Lucas answered the door. “Hey, Erin. How are you?”
“Good.” I grinned at him like an idiot. I know something you don’t know.
“They’re upstairs whispering about something. Want to take a cup of coffee up?”
“Sure, thanks.” I followed him into the kitchen, where he poured me a cup from a carafe on the counter and took the cream from the fridge.
“Cream and sugar, right?”
“Right.”
“Sugar’s in the bowl on the counter. Here you go.” He handed me the cream, and after doctoring my coffee with plenty of white stuff, I took a spoon from the silverware drawer and gave it a stir. “So what’s going on up there?” he asked.
I stared into my cup, swirling the spoon much longer than necessary. “Oh nothing. Coco wanted to get together. Probably just wedding stuff.”
“That’s what Mia said.”
I smiled, although he couldn’t see it. “I can’t believe it’s less than a month away.”
“I know. For a wedding planner, it’s probably torture to have to put things together so fast.”
“Better Coco than Mia. She’d have freaked out at the thought of doing things last-minute, although Coco’s wedding is a much different kind of affair.” I put the spoon in the sink and the cream back in the fridge.
“Right. Although Mia is pretty distracted by something these days—not freaking out, but just not herself. I’m worried about her.”
“Really?” I leaned back against the counter and casually picked up my cup. “I haven’t noticed anything.”
Lucas frowned as he lowered himself onto a counter stool. “Oh. Well, maybe I’m just imagining things. There’s been a lot going on, we’ve been really busy at the bar…thanks again for filling in.”
“Anytime. Seriously.” I smiled at him.“Well, I better get up there.”
He returned the smile, but it was more polite than genuine. I could tell he was worried. How sweet to have a guy that’s genuinely concerned for your feelings. But then I reminded myself that I wasn’t worried about feelings. Fuck feelings, I thought. Hard. In the nostril. With a cactus.
I felt better after that.
Upstairs, I found Coco in the master bedroom, fidgeting outside the closed bathroom door. “She didn’t wait for me?”
“We heard you knock. You were taking too long,” she complained. “She just went in.”
Setting my coffee cup on the dresser, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think it’s going to be positive.”
“Me too,” she whispered back. Then she knocked on the bathroom door. “Mia? Can we come in?”
The door opened and Mia came out, still in her pink flannel pajamas. She walked over to the bed and got in, pulling the covers all the way over her head. “It’s on the counter. You look. I can’t.” Her voice was muffled by the blankets.
Coco and I exchanged a look.
“Why don’t you come with us?” I suggested. “You should be first to see the results.”
“No. I can’t handle it.”
Sighing, Coco went to the bed, grabbed the top of the bedding and threw it back, revealing Mia curled into a little pink flannel ball. “Get the hell out of bed and get in there. We’ll go with you.”
Reluctantly, Mia got to her feet and gave each of us a hand. “OK. But I’m closing my eyes.”
I squeezed her hand. “Why? Mia, you want this. You’ve always wanted this. If it’s positive, it’s a great thing! If it’s not, that’s OK too.”
“I do want it, but not right now. Lucas was just telling me this morning how busy he’s going to be in the next few months. He wants to open a bar in Chicago, which means he’ll be gone all the time. And then he said he wants to spend some time in Provence next summer because he’s thinking about buying a vineyard up north in the near future.” Only Mia could make buying a vineyard in northern Michigan sound like catching the pox. “I had no idea about any of this. I feel blindsided!”
“OK, OK, shhhh.” Coco put a hand on Mia’s shoulder. “Listen. I know you. And I know that what upsets you more than anything is not having a plan.”
“I had a plan,” Mia insisted, dropping my hand to swipe at her nose with her sleeve. “A bar in Chicago and a vineyard up north weren’t a part of it, and neither was a surprise pregnancy. But if it’s true, Lucas will blame me for not being able to do what he wants to do. He’ll think I did this on purpose.”
“Stop it right now.” I tugged her long wavy hair in a gesture I recognized as Charlie’s. “You’re being ridiculous, which is understandable if you’re pregnant because your emotions are all crazy. We told you last night—Lucas will not think that. He’s crazy about you, and he was just telling me downstairs that he knows something is worrying you and he’s concerned.”
She sniffed. “Is he? He’s so cute.”
“Yes. Now let’s go see what the test says, and then we can make a plan for telling him, OK?”
“OK. Hold me.”
Coco and I each took one of her arms, and we walked toward the bathroom. My pulse drummed and my stomach was flip-flopping madly, as if it were my pregnancy test, not Mia’s. I knew Coco must be feeling it too.
“Let’s close our eyes and look together,” she said. “Count of three.”
Closing our eyes, we babystepped into the bathroom and stood in front of the vanity. Mia counted us off.
“One. Two.” She took a deep breath. “Three.”
We opened our eyes.
“What the hell is that?” Coco said. “It looks like a divide sign.”
“It’s a sign that Lucas and I are going to be divided over this!” Mia wailed tearfully.
“Will you stop? It’s a plus,” I said. “It’s just faint. But it’s a plus, Mia. You’re pregnant.” Immediately, Coco and I began jumping up and down like rabid kangaroos. Poor Mia looked shell shocked.
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Coco stage whispered. “Mia, it’s positive! Congratulations!”
My throat was glued shut otherwise I’d have congratulated her too.
“It’s positive,” Mia said in a small voice. “It’s positive.”
“It is. How do you feel?” Coco studied her face. “Are you OK?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I need to sit down.” She backed up and sat on the edge of their tub. “OK.” Putting both hands over her stomach, she breathed slowly in and out. “This could be OK.”
“It’s more than OK.” I knelt in front of her, and Coco sat beside her. “It’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”
“It’s more than wonderful. We could make a list of all the wonderful things about this.” Coco tipped her head onto Mia’s shoulder.”
“You think?” Mia sounded hopeful.
“Yes!” I said. “One. This baby will be gorgeous. Can’t miss.”
“Right,” agreed Coco. “Two. You will be the best mommy ever because you’re always so prepared for everything.”
“Yes. Three.” I gestured to Coco and myself. “Built-in babysitters when you need a night off.”
“Definitely.” Coco nodded. “Four. Um…” She looked at me for help.
“Um.” I chewed my lip trying to think of something else. “Expectant Mom parking at the drugstore?”
Mia laughed. “Right. That’s important.”
“It is!” I thumped her legs. “Mommy.”
“Shhhhhh!” Mia glanced at the door. “OK, now what? I have to tell him, right?”
“Uh, yes.” Coco stood. “He probably should have known before us, but we can pretend we know nothing and hightail it out of here. You can say you took the test when we left.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head. “I won’t lie to him about it. I’ll just be honest. He knows how close we are.”
I got to my feet. “I think you’re right. Lucas is a good guy. He’ll understand. Plus he will so know something’s up when he sees Coco and me sneaking out of here. She has no poker face whatsoever.”
Mia smiled, rising from the tub. “True. OK, I’m going. But before I do…” She and Coco exchanged a look. “We need to know. Did Charlie show up last night?”
Coco laughed. “He must have. Look how fast she blushed!”
“Ahem, yes he did. But no, we didn’t.” I gave them an angelic expression, as if it had been my choice not to bang.
“You didn’t? Why not?” Coco looked confused.
“I told you. Just friends.” Thank God I had a poker face. I was lying through my teeth.
“He came over late last night to be just friends with you?” Mia asked.
I shrugged. “Apparently. I mean, I don’t know exactly what was on his mind because he’s not really good at telling me what he’s thinking unless it’s A, dirty, or B, how wrong he is for me.”
“He looks like that and he talks dirty?” Mia fanned herself.
“Yes.” My face got hotter. “But there was no dirty talk last night. There was no nothing. Not even a hug.” Damn him.
“Why not?” Coco asked. “You can hug a friend.”
“For one thing, he left after I fell asleep on the couch. For another, he has issues with gestures of physical affection unless they’re sexual. When he says goodbye, he just walks out, even if we were naked like an hour before.”
“Weird.” Mia shook her head, then sighed. “Too bad. I thought you two made a cute couple, in a sort of opposites-attract kind of way.”
“Me too,” confessed Coco.
“Nope, sorry.” Avoiding their eyes, I picked up my coffee cup from the dresser and headed back down the stairs. There would be no cute couple.
#
Coco and I ended up getting out the front door without Lucas noticing us, and we said goodbye out on the street, whispering quickly about a baby shower and promising to talk more soon. While my car warmed up, I looked out the window at Mia and Lucas’s townhouse. Was she telling him now? I smiled. What an amazing moment in life, to tell someone he’s going to be a father. I wondered if I’d ever experience anything like it. I wanted children, eventually, but I had no idea when that eventually would take place. I wasn’t like Mia, who knew she wanted to have kids before she turned thirty. Coco and Nick would probably have kids soon, too. Their kids would be able to play when we all got together.
Then I frowned, picturing myself as the lonely spinster aunt, coming to parties with toys and spinach dip but no significant other.
No, stop that. You’ll be the fun, crazy aunt that all the kids adore. They’ll beg to have you babysit and sleep over and take them places. Then you can drop them off when you’re done with them and go home to your nice, quiet townhouse. You can drink wine for dinner, watch what you want on TV, and sleep in.
That wouldn’t be lonely at all, would it?
I put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. I could travel too—I could go anywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted. Plenty of people traveled by themselves. Look at Mia, going to Paris all alone and meeting the love of her life when she least expected it!
That was the thing about being free—your life still had so much possibility. So I didn’t need to fret about my relationship status or envy my friends their happy life milestones. I still had possibility.
And if possibility had a pair of handcuffs and a magic tongue, all the better.