“Oh. Ziggy,” Josh says. “You’re…here.”
I don’t need to look to know he and Abby Nora are trading a look. Probably grimaces. Maybe overly polite smiles to mask thewe hate youvibes.
Relax, Ziggy. They’ll be polite in public. This is paranoia. They’re not hoping someone spills something on you or that you get hit by the light-rail when you leave.They won’t cause a scene.
“She’s home for good,” Mom says. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. Everyone in our circles is so excited. We’ve missed her terribly. And she’s giving us a grandbaby too.”
I flinch. “Mom,” I start to hiss—we are not telling people yet—but Abby Nora interrupts me.
“She—what? Wow. Original.”
I flinch again at Abby Nora’s sarcasm.
Take it back, my brain yells at my mother.Take it back and don’t tell her.
Why are you being such an asshole to me? it yells at Abby Nora too.Just leave me alone.
But that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “Mom, I left something in the car.”
“Original?” Mom repeats. “What, exactly, does that mean?”
“It’s just so funny that I got married and had a baby, and now all of my friends are doing it too,” Abby Nora says. “Well…some of us got married first. But isn’t it nice that we don’t have to if we don’t want to? Or if we can’t find someone?”
“Who’s that?” I hear Eli say to Josh.
My toes are tingling and my stomach rolls over in a way that I would’ve sworn I was over just this morning. “My phone,” I tell Mom. “I have to go get my phone out of my car.”
“Abby Nora’s old friend Ziggy,” Josh says to Eli. “She was at the wedding.”
“She sent half the wine for your wedding, didn’t she?” Mom says.
“No, I know her from somewhere else,” Eli says to Josh.
He’s going to remember because of a repeat performance of what happened when I saw him at the aquarium if I don’t get out of herenow. I look at Niki. “I’m going to my car. I lost my phone. Forgot it. In the car.”
She nods and shakes her head and looks between me and Abby Nora like she knows there’s a problem but doesn’tknow what. Everyone in Mom’s circles knows Abby Nora and I have always been besties.
Except now they’re going to know that I’m pregnant and Abby Nora and I are fighting and Abby Nora’s probably already prepared for this and will get her version out first and?—
“You’re the fucker who puked on me!” Eli shrieks.
Sound shouldn’t bounce off exposed brick, but it does.
And silence follows.
The kind of silence that says every single person in the crowded wine bar has turned to stare at us.
At me.
My face was already hot, but it gets hotter. My hands too. My legs shake. My stomach twists and gurgles and my heart tries to pound out of my chest.
How much longer will she still affect me like this?
Why can’t we just bedone?
“My goodness, young man, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Mom says dryly. “What an absurd thing to yell in a crowded restaurant. I hope you’re seeing someone to discuss your issues. Your baby is beautiful, Abby Nora. I hope she has a good appetite. I seem to have lost mine. Ziggy, Niki, we’re leaving.”
Mom grips my arm and squeezes as she tugs me into motion.
