Irritation boiled beneath my skin.What the actual—?
I looked up at the sound of a throat clearing. It was Meredith, looking at me with a single raised eyebrow.
I quickly tapped out another reply under the table:I’m in a meeting. Boss is getting mad. Can’t talk right now.Then I powered my phone all the way down.
“Savannah?” said Meredith, now with both eyebrows raised. “Can we trouble you to walk our friends here through the new draft of the social media proposal?”
I took a deep breath and smiled. “Absolutely.”
I stopped by the bistro after work to eat dinner at the bar and chat with Ellie while she worked. As I was eating, my next-door neighbor in the fourplex called.
“Hi, Mrs. Chun. Is everything alright?” I asked.
“Hi, Savannah. I just wanted to let you know—some woman was just here, at your place. Someone must have let her in the building. Anyway, she was knocking and ringing your doorbell forever. I finally opened my door and told her you obviously weren’t home, so she might as well stop all the racket.”
“What? Do you know who she was?”
“She said her name was Madison. She was upset you weren’t home because she bought you a lot of groceries and said you’d made plans for her to come over and teach you how to cook healthy meals.”
What?
“She said she called you, but you didn’t answer.”
Huh. I had noticed a call from Madison a little while ago, but I’d let it go to voicemail.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry she bothered you, Mrs. Chun. I never told her she should come over.”
“Well, I’ve got the groceries in my fridge. I didn’t want them to sit on your doorstep and go bad.”
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Chun. I’ll come by in a little while.”
I relayed the story to Ellie.
“So youdidn’thave plans with Madison?”
“No! I never agreed to it. She was blowing up my phone at work today, texting me links to all these healthy pregnancy blogs and recipes, asking when my next doctor’s appointment was. She offered to come over and cook with me, but I texted her back that I was in a meeting and couldn’t talk. I finally turned my phone off when my boss started to get irritated, and she still wouldn’t stop.”
I told Ellie about all of Madison’s notes and instructions in the pregnancy book. Her eyebrows rose in disbelief.
“I mean, it’s nice that she’s trying to be so helpful … but her advice is starting to mess with my head. Even ordering dinner just now, I was like, am I hurting the baby? I was craving fish and chips, but I think there was something in the book about mercury levels in certain kinds of fish? Ugh. I feel like she’s constantly looking over my shoulder, thinking I’m doing everything wrong, and I’m going to be a crappy mother.”
“You are not going to be a crappy mother, Savannah. I think you just need to set some boundaries.”
I chewed my fingernail. “You’re probably right, but … I don’t know. Things are … delicate.I just don’t want to piss Max off by pissing off his girlfriend. What if he decides this isn’t going to work, and he doesn’t want to be involved after all? Or, even worse—what if he decides to try and fight me for custody?”
Ellie looked at me pointedly. “Savannah—you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re not going to screw up this child. You are this baby’s mother, and you’re going to do a wonderful job. Don’t let this woman get to you. And Max should want to be in his child’s life, whether you and Madison get along or not.”
I released a sigh of relief and smiled at my best friend. “Thanks, babe. I needed to hear that. You’re right.”
As I left the bistro, I was slightly encouraged that I didn’t feel too bad for once, and decided to walk the ten or eleven blocks home. The bistro’s quesadilla special—one of my faves, which I had opted for instead of fish, just in case—was sitting happily in my belly, and I didn’t feel that nauseous or even that tired.Maybe I’ll actually fold some laundry tonight.
I popped by Mrs. Chun’s apartment to retrieve three full bags of groceries—zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, onions, lean chicken breasts and ground turkey, bananas, blueberries, and raspberries.Damn, this is quite the haul.
My phone dinged.
Where were you tonight, Savannah? I went to a lot of trouble to shop for healthy groceries for you and I came by your house to help you cook some of the recipes I researched, and you weren’t there.
Just like that, all my happy feelings disappeared. My heart started pounding.Great, sheispissed. And I’m sure she’s let Max know by now.
