“Hi there, Billie girl,” I cooed.
Summer’s goldendoodle, Billie, panted up at me with her apricot tail wagging. I scrunched my face down to Billie’s wet nose. Summer flinched, uncomfortable around the ease at which I let an animal’s warm tongue bathe my cheeks. Summer never grew up around affection, and it showed. She got high cheekbones and full lips from her model-actor father and icy veins from her emotionally stunted mother. She casually breezed into rooms and sent jaws to the floor. Summer was a knockout without trying—an intimidating combination that I would have died for. Unless you were one of the very few people inside her bubble, everything about Summer was terrifyingly untouchable—the kind of woman who you worried was judging you, whose silent approval you would go to the ends of the earth to retrieve. If not for my world turning on a dime when I was seventeen, Summer would have just become a distant memory—that bitchy college roommate whose name I can’t remember. But my father had to go and die. I joined the Dead Parent’s Club, a club Summer was already a member of, and my grief brought her walls down. Thankfully, I got to know the hilarious, ballsy, honest woman cloaked in sharp teeth.
“Your mommy loves you,” I said into Billie’s well-groomed face, with an eye on Summer, equal parts reassuring the dog and the dog’s indifferent owner. “Can’t you and Valeria just have a cute pair of twins, and then hand one over to me? And be financially responsible for said child?” I asked Summer, batting my eyelashes and pouting my lips toward her.
Most recently, Summer’s wife, Valeria, had dropped hint after hint about starting their journey toward motherhood. I didn’t press the issue, because with Summer, it was never a good idea to ask questions before there were answers—unless you enjoyed eyes that cut like knives slicing your soul in half. Unlike myself, Summer had both the financial security to create a child of her own, along with the emotional and physical support of a partner. The common road—climbing a career ladder and getting hitched—had shiny benefits.
I spun aimlessly on the barstool, feeling Summer’s pointed eyes on me across her oversized marble island—which was the size of my entire kitchen. I stopped spinning, meeting Summer’s glare as she took in my dull gray T-shirt and black ripped jeans.
“Maggie, you have to at least look like you care. It’s your thirty-fifth birthday, not your funeral.”
“Feels a little like my funeral.”
“Well, if we’re going to bury you tonight, wear something that shows off your tits.”
“It would take a surgeon to show off my boobs. But…there is that blue Reformation dress that almost makes me look like I have curves?”
This was not a subtle hint. I had subwayed it over to Summer’s apartment for pre-birthday drinks, but also, for her to dress me. Summer owned an excess of beautiful clothes. Even though I stood four inches shorter than her, we wore the same dress size. She was my very own Rent the Runway.
The corners of her lips danced into a grin, softening her usually deadpanned expression.
“You little mooch,” Summer said, shaking her bleach-blond long-bob at me. She swirled the stem of her wineglass and her eyes darkened as she walked out of the kitchen toward the closet. “Just wait until you see what Valeria did now.”
I giddily followed Summer down the herringbone-floored hallway, coming up with possible shoe/dress combinations in my head. Yes, we also wore the same shoe size.
I pulled my neck back as we entered the walk-in closet. The room had been transformed into a worrying dedication to ROY G BIV. The closet was sparse, but it was specific. I cautiously opened a drawer. Dear God. Rainbow color-coding had even come for her thongs.
“What happened to all of your clothes?” I asked, surveying the half-empty hanging space.
“Netflix happened,” Summer said through gritted teeth. She huffed, tugging a flowy blue dress off the hanger and tossing it my way.
Three months ago, Valeria had sold a direct-to-consumer frozen smoothie company for seven million dollars. As a result, Valeria went on a work sabbatical before diving into her next venture. During the last few months, Summer had discovered a new piece of information about her wife: Valeria should never go without a job. Valeria was a glorified workaholic who thrived under pressure. Without the thrill of the grind, Valeria was the kind of person who decided to retile a ten-thousand-dollar “boring” fireplace, by hand. Valeria had started making her own cheese a few weeks prior, and it appeared that this week, she had discovered the freedom of giving away every article of clothing that did not spark joy, while organizing her socks by color.
“She watched two Netflix home improvement shows, and now I’m living inside my own personal hell. Has my life improved? No. I should sue Netflix for emotional damage.”
Summer was a powerhouse publicist—CEO and co-founder of a thriving fashion PR company. She was a shark, and she enjoyed the casual threat of a lawsuit more than most people.
I tugged her dress over my half-naked body, pulling the ruffled off-the-shoulder neckline past my clavicle. It worked with my white Converses, but I could do better.
“Are you gonna need this back?” I asked, twirling the fabric in my hand. I knew what the answer was before the question even left my lips.
Summer smirked. “Happy birthday, you little shit.”
I grinned, scanning the pristine row of rainbow-colored heels. “Don’t worry about Valeria. She’ll find another company to take over,” I said.
“That, or she can find another person to go down on her.”
Summer and Valeria met about seven years ago. Historically, Summer lusted after love but turned her back the moment lust faded. With Valeria, Summer had to try harder than she was used to, a rarity for her—a fight that she stayed in, one that allowed her to see that underneath Valeria’s painfully gorgeous and painfully shy armor, there was extreme warmth and loyalty for those she loved. And she adored Summer. I could see it reflected in Valeria’s eyes when she looked at her wife, and vice versa. I had yet to personally bask in the rays of Valeria’s affection. She often looked at me wide-eyed, body tense, like my curse-filled stories and songs would tear their paintings off the wall. But I didn’t need Valeria’s approval to know that she and Summer had what I was looking for: they had It All. Together, these beautifully polished women would have an offspring or two and continue to live out a slice of the American Dream. The dirty truth: I was jealous of their road traveled by.
I recognized it was careless to purposefully bring life into the world while I was still getting knocked out by the universe. But the difference between aching for a child that didn’t yet exist and aching for a child that would never exist is the difference between hope and agony. Maggie Vine always chose hope.
“What if the moment just passes me by?” I sighed, as hope’s fragile light flickered inside my chest.
Summer looked over at me as I studied my reflection in the mirror. My faraway eyes came back down to earth, catching her worried expression. Summer was accustomed to watching me leave the present—she knew when my mind was wandering. It was simply my brain’s fault: I gravitated toward building irrelevant scenarios in my head. Unfortunately, today’s scenario was all too relevant.
Summer cleared her throat as she clasped a thick gold bracelet around her wrist, letting me know it was Less-Devastating Topic Time.
“So, is Garrett coming tonight?” she asked.
I froze. Her words found my chest: a fist tightening around my delicate heart.