“Who’s the father?”
“When did you find out?”
“How did it happen?”
Everyone throws out questions at the same time.
Sarah holds up her hand and looks around. “There’s a story here, and we need to let Quinn tell it at her own pace, in her own way. I’m texting my mom to tell her she’ll just have to manage the twins for the rest of the morning.” Her thumbs fly over her phone, then she puts it down, places her elbows on the table, and turns to me. “You have our full attention, honey. Take your time, and tell us all about it.”
I wipe my nose and nod. Someone gets up, pours me a plastic cupful of water from the pitcher at the condiment bar, and places it in front of me. I take a sip. “It all started on my thirty-sixth birthday,” I say.
—
February 25
7:00 p.m.
“Surprise!”
The unexpected chorus of voices on my thirty-sixth birthday makes me jump back as I open the front door of my home after work, nearly spilling the canvas tote of Whole Foods groceries in my arms. I stare at the beaming faces assembled in the living room of my uptown Victorian, most of them wearing cone-shaped birthday hats. There’s the single parent group, and there’s Terri, the fifty-and-fabulous blonde who helps me run Verve!—who left work an hour early today, allegedly to accompany her husband to an after-hours business event.
I also spot the couple who own the coffee shop where the single parents group meets, the Smiths from next door, an old friend from college and her husband, and, of course, Brooke. Jumping up and down beside her is Lily.
“What—what’s going on?” I ask like an idiot. Surprises seem to drain my brain cells. My childhood was full of land mines: being awakened by slamming doors and loud, angry arguments; having no one show up for kindergarten parents’ day; getting off the school bus in sixth grade to discover that Dad had moved out; learning that the dog wasn’t around because Dad had run over him when backing out the car in a white-hot rage. It’s probably understandable that I’m hardwired to be skittish of the unexpected.
“It’s a surprise birthday party, Auntie Quinn!” Lily announces. She’s wearing a pink princess gown—her favorite type of attire—complete with a sparkling tiara, which gleams on her blond curls in front of her balloon-printed birthday hat. “Are you surprised?”
“Very much so.” Smiling, I step into the room. Brooke takes the grocery bag from me so I can bend down and return Lily’s embrace. I lift an eyebrow at Brooke as I straighten. “I thought I was having a low-key celebration this year.”
Brooke is the self-appointed party planner for all the special people in her life, and I’d specifically told her that a thirty-sixth birthday didn’t warrant a fuss. She’d acted as if she agreed. In fact, she’d invited me come over to her house, just two blocks away, for an after-dinner cupcake and glass of wine.
“I’m supposed to be at your place in an hour,” I say.
“We just said that to trick you,” Lily proclaims.
“Well, it certainly worked.”
“That’s ’cause I made a wish and used my magic wand.”
I grin as Lily waves it. She thinks the fairies brought it to her, but in truth, I helped her mother make it from two pieces of sequined fabric, pillow stuffing, and a dowel rod.
I look around. Balloons float from the center of my midcentury coffee table. Boiled shrimp, a huge green salad, French bread, and jambalaya are laid out buffet-style on my Danish modern dining table, in front of a lovely bouquet of hydrangeas. Wineglasses and four decanted wine bottles cluster on the kitchen counter, and another chills in my cooler bucket. “You and your wand arranged all this?” I ask Lily.
“Well, Mommy and Miss Terri helped.”
Everyone laughs.
“I’ll bet they did.” I hug Brooke. She’s wearing jeans and a sleeveless black top, her golden hair curling loosely around her shoulders, and, as usual, she looks amazing. She’s apparently changed clothes after work. She must have taken off half a day or more to organize this.
I hug Terri next. “So this is your husband’s work event that made you leave early?”
“I believe my exact words were, ‘There’s an after-work social thing that Paul has to attend, and he really wants me to go,’” Terri corrects.
Laughing, I kiss Paul’s aftershave-scented cheek.
“Don’t feel bad,” he says. “She pulls the wool over my eyes all the time.”
“I don’t need to know any of your kinky secrets,” I say, waving my hands as if to erase the mental image. Laughter ripples through the room.
