at my doorstep

chapter 2

In less than two hours, Sean had managed to convince me that I was the most incompetent fool ever born upon the Earth.

"For the umpteenth time, Orli, let's try this again!" Sean, our dear, patient Samwise Gamgee, was starting to show the evidence of a long day. Lines bracketed his mouth and his hair looked as if it had been styled with a demented hoover.

I stared down at the mess I'd managed to make of my dining room table. "I'm not sure I can do this, Sean."

"Of course you can," he said slowly. "You just have to stop treating babies like they're about to crumble into dust. It's not even a real baby, fer cryin' out loud!"

Alexandra, Sean's daughter, was sitting beside us, giggling. It was her Pee-Pee Polly doll I was practising my diapering skills on. She found me severely lacking and even had the cheek to tell me so several times. There are few things more humiliating than being outdone by a six-year-old.

"Are you sure he's going to make a good daddy, Daddy?" she asked again.

"No, I'm not," I muttered. "I'm not going to be a daddy for a very, very, very long time."

"It was your idea to keep the baby here until detectives call again," Sean reminded me.

"Not entirely," I corrected. "Fiona said that if this hits the newsstands, I wouldn't get peace for the next decade." I shuddered, imagining the mayhem that would ensue. Reporters bivouacked in the sidewalk. Other demented teenagers leaving kids, dogs, cats, iguanas, and what-have-you at the gates. Bags of letters in piles reaching to my head condemning me whether or not I kept the baby. Marriage proposals, babysitting CVs, claims of being the mother… It was enough to make me want to run screaming all the way back to Canterbury.

"Then why not find a babysitter for her?"

I frowned at the thought. "Are you balmy? I'm supposed to trust the welfare of a newborn to someone I've just met? Besides, it'll just be another person who could leak this to the press."

"I'll baby-sit her," Alexa offered, showing off a gap-toothed grin.

I looked at her and wondered if the baby would look as adorable when she loses her first tooth. Then I shook my head and told myself to stop being such a berk. I was going to conquer this nappy business if it killed me. If I could learn how to put an arrow through a paper plate in two weeks, I could certainly learn how to clean up after something that weighed less than a watermelon.

Half an hour later, I was finally able to diaper the doll well enough to satisfy Sean. Christine came in just then with the baby in one arm and a bottle in the other.

"Shouldn't you be holding her with both hands?" I asked.

She laughed. "I've done this before, remember?"

Belatedly, I recalled Sean's second-born, Joshua, who was being an absolute angel and quietly napping in his carrier. And here I thought girls were supposed to be sugar and spice and all that shit. As I was contemplating that, I caught an evil glint in Christine's eye. Moments later, she dropped the baby in my arms then jumped away.

"Ack!" I choked, holding my body as stiff as possible.

The baby's half-closed eyes wandered over my face. She weighed less than nothing, her body was warm and smelled of baby powder and slightly sour milk. She also wriggled too much for me to be comfortable.

"Christine," I said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the tremor from my voice. "Christine, I'm going to drop her."

"You've got a good grip on her," she said. "Just tuck her head in like this and keep your hand down over here." She moved my left arm around until she was satisfied with my contortions.

"Christine!" I know I sounded like a nancy but the baby was wiggling around a bit more and I was positive that any second now she was just going to--

--yawn and fall asleep.

Alexa laughed and clapped her hands. "She likes you, Orli!"

"She's female enough to take advantage of the fact that Orlando's embracing her," Christine agreed.

"Hey!" Sean protested half-heartedly but his wife placated him with a sweet smile that left no doubt as to whom she would choose between her husband and myself.

Christine placed the half-empty bottle in my right hand. "Remember to keep the nipple filled with milk when you're feeding her so that she doesn't suck in air and get gas."

"Isn't she finished yet?" Nevertheless, I gently pressed the tiny rubber nipple to the baby's face. I actually hit her cheek instead of her tiny pink mouth but she gaped her lips open and closed just like a little baby bird, all without opening her eyes. It forced a chuckle out of me.

"Did you see that?" I asked. "She's like a heat-seeking missile." I pushed the nipple closer to her mouth and she latched on.

"All babies do that," Christine told me.

"Well, she managed to do it despite being left to exposure most of the night," I countered. She had the bottle in a firm grasp now and was suckling away like mad. "Blood--er, man, look at her go! I can feel the tug."

I didn't realise that I was rocking my arm side to side until Sean bumped into me on the way to the kitchen.

He grinned at me. "You're getting into this aren't you?"

I answered his grin with one of my own. "It's not so hard. She's a good wee tyke, aren't you, love?"

"That's not what Elijah and Billy were saying," said Sean. "They way they described her when they left, I came thinking she was possessed."

"Eh, they haven't got the touch, that's all." I jiggled the baby a little closer to my chest to make absolutely certain that she wouldn't fall to the floor. Her eyes half opened and she peered up at me. Shot through the gut with those mighty blue arrows again. I felt my smile reach my ears and keep going.

"What did Fiona say you should do until the detectives contact you?" Sean asked.

"Hmm?" I was still momentarily in the clutches of those eyes. "Oh, just to try and keep things quiet and low-key. Not to be seen with her. By the way, thanks for helping Lij buy the bottles and food and the lot, mate. He sounded a little overwhelmed."

"Overwhelmed?" Sean laughed. "I bet he's still in his bed with his head stuck under the pillow with no intention of coming near here until you've guaranteed that the baby's gone. And Billy's probably under his bed, thinking the same."

"Plonkers."

"Amen." There was a short break in speech when all I could hear was the sound of the baby suckling and the radio spewing a soft jazzy-bluesy tune. Then Sean spoke up again. "Are you going to be okay now?"

"I'll be fine."

"'Cause we need to go to work."

I nodded. I'd be nauseous with the amount of milk that the baby was tucking in. Come suppertime, she was going to stop looking like an advert for starvation in war-torn countries and start resembling a good-sized piglet. Or maybe a baby elf if there was such a thing.

"We're going now, Orli."

"Uh-huh."

Whatever else they said was lost on me after that. I don't quite remember how I got to the bed, but there I was lying down with the baby mashed up against my chest. It was rather nice actually, almost domestic if I dare say so myself. I didn't know what I'd been so worried about before; this babysitting thing was easy-peasy. I was just about to drop off myself when suddenly, a banshee wailed in my ear. I shot up out of the bed.

The baby was screaming, sounding like I was torturing it. She had a healthy set of lungs on her but I couldn't quite appreciate that right now. My body had just realised that I had been disturbed from a rest it so rightfully needed after being awake for thirty-six hours, twelve of which were spent running completely on adrenaline. It wanted to go back to bed. However, the baby was saying quite clearly that if she didn't get what she wanted, she was going to die a gruesome death in the middle of my mattress.

"Er, right then." I ran to the fridge to nab a bottle. Then I dropped the bottle on the countertop and ran back to the room to pile up pillows around the baby; I watched someone do that on the telly once. I ran once more to the kitchen to microwave the bottle and back again to the room to make certain that the pillows weren't going to suffocate her.

When the microwave beeped and I took the bottle out, spending a few nerve-wracking seconds trying to recall if I should test the heat on the inside of my wrist or the outside. Deciding to just give both sides a go, I found that it was pretty close to room temperature. I sprinted back to the bedroom. The baby was still shrieking for all she was worth.

"Here you go, love." I popped the nipple in her mouth. That quieted her down for all of two seconds. Then she spat out the bottle and started a-howling once more.

"Oh, hell." Gingerly, I pulled back the tiny diaper, my nose firmly pinched. "Thank you, God. No mess." I let the diaper snap back tight. "So what's the problem then, love?"

She bellowed.

"Do you want a toy?" I reached down to the canvas bag Christine had deposited in my room when they first came in. My hands touched something soft: a teddy bear rattle. I shook it in front of her face. "How's this then, sweetheart? Isn't this fantastic?"

She barely gave it a cursory glance before going off on another tangent.

I reached into the bag again. "How about this? It's a monkey! We love monkeys, don't we?"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!"

Hmm, apparently not.

I delved back into the bag. Diapers, diapers, a digital thermometer, miniature shirts, more diapers-- there was nothing else in the bag to play with. My palms began to sweat. Without my knowing it, my hands pulled out my mobile and dialled Christine's number.

"She's crying again!" I said in lieu of a greeting.

"Good afternoon to you, too. You lasted longer than I thought you would."

"She's crying again," I repeated, trying not to sound frantic anymore but still wanting to press upon her the importance of the situation. "I've just fed her and her nappy isn't wet but she doesn't want to play with any of the toys you gave."

"Have you burped her yet?"

"What?"

"Didn't I tell you this? Babies can't burp," she explained using a tone that I was really starting to get weary of. "You have to pick her up, sling her on your shoulder and pat her back gently so that she can burp."

"You're bamming me."

"No, Orli, I would never bam you. I'm a married woman and I love my husband dearly. Is there anything else?"

"Er, keep the head supported, right?"

"You're learning."

"Couldn't you take the day off just today?" I pleaded.

"I'd love to come over and help you, hon," said Christine. "But I really can't get out of any of my engagements today. And even if I could, I can't exactly explain to them why."

I think perhaps I sobbed as I ended the call. The baby was still screaming her little head off. She didn't seem that cute anymore. Her incredibly blue, blue blinkers were hidden away, powerless.

Sean told me that babies are pretty sturdy but I couldn't believe that. Every time I tried to lift her up, she flopped around like she had a total of ten bones, all of which were built like paper. It took three tries before I managed to get one hand under her head and the other under her bum. Then I was stuck.

If I lifted her straight off right now, her middle part would get pulled down and she could fall. But if I took my left hand and slid it to her back, there was an equal chance of her slipping. Granted, my hands looked big enough to carry her but I couldn't risk that.

Maybe if I… bent down so that my torso actually touched her body then… lifted hands, baby and torso up simultaneously back to an upright position…?

Well, what did you know? It worked. She was still doing her best to make me deaf but at least I got her in the proper burping position.

"Pat her back, gently," I muttered to myself. "Gotcha." I drummed the tips of my fingers lightly on her shoulder.

Ten minutes can seem like an eternity when you have an extremely uncomfortable baby literally in your hands. I was sure I'd lost some hearing ability in my right ear but I couldn't quite gather the nerve to shift her to the other shoulder. My back-patting didn't seem to want to work. I thought about patting a little harder but her ribs might not be able to take it and I'd wind up in jail for breaking the ribs of an infant who just wanted to burp.

"I don't know how the rest of the bloody world deals with this," I told her. "Maybe they know it's their own bloody fault that the kid's come into the world and they've really got nothing to lose."

The baby paused momentarily for a few hiccuping breaths.

I frowned at the faulty logic. "That doesn't make any sense. If they're the ones who made it, you'd think they'd be a lot more careful about it, yeah? Look at you, love. Who in their right mind would leave something like you on the bloody doorstep of a complete stranger?"

My feet were itching to pace. I went around the main living space, kicking out things from the floor that might make me trip and squash the baby.

"That's the problem with those bloody websites and stories and interviews. Everyone devours them, think they know me better than I know myself and do utterly and completely ludicrous things like send me casseroles or dirty pictures or… did you hear about the time when some woman broke into my old place and they had to call the police to drag her out of there? Likely before your time, yeah?"

The baby wuffled and went back to wailing though it seemed to me as if she was putting less effort into it. That or my hearing was completely gone.

"Well, it's like this, love." I started off an easy route about the living room. "This woman was a security expert type. Smart by all indications, yeah? She hacked her way into some sort of city-wide directory to find out where I lived, managed to bypass the security in the bloody complex and made herself home in my flat."

The baby let out a burble. I twisted my head to look at her. "Was that a burp? Are you finished?"

She whimpered.

"I suppose not. Where was I? I think I was still in Morocco at the time. Any case, she's been living for a couple of days in my flat when someone-- I'm not going to drop names now; that's pretentious-- saw all the activity going on there and remembered that I wasn't in the country. So he called the police.

"Well, the first constable left his partner at the door and just went up to knock, yeah? She goes and peeps her head around, sees that it's a cop and near mashes his nose in trying to slam the door closed."

I chuckled, remembering the newsreel that Fiona had shown me. It hadn't seemed so funny at the time; it was damned terrifying was what it was.

"So, the cop knocks harder and starts yelling for her to come out. His partner comes out, too and the both of them try to go around the house somehow but she's managed to put the flat in complete security lock-down. They had to ram one of the walls down to get her out and even then, she was screaming as they dragged her away. Said that she wasn't done baking a damned c-cake for m--"

I stuttered to a stop. Laughter forced its way out. "You should've seen this cake, Elf."

The baby drooled on my shirt.

"Five tiers high in orange and blue icing-- can't complain about her choice in colour. I think she was in the middle of icing the last couple of cakes when the wrecking ball smashed through. To this day I don't know if she was incarcerated or recruited into the CIA or some--"

"BRAAACK."

I must've done a classic double take. "Good Lord, Elf, that was impressive."

She spat up in response and gave an encore. "brap."

"If that was what was stuck in your tum, no wonder you were in pain." I gave her another few experimental taps. After a few snuffles, she seemed to settle into a comfortable position. She did not, however, go to sleep.

"What's wrong, love?" I craned my neck to look at her. "You're full, you've burped up all that gas, and you're clean. According to the Astin Crash Course in Parenting, you should be in dreamland by now."

Another little wriggle but no dozing off. In fact, she seemed rather restless.

"I know how you feel," I told her. "I hardly ever spend any time in this place myself. Out of sheer necessity, you understand. And I like walking around, seeing things… a lot harder when the sun feels like it's bloody-- er, darn-well on top of your head."

Today wasn't so bad though. Rather pleasant spring day for LA, sunny without being wickedly scorching. Besides, if I paced around the living room anymore, I was going to wear a track around on the carpet.

"What say you and I break out, love?"

Was it just me or did she smile?

"Christine left some sort of carrying contraption around here somewhere…"

There was something strangely comforting about talking to a baby. They're excellent sounding boards and no matter what you say, they seem genuinely interested. Part of that could be due to the fact that she couldn't quite blink yet but…

I found the carrying pouch. It looked like a cross between a knotted blanket and a giant purse. With great reluctance, I set the baby down on the bed. Just as I predicted, she started crying again. Not so bad this time, just some weak sobs and a truly pathetic face that said, "But I was comfortable! Why did you move me for, you uncaring, sadistic beast?"

I got that sling on in record time.

When I first set out, I was rather worried that she'd fall through or feel unsupported, but the baby settled right in, smacking her lips and curling into the curve of my body. I donned a toque, sunnies, and a pair of slip-ons and we were off on our California adventure.

"If you look to the right," I said with a proper bored-butler intonation, "You will see the well-manicured Nouveau Japanese garden of a certain movie star whose husband is currently boffing his agent who is most assuredly male. Please note the well-trimmed bonsai pines and zinnia beds. To your left is the home of a singer, again unnamed in order to protect his privacy, who was a one-hit wonder in the eighties and is attempting to make a retro comeback. Coming up is… well, I believe it's no one in The Business but his son is doing his ample best to break in by any means possible despite the fact that my dog Maude has more acting ability. The bugger'll probably make it in too, what with his perfectly capped teeth and professionally tanned skin."

A spit bubble formed on her bow lips, the third one of the day I believe.

"I should really start calling you something other than 'baby,'" I said, giving her a pinkie finger to grip. "In this city, that's an overused, plastic phrase. How do you feel about 'snookums'?"

She farted. I've never heard a cute fart before. I didn't know that breaking wind could sound like an animal from a Disney movie.

"All right, then. That was succinct. How about 'peaches?' That's quite a bit more refined."

I'm positive she rolled her eyes.

"Well, I've called you elf a few times. Tolkien would roll in his grave though; I was referring tot he elves of the Keebler Snacks variety and I'm sure he only acknowledges the seven foot, thousand year-old type. Elegant, graceful, wise, et cetera?"

She jerked my finger to her mouth and sucked on it.

"Well, you are blonde and God knows you must've been a hard one to last being left alone for hours until we came back. And you seem like the clever type."

The tip of my pinkie was starting to go numb.

"Yeah, definitely strong."

There was a small park of sorts a few blocks away for the neighbourhood kids. It had two sets of swings, a jungle gym and a basketball court. I'd passed by it countless times barely acknowledging the screaming, boisterous urchins.

Wary of said urchins, I slung back on one of the benches planted under a tree. The tyke must've heard the noise 'cause she started to wiggle around like you wouldn't believe.

"Want a look-see, do you?" I curled my arm into a proper backrest. "There you go, love. That'll be you in a few years. Er… minus the Band-Aids and boogies, I hope. And certainly a lot prettier."

Her hands worked at the sling.

"Well, you can't play yet, silly. You've barely mastered feeding, never mind getting on those monkey bars."

Just then, a girl no more than five miscalculated her next swing and landed in a scraped, crying heap in the middle of that very same set of monkey bars. I winced along with her mother.

"Take note, sweetheart. I don't want to stitch you up any more than necessary."

She wiggled some more, her hands bunching up as much of the sling as they could, her legs kicking out. I laughed.

"You really want to get out there, don't you?" Taking a look around, I spotted an empty swing. "All right then, but not too fast, mind you. You're too little to be a daredevil."

Cautiously, I sat on the rubber seat and began pushing us back and forth in an easy rhythm. Her kicking stopped immediately and she started smacking her lips in the manner that I'd taken to mean contentment.

"You like that, yeah?" My hand had begun patting her bottom unconsciously. "I'll have to get you one then." I paused. Blinked. Swallowed. "I mean… tell the couple who'll adopt you. I've got to make sure my girl gets the best."

She acknowledged the comment by loosening her grip on the sling for all of a half-second. I sighed and gave her my pinky to chew on.

"Thing is this, Elf: I can't get too attached to you. As much as I loved learning how to change the nappies on a plastic doll and swinging on this swing with you looking up at me like I'm God's gift, I can't keep you. I'm too young and unmarried and my career is hell on kids. You wouldn't want someone like that as a papa, would you?"

She spat out my finger and gave me The Look I'd seen on countless other women from my mother onwards. It was an expression of incredulity, disdain, and pity that could be translated as the expletive "Men!" Now we all know when they learn it.

"A darling thing like you would probably get snatched up by the best of couples," I told her. "They'd give you a herd of siblings to play with, send you off to footie practice and ballet lessons and give you three square meals a day. My schedule can best be called erratic, I forget to eat so often that my agent calls me to remind me to take vitamin supplements, and I'm too lazy to learn how to drive on the right side on the road."

Her eyes were big. Big, big, big like… like patches of the sky over the New Zealand countryside at the peak of summer. And they were staring at me… damned guilt complex. That must be a connected to the X-chromosome as well.

"If I kept you," I said. "And that is a very large and ephemeral 'if,' my entire life would turn a wreck! I'd have to arrange my schedule around yours; I've already got two films lined up to do. I wouldn't be able to see my mates too often since they'd be going to pubs and discos until all hours of the night. Wouldn't be able to bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge or rock climb either. I'd lose the precious sleep I've been aching for since I came back from Morocco. That jaunt in India ended up being more of an adventure than a rest; such is the story of my life.

"And you…you'd have to put up with travelling all your life because I'd never put up with leaving you with nannies. You also can't date until you're forty, can't smoke or drink excessively, drive too fast, do drugs, have an eating disorder, date, wear revealing clothing, have cosmetic surgery unless necessary, play with fire, date, pet strange dogs and God knows I'll completely flip when you get sick and--"

The tirade stopped abruptly as did my swinging. My breath was gone and it wasn't because of my talking or walking or swinging. My mobile had just rang.