Melissa Senate Read Online Free Page B

That’s it.” She dropped down on the bed and burst into tears.
     
    “Stella?” I handed her the box of Puffs from the bathroom.

    She took a deep breath and wiped at her tears, then squeezed her eyes shut. “Okay, so I’m pregnant and I think the guy, the father, lives in Las Vegas. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s what he said. I want to try to find him. Okay? Is your answer yes now?” She stood and walked over to the window and stared out, biting her lip again.
     
    I stared at her. Stared at the profile of her stomach, which was flat as always.

    “I’m ten weeks, Ruby. Due in December. The second. Isn’t that amazing?”

    It was our mother’s birthday. But she’d died the day before she could turn fifty-four.

    Stella’s face crumpled. “It was a one-night stand. I don’t even know his name. I think it starts with J. Jake or James. Jason, maybe.”

    “Oh, Stella,” I said, now really aware what it meant to be unable to form a thought.

    She burst into tears again. She stood there and cried and I wrapped my arms around her.

    “We had this amazing chemistry, Ruby,” she said, her voice cracking. “But we drank so much and kept drinking and then in the morning he was gone, no note with his name and number, nothing. I met him in a bar and I remember he said something about living in Las Vegas and being here—New York—on business. I’m pretty sure he said he was a lawyer. Or maybe not. I can’t remember. I wish I could remember.” She started sobbing again. “How can I not remember anything about the father of my own baby? How can I do that to my baby? How can I do that after knowing what it’s like not to have a father?”

    I squeezed her hand. “It’ll be okay, Stell.”

    “Will you help me try and find him?” she asked, sniffling. “In between checking out wedding chapels—I mean, if that’s really what you want?”

    I had no idea how we’d find him, but I nodded. Las Vegas wasn’t Blueberry Hills, Maine, with its population of six thousand. How would we find a guy whose name might be Jake or James or Jason, and who might be a lawyer, and who might not even live in Las Vegas? “We’ll leave Monday morning,” I told her.
     
    It was Saturday. That would give me enough time to pack, to plan—what I didn’t know.

    I would make her do most of the driving, if that was okay for pregnant women, and I assumed it was. It would do her good to focus on the road. And I could stare out the window at the passing scenery, the passing states. And think. And that would do me good.

     

    I wouldn’t have opened the presents, I would have waited till I got back from the trip, but Tom’s sisters and aunts insisted. Once the party winded down, and it was just family (Stella feigned a migraine and disappeared into my bedroom with my laptop, to research the route), Caroline handed me a box with a bow. And she kept handing me boxes for almost an hour. Tom and I received great stuff, including a talking scale, exquisite wineglasses and matching kitschy lingerie from Stella.

    I lay in bed with the ribbons-festooned paper plate on my head that the Truby women also insisted on making me. Once it was on my head, I couldn’t seem to take it off.
     
    “You’re lucky I don’t know where you keep your scissors,” Stella had said earlier, making menacing cutting motions with her fingers.

    I was wearing the kitschy nightie. Tom was wearing the matching boxer shorts. Navy-blue silk with cartoonlike lobsters with thought bubbles that said: Eat Me! The lobsters were over certain areas, of course. Tom thought they were hilarious. You had to give him credit for that.
     
    It had taken me a while to tell Tom about Stella, about the situation, the road trip. I’d waited until he came back from driving Zelda and Harry to the nursing home. Then until we’d cleaned up. Then until we had some leftover barbecue chicken, and then until we went upstairs to bed.

    “I think it’s a great idea,” he