This made Todd move. He dashed over to the security guard and yanked a radio from his belt. He mashed a button and shouted into it. I didn’t pay a lot of attention, staring at the floor, trying to bring down my panic.
Corabelle gripped me, holding me up. “Can you walk?” she asked.
“In a second,” I managed to say. It was easing up. After a couple more breaths, I was able to stand up straight again. “Maybe it’s just those Braxton Hicks or whatever?”
Corabelle shook her head. “Not if your water broke.”
She was right. “Is it too soon?” I thought of Corabelle’s baby, born so early. He hadn’t made it, and died on his seventh day. Panic flooded me.
“You’re fine,” she said. “Finn had a heart condition, remember? That’s why he died, not being premature.”
But her eyes didn’t match her words. She was scared.
“Come this way,” Todd said, leading us away from the stage. He still held on to the guard’s radio. We took small steps toward the back hallway, where the dressing rooms were. I wasn’t sure what I wanted more, a sofa or an ambulance.
The guard followed us. “They always have EMTs at the arena for things like this,” he said. “They are coming down.”
But suddenly I felt fine, like really fine. I straightened my back, checked for cramps, pain, weirdness.
Nothing. The baby elbowed my belly as if to say, “Get over it.”
Now I was embarrassed.
“I think I’m okay,” I said. “Maybe it was something else?”
Todd stopped in his tracks. “Is this one of those false alarms? My brother’s wife dragged him to the hospital three times before she finally popped out my nephew.”
“Why don’t you go to the bathroom and check things?” Corabelle said. “Be sure.”
I nodded as Todd opened the door to Chance’s dressing room. It was small and empty, the holding area for the low men on the concert totem pole.
But it had a bathroom. I headed for it, pushing inside. I felt silly. Maybe I really had just peed myself.
I went inside and stared at myself in the mirror below the hot overhead lights, my face pale and washed out. The dull brown of my natural hair color showed through the pink chalk I’d been applying to cover the roots, since I couldn’t dye my hair anymore.
My mascara-heavy lashes were garish and sad. I’d bitten off my lipstick, leaving the plum liner standing out around the edges, like a coloring-book mouth nobody had bothered to fill in.
I looked like a tabloid train wreck.
And I’d peed myself.
I turned on the water and wet a paper towel, fixing the smudges of black beneath my eyes. Then I wet some more to take with me into the bathroom for the cleanup.
Maybe I would have to wear adult diapers.
I could borrow from the baby.
Tears sprang in my eyes at the thought. Nobody said pregnancy would be like this. Out in the arena, scantily clad girls were clamoring for Chance’s attention.
And I was a pee-soaked, bad-haired, pale-faced washout.
The toilet was inside a little stall even though it was the only one. I pushed the door inside and turned around to lift the long skirt. This was so awful. The lowest of lows.
I had just reached for my panties, soaked in all the wrong ways, when the next contraction hit. I cried out, gripping the sides of the stall.
The fullness hit me again, and I realized — that’s the baby.
The baby was coming.
“Corabelle!” I screamed.
She came instantly, crashing through the door. “Jenny?”
“Where are the EMTs?” My voice was starting to go, lost in the huffy breathing.
“They’re out here. Waiting for you.” She took my hand. “Can you walk at all?”
I forced my foot to take a step forward. It obeyed. I clutched at Corabelle, hanging on to her arm like a lifeline. We made a few more mincing steps toward the door.
“You’re seven minutes apart,” she said. “That’s not too bad. You’ll make it.”
I nodded, glad somebody knew what they were doing. We made it to the door and passed back into the main room. A man and a woman in navy uniforms were waiting, already wearing latex gloves. Behind them was a rolling stretcher. It looked like heaven.
I fixated on their hands in the beige rubber, imagining my baby getting caught by them. This calmed me, knowing they were prepped and ready. I had a place to lie down. They would take me where I needed to go. It would be okay.
I felt remarkably calm.
“How far along are you?” the man asked.
“She’s thirty-five weeks,” Corabelle said. “Her water broke.”
The man turned to me. “Let’s get you up on the stretcher,” he said. “We’re going to need to transport you.”
Suddenly my calm snapped. “No!” I shouted. “Not without Chance!”
“A chance for what?” the woman asked. She had come around to my other side and the two of them were leading me to the stretcher.
I planted my feet. “My fiancé! I want him!”
“Where is he?” the man asked.
Todd stepped forward. “He’s onstage. I’ve already ordered the crew to end his show.”
The contraction started to ease and I bent over, bracing my hands on my knees. “Thank you,” I told Todd. “Thank you so much.”