*
“I guess you’re wondering why I called you all here today,” began Lena, a bottle of spring water balanced on her belly. Neat trick.
It was around midday. All four of us, Lena, Evelyn, Anne, and I, sat gathered in Lena and Jimmy’s luxurious suite, just hanging out. A range of swanky sandwiches, pastries, fruits, and cheeses were laid out on the coffee table before us. No cake pops, but there were macaroons and madeleines, which you have to admit are almost as good.
Ev wiped a stray bread crumb from the corner of her mouth. “I thought we were just having lunch.”
“She wouldn’t have made that announcement if we were just having lunch,” said Anne, stirring extra sugar into a cup of sweet tea.
“True.”
Lena sat in a damask lounge chair, peering out through her groovy horn-rim glasses at each of us in turn. The woman was a good month ahead of my sixteen weeks. God help me when I got that big. Ben could just roll me places.
Pregnancy. So not natural.
“No, we are not here just to eat,” she continued. “Though eat we will, and then some. What we are here to do is to meddle in Lizzy’s life, because we love and care for her. Also, because being on tour gets boring after a while so I figured what the hell.”
“Oh good.” I took another sip of my decaf—read warm, beige milk.
“Did you notice she has a hickey on her shoulder?” asked Ev, wiggling her eyebrows.
“Nothing to see here.” I pulled up my shirt collar. “Move along please.”
“She does seem especially glowy this morning.” Awesome. Even my own sister was getting in on the act. No loyalty.
“I noticed that.” Lena tugged at a stray thread on the hem of her maternity Stage Dive T-shirt. It had to be pirated, what with it proudly proclaiming in fancy lettering, JIMMY FERRIS, I’D TAP THAT. I couldn’t imagine the man ever okaying the design in this lifetime. “And get this. When Ben stopped by to grab Jim to go work out earlier, the bearded dude was one happy, happy boy.”
My brows descended. “No comment.”
“About time,” sighed Ev. “He’s been so damn grumpy lately.”
“Not anymore he isn’t. She’s got that boy walking on the sunshine.”
“Thinking she used * magic on him?” asked Ev, eyeing me up in a dreadfully lewd fashion.
“That’s my guess.”
“You’re not funny,” I said, mostly unsmiling. “Anne, make them stop.”
My sister tucked her bright-red hair neatly behind her ears and shook her head sadly. “Ah, hon. No can do. You’re part of Stage Dive family now. Inner circle and all that. Best get used to it.”
“Ben and I aren’t married. We’re not even together, exactly.”
“Expound on ‘exactly,’” said Anne, learning forward in her seat. “I haven’t heard what happened last night after you two left the party to go talk.”
“We talked. Nothing else to tell.” Nothing else I was prepared to tell. The many changes were still too fresh. I hadn’t quite turned all of the information over enough times in my head to make sense of it. Assuming I would in fact be able to make sense of it.
I was dubious.
My words were met with a chorus of boos and even some hissing. One individual who will remain unnamed (Lena) even went so far as to lob a Danish at my head. Pastries as projectiles … I never. Luckily I caught it before it could make contact. Cherry, yum.
“Okay, okay! Simmer down.” Good lawd, these ladies. And I use the term ladies loosely. “The truth is I don’t really know what’s going on with us.”
“Well, what do you think is going on with you two?” asked Anne, stealing half of my dessert. Girl was just lucky I loved her.
“Good question. Way I figure, there are several options.” I paused to nibble. Oh such golden buttery flaky evil goodness—my third for the day. Seemed my self-control had gone weak in all sorts of interesting areas. I’d better watch it or my ass would be twice the size of my belly. On the other hand, golden buttery flaky evil goodness made me so-o-o happy, and really, isn’t happiness what life is all about?
Bet they’d taste awesome with bacon on top.
“Continue,” said Ev, clapping her hands together in a queenly fashion. “Tell us everything.”
“Fine. One, I might be using him for sex,” I confessed, a pronouncement met by several oohs and ahhs, and several sly grins. “I can’t help it. The baby hormones have turned me into some sort of nympho and he’s so beautiful and hot and I would like to point out that he started it. I did not go after him this time. And honestly, you have no idea how good that beard feels. The sensation of all that silky, bristly hair rubbing against your inner thighs and—”
“Whoa!” Anne covered her ears. “Stop.”
“Sorry.”
“Man. Wish that whole nympho thing had happened to me,” said Lena. “I just got even more obsessed with pie. So unfair.”
“Hmm.”
“Lucky Jim’s a breast man. He’s like a kid at Christmas, playing with these cantaloupes. Can’t keep his hands off them.”
“They are damn impressive,” I said, wiping my hands on a napkin. “Mine are annoying the hell out of me. I don’t even usually bother with a bra, now that I suddenly have these apple-sized things hanging around. Not cool.”
“What’s option two in the you-and-Ben story?” asked Ev.
“Oh. Well, two, we might be going slow and trying to be boyfriend-girlfriend, but I don’t know. He has a bad habit of changing his mind when it comes to me.” I stared off into space, contemplating much but achieving little to no resolution. “Three, at the end of the day we’re going to be parents, and that has to come first, whatever happens. So obviously, by putting this at three, I’ve been listing things in ascending order or something. Anyway, if he smashes my heart to smithereens yet again, we might well have a problem. Therefore, my question—seeing as you’ve all insisted on coming this far with me—is should I even be attempting anything beyond friendship with this man?”
“He smashed your heart to smithereens?” Ev’s eyes got glossy. “That’s terrible.”
“I had … I have a lot of feelings for him. Each time he chose to not take things further with me, it hurt.” I slumped back in my chair, relaxing, giving my full belly a chance to get with the digesting. “Ugh, boys suck. Such is life. What can you do?”
“Spoken like a true psychology student,” said Ev with a smile.
“Thank you.”