Chapter Twenty-One

Ho ho ho and all that crap. That’s what Georgie was thinking as she got ready for this little Christmas bash at Marcy’s. Make that Marcy and James’s. Or would that be Jameses’? She never knew how to do that. Make that Marcy and James’s and the alleged Baby Marcy-and-James. How weird was that? She tried to do the math on when the baby was due, but she wasn’t clear on when doctors date the pregnancy—at the point of conception? But who knew when that was? Or once you’re confirmed pregnant? Would she be due next fall? She counted on her fingers, figuring if she was pregnant mid-November, then maybe mid-August? Well, she’d be schvitzing that out next summer for sure—nine months pregnant in the dead heat of a North Carolina summer? No thank you, ma’am.

Georgie figured if she were ever to have a baby, it would, at this point, need to be both immaculate conception and immaculate delivery. She wanted that thing out with no muss, no fuss. She saw those scary videos of babies being delivered in health class and that made her skin crawl. Like who would invent such a barbaric procedure?

A man. That’s who. Typical.

As much as Georgie wasn’t keen on being all flush with holiday spirit, she did like a cute holiday dress, and a few years ago she had found an adorable, short, royal-blue scoop-necked sweaterdress tastefully trimmed in fake fur. It looked like something Mrs. Claus might wear on a date. A little spicy, emphasizing her best asset, her breasts, and her second-best asset, her legs. She donned a pair of sexy silver sandals, stuck two small Christmas ornament earrings in her ears, threw on her coat, and left, grabbing the obligatory bottle of wine for the hostess from the kitchen on her way out. She had half a mind to give Marcy one of those lousy, lamentable bottles of re-gifted wine people sometimes show up with. She never knew what to do with those and so far had donated them to the local food drive. Though that was likely not what they had meant when they said food drive. Instead she grabbed one of her better bottles, thinking it’s what she’d want someone to do for her.

She parked a block away, realizing too late the sandals she’d put on were look-don’t-walk shoes. Her feet were already hurting by the time she arrived at their door.

James greeted her at the entrance with a kiss and took her coat, pointing toward the kitchen, where Marcy was. The house was Christmased out in a big way—they must have bought out the holiday décor section at Target.

“Am I early?” she asked James. A cursory look revealed that she was the only one there.

“No.” He shook his head. “Didn’t Marc tell you? It’s only a small dinner thing.”

“Oh gosh, sorry. I thought it was a big blowout. I mean why else would I be invited?” She covered her mouth the minute she said that, knowing it might sound snide.

James put his arm around Georgie’s shoulder. “Because Marcy likes you. That’s why. And so do I.”

Okay, then… That was weird. Was she in the alternate universe in which her cousin was her friend? How supremely unexpected!

Georgie walked into the kitchen. “Georgie! So great to see you!” Her cousin enveloped her in a big hug.

“Hey!” Georgie said, plastering on a less-than-heartfelt smile. “How was your honeymoon?”

“It was fabulous,” her cousin said as she started to rub her belly. “Though I guess you could also call it a babymoon.”

Georgie cocked her head and squinted. “Babymoon?”

James joined them in the kitchen and put his arm around his new wife. “We’ve got some great news to share with you.”

Oh God. This was it. They were going to tell her about the baby due next fall and she was going to have to fake it and pretend she was none the wiser.

“Yeah? What is it?”

Marcy pulled something off of her refrigerator and handed it to her cousin. “This. It’s our sonogram picture. We’re having a baby in April!”

Georgie did a quick head shake. April? Huh? That would be the shortest gestation period in the history of—wait a minute. She did some quick mental math. That means she was pregnant well before she got married. Like even before she got engaged in September. And they did get married awfully quickly, come to think of it. Everyone said they were simply so excited to be husband and wife.

“A baby! You guys! You sure made fast work of it!”

“Well, not that fast,” she said. “If you do the math you can figure out we were expecting well before we got married.”

Gee, really? “Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t usually think about things like babies I guess.”

Marcy put her hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Georgie. I need to apologize to you. I was so wrapped up in my own world that I have never reached out to you to tell you how bad I felt for how Dan treated you. To be honest, I don’t think you deserved him, and I was glad when he was out of the picture.”

Georgie knit her brows. “What do you mean?”

“Like that time at my mother’s sixtieth birthday party when you two came down here. Remember that?”

Yeah, she remembered it. Her aunt seemed not particularly thrilled that Georgie showed up, a fiancé in tow. She figured it was because she was going to beat her daughter to the altar. It was Jeannie’s way.

“Well, that weekend I was out with some girlfriends at Catfish’s. We were all drinking and whooping it up. And Dan came in and started chatting up my friends as if he had every right to do that. He was buying drinks for one of them, even took her phone number. I was shocked by it. But then I guess I hoped he’d buckle down and get serious once you two were married.”

Huh. So, this was news. Danny was seen in public coming on to other women when they were engaged? And no one even told her?

“The thing is, Georgie, I need to apologize for my mother’s bad behavior too. I guess until recently I hadn’t seen her for all the ugly reality of it. And not to excuse it, but I guess she was jealous of you, since you were going to be married before I was. Stupid behavior, and she’s way too old for it.”

Georgie shrugged. “Thanks. Yeah, your mom never did like me much.”

James handed Georgie a tall glass of wine and a sparkling water to his wife.

“I don’t think it’s that she doesn’t like you so much as she doesn’t like herself. That might be the armchair psychologist in me, but honestly, my mother needs to get a life. She’s far too busy meddling in others’ lives and not at all concerned about how she comes across.”

Georgie was trying to figure out how to agree 150 percent with her cousin without coming across as insulting.

“The fact is my mother should have brought you under her wing when your mother died, but instead it was like she doubled down on you. It was all too much with this wedding. And to be honest, I have been so freaking exhausted and sick as a damned dog, I didn’t have it in me to deal with it, but I wanted to. I was up to my eyeballs in my own stupid stuff.”

Georgie nodded, taking it all in. This rewriting of history had taken her by complete surprise.

“You want to know a secret?”

Well, hell. Georgia couldn’t imagine what secrets were still left after all of this gut-spilling.

“When you said that thing to my mother at that bridal shower, I about peed my pants. I knew I couldn’t burst out laughing or my mother would freak out on me, but oh my God. Trust me, I was high-fiving you inside and laughing my ass off. Did you see my mother actually spluttered?

“Heh. Her little tea sandwich dropped right out of her mouth.”

“Yes! The stupid cucumber sandwich, which no one in their whole life would ever crave. And here she is stuffing that in her piehole, and you drop the bomb about your vibrators. It’s a wonder I didn’t wet my pants, what with this pregnancy and me peeing all the time anyhow.”

Georgie stood there, taking sips of her wine in rapid succession, not knowing exactly how she should respond.

“Gee, Marcy. I have to admit this all comes as a bit of a surprise. I mean your mother, yeah. She’s not my biggest fan, and I never understood why. But I’m glad to know that I wasn’t imagining it all at least.”

“Oh, not hardly. And when I told her we were expecting she seemed appalled that we weren’t married. I think her words were something along the lines of ‘how dare you get knocked up?’”

Georgie scrunched her nose. Not a very maternal response there. “I’m sorry, Marc. I didn’t realize she was that way to you too.”

Marcy waved her hand. “Oh, she alternates between being passive-aggressive and being smothering and boastful of me toward others. I guess I’m so used to it I don’t even react when she’s like this toward others like you. And I do owe you an apology for that. Particularly because I think she was compensating toward you. Angry at me, throwing her wrath your way. It’s the Jeannie way.”

“I guess I should be all the more grateful that my mother wasn’t at all like that when she was alive.”

“Funny, isn’t it? You had it great with your mother, and then she was taken away from you so early. And me, well, you see what I have to contend with. My mother hissed at me that we couldn’t tell anyone about the baby or we’d arouse suspicions. I told her to stuff it—as soon as I was past the fear of miscarrying, I was happy to let the world know. We’re excited and proud about our pregnancy, and it doesn’t matter which came first, the pregnancy or the marriage. That’s a relic of her ridiculously puritanical thought processes, not mine. She about birthed a cow when I said that.”

She opened the oven door and pulled out a tray of something she set on top of the stove. “She’s so damned concerned about one-upping her dead sister even still, that she was mortified I would be pregnant before I was married. Meanwhile, I could give two cares. James and I love each other, we’ll love our baby, and whether it was conceived in or out of wedlock is not anything I lose a moment’s sleep over.” She reached out and hugged Georgie, who felt the threat of tears. She closed her eyes and concentrated on not letting them spill. The last thing she needed was to be bawling at a dinner party with whatever stranger they’d invited to this meal.