispered.
"They will, won't they?"
With that, Daniel reached behind her and grabbed his bowl of now-soupy ice cream and patted the bottom of it. "It's still pretty cold," he said, his eyes twinkling. "Want to play a game?"
"Sure."
"It's . . . naughty."
"Conditions are favorable." She picked up her own ice cream and licked chocolate sauce off the spoon with exaggeration.
"It's called 'hot and cold.'" Daniel bent and planted his lips against her neck, sending chills to her nipples and warmth pooling between her thighs.
"Okay, I'm hot and cold." Betty shivered and shifted her hips against his.
Daniel stretched up then and opened the cupboard above her head; he pulled down the evening's Sainsbury's bag. Puzzled, she watched him. They had bought the pregnancy test, a carton of ice cream and a bottle of chocolate sauce. What could be left?
Then Daniel pulled it forth.
Warming gel.