Antoinette sighed as the glossy elevator doors slid closed behind her, separating her from Chase and from every fought emotion he stirred up. She wasn’t sure how she would be able to deal with him as often as he seemed to expect. She pulled a shallow breath past her parched lips, and blew it out, followed by her tongue to moisten the edges. It didn’t seem to help. Her lips and tongue still felt as dry as they had when she had noticed Chase in the lobby. Her glass of water in the lounge was just as much to keep her fingers busy as it had been to moisten the desert her mouth had become with a single non-sexual glance. She made a fist and banged it lightly against the wall supporting her.

“I can’t believe I did something so stupid.” Toni sighed again as she leaned her head against the back mirrored wall of the chamber, the movement of the little room as it went upward slow and constant to the highest floors. The problem was, that she wasn’t talking about the pregnancy at all, but rather having him at her appointments. Part of her welcomed a baby in her life. It would bring change and responsibility and love. But when it came to Chase, it was as if in one moment she had a fuse lit under her and she couldn’t stand to be near him for more than a few moments – everything he did infuriated her in its smug and condescending manner. Then, the next moment, she was falling apart at the seams and all he had to do was smile. It made her weak and angry at the same time and she wasn’t at all sure how she should react to him. She knew that this wasn’t just her hormones from her unborn child making her crazy. They had been like this for years and years. At times, it seemed like he wanted more from her – more from their relationship – and it felt like more than she knew how to give to him. But she knew he was engaged – to someone she knew, nonetheless -- to someone who used to be her friend. Madeline was still almost exactly as she had been in high school: selfish, proud, and outwardly vapid. No one knew better than Antoinette how Madeline used her hair, or rather its color and all the stereotypes that came along with it, to get her way and twist others into doing exactly what she wanted. And now that she had Chase, she wouldn’t give him up without a major throw down, even if she didn’t care about him as a person. Not that Toni wanted him, or rather wanted him back for that matter. Once upon a time she had imagined what life would be like as a bride, as the future Mrs. Chase Brighton, but that dream had evaporated when Toni had decided to rally against polite society and protection for the rich and instead protest for the masses. College graduation had sent her to almost every little village in the Northern Hemisphere of Europe, Asia, India, and Africa and a good number of them lower than the equator as well. She had dined on crickets in South East China and ridden elephants and camels in the Tunisian Republic. She had always loved history and now she got to see all the wonderful hidden places of the world while bringing healthy gifts and new means of production for themselves.

The sliding metal cage dinged and an elderly couple boarded the elevator headed for a higher floor. Antoinette smiled and moved aside, pausing briefly to ask them for a floor number she could push for them. The woman answered, smiling and glancing to Toni’s belly. She gave a small laugh looked at her husband. Toni could see the love shining in her eyes, as her husband patted her withered hand and they shared a small memory, Toni supposed was about their own children. The elevator dinged again and Toni held the door as they shuffled off, still smiling at each other like star-struck teenagers. She sighed as the doors slid close again, not for the first time wondering if it were possible for everyone to find a love like theirs.

Finally, the doors buzzed at her stop and she stepped off the car, her heels muffled in the carpet runners as she tread down the hallway to her mother’s favorite suite. She lifted her hand to knock and almost rapped her youngest sister, Kaitlyn on the head, who had been about to swing open the door and march downstairs. Kaitlyn’s smile grew as she noticed the expansion of Antoinette’s shirt around her midsection and she grabbed her sister by the fingers and drug her into the suite.

“So it’s true! I almost didn’t believe him!” Kaitlyn didn’t let go of Antoinette’s pinky until she had pulled her across the room and seated her on the plush upholstered love seat. The fabric covering the cushions was a hideous flowered pattern, but completely seemed to match the out-of-date décor of the room. Her sister let out an obnoxious squeal and threw her arms around Antoinette’s shoulders, hugging her and bouncing up and down on the cushion. The sound was piercing, but it must have been some sort of ‘young adult’ call, because her step-sister, Bridgette, peeked her head out of the bathroom and came running to see what the commotion was all about. When Antoinette was feeling generous, she likened the two of them to linnet birds, chirping away noisily and happily in their own little cages. When she was feeling not so generous, they were meerkats – popping their heads out from everywhere and unable to keep still for more than a few seconds before leaping off to somewhere else. She smiled as Bridgette came running out of the bathroom, t-shirt in hand and wrapped in a towel, her dark, wet hair sticking to her shoulders and flying freely behind her. Bridgette was the mastermind of the two, cunning and fearless, while Kaity was a little shyer, but she never hesitated if Bridgette wanted something. Both of them crowded Toni, rubbing her tummy and being generally nosy.

“Daddy didn’t tell us who it was for.” Bridgette spoke in an exaggerated whisper, popping her head up for noise from their parent’s part of the suite. She looked again at Kaity and Toni and then glanced again at her parent’s bedroom. “Don’t worry. Mom doesn’t know yet. Daddy said we weren’t to say a word until you could talk to her. It was really hard though!” She hugged Toni again and then flounced back into the bathroom, before turning and running back out for her shirt with a sheepish grin on her face.

Kaitlyn waited until her sister had pushed the door closed again and smiled, settling onto the sofa, it had been some months since she had seen her sister, and she didn’t want to overburden her. “Toni, seriously, are you okay? I mean, is everything going to be okay?”

Antoinette couldn’t help but smile. She was supposed to be the big sister assuring her siblings that everything would be right in the world and no matter what happened, it would work out in the end. “Of course, Katy-bug. My biggest problem right now, it which one of you will be the god-mother. This baby’s going to need a nanny after all.” She patted her sister’s hand, and leaned back, closing her eyes for a moment.

“Baby, is it?” Antoinette’s mother’s voice rung in her ears as she felt her mother’s nails on the back of her scalp. She startled, the carpet having helped to muffle her mother’s stockinged feet.

“Hello, mother.” Antoinette stood to greet her mother as she had been trained.

“Please don’t start that, Antoinette. Your father has informed me of your situation and your current plans, and while I am not happy about it, I too can be magnanimous and accept the fact that I will be a grandmother. Besides, it’s not like you just had your come-out. I will just have to accept that you are a grown woman and capable of taking care of yourself. Now, the one thing your father,” This last part was said with some disbelief and incredulity, “would not tell me, is who the luck father of the baby is. Whoever he is, darling, I’m sure we can come to terms with him being around.” She paused to judge Toni’s reaction. “You do know who the father is, don’t you?” Her mother had paced the small expanse of carpeted floor for effect during her speech and now stopped to take a seat in a wingback chair opposite her. Her step-father, silent all this time appeared now with a small tea service and a fine china glass to calm Analise Duke Ralston’s nerves.

“Well, mother,” Toni took a deep breath. She wasn’t enjoying this little meeting anymore than the one Toni had with her mother when she had informed her that she was opening her own quilt and knit business for yarns and fabrics in Miami and moving out of Charleston.

“Spit it out, Antoinette. I know you, it can not be all that bad.” Her mother took a sip of her tea and smiled smugly over the cup. She had never called Antoinette by her nickname as far back as Toni could remember.

“Mother.” Antoinette looked at her mother sternly, but relaxed a few degrees. “The father is not bad at all. In fact he’s. . .” Antoinette was about to explain to her mother, that the old woman’s dreams had come true, when a knock sounded and her exuberant younger sister bounded to the door.

“Daddy! Chase is here to talk to you!” Bridgette’s voice echoed in the small area and Antoinette grimaced, but not only from the sound. She dropped her head into her hands and made a small noise. Her mother looked at her quizzically and waited for Thomas to go to the door and lead their guest in. She briefly wondered if Chase was actually here to see her, or if he was here to speak with her step-father about his support in the next Senate election.

“The father, my dearest mother, . . .” Toni smiled at her mother, over her own tea cup. “Is here.” Antoinette relished the look of astonishment, horror, and elation that passed over her mother’s face. It wasn’t every day that Toni got to shock Analise and she wasn’t going to give up her chance today.



Word count: 1,769 words
Total Word Count: words ( words less than day 9 goal)
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Days Left: 21 days