The Pregnancy Test Read Online Free PDF Page B

the wall, feeling emotional and crabby. It was the idea of going to the Caribbean with Damien Sharpton, spending days and days in his company in the hot sun, blue sky and ocean waves lulling her, music wafting over the sand. And her trying to pretend she wasn’t pregnant and alone.
    “Remind me never to get pregnant,” Allison said, shifting her clutch from one hand to the other.
    Suddenly, without warning, Mandy felt tears well up in her eyes. “It’s not like I did this on purpose, you know! Ben was using protection and yet I still got pregnant, and now this poor baby is stuck with a mother who doesn’t know what she’s doing and can’t even walk up the damn stairs!”
    Allison’s eyes widened as Mandy sobbed, swiping at her cheeks. She didn’t know why she was crying except that it just seemed as though there had been so little in her life she’d been successful at that the odds were against her being a stellar mother as well.
    “Oh, shit, Mandy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Allison stuck her head in the open door of the apartment. “Jamie, come fix this! I made Mandy cry.”
    “I’m fine,” she said, even as her eyes swelled up and her cheeks went damp with tears.
    But she didn’t protest when Jamie came and put her arm around her and led her into the apartment, clucking and cooing. “What’s the matter, honey? Did that nasty boss of yours do something horrible to you?”
    She nodded, plopping onto the couch and hugging a velvet sage green pillow when Jamie gave her a gentle push down. “He’s making me go to the Caribbean with him for a week.”
    “The bastard!” Allison said, then pressed her lips together when Jamie shot her a dirty look. “What? I would kill to go to the beach and get a real tan instead of paying fifty bucks to get sprayed with fake color. What’s wrong with going to the Caribbean? It’s been a lousy spring. It’s May, and most days it doesn’t even crack fifty degrees.”
    “It doesn’t stop you from wearing a sundress, though,” Jamie remarked, bundled up in a chocolate brown hoodie and pants.
    “I have to show off this fake tan.”
    Mandy tucked the pillow under her chin. “I know it sounds stupid, but the thing is, he doesn’t know I’m pregnant. I’m not sure I can hide it for a whole week.”
    “But you’re barely showing at all. A man is never going to notice that, and you’re not getting sick anymore.” Allison shrugged her shoulder. “I say you go and relax, soak up some rays and hit the spa. Pamper yourself a little—you deserve it.”
    “Do you think so? I mean, he has to find out sooner or later that I’m pregnant, but I’d rather it be later.” Preferably after the baby was born and she was in the hospital. “I actually like working for him, you know, but keeping this a secret is stressing me out.”
    “Stress is not good for the baby.” Jamie had moved around the back of the couch and was massaging Mandy’s shoulders.
    Jamie’s light fingers kneaded the knots in her muscles, and Mandy whimpered. “I feel completely overwhelmed. There is so much I’m supposed to know. Fetal development, what to ask the doctor, what foods to avoid, how to know when you’re in labor…I can’t keep up.”
    “So take all your reading material with you on this trip and just kind of take stock. It’s a lot to learn, but some of it is just common sense. And what’s important is that you be relaxed and stress-free, not whether you know which kind of bottle to buy. That stuff is trial and error.”
    “Listen to Jamie,” Allison said, perching on the coffee table, her long legs crossed. “She’s the only one of us who knows a damn thing about babies.”
    “I know you shouldn’t swear in front of a baby,” Jamie said.
    “The kid’s not even born yet! And damn isn’t a swear word, it’s a pejorative.”
    Mandy’s eyes were half closed, and she rubbed the last of the tears off her cheeks. Jamie’s slow and steady massage was lulling her,