“You don’t have to be ashamed, Paula. I’m just glad you came over and told me. You should talk to Max as soon as possible.” I was thinking it would be great for the two of them to smooth things over, but also I was thinking about my pregnancy and the fact that all of this secrecy was getting ridiculous. “Call him, please?”
“Will you let him know I’m calling, and why? I doubt he’ll answer his phone.”
“He’ll answer your call,” I said. “He always would have and always will.”
. . . . .
Max got home around midnight later that night, after seeing Paula. I was sitting in the den watching a documentary about earthquakes when he walked in.
“I can’t believe I haven’t experienced one since I moved here,” I said.
Max collapsed on the couch next to me. “You have.”
“That was a tiny one. You said so yourself.”
He was talking about a minor quake that happened one afternoon when we were leaving The Ivy, a restaurant in Beverly Hills. The ground didn’t quite shake, it was more like a quick vibration, and I initially thought it was construction related.
“Trust me,” Max was saying as I turned off the TV, “you don’t want to feel a big one.” And as soon as he said it, his eyebrows rose. “Or…do you?” He leaned over and kissed me on the lips.
“Later,” I said. “You’re not getting any action until you tell me how it went.”
And so he told me that after his mother called, they agreed to meet at a restaurant not far from her house. Max suggested it, thinking that it might be better to meet in public to keep the emotions in check.
Paula told him everything right off the bat, including the explanation that she had shared with me. He said the conversation about his father was short. They didn’t dwell on it. Paula wanted to know everything that Max had been up to while they weren’t speaking, and told him even though it was a relatively short time, she felt like she hadn’t spoken with him in years.
Max brought her up to speed on the movie, and all things related to his professional life.
Luckily for him, I had reminded him to take off his wedding band before seeing Paula. So he didn’t reveal the fact that he was married.
“I didn’t ask her anything about my father,” he said. “I don’t care and I don’t want to know. And most of all, I don’t want him to ever have anything to do with our children. I won’t let that happen.”
There was an anger in his eyes, but it quickly receded when I placed my hand on his head and combed my fingers through his hair, comforting him.
And he certainly didn’t say anything to Paula about the pregnancy.
“I think we should tell her together,” he said.
“That would be great. I would say give it as much time as you want, but we’re kind of on a schedule here that I can’t control.”
Max smiled. “Good to know you have a normal human gestation period.”
We lay together in silence for a few moments until I said, “Max, how are we going to handle all of this?”
That’s when he told me his plan.
SEVENTEEN
I worked mostly from home for the last couple of months of my pregnancy, when I was really starting to show. It wasn’t that I was trying to hide it from anyone, but rather, Max didn’t want the baby around all the hustle and bustle of a movie set because, as he put it, “It can be stressful.”
“So you don’t want the baby stressed.”
“Right.”
“What about me?” I said, feigning being upset, but Max saw right through me and knew I was being playful.
“You,” he said, “make enough money to handle the stress. Plus, you need to rest up because when we’re finished shooting and after the baby comes, I’m taking you on the most amazing honeymoon you could imagine.” And with those words he kissed me and left for work for the day.
I thought he was being a bit dramatic about the whole thing, but I can’t deny there were days when I looked forward to staying home and having the whole place to myself. It was kind of nice, too, when I’d see Max after a long day of being away from him.
. . . . .
Monica and Loralei organized my only baby shower, and it was just the three of us. And it was perfect. I had really grown close to them over the last several months. It was nice to have real girlfriends again.
At our little shower, Monica asked how long I was going to keep it from my parents.
“I’ll tell them after it happens,” I said. “I don’t want to deal with all of that while I’m pregnant.”
“Plus,” Loralei added, “maybe they’ll be so happy to be grandparents they’ll just let it go.”
“Doubtful,” I said, folding up a jumper Monica had given me for the baby. “Plus, I hate the idea of using the baby as a buffer in my relationship with them.”
“Oh, sorry,” Loralei said.
“It’s fine.”
The subject quickly turned to other things, and we sat on Monica’s deck, eating cake and enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon.
. . . . .
Max came home from shooting the film one evening and said Anthony and Carl had been giving him a hard time about not having a bachelor party.
“So have one,” I said. I was sitting just outside the den on the patio. I had my iPad with me and I was out there watching episodes of Dexter online. I had paused the show and was watching Max at the bar, as he made a White Russian, and he looked up at me when I said it.
“What?” I said.
“You’re encouraging me to have a bachelor party. You do know what goes on at bachelor parties, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Drinking, strippers…”
He walked over and sat down next to me. “And you’re okay with that.”
I shrugged. “Sure. It’s not like you’re going to fuck them. Plus, maybe they’ll get you all worked up and you can come home and fuck me.”
Max swallowed the sip of his drink and let out a little laugh. “I don’t need strippers to prime me in order to fuck you, Olivia.”
“What if I said you could bring one home and we could have a threesome with her?”
Without hesitating, he said, “I’d say you were asking me a trick question. Good try.”
“Good answer,” I said, moving over to his chair and cuddling up next to him.
. . . . .
Max’s mother called me late one morning and said she needed to talk.