I wondered if he ever meant it. He probably tossed it out there as a crutch, as a safety net to keep her happy. A happy Carla was a less miserable Snake, after all. His selfishness repulsed me.
“I can accept that,” she repeated, wiping her nose. “I just wanted him to love Little Man. And, I don’t know. I don’t know if he does.” She tried to breathe, but ended up wheezing like a pack-a-day smoker. “Did you know about Snake and me? When you guys started doing . . . whatever.”
“We didn’t do whatever,” I clarified. “I don’t know what Snake told you.”
“He told me that he couldn’t keep trying to make himself feel something for me.” She folded her hands over her belly. “It’s kind of pathetic when you’re having a guy’s baby and he still doesn’t feel something for you.”
“That’s Snake’s fault, not yours.”
“It’s both of us. Anyway, whatever you’re doing is working. He said you make him feel long-term, or some Snakeism like that.”
“Snakeism.” I laughed. I was mad I didn’t come up with that myself.
She turned to me. “So you didn’t know?”
“I did, but nothing happened. I didn’t intend to rouse his long-term feelings, whatever that means.”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I can tell you one thing. Snake is a jerk.”
“Isn’t he, though?”
“And conceited. And what’s with the Twizzlers?”
“Ohmigod, it drives me insane. My dad calls him Sugar Rush.”
“I hope he has good dental insurance.”
We were smiling. I, Reggie Mason, was sitting in my mom’s minivan on a Friday afternoon gossiping about a boy with what appeared to be my up-and-coming BFF over a pack of tissues that smelled like peaches. My identity was slipping fast.
“Can I be honest with you?” she asked.
“As long as you stop crying about everything.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“Fine. What?”
She looked down at her engorged feet that were like two pears squeezed into ballet flats. Despite her splotchy eyes and soiled tissues, she was oddly at peace with losing Snake. I think she knew she’d lost him to something she would never have been able to compete with anyway.
“I don’t have friends anymore.”
“You have plenty of friends.”
“Not now. Not anymore. I mean, they tried to be there for me. Olivia came to an appointment or two. And Ellie was going to throw me a baby shower, but got busy with gymnastics and lost track of time. I think I just became, literally, dead weight to them. I guess I tried to make it work with Snake for so long because . . .” She looked at me again. The loneliness from last night was there, and it was poignant. But it was a peaceful loneliness. “I don’t have anyone else.”
“I’ve never had friends,” I said, tossing another pack of tissues at her. “You, on the other hand, have had them by the dozens. And yet we both ended up here, sitting in the school parking lot on a Friday night bitching about our pointless lives to the only person who will listen.”
“That’s kind of depressing.”
“It’s honest. Friends are just two people who mutually use each other to get what they want. You’re not missing much.”
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. We sat in my favorite perk of living, silence. It seemed appropriate since nothing made sense. I was feeling sorry for Carla Banks. And she was being nice to me. And we both hated Snake, only one of us in the good way. And he’d told her he loved her. And I wondered what that meant. And we were both alone, still only one of us in the good way.
She glanced down at her blank phone screen. Snake had never responded. “In an unlikely turn of events, I need to ask you a favor.”
“You need to use me?”
“Is that your Reggie way of proposing friendship?”
“Not on the life of your ginger squash.”
She looked confused for a second before shaking it off. “Since my ex-boyfriend slash your current, whatever, is a no-show, I would really appreciate it if you would take me to my birthing class.”
“Excuse me?”
“Please, Reggie,” she begged. “I know we’ve never been close. And you probably hate me, and I’m kind of angry at you right now. But I’m terrified of having this little person come out of me, and I really need this class.” She looked like she might hyperventilate. Good thing I had the numbers of over a dozen psychiatrists on speed dial. “Will you be Little Man’s dad today?”
“I would rather get punched in the face.”
“Don’t make me beg.”
“That wasn’t begging?”
“That was asking nicely.”
God, she was relentless. No wonder Snake always catered to her every whim and called her babe and handled her like glass. I was genuinely afraid of Didn’t-Get-Her-Way Carla. Now I was the whipped one using the Official Carla Voice to keep that version from erupting.
I stuck the key in the ignition. “Where’s the class?”
She smiled because she’d won. She always did.
Two stoplights and a box of tissues later, I found myself sitting next to Carla on a baby blue yoga mat among a throng of emotional pregnant women and their similarly emotional husbands. The woman next to us was referring to her husband as Sugarkins and her fetus as Baby Sugar, and suddenly Carla’s Little Man didn’t seem so cheesy. There was a foldout table in the back with a sign that said HEALTHY SNACKS, as if the words healthy and snacks should be allowed to share the same sentence space. We were in a dance studio–type room, surrounded by mirrors on every side. It seemed warped to me, considering there weren’t going to be mirrors in delivery, and no woman has any desire to see what she’s going to look like when she shoots ten pounds of human out of her lady cannon.
Carla changed into black yoga pants and a pink T-shirt that was so absurdly tight I was sure I could see the baby waving to me from inside the womb. She was eating a banana and breaking into a cold sweat before we even began warm-ups.
“I’m the only one here without a partner,” she said as she chewed.
“Must you use the term partner? We already look like Snake’s moms.”
“Oh my God, I didn’t even think about that. Are people going to think we’re dating?”
“Just don’t call me Sugarkins, and maybe no one will notice.”
“I can’t have people thinking I’m dating you. Ugh. If I were going to date a girl, I’d at least pick one with better taste.” She shot a disgusted look at my oversize sweatshirt. “Time for damage control.” She pushed up on her knees and handed me her half-eaten banana.
“What are you—”
“Excuse me!” she yelled. “This is my friend Reggie. We are NOT dating. I repeat, NOT dating.”
Everyone stared at us in the most hostile, hard-core-judging way that made Snake’s pimple stares seem pleasant.
“We’re not friends either,” I added. “Just to clear that up.”
She fell back on her butt, and the mindless chatter resumed.
“If you weren’t pregnant, I would kill you,” I whispered, handing her the banana.