Chapter 4

Naomi went home that night to the small, teal bungalow she’d rented since she first arrived on campus. It belonged to a couple who were probably in their mid-to-late fifties. They owned a few properties around town, renting mostly to graduate students and faculty as far as she knew. Naomi liked them—they were quick with repairs and fair with pricing.

She’d always enjoyed sitting out on her large porch and writing as she watched the children of the neighborhood run from house to house while they played whatever game suited them. But today, she grabbed her mail before closing her white front door a little harder than necessary, needing to cut out the chatter. She allowed herself to lean back against the door for a moment as she tried to slough off the stress that had been nearly drowning her since her meeting with the dean, before putting down her mail and things on a table by the door and heading into the kitchen to make some tea. As she waited for the water to boil, she let her mind attempt to wade through her feelings about what was going on.

Despite the fact that she’d argue the point until her dying day, she did feel that the deck was stacked against her. Sebastian had been a teacher at the university longer, he had more renown, and his students seemed to love his class—something she couldn’t fathom, but nevertheless appeared to be true. She’d heard enough inane gushing over the years in their suite to convince her of that.

Naomi also had a plethora of students who loved her classes, but poetry always held less appeal overall than the more general literature and writing courses. Sebastian’s classes would always be in higher demand because every English student nowadays seemed convinced they were going to write the next great American novel.

But Naomi’s contributions to the school weren’t without merit. She was the advisor for a number of student organizations and clubs, including the school’s poetry magazine, the writing center, and a slam poetry group. In addition to this, she occasionally helped out with the theater productions. She was often at school events, giving her a good pulse on campus life. A number of students outside of the English department had taken her classes as electives over the last couple of years because they’d met her on campus. All of that would definitely play in her favor. Especially since Sebastian only showed up to mandatory department events.

The kettle whistled and Naomi poured the boiling water over her favorite oolong tea. Carrying it into her living room, she grabbed her mail from the table before curling up on her chaise lounge and allowing the steam from the tea to fill her nostrils, and hopefully clear her mind. There was no sense worrying about it in that moment. She had some grading to do, but beyond that, everything could wait until tomorrow. Her head dropped back and her eyes drifted closed for a moment as she tried to get back to a more relaxed state.

After a few minutes, she set her tea down beside her and began sifting through the mail. A letter with her mom’s familiar scrawl on the front caught her attention. She opened it and removed a piece of thick card stock from the envelope. It was an invitation to her older sister Becca’s baby shower. In March. Naomi stared at the invitation for a second longer, wondering if she were possibly reading it incorrectly. Becca had just told them she was expecting a few weeks ago.

She knew the curiosity over the shower would eat at her, so deciding that she might as well deal with all of the difficult people in her life in one day, she got up to grab her cell.

Naomi dialed her parents’ landline, but when the answering machine clicked on, she hung up and called again. It was the family’s code. Telemarketers and debt collectors left messages; family kept calling until they got ahold of someone. The fact that most phones had caller IDs built into them was of little importance to her parents, who wouldn’t even lift the thing until the second round of rings began.

“Hello?” the sugary voice of Margaret Price said. Naomi could picture her smoothing her blond hair back into her signature bun.

“Hi, Mom. It’s Naomi.”

When her mother spoke again, her voice had dropped an octave or two, and sounded more like the woman she grew up with. “Oh hi, hon. How are you?”

The question was more of a formality than a genuine curiosity, but Naomi answered anyway. “I’m fine. How about you?”

Her mother released a put-upon sigh. “I’ve been so busy. Becca has her hands full with those three boys, let me tell you. I hope, for her sake, that this one’s a girl.”

“Speaking of that, I got the invitation for Becca’s shower.”

“Oh good. Aren’t they adorable? When I saw them, I just had to order them. Don’t tell Daddy I paid for them, by the way. He’s only just started speaking to me after I brought that cute little greenhouse home.”

The “cute little greenhouse” was a structure about as big as a shed, and she’d also had to pay someone to deliver it to the house. It was another eyesore added to their already cluttered backyard. “Mom, why are you sending out invitations for something that’s six months away?”

“I wanted to make sure people have enough notice. Hardly anyone showed up to Amy’s last fall.”

“I’m pretty sure that had more to do with it being Amy’s third child and not because they had other plans.”

“No, it wasn’t. Everyone who didn’t come told me they had other obligations that day. Besides, who wouldn’t want to celebrate a baby?”

“People who’ve already celebrated that person having a baby two other times. Or in Becca’s case, three.”

“Nonsense.”

Naomi leaned back and silently counted to ten. “Seriously, Mom. People usually only have baby showers for their first baby. This is Becca’s fourth.”

“But this one might be a girl,” her mom defended as if that were a completely logical argument.

“But it might not be. And since Becca doesn’t like to find out the gender in advance, it’s a moot point for the shower anyway.”

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this. If you don’t want to come, just say so,” her mother spat.

“It’s not that I don’t want to come. Of course I’ll be there. I just think asking for gifts from the same people over and over again is…tacky.”

As soon as she heard the sharp inhale over the phone, Naomi knew she was in for it.

“Tacky? I suppose we would seem tacky to you now that you’ve moved up north to teach at some fancy college.”

“Mom, I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”

“You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous of your sisters.”

It wasn’t often that Naomi wished she were a different type of person, but in that moment she did. Because a different person might have been able to come up with some empty, placating comment in an effort to save herself from this conversation. But Naomi had always felt an intense need to fight every battle that came her way, whether it was really worth it or not. “Why on earth would I be jealous of them?”

“Because they have something you don’t, and if you don’t settle down soon, you might never get it.”

The fact that her mother said it sweetly did nothing to soften the impact of her words. Naomi’s eyes and throat burned. It was a tragedy. One her mother had no idea about. “There’s more to life than having kids,” she said.

“That’s easy to say when you don’t have any. But if you ever become a mother, you’ll see.”

This was a familiar dance for Naomi. Her mom would make a cutting remark, Naomi would get offended but wouldn’t tell her mother why, and she’d have no choice but to accept it and move on.

So while she had the urge to go on a long diatribe about the reasons she was happy with her life—to defend herself yet again—it was time for Naomi to control the impulse. “Guess I’ll just keep telling myself that then. Seems to be working for me.”

Naomi didn’t wait for her mother to respond before she continued, “I have some grading I have to get done. But I’ll make sure I put the baby shower in my calendar.”

“All right. I’ll let you go, then.”

“Okay. ’Bye, Mom.”

“Goodbye.”

Naomi clicked the End button and let the phone fall onto her lap. Her grandmother said bad things always happened in threes. So far that day, she’d had her classroom changed, learned she had to get through Sebastian to win a prestigious award, and gotten an invitation to something she didn’t feel at all like celebrating. As she slumped back and let the tears she couldn’t control fall silently down her cheeks, Naomi felt that she and the universe were square.