Sixteen

Alice

A week later, on Saturday afternoon, Alice knocked on Madison’s door.

“Come in,” her roommate yelled from inside the room.

Alice opened the door and stopped dead on the threshold. “Whoa, what’s going on in here?”

Madison was sitting on the floor surrounded by sheets of printed paper that were scattered all over the carpet in apparent chaos.

“I’m deconstructing Don Quixote.”

No kidding, Alice thought. “Literally?”

“No, not literally.” Madison rolled her eyes as if everyone should know what deconstructing a book meant. “But I need to check different chapters at once to—”

“I’m already late,” Alice interrupted, before Madison could launch into a didactic explanation.

Madison stared up at her with a face that said: Well, you’re the one who came into my room asking what I was doing… so?

“I wanted to give you a heads-up,” Alice explained.

The confusion on Madison’s face deepened.

“I’m meeting Georgiana for coffee.” Madison’s confusion turned to shock, then to shame. “We’re going to Crema Café in case you’re going out and want to… uh… avoid the place.”

“So the newlyweds are back from the honeymoon,” Madison said, more to herself than Alice. “They’ve been gone almost a month… Thanks for letting me know. I’ll definitely avoid Harvard Square. Are you going right now?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll head out with you.” Madison stood up, revealing the only tiny circle of carpet not covered in paper. “I could use a break from all this mess.” She grabbed her battered leather bag, a paperback from her nightstand, and slipped into a pair of flats. “I’m ready.”

“You’re taking a break from reading a book by reading another book?” Alice asked, tilting her chin toward the paperback in Madison’s hands as they headed out of the apartment.

“This?” Madison scoffed. “This is genre fiction; it’s the definition of a break. And I wasn’t reading Don Quixote, I was deconstructing it. This”—she tapped the book and then pushed the “down” button of the elevator—“is just a story, something I don’t have to study, or analyze, or—”

“Deconstruct,” Alice offered, entering the elevator.

“Exactly. I can get lost in the narrative without thinking, take a break from everything else, and travel to a different place.”

In the lobby, Alice pulled Madison into a hug, saying, “All right, have fun on your break.”

“You too.”

Madison held the entrance door open for her and they both stepped outside, heading in opposite directions.

***

“Sorry I’m late,” Alice said as she arrived at Crema Café.

Georgiana was already there, sitting at a table for two, but as soon as she spotted Alice she got up to welcome her. Her bump wasn’t showing yet, but Georgiana still seemed rounder, softer. Not in a weight-gain way. Alice couldn’t explain it; it was as if Georgiana’s edges had been smoothed, making her sorority big sister a gentler version of her former self.

“Don’t worry,” Georgiana said, air kissing her. “I got here only a minute ago.”

“Wow.” Alice smiled, taking in Georgiana’s tan and pregnancy glow. “You look fantastic.”

“Oh, please. I’m a fat cow.” Georgiana sagged back in her chair. “None of my clothes fit anymore.”

Inside her head, Alice rolled her eyes. Georgiana was such a drama queen—at over four months pregnant she was barely showing and must’ve only gained a few pounds, tops.

“A good excuse to buy new ones?” Alice joked. Then she put on her poker face as she asked, “So, how was the honeymoon?”

Georgiana was a close friend and Alice wanted to make sure she was okay without revealing the huge secret Madison had entrusted her with. Plus, there were some truths better left untold. Alice doubted telling a pregnant woman that her husband had almost had sex with a bridesmaid—and a close relative—on their wedding day would help anyone.

“Curaçao was amazing,” Georgiana said breezily. “The beaches, the weather, the food, the tiny colored houses… everything!”

How about the groom? “And with Tyler? Everything good?”

“Super,” Georgiana added, too quickly. She plastered a smile on her face that screamed forced.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Georgiana waved her off. “My husband—how cool is it to say that?—he just worries too much.”

“About what?”

“Oh, pfff… the baby, the house, law school. I told him everything is going to be fine, no need to change our plans.”

Eyes goggling a little, Alice quickly caught herself and reined in her surprise, schooling her face into a neutral expression. Georgiana sounded as if she believed having a baby wouldn’t change a single thing in her life.

Alice cleared her throat and asked, “So you plan to go back to school in the fall?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

Because of the little human growing inside you who’s going to want out in the middle of the school year? “Won’t it be too difficult with a newborn baby?”

“You sound just like Tyler now. When the baby comes, we’ll hire a nanny to help. We can go to the library to study and I can skip a couple of lessons if the baby needs me…”

Georgiana seemed way too optimistic about the impact a baby would have on his parents’ lives. But once Georgiana made up her mind about something, there was no changing her opinion, so it’d be pointless to argue with her. “Glad to hear you’re not worried.”

“I’m not, no need to stress. By the way…” Georgiana leaned forward conspiratorially. “Want to know the sex of the baby?”

“You found out?”

“Had my ultrasound on Monday.” Georgiana unconsciously rubbed her tiny bump. “It’s a girl,” she announced.

“Awww, that’s amazing.”

“I know.” This time Georgiana’s smile was positively radiant. “We couldn’t be happier.”

Without getting up, Alice bump-scraped her chair closer to Georgiana and pulled her into a side hug. “I’m so happy for you.”

“A life is growing inside of me.” Again, Georgiana’s hand went to her belly. “I can’t describe how weird and fantastic and unbelievable it feels.”

“Sounds overwhelming…”

Georgian’s face became really serious. “Sometimes it is, especially how much I already love this little person I’ve never met. But it’s also so scary to know she’ll depend on me for everything…”

“Well, you and Tyler,” Alice said. “Are you worried he’s not going to be a hands-on dad?”

“Oh, no. I’m sure he’ll be a wonderful dad.”

“So how are things between you two, I mean, baby aside?”

“Great, really.” The fake smile was back. “He only worries too much.”

Alice wasn’t sure if Georgiana was purposely refusing to admit there were problems in her relationship—well, marriage—or if she wasn’t ready to face the reality as of yet, and was lying to herself. But it was clear the “trouble in paradise” topic was off-limits, so Alice switched subjects completely. “Have you started looking at names yet?”

“Not really. But I bought this on the way here.” Georgiana pulled a pink book—titled Baby Girl Names—from her bag and opened it. “Want to help me scroll through?”

“Sure.”

They both bent their heads over the book and rolled names off their tongues for the rest of the afternoon.

Madison

For her break, Madison chose a coffee shop a good thirty-minute walk away from Crema Café. She ordered a Chai Tea Latte—her favorite—and settled at the most secluded table in the café. With a wall on one side and a huge column on the other, she was screened from the other patrons and could read her escape book in peace.

But after only a few chapters, she got distracted by a female voice on the other side of the column that sounded oddly familiar. A girl had just asked someone why they had to come all the way over here and couldn’t meet nearer to campus.

“Georgiana is meeting a friend at Crema Café,” a guy replied. “I didn’t want to risk running into them.”

Madison shrank in her chair—her pulse quickened, and her entire face was suddenly burning with embarrassment. That was Tyler sitting on the other side of the column—as in, Georgiana’s Tyler. And now that she’d placed him, it was easy to recognize the other voice as Rose’s.

Brilliant!

Apparently, the world wasn’t done playing sick jokes with her.

And now I’m trapped.

Madison couldn’t get up without them spotting her. And no matter how hard she tried to stare at the words printed in her book, she couldn’t avoid overhearing their conversation.

“So, where do you want to start?” Rose asked, an edge audible in her voice. “Hard topics first?” Tyler must’ve nodded, because Rose kept talking. “What got into you at the wedding?”

Madison wanted to evaporate. She’d never felt more uncomfortable in her own skin—and she’d felt pretty damn uncomfortable in it most of her life.

“I honestly don’t know why I did what I did,” Tyler said.

“I mean, I get the girl was a blonde goddess…”

A blonde goddess? Were they really talking about her? Madison never thought of herself as beautiful. She usually placed herself in the “not entirely ugly” category, at best.

“It wasn’t because of the girl, Rose, she could’ve been anyone.”

Now, that’s flattering. Madison scoffed inside her head. It was always nice to be reminded how un-special she was.

“What was it, then?”

“Nothing and everything. Until my wedding day, doing the right thing by Georgiana sounded fine—noble, even. But then I was in front of a minister promising to be with her for the rest of my life, and it all became real. I was married—I am married—to a woman I’m not sure I love enough, only because she’s carrying my baby.”

“Still, trying to sleep with a bridesmaid doesn’t seem like an optimal solution.”

“Rose, I promise you I’m done with all that shit. I’m never going to cheat on anyone ever again. If my marriage doesn’t work out, I’ll end it in a clean way. I never want to feel as low as that day ever again.”

Makes two of us, Madison thought.

“Whoa, already talking divorce? You’ve only been married a month. Did the honeymoon go that bad?”

“Not the honeymoon… it’s just that I don’t recognize my life anymore. We found out on Monday that we’re having a girl…”

“Yeah, I heard through the family grapevine,” Rose said, probably meaning Ethan had already told her. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you talked names yet?”

“No, but I told Georgiana all the names Mark Wahlberg runs off the bear in Ted are off-limits.”

Rose laughed. “Fun scene.”

“Anyway,” Tyler continued. “We found out the sex on Monday, and I came home two days later to find Georgiana had transformed your room into a My Little Pony nightmare. There’s pink everywhere.”

Sounds like my cousin, all right.

“Not my room anymore,” Rose said. “And you had to decorate it anyway, no?”

“Okay, but she didn’t even ask me, she just did it, exactly the same way she got pregnant. Do first, ask later.”

Definitely Georgiana’s style.

“Have you tried to talk to her about it?” Rose asked.

“No. Honestly, it’s hard to talk about anything with her these days. She’s completely delusional about the whole ‘becoming a parent’ thing.”

“Delusional how?”

“For one, she has this picture in her mind where we go back to school in the fall like nothing has changed.”

“When is the due date again?”

“January 4.”

“Okay, so provided she doesn’t experience complications, she could complete the fall term with little trouble. But what about winter?”

“Exactly my point. She plans on hiring a nanny and expects everything else to stay the same. We already had endless arguments with me trying to make her understand how it won’t be a breeze with a baby crying all night. Or that if she breastfeeds, well, a baby needs to eat every couple of hours. She won’t be able to go to class in the morning, forget about our daughter for an entire day, and come back at night.”

Madison heard a muffled chuckle.

“Not funny,” Tyler protested.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Rose said, amusement still audible in her voice. “But I never thought you’d be lecturing me on breastfeeding timing.”

“I’m not lecturing you, I’m trying to lecture her, but she won’t listen.”

“Georgiana is the younger sibling, the baby of the house.” More the spoiled princess of the house, Madison commented inside her head. “She’s never been around real babies, so she’s being a bit naïve, or over-positive.”

“Yeah, but what will happen when stuff gets real?”

“Come on, Tyler, you’re not giving Georgiana enough credit. She’s a force of nature, and she’s not the type to give up. You’re in a privileged position already because you don’t have money issues. And what Georgiana says is true: you can hire help, and it’s going to make a huge difference.” Tyler made a scoffing noise, and Rose quickly added, “Let me finish. I know the situation is not ideal, but you can make it work, school-wise. I’m sure HLS has a million facilitations for students who are parents.”

“Maybe, but Georgiana refuses to ask the Dean of Students Office.”

“So you ask. You’re going to be a parent, too. Go to the office and ask them yourself, so that when—if—Georgiana has a meltdown, you’ll already have most of the answers.”

“Yeah, I could do that…” Tyler said.

“Duh-uh.” Madison could almost hear Rose rolling her eyes. “But how you’ll manage school is not the real issue here, Ty,” Rose continued. “You and Georgiana are married… I thought you could fall back in love with her, but after the wedding and after talking with you today, I’m not so sure. What do you feel for her?”

There was a long moment of silence until Tyler said, “I care about her… deeply. But more in a she’s-going-to-be-the-mother-of-my-child way. I want to take care of her and protect her, but romantically…” Another long pause. “I don’t love her that way, not anymore. I’m not in love with my wife and I don’t think I’ll ever be again…”

And at that moment, something Madison had never imagined being possible happened. For the first time in her life, instead of being jealous of Georgiana, Madison pitied her. Not pity felt in a superior or spiteful way, but genuine, sorrowful commiseration.