“I actually asked him to take care of her while I went after you,” I explain. I’ve known Ted for over fifteen years now, and to think he could have kept a secret like this for a decade seems unlikely. But I can’t fathom why Andi would lie about any of this.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was Ted?” Rini asks her sister. “This whole time I’ve been targeting Adam.”
“I couldn’t talk about what he’d done, Rini,” Andi says. “It didn’t matter what you knew and what information you were missing. I knew when Margot booked the retreat he would be here. I had seen their wedding announcement in the New York Times a year after our weekend at the Gansevoort.”
“Weekend at the Gansevoort?” I ask. “This wasn’t a one-time thing?”
Andi shakes her head, but she hasn’t looked at me. Not once, even after all we shared. She won’t look at Ted either. She’s been speaking directly to her sister the whole time.
“I tried to warn you all weekend, Margot,” Andi says.
“Okay, that’s it. We’re done here,” Ted says.
“Exactly. Let’s go,” Margot adds.
Ted and Margot start up the lawn toward the house, but no one else follows.
“None of you are leaving, not until we get to the bottom of this,” Rini says.
Ted and Margot look frustrated, but they don’t move. Aimee, Farah and I turn back to Rini and her sister.
“I need to hear more. Go on,” Farah says.
ANDI
Ted was surprisingly easy to find. He’d given me his real name, first and last. He’d shared what he did for a job, and the gym bag he was carrying that night had the name of the bank where he worked. I called him at the office and left a message saying I needed to talk. His voice-mail box sounded like the man I’d met: confident, not aggressive. Ted called me back an hour later.
“I thought you’d never call,” he said.
“Were you waiting for me to?” I asked.
“Of course. I had a great time that night. I thought you did too, but it’s been almost two months, so I assumed I was wrong.”
“How do you know I wasn’t waiting for you to call?”
“Because I put my name in your phone and said if you wanted to do it again, I was up for it.”
He was telling the truth, but I had forgotten. The morning after our first time together, I’d been disoriented. Aimee had attacked me, Adam had abandoned me, and I’d had a one-night stand with Adam’s friend. A lot had happened and it was just starting to sink in.
I wasn’t sure if I’d hooked up with Ted to make Adam mad. I wasn’t sure if Adam would be mad. Would he take it out on me? Would he blame Ted? It turned out worse than either of those. Adam didn’t care about me at all. But those motivations didn’t matter anymore; Ted and I had something bigger than us to discuss.
“I’m working tonight, but I can probably get out around ten p.m. Do you want to meet after my shift?” I asked.
“Perfect timing. I’ve got a work thing, but I should be able to sneak away by then.”
“Please let me know if you can’t.” I worried that I sounded whiny and needy, but Ted responded with kindness.
“I wouldn’t miss the chance to see you again,” he said.
Ted was true to his word. He picked me up in the alley outside my bar at 10 p.m. We made out there for a while, but I didn’t want to chicken out and not share my news. I recommended another bar where we could talk and where I knew I wouldn’t get carded. In the vein of our first encounter, he opted for luxury over practicality. No one checks IDs when you’re spending a couple of hundred dollars, he said. At the fanciest restaurant I’d ever seen, he ordered a bottle of wine and a half-dozen appetizers. I was starving and he thought I was cute for eating without inhibition.
“Well, you might not think it’s cute in a few minutes.”
“Impossible. I will always think you’re cute.”
“I’m pregnant,” I said. He looked at me, eyes wide, and I forged ahead, the rest spilling out of me. “I’m going to keep it. I’ve made up my mind. I just want to get our story straight if you reject having a part in the baby’s life. You can’t change your mind when she’s ten-years-old.”
Ted shook his head and a grin slid across his face from ear to ear. He pulled me in for a hug and wouldn’t stop kissing my face. I was stunned, and after the waiter came around to ask if we needed anything else, Ted ordered more food while I sat in silence.
“You didn’t even ask if it was yours,” I said.
It was his, but I’d expected him to try to deny it. I’d been with Adam, but we’d always used condoms. That night at the hotel, Ted didn’t have any and I told him it was okay.
“We had unprotected sex. This is what happens when you do that,” Ted said.
“I wasn’t lying when I said it was okay. I’d just had my period. I thought ovulation was weeks away.”
“I don’t care about how this happened. I only care that it did. We should celebrate.”
“Celebrate?”
“Let’s go away this weekend. New England is gorgeous this time of year.”
“I can’t. I have to take extra shifts at the bar.”
“No you don’t.”
“I do,” I said. Ted looked like he wanted to argue, and I secretly wished he would declare that he’d take care of me and the baby for the rest of our lives, but I think we both sensed it was too soon.
