Page 10 of My Girlfriend is Not the Father

The client shook her head. Jade gathered up her tools and returned to the back room. While she ran the brush and bowl under the water, Amanda popped in.

‘I’m so irritated right now,’ Amanda said, her dark eyebrows scrunching. ‘The delivery driver just said I looked like Halle Berry.’

‘Yikes,’ Jade said through gritted teeth as she stuffed the brush into the drying rack. ‘I mean. She’s beautiful, but you’re twenty, not fifty. I literally just saw her on this amazing program talking about menopause. And you don’t even look like a young Halle Berry. Maybe he meant Halle Bailey?’

Amanda rolled her dark brown eyes. ‘Like, why say anything at all? Whatever. Anyway, he dropped something off for you.’

Jade tightened the top of the developer bottle and set it on the shelf. ‘Shipment doesn’t come in until tomorrow.’

‘It’s not shipment. It’s a basket. Kind of … a random basket.’

The twinkle in Amanda’s voice piqued Jade’s ears. ‘Random basket?’

Amanda inched closer with a grin. ‘All I have to say is I am soooo curious what the thought process was behind the selection. You know, in my forensic psychology course, we’re examining motivations for certain behaviour. Tomorrow, I’m looking up what would compel someone to send … that.’ The phone rang and she bounced away.

I’m so confused. But also, so damn curious. Jade pushed through the swinging door, smiling at a client in Shayna’s chair. When Jade rounded the corner to the reception desk, she stopped.

Facing her was a lovely wicker basket with three bottles of sriracha, a chocolate bar, and a … huh? … bottle of organic eucalyptus lemon cleaner. She picked up the card tucked in the middle.

Jade—

Funny story. I stopped at a pharmacy, and they had a huge display of sriracha! Who knew you can get aspirin and an (apparently) delicious sauce at a drug store? Not this gal, that’s for sure. Wondered if you found any, so I thought I’d get some and put it in a thank-you basket. But then I thought, a thank-you basket should also have chocolate. But the chocolate seemed weird in the mix, so I thought I’d throw in this cleaner, which is also kind of weird, but whatever. It smells amazing, by the way. Anyway, this is the longest note in the world to say thank you again for returning my wallet. Cheers! ~ Lucy Sunshine Green

The flutter in Jade’s chest shot straight to her head. She flipped over the card. Huh. No phone number. Maybe that meant Lucy didn’t want Jade to contact her. Or maybe she wanted to leave her number but didn’t want to be presumptuous. But Jade had to thank her for the thank you, right?

She cracked open the cleaner and sniffed. A burst of citrus and spring floated to her nose. Okay, wow. It did smell heavenly.

Amanda dipped her head towards the bottle. ‘Dang, that smells good. But, what the hell? Sriracha and cleaning products?’

Jade bit back the smile forming and tucked the note in her back pocket. ‘I found a lost wallet at the grocery store the other day, and the wallet owner just sent a thank you.’ Maintain calm demeanour. Despite being nearly fifteen years younger than Jade, Amanda was one of the most intuitive people Jade had ever met. And Jade was in no shape to describe the surprising goosebumps on her neck, nor the reason the sensation scared her so much.

Amanda twisted her lips. ‘Well, it’s definitely an odd mix, but I can get behind that.’

Odd, but also kind of perfect. Lucy was sweet. With her intense work schedule and strict policy of not getting too friendly with clients, Jade hadn’t made a single friend in town. She’d made that mistake a few years back. And when one of her stylists royally screwed up an ash-blond balayage on Jade’s friend, Jade defending her employee ruined their relationship.

Oof. Now what? Lucy wasn’t a client, so Jade wouldn’t be breaking any personal protocols by reaching out. But this was Stillwater, not Chicago, and even though Jade had been here for a year, she wasn’t privy to all the cultural and societal norms of the small-ish town. Would she be considered a grade-A creep if Jade found Lucy on social media and shot her a message? Back home in Chicago with a population edging towards three million, that was the norm. But here, when you have a legitimate chance of running into that person several times a year, that might be totally frowned upon.

And does she want to contact Lucy? Yes. But also … no. It had been a long damn time since tingles fluttered in her belly the way they were now, and as warm and fuzzy as they felt in there, bouncing around, they also made Jade’s stomach knot.

Jade stood at the counter way too long staring at the assortment, like somehow the sriracha bottles had a magical genie stuffed in there, and if she rubbed the side, the mythical entity would tell her what to do. Finally, she walked the basket to the break room, set it on the counter, and contemplated – hard – on her next move.

Chapter 5

Lucy

There is something wrong with my mind.

Lucy clicked the pencil against the desk. Yes, yes there is. She smirked, but quickly made an effort to look more serious, not wanting to create any flags for the MMPI exam proctor. Every so often, he’d scribble something on his clipboard, and she vowed to try to get a good peek at his notes later and see what he wrote.

She checked ‘no’ and moved to the next question.

The surrogacy coordinator was not kidding – this exam was like giving mental birth. The name alone, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, was intimidating enough. Her brain hurt, her fingers were cramping, and she kept thinking each question had a double meaning.

She stretched her hands above her head. The industrial clock in the stuffy room clicked slowly, each second dragging. She gripped the desk and twisted. Ah … a chorus line of cracks flew up her spine. Come on, come on, focus. The test was important – one of the last things needed before getting the final stamp of approval to move forward with the embryo implantation. She needed to buckle down and stop staring at the clock. It wasn’t even a timed test, so why did she care how long she’d been in this boiler room?

Memories of stressing over cranky-butt Professor Waddle’s English exams flooded her. So many rules for the English language. Using commas to set off conditional clauses, predicates, dangling modifiers—

And … her focus had slipped. Again. She’d clocked nearly ninety minutes by now and was ready to bust out of this joint. She smoothed the last page against the table and gripped her pencil. The second she marked down her final answer, she was shooting up from her seat and practically sprinting towards the door.