“So I have to do it. As much as I’m going crazy being away from her and the little one.” He rested his hand on Ruby’s large belly, but he kept talking right to Olivia. “It’s so amazing, isn’t it? She’s got a life in here. A baby growing inside her.” He shook his head. “It blows my mind.”
Olivia’s mouth went dry. He wasn’t talking like a person about to give his baby away. She could picture the fantasy that Ben had: he and Ruby and their baby—Sage—the three of them on an exotic island, feeding each other olives, swimming naked, drinking local wine, the baby in a papoose on his back, sleeping in a hut with a thatched roof. A poet, Olivia thought again, scoffing. He probably was in love with Rilke. Her fantasy didn’t stand a chance against his.
Ben cleared his throat. “I mean, we made a baby together.”
“By accident,” Ruby said.
His hand rubbed her stomach now like a man rubbing a lamp with a genie inside.
“Still,” Ben said. “We did it.”
Olivia said, “You want to keep the baby, then?”
The silence stretched between them.
“Of course I want to keep the baby!” Ben said. “It’s got my genetic code. And Ruby and I would have the most awesome kid.”
Olivia hated him, Ben the poet and his genetic code.
“But,” he added, “I’m only nineteen years old. I can’t keep it.”
Ruby grinned at Olivia, satisfied, as if to say, There!
“Look,” Ben said, “I have twenty-four hours off. That’s all. And it took me nine hours to get here. And nine to get back. Then it’s back to the fucking Adirondacks and a bunch of spoiled brats who couldn’t serve a tennis ball or lob a shot if their life depended on it.” He nuzzled Ruby’s hair. “It’s back to life without Ruby.”
“Can’t he stay, Olivia?”
She wanted him gone; Olivia wanted Ben out of her house.
“I didn’t lie about the movies,” Ruby said. “I’m on my way and I look down the street and it’s like I see a mirage or something. Ben. Coming toward me. And I blink like a hundred times. But he’s still there, coming toward me.”
“I surprised her,” Ben added.
“He hitchhiked the whole way,” Ruby said, sighing because, of course, hitchhiking was the most romantic way to travel.
“Because I’m saving every penny I make up there for our tickets out,” Ben said again.
Could they have worked out this story so carefully? Olivia wondered.
“And I told him everything that’s happened. How you’ll keep the baby for us,” Ruby said.
Olivia focused on the word keep. This baby was not going to be on loan until they got older and were ready to take it themselves. You kept someone’s cat while they were out of town. You kept their plants. But a baby was something else.
“We couldn’t give it to strangers, you know. That sort of freaked me out,” Ben said. “They could be anything. Republicans even.
“First thing in the morning, he’s got to leave. And I won’t see him again until August,” Ruby said, frantic.
“She might even have the baby by then,” Ben said. He was nuzzling again, stroking her arm.
“Stop!” Olivia said, startling both of them enough for them actually to stop and look at her.
Until now, she had avoided confronting Ruby about the legal end of all this. As much as Olivia was watching Ruby, wanting to trust the girl, she had also been trying to make sure that Ruby trusted her. Olivia wanted to prove that she was going to be not just a good mother to Ruby’s baby but the perfect mother. She wanted Ruby to be absolutely convinced that this was where the baby should be, that there was no better choice for Ruby. She didn’t want Ruby to change her mind. But now, Olivia realized, it was time to get to the legal details with Ruby. And with Ben.
“I’m going to have to get something in writing. An agreement that you two will let me have this baby.”
They glanced at each other.
“And I have to know about your parents, Ben. Ruby’s are out of the picture,” Olivia said, and an image of Ruby’s mother in the doorway of that rust-colored house drifted into her mind. Olivia took a breath. “But where do you stand?”
“Man,” Ben said. “I thought you said she was cool, Ruby.”
“I just can’t take any chances,” Olivia said. She could not keep her voice from trembling, sounding weak.
Ruby and Ben exchanged looks again. They were at that age and had that belief in romance that allowed them to communicate this way. They were pure, in a way—untouched by couple’s counseling and broken hearts and catchphrases like “what I hear you saying.” They were, simply, in love.
“Okay,” Ben said. “That’s cool.”
And Ruby nodded.
Olivia tried to think of where to begin, but Ben was already talking.
“My parents know about the baby,” he said. “They totally freaked and sent me up to that camp like a slave.”
“They forbid him from seeing me,” Ruby said proudly.
“Like I could stay away,” Ben said, burying his nose in her hair.
“Where are they?” Olivia asked him.
“Westchester. Living their white-bread lives in a six-bedroom colonial. Driving their Mercedes-Benz into Manhattan every day to screw people out of money.”