She gave him her most engaging smile.
“Marcy, I was telling Price all about you over dinner last night,” I said.
“Yeah,” he added. “And besides the whole therapist thing, you sound pretty great.” He grinned.
Marcy’s look turned to one of confusion as she glanced from Price to me. “Excuse us,” she said, pasting on a smile, and dragged me into the kitchen.
“Wait,” she whispered. “Are yougivinghim to me?”
I laughed. “He’s a man, not a scarf, Marcy. I can’t give him to you.”
She peeked through the doorway and whispered, “He is an Hermès scarf of a man.” She paused. “So what’s the no-go with you two?” Before I could answer, Marcy peeked around the corner at Price again. “Damn, he’s hot. What is it about him?”
“You can’t quite define it, right? Because he’s not all that classically handsome.”
“Exactly,” she said. “You’re nuts.”
“He’s perfect,” I said. “The perfect man, perfect husband material.”
She shrugged. “So again I ask, why…” She trailed off. “Oh. Andrew. This is about Andrew.” She did a little dance and said in a singsong whisper, “You love him, you want to have his babies, you want to eat whipped cream off of him when you’re an old lady!”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. That’s enough. Why don’t you go out there and act charming to your new potential husband? Men like him don’t come around often.”
“Are you going to have babies with him?” she whispered.
I smiled.
“Oh my gosh, you are. I was right. You love him, and you’re going to marry him, and you’re going to have hot, tan, tennis-playing babies.” She put her hand in the air. “Up top, sister. I have a feeling this is going to be a very good year for both of us.”
I sat down on one of the barstools after I kissed Price’s cheek and told Marcy good-bye.
And I thought of Andrew. Part of me wanted to run to him right now, wanted to tell him I had changed my mind. But delayed gratification was the definition of adulthood, right? He was so cute. He was just a kid. He wasn’t that great on paper. But in my heart, Andrew was absolutely perfect.
diana: a perfect day
As the warm air was starting to get chilly—and I was starting to get less nauseated—I couldn’t stop staring at my protruding belly.
“Hey, babe?” Frank called from downstairs. I was supposed to be eating breakfast with him.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to be here when your brother gets here?”
My brother. My Frank. What a perfect, perfect day. “Of course I do! He’ll love to see you.”
I heard footsteps up the stairs, and it wasn’t long before Frank was behind me, kissing my neck, his hands rubbing my bare belly. “Damn, pregnant looks good on you,” he said. “Are we going to tell him?”
I smiled and nodded. “Thirteen weeks, and all is well. I might not start telling random people yet, but I think it’s fine to tell him.” Frank knew how worried I was about this pregnancy. I knew the pregnancy was at higher risk for complications, that there was a higher chance that something could be wrong with the baby, that I was at a greater risk for a laundry list ofproblems and even death. But I couldn’t dwell on that. I had to move forward.
I had already told Phillip at our visit the week before, and he had smiled so big and even put his hand on my belly. Every time I thought of it, I burst into tears. He understood.
It was like Frank was inside my head when he said, “Do you want to see if we can find somewhere else for Phillip?”
“Where, like here?”
He shook his head and sat down on the end of our bed. “Babe, look. I don’t want to focus on this, but you are in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy. And you know how hard a change like that will be on Phillip, how much it will disrupt him.…”
I wanted to argue, but I knew more than anyone that he was right.
