AS APRIL SLID AWAY AND MAY CAME WITH the advent of a SoCal summer, the days were beginning to blur together in their scarcity and importance.
The countdown had begun. As Nathalie’s calendar flipped to May, all the way at the bottom there was the circled due date—May 31st. And every day before it was packed with events and information. The AP tests. Finals. Doctor’s appointments. Getting one last haircut before the baby arrived. Getting her car serviced, and the car seat installed. Placing everything breakable on a high shelf. Putting those little plastic outlet covers in all the lower outlets. Finally transferring all those old home movies from VHS to digital that had been sitting in the closet of what was now the baby’s room and wouldn’t have anywhere to go.
There was no putting it off anymore. Things had to get done.
But it was also time to start relaxing. Her body was crying out for it. Every day when she got home, she collapsed on the couch, which now bore a deep indentation of her body. She slept hard at night for short stretches, and then woke fitfully. Things were sore she didn’t know could be sore. She was doing all the work she could, trying desperately to finish out the school year for her seniors, but more than once she had to resist the urge to just let her students watch a movie, and use the fifty-five minutes of class time to let her mind stop running.
Back in olden times, they called it one’s “confinement”—when one just stayed home, and put her (swollen) feet up, letting her body rest before the stress of having a baby.
And Nathalie was ready for it. Just as soon as she took care of one or two little things.
After all, it wasn’t every day a girl went to the senior prom.
“Are you sure you’re okay going to prom without me?” David said, watching as Nathalie pulled a silk wrap around her green sheath dress, trying to disguise the well-stretched aspect of the only garment she had left that was vaguely decent. With strappy metallic sandals, large earrings, and some judicious low lighting in the reception hall, she should pass muster.
Of course, nothing could overcome the fact that she had to wear her glasses.
That’s right, there was a new symptom to add to the ever-growing list of pregnancy annoyances—her contact lenses no longer fit properly.
As Dr. Duque explained it during her last visit, “your body retains fluid during pregnancy. It retains this fluid everywhere—including your eyes. Sometimes, it subtly changes their shape.”
Meaning, her contact lenses felt like a pair of too-tight jeans on her eyeball. The assurance that this was temporary didn’t do much to appease when one was trying to hold on to their beauty standards by tooth and nail (and eyeball).
But in this instance, it was workable—the glasses helped distract from the sheath dress.
“Don’t pretend for one second that you wanted to put on a suit and come to the high school senior prom,” she said, smiling back at him.
“Oh no, don’t misunderstand.” He came up and wrapped his arms around what remained of her waist. “I am ecstatic that you said I didn’t have to go to prom. I wear suits all day, I don’t need that on my Saturday night. But, I just want to make sure you’re okay going without me.”
She pecked him on the lips. “I’ll be fine. I’m only thirty-six weeks, we still have plenty of time.” It was true, even though it didn’t feel like it with that circle on the calendar now visible. “I’m not even driving, I’m taking an Uber. And Lyndi will be with me.”
“Lyndi’s going?” David’s brow quirked up.
“Her co-op is doing the flowers. I invited her to stick around after they do the setup, so she’s like my junior chaperone.”
“Think Lyndi’s up to that level of responsibility?” David asked, wryly.
Nathalie thought of the role Lyndi played in uncovering David’s secret Twitter confessional. “Of late, I have been nothing but surprised by my sister’s ability to solve problems.”
Indeed, Lyndi was in problem-solving mode when Nathalie arrived. She found her sister in the ballroom of the rented reception hall, giving instructions to one of the staff.
“No, the crystal beads have to drape from the flowers! Fall like raindrops!”
“Wow,” Nathalie said, in complete awe.
Bowers of fat, white flowers greeted her in the entryway. Crystals dripped from them, like diamonds. Tarnished gilt and silver lent a touch of old elegance. Romance mingled with drama and celebration in Lyndi’s designs.
This was the tenth prom Nathalie had attended—not including her own—she was used to the prom committee pulling out all the stops. Not to mention a lot of the kids’ parents worked in the entertainment industry, so they knew how to create an illusion. But the place looked so good, you could almost forget that they were in the middle of a Burbank rented reception hall, with sound-dampening ceiling tiles and hollow Greek columns. Instead they were transported to the coast of Long Island in the 1920s, attending the party of the summer in style at the mansion of the mysterious Jay Gatsby.
Who seriously knew his flowers.
“These kids aren’t going to know what hit them,” Nathalie said.
“I hope so,” Lyndi replied, satisfied that the staffer was making the crystals fall in the appropriate raindrop-like fashion. “Hey, thanks for convincing the prom committee to hire us. We needed a beta test of our new event services.”
“No thanks necessary—this is amazing.” Nathalie lightly touched one of the freesia blooms. They moved, arm in arm from the entryway into the main ballroom.
“I love the theme they chose—the Roaring Twenties. Check out the tables! One of our wholesalers had these art deco planters I couldn’t pass up and they work perfectly.”
“I’m sure they do. Why couldn’t you have thrown my baby shower?”
“I got my creative gene from somewhere, you know,” Lyndi said, turning to her. “If you called her, I know she’d pick up.”
Nathalie felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “She didn’t.”
Nathalie still hadn’t spoken to Kathy. After her conversation with her father, she didn’t know who was supposed to reach out first. She’d opened up her email at least once a day, and wrote an email that just said, “I’m sorry.”
She just never managed to press Send.
It had been a month. And while every other part of Nathalie’s life had markedly improved, there was still this shame, right in the center of it.
She will always be my mother.
But even if she did manage to connect, she was scared to death of what Kathy might say.
That Nathalie was ungrateful. (She was.)
That she was a brat. (Also true.)
That she never wanted to speak to Nathalie again?
“You’re right,” she said to Lyndi, desperate to change the subject. “I should try her tomorrow. Look, the first arrivals are coming in.”
“Awwww . . .” Lyndi turned into a puddle of mush at the sight of the starched and pressed eighteen-year-olds looking more mature and spit-shined than they ever had before. The girls striding forward with confidence, and the boys not quite fitting into their tuxedo shirts. “They’re so cute!”
“Yeah—David’s going to be sorry he missed this. He could have shown all these boys how to wear a suit.”
“What is David doing tonight?” Lyndi asked.
“He’s putting together the crib.” At long last, David was assembling the IKEA furniture for the nursery. Assisted by a six-pack of his favorite IPA, of course.
“Wow. It’s really happening soon, isn’t it?” Lyndi replied.
“Not for another four weeks,” Nathalie said quickly. “And you will be three weeks after that. Does Marcus have the crib up?”
“Actually, we’ve been figuring out some of that stuff . . .”
“Where the crib will go? I don’t wonder, in your tiny apartment, you’re going to have to feng shui the crap out of that place.”
“The crib. And the couch,” she added enigmatically. “And everything else.”
Nathalie’s brow came down, but before she could ask what Lyndi meant by “everything else,” there was a gasp from behind them.
“Oh wow—this is beautiful!” Sophia said, her eyes on the flowers, the gilt, the long strings of crystals glinting in the candlelight.
“Sophia!” Nathalie cried, coming over to embrace her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a chauffeur,” Sophia said, winking. “I just dropped Maisey and Foz out front.”
“Maisey’s taking Foz?” Nathalie’s eyes lit up with the delight of gossip.
“He’s a very nice young man,” Sophia replied, softening. “I know my daughter doesn’t have any plans to drink, but I still didn’t want them driving, with all the crazies on the road tonight. But I couldn’t not sneak in for a peek of the place! Lyndi, this is gorgeous.”
As Lyndi murmured her thanks, Nathalie saw out of the corner of her eye a veritable goddess enter, towing a familiar curly-haired young man in her wake.
“Holy moly—is that Maisey?”
“Yep,” Sophia replied, beaming. “A friend of mine in costumes hooked her up with the dress, and she let me do her makeup for once.”
“Foz looks like he got struck by lightning. He’s utterly gobsmacked.”
“As well he should be,” Sophia declared.
“I can’t disagree with that,” Nathalie said. “And as a chaperone, it is my duty to make sure that he remains respectfully awestruck.”
“So, what are our other duties as chaperones?” Lyndi asked. “Do we monitor the drama? Count the votes for prom king and queen?”
“Actually, from this side of things, prom can be pretty boring. You just make sure no one spikes the punch—”
“There’s a punch table?”
“Not since movies set in the 1950s. It’s metaphorical punch,” Nathalie explained, and the other two nodded in understanding. “You’re mostly here to make sure that everyone acts appropriately. But honestly, in my ten years of proms, I’ve never had to break up a fight. Never even had to comfort a crying girl in the bathroom. The most exciting thing I did once was find someone an emergency tampon.”
“Well, here’s to a boring prom,” Sophia said, watching her daughter lead Foz to the dance floor.
“Uh, I think this prom just got a little more exciting,” Lyndi said, looking down at the floor. Nathalie followed her gaze. She was looking at the skirt of Nathalie’s green dress. Strange, but there was a dark splotch on the front. It was warm, and wet. A long trickle ran down the inside of her leg, pooling in a puddle on the floor beneath her.
“Nathalie. I think your water just broke.”