“Ready?” she asks Sophie.
And she’s driving my fourteen-year-old, who looks almost older than Audrey, her beautiful long hair recently chopped off, without my consent, to resemble her favorite singer. Her green eyes—that match mine—are rimmed with too much eyeliner, her lips obliterated by dark lipstick. I sigh, too tired to battle it out with her this morning.
“Bye, Mom,” they say in unison.
“Be safe,” I say, to the already-closed door. I pull the tie of my robe tighter and begin to feed our baby, Charlotte, wondering if any of my former classmates are unemployed, sitting in a kitchen with walls desperately in need of a new coat of paint, trying to coax a bite of banana into a fussy baby’s mouth.
When I told John I was pregnant, he thought I was joking. When I kept insisting it was true, he’d asked for the proof. Together we’d dug through the bathroom trash can until finally, I’d found it. As I held the white stick with the word yes illuminated in pink high in the air like an Olympic torch, we burst into a nervous fit of uncontrollable laughter, finding it much easier to laugh than talk about how this baby was going to change things.
We parked ourselves on the bathroom floor and struggled with the math until we figured out that we conceived Charlotte the night of our anniversary dinner. We were drunk before our entrées arrived. Something came over me at the table. Maybe it was the second bottle of wine or the fact that I’d splurged to get my hair and makeup done and felt uncharacteristically sexy. But I’d reached under the table and grabbed him, and suggested he meet me in the bathroom. Of course the last thing we were thinking about was birth control; neither of us could remember the last time we’d even had sex, let alone hot sex.
The second person I told about the baby was my best friend, Casey. She looked at me blankly, waiting for the punch line.
I told her the part about seducing him and doing it in the bathroom but left out the part about how long it had been since I’d seen him with his pants down. I always left that kind of thing out of our conversations. Casey is happily single, goes to Hollywood parties, and regularly has sex with smoking-hot twenty-year-olds. The last thing I wanted her to know was that I could barely get laid by my own husband. Or worse, how I barely wanted to get laid by him. Something about not saying it out loud made it easier to justify and deny my part in it. I wish I still had the urge to have rip-roaring sex with John, or better yet, I wish we still laughed together, like the teenagers we once were, like my mom and dad still do, and they’ve been married for fifty years last summer.
Charlotte drops her sippy cup on the floor and giggles. Of course I can’t imagine my life without her. But my life in general is not at all how I thought it would be. When I’m asked about it tonight, I won’t be able to explain why I’m not in broadcasting, like Casey. None of them want to hear how, against everyone’s advice, I dropped out of college when I got pregnant with Audrey. Something about my due date and graduation date being the same day threw me off. I always planned to go back and finish, but the timing was never right. And then somewhere along the way, I lost interest, or desire. Or maybe a little bit of both. Hopefully, tonight, everyone will be focused on Casey and will not even ask.
Ten hours later, John and I ride the elevator in silence as it ascends to the floor where our reunion is being held. I look down at my dress, hoping my Spanx are doing their job. As the doors open, John reaches for my hand and we walk in together, smiling. It’s funny how quickly we can transform into the people we ought to be.
CHAPTER 3
* * *
casey
Sidling up to the still-empty bar, I order a double Belvedere and soda. A very young bartender gives me a conspiratorial wink as he sets my drink in front of me, like my boozing is going to be our little secret. I knock it back, and he swiftly replaces it with another. As I give him a flirtatious smile, I hear Destiny’s words ringing in my ears: Flirt with someone your own age! I ignore them. “How are you?” I ask as I take my hand and pin a strand of my golden hair behind my ear.
“I’m great. These are my favorite events.”