“I do,” she whispered back to Ruby.
They had picked out names, Olivia and David, for the child they would have. They had wanted just one child, so they could stay in New York, in their apartment on Bethune Street, and send their child to a good school, to summer camp, to ballet class or piano lessons or gymnastics. They would have one child and give it everything they could. “What a lovely, lovely life we’re going to have,” David whispered to her the night before he died. He died not knowing if she was pregnant or not. He died hoping, maybe even believing that she was.
Olivia lay in her bed, thinking of all these things.
Ruby was back, on the cot in the room that was going to be the nursery. That would be the nursery, she reminded herself. Because they struck a deal: Olivia would take care of Ruby so that Ruby would not have to rob anyone, or sleep in abandoned university buildings, or lie anymore. And Ruby would give Olivia the baby. Olivia knew she was crazy to trust Ruby. But she wanted to trust her. She wanted to believe that Ruby would live up to her end of the deal. If I don’t have that, Olivia thought, what do I have?
She would name it the name they chose.
She would send it to a good school, to summer camp, to ballet or piano lessons. She would give this child everything.
“What a lovely, lovely life we’re going to have,” Olivia whispered, pressing her lips to the wall. On the other side, growing in a young girl’s stomach, was her baby. Her hands fluttered above her own stomach, as if the baby were there instead of resting inside a fifteen-year-old girl who didn’t want it. Olivia had traveled in her lifetime from being the Protestant girl her parents raised to being an atheist, then a Unitarian, an agnostic. After David died, she was, she supposed, a nihilist. But now she believed that someone—God, maybe?—had brought Ruby to her. That she was meant to have this baby. “Karma is a boomerang,” Ruby had told her. And Olivia was certain that the good she’d done in her life had finally bounced back to her.
Winnie called from Rhinebeck.
“You have to get that house on the market and come up here and stay with us,” she said. “Jeff insists. I insist. We’re spending the whole month of July here and we want you.”
Olivia watched as Ruby ate the stack of pancakes she’d set before her. Syrup glistened on her chin, all sticky and sweet.
“July?” Olivia said. “I don’t think I’ll be ready by July.”
“Not ready? What is there to do there?”
“Actually,” Olivia said, “I’m not selling the house. I’ve changed my mind.”
Winnie sighed. “This isn’t good,” she said. Then she let out a little squeal. “Oooh,” she said, “the baby’s foot is right in my ribs.”
Olivia waited for the familiar pang of jealousy that came with every conversation she had with Winnie these days. But there was nothing. Instead, Olivia watched as Ruby picked up her empty plate and licked every last drop of maple syrup from it. Then she sat back and rubbed her belly in a lazy circular motion.
“It’s the most incredible thing,” Winnie was saying. “Watching a baby grow inside you. Did you get the sonogram picture I sent you up there?”
“Mmmmm,” Olivia said. Somewhere sat a huge pile of unopened mail, much of it addressed to David or “Resident.”
“Doesn’t that profile look exactly like me?” Winnie whispered. “I think Jeff’s kind of pissed off about that.”
“I’ve got to go,” Olivia said.
“I’ve upset you, haven’t I? The baby and Jeff—”
“Bye,” Olivia said, and hung up almost happily. Winnie wasn’t living her life. She’d made one of her own.
“Once,” Ruby said, “I went away with a married man for a whole weekend.” She pulled out a tin of Scottish shortbread from one of Winnie’s baskets, opened it, and started to eat. “My French teacher,” she added—wickedly, Olivia decided.
Olivia tried not to act shocked. When she was in ninth grade, she and Janice had a crush on their French teacher, Monsieur Levesque. They used to stay after school for special tutoring and do extra-credit projects. But they never even considered sleeping with him. It wasn’t how they thought. Once, Janice got a ride home with him in his convertible MG, and it was all they talked about for weeks—the way Monsieur Levesque’s hair blew in the wind, how his knuckles whitened when he downshifted, how he took off his tie and unbuttoned his top button for the ride.