Chapter Ten
La Sorpresa
Jean was babbling at him, again. For the past couple of days, that’s all she’d been doing. She would try to talk to him, and she would stutter around her words like a scared child. Usually, she would be fluttering around making sure things were perfect for her little party. But after their initial meeting about it, she didn’t show much interest in it.
In fact, Ororo had been doing much of the planning in Jean’s place. She gracefully took over while Jean would brood. Jean didn’t usually mope over anything for too long, especially not when she had a party to plan. Something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what. There was just a vibe he got every time Jean was around that sort of freaked him out.
She called him up, said they needed to talk. She wanted him to meet her at Luchesi’s, an Italian restaurant. He mentally began to go over excuses why he couldn’t meet with her, but then, she had to add the clincher. She said it was important, and her voice wavered as if she were about to cry. From the tone she used, he didn’t doubt for one moment that it was important.
He made himself presentable and met her at the restaurant. She looked like she had sounded on the phone, a mess. Bloodshot eyes greeted him when he sat at the table. She battled the wrinkles in her shirt, trying in vain to smooth them. He wasn’t used to seeing Jean like this. She was always so immaculate. Even after sex, she would run to the bathroom to comb her hair.
A server came to their table and took their drink order. Jean barely spoke above a whisper, as she ordered a water. She was usually more vocal than that. Jean laughed and talked loudly. She often joked that the club made her boisterous. Logan looked at Jean expectantly. He should’ve known she wouldn’t just come out and tell him whatever it was she wanted him to know. There were preliminaries with Jean.
At first, the conversation was light, but strained. She talked about the club, the party, the dress she saw at Saks. Her sentences trailed here and there, and Logan was anxious for her to tell him whatever she had to say. She continued to fumble around her words for a while, trying to salvage her ragged appearance in the process.
While she continued to babble, he thought about possibly things she would say. Maybe she would tell him that Scott found out about them. Maybe Scott was cheating on her. Or maybe Scott knew about them and was cheating on her as some sort of bitter revenge. Or maybe… he watched too much daytime television.
“You never think about the consequences of your actions until a problem is staring you in the face. Sure, there’s a little voice in the back of your head that tells you things could go wrong, but who really listens to that voice?” She finally said, and Logan stopped thinking about betrayal and revenge long enough to stare at her questioningly.
“What the hell are you talkin’ ‘bout?” Logan asked, slightly annoyed with all Jean’s rambling. What was this shit about not thinking about the consequences of your actions? He wished she would just get to the point. Women.
“Logan, I’m pregnant,” she said, covering her face with her hands when she finally got the words out.
Oh, shit.
She couldn’t get straighter to the point than that. “Why are you tellin’ me this?” he asked. He was well aware why she was telling him. He didn’t know why he asked such a stupid question. He hoped above all else that she wasn’t going to say what he thought she was going to say. Because if she was, he was going to need a stiff drink after this one.
“Because it’s yours,” she sighed. What happened to the ‘might’ that should have been in there?
“No the hell it ain’t,” he said louder than he intended. He didn’t mean to say that. Well, he had, but he knew how it sounded. It wasn’t exactly polite to tell a woman you’ve been sleeping with that the kid she was carrying wasn’t yours. A couple of the patrons in the restaurant gave him disapproving stares, which he returned with a hateful glare of his own and added, “There’s nothin’ to see here. Quit starin’.”
Their server approached their table with their drink. Water for Jean. Tea for him. He was going to need something much stronger than just that tea. Maybe he could get the waiter to slip something in it. “Are you ready to place your orders?” the server asked.
Logan looked up at the man, frowning at him. Didn’t that asshole see they needed some time alone? “No, come back later,” he said brusquely. The man nodded and walked off.
“Don’t turn into a bastard on me, now. This is just as much your fault as it is mine.” Jean continued once they were alone again. He wasn’t trying to imply that she was the reason this happened, but she was married. It was a good chance it could be Scott’s baby.
“If it’s mine, you mean. Did you forget about Scott?” he said. Then, he felt like a jerk for saying that, even if it was the truth. Jean winced and looked down at her hands. There was more. He could tell from the guilty look she had on her face. He needed that drink right now.
“It is yours, Logan. Scott’s been working so much these past few months that he’s been too“”
“Don’t. Don’t say that. God, don’t do this to me.” He said, cutting her off. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She really wanted him to believe that she hadn’t slept with Scott in months. This wasn’t going so well. He propped his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands.
“If it’s any consolation to you, Logan, I didn’t get pregnant on purpose, neither did I get pregnant alone.” She said nastily.
The server walked to their table again, a smile painted on his face. “Ready to order now?”
“Can’t you fuckin’ see we want to be alone?” Logan yelled at the man. All eyes in the restaurant turned to him, but he didn’t give a damn about their disapproving stares. “Come back later!”
“Wait.” Jean told the man before he scurried away. “We’ll have the herb ricotta gnocchi.” The man nodded, sighing with relief before nearly running away from their table.
“I can order my own food,” he grumbled. He didn’t even know if he wanted to eat. His stomach was twisting and turning, as things began to really settle in. He felt almost sick in fact.
“You’re going to get us kicked out of here with your outbursts.” She said.
“A crowded restaurant ain’t exactly the ideal place to tell your man on the side you’re havin’ his kid.” He snapped.
Why had she asked him to come here? This was the type of place you told your husband the shit he just told her. This was a place where you took your husband to celebrate that event. You didn’t call tell your lover those types of things in a place like this, especially if you were only having fun with that person. You could have told me this over the phone, he said silently. Oh hell, he said that aloud, didn’t he?
Her green eyes started to water over. He leaned back in his chair. Should he try to be a little more understanding? This couldn’t be easy for her. She was pregnant, and it wasn’t her husband’s baby. “Who else knows about this?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t say she told Ororo.
“Nobody. I wanted to tell you first,” she said quickly. A little too quickly, but he didn’t have any reason to believe she was lying about that.
God, was this week going to get any better? He fucked up with Ororo, and now, Jean was pregnant. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He didn’t think he could handle anything else without exploding.
His mouth parched, and no matter how much of the tea he drank, he couldn’t quench that dry taste in his mouth. It was a long time since he’d been really scared of anything, but he was scared now. “Get rid of it,” he said quietly.
“What?” Jean asked, her eyes going wide.
“Jean, this ain’t gonna do nothin’ but cause a lot of heartache and grief. Get rid of it.” He pleaded. He reached across the table and held her hand. He wanted her to see that he was sincere. He wasn’t just saying it because he was scared. Hell yeah, he was scared. His fear was talking, but it would be better off this way.
He always thought he would get some sense of triumph when Scott found out his wife was cheating on him. He didn’t want him to find out like this. He didn’t want to add an innocent to the mix, and he didn’t want to weigh Scott down with the fact that his wife not only cheated on him, but was also carrying his baby.
People could think what they wanted about him. Ororo could hate him. Yuriko could talk him into the ground. Victor and Mort could laugh at him behind his back. He wasn’t an angel and never claimed to be, but a child had no business being caught up in their sins. But this child didn’t ask to be conceived either, didn’t have a voice a matter, and now, he was asking her to get rid of it.
“I’ll pay for it. I’ll even go with you if you want me to,” he was choking on his own words, his own warring emotions. Should he ask this of her? Was it his place to ask this of her?
“No, Logan. I want to have this baby.” She said firmly.
He was relieved and let down at the same time. If she didn’t want to have an abortion, he wouldn’t push the issue. She had to know this wasn’t going to be easy, though. “What are you goin’ to tell Scott?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged dejectedly, slumping slightly in her chair. Scott was a huge factor, as big as the baby was. They sat in their respective silence, riddled with their respective thoughts. They still didn’t speak when their food arrived. Logan couldn’t taste a thing, but that persistent dryness in his mouth.
He couldn’t quite grasp the fact that he was going to be somebody’s father. Somebody was going to have his hair or his eyes or his nose or a number of his other features. Somebody was going to look to him for protection. Somebody was going to depend on him to be there for her or him. And that scared the hell out of him.
“Jean? Logan?” a female voice said behind him.
Double shit.
Jean looked over his head, smiling weakly at the person the voice belonged to. He took a deep breath and turned to face her. Ororo was standing there with Joaquín as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Their fingers were locked together, and there was a hint of a smudged lipstick stain on Joaquín’s cheek.
She was smiling so hard that he was sure her cheeks were going to freeze in that position. Her eyes were alive with feeling that she never shared with him. She was beating him down with her happiness, wearing him out, killing him on the inside. And maybe he deserved it for treating her like shit when he was “with” her.
“Hey you two.” Jean said, her mood improving slightly. Logan didn’t know if she was really glad to see Ororo or if she was putting on an act for Ororo’s sake. Logan nodded at them, turning his eyes away from them. It hurt. God, it hurt. He just wanted them to find a table, preferably where he couldn’t look at them. “Join us.”
He glared at Jean, and she looked back at him with a look that said, “What?” He hoped they would decline, say something like they wanted to be alone. No such luck. They pulled up two chairs and started looking over the menu. He couldn’t handle this. Not now. He had a kid on the way and Ororo was ripping his heart out of his chest.
“Where are my manners?” Ororo said. She waved a hand toward Logan as if he was as insignificant as a speck of dust. “Joaquín, this is Logan, a guy I work with. Logan, Joaquín. And you already know Jean.”
He couldn’t even respond at first, taken aback by her chilly introduction. He was just “a guy she worked with”. Not a friend. Not an acquaintance. Not even her goddamn enemy. Just some guy she worked with.
“Nice to meet you, Logan.” Joaquín said with a smile. Was this guy serious? Didn’t he know he was the enemy? No, he didn’t know he was the enemy. Ororo could have told him about them, but he doubted that.
“Yeah.” Logan said. That was the best thing he could think of to say besides “go fuck yourself”.
“And how is Scott?” Joaquín asked Jean. Jean reddened slightly, as if she had been caught in some kind of lie.
“Yes, how is Scott?” Ororo echoed with just a hint of hostility in her voice. Ororo plastered a tight smile on her face. Logan knew Ororo thought they were there on a date, and he couldn’t tell her otherwise. He couldn’t tell her there was a lot more going on than she thought.
“Scott’s fine. He’s been working so much these days…” she trailed off.
It sounded like a half-pathetic attempt to justify herself, and Logan found himself getting angry with Ororo. Couldn’t she tell from that Jean wasn’t exactly feeling okay? He felt like pulling her to the side and telling her that Jean was pregnant, that she shouldn’t be so hard on her right now. He couldn’t do that either because then Jean and the asshole would be suspicious. He sighed. This coming from the guy who just told her to get rid of the baby.
The rest of dinner was a torture session. Ororo and her sly comments that cut like sharp glass. Jean and her defeated silence that was almost tangible. Joaquín and his too joyful attitude that made Logan want to retch. Logan hated how he was constantly laughing, how he constantly had to touch Ororo, how he just wouldn’t shut up.
He really, really hated Joaquín. He was the only person he could direct all his hate at without feeling like a jerk. He couldn’t hate Jean. She was going to be the mother of his child. And he couldn’t hate Ororo because… Because? He asked himself silently. Because she was the woman he loved.
Love. That was an unfamiliar word “ even thinking it made him shift a little uncomfortably in his chair. Even if he did work up the courage to tell her that he loved her, how did he expect to deal with the fact he got her best friend pregnant. Yeah, he could just see himself ‘Ororo, I love you, and I’m having a baby with Jean. Now, shut the hell up and kiss me.’ If that didn’t get him slapped down, she was more than just a damn good woman.
Their eyes locked one time over the table. She didn’t shift her gaze quickly like she usually did when their eyes met. She held his eyes for a moment, and he thought he saw anger, sadness, regret reflecting on her brown eyes. He should have just blurted out everything right there in front of Jean and what’s-his-name. He didn’t, though. Instead, he was the one who turned his eyes from her. Fucking coward.
Eventually, Jean did ask for the check. Logan insisted on paying, even left the server a big tip for putting up with his crap. He barely mumbled goodbye to Ororo, as he tried to get out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. “Thank God,” he muttered under his breath once they were outside. He would have kissed the pavement if Jean hadn’t been looking at him as if he were out of his mind.
“Am I missing something?” Jean asked. She had a perplexed look on her face.
You’re missing a whole helluva lot. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“I was hoping you could tell me, Logan. What’s really going on?” Jean said.
He just shook his head at her. He wouldn’t even know where to begin if he did tell her everything that was going on. He didn’t even want to discuss that subject with her.
“There was just so much tension there. Joaquín was obviously the only truly enjoying himself.” Jean continued. She was prying now. She believed she was clever, and that her obvious attempts at trying to get information out of him didn’t sound like a snoop. He didn’t have the heart to tell her how wrong she was.
“She is friends with your husband. She obviously felt you were betrayin’ him by bein’ there with me.” He tried to keep his answer as neutral as possible. He didn’t need her asking if he talked to Ororo about what was going on between them.
“That’s not all, though, is it?”
“We’ll talk about this some other time, okay. We have more important stuff to worry about.” Like what the hell they were going to tell Scott. He still couldn’t believe he was going to be a father
