Three minutes. I give myself three minutes. Then I put myself back together, because that’s what I do, and that’s what Whitney would want me to do, and that’s what this baby is going to need from me—a mother who falls apart and gets back up.
I dry my hands. Straighten the dress. Walk out.
Raven and Saylor are sitting in tense silence when I return. Raven’s been crying—she left the rest of the rolls untouched, which might be the most alarming sign of distress I’ve seen from her. Saylor looks like he’s been holding his breath since I left the table.
I slide back into the booth. Fold my hands.
“When are you due?” I ask Raven.
“October.”
“Okay. And you haven’t seen the actual will?”
“No. But I swear Whitney told me.”
“Has Eleanor formally filed to contest?”
“I don’t know the legal details. But she’s been requesting copies of the surrogacy agreement. She has also been watching my diet like a hall monitor after I told her the baby’s been craving Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. She’s acting like it’s already decided.” Raven’s fingers curl into fists against the table. “Whitneydecided. She just didn’t ask Eleanor’s permission.”
I absorb that. Think about Rina—my text from the courtyard.Friend, I need your help. Legal stuff.I didn’t know what the legal stuff was when I sent it. Now I do. And Rina, who has never lost a fight she believed in, is going to lose her mind when she hears this.
The burgers arrive. The waitress sets them down between us—the peanut-butter-bacon monstrosity I’ve been dreamingabout for the past hour, and the infamous spicy Hawaiian, both steaming, both absurdly large. The milkshake appears with two straws, exactly as Saylor ordered.
Nobody moves to eat. I just realized how rude it was for us to not wait for Raven to order. Then again, it was kind of rude to barge into my office, masquerading as a legal messenger, to effectively turn my life upside-down with the mountain of secrets she was squatting on. So, I’m going to call it even.
“What do you want to do?” Saylor asks quietly.
I look at the two burgers. Mine and Whitney’s. Side by side, the way they always were. We’d eat halfway and swap—her spice for my sweetness, my weirdness for her heat. A trade we made a hundred times without ever acknowledging it was a metaphor for our entire friendship. She gave me courage. I gave her softness. And in the middle, somewhere between peanut butter and pickled jalapeños, we made sense.
I pick up the Hawaiian. Whitney’s burger. Lift it to my mouth. Take a bite.
It’s perfect. Messy and spicy and overwhelming and exactly right.
I set it down. Wipe barbecue sauce off my chin with the back of my hand, in the most un-ladylikefuck itstyle I can manage.
I look at Raven. Then at Saylor.
“It’s not about what I want. If it’s true, and Whitney left me this baby, then I’m going to honor her wishes. If Eleanor wants a fight,” I say, “she’s got one.”
Not loud. Not dramatic. Said with teriyaki sauce on my fingers and a milkshake between us, in a booth where my other half used to sit, in a restaurant that smells like the best years of my life. Said with the quiet, irreversible certainty of a woman who has just found something worth fighting for.
Raven’s face crumples with relief. She reaches across the table and grabs my hands—sticky sauce and all—and holds themlike they’re the only solid thing in a world that’s been spinning for months.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Whitney. She always had better taste than me.” I squeeze Raven’s hands. “Except in burgers. My burger is superior and I will die on that hill.”
Raven laughs—wet, messy, the kind of laugh that’s sixty percent crying. “Yeah, what the hell is that abomination anyway? Who puts peanut butter on a burger?”
My throat closes. I hold on tighter.
Across the table, Saylor is quiet. I glance at him and find that expression again—the one I saw in the courtyard after the speech, the one I don’t have a name for yet. It’s not the look Greg used to give me, which was always about ownership, or appraisal, or the performance of caring. It’s not the look clients give me when they’re pleased with a design.
It’s the look of a man who seems fascinated watching someone go from a caterpillar to a butterfly. One earth-shattering truth. Whitney has a baby. She wanted me to have this baby if she couldn’t. Therefore, the mission is clear. My purpose set. Never in the history of history has someone evolved and spread their wings this quickly. That’s the Whitney magic.
The part of my speech I couldn’t quite put into words. Whitney made people realize themselves. The good, the bad. She was a mirror, and the reflection was always the quiet truth.
I pick up the peanut-butter burger. Hold it up.
