Now, I can’t even think about what her bright, smiling face means, but I need to fake my way through being happy for her. “That’s awesome, Hannah-Cabana. When’s the little one due?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she whispers with a wink.
Translation:Andrew doesn’t want me to talk about it yet.
I hate Andrew, and I don’t hate many people.
Anymore.
“But,” she adds, “I think it’s safe to say that someone I’m married to won’t be quite so concerned about what goes on my hips for the next few months.”
I grunt.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” She reaches for my pancake and pinches a piece off. “You know he just worries about my health.”
And I’m suddenly having another flashback to when I was the guy who would—scratch that. When I was the guy whodidjudge people onhow they looked, who’d make comments about it in the school cafeteria or the gym or on the bus—or basically anywhere I got the opportunity.
I used to justify my snide remarks withshe was mean to Hannahorhe told me my game sucked and deserved itoreveryone else said the same thing, but there’s no excuse for being a dick. Still wish I could go back in time to muzzle myself, but I can’t, so instead, I make a point to do better every day.
Even if it never feels like enough.
“Your mom know yet?” I ask her, though acknowledging the truth of her situation might not be better than ruminating about high school.
She sighs, then lifts a hand before I can twitch a single facial muscle. “Don’t start. You know what’ll happen the minute I tell her.”
I smile, and I almost mean it. Eggs aren’t sitting so great in my stomach, especially on top of that breakfast sandwich, but I keep eating. Long day today. Probably won’t get lunch. Second breakfast is important. “I do.”
“And there’s no taking it back once it’s out.”
“She’ll want you to quit your job.”
Hannah slides a look out the window and sips her tea.
Peppermint.
I smell peppermint and surrendered dreams.
“You’re gonna quit?” I ask her.
“I don’t know. There’s so much up in the air, and Andrew’s mom stayed home with him, and he thinks it’s really important. Plus, he travels so much. And it’s not like I can’t go back in a few years.”
“I’m going to have it all,” she told me once. “A fabulous job, the perfect husband, three kids, and a dog, and it’ll be hard, but when I’m eighty-six and lording over my Thanksgiving table, issuing orders about who can put their elbows on the table and who owes me a quarter for saying a cussword, all fourteen of my grandkids will be like,Glam-Glam has game. She’s always been such a badass.”
She said it with the kind of grin that suggested she was only serious about half of it, but I know Hannah.
I’ve known Hannah forever.
And I keep waiting for her to wake up and realize Andrew isn’t the guy she thinks he is, and she’s not living the life she always wanted.
“You’re making a face,” she says. “Quit making that face. I’m allowed to change my mind about what I want.”
I scrub a hand over my scruff. “I know. I know. It’s just—wow. This is—this is life-changing stuff.”
“Yes, yes, I’m an old married woman with a ‘big change’ on the way, and you’re still over there in Tickled Pink bacheloring it up and being the catch of the century,” she teases.
If I were the catch of the century, we’d be sitting in a booth at Café Nirvana in Tickled Pink, thigh to thigh, looking at a baby registry together while our friends and neighbors tried to help, instead of her sitting across from me in a café packed with strangers, telling me she’s pregnant withAndrew’sbaby.
I feel the way Tavi Lightly looked when she woke up this morning.
