Chapter 129 – Willow

The whole thing seemed fishy. Ogden was still acting weird. Before Marsha arrived, Ogden kept on staring at me with a small smile on his face. Not only that, but now Marsha was almost giddy. She didn’t seem like she was stressed, just excited energy that didn’t translate to stressed or overwhelmed.

The driver pulled up to a building that looked abandoned. I looked around trying to find any sort of life, but no one was going in and out. “Are you sure we are at the right location?” I eyed Marsha.

“Yes, this is the address Tiff gave me.” She slid out of the car and waited patiently for me.

My stomach turned, for some reason the looming ominous building made me nervous. I bit my lip and walked behind Marsha.

“Hey are you okay?” She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah…” If I was going to get sick here I wanted to let her know. I stopped and grabbed her arm. She turned and looked at me. “If I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell Ogden.” I didn’t remove my gaze from hers and kept my grip on her arm.

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Okay?”

“No really, I need you to not tell him. I’m going to tell him today. I just need to share it with someone other than Sophia.”

Concern filled her eyes. “Does this have to do with what you are keeping from him?”

I gave her a nod.

“Okay, I won’t tell him.” Marsha gave me a firm nod to show her determination to keep her word.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Earlier this week, I found out that I am pregnant.” I bit my lip and waited for Marsha to respond.

Her eyes grew wide with astonishment. Then she let out a loud scream and started jumping in the street. “Are you serious?” She grabbed my arm and continued to jump.

“Yeah, I’ve been feeling so sick lately and I just thought it was stress. But then Sophia made a joke saying maybe I was pregnant and that freaked me out. Took a bunch of tests that came back positive. And then went to the doctor yesterday and they confirmed.” I dug into my purse and showed her the blob.

Marsha had tears well up in her eyes. She stared down at the sonogram and then looked up at me. “This is amazing.” She sniffled. “How do you feel?”

“I feel excited, scared, and completely out of my depth.” I let out a laugh. “I’m just more worried about how Ogden will take it.”

She cleared her throat and handed the sonogram back to me. “Please don’t take this question the wrong way…but is it Mr. Moore’s?”

I furrowed my eyebrows at her. I wasn’t sure why she would ask that question, but then it hit me. I didn’t know Marsha before being married to Ogden. She didn’t know my past. I snorted. “Um…before Ogden there was no one.” I grabbed the back of my neck and rubbed it. “I was so busy with my mom and work that I just never had the opportunity to you know.”

I was twenty-six years old, and I had never had sex before. I wasn’t ashamed of it, but at the same rate I was a little embarrassed to admit my nonexistent sexual history.

“Oh, wow. Okay then the baby is definitely Mr. Moore’s.” Marsha gave me a smile.

I put the sonogram back in my purse. “Let’s go help your girlfriend.” I gave her a smile back.

Before I could pull away, she leaned in and gave me a hug. “This is such exciting news, and I won’t tell him. But I fully expect an eng…” She stopped abruptly.

I pulled out of her arms and looked at her. “What?”

“Oh, I was just going to say that I was expecting an expectant party.” Marsha averted her eyes. She was lying.

“That doesn’t even make sense.” I didn’t move when she tried to pull me toward the ominous building.

She stopped trying to pull me and looked back. “You know, an expectant party. It is like a party because you are expecting a baby. Kinda like a baby shower but before the actual baby shower. It is this new thing I saw. It is all the rage.”

I lifted my eyebrows at her. “An expectant party?”

“Yes, an expectant party.”

“If Ogden doesn’t kick me out, I will of course have an expectant party.” I knew she was lying, and she was trying to recover. But I just let it go. There was no point in trying to get her to say what she actually wanted to say. She was covering up for Ogden and I knew it.

Marsha pulled me into the building and what was going on inside was the complete opposite of what was happening on the outside. Inside there was a flourish of colors and everyone was bustling around with a purpose.

Lights were on high and there were at least two dozen people staring into the mirror applying make up, wigs, and hair accessories. All the drag queens were gorgeous, and I envied their confidence.

A towering woman in stilettos bumped into me. “Sorry, hun.” She maneuvered around me to get to where they were trying to go.

Across the room Tiffany was applying make up to a queen who already had their wig on. Marsha pulled me in her direction. “Hey, Tiff.” Marsha said.

Tiffany didn’t remove her eyes from the subject she was working on. “Hey, babe.” She did one final swoop of her brush and then she looked up. “I need you to help organize the costumes. Each queen has three costume changes. That’s a total of four costumes. This is like their Miss America pageant.”

“No, honey. We better than those little Miss America’s.” The woman in the seat snapped her fingers.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “And you look way fiercer than them.” I added.

“Ooooo, I like you.” The queen pointed at me.

Marsha pulled me to the racks and racks of clothes that hung up. Each hanger had a tag with a name. But none of the clothing was near the other tags that had the same name. “Who did this?” I let out a laugh.

“I don’t know. I just know that Tiffany can’t do make up and all of the background stuff that needs to get done.” Marsha looked at the clothes. “This is a mess.”

“I can do it.” I said as I started to pull clothing from the racks and rearranged it. “You should see if she needs help elsewhere.” I waved at Marsha. There seemed to be chaos everywhere and I didn’t need to be monitored.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Marsha patted my shoulder; she didn’t wait for my answer before she walked away.

I started to move all of the outfits around, each more elaborate than the one before it. Feathers were flying everywhere; on occasion a piece of glitter found its way on my skin. By the end of this I was going to be covered in fabulousness.

I liked having this monotonous task. It kept my mind busy so that I didn’t think too much about how I was going to tell Ogden about little nugget and what he had to tell me. Every time a thought about this evening came up it made my stomach churn. There were too many possibilities that could happen and I didn’t need to spiral.

The meds that I took this morning were wearing off and I was feeling it. I rushed to the bathroom, some of the queens were in there applying their own make up. I rushed past them and threw up into the toilet. I should have felt embarrassed, but I didn’t. This was a natural part of being pregnant and everyone should understand.

“Too many mimosas, doll?” A queen yelled in the bathroom.

I snorted. “No, just pregnant.” I let out a laugh. It didn’t matter that I just told a drag queen, I was going to tell Ogden this evening and then I wouldn’t need to hide it anymore.

“Oh girl, you are in for a treat. When my sister was pregnant, she threw up for six months straight. It was vomit-geddon.”

“Oh god, don’t say that. I was hoping for it to be finished by the first trimester.” I wiped my mouth and left the stall.

“Everyone is different.” She said. “Snowflakes and all that jazz.”

I smiled at her and laughed. “Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

“Fingers and toes, baby. Fingers and toes.” She went back to applying make up, I washed my hands, and went back to my task.

After all of the clothing was organized, I decided to go one step further. I created little hanging signs so each drag queen could locate their outfits easily. I tried to write the names as pretty as I could. They deserved the best and I wouldn’t say I was an artist by any means. But I thought the names looked good.

“Damn, Will, that looks amazing.” Tiffany stood behind me and looked at my handy work.

I smiled at her. “Thanks. I wasn’t sure how you wanted them organized, so this seemed to be the most logical.”

“It is way better than what I would have been able to do.” She patted my shoulder.

“Is there anything else that you needed me to do?”

“Actually, we are done, the show is going to start in fifteen and it is up to them to win.” I looked down at my phone, it was quarter to six.

Marsha ran up to me. “Mr. Moore just asked to get you home by six.”

“Oh, why didn’t he message me?” I looked down at my empty messages. A little disappointed that he didn’t communicate with me directly.

Maybe he was going to void our contract. He seemed so weird these last few days and I just couldn’t get that outcome out of my head.

Marsha laughed. “He knows I’m glued to my phone.” She held up and waved her phone at me.

“Okay.” I nodded at her; the disappointment was still hovering over me.

“I already messaged Jeremy and he is on his way. I’ll go wait outside with you.” Marsha hooked her arm through mine and walked me through the massive crowd that was forming.

“Oh my god, is that her?” Someone yelled in the crowd that was lining up at the door to enter to watch the show. I looked around and a couple of people were pointing. People would recognize me in the street, and I needed to get used to it. I was going to ignore them like Ogden and pretend that they weren’t there.

Jeremy pulled up and gave me a beaming smile. As soon as I sat down, an intense fragrance assaulted my senses. Jeremy pulled away from the curb and made it down the street. “Pull over!” I yelled at him. I covered my mouth to hold in the vomit.

He quickly pulled to the curb; thank god no one was around because I threw up in the gutter.

“Are you okay?” Jeremy looked at me with concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine. What is that smell?” I closed the door but opened the window. I scrunched up my nose and tried to breath through my mouth.

“Oh, uh, I went to Lush earlier. Sorry.” He quickly rolled down all of the windows in the car, the cool evening air flooded the car. My nausea subsided. “Did you need to go to the doctor?”

I shook my head.

“Are you sure? Mr. Moore would be pissed if you were sick, and I didn’t bring you to a hospital.”

“It’s okay, Jeremy.” I waved a hand in front of me.

Every few seconds, I could feel him watching me in the rearview mirror.

“Can please stop staring at me?” I snapped at him.

“Sorry.” He let out a breath.

“Fine!” I leaned back in my seat. “You cannot tell Ogden…promise.”

“Of course.”

“I’m pregnant.” My words hung in the air, and he stared at me in shock.

A car horn honked at him as he almost hit another vehicle. He quickly righted the vehicle and came to a stop at a stop light. He turned and looked at me.

“You can’t say anything to him. I will be telling him later today.” I met his gaze and held it. I wanted him to know that I was serious about this. “I know that you share everything that happens, but I would greatly appreciate your silence on this.”

He gave me a curt nod. “Whatever you say, Willow.”