What I also noticed in that moment was that red car from the day before was parked on the street in front of my neighbor’s house again. What I also saw was the driver side door opening as we continued making our way toward the house.
Lou went up on his tiptoes, craning his neck toward the house. “Is that the man who was fighting?”
I didn’t lie to him. “No.”
“Who?”
I glanced down at Josh’s tone. “It happened last week. Lou heard someone fighting, and it was the neighbor’s brother,” I had to explain.
The ten-year-old turned his head to pin me with this expression that was beyond his years, like he knew what I was trying to hide. Or maybe he could guess what I had done.
I didn’t need or want him worrying, so I kicked him in the butt, immediately shoving my neighbor’s business aside. “Come on. Let’s get started on dinner before we have to put Mac on the grill.”
“Gross!” Lou gagged.
I swear I loved messing with him. There was something about being young and innocent and gullible that I loved, and to be fair, I used to do the same thing to Josh before he’d gotten old enough to realize I was usually full of shit. The boys had just gone inside the house when my phone started ringing. It was my best friend, Van.
“Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned.
I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.”
“But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then.
I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.”
The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.”
“You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too.
“Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—”
“You weren’t thinking.”
She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—”
“The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.”
She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.”
“Do I… want to know where you’re itching?”
“Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.”
I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever.
“He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.”
“You know you can come stay with us if you want.”
She made a noise.
“I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.”
She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.”
And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too.
“Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—”
Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.”
“What? You could.”
There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.”
“Because you love me?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving.
“Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?”
Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.”
“Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—”
“Goddammit, Diana—”
I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!”
“Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.
I tugged on his earlobe. “God, you’re nosey. No, she’s having a baby, remember? And I told her she is a whale right now.”
He made a funny face. “That’s not nice.”
“No, it’s not, but she knows I’m playing. Come on then and grab an onion and celery for me.”
“Celery?” He scrunched up his face.
I repeated myself, getting a nod from him before he turned to get what I asked of him.
I had just started slipping my phone back into my pocket when it started ringing again. I had no idea that in about two minutes, I would be calling myself an idiot for not looking at the screen before I hit the answer button without looking. My muscles had the placement memorized, so I didn’t have to. “Did you fall over already?” I joked.
“Diana?” the female voice came over the phone. The voice sounded familiar. “Don’t hang up—”
And just like a slap to the face, I realized why it was familiar. Smiling at Louie, I said in a bright voice, “You have the wrong number.” And I hung up even as my heart started going double-time.
She had called me maybe once over the last two years—once—and this was the second time she’d called in less than two weeks. I wanted to wonder why she would be calling now of all times, but I knew why. The why was probably in the living room setting up his Xbox for a game.
The thing was there were plenty of things in life you couldn’t escape, including the stupidest thing someone you loved very much did.
“Tia, the trash is full.”