The Baby Plan by Kate Rorick (17)

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER TRIP TO IKEA, Nathalie thought, as she followed by rote its amiable arrow-lit paths. Since becoming pregnant, there was something so soothing about the big blue box that dominated downtown Burbank. She had come here after work more often than she liked to admit, enjoying the meatballs and the affordably priced modernity. Even the plethora of Allen wrenches. But really, she knew the reason she found IKEA so delightful at the moment was it had everything she needed, for each and every room, and lots of it.

Which for someone who felt time creeping up and her preparedness sliding away, was more relaxing than a coma.

But this trip was not destined to be soothing. No . . . this trip was already fraught with assembled-furniture-related tension. Because this time, Nathalie had David in tow.

“I thought you said we had all this stuff on the registry?” David said, as he kept a foot behind her, lollygagging as she beelined straight for the nursery section.

“We have a lot of things on the registry,” she replied, her teeth unconsciously gritting. He would know what they had on the registry if he’d ever looked on the registry. She’d signed him up for it, too, he could just log on anytime. But no . . . that didn’t happen. “But stuff like storage bins, and oh! These cute little night-lights! They are just finishing touches for the nursery.”

Part of Nathalie realized she was in a hard-core nesting phase. But that didn’t mean that David wasn’t driving her crazy. If he wasn’t asking her relentless why-do-we-need-this questions, he was ignoring her and her extremely necessary preparations completely. The spare room, which currently was a catch-all office/guest room/place where David’s dumbbells went to die was scheduled to be turned into the perfect nursery for their little girl, who at this point, was only thirteen short weeks from joining them.

But David didn’t seem to feel the immediacy of this. He ignored every single attempt Nathalie made to get him to move his stuff out of the spare room so they could start painting the walls. Meanwhile, Nathalie spent hours agonizing over paint chips, coming up with a shade called Blue Iris for their daughter’s room.

“Blue?” Kathy had asked when Nathalie explained her design scheme. “But you’re having a girl!”

“It’s a very feminine blue,” she had replied, but Kathy continued on, sputtering objections, and plotting out ways to incorporate pinks into the curtains and linens.

But David wasn’t objecting to her designs, and her feminine blues. He was putting up barriers to any change whatsoever.

“Do we really need bins and night-lights?” he replied, defeat evident in his voice.

“YES,” she replied. “We do.”

“Fine. Then why are we looking at cribs?”

Nathalie blinked at him. “Because I told you we are getting the crib today.”

“It’s not on the registry?”

She took his phone out of his hand, and queued it up to their registry website. “Why don’t you look at the registry and tell me what’s on there.”

David took the phone from her, gingerly, like it was a time bomb. Good, maybe a little more irritating and a little less teacher-patience was required in the present situation. Especially considering how crowded IKEA got on a Saturday afternoon. Her bastion of peace and tranquility was quickly becoming overstuffed with people here for KALLAX bookshelves and Swedish Fish.

Really, if it wasn’t for her anonymous Twitter friend, she would have lost her temper with David long ago.

@WTFPreg—“We’re having a baby so we have to get rid of all this stuff.” “I’m giving you a baby and you’re taking my stuff?!?!?”

The latest series of tweets actually gave her a small amount of sympathy for David’s position. He didn’t have the kind of keen baby-focus that Nathalie had, if simply because she was reminded of it every minute of every day, now that the baby was tap-dancing on her abdomen.

But still, he wasn’t the only one giving up their stuff. She’d lost her office space, too, to make room for their daughter. She’d already dragged her little desk out of the spare room and into a tight corner in the bedroom, and put all of her extra stuff in storage. Why David, who didn’t have the burden of working on his feet all day and being pregnant, couldn’t bring himself to do the same was . . . well, it was heartbreaking.

She knew he was stressed and just wanted to play video games. She knew he was under pressure. But she also came to understand—quite recently—that he had put a lot of that pressure on himself.

As she stared hard at him, and he avoided her eyes by seemingly scrolling through the baby registry on his phone, the phone miraculously buzzed in his hand.

He couldn’t hide his relief as he answered it.

“Hey, Brian. Yes . . . yes I sent the documents . . . Hello? . . . hello, I’m losing you . . .”

And then the line went dead.

David blew out a breath, frustrated. “Okay, I’m going to go stand outside, call him back.”

Nathalie reared back, livid. “No you’re not!”

“I can’t not reply. And I have no reception in here.”

“This place is twenty-two acres big—if you leave you’ll never find me again.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Not if there’s no reception,” she countered immediately.

David’s mouth hung open, stopped by sound logic. Then he shook it off, and was back to being able to argue in his lawyerly fashion. “Then let’s go. We can come back another day. This place is too crowded anyway.”

Nathalie found herself breathing like a bull in the ring. “David, we have to do this today! Because you haven’t wanted to come and do it any other day.”

“I haven’t been able to come and do it any other time. You know how crazy work is right now.”

Her eyes narrowed, her hands went to her hips.

“Yes, David, I know exactly how busy you’ve been. Dinner last night clarified that point very accurately.”

David’s eyes went stony. In retrospect, perhaps IKEA wasn’t the ideal place for a couple who had an unfinished fight simmering from the night before. But then again, not mentioning to your wife that no one at your office knew she was pregnant was a bit of a faux pas, too.

Nathalie had been looking forward to last night’s dinner since David had told her about it a week before. His immediate boss, Brian, had invited them to meet him and his wife at Burbank’s finest steakhouse, a fancy-enough place to throw Nathalie into a tizzy of clothes-related panic.

The difficulty was none of her fancy dresses accommodated her belly anymore, and all of her maternity clothes were meant for school—professional, but not exactly cocktail attire.

“I could wear the red one, I suppose? It’s empire-waisted, and I think I’ll be okay in heels still . . .” she had said to David as she pulled out every single article of clothing in her closet that fit. He sat on the bed, in his suit, looking miserable. But hey, that was the husband’s role in this particular situation, wasn’t it? “I could wear the black skirt and a top if I dress it up a little with accessories? Or there’s the green sheath dress . . . it’s not very fancy, but I look the least pregnant in it—”

“The green dress,” David said immediately.

“Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

He shrugged a little and said, “It’s my favorite.”

She felt a suffuse glow of pleasure as she put the green dress on, happy that David had a favorite of hers from her new temporary wardrobe. However, that sneaking suspicion didn’t let go of the back of her brain. And she should have paid more attention to it.

Brian was a ruddy-faced man with hair several shades lighter than his complexion. His wife was small with a wide, welcoming smile. Nathalie liked them immediately. Odd, considering how much she had been prepared to be intimidated by the man whose dictates had been keeping her husband on his work-toes for the last six months.

“So Dave here says you’re an English teacher!” Brian said, as they sat down to dinner. “You must give my wife recommendations for books, she can’t get enough—three book clubs!”

“Oh, not before cocktails!” his wife replied. “Two drinks in and I’ll be telling you all about how much I detested The Road.”

“It’s a Cormac McCarthy script you’re doing all those contracts on, isn’t it Davy-boy?” Brian said, turning to David, who did not, for once in his life, seem to mind being called Dave or Davy-boy.

“Pfft,” his wife said, winking at Nathalie. “My husband never listens to my opinion on books.”

“Hey, he sells tickets and wins Oscars,” her husband replied.

“That was last month’s adventure in lit acquisition,” David replied with a good-natured smile. “Long hours. But it all turned out in our favor.”

“Then what have you been doing this month?” Nathalie asked her husband. He had been coming home just as late, playing just as many alien-blowing-up video games, taking just as many after-hours phone calls. If he didn’t have a huge project . . .

“I’d love to know that, too! Seriously, I’ve never met anyone more dedicated to get his desk cleared by the end of business,” Brian said. “You’ve got a go-getter there, Nathalie.”

“I’ve been working on ironing out those last wrinkles in the terms for the new development from our Japanese acquisition,” David replied judiciously.

“Oh good,” Brian’s wife exclaimed as the waiter approached to take their drinks order. “I’ll have a double martini, my husband will have a manhattan. Nathalie, what would you like?”

“Nothing for me, thanks,” she demurred, and turned her attention back to David and Brian.

“That? We don’t need those done until next business quarter! My goodness, you are a showstopper.”

Nathalie watched David’s face closely. His good-natured smile was becoming strained, his posture stiff. He usually reveled in being praised for his hard work.

But this . . . this sounded like he was trying to put as much distance between himself and his work as possible—even though he never stopped doing it.

“Oh, but you must have something!” Brian’s wife butted into her thoughts again. “A glass of wine, perhaps?”

“Oh, she’s not—er, that is . . .” David stuttered.

“I’m not drinking,” she said easily. “I’m pregnant.”

The sound that came out of Brian’s wife’s mouth could only be described as a Muppet squeal. Then, she swatted her husband’s arm. “You sly dog, why didn’t you tell me!”

“I didn’t know myself,” Brian said, with a slow smile of awareness. “Davy-boy, you’ve been playing things close to the vest, haven’t you? No wonder you’re getting next quarter’s work done now.”

“Oh you lucky girl! We never had kids ourselves, Brian’s work always made timing impossible, and then my life just got so crazy, and well . . . we made do.”

“Yep, with all the extra income and time to travel and go enjoying life,” Brian guffawed. Nathalie saw David’s jaw twitch.

As Brian’s wife had inundated her with the usual questions (“When are you due?” “Boy or girl?” “How are you feeeeeeeeeling?”), Nathalie glanced at her husband, who would not meet her eye. On the inside, she festered. But oddly, she could tell that David was, too. What on earth did he have to fester about? He wasn’t the one ambushed by people not knowing about their growing family—a family he seemed to be in complete denial of if he hadn’t even told his closest associate at work!

After that, dinner had taken on a false lightness. While Brian and his wife took on the full delights of the bar, David didn’t drink more than a glass of wine. Still his face was red with the effort it took to keep Brian talking, and off the subject of their child. Meanwhile, Nathalie listened to the conversations, tried to contribute with personal and humanizing stories about her husband to cast him in the best light, all the while she was roiling on the inside.

And now, they stood in the middle of IKEA, at a détente over a phone call and bad reception.

“You don’t need me to pick out a crib,” David said dismissively. “You can do what you want.”

“We should be doing this stuff together.” Nathalie sighed. But when David remained silent, she huffed out a breath. “Fine. I’ll pick out the crib on my own. Just like I’ll paint the nursery on my own, and move all your stupid dumbbells out on my own, and do everything on my own!”

David didn’t seem aware of the people that had begun to give them a wide berth as they stood in the nursery section, because he came to loom over her, his voice raised. “Well, we wouldn’t have to be doing any of this if you hadn’t insisted on getting pregnant!”

Sound rushed out and back in again like waves on the shore, while Nathalie made sure she’d heard what she’d heard. Then . . .

“WHAT?” she screeched.

And just like that, they had become that couple. The one having a fight in the middle of IKEA. But she had stopped caring—or possibly stopped seeing everyone’s stares. The only thing she could see was David’s face, and the naked truth he was finally revealing.

“I don’t recall getting pregnant on my own. You were a willing and enthusiastic participant!” she yelled. “We’ve talked about a family for years.”

“And then it took us years to get here,” David yelled. “I finally got settled in a new job, we finally paid off student loans. You know what I was going to do if we didn’t get pregnant when we did? I was going to ask if we could take a break from trying. We could have saved money, and just been David and Nathalie again. I was going to take you to Italy to visit my parents. Instead, we have a house, and we are going to have to replace the air-conditioning system soon because it’s a thousand years old and we will never get ahead now. How are we supposed to save for college? Why should I make up a will and trust if we have nothing to leave our kid?”

Nathalie watched him, oddly dispassionate. She had to stay cold. Because otherwise she would have disintegrated into tears from his overheated words.

“So excuse me, if I’m late home from work occasionally, or need to take a call, while I try to make myself so indispensable to my bosses that I’ll have a job so we can stay on this insane and stupid roller coaster!” he finished through gritted teeth.

She waited one second. Two. Stared him down. And finally he seemed to realize that not only had he lost his temper.

He’d lost it in the middle of IKEA.

Then, Nathalie—the Nathalie who dealt with ninety-seven students on a daily basis as well as administrators and parents and Kathy and her dad and Lyndi—emerged.

“So let’s just not have the baby,” she said, utterly dispassionate.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not the one being ridiculous.”

He threw up his hands. “I can’t talk about this now.”

“No, you don’t get to testify without hearing counterarguments, counselor,” she replied, rounding on him. “You don’t get to have buyer’s remorse. You don’t get to pretend that this isn’t happening, by ‘neglecting’ to mention to your boss that we’re pregnant. It is. Nor do you get to pretend that you never wanted it. I’m not having this baby alone, no matter how much you seem to wish that was the case.”

David opened his mouth and closed it, unable to come up with words. But then, luckily to him at least, he didn’t have to. Because at that moment, the cell reception stars aligned and his phone buzzed again.

“I have to take this,” he said.

“No you don’t,” she pleaded.

“Just . . . just stay right here. I’ll step outside to take the call, and then we’ll pick out a crib. Okay.”

“David,” she said, her heart and voice cracking. “If you take that call, not only will I not be here when you get back, I won’t be home when you get home.”

But he’d already raised the phone to his ear. With one last look back at her, and a mouthed I’m sorry he walked away.

“I’LL GET IT!” Sophia called out as she stepped toward the door. Not that Maisey was going to raise herself from her cocoon of her bedroom. She wasn’t expecting anyone—Sebastian was back out on the road—so maybe it was for Maisey. Sophia had caught her texting with someone named “Foz” more than once, and the only explanation she could get out of her daughter was that he was from work.

God, she hoped it was this Foz person, so she didn’t have to stalk her own newly reticent daughter at the flower co-op to be updated on her life.

But when she opened the door, it was to find that it was most definitely not for Maisey, but for her.

“Hey, Sophia,” Nathalie said, putting on a brave face, but it was obvious she had been crying. “Um, do you mind if I come in?”

Ever since their parent-teacher meeting, Nathalie and Sophia had been texting like fiends. At first it had been about Maisey, Sophia happy to learn that her daughter had filled out all of her college applications (because she certainly didn’t tell Sophia about it). Then, it segued into talking about pregnancy (they had a running tab of how many people asked “how are you feeling” of them that day—Sophia was ahead, if only because she worked with so many different people on a daily basis) and then just silly jokes and memes and sighing over the same actors. They’d even snuck away a couple of times for brunch or a movie—always with a contraband Diet Coke, of course. It was not simple making friends with other women in your thirties, so it seemed precious to have begun to do so.

But now, Nathalie was on her doorstep. And that was a huge leap ahead in their nascent friendship.

“I . . . I’m sorry. I know it’s weird I’m here.”

“No, it’s okay—”

“It’s totally weird, but I just had a huge fight with my husband, and didn’t know where to go.” She gulped and forced a watery smile. “It was either this or a hotel, and I hate hotels.”

Leaps of friendship be damned. She felt oddly touched that Nathalie had come to her. Because whether Nathalie was aware of it or not, Sophia had been there when it came to having fights with one’s husband while pregnant.

“Of course!” she exclaimed, and pulled Nathalie inside. Then, she called out, “Maisey, you’d better finish up your English homework, because Ms. Kneller is staying for dinner!”

NATHALIE MIGHT NOT have felt very celebratory when she walked into the restaurant the next day for the joint Nathalie and Lyndi Kneller Baby Shower, but she sure as hell looked good.

“Thank you so much for doing my makeup,” Nathalie said, sotto voce to Sophia who stood by her side, as they entered the unbearably cool Ora Café. “And thank you for coming with me.”

“Are you kidding?” Sophia said with a wide smile. “You promised a pregnant lady all the canapés she could eat—I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

“There will be food . . . although I cannot vouch for its edibility,” Nathalie said. “The last time Lyndi brought me here I ordered something that turned out to be eighteen-dollar sliced cucumber, served by a guy who took his man bun more seriously than I have ever taken my hair.”

But for the first time in practically ever, Nathalie did not feel hopelessly untrendy in Lyndi’s favorite Echo Park restaurant. Nor did she feel judged for what she was sure was an obvious love of cheese, meat, and other nonvegan treats. This was credited to the perfect winged eyeliner, sculpted brows, and gently contoured cheekbones that she sported, thanks to Sophia’s expert hand.

And as she scanned the room, looking for some sign of a Kathy-devised baby shower, it was almost enough to forget that the one person she hoped to see was nowhere in sight.

He was supposed to be here.

She hadn’t seen David since yesterday in the IKEA. She had, at least, spoken to him—or whatever you called texting. Like rational, sane people who love each other despite being in the middle of a fight, she’d sent him a message to let him know where she was and that she was okay.

Then, after several breath-holding seconds . . .

She and David had been together for fifteen years. He knew well enough when to give her some space. And vice versa.

The difficulty was, they had never needed this much space before.

Their fights were usually small, more like discussions wherein they took opposite sides and tried to convince an unseen jury of the virtues of their own point of view—civilized, like debate club. Everyone shook hands at the end, as there was no doubt in either of their minds that the right decision had been made on the kind of dishwasher they should buy, and whether or not they needed to hire a gardener to keep their drought-tolerant front yard weed-free. They were after all, not just adults, but partners in their lives.

And if they did have a larger-scale decision to make, usually the spouse who was less affected deferred to the thought process of the other. Like when Nathalie chose which school for her master’s in education, or when David lost his job and had to decide next steps.

The difficulty was, this baby—their daughter—affected them both, equally. And to hear the anger and disinterest coming from David yesterday in the middle of IKEA made her heart hurt like it never had before.

She’d told Sophia all about it last night, while making up the couch. And Sophia upped her new friend game by being both sympathetic to Nathalie and thoughtful about David.

“Unbelievable—like he’s under some huge burden,” she had said. “Like he’s the one who has swollen feet.”

“And weird leg cramps at night.”

“And a uterus that feels like a basketball.”

“You guys are so weird,” Maisey had said, shaking her head and removing herself from the conversation by redirecting her attention to a text on her phone.

“You’ll be weird, too, when it happens to you, honey. But not for another decade, please.”

“At least,” Maisey snorted as she walked away.

“Say hi to Foz for me,” Sophia singsonged.

An exasperated “God, Mom!” was followed by a slammed door.

Nathalie’s eyes followed the trail Maisey had left. “Foz Craley?”

“I . . . I actually don’t know. My daughter has become much too secretive for my liking. It’s someone she works with.”

“Well, if it is Foz Craley, he used to be in my classes. Great kid. It was a shame he had to leave school.”

Sophia’s eyes had gone wide. “My daughter is texting with someone who dropped out of school?”

“No—not like that. He had to relocate for his family. His grandfather . . . well, I don’t want to tell tales out of turn, but suffice to say, he had to take on way more responsibility than anyone his age should.”

“Hmm . . .” Sophia said, looking back at her daughter’s closed door. “Responsibility is such a double-edged knife. Especially between the sexes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at you and your husband. He’s freaking out because of the responsibility of the upcoming baby. Grasping for a way to handle it. But you—it’s already real to you in a way it can’t be to him. Because you have swollen feet and weird leg cramps and a basketball uterus. So you feel the responsibility in a different way. And handle it differently.”

Nathalie was silent, letting Sophia’s words sink in.

“What about you?” she said finally, nodding to Sophia’s slightly rounded belly. “How are you handling it?”

“It’s getting harder,” she replied after a few moments. “Sebastian’s been on the road for a while now. He says he’s doing it so he can have time once the baby’s born, but . . . I don’t know. I don’t actually have a lot of experience with relationships.”

“You don’t?” Nathalie asked, utterly shocked.

“I spent the last seventeen years focused on Maisey. So it’s been a struggle finding the right balance with Sebastian, which is even harder when he’s not here. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, and I just want it to work. But sometimes it feels like this is happening to me and only me, not to all of us.”

“All?”

Sophia nodded her head toward Maisey’s door. “But . . . I just have to tell myself constantly that it will be better tomorrow. As always, as women . . . we handle it. Don’t we?”

“Yes,” Nathalie agreed, holding up her contraband Diet Coke to clink glasses with Sophia’s. “That we do.”

It would be better tomorrow, Nathalie had decided. She and David would talk. They would remember that they were best friends and not only needed each other, but wanted each other. They would be able to figure out how to handle it—together.

She had regretted not going home to David as soon as her head hit the pillow on Sophia’s couch.

And when tomorrow arrived, she and Sophia drove over the mountain to Echo Park and the baby shower, ready to do just that.

But now that she was here, and she could see David wasn’t, she felt adrift all over again.

But then again, it didn’t seem like the baby shower was there either.

There wasn’t a hint of pink. No baby booties in sight.

Did they have the right place?

Finally, after standing there awkwardly for what seemed like an eternity, a man-bunned server (potentially the same man bun that had alarmed her before?) shoved them through the Sunday brunch rush and pointed them to a set of doors at the back.

“I guess the party’s on the patio.”

“So what should I expect?” Sophia asked, as they wedged their pregnant bellies past vegan diners. “Outside of cucumber canapés?”

“My stepmom is throwing it, so . . . slightly cheesy décor, some low-pressure crafting . . . basic baby shower stuff, I assume. She went a little overboard for the gender reveal party, so my dad told her that she should scale it back for—”

The first thing that assaulted Nathalie was an ultrasound photo.

Her ultrasound photo.

Blown up on a canvas so the baby in the picture was roughly the size of a motorcycle.

Opposite was a separate canvas, with another ultrasound photo, equally disturbing in size. And in between, was a banner with the words “Happy Babies Shower #Lyndalie!”

“Wow,” Sophia said.

“I just remembered something,” Nathalie breathed, unable to take her eyes off the . . . everything.

“What?”

“Kathy rarely actually listens to my dad.”

Moving past the banner—and the looming photos of her unborn daughter and (presumably) her niece—Nathalie was assaulted by a sea of pink. Now that the sex of both babies was known, Kathy had dedicated herself to the color scheme. But whereas most people would have just had some streamers and tablecloths in their chosen color, Kathy had imported pink everything. The chairs were painted pink. The stones of the patio floor had been given a pink wash that made Nathalie pray for rain—and unfortunately, the rainy season in LA was decidedly over. The patio fence had been wrapped in pink tulle. There was even a pink step-and-repeat—a pink wall canvas that you could take pictures in front of—emblazoned with the phrase #lyndaliebabies!

“It’s like the inside of my old Barbie Dream House, isn’t it?”

Nathalie turned, and saw her sister, ethereal as always. It took all of the power of her wingtipped eyeliner to overcome her jealousy over how buoyant she looked. Her belly now protruding gently underneath her flowy, flowery gown that hung off her frame like a maternity model. Like her pregnant stomach was filled with little more than wisps of air, instead of the sloshing weight that Nathalie felt in her own belly.

“Let me introduce you to Sophia,” Nathalie said after greeting her sister.

“Wow, you look so much like someone I work with, it’s uncanny,” Lyndi said, as she shook Sophia’s hand. “You have the exact same eyes and mouth. Do you have a little sister?”

“No, I have a daughter, Maisey.”

“Oh my goodness!” Lyndi cried, clasping Sophia’s hand. “You’re Maisey’s mom! That’s not possible!”

“I got an early start.” Sophia shrugged.

“She talks about you all the time. Says you’re an amazing makeup artist.” Lyndi looked between Sophia and Nathalie, her mouth forming a perfect O. “You must have done Nathalie’s makeup! It looks fabulous. I love the wingtips. I could never get those right.”

“I’d be happy to show you—” Sophia began, but Nathalie cleared her throat.

“Sophia’s not here to work, Lyndi.”

“It’s all right,” Sophia said. “If you don’t enjoy your work, what’s the point? I did bring my makeup bag.”

Nathalie felt annoyance—however unjustly—rise in her throat and sting at her eyes. She knew it was petty, but she wanted her makeup to look this good—not Lyndi’s, too.

God, she would give anything for a distraction. A celebrity sighting. A minor earthquake. Anything.

“Yoo-hoo! Nathalie!”

As if on cue, Kathy parted the seas of the patio and trotted up to the new arrivals.

“Honey, you look marvelous!” she said, embracing Nathalie, bussing her cheek, and coming away with no doubt half the contouring. “Pregnancy agrees with you! My goodness you look better than you did on your wedding day!” She turned to Lyndi. “You remember I told her she should have hired a professional makeup person, but your sister was all about ‘saving money.’ Oh here honey! Have a ‘momosa’! Nonalcoholic, delicious . . .”

Kathy had pulled one of the servers into her orbit, and grabbed three champagne glasses off the tray.

“And pink,” Nathalie commented.

“Yes, well, I had a difficult time finding any decorations in a ‘feminine blue.’ And your sister approved of the décor, didn’t you Lyndi?”

“It’s great Mom,” Lyndi said judiciously. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

Nathalie cleared her throat. “Sophia, this is my sister Lyndi, and my stepmom Kathy.”

Kathy’s smile froze on her face as she turned to Sophia.

“Welcome Sophia,” Kathy said. “So glad Nathalie brought a friend . . . even though I wish she would have told me.”

Nathalie decided to ignore the dig.

“Kathy, what’s #Lyndalie?”

“It’s your names, silly! Lyndi and Nathalie!” Kathy replied.

“You couldn’t have written ‘Lyndi and Nathalie’? Instead of Lyndalie?” Which sounded like Lyndi swallowed Nathalie, and merely burped up the last syllable.

“It’s a hashtag,” Kathy said. “The blog I read said that everyone hashtags their events. I suppose it’s for good luck, but I have no idea.”

“No, it’s for social media, Mom,” Lyndi began, but Kathy just smiled at her blankly. “So people can follow the tag and see what’s happening at an event?”

“Why would anyone want to follow a tag? Why not just come to the party?”

Rather than for Lyndi to explain why the entire world might not want to come to a party, but would take thirty seconds to peruse the pictures on Facebook, Nathalie stepped into the fray.

“Speaking of people coming, where’s David?”

Kathy just blinked at her. “Honey, he’s your husband. Where did you leave him?”

“I . . . I thought he was coming,” she answered lamely. “From work.” It was a Sunday, but he had been working so much recently it was entirely probable that Kathy wouldn’t blink twice at this lie. And she didn’t.

“Honey, this is a baby shower! Purely female space. No boys allowed!”

“I . . . I don’t think that’s been the case since the mid-eighties.”

Kathy just waved her hand dismissively, spilling a little of her pink “momosa” as she did so. “Call him and have him come if you want, but it would just be so strange. Marcus isn’t even here—and we have crafting, and you’ll love the baby games . . . Pin the Baby on the Uterus is supposed to be a real hoot!”

“I imagine it is,” Sophia said, when Nathalie couldn’t muster an answer.

“Kathy, I thought you were going to keep this more low-key—WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?”

They had migrated over to the food table, where there were the expensive sliced cucumber and other no doubt vegan delights . . . but there was also something that looked like a dark red gelatinous mass balanced atop a short column of confection.

And it was bleeding.

“Placenta cupcakes!” Kathy cried out, delighted. She picked one up, showed it off. “I read on that blog that lots of new mothers are eating the placenta . . . it’s supposed to be wildly healthy.”

“That’s not . . . It’s not really—” Lyndi said, looking a little wan.

“No, it’s just Jell-O,” Kathy replied, her disappointment obvious. “I couldn’t find real placenta anywhere.”

Well, there was really no response for that.

Luckily, Kathy was easily distracted by new arrivals coming in behind them. “Hello! Welcome! Gifts go on the gift table. The pink one. No, the other pink one!”

As Kathy moved off, that left three pregnant women staring at a table of placenta cupcakes and each other.

“Do you think anyone is going to eat those?”

“David would,” Lyndi said. “If he were here.”

It was true. David would try almost any food at least once. It was one of Nathalie’s favorite things about him. His willingness to step into the unknown and give it a shot.

Maybe . . . maybe he could give this a shot, too?

“Give me a sec, Sophia, I just have to send a text,” she said, taking two steps away.

“So you work with Maisey at the flower shop?” she heard Sophia say.

“It’s a floral co-op. Let me introduce you to Paula, she’s the owner . . .”

As Lyndi and Sophia continued to chat, Nathalie took out her phone. Kathy was right about one thing. If she wanted David there, she should invite him.

She typed the message, hit Send. Waited.

Nothing.

No little loading dots, nothing to indicate that he’d gotten the message.

He was probably just away from his phone. No doubt, he would get the message in a couple minutes. She turned on her ringer, so the phone would audibly ding when he texted back.

She kept the phone in her hand as she turned, and scanned the crowd for Sophia—her emotional support person. And the spike of petty jealousy rose from her stomach to her throat, when she saw, near the pink-encrusted hashtagged step-and-repeat, Sophia applying eyeliner to Lyndi’s lids.

Once again, nothing was Nathalie’s own. Not even her friends.

She checked the phone clutched in her hand.

Still nothing from David.

This was going to be a long baby shower, Nathalie thought.

And she was very quickly proven right.

Nathalie had noticed a distinct change in how people reacted to her, ever since her belly became decidedly oversized. No one asked “how are you feeeeeeeeeeling” anymore. It was assumed you felt pretty darn pregnant. No, the comments became far more . . . observational.

“You’re having a big one, aren’t you?”

“My goodness, your baby looks ready to drop!”

“Aren’t you hot with all that weight?”

“I can tell by the way you’re carrying that you’re having a boy.”

That last one was from one of her own co-workers, who must have been blind, considering their Pepto-colored surroundings.

But she was a trouper, Nathalie told herself, and she could handle overly personal comments with people she usually only saw in the teachers’ lounge.

It would just be a lot easier if she didn’t feel the need to check her phone every five seconds.

But David . . . he wasn’t responding. By now, he had to have seen the text. There was only one explanation—he didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to talk.

He was still angry and sad about yesterday’s fight.

And it just made Nathalie angrier and sadder.

Add to that Sophia had disappeared with Lyndi and set up a makeup station in the corner, with a line of ladies waiting to have their makeup done, Nathalie’s mood was becoming a murky mix of frustration and sadness that could have only been compounded by her hormones.

“Oh what a fabulous idea!” Kathy cried out, her voice carrying across the patio. “A makeup artist at the party; Lyndi you think of everything.”

Sophia wasn’t there to be put to work, Nathalie fumed. She was there to enjoy placenta cupcakes and roll her eyes with Nathalie at the decorations. She was about to cross the room and intervene when Kathy called out, “Everyone! It’s time for the games!”

So Lyndi and Nathalie were trotted to the front of the patio, where chairs had been set up for them, displayed to the (now very nicely wingtipped) crowd.

Nathalie slid Lyndi a glance. Lyndi’s face was shining with her smile, practically glowing from all the attention.

“Any idea what we are in for?” Nathalie muttered.

“Mom told me a bunch of different games,” Lyndi said. “They all sort of sounded like fun.”

“Okay, everyone! The first game is called Guess the Weight!” Kathy said, clapping her hands. “It’s pretty self-explanatory.”

Oh, hell.

After a casual round where the partygoers constantly thought she weighed more than she did—and of course thought that Lyndi weighed less—it was time for the next round of Compare Lyndi to Nathalie, which took the form of . . .

“Old Mom vs. Young Mom!” Kathy called out, to the titters of the crowd. “As many of you know, my Lyndi is a wee bit younger than her sister. So I have a list of things an old mom might do, versus what a young mom might do—and we get to guess which is which! First up: watching Disney movies vs. making a YouTube channel of minimovies you make with your child!”

But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the straw that broke the pregnant lady’s back came when the games were finally dispensed with and the presents were opened.

By this time, Nathalie had grown weary of checking every phantom buzz of her phone, only to find blankness staring back at her. Her face hurt from grimacing through the humiliation of the games.

And she was freaking starving, because the only thing served at the party that wasn’t raw cucumber was placenta cupcakes.

So by the time she and Lyndi moved on to the pastel-wrapped pile of boxes and bags with soft elephants or bunnies on them, Nathalie just wanted the whole thing over with.

But as they opened each gift, the oohing and aahing over onesie sets or a baby bathtub, Nathalie began to feel a little bit better. Sure it was an endurance test, but she was enduring it for her baby. She couldn’t help imagining her daughter playing with that toy, or in that particular outfit.

Or possibly, Lyndi’s daughter in that particular outfit, because . . .

“It’s weird how people keep giving us the same stuff,” Nathalie whispered to her sister.

“I figure all babies basically need the same things,” Lyndi replied with a shrug.

“Yes, but . . . not the exact same stuff.” They had just opened a pair of gifts from Aunt Carol—who had flown down from Seattle for the occasion and was currently consuming a bloody cupcake and a non-nonalcoholic momosa near the back of the crowd—and had each received a set of purple printed crib sheets.

The exact same crib sheets.

“It’s like they think we are having twins. Did you let Kathy know how to find your registry?”

“Oh, I didn’t do a registry,” Lyndi said, looking up from opening a big stuffed bear—no doubt exactly the same as the bear Nathalie was currently opening.

“You didn’t?” Nathalie asked, alarmed.

“I didn’t really have any idea what the baby would need. I figured you would know better, so I told Mom just to tell everyone to work off of yours.”

Nathalie’s hand froze in pulling the bow off the oversized bear. And suddenly, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“You can’t do anything on your own, can you?” she said, her voice shaking.

“ . . . what are you talking about?” Lyndi replied.

“You couldn’t even have a different registry?” Her voice was a harsh whisper. “Couldn’t think for yourself on that one?”

Now Lyndi stilled. “I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

“No, of course not, because nothing is that big a deal. Not stealing my registry. Not making my friend do your makeup. Not having a shower at your favorite restaurant where they apparently don’t serve actual food.” Nathalie shook her head, letting the bear fall to the ground as she stood, brushed out her skirt. “It’s like I have nothing of my own. Not my own pregnancy, because I have to share it with you.”

“It’s not like I planned it!” Lyndi said, rising to meet Nathalie. There was a decided pause in the oohs and aahs of the roundtable of women passing the presents from one to the other. “You’re the one who was always going on and on about your plans! You used to tell me you were going to be pregnant when you were thirty.”

“Yes, I’m so terribly sorry that it took me three years to have a healthy pregnancy, Lyndi. And meanwhile, you manage to get knocked up the first time you trip over your roommate’s penis!”

Lyndi drew back as if struck. “That’s not what happened!”

“Really? Because that’s basically what he wrote in his article!”

The crowd gasped and shuddered. There was no pretense anymore from their guests. Everyone was riveted, watching the sparring sisters like Ali/Foreman.

“Why are you acting like this?” Lyndi said, hurt. “It’s our baby shower.”

“No, it’s Lyndalie’s baby shower, whoever the hell that is. Certainly not me. Because I wouldn’t have done all—” she waved her hand at the sea of pink they were mired in “—this.”

“Now there’s no call for that, Nathalie.” Kathy stepped forward from where she was organizing the gifts. “I tried very hard . . .”

“Not really. You never asked me what kind of shower I would like. Never thought that maybe what I want would be different than what Lyndi wants.”

“Well, of course you would want something different,” Kathy said, throwing up her hands. “You never like anything I’ve ever done. Lyndi likes everything. So I went with the one person I knew could be pleased.”

“You went with your daughter. Shocking,” Nathalie said. The edges of her vision were getting blurry with red. “Unfortunately my mom isn’t here, so I don’t get a shower.”

“Now, that’s enough!” Kathy cried. Lyndi reached out and placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder, but Kathy held firm. “I long ago accepted the fact that you would never call me mom, but I have been your mom for the last twenty-five years! She was only your mom for ten!”

Cold settled across Nathalie’s skin, while heat fell down her cheeks—tears. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

“She will always be my mother.”

Nathalie couldn’t see Kathy’s face anymore. Whether or not it was because her eyes were filled or because she didn’t want to, she could not say. But she turned as quickly as she could, and moved through the crowd, which parted for her like she had an infectious disease.

She threw open the doors of the patio, and was nearly running when she ran directly into a familiar form.

“Hey,” David said, steadying her by her shoulders. “What’s going on here?”

Nathalie looked up into his face, and his expression changed immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You invited me,” David replied. Then, forcing her eyes to meet his. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” she said, wiping her face. “Can you just . . . take me home? Please?”

David looked down into his wife’s face, then into the over-pink patio beyond. She knew exactly what he saw. The frozen crowd. The hurt on Lyndi’s face. The pain on Kathy’s.

Then he looked down at her, and saw the shame on Nathalie’s.

Then David, smart man that he was, simply nodded, and ushered Nathalie out the door.