She pulled out her phone as I picked up the keys, and then I slid behind the wheel. It felt weird, and I wished I was in her seat, where the view was familiar. I was trying to figure out another way to get her to switch with me when she took a pointed view at the clock on the console.
It’s North Lake, I thought. We’ll be lucky if we even see another car. I put the key in and turned it.
She was partially right. After we turned out of Calvander’s—a Payne, I looked left, right, then left again, and would have done another round of this if she hadn’t sighed, loudly—we were the only ones on the road for a good ten minutes. Then, though, we came up on construction and a row of cars backed up as a bored flagman held up a sign that said STOP. With people suddenly ahead of and behind me, I felt my palms begin to sweat against the wheel.
“The thing is,” Trinity, who’d spent the entire trip so far detailing various grudges she had with the army, her pregnant body, and the world in general, was saying, “this isn’tthe way I would have done this, given the chance. No one wants to be knocked up before the wedding, you know?”
I nodded, realizing I was clenching my teeth. The flag guy, bored, was looking at his phone.
“But it is what it is, and I am,” she continued, rubbing a hand over her stomach. “And honestly, I just want the Sergeant here when the baby comes. Even if he shows up literally the night before my water breaks. It’s one thing to be pregnant alone. I don’t want to start my life as a parent that way, too.”
Breathe, I told myself, as someone beeped behind us. It didn’t work, so I went for another way to distract myself. “So how did you guys meet?”
At this, she smiled. It was a rare thing, as I’d noticed soon after meeting her, and happened mostly when the subject turned to her fiancé. “He and one of his buddies rented a room last summer for his twenty-first birthday. But really, it all started with toast.”
I glanced in the rearview just in time to see the guy behind me shake a fist at the flagman. I said, “Toast?”
“Yep.” She sat back, now with both hands on her belly. “The morning after they checked in, he was outside the unit when I went to work at the office. I had my two slices with butter, and they were burnt, because our toaster then was a fire hazard. He made a joke about it and we started talking. Been together ever since.”
“That’s cute,” I said, because even in my anxious state, I had to admit it was.
“I know, right?” she replied. “We got engaged in the fall, and I found out about this one”— she patted her stomach—“a month later, about the same time he got his deployment orders. Right before he left, he bought me the toaster. It’s a good thing, too, because I was so sick the first trimester, and bread was all I could eat.”
I’d figured there was a story behind all this, and under any other circumstances I would have been glad to finally hear it. As it was, though, I couldn’t focus because traffic was moving again, this time around the construction in the opposite lane. Trinity kept talking about the Sergeant, but I was too busy white-knuckling it until we were back on the right side of the road to really listen.
Now, back at birth class, I took a deep breath as I grappled with the fact that in less than a half hour, I would have to drive back. Normal people don’t do this, I thought as Kim encouraged all the mamas to visualize an ocean with the contractions as waves. But I’d never been “normal,” especially when it came to being in my head. Although other people’s worries still seemed to be freeing me from my own a bit. Which was a nice surprise.
I also appeared to, maybe, have something going on with Blake. To find out, I’d turned to another expert.
“Tell meeverything,” Bridget had said when I finally got hold of her a few days after that first trip to the Campus. “And goslowly.”
I glanced at my watch. I was sitting on Mimi’s side steps, with thirty minutes for lunch before I had to go backto cleaning with Trinity, who was currently stretched out across a bed in an empty room eight, resting her feet. But Bridget could drag out a story like no one else: with her questions, follow-ups, and then follow-ups to the follow-ups, I could see this easily taking the entire afternoon.
Still, I did my best. By the time I was done, we still had ten minutes for analysis. She got right to it.
“Well, it’s obvious he’s into you,” she said as I finally ripped open the pack of peanut butter crackers that was my lunch. “The wall, that kiss... it’s like textbook. But what’s happenedsincethe kiss? That’s important.”
I thought for a second. There had been the texts that morning following the night at Blake’s apartment. Also, the invite to come visit the docks, which didn’t happen, as I’d instead ended up at my first birth class. Two nights later, however, I’d ridden out to the raft in the late afternoon with Jack. When Blake had shown up with Colin and a few other guys from the Club, he’d immediately climbed off the boat to come over to talk to me, in full view of everyone. Then, when we met up later at the Station, he’d again sought me out, issuing a challenge to a Skee-Ball tournament. I lost, but he let me choose the prize when we cashed in tickets. I picked a small stuffed bear wearing an even tinier pair of board shorts in a Hawaiian print, which he insisted I name Blake for its shock of red hair. Currently, it sat in my room by the clock, although we’d agreed to share custody from week to week.
“Okay,” Bridget said when I finished detailing all this. “That’s all three of the IFS. Total boyfriend behavior.”
“The IFS?” I asked.
“Initiative, Future thinking, and Sweet,” she replied. “It’s the checklist. Initiative: he reached out first by text and came to find you. Twice. Future thinking: he’s assuming you’ll still be hanging out when it’s time for the bear to go to him. And sweetness, because guys who are only wanting a quick fling or even less don’t bother with that.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“I didn’t. It’s my own invention.” When I laughed, she said, “Hey, I’m being serious! I’ve watched just about every rom-com from the last twenty years, read all the great romances.... I’ve retained things. Studied patterns. There’s a science to this.”
I smiled. “You know, you should be the one sort of dating someone. Clearly, you’re the expert.”
“Right?” She sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m living here in a senior community in Ohio for the time being. There’s plenty of shuffleboard, but not a lot of opportunity to test my theories.”
“Summer’s not over yet,” I pointed out.
“At least Grandpa is doing better,” she said, “which means I may get back home to pursue the twins solo before school starts. You have to admit, I will have earned it by then. But anyway, tell me again about the kiss. I feel like you’re leaving things out.”
I hadn’t, not that I was aware of. It didn’t matter anyway, because just then Trinity emerged from room eight, moving slowly and rubbing her eyes. When she started topush the cart down to the next room, I’d said goodbye to Bridget, grabbed my spray bottle, and went to join her. The first room we opened was a shambles. Just what I needed.
