Save the Date (Modern Arrangements) (12 page)

Having taken care of my father for so
long now, it was my life. Since his heart attacks and the eventual transplant
he needed, we are financially stressed. His funds from his previous fisherman
job paid for as much as possible but there were still past due medical bills.

Having been away in college in New York
when his transplant was needed, I started working to help pay for my own
personal expenses as well as help my father out. Soon, one job became two and my
classes started to suffer. I'd actually bought my father’s home so the money he
made from the house could be used to pay medical bills. My debt increased
dramatically. On the verge of dropping college, I spent a lot of time searching
for a better paying job or more hours, something to get us by. Moving back to
Winter Harbor with my father was also becoming a real possibility.

Now, Donald was sick again and in and
out of the doctor’s office and hospital. The bills once again piled up. The
mortgage for the house was about to default. When Donald used to have moments
of feeling better he would work under the table for friends but now he was too
weak, too sick.

Aidan was a frequent visitor to the
apartment and old friend of Dixon, so it wasn’t uncommon to see him around.
He’d become a fun acquaintance. It also didn’t throw me off guard when he knew
slightly too much about my life. Dixon always acted like a gossipy woman. However,
when he suggested he could buy me for four years to be his incubator, I almost
punched him in the face.

Did he think I was for sale? I was his last
act of desperation? Really?

Walking into work, seeing him sitting smugly
at the end of the bar brought the hairs on the back of my neck up. Anger flared
in my chest. I stalked down to the end of the bar towards him, his eyes
intently on mine.

"What the hell do you want,
Aidan?" I snapped. "You here to throw money at me again, did you want
to talk with my pimp?"

"Lilli, I never meant to insinuate anything
like that," he ran his hand through his already mussed hair. "I don’t
think that way about you. I just think that this is a good arrangement for both
of us. It would help us both."

"You’re out of your mind if you
think you can buy me for four years to be an incubator," I spit out and
turned on my heels to walk away.

"Wait," he shouted.

Spinning around. "What?" I
snapped.

"Just take this and think about it…"
He was pleading with me, not only in his words but with his eyes.

Grabbing the large envelop he was
holding out, I walked away.  I threw it in the trash can and started my shift
behind the bar. Later, I glanced back down the bar. He was gone. Breathing a
sigh of relief, I went about my night dealing with overzealous frat boys and
arrogant businessmen.

At the end of my shift, I grabbed for my
bag. As I reached in for my sweatshirt, I found a large envelope. THE large
envelope.
How the hell? How dare him!

I must've had one hell of a look on my face
because Celia put her hand on my arm.

"Are you okay?"

"No," I growled.

"What the hell is that?" She
motioned to the envelope.

When I was finished telling her about
Aidan's proposal, she looked thoughtful.

"Celia?" She didn't look
pissed like me.

"Lilli," she sighed.
"Lilli, do you want me to be honest?"

I stood for a moment not responding and
then nodded.

"You work, what, three jobs?" I
nodded, again. "And this would take care of all your debt and
college?" Anger began to boil in my chest. "Lilli honestly, if it
were me, I would consider it. Given everything you're struggling with right
now, if I were in your place, I would probably consider it heavily."

"How could you sell yourself?"
I seethed.

"Because it would help my family,
if I still had one." A moment of sadness flashed in her eyes. "I
would do it now if someone told me they could bring them back to me. I would do
it." Her voice lowered during the last sentence.

"You could have a child with
someone you don’t even know, knowing you will be divorced in four years? How
could you do that to a kid?" I still couldn't believe what she was saying.

"Well, it’s not a preference but,
at the same time, the child would be loved and well taken care of. I would just
make sure that my child always felt that, no matter what was going on, I loved
them." She looked me straight in the eye.

"I can’t do it. I’m not for sale
and neither is my uterus." I argued.

She shrugged.

"I’m just saying you should at
least think about it. Besides, who says you have to agree to all of these
terms. If this is a
business
arrangement
, as he calls it, then
you can always counter offer." She smirked and put her arm around me walking
us out of the club.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Over the next couple of days I couldn’t
get it out of my mind. The nerve he had to ask this of me, how right he was
about me needing the money and Celia being so blasé about the situation. It all
infuriated me even more. I decided to call Phoebe.

"Hey doll, what’s up?"

"Oh, just wait till you hear
this!" I groaned.

"Ooohh…hold on…let me grab some
Twizzlers."

There came a rustling of clothing and
drawers opening then closing.

"Okay, Go." She said,
excitedly.

"You remember Aidan, right?"

"Mister marry me and have my babies?
Yeah." She started to get a familiar tone in her voice.

"Oh, no, no, no, it’s not
that!" Before she got it in her head that we were hooking up.

"Damn," she pouted.

"What the hell, Phoebe?"

"Well," she whined, "I
wanted to hear details about his man candy." She huffed. "Just from
sitting and looking him over,
thoroughly
, I can only imagine what
his—"

"Stop!" I couldn’t take
anymore, not right now. I launched into the story of Aidan in my kitchen and
then him showing up at the club. Phoebe didn’t say anything for awhile and I
was starting to get angry. "Hello?"

"I’m here," she said flatly.

"I swear, if you agree with Celia I'm
going to lose my fucking mind." I threw myself down on my bed. The soft
light blue cotton blanket and pillows engulfed me.

"Well, honestly, she has a point
about the benefits; however, before you go all bitch-face on me, I think it’s
shitty he would assume just because of your da…your situation that he could buy
you like that," she huffed. "Plus, who is he to make you his act of
desperation?"

Finally! Someone understood!

"Thank you!" I breathed out in
relief. "Then, to top it all off, Celia’s comments keep playing around in my
head and I can’t seem to get them—"

"That’s because she’s right,"
Phoebe blurted.

"What the—?"

"Lilli, I said he was shitty for it,
yes, but that doesn’t make Celia wrong. It would be like the best thing to be
able to take care of everything for your dad and college without having to work
four million jobs and dropping out."

"Who told you that I was
drop…Dixon," I growled.

"Oh, hell, Lilli, do you think Dixon
doesn’t talk to me about everything? Please. We’ve been friends for years.
Don’t act like it’s a surprise." She said nonchalantly. "I am
surprised that he didn’t call me and tell me about this though, since you took
forever," she huffed.

"Well I’m sorry I couldn’t
entertain you sooner, asshole."

"Hmmm…I don’t know what you want me
to say Lilli. This is your decision but I think you should think about it all
before you make a choice. Don’t do anything you will hate yourself for later.
Make this decision about you and not about someone else because then you will
regret it and resent that person, even if you have good intentions when you do
it."

I sighed, loudly. "I’m not for
sale, Phoebe."

"Sounds like you know what you want
to do then," she laughed weakly. "Can we talk about man candy
now…cause Oscar—"

"Phoebe! I have to see him here
with Dixon. I don’t want to hear about his man candy," I made fake
disgusted gagging noises.

"Oh, if you were sucking on his man
candy you would be gagging for real," she blurted out quickly.

"Good bye, Phoebe!" Hitting
the end call button before she could say anything, I dropped it to the bed.

Why are all of my friends insane? Or is
it me?

I headed out to the kitchen and pulled
out some Pillsbury already made chocolate chip cookie dough. I spooned the
dough onto the cookie tray—one for the tray, one for my mouth, one for the
tray, one for my mouth.

Once they were in the oven, I plugged in
my IPod and decided that cleaning will help me work off some of the tension. Getting
out the cleaning supplies, I started with the counters then moved on to furniture.
The Swiffer became my microphone and dance partner. I spun around with the
Swiffer on the floor and sang out the words as Fergie sang them to me. "
Shopping
for labels, shopping for love
—" The oven beep interrupted my
performance.
Cookies!

Climbing onto the couch with my cookies,
a large glass of milk and the television remote, I tried to ignore the large
envelope I'd thrown on the coffee table. The more I tried to ignore its presence,
the worse my curiosity ate away at me.

"Damn it!" My curiosity won. I
opened the envelope and started reading over the papers.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he would
take care of it all. He had more than enough money arranged to go into my
personal account to cover my father’s expenses and to pay off the house. Then,
there were the terms of college. The amount that he had allotted was more than
enough to cover the remainder of college that I needed.

I threw the papers back down and took a
large bite of a cookie. Chewing on the cookie, I reached over and picked the
papers back up. Basically it was marriage and a child. In return I would get
money, security, a college fund and future assistance with the child.

I can’t even remember the last thing I
was thinking before I fell asleep but it led to me waking up panicked from a
horrible dream. I had dreamt about having a little boy holding his arms up to
me, no matter how hard I tried to reach for him I couldn’t. I felt his little
fingers as he seemed to be pulled away from me and then he was in the arms of a
faceless man who was taking him away. It was horrible.

I grabbed the papers from the coffee
table and threw them into the garbage can.

"God damn him!" I shouted to
the garbage can. I went to my room to get ready for another night at the club.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The club was packed tonight and I didn’t
get a moment to think about anything other than work, which was great given my
current train of thought. As I finished shaking up a couple of drinks I noticed
a familiar face at the end of the bar. I poured the cocktails and placed them
in front of the group that had ordered them before heading down to the dark,
handsome man.

"Hey you," I smiled and leaned
forward to kiss his cheek.

"Hey," Demetri replied back.

"Haven’t seen you for awhile?"
I smiled again. "What’s going on?"

"I’ve been traveling for the past
few months, overseeing different projects."

 I nodded as I poured his whiskey and
placed it in front of him.

"So…?"

"So?" I teased.

"Such a tease. What time do you get
off tonight?"

"Not sure, how quickly can you make
that happen?" I winked and he swallowed a gulp of whiskey.

"You never change do you?" He
smiled.

"Would you want me to?" I
batted my eyes.

"Never," he winked. "How
about you let me drive you home tonight?"

I nodded and was just about to speak
when Celia interrupted.

"Demetri, when did you get in town?
We haven’t seen you around here in forever." She leaned forward and kissed
his cheek.

"I’ve been in Vegas overseeing a
project." He shrugged.

"Vegas huh? I would love to go to
Vegas sometime." She smiled.

"Excuse me." Celia rolled her
eyes and went to help the person yelling for a drink.

"I’ll see you after two,
okay?" I said walking backwards to the other end of the bar.

"See you then," he shouted
over the music.

The rest of the night went slow, but it
was busy. I think it was the anticipation of seeing Demetri tonight. It had
been awhile and it was needed. The batteries could only do so much.

At the end of the night, Celia stayed to
finish up and I headed out to look for Demetri. Once I was out of the club
doors I scanned the street for his black car. I caught sight of a familiar
silver car but, before I could think too much about it, Demetri’s black car
appeared at the curb in front of me. I climbed in. First stop his place.