Amanda

Lunch with Shannon was always a fun time filled with gossip and laughter.

Emphasis on was.

This is our second time trying to have lunch together with her three-month-old, Ellie, and here we are again, two out of three of us in tears.

Hint: I’m the one not crying.

“Hang on, baby,” Shannon murmurs in a voice that manages to curse, soothe, and instruct, all at once. If motherhood has a voice, that’s it. “I don’t care if anyone sees my boob, but I do care about all my back fat.”

“Huh?”

“Can you find a blanket in the diaper bag?” she asks me. Her side of the booth is her and the baby. My side is me and the entire contents of Babies R Us.

“What kind of blanket? This?” I hold up a white cloth.

“No. That’s a burp rag. It’s the pink one.”

I look in the bag. It’s like being a gynecologist. Every variation of pink is in there, folded and layered. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“I don’t care,” Shannon says, cringing. “Ow! That first tooth really is coming in, isn’t it?” Ellie’s mouth settles in on Shannon’s nipple, her upper lip like a rose petal, her small head covered with soft, dark wisps of hair, the same color as Declan’s. All I can see is the back of her head, one arm reaching up with tiny fingers that loop around Shannon’s pinkie, and little yellow-socked feet that kick Shannon’s unused boob.

Relief floods Shannon’s body, her shoulders dropping, her eyes closing. A sigh of deep contentment escapes her.

“Settled?” I ask, a little worried about her. She’s always a little harried, klutzy in a kind-hearted way, but I’ve never seen her unraveling like this.

“Yes. Letdown has commenced.” She reaches for her glass of water and chugs the entire thing down like a soccer player in the World Cup between plays. Greedy eyes land on my full water cup.

I push it to her.

Ellie makes baby sounds I can’t describe, so cute that my ovaries start doing the cha-cha inside my pelvic cavity. “She makes me want to have one!” I squeal, using hushed tones to keep the baby from startling.

“You and Andrew would make great parents,” Shannon says between water gulps. She finishes my glass and looks around, trying to catch the eye of the waitress.

“We need to drop the birth control first.”

“Sex,” Shannon says out of nowhere, eyes unfocused and wistful. “I remember sex.”

“You guys... aren’t having it?” After Andrew’s bizarre coffee incident yesterday, he came home and basically pinned me to the bed for two hours, the sex mind-blowingly intense. This wasn’t angry sex. Wasn’t even make-up sex. It was something more.

It was something hot.

My nether regions start to simmer, the tactile memory of his touch last night firing me up for more. I’m still on the pill, and no matter how adorable Ellie is, the plain truth is that we’re not ready to share each other with anyone else.

Not even our own child.

In time? Sure.

Right now? I want more of him.

What I really want is more of his amazing body, mouth, fingers, tongue...

“Need a fan?” Shannon asks me as I jolt at her words.

“Huh?”

“You blushed! Hard! What are you thinking about?” Her eyes narrow. “You had sex last night, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?”

“You’re glowing.”

“Pregnant women glow. I’m not pregnant.”

“Women who orgasmed their brains out glow, too. I remember orgasms...”

I’m sensing a theme.

“If you aren’t getting any and you want to get some, why don’t you and Declan just carve out the time and make it a priority?”

Wrong innocent question.

I had no idea Shannon could turn that shade of purple. Who knew?

A gagging, gurgling sound erupts from Ellie, who pops off Shannon’s breast and starts choking, coughing little baby hacks that make panic rise up in me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, leaning forward.

I’m shot in the eye by a stream of breastmilk firing out of Shannon’s nipple like it’s a milk hose.

“Oh my GOD!” I shout, grabbing a napkin as the milk continues to shoot out of Shannon, Ellie starts screaming, and the waitress is about to pour more water in Shannon’s glass.

“Uh, can I get you a towel?” she asks all of us, as if the question is aimed at the general You.

Shannon smashes the restaurant’s table napkin against her boob. “Amanda, hand me anything out of that bag.”

I reach in and grab a manual breast pump.

“Anything but that.” Shannon’s resigned sigh makes me feel bad.

Finally, a big, pink blanket handed over the table seems to do the trick. Latching the baby back on, she mops herself up, takes another deep breath, and with her free hand, flags down the waitress, who has wandered off like a human version of a Roomba, picking up stuff from tables in an erratic pattern that makes sense geometrically.

We order.

We drink our refilled water glasses.

And Ellie dines before us. I’m sure Miss Manners gives infants a pass.

“You need anything else?” I ask Shannon.

“A third arm?” Stretching her neck, she watches the waitress come back with a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa, standard fare for every table here at our favorite Mexican place near Shannon and Declan’s place. We munch happily, until Shannon looks down to find her daughter asleep, making little snoring sounds, her lips falling open as slumber takes over.

“Finally,” Shannon says, covering Ellie’s head and her exposed nipple with a small bit of pink cloth. “Now I can really eat.”

“How? One-handed?”

“That or pig style, with my face in a trough.”

I laugh. She doesn’t.

Motherhood is not for wimps.

“I can cut your meat for you if that makes it easier,” I joke.

Her face is serious. “I will totally take you up on that offer.”

“So how is it? The glory of motherhood?”

“My own milk is seeping down my stretch-marked belly into my crotch, my period just started yesterday after three months of exclusive breastfeeding, Declan needs to go to Jakarta for a week to negotiate some coffee purchase, and my mother is already planning Ellie’s first birthday party, complete with all her leftover unicorn horns from Unicoga. How are you?” Her fake grin makes me laugh.

“Better than you.”

“Pretty sure that bar is so low, anyone can be better off than me.”

“Are you happy?” I ask her.

She grins, taking a chip and scooping a hellish amount of salsa onto it. “Very.” She eats.

I eat.

We grin at each other.

“I will say,” she mumbles around her food, “I’m glad we waited a few years before we had kids. All that time together was wonderful. And important.”

“Important? Why?”

“Because this is the opposite of romance. And you need the romantic foundation to be there. Having a baby is an enormous kind of love. It’s almost too big. Hard to leash or rein in. So you have to be partners. And you can’t be someone’s partner in putting a third person first if your own needs haven’t been met first.”

“I’ve never thought about it that way.” I take a heaping dose of salsa and shove it in, munching. Too late, I realize I got a big chunk of jalapeño in there.

My turn to eye Shannon’s water glass.

“Neither did I until our first month raising Ellie.” As if she reads my mind, Shannon slides the bowl of sour cream at me. I take an entire spoonful to soothe my burning tongue.

With the baby asleep, Shannon one-handedly plows through the chips and salsa, until the bowl is empty and she drinks her water. Making milk isn’t really a superpower. It’s a basic biological process designed for infant survival. But like any system, the calibration has to be there, and the raw supplies involve calories and water.

Lunch is the perfect environment.

“Is this some kind of warning? Because once you guys conceived first, Andrew backed off the whole baby thing. No competition other than his joking that we need to conceive twins. All our ‘let’s have kids’ discussions have morphed into ‘isn’t Ellie adorable and so much work’? discussions. Declan won in the competition between the brothers.”

“Those two.” We shake our heads as the server delivers our food. I got a grilled chicken fiesta salad.

Shannon ordered fajitas.

After the server leaves, I stand and hold my arms out. “Let me hold Ellie while you eat.”

Her O of shock makes me laugh. “You’re serious?”

“I need to practice eating one-handed. Besides, I just watched you demolishing those chips. You’re starving. Let me huff the baby.” Bending carefully, I slide one hand under the baby’s hips, the other at her neck. With machine precision, I get her in the crook of my arm, the blanket still tucked around her. I snuggle back onto my side of the booth with the physical dexterity of a jewel thief and look over at Shannon.

Half her fajitas are already gone.

“Did you inhale your food? Cover one nostril and just suck hard?” I ask, agog.

“Whaa?” She’s chomping away. “I’d ungee.” I’m guessing that’s New Mother for “I’m hungry.”

The beauty of holding someone else’s baby is that you get to hold a baby. Soft and pure, they don’t judge. They are in a constant state of being. They smell like warm skin and sunshine.

And when they cry or poop, you get to hand them back.

An image of Andrew holding Ellie a few weeks ago flashes through my memory, making me smile. The rich aroma of cumin reminds me of my plate, the scoops of guacamole and sour cream begging for attention. Ellie wiggles in my arms, her heat making me sink into my seat, rooted in place. She’s a grounding influence, contentment spreading. As I am in this moment, I’m at peace. She’s sleeping in my arms and an ache begins inside me, one seeded by her simple presence.

I want this.

I want this bad.

Babies are a contagion, aren’t they? They’re like the Ebola of the newly married friend world. One couple starts and bam! Soon everyone has baby fever.

And by the time the epidemic is over, we’re left with stretchmarks and minivans.

“This is so good!” Shannon gushes, finishing her last fajita and staring at the plate like it’s disappointing her by being empty. “I didn’t realize how starved I was. Is she okay? I can take her.”

“She’s fine. Enjoy the luxury of using both arms.”

“It is a luxury these days.”

“Amanda? Shannon?” We both turn toward the sound of the female voice, one I know all too well.

“Mom?”

“Pam?”

My surprise must seep into Ellie, because she opens her eyes, tiny stick-like lashes lifting as she drowsily starts to wake up. A snurgly little sigh escapes. I don’t move.

She settles back down.

Mom’s hand cups the back of Ellie’s sweet head, twinkling eyes meeting mine. “You look like a natural holding her, Mandy.”

“Amanda,” I whisper reflexively.

Mom’s smile deepens. “I remember when you were that little,” she says as Shannon scooches over and pats the seat next to her, inviting Mom to sit down. “By three months, I had my figure back and you’d just started sleeping six hours through the night.” She smiles at Shannon. “You’ll be fine. This is the turning point.”

Shannon takes the baby blanket and carefully covers her front with it, shoving the dish of rice away. “Ellie has one three-hour sleeping stretch,” she says with a sigh. “Declan is really pushing to call in that night nurse he wanted to hire.”

Mom chortles, loud enough that Ellie startles, but she calms fast. “Night nurse! Leo slept like a lumberjack back then and I had to go back to work at ten weeks. No paid maternity leave,” she says with a sad smile, reaching forward and brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear with a maternal touch I’m starting to see in a different light. “We had to get you to sleep so we could. Leo worked in a factory. Being sleepy meant accidents.”

I snort. “I’m sure his drinking didn’t help, either.” My dad left when I was five after losing me at Fenway Park and scaring my mom to death by getting in a car accident. For hours, she thought I was dead, until I found my way to a police station on the other side of Boston. Dad was an alcoholic. He later killed two people in a drunk-driving accident and is in prison.

He gets out next year.

And I definitely don’t care.

“Leo’s drinking was casual then. I wouldn’t have had a baby with him if he’d been the way he got later, Amanda.” Her return to my older name is a clue. She’s emotionally walling herself off, the Mandy slipping out earlier in a moment of nostalgia. “Your father was a good man. Until he wasn’t. The drink got him.”

Shannon’s gone somber, eyes darting to look at Ellie over and over, as if she wants her back, the conversation too bleak, too stark, the sudden dip too much. Mom lets out a self-conscious laugh and beams at the baby. “Ah, listen to me. I’m making this all about my own messes. You and Declan made a miracle, Shannon. She’s beautiful.”

Shoulders dropping, Shannon relaxes. “Thank you. What brings you here?”

“Lunch. I’m seeing a client here in town.” Looking behind us, she suddenly stands. “In fact, it looks like the gaggle of women are all back from the bathroom and headed to our table. I’m working on a modeling insurance contract. New project involving models and BASE jumping. They really do go to the bathroom in herds!” Quick kisses and waves and Mom is off, looking like a turtle in a herd of peacocks.

Ellie makes a sound of contentment. Then her entire face turns a weird shade of red.

“Shannon?” I ask as she watches Mom, who is half a head shorter than the tall, willowy women, who all look like young gazelles. “Is Ellie supposed to be this color?”

A gurgling sound comes out of Ellie’s diaper region. The red face goes purple, and then–heat.

“What is going on?” I ask, my hand and wrist so hot suddenly.

And then I’m hot and wet, in a band around my waist.

Shannon’s face turns to horror.

“Oh, no! Diaper malfunction,” she whispers, frantically searching for her bag.

“Mal–what?”

My nose gets it before my brain understands. Ellie has just–

“Oh, Amanda! I’m so sorry. It looks like Ellie shat up her back and all over your arm!”

I look down and follow Shannon’s eyes.

A dark-yellow stain travels along the crease of my arm and Ellie’s little body. The redness of her face has faded, her mouth in a contented smile, even her breathing a clue that she’s sound asleep.

“Sure,” I whisper, mortified. “Now you’re happy.”

Did I mention I’m wearing a cream-colored shirt today? Sheer, with a white shell underneath?

Shannon waves down the waitress, who shuffles over. When she looks at me, her eyes widen.

“We need to have this wrapped up,” Shannon says succinctly. “And the check.” She pulls a credit card out of her wallet and hands it to the server. “Can you make it fast? We tip well.”

Three little words that make any server move nice and quick.

“What do I do?” I ask, frozen.

“Exactly what you’re doing. Don’t move. Once the food’s wrapped up and the check’s paid, we’ll triage and execute.”

“Execute?”

“The plan. Declan and I have been through this before.” She looks around the restaurant. “Last time this happened, we were at a charity ball. Turns out baby poop and sequined ball gowns don’t mix. No more balls for you, Miss Ellie!” She gives the baby a loving smile.

“Before? You’ve been through this before? And you didn’t warn me?”

“Why would I warn you? It’s a given. Hold a baby, take a chance of being pooped on.”

“Not a given! Not. A. Given. Maybe for parents who’ve read all the baby books and scanned the baby blogs and joined the baby Facebook groups, sure. But you needed to warn me!”

“Too late now,” she titters. The server appears with breakneck speed, food wrapped, check ready. Shannon writes an obscene number, signs the paper, and stands.

“What do I do?”

“Hold her nice and tight. I’ll control the contaminated area.”

“You sound like the head of a CDC team in an epidemic!”

“Welcome to parenting.”

“She’s not contagious, is she?” I slide to the edge of the booth and get my footing. Core muscles I didn’t know I possessed engage. I feel like I’m in a squat cage, lifting my own weight on a rack over my shoulders.

Close. So close.

“I’ve got plenty of clothes at our place you can wear. We’ll pay to have it dry cleaned.”

“How about incinerated? Because this is silk.”

“Mustard is a very trendy color this season,” Shannon says weakly.

“Not helping,” I grind out through clenched teeth.

All along, Ellie stays asleep.

We’re out the door, Shannon managing her diaper bag, the leftover food, and the doors as we enter into the sunshine. We’re only a few blocks from her place, so we start to walk.

“It’s chilly!” Shannon exclaims.

“I’m fine,” I say, “but then again, the heat of your child’s excrement is warming me.”

“That’s just processed breastmilk,” Shannon says with an eyeroll. “It’s not gross. In fact, it’s pure.”

Pure torture.

People walking past us are really studying Shannon. They look at her like she’s someone they recognize.

Someone they mock.

Because every person looks at her, narrows their eyes, looks down, then starts laughing.

Shannon repositions the straps from her diaper bag, her purse, and my purse, twisting her body in the process as we make a left turn toward her building.

A wolf whistle follows, so loud, we stop in our tracks.

I look to the left.

It’s a homeless dude, sitting on a piece of cardboard with PLEASE HELP in Sharpie, a mangy cat on a leash next to him.

“Nice tit!” he shouts to Shannon, shaking his change cup. “Maybe I should pay you!”

We both frown until I look at her and see the problem.

“Shannon? Your breast is on display.”

“What?”

“Your breast is hanging out.”

She looks down. The nursing shirt she’s wearing is pulled to one side. Her nursing bra is unclasped. It’s not a horrible breach, but if you look long enough you notice that a tiny rodent with a pink nose is riding in the front of her shirt.

Until the eyes adjust and you realize it’s a nipple.

“Oh, God,” she groans. Is there no body part my best friend can’t show in public?

Don’t answer that. Seriously.

Just as we reach her building and her new doorman, Tom, holds the door open, she pivots the diaper bag to cover her bosom and we make it through the lobby. I am carrying a twelve-pound poopbomb in my arms.

I am also using every form of walking meditation to avoid thinking about it.

Upstairs, Shannon keycodes us into her place and without a single word between us, she peels Ellie out of my arms as we both continue moving, my legs taking me straight to their guest bathroom, the shower spray going before she calls out, “Grab whatever you want out of my closet!”

Hmm. She has those Jimmy Choos with the silver straps that I am not supposed to covet but do. We’re the same shoe size...

I assess the damage.

Shirt: destroyed.

Shell: destroyed.

Belt and pants: barely ok.

Bra: surprisingly fine.

In other words, Ellie managed to soak my muffin top.

But we’re going to pretend she got my shoes, m’kay?

A five-minute rinse later, I sprint into Shannon’s closet, find a simple silk shirt, and eye those shoes. I shove my arms into the sleeves and stare at the shoes.

I am too nice.

I don’t take the shoes.

In another part of their place, I hear Declan’s voice, then the sound of splashing. He’s cooing and using baby talk, so I assume he’s giving Ellie a bath. If not, I’m witnessing some really weird kink dynamic between Shannon and Declan. There’s a TMI limit in every bestie situation, and that would be it.

In the living room, I’m grabbing a glass of water as the front door opens, buzzed by someone in the apartment.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as Andrew walks in and gives me a hug.

“Dec invited me to come over and go work out with Vince and Gerald,” he whispers in my ear. “What are you doing here?”

“Just finished lunch with Shannon and Ellie. You’re working out again? You worked out this morning!”

“Dec was intense about it. Said he’s going a little stir crazy.”

“Shannon’s just plain old crazy,” I inform him.

“You smell kind of sweet.” He sniffs me. “And weird. Is that a new perfume? I’m not sure I like it.”

“It’s called Eau du Merde du Ellie.”

He frowns. “Your French is terrible, but I think you’re saying–” He makes a face and looks at me. “Oh. Ew.”

“The baby shat all over my arms and lap about thirty minutes ago. I showered, but...”

“Is that why you’re wearing Shannon’s shirt? Definitely not a scent to wear again.” He leans forward and whispers, “Until we have our own kid.”

“You want our baby to poop all over me? This conversation has turned very bizarre.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Good.”

Just then, Declan comes into the living room holding Ellie, who is impossibly cute in one of those baby towel contraptions with a hood that mimics a giraffe.

Andrew starts humming the theme from Mission: Impossible. He began doing it after Declan made an elevator repair crew open a panel at the top of the broken elevator where Shannon was trapped inside, giving birth.

Yeah. Sounds crazy, right? Welcome to my best friend’s life.

Declan’s face goes tight and dark as he diapers and dresses Ellie in an adorable red and white heart-themed outfit that makes me wish I were a baby again and could get away with those fashion choices.

There’s even a heart on her bum.

“That’s not funny anymore. She’s three months old and you do that every damn time you see me.”

The humming continues.

Declan throws a teething ring at him. It bounces off his shoulder and strikes Chuckles.

Who promptly walks over to Andrew’s shoes by the door, lifts one leg, and–

Huh. Doing CrossFit with Vince is really paying off for my husband. He makes it to the shoes in time to rescue them.

Too bad about his other hand, though.

“Gross!” Andrew shouts, holding his wrist at a severe angle so the dripping cat pee doesn’t get on more than his hand.

“Score!” Declan whispers, stroking Chuckles’ neck as the cat purrs.

“Now we both got peed on today,” I commiserate.

“They say couples with similar interests have the greatest sense of life satisfaction and happiness,” Declan says, deadpan.

Ellie lets out a sound that’s close to a laugh, an “ah ah ah ah ah” that makes Shannon and Declan focus all their attention on her, Dec laughing.

“Are you giggling at Uncle Andrew? He’s a funny guy, isn’t he?” Declan says, pulling her little red shirt up and giving her tummy raspberries, which just makes the little baby “ah ah ah ah ah” continue.

Cause and effect. It’s the backbone of life.

Andrew hums the Mission: Impossible theme music in response, then says, over the sound of the kitchen faucet running as he washes his hands with more ritual than a neurosurgeon, “Not as funny as you delivering a baby at a charity ball!”

“Uncle Andrew is just jealous!” Declan says to Ellie, whose eyes widen as her daddy comes in close. She takes one dimpled hand and bonks Declan on the nose. “He’s never broken into an elevator and delivered his own sweet baby.”

“And punched out his wife’s ex.”

“I would prefer to have my baby delivered the old-fashioned way,” Andrew announces. “With me in the waiting room drinking scotch and waiting to smoke a cigar.”

“Is your name James?” I ask him.

He smiles at me as he shakes his hands dry, then grabs a kitchen towel from a small rack by the fridge.

“Fine. I promise I’ll break into a non-functioning elevator, punch out your ex-boyfriend Al, and deliver our baby in front of a crowd of paparazzi, Amanda. If that’s what you want.”

“That is so not what I want.”

“You make it sound dashing and fun. It was agony and terror,” Shannon pipes up, filling what looks like a gallon jug with a straw on top with filtered water from the fridge dispenser. “Dec was great, but a hospital birth is in the cards for our next one. I want an epidural just after the conception.”

“Agony and terror is a bit much,” Declan protests, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as he holds Ellie, who starts licking his chest. Her mouth bobs up and down in little patterns, leaving small wet spots on his shirt.

“You weren’t the one giving birth!” Shannon counters. “You don’t get to define my emotional and physical experience.”

“Steve Raleigh was in one of the news articles and he used those exact words, Shannon. He said it was ‘pure agony’ and nothing but ‘sheer terror’ for him,” Andrew tells her.

“Figures. Leave it to Steve to take credit for a woman’s deliverable,” I say, meeting my best friend’s eyes. We snort.

The guys are smart.

They say nothing.

Shannon adds a lime to her giant water glass. “Congratulations,” she says to me. “You’re officially an aunt. You are so safe for Ellie that she pooped all over you. It takes a special kind of trust to be the recipient of that.”

The guys are smart. They say nothing again.

Neither do I.

Because I am speechless.

“Remember how I wanted to hurry up and have kids?” Andrew says to me out of the side of his mouth.

“Yes?”

“I take it back.” He sniffs. “I take it allllll back.”