“I play poker too,” Emma volunteered. “I used to make a lot of money at it on the set, and blackjack.” She looked pleased about it, and the head of admissions laughed.
“We don’t gamble at school, but there’s always Las Vegas when you’re old enough. I used to play poker with my brothers. We’ll have to play sometime. Your aunt is going to bring you over for a visit, so you can get the lay of the land, and see the school. You can bring a swimsuit, we have a nice pool.” Emma looked forlorn as she said it.
“I can’t remember how to swim,” she said sadly.
“You can relearn. Babies learn how to swim, so can you. You’ve relearned much harder things than that.” Emma looked cheered by what she said. The school was heavily endowed by grateful parents, and their facilities were impressive. It was about a twenty-minute drive from Whitney’s house to where the school was in Hancock Park. “See you soon. And thank you for the cookies.” Emma watched her drive away with a serious expression, and then turned to Whitney.
“She’s nice. I think I want to see the school.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Whitney said and followed her into the house. Emma was exhausted after the long visit, and sat down with her iPad for a little while. It had been a big morning for her. And Belinda and Whitney hugged in victory when Belinda left later that afternoon.
Emma told Bailey about the school when he came to visit them that night after work. He was becoming a more frequent visitor to the house, and Emma considered him a friend. She told him what she knew about the school now, and that she was going to learn how to swim there.
“I wish I’d gone to a school like that,” Bailey commented. “I hated my school growing up. There weren’t any cool schools in the small town where I lived.” It sounded to him as though Whitney had found the perfect school for Emma.
“So how did you get to be a doctor?”
“I went away to a school I liked a lot better. The same school your aunt went to.”
“Why didn’t you meet her there?” Emma looked puzzled, and Bailey smiled.
“Because I studied all the time, and she probably went out with all the hot guys. And I’m three years older, so we must have kind of missed each other.”
“She’s forty now,” Emma informed him. “She just had a birthday. She kept it a secret because that’s old. My mom was thirty-seven.” She could remember their ages, but she still couldn’t remember how to add, which was the nature of her memory now, with holes in some key places and others that didn’t matter.
“Actually, that’s not old,” Bailey corrected her with a glance at Whitney, who groaned and didn’t look happy about it.
“Let’s not tell the whole world how old I am,” Whitney reminded her, and Emma laughed. Emma was turning ten in a few weeks, and Whitney was going to give her a small party at home, with Amy, Bailey, Belinda, Sam, and Brett. “And by the way, I didn’t have a date for four years in medical school, just to set the record straight,” Whitney informed them. “I spent all four years in the library and there was nothing cool about me. Your mom was the cool one. She always had a million dates,” with all the wrong men, but Whitney didn’t add that. Paige had been in her bad-boy phase then, which took her years to grow out of. “She looked like our mother, and she was a lot of fun. I was the dull, shy one.” And sometimes she still felt that way, since all she did was work and take care of Emma now. She and Bailey had only been out to dinner a few times in recent months, since they’d admitted their attraction to each other. There was no time or place to do anything about it, and she didn’t see how there could be. Her days of glamour on Chad’s yacht were over, and she didn’t feel comfortable pursuing a romance with Emma having a front row seat to it. It was something they wanted to figure out, but hadn’t yet, and Whitney wondered if they ever would. Maybe romance was history for her now, at least until Emma was older.
Bailey was good company, a kind, intelligent man, a good doctor, and very good looking with his dark hair and dark eyes, but he was still kind of a romantic fantasy for her. He was handsome and appealing and there was so much she liked about him, but her life was complicated now, with Emma living with her, and her sole responsibility. And she realized at times that she used Emma’s presence as an excuse to avoid getting involved any deeper with Bailey. She wasn’t sure she was ready or if she ever would be. Chad had been easy for her, because he didn’t want to get too close, see too much of her, or make any deep commitments. But Bailey was different, he was a real person, with real needs, and he wanted to see more of her. For now, Emma was the perfect excuse not to. But Whitney knew that one of these days, they’d have to face their feelings, and that still felt dangerous to her. What if they hurt or disappointed each other, or he tried to control her life? She didn’t want any of that to happen, and she didn’t want to lose him either. For now, she was free to do whatever she wanted, and that was important to her. Even more so, with Emma. She wanted to make all the decisions about her, with no interference from anyone else. At the same time, she loved being with Bailey and had come to trust him. She wanted to find a way to be close to him, but not give up any power to him, and she wasn’t sure how one did that, or if it was even possible. He had never made any permanent commitments either at forty-three. She wondered if they were too old to make the adjustment. Relationships always seemed complicated to her, and very high risk. What if he broke her heart, or their relationship became a power struggle? She didn’t want to move into any man’s house, especially now with Emma, and she wasn’t sure she’d want him living with them either.
“I was born to be a spinster,” she said to Belinda with a sigh one day, after worrying about it and mentioning it to her, and she laughed at what Whitney said.
“I’m not sure they call it that anymore. That has a pretty negative connotation. Being single isn’t a sign of failure these days, it’s a choice. I’m having the same issues with Sam at the moment.” They’d been dating for six months, since they’d met during Emma’s sign language lessons, and Belinda admitted that they were crazy about each other, and were spending a lot of time together. “He wants us to move in together, and I think it’s too soon. I don’t want to even think about it for a year. I still want to travel, and I want a career in show business, not just to be a teacher. He wants to settle down and have kids. I’m not ready for that by a long shot. But I don’t want to lose him either. I’m thirty-four, which seems so young to me, but I guess if I want babies, I should start thinking about it. But I don’t want kids yet. He does. He’s only a year older than I am, but all his brothers and sisters are married and have children. Everyone in my family is divorced. That’s not exactly an incentive.”
“Yeah, I know. My sister and I never got married either, and when she wanted to have a baby, she did it as a single mom and used her best friend as a sperm donor. I’ve never wanted kids, or marriage. My work has always been a substitute for that, and I’ve always gone out with men who weren’t looking for marriage either. I’ve always been very honest about it with the men I dated. Bailey and I are a lot alike, he’s never been married either. But I think he’s a lot less scared than I am. I think he’s fantastic but I think this is a serious problem for women of our generation. A lot of us don’t want to get married, or give up our freedom. That never looked appealing to me. My mother was an old-fashioned woman. She thought the man should decide everything, and the woman should just follow along blindly, which is what she did. That scares me to death,” Whitney freely admitted. “I could never do that and don’t want to. Not even for a great guy like Bailey. Marriage scares me to death.”
“Maybe you can just figure out some way to live side by side as equals, and find common ground with mutual respect,” Belinda said hopefully. It was what she wanted too.
“What novels have you been reading?” Whitney asked her. “That sounds like a perfect world. I don’t know a single guy who would agree to that. They’re biologically built to call the shots. I hear it in my office every day, from both sides. Guys who want to control, and women who don’t want to be controlled. It’s the battle of the ages, and sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Everything goes along great until you fall in love and move in together, or get married, and the next thing you know it’s a tug of war day and night, over everything from money to kids. It’s a nightmare. Bailey is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met, but we haven’t even slept together yet. And if we ever move in with each other, then what? Who would have the power then? It’s pathological with them, they can’t help it. They all want to be the boss.” Whitney looked worried as she said it.
“You’re scaring me. It sounds like me and Sam. I’ve even thought of breaking up with him over his wanting to live together, but I don’t want to give him up. I just got a new apartment, and I love it. It’s not big enough for the two of us, and I hate his apartment, and where he lives. I’d have to commute an hour to work.”
“What about getting a new place for the two of you?” Whitney suggested, and Belinda looked depressed about it.
“It’s all about sacrifice, isn’t it? And I’m not good at that. I had too much of that when I was a kid. Now I’ve got things the way I want them, and along comes the best guy I ever met, and I’m a goner. It sucks.” Whitney hadn’t figured out how to solve the problem either, so for the moment, she was making no moves at all. She and Bailey were making out like teenagers, but Whitney was too afraid to make any serious moves or commitment, and taking care of Emma was a convenient place to hide. Turning forty had shaken her too. By now she felt like she should know all the relationship answers, especially as a shrink, and she didn’t. Lately she’d been telling herself that she was too old to make changes. But sooner or later, she knew Bailey would do what Sam was doing to Belinda, and lay it on the line, and they’d have a showdown over it, about whether to move forward or not.