---

“The hospital called. They found a replacement instructor for our childbirth class. So we will get to have a class after all,” I tell him as I wait for Amanda to come pick me up and take me to Mom’s Unicoga class. Dec and Andrew are coming later, delayed by some flimsy reason I know they invented to cut their torture time in yoga class in half.

If I could have used the same excuse myself, I would have.

“Yay!” Declan feigns enthusiasm. “Do we get to sculpt a placenta out of marzipan and Vegemite?”

“Ha ha. Make fun all you want, but you really do have a talent for sculpting. That vulva was remarkably good.”

“I’m passionate about the human body.” The look he gives me makes that evident.

“Your head has spent so much time down there, I’m surprised you don’t have wrinkles in your face that mold perfectly to my–”

Ring! Ring!

Declan’s phone chimes like crazy, the strange sound of a smartphone ringing throwing us both off. He answers.

“What, Dave? They what? Customs seized what? Damn it. Okay. I’ll be there.” He ends the call, shoves his phone in his pocket, and is halfway out the door before I can open my mouth and say:

“Seriously? You didn’t need to create a rescue call. Dave’s turning out to be a universal tool you can use for everything. Maybe you should get him pregnant to have your next baby.”

Dec turns a funny, pale shade at my joke.

“Look, it’s no joke. Sounds like drug smugglers are hiding their product in coffee shipments, and I need to deal with this. I’ll let Andrew know.” A peck on the cheek and bam! He’s gone.

The door buzzes about five minutes later. “Ready?” Amanda asks when I push the intercom.

“Be there in a second!”

Mom normally teaches yoga in a friend’s converted barn, just north of my hometown and conveniently located fairly close to I-495, but this time she’s in Natick, testing out a new facility. I know she’s advertised the hell out of this new Unicoga class, pushing it online and in Facebook ads. As long as we can get to the Mass Pike without too much traffic, it’s smooth sailing when it’s not rush hour, so the trip will be short.

Even so, this gives me a rare chunk of time with Amanda.

“Andrew suddenly does want a baby,” she announces as we whiz past the Allston and Brighton exits.

“Why? It’s not like he can win at this point.” I look down at the big lump resting on my thighs.

“I don’t know. He’s not pushing. Just making it clear he’s ready if I am.”

“Do you want one?”

“Not yet. I’m going to watch you do it and decide from there.”

“Don’t use me as your object lesson in whether to have a baby or not! That’s too much pressure.”

“Who else can I use as a role model?”

“Carol.”

“Carol is a single mom whose husband dumped her with two small kids and a bunch of debt. Andrew couldn’t be more different from her ex if he tried.”

“True.”

“We are married to wealthy men.”

She makes a strange, low growl as she says it, as if it’s hard to admit she, too, has married into money.

“You know it makes us different,” I add.

“Right.”

“We won’t have the problems our parents had. Or Carol has.” We’ve helped with Tyler’s private therapies, subsidizing as much as Carol’s pride allows, and now that she works for Dec’s brother in a big corporation with fabulous benefits, she’s in a much better place, but still.

I’ll never, ever face what she has as a parent. Not financially, not emotionally, not operationally. My parents, too. Declan and I aren’t starting out broke.

Quite the opposite.

“Do we really have to talk about how the money makes us different from other people again?”

“It changes parenting.”

“It changes everything.” Amanda blinks rapidly, as if an idea just struck her. “Have you met any other moms?” she asks, turning in her seat to look at me.

“I figure I will after the baby’s born. Going to mommy groups now feels like checking out colleges as a high school freshman, you know? A little premature.”

“But you plan to meet other mommies, right?”

“Sure. I’ll want friends with kids my kid’s age.”

“Right. Friends.” More blinking.

“Uptown Funk” comes on the radio, and for the next four minutes, we rock out to it. The baby kicks out of beat.

“What was that reply all about?” I ask her.

“What?”

“When you said ‘Right. Friends.’”

“Just... you know.”

“Amanda.”

“Fine. You are like a waterboarding expert at dragging things out of me! It’s about all the new mommy friends you’re going to make.” One hand bangs lightly on the steering wheel as she says the word “friends.”

“What about them?”

“Are you going to become one of those mommies who ditches all your non-mommy friends? Are we going to be one of those friendships where we spend seventeen months saying ‘We should go out for dinner!’ back and forth but never do it? Are you going to fade away?”

“No!”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because–because–” How can I be sure? I don’t know. Amanda’s throwing all this at me out of nowhere. It’s clear she’s thought about it. A lot. I haven’t had the bandwidth to even consider it.

“I don’t know,” I confess. “I love you. You’re my bestie. We’re married to brothers. Why would I ever not want to be friends with you?”

“You hated me in eleventh grade that time I over-fried your hair when we tried to dye it blue.”

“I did. We didn’t talk for three whole days. But this is different. I’ll have a baby! Babies are portable. We can still get together and have fun. Plus, you’ll be this baby’s aunt. If nothing else, don’t piss off the relatives. They’re contractually obligated to bring gifts for the kid for birthdays and holidays,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

She doesn’t laugh. “Will you talk only about the baby?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Because I can’t guarantee a no! Amanda, what is this about? It’s not about the baby. It’s not even about our friendship. You know we’ll be friends like old Agnes and Corrine, chewing each other out but inseparable. So come on. What’s the real issue here?”

“This is the real issue.” With her giant, round eyes, Amanda’s regular resting face already makes her look impossibly alert. As she tears up, her eyes widen and I feel like I’ve deeply wounded Puss in Boots from Shrek.

“You’re crying!” I gasp. “Don’t cry!”

“Why not?”

“Because if you cry,” I say, sobbing, “then I’ll cry.”

“I don’t want you to cry!” she sobs back. “Why are you crying?”

“I cried at an emergency broadcast test on PBS this morning. I cry when CVS has a two-for-one sale on floss picks,” I say, digging in my purse to find tissues. I hand her one. She dabs her eyes.

“You became a grown-up! You’re about to be a mom and I’m not and I love Andrew and our Cheetocino failed in market testing and everything is changing.”

“Wait. The Cheetocino failed?”

Her face crumples. “Yes!”

“I can’t believe people didn’t love it!”

“We had to pay the focus group testers extra. The janitor, too. Apparently, a lot of people barfed. It got complicated. Lawyers were involved.”

“But the Cheetocino is the perfect drink!” I argue, deeply sad that no one can appreciate the splendor of so many competing tastes on a happy tongue.

“I knooooooooowwwww!”

We spend the next ten minutes speeding along the highway, laughing and crying.

She turns off the Pike for the Natick exit and we sniff together.

“You suck,” she finally says as the GPS tells us we’ve arrived at our destination. It’s a big brick building with a ton of cars in the parking lot, people carrying yoga mats streaming inside.

“Why do I suck?” I roll out of the car and grab my mat. No way am I doing a full yoga class, but I’m here to support Mom.

“Because not only do you know me so well that you can drag information out of me, you can cry with me for fifteen minutes and–hey. Hold on.” Spinning around, she gawks at all the people pouring into the building. “Is this some giant yoga studio? Because there’s no way all these people are going to Marie’s stupid unicorn yoga class.”

“Mom didn’t say. Probably one of those supercenters for yoga, dance, you know.”

We reach the main doors and quickly realize it’s a big auditorium. Mom made us buy tickets online, so we pull out our phones and a security guard scans the glass screens, waving us in.

“More than a hundred people are in here!” Amanda gasps. “The last time your mom had a class this big was when everyone came to kick Declan’s ass because you two had broken up and he no-showed.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Sorry.”

“And that’s not how I remember it.”

We scan the big auditorium, searching the crowd for familiar faces.

“There’s Agnes,” Amanda says, pointing. “Corrine’s right next to her.”

In addition to unrolling their yoga mats, everyone walks over to strategically placed boxes and grabs glittering silver cone-shaped things and a flat rainbow-colored package.

“What is this about?” I ask, marveling.

“Uhhhhhhhh,” Amanda says, pointing toward the main door.

Where my mother is dressed like a unicorn.

And not in an understated way.

If glitter gains personhood, I know what it will look like. Mom has managed to transform herself into a one-woman parade float for Pride Week.

Complete with hooves.

“SHANNON!” she squeals, moving gracefully my way, leaving a trail of rainbow-colored tie-dyed ribbon scarf three feet behind her.

“Nice. A pregnant one,” some strange man standing in line to get in says. “Bet she’ll be popular.”

I give him a nasty look as Mom hugs me. You would think that yoga classes would be judgment-free zones. Mom does her best–the only judging she does in her classes is of me, when I attend–but there’s a hyper-competitive feel to some of the practitioners, especially the men. A sinking dread starts to pour over me.

“What do you think? Do I pass as a unicorn?” she asks, eyes glittering.

No, I mean literally glittering.

“Are you wearing some weird contact lenses, Mom?”

“I am! Special-ordered glitter contacts!” Rapid blinks accompany her announcement, her eyelashes augmented by long fake ones that make her look like a spider glitter bomb.

“How can you see through those? Are they functional?” Amanda gasps.

“Who cares if they’re functional?” she exclaims as she gives Amanda a hug and accidentally grabs her boob. “They’re eye catching, aren’t they? That’s what counts!”

“Your hair is rainbow colored. And those tights...” Mom looks like a bag of Skittles got ironed and turned into a leotard.

“Marie, you are colorful,” Amanda says, spitting out some glitter she inhaled during her invasive half hug with mom.

“Thank you! Can you believe how many people are here? Especially all the men!”

The men who come in appear to all be part of couples. There are, in a crowd of a hundred or so, at least twenty men. Given that the normal ratio of men to women is 0 in 10 or so, and maybe 1 in 20 when I drag Dec to a class, this is a strange turn of events.

“Mom, did you tap into some sort of new demographic?”

“I don’t know! I did get a free credit to use social media ads, so maybe that’s the secret of my success.”

“Social media ads?” Amanda asks, intrigued. “You ran social media ads for your yoga classes? What kind? Reach ads? Traffic-based? Video?”

“Um, ads. You type some words and upload a picture and pick a zip code,” Mom says, hands out in supplication as if to say Please don’t ask me for details about the internetz.

“Who helped you?” Amanda inquires. “An agency?”

“No one! I did it all by myself,” Mom proudly crows.

“It obviously worked,” Amanda says as she looks around. “You did well.”

“I’m not so ancient after all, am I? I can learn technology like the rest of you.” She shoos us in. “Find a spot before they’re all taken! The floor is filling up fast, and I might run out of unicorn horns and gloves!”

“Horns?” I ask, not wanting to, but I’m asking.

“Go find one. Horn, gloves, and a spot by a target for the tip.” Mom canters away. We’re going to find glitter in crevices of her corpse forty years from now, aren’t we?

“I know where I want my tip to go,” Creepy Guy to the right of me murmurs. To my immense displeasure, the woman with him just bites her upper lip and looks suggestively at… Amanda?

As I look around, it seems like a lot of couples are here.

“Notice how many pairs there are? Looks like a lot of women dragged their husbands and boyfriends to this unicorn yoga thing. I wonder why?”

“Who knows? We’ll have to ask your mom what she wrote in those ads, though. My marketing brain is really curious. Look at the turnout!”

Scurrying in, we grab our props and find sanctuary with Agnes and Corrine. They might be old and annoying, but they aren’t inappropriate.

“How’s that second trimester going for you, Shannon? If I were married to a man that fine, I’d turn him into a flesh pogo stick and ride him four hundred hops.”

Okay. Scratch that. They may be inappropriate, but they’re not strange-man-at-a-yoga-class inappropriate.

“Do you know a personal trainer named Vince, Agnes?” I ask.

She holds her hand up to her ear. “What?”

“Agnes turned off her hearing aid,” Corrine says with an eye roll.

“Why?”

“Because she can.”

Amanda’s paying a little too much attention to all this, as if she’s storing away information for the future. Oh, God. Am I Agnes or Corrine?

Pretty sure I don’t want to be either of them.

There appear to be about ten rows of red and white bullseye targets in the room, evenly placed. Most of the yoga students have unrolled their mats behind the targets, so Amanda and I follow suit, Corrine and Agnes on our heels.

“Are the boys joining you?” Agnes asks, a gleam in her eye.

“Um, later,” Amanda tells her, giving a neck roll that says, Don’t you dare pinch my husband’s ass.

“Good. We should have a little ‘reserved’ sign for them, right there.” She points to two places in front of us.

“I know!” Corrine says. “I’ll just do this.” Scooching over there, she parks her walker in front of one bullseye, and her purse in front of another. The women high-five each other.

Mom’s voice echoes through the auditorium, with just enough feedback to make everyone cover their ears and groan.

Tap tap tap. “Is this on?” she asks, adjusting her wireless headset, using one manicured fingernail to test the mouthpiece microphone.

“Yes!” some guy shouts.

“Well, well, well!” Mom says, grinning like a Texas beauty contestant, her arms up in the air. I can feel her energy winding up, up, up.

“This isn’t a yoga class, is it?” Amanda mutters. “More like a tent revival.”

“Mom would have been one hell of a preacher,” I mutter back.

Amanda checks her phone. We’re sitting on our yoga mats now, Corrine and Agnes to our right, an overly attentive couple to our left.

“Where is Andrew?” Amanda hisses. “He’s avoiding answering texts.”

“You seriously think they’re coming? Amateur.”

“What? Of course they’re coming! Andrew has to give me a ride home.”

“He’ll just send Gerald or Lance.”

“You need a ride home, honey?” says a very platinum woman, half of the couple next to us. Her hair is teased into a 1980s bug shield, and she’s wearing blue jeggings with rips in them, a shimmery set of leotards underneath. Big hoop earrings grace her earlobes, bright red lipstick on overly full lips. The skin around her eyes sags, but she has so much eyeliner on the lower lids, it makes the bags look like a mudslide.

“I–excuse me?” Amanda says, polite.

“You need a ride? Me and Danny can give you a ride,” the woman says with a half-mouthed grin.

Danny snorts.

My mind shifts instantly into double entendre mode. He’s a tiny little man, no more than five feet tall, with greasy black hair and a surprisingly friendly smile.

“Hey, sure. We got plenty of room in our car.” His eyes roam to my belly. “Whoa! Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” I say, not sure about this whole conversation.

“That takes courage,” Danny says to me.

“What?”

“Coming here, in that condition. Good for you.”

“Oh.” I smile. “Thanks.” I guess that’s a compliment about my commitment to yoga?

He winks. My eyes dart around the room. All the men look a little bit like Danny, actually. Not in terms of height or coloring. There’s an eagerness to them. Attentiveness. They are watching all the women who aren’t there with a guy.

Like we’re prey.

Mom’s voice rises. “Unicorns! Where are my unicorns?”

All the couples start clapping.

Picking up the little horn hat with an elastic band, I groan.

“She’s serious?”Amanda says.

“Of course.”

“See those targets?” Mom asks rhetorically. “Put on your unicorn horn and let’s get started with the tips! Just the tip!”

“I love getting started,” Danny says to me with a wink, eyes roaming over my body. “You clearly like more than just the tip, huh?” Wink.

The baby chooses that exact moment to do a Michael Phelps in-womb flip turn.

Mom is babbling about poses and targets and unicorn horns but I can’t hear a word. My brain is turning inside out and being power-washed by the blood of ritually sacrificed gnomes as Danny’s words can’t possibly be what I think they are?

“You look green,” Amanda says to me, grabbing my arm. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you hear him?”

“Hear who? I was helping Agnes bend. It’s like trying to twist a steel rod.”

“That dude. Danny. He’s hitting on me.”

“He’s what? Seriously? You never know when guys are flirting with you. It’s like color blindness.”

“I know! But even I can tell.”

“Then he must be really over the top.”

“Hey there,” Danny says to Amanda as he puts his unicorn hat on. “You more flexible than your friend? This is my wife, Susie.” Her fingers wave at Amanda as she sizes her up like a roller derby player looking for someone to hip whip.

Amanda ignores them both and looks at Mom, who is demonstrating.

“First, you make sure your unicorn horn is perfectly centered. There is nothing worse than being misaligned when it comes to getting the tip where it needs to be!” Mom booms over the microphone.

“Ouch,” Susie says, chewing on gum. “No one wants the tip in the wrong hole.” Wink.

I grab Amanda’s arm. “SEE?” I hiss. “They’re flirting.” A wave of unreality and doubt hits me. “Right?”

“That’s not flirting. That is like flirting on steroids. They’re swingers looking to score,” Amanda hisses back.

“Now, I want you to bend into downward-facing dog,” Mom announces.

“Mmmm, doggie style,” Danny groans.

I look around the room. Couples are clustered around all the women who are under fifty and who aren’t here with a man. Whatever Danny and Susie are up to, they’re not alone. Mom is on stage, bent in perfect form, telling everyone how to center their unicorn tip, when Declan and Andrew appear, slamming the main doors open like they’re a SWAT team here to save us from hostage takers.

“THIS IS OVER!” Andrew shouts, Mom’s soothing yoga chimes interrupted by the boom of my brother-in-law’s baritone voice echoing through the room.

“What? Oh, hi Andrew!” Mom chirps, really confused, glitter eyes darting everywhere and finally landing on Amanda, who looks as bewildered as Mom.

Danny moves closer to me, hand reaching out. “Can I feel your baby? Our youngest is nineteen, and I haven’t felt a pregnant woman’s body since our last partner, seven years ago.”

“Last partner?” I ask, about to tell him no, but suddenly Declan seizes the guy’s wrist and Danny’s face turns to pain.

“The lady did not consent,” Declan says in a voice that could free polar ice caps.

“Hey! Get your hands off–” Dec pushes him back, hard.

“I’ll say the same to you. Get your hands off my wife,” Declan growls, turning himself into a wall between me and the couple.

“CLASS IS OVER!” Andrew announces, Mom’s microphone off her head and held up to his mouth. Mom is pawing at him.

“What are you doing?” She’s crying on stage, hands in her hair, freaking out.

“Declan!” I shout. “What is going on?”

“IF YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU THINK ANY SINGLE WOMAN IN THE CLASS IS A UNICORN, YOU ARE MISTAKEN. NO ONE IS HERE TO SWING,” Andrew announces.

Mom screams, “Of course not! This isn’t aerial yoga! We don’t have swings!”

Amanda’s eyes pop out of her head. “Is my husband on stage announcing that this is not a swinger’s event?”

“Yes,” Declan snaps, eyeing all the men in the room.

“Could you explain what is happening in plain English?” I demand.

“Your mother’s ad for this event made it sound like Unicoga is for swingers looking for unicorns,” he explains.

“Unicorns?”

“In the sex-positive community, a unicorn is a single, bisexual woman looking for sex with couples,” Dec explains.

“How the hell did you know that a bunch of swinging couples thought this was a yoga class full of unicorns?” I demand, turning on Declan.

“Dave.”

“DAVE?”

“Dave said he saw people joking about the social media ads your mom posted. Put two and two together and realized what was really going on.” Declan hands me his smartphone.

“Looking for some fun on Saturday? Try Unicoga! Imagine a room filled with unicorns, all ready to twist and bend in ways you never imagined, with you and your partner! Come find new ways to explore your body with a community of like-minded people. We’re open, eager to learn, and best of all–we’re co-ed! Couples encouraged,” I read aloud.

Amanda is slowly closing her eyes, her voice going low in a moan of painful understanding as Mom jumps off stage and charges us, eyes wild and body language clear: someone else has screwed up.

“Andrew is ruining everything!” Mom screams. She looks at Declan and Amanda. “Make him stop!” She walks away and tries to convince people to come back.

So far, only the single women stay, couples leaving like rats on a diseased unicorn.

Or something like that.

“Marie,” Declan says flatly, “the couples are here because they wanted to hit on unpaired women. One of the guys was flirting with Shannon and Amanda,” Dec says, almost growling.

“But the ad was so successful!” Mom cries. “Look at all the people who came!” Most of them are fleeing the room in twos, muttering about refunds.

“They thought all of the single women who attended were bisexual women who wanted to have threesomes with the couples, Marie,” Declan says slowly.

Corrine’s arm shoots up. “That’s me!”

A gnarled hand yanks Corrine’s arm down. “Wrong kind of threesome, Corrine! Your dream is MFM. Not FMF.”

“What’s MFM?” Mom asks. “Is that like where you have parties and try to sell people stuff?”

“Sure, Marie. It’s exactly like that,” Agnes deadpans.

“I can’t believe all those couples—all those husbands!–came here to pick up single women to have threesomes with!” Mom cries out.

Andrew and Declan share an inscrutable look.

Amanda and I carefully pretend we didn’t see it.

I hand my unicorn horn to Declan. “You drive. Let’s go home.”

“You’re leaving?” Mom gasps, tearful and sad.

The baby kicks, hard, leaving me tearful and gasping, too.

Declan’s protective arm goes around me, turning me toward the door. “Marie, we’ll talk about this later.”

“Is Shannon okay?”

I nod. “Fine. Just tired and freaked out.” I wave my rainbow-covered forearms in the air.

“What am I supposed to do now? Almost everyone left,” Mom says, deflating. “How was I supposed to know that kinky people would come to my Unicoga class?”

“Not all the kinky people are gone, Marie,” Agnes says, winking.

And with that, we escape.