Gemma Halliday - Fearless in High Heels

I grabbed Ramirez’s hand as we were led down a hallway that smelled like rubbing alcohol and Band-Aids, then into another room where I was instructed to lay down on a table. Luckily they didn’t leave me alone long, a female technician appearing as soon as the woman in scrubs left. She quickly squirted icy-cold goop all over my belly and stuck a wand attached to a computer on it.

I watched nervously as images moved across the computer’s screen. Mostly fuzzy. All black and white. None of them even slightly resembling a person as far as I could tell.

“Is that The Bump?” I asked. I paused. “I mean the baby?”

The technician nodded. “Uh huh.”

“Is he supposed to look all fuzzy like that?” Ramirez asked, cocking his head to the side.

I grinned. I suddenly didn’t feel like such a bad parent that I couldn’t tell what was baby and what was screen static.

The technician smiled. “Yes. See, here you can see the hands, the feet, and this is its little rump.”

“Can you tell if it’s a girl or a boy?” I asked, silently chanting “pink, pink, pink” in my head.

She nodded. “We should be able to tell by now. Let me just see if I can get a better angle,” she said, moving the wand around on my belly so that the image in the screen twisted sideways.

“Maybe just a little to the left here, and we should be able to tell… oh.” The tech paused, her eyes squinting at the monitor.

“Oh?” I asked, butterflies suddenly taking hold in my stomach. “What does ‘oh’ mean?”

“It’s just that… well, I’m not sure but… oh, my goodness”

“What?” I asked, nerves creeping into my voice. Oh god, what? Mom was right, I didn’t know what to do with this parenthood. It wasn’t even born yet, and already we were having an “oh my goodness” moment. It must have been the feta cheese I ate on my Greek salad before I took the pregnancy test. The soft cheese had done her in. Or maybe it was the lattes. Yes, I was a horrible person. I had snuck one when I’d been on caffeine-deprivation-headache day number three with no end in sight. Oh, God, my selfish latte binge had permanently disfigured my baby, I knew it.

“Is everything okay?” Ramirez asked, his voice amazingly calm compared to the mental breakdown I was silently having on the table.

“Well…” the technician frowned at the monitor again. “I don’t know how no one has caught this yet. But I have some news for you.”

I clenched my fists. I bit my lip. I steeled myself for the worst.

“News?” Ramirez asked, a hint of concern lacing his voice now, too.

And just when I was about to burst from fear (not to mention serious need to pee), the technician’s concern smoothed out into a smile. “You’re having a girl.”

I let out a long breath, deflating my belly at least two inches in the process as visions of pink, frilly tutus, soft pink onesies, and teeny tiny pink shoes filled my brain.

“What was the ‘oh my goodness’ part?” Ramirez asked, ever the interrogator.

The technician looked from me to my husband, smiling even wider. “You’re going to have a girl and a boy. It’s twins!”

Oh boy.

Gemma Halliday is the author of the High Heels Mysteries , the Hollywood Headlines Mysteries, and the Deadly Cool series of young adult books. Gemma’s books have received numerous awards, including a Golden Heart, a National Reader’s Choice award and three RITA nominations. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is hard at work on several new projects.

To learn more about Gemma, visit her online at http://www.gemmahalliday.com

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