10
While Gia closed herself in the master bathroom upstairs at the Sutton Square place, Jack did his best to put aside his fears and fill the half hour until the parents of Vicky's friends showed up. He stayed in costume and told them the story of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. None of them had ever seen it. Jack once had persuaded Vicky to watch it but she'd lasted only ten minutes. Not because she was scared. No, her complaint was, "There's no color! Where's the color?"
He half told, half acted out the story, going so far as to lie on the floor and imitate the Creature's backstroke in its fabulous water ballet with Julie Adams.
His audience's consensus: Great performance, but the story was "just like Anaconda."
Finally the parents started arriving and Jack explained that Gia wasn't feeling well—"Something she ate." When the townhouse was cleared, he ran upstairs and knocked on the bathroom door.
"You okay?"
The door opened. An ashen Gia leaned on the edge of the door, hunched over.
"Jack," she gasped. A tear ran down her left cheek. "Call the EMTs. I'm bleeding. I think I'm losing the baby!"
"EMTs, hell," he said, lifting her in his arms. "I'll have you in the ER before they even start their engines."
Terror and anguish were icy fingers around his throat, making it hard to draw a full breath, but he couldn't let any of that show: Vicky stood at the bottom of the staircase, fist jammed against her mouth, eyes wide with fear.
"Mom's not feeling good, Vicks," he said. "Let's get her to the hospital."
"What's wrong?" she said, her voice high-pitched, barely audible.
"I don't know."
And he didn't, really, though he feared the worst.