What a Girl Needs (5 page)

I stop for a moment and gaze over the balcony that hangs suspended over baggage claim. Sunlight streams in everywhere and illuminates the entire building. Brea seems older than when I left her—less put together, which is completely out of her character. I always thought she’d handle motherhood like a Real Housewife: In a clingy, barely-appropriate dress and heels, with a proper handbag slung over her elbow. Today, she’s wearing an army green skirt, a pale yellow tank top and black flats.

Maybe it’s just a bad day. I run down the escalator and envelop her in a hug. “Brea! Oh my gosh, I’ve missed you!”

We cling together for far too long and there’s something in her grip that feels desperate. Not the calm, cool, collected Brea that I left. The boys stop in their tracks to stare at this strange women hugging their mother. If they only knew how strange!

Miles and Jonathan, in contrast to Brea’s tired look, could be two Gymboree models ready for their close-up. They’re wearing matching plaid, short-sleeve shirts, navy shorts and matching blue sandals, and she quickly takes them by their hands. They’re so much like twins; it’s unbelievable that one of them is adopted and the other, not. They could not appear more like brothers.

Miles is the older of the two, and he was adopted. Jonathan is their birth child, not that Brea differentiates them at all, but it’s the reason they are three months apart. Which is physically impossible without an adoption. At least the last time I checked. But as my mother-in-law will tell you as often as you’re willing to listen, I’m not a mother.

I kneel down. “Do you remember your Auntie Ashley?”

The boys blink their wide eyes and stare at me as if I’m a serial killer.

“I brought presents!”

The boys toddle toward me like two little minions caught in an alien’s tractor beam. “What you get us?” Miles asks me. “My brudder likes twains.”

“Well, I think your brother is going to be very happy then.”

“Where our pwesents?” Jonathan stares up at me with huge, brown eyes, and I melt a little.

“They’re in my luggage, sweetie. When this machine starts,” I say, pointing to the luggage carousel, “it will bring out my bright pink suitcase. Do you think you can help me find the pink suitcase?”

Both boys walk to the edge of the crowd that has clustered tightly around the carousel.

“Boys, don’t touch that belt. You might get your hands stuck.” Brea yanks the boys back by one shoulder each. “We can look with our eyes.”

“Brea.” I narrow my eyes. “They’re fine, I’ve got them. Why don’t you go sit down for a minute?” I point at a bench near the Starbucks. It’s not like this is a crowded terminal. It’s enormous, open, and the only cluster of people is right around us.

It’s hard to see Brea looking so haggard, she could be an extra on
The Walking Dead
. Brea was always the woman that troubles skirted. If there was one lonely house standing amidst a raging forest fire, it would have been Brea’s, and it’s disconcerting to see life hit her and take a toll.

“I’m all right,” Brea says and hovers over the boys.

“You’re really not. I can feel the anxiety coming off of you. Go sit down.”

She glares at me and I glare right back.

“My dog is still alive. I kept your boys and your dogs alive while you were gone. I can handle them for, twenty feet from you. I promise.”

“I’m fine,” she snaps. “I’ve got the key to drop you off at Kay’s on the way home.” She holds up a familiar key.

Kay’s my old roommate. She’s obsessive-compulsive and organized to a fault. I’m…not. You can imagine how that roommate situation went. “I’m not going to your house?” I hold firmly onto the boys’ chubby hands. “Kevin told me I’d be staying with you. You’re dumping me already?”

I’ll admit, I can be a handful, but Brea knows this. She’s known this since we were four years’ old, and I really don’t need the rejection, quite frankly.

“I’m not dumping you.” Brea purses her lips. “Kay has a dinner party planned for you.”

“A dinner party? Not with the
Reasons
?” I say, referring to my old church group.

“That, and the boys have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. Tonight, John is getting home from Korea and he’ll be exhausted, and I didn’t know how to break it to him that you’d be coming. I thought we could have more quality time together later in the week.”

“So my husband sends me across the country. My mom has houseguests and can’t”—I lift my quote fingers up—“‘Accommodate’ me, and you’ve got plans. It’s like a game of Hot Potato, and I’m the potato!”

“Ever the drama queen. It’s just a busy time, that’s all.” Brea’s not telling me something. I can feel it. I want to ask her so many things, to get caught up and hear everything that’s happened at church since I’ve been gone, but the kids and their needs come first. Maybe that is her issue, who knows? I used to simply
know
what was the matter with Brea, but she feels a million miles away and it’s like I’m in the deep canyon unable to get to her.

Philly may not be home, but life in Silicon Valley has gone on without me, and finding my place here may not be any easier.

The crowd gathers tighter around the snaking metal belt as the luggage starts to trickle out of the back room and I wonder if I haven’t made a mistake. Maybe I should have just figured things out at home with my husband. Like a normal person.

“I should warn you. Dinner
is
the old
Reasons
. Kay is having Arin and Seth over to dinner tonight.”

“Stellar.” Seth is my ex-boyfriend. Arin is my husband’s ex-girlfriend. “That’s not awkward at all.”

Isn’t that cozy how we all up and switched partners? It would be really awkward if we all weren’t living the celibate Christian life. Well, I can’t say Arin was living that life as Seth married her when she was pregnant. Not by Kevin, but she’d gone on a missionary trip and come back in, shall we say, less than a missionary position. Seth, needing someone to rescue, married her, and from what I hear, they’re pregnant with another child now.

“It will be fun. Pastor Max and Kelly are coming and Sam. I wish John and I could be there. Kay thought it was best to get it over with. You know, rip the Band-Aid of awkwardness off right away.”

“Or not at all.” I watch the different luggage pass by. “You can always match a person with their luggage. That guy right there, basic black.” The engineer who cut me off at the escalator grabs his black bag and rushes out of the terminal.

“I should warn you that your mother’s convinced you’re here because you’re pregnant and you want to tell her in person,” Brea says.

“She’s going to be vastly disappointed then. I’ll add her to the list. Kevin’s mom is convinced it’s not possible, that I’m too old.”

“Kevin’s mom is a psycho.”

“That’s more true than I’d like it to be. Kevin needs to get a permanent job and we need to settle before we start a family.” I say this so calmly, no one would ever know I’m not completely freaking out that I will get old and haggard and unable to have a child. But Brea knows. I see it in her downturned eyes.

“I see it!” Miles jumps up and down and points to my pink suitcase.

“You do see it, good eyes, Miles.”

“I see it, too,” Jonathan says.

“You both have incredible vision. It’s so far away still!” I lower my voice. “Tell me the truth. Are you both related to Superman?”

“No!” they scream in unison.

As we wait for the conveyor belt filled with luggage to snake towards us, Brea asks me, “Is it going to be weird seeing Seth and Arin pregnant?”

I blink a few times. “I don’t know if I’ll see them.”

“I still don’t like that woman, missionary or not. There’s something cunning about her.”

Arin, my ex-boyfriend’s wife, was one of those sick sorts who looked like they swallowed a cantaloupe but had no other visible signs of pregnancy; no gnarly skin changes, no bum the size of circus pachyderm’s, not even a double chin. Just a yoga body with a baby basketball in front. I’m sure she will be the same this time.

“Well,” I say, after imagining Seth having a child at all. “It’s going to be hard to see her if she’s thinner than me while pregnant, but Seth?” I shrug. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not nervous about it. It wasn’t weird seeing him at my wedding.”

“No, you’re right. Why would it be weird?” Brea shrugs. “I didn’t really think you’d be nervous about it, only that it wouldn’t be on your top ten list of things to do. Kind of somewhere up there with shopping at Kmart.”

“Kay’s a creature of habit,” I say about my old roommate. “Arin and Seth will be on the invite list, simply because they’re always on the invite list. Kay doesn’t think it should be awkward, because she believes we’re all adults and should suck it up.”

“I suppose she’s right,” Brea says. “Kay’s practical ways are the only thing that has kept that singles’ group together all these years. She amazes me. I would have lost patience for the lot of ’em years ago.”

“I’m sure Arin will look fabulous, and I’ll rethink dessert. My sister-in-law is still tiny, and she’s five months into her pregnancy. At least from what I see on Facebook with her daily quota of bathroom selfies.”

We both giggle—it comes out cattier than we’d like.

“Did Emily tell anyone who the father of the baby is yet?” The boys are starting to squirm, and Brea lifts Miles onto her hip and takes Jonathan’s hand. Miles wriggles out of her grasp and runs to my pink hard-shell bag and plucks it off the conveyor belt.

“Got it!” he says as he uses all of his strength in his tiny arms to yank off the suitcase. Brea is freaking out and whisks him up as if he’s just plunged from a moving airplane. He drops my suitcase with the brisk movement.

“Miles, you could have been hurt! Do you know how many shoes Auntie probably packed?” She grimaces at me.

“I’m strong!” Miles says and stops to pose.

“Yes, you are,” I tell him as I grab my bag. “Brea, chill out. He grabbed a suitcase. He didn’t jump off a third-floor balcony.”

“Shh! Don’t give him any ideas.”

Brea herds her boys with all the expertise of a seasoned cattle dog, and takes them both by the hand and we walk past the Starbucks toward the parking garage. We have to cross the street to get there, and Brea is panicked, though there’s no traffic to be seen. I push the walk button and we wait to cross. We could easily cross without the light, but with Brea so tightly wound, I know better than to suggest such a sin.

“Kay’s so excited you’re coming.”

I try not to react. “Are you going to take me to your house first? Before Kay’s house?”

“Shh. Wait until we cross the street.”

We manage to get across the street unscathed. Brea seems to think this is akin to neonatal surgery in the dark.

“My house is a disaster,” Brea says as we get to her car and she’s flustered in a way that confuses me.

“Brea, we had slumber parties on your filthy floor. I can handle your mess now.” Admittedly, I’m feeling a little beggarly. My two favorite people in the entire world have rejected me today. That’s not exactly cause for celebration.

“Kay will have everything set up for you from the luggage rack in your room to a few emptied drawers for your convenience. She lives for visitors. I thought Kevin would have told you. This is best for your high-maintenance self.”

“People deciding what’s best for me has become my norm. Is this some kind of mental breakdown intervention?” I try to conceal my disappointment. “I want to spend time with you, Brea. I don’t care what your house looks like. Mine probably looks worse, and I don’t have two kids as an excuse.”

“It’s not a good time, Ash. Really. You don’t want to see it in its present state. We’ll get time together when John gets home from Korea.”

“Auntie, we want our presents!” Miles says.

“Boys, that’s rude,” Brea says.

She should talk.

“It’s not rude.” I kiss each boy on his cheek. “Buckle them into their carseats, I’ll get the gifts. You’ve been so patient! The last time I saw you, you could never wait this long!”

“You’re spoiling them worse than their grandmother!”

“Brea, your mother never spoiled a thing in her life—except maybe a good time.”

“True.”

I unzip my bag as I listen to Brea with her boys. She was always such a calm mother before I left—the kind who did everything so naturally—and now, she’s like me as a mother—well, how I imagine myself anyway. Nervous. Second-guessing everything she does, worrying herself into a frenzy. The fact is, the world doesn’t need two Ashley Stockingdale Novaks. Some might argue that it doesn’t even need one.

I grab the presents from my bag and hand the boys their wrapped packages. I zip up my luggage and toss it in the back of the minivan. Miles and Jonathan don’t waste a second before tearing into their packages.

“Legos!” Miles shouts.

“Trains!” Jonathan shouts.

I grin at Brea. “My work is done here.”

Brea sits in the driver’s seat and stares at me. “Good job, Auntie. That ought to give me some quiet time after their appointments, but I’ll never get them down for a nap now.”

“Brea, seriously. Let them have some joy. You’re wound tighter than a drum and I don’t even know how to say this, but you’re acting like your mother.”

Brea gasps. “Take that back!”

How can I take it back? We used to call Brea’s mom “the fun sucker” because she could take any given situation and drain the fun out of it like an inflatable pool toy with a giant hole in it. I know for certain that the world only needs one Mrs. Browning.

Brea’s lower lip begins to tremble, but she says nothing and starts up the car. I’ve never known my best friend to keep anything from me, and now the distance between us feels like it is far more than simple geography.

“Something is wrong, Brea. Since when did you become the stoic type and suck it all up? Let it out before you explode! You’re making me feel like I’m in an alternative universe!”

A small whimper escapes and I sense the first sign of true emotion. “I don’t want to talk about it in front of the boys. I’m fine. John is fine. Our family is fine, that’s all that matters. You’re here for a good time, not to worry about me.” She smiles brightly, though falsely.