Read When Girlfriends Step Up Online

Authors: Savannah Page

Tags: #Fiction, #relationships, #love, #contemporary women, #girlfriends, #single mother, #contemporary women's fiction, #chick lit, #baby, #chicklit, #friendship, #women

When Girlfriends Step Up (7 page)

BOOK: When Girlfriends Step Up
2.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

I flashed him an ironic glance and continued steeping my tea, hoping and praying this decaf blend Sophie gave me would grant the pick-me-up I certainly needed that morning. I’d been behind my desk for a good hour already, and the mystery novel cover was still missing that special something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Oh, thought I’d try out this new blend that my friend gave me.”

He picked up the package of tea and looked at it with a discerning eye. “It says ‘decaf’ here, Robin.” He held it out so I could see for myself.

“Silly me,” I said, pretending that I had no idea the tea was without the “secret serum.”

“No wonder you’re feeling sluggish. You funny lady.” He gave my arm a light, playful shove, then started to open the cupboards overhead. “I’m sure there’s some juiced up tea in here somewhere, if tea’s your new preference.”

“That’s all right,” I said, throwing away my tea bag and making my way towards the break room doorway. “This blend is growing on me. I’m fond of it, actually.”

He kept rifling through the cupboards.

“I’m really quite fine. Thanks, Bobby,” I said, although his persistence made me smile. Sophie went out of her way to make sure I had a quality beverage. But Bobby? Since when did a man—not even a friend, a co-worker—become insistent on helping me find my morning lifeblood? Maybe my pregnancy glow and charm were starting to show already. I’d read about that the other night in my baby book, which had actually become my new book of choice after hours.

The book mentioned that as an expecting mother, your partner and even strangers of the male sex (in my case, we’ll just go with random men) will show a more willingness to help you with things, like taking your groceries to your car, or opening doors. Kind of nice in an age where I swear chivalry is nearly dead. They’ll ask if they can help with the most minor of tasks, such as pulling out your seat or offering an extra pillow for back or feet support. Although these gestures are more common during the second and final trimesters, when the mother is clearly showing she’s about to drop, over-the-top helpful gestures by men are commonplace during pregnancy. Not to mention the extra attraction males will have towards the mother-to-be. Apparently a pregnant woman’s lips and cheeks become rosier. Her skin becomes so clear she wonders if she’s back in elementary school, before the plague of pimples attacked. I had noticed that my lips were a brighter shade of pink. And while I’m not one for globs of makeup to begin with—nothing more than a dab of powder and blush, and perhaps light applications of eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss work for me—I had discovered that I didn’t need any blush or lip color lately.
 
Sometimes I felt I could even do without the light dusting of powder. Maybe I was working some momma charm, and Bobby was being so helpful because of the bun in the oven, even if he had no clue I was a-bakin’.

“If you’re sure,” he said. He leaned against the counter, his thick chest standing out ever so slightly behind his jet black dress shirt, the top two buttons open, giving way to a hint of casualness. I caught another whiff of Bobby’s cologne, and I wasn’t particularly fond of what it was doing for my hormones. Was it sudden attraction I was feeling towards Bobby? My goodness! Or were my pregnancy hormones out of whack?
 

Damn. Stop that, sister!
 

“You let me know if I can bring you coffee after all,” he offered.

I tittered as I began to make my way back to my office. Back to the mystery novel cover that awaited my stroke of genius. “I’ll be sure to come to you if I want some coffee, Bobby,” I called out. “You do know how I take it.”

“A spoonful of cream and a cube of sugar.”

Pregnancy charm? Maybe. Or maybe
I
was just the tiniest bit charmed by Mr. Bobby Holman. I’d never really thought of it before, but then again he’d never gone out of his way to be so kind to me. He was always civil and nice, but never a bring-me-my-coffee kind of guy. And to actually know just how I took it? That
was
really peculiar. Maybe my “pregnant aura,” as
You’re Going to Be a Mother
called it, was the reason for Bobby’s gentility. And maybe my fondness of it was not hormonal, but the result of a small office crush.

***

The weeklong wait with no word from Brandon was eating me up. I couldn’t work properly; my head was clouded with too many what-ifs and how-comes. I knew there was only one thing I could do to alleviate at least a portion of the distraction—it was time to call Brandon again. Lunch break would be the perfect opportunity, because the time crunch would encourage me to buck up and make the call, and, if he answered, keep it short and to the point.

But first, I had to call Sophie.

“It’s been a whole week and no word,” I said once more to Sophie from inside my car. I had driven a few minutes to one of the nearby parks to eat lunch. I needed complete solace, save for Sophie’s encouragement. “I have to try again. Something could have happened to my voicemail and he never got it. Or something happened to his phone. Or…I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I need to try again.” There was no stopping me.

“Go for it, girl,” Sophie said. “You plan on leaving another message if he doesn’t pick up?”

I sighed. “Yeah, probably. I really hope he picks up.”

“You and me both.”

“Well, thanks for the quick chat. I think I’ll give it a go now.”

“Good luck.”

I didn’t allow myself one more moment of hesitation. I scrolled down to my list of recently placed calls and selected Brandon’s number.
 

You better pick up.

After the longest five rings of my life, I was once again directed to the damned voicemail.

“Brandon.” I took a quick swallow. “It’s Robin. Again. I
really
have to speak with you. I don’t want to talk anymore than you do, but I don’t have a choice. All I’m asking for are a few minutes of your time.
Please.
Please call me back. Or text me that you got this message. Just…just something so I know you hear me.”

I started up my car engine, crumpled up my empty paper lunch sack, and turned up the car radio. Some NPR repartee sounded. “Please call me back,” I whispered to myself. “Please let me put this behind me and move on.” I sent Sophie a text message letting her know I was still not any further in our grand plan to drop the bomb on Brandon. Her fast response made me smile, and kept me smiling the whole drive back to the office:
Fuck him. Oh, wait…bad advice. ;) Gotta keep our sense of humor, right? XOXO

One week after my initial call to Brandon, I hadn’t heard back from him, and the day after I gave him a second voicemail, I
still
hadn’t heard back. I didn’t know Brandon that well, but I knew him well enough to know that he was practically married to his career as an IT consultant with some big firm in Downtown. He always had his cell phone on him and was ready to take any incoming call, work-related or otherwise. He had gotten each and every one of my calls and voicemails. He was choosing to ignore me.

After a repeat performance during lunch break just twenty-four hours later—same park, same sack lunch, same voicemail that would never be answered—I thought back to how I had landed myself in this whole mess. How foolish I was, on so many levels and for so many reasons. Why, oh why, can a girl so easily make stupid-ass mistakes in life?

It was a spring evening in March, the night of one of my colleague’s parties—some random celebration he’d hosted after landing a big account or something. It didn’t matter. I was there with my girls, and Sophie had brought along Brandon. It was a huge party with all the usual party trimmings: alcohol, music, and either dull conversation about work, or a small dance “contest” going on in the living room. As the party became too slow-moving, and the liquor was being consumed at much too fast a pace, Sophie and the girls headed out to continue the party at a bar or club, while I stayed behind. I vaguely remember, under the hazy stupor of five-too-many cocktails, that I felt I should stay behind to show party support for my colleague. Apparently, Brandon felt I needed a chaperone.

Before I knew it, Brandon and I were sharing a cab home. I remember droning on about how I was no longer with Joseph, my previous boyfriend with whom I had the longest running relationship of my life—fourteen months I think it was. Ta-frickin’-da. Brandon started to talk about problems at home with Sophie and how he wasn’t feeling the connection anymore or something like that. It was all very hazy, but before I knew it the cab had stopped at Brandon’s place, and
only
at Brandon’s place.

I’d like to say we sat around in his living room for a while, talking about failed and failing relationships before we jumped into bed (not that that makes the situation any better). However, I think we started kissing in the cab and took it right into his bedroom from there. His bedroom. The bedroom he shared with my best friend, Sophie.

A few hours later I came to, and in a hell of a hung-over state I realized the grand calamity I had created.

Breaking my trek down memory lane, I rested my hands on my stomach and smiled. At least there were still some good things that could come from such a mess. I did have Sophie back. And all of my good friends were back on speaking terms. (God knows the kind of rift I created was unpleasant for everyone involved.)
And,
I had my baby. My little baby who I was going to see for the first time in only a couple of days.

As I’d done the day before after I called Brandon during my lunch break, I sent Sophie a brief text message, telling her that I’d taken another stab at contacting Brandon and was crossing my fingers. If he didn’t reach me during any point before the end of the day, I’d be calling him back. Again. And again. And again.

Come half past seven that evening, as I expected, Brandon still hadn’t returned my calls. No text message. Nothing. I’d already completed my
Godfather
-inspired sketch, and had started on a new one of a misguided seagull flying over vast expanses of a Grand Canyon-like landscape. My creative muse seemed to have returned, and I was already thinking of some watercolor ideas that I planned on testing out later that week. But I couldn’t shirk the frustrating fact that Brandon was ignoring my calls.

I picked up my cell phone and speed-dialed Lara.

“Hey, Robin,” she answered.

“Can I come over?” I asked bluntly. “Brandon’s not calling me back. I’m feeling a little lonely. And I don’t know… Can I come over?”

“Like a sleepover?”

“Yeah, like a sleepover,” I said energetically. “And let’s go all out, sleepover-style. What do you say to some TV, maybe some pedicures, some girl time?”

“I say we’re long past due for one-on-one girl time together. Definitely! Pack your stuff up for the night and come on over. I’ll make sure your bed’s ready.” Lara’s second bedroom was convenient for a sleepover—a great solution to those long and lonely sleepless nights.

As fast as a flash I packed up my overnight bag and headed to the adjacent neighborhood of Wallingford, to Lara’s quaint two-bed and two-bath apartment she’d rented since she graduated grad school three years ago. As I made my way up her small brick walkway, I noticed the smell of the freshly cut grass, and how it tickled my nose and made me feel warm and happy. Summer was around the corner, and with it always came picnics in the park, pool parties at someone’s apartment pool, and, of course, weekend getaways to one of the nearby island towns for some sun, sand, and surf. Being pregnant might change all of that, though.

“We seriously should have done this a lot sooner,” Lara said, shaking a bottle of Paint the Town Red nail polish. “Especially now that you’ve got the baby on the way. You need supervision.”

I laughed, painting my toes a light shade called Tickle Me Pink. “I don’t need
supervision
. I’m just lonely.”

“Well, whatever you want to call it, you shouldn’t be alone so much. Look, whenever you feel you need some girl time or some socializing, or don’t want to be home alone, then give me a ring. You know you always can.”

I usually did take Lara up on her open-door offers, but since the craziness of the past couple of weeks began, I’d tried to become more resourceful and independent—tried to keep from unloading my problems on everyone else’s doorstep. God knows I had a lot of them, and the offer to unload was tempting; and I felt I’d already done plenty of that when I had confided in Lara initially about my betraying Sophie. Lara’s doors and arms were a twenty-four-hour convenience store during that period. Poor thing.

“You’re always welcome here,” Lara continued. “I was there for you before, and I’m here now. Don’t forget about me. Little old date-less, man-less me.”

“Hey, you’re not alone. We can be date-less and man-less together,” I said. I took a sip of the warm tea with honey that Lara prepared. “Any news on that front, speaking of which?”

“What, me? Dating?” Lara laughed. “Nothing serious.”

“Oh, so there is
some
one then? Looks like we aren’t date-less together, eh?”

“No, we’re definitely date-less together.” She took a sip of her tea before continuing with what I was sure would be some juicy gossip. “But there is this guy.”

“Oh-oh-oh. ‘This guy.’”

“It’s not like that.”

“From work?” I pried.

She nodded and blew at a loose strand of her short, dark hair, which was slowly falling out of its ponytail.

“And?”

“And…it’s only harmless flirting right now—I think.” She looked confused, but continued. “Anyway, it’s just some guy at work who is unusually nice to me now…and he’s attractive and…well, I’ve been doing a little flirting with him. Shameless stuff, you know? But I’m not sure if he’s really flirting with me or if that’s just how he is. Although, he’s never been that way before…” She looked at me, as if for answers.

“I think I know what you mean,” I said. “There’s a guy at my office, too.”

She pointed her finger at me and bellowed. “
Who’s
calling the kettle black now?”

“I’m not saying that there
is
flirting going on,” I said, trying to correct her. “But I think I know what you mean by him treating you especially nice all of a sudden…or something. Right?”

BOOK: When Girlfriends Step Up
2.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Death Wish by Trina M Lee
Touch of Evil by C. T. Adams, Cathy Clamp
Breathless Bodies by Brigit Levois
Guarding the Treasure by J. K. Zimmer
The Vampire Gene by Jenny Doe
El fulgor y la sangre by Ignacio Aldecoa