Scrambled Babies (16 page)

“Have it in New York.  I have to go.”  Steve grabbed the travelseat and pushed his way out of the office.  He had to call Paeton.  He had to see his kid.  As a matter of fact, he had to see Paeton, now that he thought about it.  Would their conversation be more pleasant this time?

But the biggest question that loomed in his male mind was this:  Was Paeton McPhilomy experiencing the same feelings for him that he felt emerging for her?

Steve was feeling the pressure of his immediate circumstances.  There was no time to fantasize about romantic possibilities with the woman who made his heart skip every time he thought about her.  He had to get out of Los Angeles and meet Paeton McPhilomy so they could get the baby botch-up behind them.  Then maybe—

He raced into the lobby, zipped down in the elevator, and pitched through the revolving door.  He jumped into a cab and popped out his phone. 

“Cabby, take me the long way back to the Beverly Hills Arms.  Get me into the residential area, quick!  I want to lose some reporters.  I want to smell burning rubber!”

The driver with the bobbing ponytail responded, “You got it, pal.”  The cab’s engine whined up to redline and then squealed out a set of tire tracks ten feet long as the group of reporters spewed from the ComfyDype building, littering the sidewalk.  The only further comments they got from Steve were the sound and smell of those tire tracks.

“Nice work!  You’re up for a big tip, my man.” 

Steve dialed his office as the cab careened into streets posted for thirty-mile-per-hour speed limits. 

Sophia answered, “Steve Kaselman’s—”

“Sophia, put Pae—uh, the Baby Ruth woman back on.”  Steve checked out the back window.  No one seemed to be following.  “Okay, you can slow down.  I don’t see anybody following us.” 

“Got it.”  The vehicle slowed to five miles above the speed limit.

“Nobody’s following who?” Sophia questioned.

“Never mind, Sophia.  Put her back on, please.”

“Okay, okay.  She’s been sitting out here, boss.  I’ve never seen anybody so upset.  She’s been asking me over and over if I thought you’d call back.  You want me to have her take it in your office again?”

“Yes, please, Sophia.  Hurry!  Thank you.”

Steve heard the click as Paeton picked up his office phone. 

Paeton’s voice was pitched close to hysterics.  “Kaselman!  Thank god you called back.  What happened?  I have no idea what’s going on out there.  Do you know how crazy this is making me?  Tell me what is going on—please!” 

“Well, good news and bad news.  The good news is, for a tidy sum, I just now became ComfyDype’s Mr. Mom.  And the bad is that I had to change your daughter’s diaper on national TV.”

“You what!  Changed Kelsey’s diaper on national TV?  What prompted you to do that?  What are you talking about?”  Steve waited through the brief time it took for her to make the connection.  Then he heard a terrible gasp.  “Oh my god!  So the whole world knows you have the wrong child!”

Steve chuckled confidently.  “Not quite.  I may be a dumb jock to you, but I do have a degree from UCLA in journalism, make almost a million-a-year salary, and manage to meet the world with some modicum of success.  My extemporaneous thinking is without peer.  I conceived and executed a plan for changing her diaper without giving away our— and I hesitate to use the phrase—‘our little secret.’”

“How clever of you.” 

Did Steve detect a note of sarcasm, or was she really impressed?  He decided she was impressed.  A warm glow settled over him.

Paeton was surging forward.  “Well, thank you for that!  When you said ‘change diaper on national TV,’ my heart was in my throat.  Okay, now I’m impressed with your credentials.  And impressed with your amazing cover-up.  But I still don’t understand why you hung up on me, and what made you change Kelsey’s diaper on television?” 

Steve liked it that Paeton was not yelling at him.  She was doing her best to be patient with this freaky state of affairs.  “Okay, here’s the situation.  After I had to leave a world audience to change my kid’s diaper—you know, the announcer booth fiasco—ComfyDype decided I was the ultimate Mr. Mom and offered me a very large sum of money to endorse their product.  I was at their office when I got Sophia’s nine-one-one page from you.  The reason I had to hang up on you was a bunch of reporters descended on me because someone leaked the whole Mr. Mom endorsement story, and I was trapped.”

“Okay, how did you accomplish your successful execution of the TV diaper change?”

“I stuffed a blanket down her front.  I used the old how-embarrassing-for-the-kid-in-the-future excuse.”

“Speaking of covering up genders, I did the opposite.  I put Ryan in boy clothes.  I thought you might appreciate that.”  She let out a little laugh.  “Almost got caught doing it too.”

“What do you mean?  Oh, yeah, thanks.  I do.”  He enjoyed the brief laugh, but “almost got caught” increased his heart rate.

Paeton continued.  “A couple of fans recognized me.”  Steve could tell she liked informing him that she had fans.

“And they know what sex kid you have?”  Steve registered sincere astonishment at first.  “But that’s right, your fans are dopey women who go ga-ga over love and kids and crap like that.”

“Right!  As opposed to your fans who confine their going ga-ga singularly to grunting and spitting and maiming each other.”  Steve felt sincere animosity in her words.

He immediately regretted making fun of her work and fans.  Now she was pissed at him again.  “Okay, okay, I apologize.  I really never had much use for romance novels.”

Complete boredom.  “Yeah, same for me and jocks.”  She didn’t let him respond.  “Okay, back to the task at hand.  Are you coming here, or do we come back there?”

Before the reporters, Steve already had himself on a plane to New York.  But now something told him to be wary of going back to his office in New York.  That little character with the pencil mustache was bothering him.  It was true.  Now a lot more people were watching his private life. 

Pow!
  An idea hit Steve like a new pass pattern.  “Let’s meet at O’Hare.”

“Chicago?  Are you crazy?” Paeton sputtered.  “Why Chicago?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  It’s halfway or something?  People know about us in New York and L.A.”

All Paeton could manage was “Oh, I see.” 

Steve was still pondering.

“Kaselman?  Are you still there?”  The anxiety in Paeton’s voice was back to the breaking point.

“Yeah, I’m here.  Well, I’ve now become more of a celebrity, and people are watching me now like I’ve never been watched.  There’s this little jerk reporter with a pencil tie and pencil mustache.  He wanted to see proof the baby was a boy.  He said something like there wasn’t any mound where his manhood should be.”

“Pencil mustache?  Oh, my god!” Paeton was barely audible.

Her voice expressed such fear that Steve shared in her distress.  “What?”

“My god, Kaselman!  That’s the same guy on the plane who told me I had a boy when I first discovered Ryan wasn’t my baby.  He kept insisting the child I had next to me was a boy.  I have no idea what tipped him off.  You and I know how identical they are.  The guy gave me the creeps.  He works for
In Your Face
, that filthy tabloid.  What do you make of it, Kaselman?” 
She called him Kaselman again.  When the hell was she going to call him Steve?

A ponytail cruised past Steve’s face.  “Hey, pal, I think there’s a car on our tail.”

Steve looked out the back window.  “Somebody’s following us?” 

“I’d bet on it,” the cabby answered.

Paeton was yelling in his ear.  “What’s the matter?  What’s going on?  Did I hear you say a car is following you?”

“Yes.  The cab driver thinks we’re being followed.”  Steve crouched further down in the back seat.

“Well, tell the cabby to pull over.  See if the car in question does too.”

Steve laughed quietly.  “Gee, you back-seat drive over the telephone?”

Paeton snarled, “Goddammit, are we going to meet or what?”

Steve whistled.  “Boy, I sure hope my virgin-eared son isn’t in the room with you.”  He chortled so she would be sure to hear it.

“I’m going to kill you when I meet you.  You know that?” 

Whew!  He had asked for that.  What else did he expect from this blitzing lady?  Still, if there was one thing that was becoming perfectly clear, it was that Steve would love being “killed” by Paeton McPhilomy.  And Steve was pretty sure she was also enjoying this battle of the sexes.  He sensed that her female pride required her to be angry, but that something was right between them.  Like putting his kid in male clothes.  That was not an angry gesture.  If he had to bet on it, he would put up even money that right now she was stifling laughter.  Yes, he would certainly love to be “killed” by the gorgeous Paeton McPhilomy! 

As a matter of fact, he definitely thought he would be when he met her.  All she had to do was gaze into his eyes and smile that bewitching smile and he would be “dead.”  He decided to let her dangle.  It was fun flirting over the phone.

“Okay, don’t answer.”  She paused, still waiting for a response.  She gave up and continued.  “All right, I swear too, but I have to be under severe stress.  And I think this qualifies.”

“I understand.”  Steve felt the taxi swerve toward the curb.  “We’re pulling over.”  Steve watched the car behind them pull over too.  “Yeah, the son of a—uh, the guy following us pulled over too.  I guess he’s trying to find out where I’m staying.”

He heard Paeton sigh as she spoke.  “Well, okay, I guess O’Hare is an intelligent idea after all.  As long as you make sure he doesn’t follow you from the hotel.”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.  Then a sound came from Paeton that sent Steve to heaven—out rolled a big, deep laugh.  God, what a wonderful laugh!  But what else could come out of that incredible mouth?

“Now
you’re
laughing?”

“Well, I have to laugh or I’ll cry.  This has become so crazy.  I feel as if I’m in a spy novel or something.”

“I don’t disagree.”  Steve saw something that interested him out the back window.  He lowered the phone and spoke to the cab driver.  “Can you back it up to that ‘for sale’ sign, please?”  The cab backed up a few houses until they were in front of a house with a curious front door. 

“What’s going on now?”

“Nothing.  I’m waiting to see what that car does.”  As Steve was surveying the house, the car that had been following him jerked wildly from the curb and sped past the cab.  Indeed the driver was pencil-mustache.  He fixed his eyes straight ahead as he roared past.  “Christ, it is him!”

“It’s who?”

“The pencil-mustache guy.  Just went past me.  He had to be following me.”  Steve whistled again.  “Paeton, now we definitely have to meet in Chicago.”  He lowered his voice.  “And I’m not too sure about this cabby either.  He seems to be listening to every word I say.  We can’t take any chances.  I’ll call you in a few minutes from my hotel room, and we can make plans.  Okay?”

Paeton groaned.  “I guess I have little choice in the matter.  Okay!  But hurry.  I swear I’m losing my mind!”

“I know, I know.  Me too.  But we’re in this together.  I don’t have Ryan either, you know.  Stay there with Sophia.  I’ll call back in a few minutes.”

“Right, I know.  Hurry!”  Steve heard Paeton hang up.

Steve studied the house a little longer.  He took out his appointment book and jotted down the real estate company’s phone number. 
Charming!  Only in Hollywood.  Ryan would love this place.
  Steve decided he would call and take a look at this fascinating home now that he was newly wealthy.  Why not have a place in New York and a place in L.A.?  He could afford it.  And with his new endorsement contract, he would have to be out here more often anyway.  Soaking up rays on the beach wasn’t the worst thing in the world.  Besides, it seemed that Paeton McPhilomy had business out here.  Maybe she would be around for a while.