Baby Mommas Read online

  Baby Mommas

  HL Logan

  Contents

  Copyright

  1. Jaz

  2. Faye

  3. Jaz

  4. Faye

  5. Jaz

  6. Faye

  7. Jaz

  8. Faye

  9. Jaz

  10. Faye

  11. Jaz

  12. Faye

  13. Jaz

  14. Faye

  15. Jaz

  16. Faye

  17. Jaz

  18. Faye

  19. Jaz

  20. Faye

  21. Jaz

  22. Faye

  23. Jaz

  24. Faye

  25. Jaz

  26. Faye

  27. Jaz

  Epilogue - Faye

  Backmatter

  Copyright

  FRONTMATTER

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  Copyright © 2018 by H.L. Logan.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  1

  Jaz

  Let me tell you, a special place in hell is reserved for women who want to fuck their thesis supervisors.

  It’s about the most shameful thought a person could have, isn’t it? To sit across from someone with the most brilliant mind you could imagine, a person more incredibly accomplished at her young age than most could hope to be in a lifetime, a woman people pay tens of thousands of dollars to listen to…

  And to only be able to think about easing the frameless glasses off her Grecian nose, sweeping a hand through the neatly combed brown locks, and taking off the tailored blouse one button at a time…

  It was a crime.

  “Jaz? Any thoughts on what I just said?”

  My back straightened, and I placed both hands on the desk that—unfortunately—separated us. In the cramped confines of her office, we would’ve been practically on top of each other without it.

  I exhaled, willing my subconscious to remember what she’d been asking about. But now all I could think of was us on top of each other.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Erwin. I lost track of myself for a second. Would you mind repeating that?” I squirmed subtly in my seat.

  The sympathetic smile the professor gave me softened her eyes and rounded her cheeks, somehow making her look even more attractive. “Again, please call me Faye. We’re going to be working together quite a bit. It’ll be much more pleasant if we’re on a first-name basis.”

  Faye. The woman whose presence had dominated an entire lecture hall in my sophomore year wanted me to call her Faye.

  Not Dr. Erwin. Not even Faye Charlotte Erwin—yes, I may have stalked her a little—but Faye.

  “In any case,” she went on, “I was asking whether you might want to include the works of Nikki Giovanni in your research.”

  “Ah…” Giovanni was an important Black American poet of the sixties and seventies, and one I hadn’t considered. I already had five poets to analyze. “Don’t you think it would be taking on a lot?”

  Faye shuffled through her papers, silent for a long moment—too long. “You have Emily Dickinson, Margaret Atwood, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, and Kathy Acker here,” she said at last. “Do you see the problem?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Her tongue emerged to wet her lips, and as she leaned forward, the slightest hint of cleavage revealed itself at the collar of her teal blouse. Cleavage! I gulped, my mind racing off in a thoroughly inappropriate direction.

  You cannot reach over and undo those buttons. No, not even the top one! Stop thinking with your cooch and keep your mind on the conversation, would you?

  The problem was that in all my research, I hadn’t come up with a single piece of evidence that Dr. Faye Charlotte Erwin was anything other than straight.

  And that kind of thing tended to come up when you stalked hard enough.

  I cleared my throat, hoping I could come up with a response when I had no idea what the woman had said. No way was I going to ask her to repeat herself again. If she started to think I was some kind of moron, she’d regret agreeing to supervise my thesis. She might even hand me off to another professor.

  It wasn’t fair. A discussion about this topic usually would’ve set my soul alight. Especially with someone so fucking intelligent. Faye just had those big brown eyes under her glasses, and that graceful neck that made me want to wrap my arms around it as I slid my tongue into her mouth. Sitting this close to her, I could even smell her perfume.

  Mother… fucking… lavender.

  I shrugged off my denim jacket, wishing I could fan my face.

  “Jaz?” she asked again. “What do you think?”

  “I’m so sorry, uh, Faye. My mind’s not quite here today. I just… could you…?”

  She blinked a few times, but repeated herself without comment. “I said the five poets you’ve chosen come from a similar perspective. Adding Giovanni would give your analysis more diversity.” She examined the list again. “In fact, you may want to remove one or two of the others to allow her more space.”

  I managed to keep myself in check long enough to get out a “Right, of course.” Faye specialized in postcolonial literature, while up to now I’d focused more on feminist poetry. I’d chosen her in part because I wanted more of the postimperial perspective in my thesis.

  …And in part because I wanted to find out what was under that tweed jacket she always wore.

  No, Jaz! Not going to happen, so stop it already!

  This conversation would’ve been so much easier if we could do it over email. Maybe she’d be willing to conduct all our correspondence online. It wouldn’t be so bad—she was a busy woman, she had other things to do, this could only make it easier for her.

  I opened my mouth, ready to blurt out the half-baked idea, when I noticed the concern that had grown in those glimmering brown eyes.

  “Are you doing all right?” she asked. “You seem… distracted. Is something going on in your life?”

  “Well…” Tell her you have a family emergency and you have to fly to Timbuktu! “I’m all right. Didn’t sleep so well last night, is all.”

  She tipped her chair backward. “Up late studying?”

  “Nothing that exciting. I was marking pop quizzes until one in the morning.” I shook my head, recalling how I’d assumed I’d be able to get them done in an hour. “And these were one-page quizzes, not even essays. I don’t know how you all do it.”

  As a teaching assistant, I didn’t have to do any actual teaching this semester. However, I did get to grade whatever Dr. O’Neill felt like dumping on me. That left my schedule open to do things when I wanted… but they did have to get done sometime.

  “First time TAing, right?” Faye asked. “I doubt O’Neill will make you grade essays. He likes a little more control when it comes to the major assignments.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve already noticed his iron fist.”

  Were we chatting now? Was I going to have a personal relationship with Faye, too?

  Not that kind of personal, of course. As much as I might fantasize, I refused to seriously entertain the idea for a second.

  We smiled at each other, and as Faye stood up, she extended a hand. The touch sent a surge rushing through me, powerful enough to make me stop and close my eyes. Ducking my head to cover the effect she’d had, I put my jacket back on and
brushed a stray hair back over the shaved side of my head.

  “Go home and get some sleep,” Faye said. “And then think about what I said today.”

  “All right.” I dropped my hand to my side. “Sorry about that.”

  “Email me anytime,” she said. “Let’s meet again in a week, okay? You can start doing some preliminary research and update me on your progress when we see each other.”

  She grabbed the doorknob, and I stared harder at her. If I wasn’t going to set my eyes on those perfect features for a full week, I could at least memorize them in the meantime. Lord knew I’d be revisiting the mental image once or twice before the week was up.

  Hell, now that she was extra forbidden, she might just become my biggest fantasy.

  She swung open the door—and stopped short.

  A baby was hanging from the doorframe.

  Not hanging in the sense of rope and nooses and tiny infant faces turning an unfortunate shade of purple. No, and I’m sorry to put that image in your head in the first place.

  This particular baby was swaddled up in such a way that he—she—it swung loosely through the air.

  From what I could tell through the pink cloth wrapping it up, it couldn’t have been more than a few days old.

  “What the fuck?”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth, conscious of having sworn in front of my thesis supervisor.

  But as Dr. Erwin circled the hanging child, her lips parted and the words she said were just barely audible. “What… the… fuck.”

  “It’s a baby.” Sounding smarter and smarter there, Jaz.

  Faye’s brow furrowed ever so slightly as she inspected the bundle. “Yes.” She lifted a tiny arm and turned the hand up and down as if making sure it was real, her lips pursing.

  “Whose is it? Why’s it here?” Great question! If she knew, she’d already have said something!

  But she had to know. Babies didn’t just materialize out of the ether.

  She shook her head, taking the ends of the cloth down so she could let the baby down, holding it in front of her so its head began to roll back.

  “Let me get that!” I grabbed the kid out of her hands and cradled it, supporting the head on the palm of my hand. As I shifted it in my arms, it began to fuss.

  And as it did, I heard the crinkle of paper.

  “There’s a note.” I pulled it out and reluctantly handed it to Faye.

  There were several paragraphs to it, but she scanned them with the speed only an English professor could have.

  “Ah.” She sounded calm now, as if the note explained everything and there were no more problems with the situation at all. “Her name’s Gretchen. She’s a gift from my sister.”

  2

  Faye

  “Did you see a woman come through here? About this tall, looks a little like me but blonde and kind of… trashy?”

  Pauline shook her head regretfully. As the alumni affairs secretary, her office was closest to the humanities building entrance, but she was often too wrapped up in her own work to notice much else going on.

  “Thanks anyway.”

  I’d asked everyone now, and no one had seen Amanda come through. It didn’t matter much, anyway. She wasn’t answering her cell phone, and although I wasn’t sure at what point during my meeting she’d been here, I was positive she’d be long gone by now.

  Which meant the baby was still in my office with my student, who’d offered to watch her for a few minutes while I figured things out.

  Not that I was anywhere closer to doing that.

  I walked back, keeping my steps as natural as I could. Continuing to present a calm appearance was important, considering that I was in a professional setting. Internally, I was freaking the fuck out.

  Remembering who the kid was with, I walked a little faster. I half-expected Jaz to have taken off and left her behind. She was flaky, that one, always daydreaming during our meetings. If I’d known she’d be like that, I might not have taken her on. She’d sounded so articulate in her email introducing herself and the topic she wanted to study.

  Apparently she’d taken my 201 class a few years ago and loved my approach. That was my first year teaching here at Beasley, and amid all the craziness of a new position, I had no memory of her. My records showed she’d gotten a 91, a rare grade for me to give out, so I concluded she was bright enough for me to supervise.

  I pushed open the office door and Jaz sat up, jiggling the baby on her lap. “How did it go, Professor?”

  “Faye,” I told her for the millionth time.

  I still believed there was a clever mind behind the flakiness… even if her looks did nothing to support that belief. She had a guileless grin that she flashed around at every opportunity. The indiscriminate way she gave it out made her appear sincere… and perhaps a touch simple-minded. Her hair didn’t help. Both sides were shaved and the strands she did have were dyed pink.

  Not only that, but she had the kind of wide, innocent eyes that made her look younger than her age. I was shocked when I pulled her academic records and found out she was twenty-five. There were only four years between us!

  Part of the issue was that she appeared to be one of those people who was wildly intimidated by professors. The ones who thought we were some sort of different species.

  We weren’t, and Jaz needed to learn that soon—because if that sophomore-year grade and the quality of her emails were any indication, she could very well be on a path to being one of us.

  But I would have to think about Jaz’s issues later, because again, she was sitting in my office with a baby on her lap.

  A baby that, apparently, I was now responsible for.

  “Did you figure anything out?” Jaz asked.

  “Not a thing.” I took Gretchen from her and held her up to examine her—except Jaz made a small noise and grabbed her back again. “What are you doing?”

  “If you don’t mind me telling you what to do, you have to hold newborns like this so their heads won’t fall back. See?” She showed me the way she’d held her earlier. “Their necks aren’t strong enough to support their heads yet.”

  “Oh.” I took the child a second time, and although her eyes opened briefly, she fell asleep again as soon as I cradled her properly. “How do you know that?”

  “I have a lot of younger cousins,” she said. “Once they were born, my sisters and I were the obvious choice for babysitters. Neither of them was interested, so I gave it a try.” She gave a wry grin. “Not exactly the best way to become the cool kid on the block, but I saved a little money and learned a lot about little kids.”

  “Hmm.” I was still staring at the baby.

  “Sorry, I’m sure you don’t want my life story right now.”

  Or ever, really… but I kept my mouth shut.

  “What are you going to do about Gretchen?”

  She passed me back the note I’d accidentally given her when I ran out to see who’d seen Amanda. I winced as I realized she must’ve read all of it. How Amanda got knocked up and decided to keep the baby, but now that Gretchen was here she’d realized she couldn’t handle actually being a mother. How I was the most responsible person she knew and I’d be the best choice to raise the little girl. How she was already certain I’d love Gretchen as my own, but she herself just couldn’t do it.

  I hadn’t even been aware my sister was pregnant.

  “I’ll handle it.” I went to grab my jacket, jostling the baby so she let out a wail.

  “It sounds like your sister may have postpartum depression,” Jaz said, reaching for Gretchen. “You need me to hold her again?”

  “No, that’s fine. I’m leaving.” I winced as the kid’s cries grew louder. Jaz may have been onto something about the depression. Then again, this was actually kind of typical for my sister.

  “You’re taking her home?” Her eyes widened, and she moved as if to block the door. “Do you have a car seat or anything?”

  “It’s fine. I’m going to do this th
e old-fashioned way.” I took the two pink strips of cloth and looped them around the back of my neck, forming a makeshift baby carrier. “Thank you for your help today… and your, uh, understanding. I’ll see you next week. Please come prepared.”

  “I will.” Jaz buttoned her denim jacket, still looking at me as if I was a ticking time bomb. “And if you need a babysitter, you know who to call.”

  Ha. Funny.

  I was getting rid of this baby as soon as humanly possible.

  * * *

  I pressed the phone to my ear, my free hand balancing Gretchen on my lap. “What do you mean, you don’t have an address for Amanda?”

  There was a long pause before my mother deigned to respond. “You know she stopped speaking to me,” she said. “How would I have her address?”

  “You two stopped speaking to each other. That fight was as much your fault as hers—at least, from what little either of you has told me about it.”

  I could hear the shrug in her voice. “That girl does what she wants, just like she always has.”

  Talking to her was impossible. This whole thing was like a nightmare turned to reality. “Ma, you have to have some way to find her.”

  “She wants nothing to do with me.”

  “It’s been months since that fight, Ma. No, years. How long are you planning to hold a grudge?”

  “If you’d heard the things she called me… She can apologize to me whenever she feels ready.”

  “What could be so bad?” I asked, then stopped myself. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I just can’t believe you don’t want to forgive and forget.”

  “That hussy can come to me if she wants forgiveness. I have no intentions of getting in touch with her.”

  “You’re talking about your own daughter.”

  “So? Clearly you haven’t been in contact. She’s your sister, too.”

  We were getting sidetracked talking about this never-ending feud they were having. “Can you at least tell me if you have a more recent phone number than this?” I asked, and read out the one I’d been calling.