by Kate Rorick
Q: Do you feel the internet has taken over our lives to a point where it is out of control?
A: Yes and no. The internet is an amazing tool—it has taken the place of the phone book, the encyclopedia, the Thomas Guide, your French-to-English dictionary, and your high school reunion. It has become absolutely essential for modern life and, in my opinion, should be considered a public utility.
But because it is such a one-stop shop, it absolutely has the potential to take over our lives. Especially as it facilitates social interaction. Why have friends in real life when you can just talk to a wall of the likeminded reinforcing your opinions? The dopamine rush you get from “likes” is as strong as the one you can get from an addictive habit. I should know—I crave Instagram hearts with every post. Unfortunately, the only thing you can really do about it is self-impose boundaries.
Q: How do you feel the internet has changed parenting?
A: I don’t know how I would have gotten through the baby phase without it. There are so many resources available to scour in those wee small hours during feedings—parents have organized communities to offer advice, tips, and strategies. And crowdsourced parenting can be a social good—for instance, I am a member of a parenting Facebook group, and there is one woman on there who is a car seat expert. She will answer any car seat question you might have and she is a godsend!
However, it can easily—like almost everything else on the internet—turn toxic and cultish. (Mommy wars, or antivaxxing, anyone?) So, you have to tread carefully.
Q: Quinn has a run-in with an internet “Influencer.” Do you think this is a new phenomenon, or are these people just getting their celebrity in a new and different way?
A: I’ll be honest—Influencer culture kinda scares me. I know that at some point my children are going to be exposed to it, but the idea that someone with good screen presence and a camera angle that denotes intimacy will have sway over my kid is terror-inducing. But I don’t think this kind of celebrity is in any way new—people have been chasing fame for fame’s sake forever, with or without skills that warranted it. The difference is the speed with which someone can reach an audience, and how wide that audience can get.
Q: Any words of wisdom on Halloween costumes for kids?
A: Ha! Well, I do have some experience with cardboard construction for costumes, so I can give you spray painting tips. But my best advice is once your kid starts voicing an opinion, listen to what they want. If they want to be one of four hundred Elsas, let them be Elsa. If you don’t, their memory of Halloween won’t be fun and candy, it’ll be “I felt bad because everyone else had a pretty Elsa costume and I didn’t.”
Read On
Take a Peek at Kate Rorick’s Debut Novel
The Baby Plan
Available now from HarperCollins
CHAPTER 1
It was the mashed potatoes that did it.
The damned holiday mashed potatoes, made with nearly a pound of butter and cream cheese and onions and pepper and salt—and the occasional potato—that ruined Nathalie Kneller’s announcement, three years in the making.
And worse, she had been the one to make the potatoes. So really it was her own fault.
Usually, the family didn’t get together for Thanksgiving. Christmas was their big holiday. Ever since her dad retired and traded the house they grew up in for a condo with a parking space big enough for an RV, he’d spent more time exploring the great American roadways than not. But he would always be back in Santa Barbara for Christmas, and Nathalie and her sister would joyfully make the drive up from Los Angeles to gleefully welcome him home, and dutifully receive the gifts he’d picked up in his travels.
Never mind that Nathalie was not in need of any more turquoise jewelry, or tumbled rocks taken straight out of Carlsbad Caverns. Her dad had given her a rock tumbler when she was nine, and she’d loved it. But sometimes it seemed like she was stuck at that age, as that person, in his mind.
But this year Nathalie begged her father to be back by Thanksgiving. He had to be. Timing was everything.
“I don’t know, kiddo,” her father had hemmed on the phone. She could hear the radio playing in the background. “. . . Listening to 104.3 KBEQ Kansas City! Stay tuned for Blake Shelton, Faith Hill, and Dierks Bentley!”
“Kathy really wanted to go to Branson this trip, see the sights . . .”
Nathalie had to bite her tongue to keep her annoyance at her stepmother’s love of anything country in check.
“Please?” she’d said on the phone. “I’ll even host!” Considering the postage-stamp size of the two-bedroom house she and David had just spent their life savings on, this was a card she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to play. But she had to pull out all the stops against Branson and Kathy.
“Well . . .”
“Dad, it’s . . . it’s important.”
“Important, how?” her father had asked, suspicious. “Is everything okay?”
It took everything in her to not blurt it out over the phone. But again, timing was crucial. So instead, she just said, “Everything’s great, Dad. I just . . . I’d just really love to see you. And show off the house.”
She’d heard him sigh on the other end of the line. “Okay. I’ll talk to Kath about it, but . . . count us in.”
Nathalie had smiled and mentally fist-pumped as she said her goodbyes to her dad.
Then, cold realization settled over her: she was going to have to host Thanksgiving dinner.
At the age of thirty-three, she’d never hosted a holiday meal. Their place had always been too small, they always had friends or family to go to . . . one way or another, it was something they’d always managed to avoid. Now, she had invited it on herself.
But there was nothing to be done about it. She needed to have her family there on Thanksgiving.
Because on Thanksgiving, she would be thirteen weeks and one day pregnant.
Thirteen weeks was the cutoff point, ending the queasiness and worry of the first trimester, and the beginning of the (supposedly) smooth-sailing second. But more importantly, it was the point at which it was universally agreed that it was safe to tell people. The chances of something going catastrophically wrong plummet, and you can tentatively share your good news—either quietly, in hushed tones over brunch with girlfriends, or by the trumpet blast of posting a sonogram pic on your Facebook wall.
Or, if you were like Nathalie, you could announce it in the Thanksgiving toast you’d had composed for three years, your family gathered around, your father sniffling away tears at the thought of his first grandchild.
So, for the next ten days, while her father took a meandering route back to California from the Midwest, and her husband David watched with silent bewilderment, Nathalie wrote lists, scoured Pinterest, and laid out a rational, detailed, and perfect plan for their very first Thanksgiving.
Number one on the list was they had to get an actual dining room table.
“What’s wrong with our current table?” David asked as Nathalie dragged him through IKEA.
“The bistro table can go on the deck,” where it’s supposed to, she finished mentally. The little metal table was whimsical in their old tiny apartment, but they were well into adulthood now, in their thirties, with 401(k)s and homeowner’s insurance.
Time for the black STORNÄS extendable table that showed it.
After acquiring chairs (NORRNÄS in white, for contrast), she gave David a six-pack of his favorite IPA and set him to the task of assembly while she went and bought matching fall-themed linens, serving dishes, utensils, decorations, and all the other things that people who have never had cause to entertain before might not have around the house. The gold-edged china plates she’d inherited from her mother and dragged from apartment to apartment but never used finally came out of their boxes, ready for their moment in the spotlight.
The one thing she was not worried about was the food. She had made almost every single dish, minus the turkey, having brought various sides to potluck Tha
nksgivings and even once, when she was eleven, doing the whole dinner on her own. Plus, she had her mother’s recipe box, and knew exactly how to time the cooking to make everything in her small kitchen.
Although, she could use an extra pair of hands.
“Sorry, Nat, I can’t,” Lyndi said into the phone. Her little sister’s regret was apparent in the tone of her voice, but it did little to appease Nathalie.
“But you said you had it covered!”
“I know, but . . .”
“It’s just one little pie!” Nathalie exclaimed. It wasn’t just one little pie. It was their father’s favorite triple berry pie, and normally she would have done it herself, but timing the pie with cooking the turkey was tricky and good leaders knew how to delegate.
“Yeah, but our oven’s totally crappy, and I don’t even have, like, a pie plate. Besides, Marcus doesn’t eat gluten so he doesn’t want any of that stuff in our apartment.”
Nathalie was glad Lyndi couldn’t see the look on her face at the mention of Marcus’s gluten sensitivity. It also didn’t help that she was in the middle of mashing the potatoes.
And oh God, the potatoes. Her morning sickness, which usually confined itself to the mornings, decided to voice a strong objection every time the masher smushed another boiled potato. She dreaded adding the butter and cream cheese and the thick dairy smells it would create.
She had just about breathed through the worst of it when Lyndi said, “You got gluten-free stuffing for him, right?”
“. . . I’m sorry?”
“For Marcus? Gluten-free stuffing?”
“You’re bringing Marcus?” Nathalie asked, incredulous.
“Well, yeah. I mean, if that’s okay,” Lyndi said.
“I . . . I guess it is.” Thank God she had bought that sixth chair. “But, surely your roommate has other places to go—friends, or a party?”
In truth, Nathalie would have rather not had Marcus there. She had met him once, when she was helping Lyndi move into the third-floor apartment in the bohemian neighborhood of Echo Park. And he was nice enough, helping Lyndi carry her bike up the stairs. But his niceness and splitting the rent with her sister didn’t exactly warrant him being present at the moment of her big announcement.
“No, we’re going out to our friend’s pre-Thanksgiving bash tonight,” Lyndi said. “And, besides . . . you know that Marcus isn’t just my roommate, right?”
Nathalie blinked. “You’re dating?”
“I mean, I guess you could call it that,” she said, awkwardly.
This was news to her. And not just because she’d thought Marcus was gay.
Lyndi was twenty-four, and sometimes the years between them stood out—like when one tried to define “dating.” Often Nathalie felt like a second mother, rather than a big sister. And obviously Lyndi felt the same way, because when she finally spoke her voice was small, like a little girl caught after misbehaving.
“Are you mad?”
“No, sweetie,” Nathalie heard herself saying with a sigh. “But you could have told me earlier. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and now I have to make the pie, and gluten-free stuffing!”
“So he can come? Yay!” Lyndi cheered through the phone. “And I’m sorry about the pie but hey, I’ll bring the flowers, okay? Don’t worry about that!”
Lyndi was off the phone before Nathalie could protest that she’d already got a centerpiece (a brass cornucopia she filled with tiny squashes), but as usual with her little sister, Nathalie let her get her way.
Having Lyndi there for the announcement was more important than fretting over the random guy she had with her.
Of course, what she didn’t expect was Lyndi showing up the next day at noon, completely hungover.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” Nathalie said, seeing Lyndi’s gray face. She tried to hide how she was feeling with a wan smile, but it didn’t work when she was the same color as her flowy pale blue minidress.
“Happy Thanksgiving to you, too,” Lyndi said breezily, giving her sister a quick hug and then slipping past her.
“Hey, Nathalie!” said the massive arrangement of flowers behind Lyndi. “Good to see you again!”
“Good to, er, see you, too,” she replied, taking the flowers (oh God, the smell) and finally being able to actually see Lyndi’s if-you-could-call-him-that boyfriend.
Marcus had a sweet smile, that was the first thing she realized. He was lean—likely from a lack of gluten—and achingly hipster, with the skinniest of skinny jeans, a narrow strip of a tie and a full sleeve of tattoos peeking out from his button-down shirt. He was also surprisingly nervous. As one hand extended to shake hers, the other went to his short dreads, twisting the dark hair tightly.
Nathalie decided to take pity on him. “Good to see you, too, Marcus,” she said in the voice that she used with her shyest students. “Come on in, it’s wonderful to have you.”
“Hey, Marcus!” David came in from the living room, extending his hand and pulling Marcus into a bear hug. Marcus seemed only slightly surprised, considering he’d never met David before. “I’ve got the game on. Wanna beer?”
“Um . . . do you have any wine?” Marcus replied. “White?”
David only gave the slightest hesitation before he slapped Marcus on the back, and pulled him toward the TV. “Sure thing. Hon, can you open the wine?”
“You got it,” Nathalie singsonged back. Luckily they had a bottle of white in the back of the fridge. She hadn’t had a drink in three years, and she knew Lyndi was a red girl. The white was meant for Kathy, who, when confronted by a lack of Bartles & Jaymes (which Nat didn’t know existed outside of, oh, the 1980s), would settle for a pinot grigio.
She put the flowers on the table. “These are gorgeous,” she said to Lyndi. And they were. They put her brass cornucopia to shame. Fat seasonal blooms in earthy reds and oranges, with a trail of yellow orchids flowing out, still on the vine.
“Thanks. I designed them.”
“Designed them?”
“The arrangement. It’s what I’m doing at the flower co-op now.”
“I thought you were a delivery girl at the shop.”
“I still do some deliveries, we all do . . . but I sort of got promoted.” Lyndi shrugged, then scowled. “And it’s not a shop, come on. You know that.”
“Of course,” Nathalie replied, wanting to keep the peace. “And congrats! On the promotion.” In truth, she didn’t really understand what Lyndi did at her current job. It was a place that sold flowers—so that was a flower shop, right? Even if it was only online? Whatever it was, Lyndi had stuck with it for six months, so it was better than any other job she’d tried. Nathalie could only hope one of these days she’d focus on a career.
A timer dinged in the kitchen. Nathalie heeded its call like Pavlov’s dog.
“Oh what is that smell?” Lyndi said, following her.
“The holiday mashed potatoes,” Nathalie answered, taking them carefully out of the oven. “Can you help me with this?”
To accommodate the triple berry pie, she’d had to rearrange the timing on baking the potatoes . . . which meant she’d had to hit the pause button on cooking the turkey for an hour. But, she thought, as she and Lyndi shoved the bird back in and cranked up the heat, it would be fine in the end.
Totally fine.
Praise for Kate Rorick and Her Prior Novel The Baby Plan
“Smart and funny, The Baby Plan is irresistible! A winner.”
—Susan Mallery, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Described with arch humor and a loving attention to detail seldom found in fictional depictions . . . Top-notch women’s fiction.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Heartwarmingly real and hysterically a little too real. I laughed, cringed, and cried—sometimes all at the same time. This book is emotional perfection.”
—Sarah Watson, executive producer of Parenthood and creator of The Bold Type
“Kate Rorick’s exploration of modern-day parenth
ood is razor sharp, hilarious, and acutely true to life. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Beth Harbison, New York Times bestselling author of One Less Problem Without You
“Rorick’s prose is witty, engaging, and delightful, introducing us to characters who are relatable—and whose mistakes we’ve probably made ourselves. Recommended for fans of Marian Keyes and Jennifer Weiner.”
—Booklist
“Kate Rorick, creator of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, delivers a pointed satire and commentary on the competitive craziness of American baby-making. . . . It’s also a story about growing, finding, and potentially losing a family, and discovering you can only cut ties for so long.”
—Brit + Co
“If you’re expecting—or remember those days not so fondly—you’ll appreciate Rorick’s funny take on everything from gender reveal parties to sonograms on invitations.”
—Working Mother
“If you’re looking for a humorous, light novel that pokes fun at the absurd world of modern mommy-to-be culture, look no further than Kate Rorick’s The Baby Plan.”
—Real Simple (named one of the “Six Good Books to Read When You’re About to Have a Baby”)
Also by Kate Rorick
The Baby Plan
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
LITTLE WONDERS. Copyright © 2020 by Kate Wilcox. Excerpt from THE BABY PLAN © 2018 by Kate Wilcox. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.