89
Tuesday, July 21st, 1987, 6:57 P.M.
“When are those cookies gonna be ready?” Jane called out from the living room.
“In about ten minutes,” Belinda said, as she walked in from the kitchen.
“Ten minutes?” Gina complained. “I can’t wait that long. Bring me in some cookie dough.”
“I’m not bringing you in any cookie dough,” Belinda informed her. “Go get it yourself… And we’re not eating them early. We’re going to wait for them to cool off.” Belinda sat down on the couch and grabbed the remote control off the top of the coffee table. “You guys wanna watch Family Ties?” she asked, pointing the remote at the television set.
“Sure, whatever,” answered Jane. “Let’s watch Susannah’s new boyfriend.”
“I can’t believe it. She’s so predictable,” said Belinda. “After she told me she would never date a T.V. star, she goes ahead and dates that little squirt.”
“I wanna hold Lorna,” stated Gina, referring to Belinda’s daughter who was lying on her back in her crib.
“I told you, Gina, you can’t hold Lorna,” reminded Jane. “If she sees your face, she’ll think she’s being attacked by a giant creature. She’ll be traumatized.”
“Ehh, you’re so funny, Jane,” mocked Gina. “How about I attack you instead?” Gina grabbed a throw pillow from the end of the couch and whapped it upside Jane’s head. Then she jumped on top of her and gave her a couple of punches in the arm.
“Oww, oww,” Jane cried out. “Stop it, you crazy bitch.” Jane managed to push Gina off of her and sent her tumbling to the ground. Then Jane returned the favor by hopping on top of her and slap-boxing her in the cheeks several times.
Amidst the ruckus, Lorna stopped chewing on her plastic dinosaur long enough to see what was going on. She turned her head to the side, but still wasn’t quite able to roll over yet. She was still a month or so away from that milestone.
Lorna’s actions amused Belinda.
“Lorna says knock it off you two, or she’s gonna get out of her crib and kick both of your asses.”
Jane could hold out no longer.
“Ohhh, I wanna hold her now,” she pleaded. “Can I pick her up?”
“Sure, go ahead,” said Belinda. “She knows you. I was thinking about giving her some bananas anyway.”
Jane reached into the crib and picked up the baby. Her and Gina sat back down on the couch, as Jane proceeded to bounce Lorna on her knee ever-so-slightly. Lorna appeared to be interested in everything else around the room other than her two admirers, but still managed to let out some soft coos.
Belinda, meanwhile, headed back into the kitchen to check on the availability of some bananas she could mush-up to give to Lorna. Or, at the very least, some banana-flavored Gerbers. She also wanted another fingerful of cookie dough based on Gina’s power of suggestion.
Lorna Doomsday Carlisle was born at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on March 3rd, 1987. Belinda had no reservations about giving her daughter a goofy middle name, considering the eccentricities of entertainers. Especially rock and roll singers. She was merely paying tribute to a dear friend who had meant a great deal to her at one point in her life. Besides, she was only planning on revealing the colorful middle name to people close to her, and figured the topic would rarely come up in conversation. Her television show did the best job they could at hiding her pregnancy during the taping of the final season, using the usual, loose-fitting clothing and employing the proper camera angles. No sir, no bikini-clad beach scenes were in store for Belinda during this arduous time. In fact, the network only taped 19 episodes in the final year of the show’s existence, five, of which, did not include Belinda at all. The security staff at the studio did everything possible at shielding her from the press, as the paparazzi hounded her constantly. After all, Belinda was a megastar and this was juicy stuff. She also turned down an invitation from her pal, David Letterman, to come on his late-night gabfest, because she knew he would persistently needle her on who the father was.
The father was, of course, Myles, and Belinda knew it all the time. She knew that whoever drugged her and caused her to blackout on that fateful night, forgot one thing:
She was in “LAH-OVE!” as Oprah would say. There was no way she would sleep with a total stranger after falling head over heals for Mr. Slick. Whoever the perpetrator was, he or she forgot, or didn’t know, that ever-so-important fact.
But there were two, major problems in her life at this time that was tearing Belinda’s wonderful, loving heart apart:
1.) It was now becoming clearer who had drugged her, and…
2.) Myles was not in her life at the moment.
Copyright 2021
by Clark Wright