When Girlfriends Step Up (22 page)

The doctor turned towards Claire, hand outstretched, and when formalities were exchanged Dr. Buschardi commented on what an amazing and supportive team of girlfriends I had.

“Don’t know what I’d do without them,” I said.
 

Claire clapped her hands excitedly and said, “I’m so happy to see the baby! We can find out if it’s a boy or a girl today, right doctor?”

“If that’s what Robin wants I’m ninety-nine percent sure we’ll get to find out today. So long as Baby isn’t shy and doesn’t want to hide.”
 

God, please don’t be a self-conscious thing like your momma, little baby.
 

I mentally scorned myself for such thoughts. How silly of me. I know kids inherit traits—physical and otherwise—from their parents. But how obviously self-conscious was it to worry about your child being self-conscious?
 

Don’t be silly, Robin. But come on, baby, don’t be shy. Be bold and show us your stuff today. Please.

Some warm gel, some clicks and taps of the mouse and keyboard, a few revolutions with the instrument and then…the heartbeat. This time much louder and stronger than the first ultrasound. And then an image popped up on screen!

“That’s its head!” I said, delighted it was so defined (and so much larger), and that I could see it without any assistance from Dr. Buschardi.

“That’s right. And here,” the doctor moved the instrument some more, this time pushing against parts of my stomach with her free hand. She then pushed gently with the instrument, saying, “We get Baby to turn a little towards us…wiggle around little baby…ah…there we go.” Click, tap, and then, “Robin is going to have a little girl!”

Claire screeched and I let out a tearful but joyful cry. I was having a girl. A baby girl!

“Congratulations, Robin. It definitely looks like you’re going to have a little sugar and spice and everything nice.” Dr. Buschardi took some photos, made more clicks and taps, then ran the printer so I could have my baby’s new ultrasound photos. My baby
girl’s
ultrasound photos.

“Your daughter looks healthy and fabulous.”

My daughter.
My
daughter!

“She’s right on schedule, growth-wise. December seventh still looks like a solid due date. Of course, you never can tell for sure. These little babies have their own schedules.” Dr. Buschardi handed me my photos and Claire and I gawked at them. “Keep on doing the same things you’ve been instructed to in the books and pamphlets I sent you home with. And I’ll give you some more today.”

I smiled at the photos, trying to take in everything Dr. Buschardi was saying, but so overwhelmed with joy and disbelief that I was really going to have a daughter. A baby girl. All my own!

“Congratulations, Robin. Any questions at all, you know how to reach me. Until then, keep up what you’re doing. It looks like you’re doing everything right.” Dr. Buschardi looked to Claire. “With great friends like yours, that’s probably unavoidable.”

I felt as if I were actually glowing during the car ride from the doctor’s office. Everything seemed so surreal, yet so…
real.
The first ultrasound revealed that I was, without a shadow of a doubt, having a baby. This ultrasound reiterated that point, but
loudly!
When you’re told that you’re having a boy or a girl it seems to make the baby even
more
real, if that makes any sense.

“You know what we have to do now?” Claire asked, offering to drive, since I was still in such shock over the news.
 

“What do we have to do now?” I asked, glowing as I stared at the three new photos of my baby daughter.

“Baby clothes shopping time!”

“You’re right!”

“Now that you know you’re having a girl we
obviously
have to go pick out some adorable pink and lacy things.”

“Yeah, and we can pick up a Bopee. In pink.”
 

I discovered that this thing called a Bopee was Mom’s best friend. With the Bopee, I could better nurse and bottle-feed my baby, not to mention let her rest comfortably and near me on the sofa, or even on the floor. It provided head and body support and would be just the piece of baby gear I could use for several months as my little girl grew from infancy to pre-crawling stage. And, when she wasn’t using it,
I
could, apparently. A little back support? Pillow? I didn’t need to read much more about the Bopee to know that I needed one.

“Obviously, we’ll have to do another baby clothes shopping run with the rest of the girls,” Claire said, as she pulled into the parking lot of one of our favorite local shopping centers. “We can’t have
all
the fun.”

Whoever said five best friends was better than one must have been a shopper—and a mommy in the making.

***

Almost the instant Claire learned that I was going to have a girl she went to work on the baby shower invitations—pink from top-to-bottom. The theme, we decided, would be all things “sugar and spice and everything nice,” since the phrase stuck when Dr. Buschardi mentioned it during the ultrasound. That meant the grand theme of the baby shower was sweet pastries, cupcakes with cherries on top, little bows, cinnamon sticks, sugar cookies painted in pastel colors and dotted with white sprinkles, and anything that could fit under the heading “and everything nice” (and feminine). Wherever to start planning such a theme as that?
 

The shower was up to the girls to figure out, thank goodness. Claire was gung-ho about planning the affair and that was fine by me. I didn’t have a knack for throwing parties or organizing fun get-togethers. I could do nachos and TV-on-DVD at home, or a girls’ night at the movies. Or I could coordinate a group trip to a local art gallery. A full-scale party, especially a baby shower, was not my forte. “Martha Claire Stewart” was the queen of handmade crafts, themed parties, anything to which you needed to
répondez s'il vous plaît
. She agreed that I stay out of the planning details, my only requirements being that I show up and that I give her the addresses of any of the women I wanted at my shower. So I gave her only two, as I wanted an intimate shower with my best girlfriends. One address was that of my sister Kaitlyn, which I gave happily. The other, my mother’s, and whether or not she’d come was another issue. I’d chosen to invite her out of civility, and actually had a brief discussion about it with Kaitlyn one morning before work.

“I invited her, but I don’t know if she’ll bother coming,” I told Kaitlyn over my cell phone’s speaker phone system as I French braided my hair. The Seattle summer heat and humidity were really getting to me, and the only way I could function having long hair was by braiding it.

“You’re the bigger woman. You invited her and now the ball’s in her court,” Kaitlyn said. I had called Kaitlyn that morning because I wanted to share the news that she was expecting a niece. It was rather odd to be reconnecting with my sister after all these years—ten plus at least—and I’d never imagined it would have taken children to bring us together. We agreed that it was nice to have that reconnection nevertheless.

“She won’t see it that way,” I said. “You know Mom. She always finds something to bitch and blame about.”

“You invited her; I’d leave it at that. She knows how to get a hold of you. Until she does, or doesn’t, carry on and go about your business. You know she’ll show up in the end.”

“She better not bring her latest love interest. She tell you about that?”

“The Florida architect thing? Yeah. Who knows how long that’ll last. At least she seems happy. Until her aura changes, that is.” Kaitlyn giggled, and I couldn’t hold back either.

I tied off my French braid and grabbed my cell phone and purse. “Hey girl,” I said. “I’ve got to run to work. Thanks for gabbing. I’ll see you September twenty-second?”

“I wouldn’t miss your baby shower for the world. See you later, sis.”

I grabbed a travel-size bottle of orange juice and the muffin that Sophie had brought over the other night when she came to watch some television with me. I was getting lonely with Lara not home by dinnertime every night. The past couple of weeks she’d been tied up at the office, working late hours that went well past the time when we’d usually eat dinner. After a while, the dinners in by myself in front of the TV grew old, even with Beebee occasionally coming out from her various hiding places to sit next to me on the sofa. I knew Lara had her own life and things to keep her busy, however I didn’t imagine I’d be alone at night so often once I became her roommate.
 

Work was demanding, though, and, as Lara said one night in passing, “I don’t get to live in a nice apartment and drive a fancy car by sitting on my hands and clocking out at five every day.” A couple times, I’d neglected to hide my frustration with her late nights at the office. I wasn’t sure if I was reacting rationally since her behavior was, in fact, a little grating, or if I was going through hot and cold mood swings and simply didn’t know how to handle things on Lara’s end. (One can never really tell when they’re pregnant.) Not having Lara home until eleven, twelve, even one in the morning some nights was beyond frustrating. I’d lash out occasionally, then apologize, then she’d apologize and come home earlier the next day; it went like this now and then but we always made amends and carried on as usual.

I walked into work that morning with only the slightest of waddles to my step. I was already past my halfway mark with my baby girl, and I was most definitely pregnant by the looks of it. Everyone around the office was generally nice and helpful, me being the only pregnant woman there—and the only one in quite some years. Doors were always held open, many times people waiting there in the doorway until my slower-moving self could make my way along. Some of the ladies brought in a small, pink-iced cake when they found out I was having a girl. I was invited out to lunch and for coffee or tea runs by nearly everyone, but not individually by Bobby. Not by the co-worker I was crushing on and couldn’t shake from my thoughts.

More and more time was drawing out since Bobby and I had talked about having lunch together. He was still his genuinely kind self, but no more so than the rest of the men in the office who held open the door for me. No special treatment. Whether the flirtation was real or a figment of my imagination was still up in the air. Bobby
still
didn’t address the overdue lunch topic. He didn’t mention my having missed it because I was, in fact, sick, nor did he try to schedule it for another day. Nothing. Nada. It was as if we never even had a lunch planned!

I couldn’t stare any longer at the image on my computer screen—an imposing and pompous mock up of Napoleon’s traditional battle hat. I’d finally caught a break from mystery novel covers, and now I was charged with a period romance novel cover. But Napoleon’s hat was grating on my nerves, since the arching shape wouldn’t look right no matter how much I toyed with it; and I was hungry; and I wanted my owed lunch with Bobby already!

“Hey, how about we grab that lunch we were supposed to have, like,
ages
ago?” I stood at Bobby’s desk, my hands resting on my lower back. I was nervous and surprised I had the gall to approach him point-blank, but there I was, waiting and ready. “That is, if you’re not too embarrassed to eat with a pregnant girl who’ll order more than a salad, no dressing.” Humor never hurt a fraught situation.

He turned around in his swivel chair, tapping his pen on his chin.

“What do you say? Go to the little corner café over here?” I pointed in a vague direction to where I knew of a gourmet sandwich shop a short walking distance away from the office.

He didn’t say anything for a while, then a small smile played upon his lips. He took his wallet and keys out of a desk drawer and led the way, waiting and holding open the door for me. As I turned to follow him out the door, always having to catch up on other’s steps, I noticed that the photo of Bobby and his girlfriend in Trafalgar Square was missing from his desk.
 

That’s odd.
 

I didn’t think anything more of it as I made my way to the door, eager to enjoy a long overdue lunch with my office crush.

“Nice choice,” Bobby said, as I took a big bite of my sandwich.

“Some of the best gourmet sandwiches in town,” I said, continuing the small talk we had going on for the past ten minutes. We’d beaten the rush and were lucky to have found seats outside the quaint café on the corner of a peaceful, tree-lined street, where soccer moms were walking their pet poodles and coffeehouse purveyors were getting their afternoon fix in one of the many aromatic cafés that filled the area.

I sorely wanted to delve into deeper topics than the tastes of our sandwiches, or the beautiful sunshine, or how we thought the Sonics needed to return home from the middle of nowhere USA. I wanted to talk about
why
we’d let so much time pass before we finally had our lunch date. And why he never asked again. I wanted to tell him that I was having a little girl. And that I had no idea what to name her. I wanted to talk about…personal things. I didn’t want to talk about work, actually, even if that was the initial reason we made a “business lunch date.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to talk about deeper (and far more fascinating) topics than profit margins and potential losses in the traditional publishing world. Bobby opened the floodgates when he said, “I’ve been meaning to apologize to you for not making another lunch date. That was really immature of me and I apologize.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” I tried to play the part of the carefree co-worker, not the role of the woman who would say what she felt: Why
didn’t
you?

“It was rude, and I’m sorry. I’m glad we could finally do this.”

I nodded, happy to hear that he was sorry we’d let so much awkward time pass between the last lunch and this one.

“Things have been going rough for me, personally.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I haven’t exactly been myself lately—not at home, not at work.” He looked into my eyes, arousing butterflies (certainly not baby flutters) in my stomach. “Not myself with you. You see…I broke up with my girlfriend of five years a couple of weeks ago.”