The Baby Plan

by Kate Rorick

  “You really feel that way?” she asked, quieter.

  “Come on—I hear what people say about me. All of Mom’s friends at the gender reveal party? And what they say about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Everyone is so happy for you.” Lyndi swiped at the corner of her eye.

  “Everyone is happy for you, too,” Nathalie tried, gently sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “No, everyone wants to ‘help’ me. Mom, Dad . . . everyone tries to ‘guide’ me. And all that talk about how having a baby earlier is so great! My body will just spring back!” Lyndi rolled her eyes. “They’re trying to think of something good to say. Because saying ‘you don’t have your life together enough to have a baby’ doesn’t really fit on a Hallmark card.”

  Nathalie stared at her sister. Minutes ago, she had been struck by how young and vulnerable she had seemed. Now, she was struck by how smart and forceful she could be.

  “You’re right,” Nathalie said. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a total, selfish bitch.”

  “It’s not just you. It’s like no one can believe I do see how hard it’s going to be and that things are going to change,” Lyndi finished. “It’s as if I’m not allowed to want my own child.”

  “You do want her, don’t you,” Nathalie said with wonder.

  “I do.” She turned her head and met her sister’s gaze. At some point, Nathalie had taken Lyndi’s hand. Held it. “I really do. And so does Marcus. Say what you will about him, but at least Marcus wants this baby. Sometimes it feels like he’s the only one who does.”

  “Well, at least you have that going for you.” Nathalie sighed, allowing herself to indulge in a little self-pity.

  “What do you mean?” Lyndi asked. “Everyone is happy for you.”

  “Right,” Nathalie agreed. “Everyone, except the one person who really matters.”

  Lyndi blinked twice. “David?” Then, her eyes narrowed. “I’ll kill him.”

  “What? No, come on.” Over the course of David and Nathalie’s fifteen-year relationship, Lyndi had looked up to David like a big brother. There were times Nathalie had thought Lyndi liked David better than her.

  “I’m serious. He’s dead to me,” Lyndi said through a stern face.

  Nathalie nearly laughed. “Lyndi, you’ve known David since you were a kid.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “He taught you to drive.”

  “Dead. To. Me.”

  “You were maid of honor at our wedding.”

  “Yeah, and do you know what I told him ten minutes before you got married?” Lyndi said, struggling to a sitting position. “That if he ever did anything to hurt you, I would travel to South America, buy an authentic machete, bring it back, and hack him to pieces with it. I know whose side I’m on.”

  “You said that?” Nathalie blinked. “You were thirteen.”

  “I was precocious.” Lyndi shrugged. Then she frowned. “And I was in my horror-movie-watching phase.”

  A giggle burst forth from Nathalie’s lips. And then another, and another. And along with it, came the sweetest relief she’d felt in some time.

  “I’ve missed this,” Nathalie said, holding her belly as she laughed. The baby kicked (or was it hiccups?) in time with her chuckles.

  “Aw, Nat. I’ve missed you, too.”

  Slowly, Nathalie’s chuckles turned to sniffles, although the smile stayed wide on her face.

  “Okay. Tell me everything,” Lyndi said.

  “Everything about what?”

  “Being pregnant, dummy! I’ve been dying to compare notes.”

  AND SO THEY did. And they did not limit themselves to their pregnancy symptoms. Although when Lyndi described how her little girl had once gotten her foot stuck in Lyndi’s ribs, Nathalie was silently grateful for her far more banal hip stretching symptoms, flatulence, and overriding desire to pee all the time.

  No, they talked about everything. They talked about the baby shower, about the strange freedom of being allowed to be large. They talked about the latest episode of Fargone and how they were decorating their nurseries (although, for Lyndi, it was more how she was decorating the corner of the living room that was going to be the nursery). It was wonderful, and it was necessary.

  Because they each had their sister back.

  They talked so long, by the time Dr. Keen came in on rounds to check on her patient, she discovered not one but two pregnant women in bed, sitting side by side.

  “I’m sorry you had to come in, but I’m glad you did,” Dr. Keen chirped. “I always feel better when my patients have family around.”

  “Not a problem,” Nathalie said, waving away the concern. “On the plus side now I don’t have to worry about going on a hospital tour—I’ve got down where I’m supposed to go now.”

  The doctor palpated Lyndi’s abdomen, and asked all the right questions, to which Lyndi gave all the hoped-for answers.

  “No bleeding. And yes, she’s been kicking.”

  “Quite a bit,” the doctor said, reviewing the printout from the monitor. “Well, you look good. I’ll be back in a little bit with the ultrasound machine, so we can make absolutely sure, but I think you have dodged a bullet.”

  “I didn’t dodge anything. I hit a pole,” Lyndi said, as Dr. Keen left.

  “David would be appalled at your lack of peripheral attention. He’d never have let you drive out of our driveway.”

  “What’s up with him anyway?”

  Nathalie told Lyndi all about David—about his outburst at IKEA and how it had seemingly come out of nowhere, but in truth it had been building brick by brick every day since she’d announced she was pregnant.

  “He’s been killing himself at work, even though his own boss says he shouldn’t be. And when he does come home, all he does is play video games,” Nathalie said. “It’s like pulling teeth to get him to do anything baby-related . . . or even talk about it.”

  “Sounds like someone needs a serious sister-in-law knock upside the head.”

  Nathalie’s brow came down. “You have become surprisingly violent while pregnant.”

  “And hungry. And horny. And angry. And weepy. And uncoordinated,” she finished, holding up her splinted wrist. “But seriously. I crave some of that standoffishness. Marcus wants to make sure I’m doing everything right all the time. Every day when I come home he’s there, ready to rub my feet and force-feed me a prenatal vitamin.”

  “That’s . . . good?” Nathalie said.

  “Yeah, it’s hard to be pissed off when he’s so good at being good to me.”

  “But you were right to be pissed off. About that article.”

  “Thanks. The only thing I feel I can trust is my daily pastel email.”

  “Your what?”

  Lyndi took out her phone and showed her.

  “‘How to Give In to the Bloat, and Nine Other Ways to be Gleefully Pregnant,’” Nathalie read. “That’s . . . cheering.”

  “And it tells me how big my baby is by comparing it to produce. Look, this week it’s an eggplant.”

  “This gives a whole new definition to an eggplant emoji,” Nathalie mused, and then cracked up while she told Lyndi about how she had nearly leaped across the check-in desk at the hospital, and why.

  “I’ll have to see what . . .” Nathalie whipped out her own phone. Then, she was suddenly self-conscious. “Never mind.”

  “No—no, never mind,” Lyndi replied automatically. “What is it?”

  Hesitantly, she handed over her phone. “I’ve got my own online guide for pregnancy,” Nathalie admitted, and Lyndi’s eyebrow perked up.

  “Please tell me it’s not pastel. I would kill to have a non-pastel baby app.”

  “It’s not. And it’s not an app. It’s a Twitter feed.”

  As she guided Lyndi to the @WTFPreg feed, she told her how completely eerie it was. How everything that she was thinking or feeling would turn up on this person’s feed. Every symptom—hell, even every tiny observation! H
ow they always made her feel better, to know someone out there was having the same difficulties she was.

  “But who is it?” Lyndi asked, scrolling down and occasionally laughing at what she read.

  “I don’t know. It has to be someone who’s about as far along as I am, right? Our pregnancies line up. You know for a while there, I thought it might be you.”

  Lyndi smiled at her sweetly. “Sorry to disappoint. I’m overloaded just keeping the Favorite Flower’s Instagram going. Did you know we have over a hundred thousand followers now?”

  “Wow . . . is that a lot? It sounds like a lot.”

  “It’s enough to make me exhausted just thinking about doing more on social media. So, not me.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out. For one thing, you’ve never shied away from wearing horizontal stripes.” Then, she hesitated. “Actually, I thought it might be my mom.”

  “You thought it was Mom?”

  “Not Kathy. My mom. I know it’s crazy,” she said immediately. “But I thought that . . . maybe she was showing me that I wasn’t alone in this. Stupid, right?”

  “No,” Lyndi said, soft. “Not stupid.”

  “I know it’s impossible. It’s probably some sarcastic mom-to-be, venting her frustrations to three Twitter followers from the middle of nowhere Kansas.”

  “I don’t think so.” Lyndi frowned. “The things she talks about? And the times they post? I think she’s on the West Coast. In the Pacific time zone, at least.”

  “How can you tell?” Nathalie leaned in, and was promptly schooled like a noob by her younger sister on the archiving aspects of Twitter—i.e. she showed her where to find the time and date stamp on the individual tweets.

  “How do you know all this?”

  “A hundred thousand Instagram followers, remember? I may not be on Twitter, but I have to know how to use it to do my job.”

  “You’re really good at it,” Nathalie said softly. “Aren’t you?”

  “I am,” Lyndi replied, but there was a hint of bleakness to her voice. “It’s the first thing I’ve ever been really good at.”

  “But . . .”

  “But. I just wish I had figured out how good I was at it a little earlier.” Then, Lyndi proceeded to tell Nathalie all about her work. About how she had ruthlessly organized and streamlined their orders. How she’d figured out how to optimize their website and online presence without ever taking a programming course. How she loved getting to be creative and build beautiful arrangements, like a chef built his menu from the fresh ingredients at the market.

  And she told Nathalie about Boston. And how she wasn’t going to be going there.

  “That’s outrageous!” Nathalie cried. “That’s workplace discrimination. You could sue!”

  “I don’t think so,” Lyndi replied. “If I went to Paula tomorrow and said I wanted the job in Boston, baby and all, I think—hell, I know—she’d give it to me. But come on. I can’t do that.”

  “Why can’t you?” Nathalie asked. But apparently it wasn’t a question Lyndi was prepared to answer. Instead, she stared at her fingers for a while, before finally looking back up.

  “I just feel like there’s a lot I’m not going to get to do now.”

  She told Nathalie about what she had been doing down at Echo Park Lake. How she always saw runners and sunbathers and pedal boats, and how those people all seemed so carefree.

  “And I’m not going to get to be carefree anymore.”

  Nathalie thought for a second before patting her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry but that’s bullshit.”

  Lyndi blinked at her.

  “I’m serious. If you looked at those runners, I’d bet you’d see that every third one is pushing a stroller. And those picnickers? Half of them have kids with them, I’m sure.” Nathalie shrugged. “So what if you won’t be able to be carefree and do stuff on a whim? You’ll still be able to do stuff. The only person stopping you from riding a pedal boat is you.”

  Lyndi seemed to take that in, as a knock on the door sounded the arrival of Dr. Keen, pushing the ultrasound machine.

  “Let’s see how she’s doing!” Dr. Keen declared, as she lubed up Lyndi’s belly, and rubbed the detector over her abdomen.

  “Hey, there’s my wiggly little eggplant,” Lyndi said.

  “And my wiggly little niece,” Nathalie added, all eyes on the white-and-gray blob on-screen, outlining the head, the spine, the perfectly beating heart of Lyndi’s baby.

  “Baby’s moving great,” the doctor said, moving the detector across Lyndi’s belly. “Heartbeat is strong, your fluid looks good. We want to keep you monitored for a little while longer, just in case, but I would say you and baby are A-OK.”

  “Thank God,” Nathalie said.

  “Thank God,” Lyndi whispered.

  “Thank God,” came the voice from the doorway.

  “Marcus.” Lyndi’s voice broke when she saw him. He looked like he was one big wrinkle. His usually neat clothes were a mess, his hair tufted and askew, like he’d been pulling on it out of stress. And his face was lined with worry beyond worry.

  “I got the message when I landed at LAX. I just jumped in the car . . . my bags are still at baggage claim, I think.”

  Nathalie glanced toward her sister, who held her breath, every ounce of her being entirely focused on Marcus. Slowly, Nathalie slid out of the hospital bed. Marcus filled the space she left, coming to stand by Lyndi’s bedside.

  “ . . . How was New York?” she asked.

  “Well.” He took a deep breath. “Looks like I’m going to be writing a book.”

  “Really?” Lyndi smiled warmly. “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head. “It’s not going to be a lot of money, I’ll still have to keep my job. But . . . I’m going to be an author. And I wouldn’t be doing this without you, Lynds.”

  As Lyndi began to sniffle, Nathalie started to get the impression she probably shouldn’t be here to witness this.

  “How . . . how was Frankie?” Lyndi finally said.

  “Frankie was . . . Frankie,” Marcus replied. “It was actually really good to see him.”

  “It was?”

  “Yes. Because seeing him in New York kind of illuminated just how amazing my life is right now. With you. The person I’m in love with.”

  Yeah, definitely shouldn’t be witnessing this, Nathalie thought as she tiptoed to the door.

  “Nat,” her sister called after her.

  She turned.

  “Thank you.”

  “Yes, thank you for being here,” Marcus said, the look in his eyes pretty much a full-bodied hug from across the room.

  “Anytime. Well, not any time, because I don’t want you running into a pole again. But . . . anytime.”

  “Love you,” Lyndi said.

  It was so damn good to have her sister back, Nathalie realized. This was what she had been missing most. How could she have ever let her selfishness get in the way of that?

  “Love you, too.”

  As the door eased shut behind her, Nathalie heard Marcus’s gentle whisper. “So . . . how are my girls?”

  Chapter 20

  “HOW MANY SCENES DO WE HAVE LEFT?”

  Sophia plopped herself down in her wheelie chair, and took a long, well-deserved swig of water. She’d been on her feet far too long already today, and it felt like they had just started. Usually she tried to make as much use of the chair as possible, especially considering the way her back hurt now that her stomach was tipping her forward at every given opportunity. It might have been seventeen years in between pregnancies, but the conventional wisdom was true—you did show sooner and bigger with the second child. Right now, at about twenty-six weeks, Sophia felt as heavy as she had when Maisey had been born.

  The wheelie chair had taken on the widening imprint of her butt—at once comforting and alarming.

  But she hadn’t been able to avail herself of that butt imprint yet today, because she’d been out in the sun,
turning thirty extras into frost giants for a medieval-set episode that was in no way a rip-off of Game of Thrones.

  “Four,” said Kip. “Mostly touch-ups though, no new makeup work. So at least we have that going for us.”

  “Don’t count chickens,” Sophia replied. “We still have to prep for tomorrow’s battle scene.”

  “Uhhhhnnnnnnggghhh . . .” Kip sighed dramatically, flinging himself over the back of his makeup chair. “I swear the writers are trying to kill us.”

  “Oh, like you’ve never staged a medieval time travel battle with magic demons before.” Sophia snorted.

  “I do take some solace in the fact that I’m sure the writers are also trying to kill themselves.”

  “Come on—it’s the season finale. These last couple episodes are always a doozy.”

  “Even without a diva to appease.”

  Sophia said nothing, but knew exactly what Kip was talking about. She had hoped that after awards season was over, and the slight of not being nominated for an Oscar had passed, Vanessa would return to being Vanessa. A little obsessive about how she presented herself, but ultimately a kind person with a job she loved and was good at.

  Sadly, she had been disappointed.

  Oh, Vanessa wasn’t off the deep end by any means. She’d even been nice to Sophia, happy to smile and make small talk . . . as she went to sit in Kip’s chair. For his part, Kip was mortified but a professional. Sophia told him to make sure he got a bump in salary along with his new duties as Vanessa’s key makeup artist.

  Her diva behavior wasn’t limited to the makeup trailer, though. She’d begun taking a deeper interest in the scripts. Asking for her character to have certain lines or scenes to play. Making a casting suggestion or two. Demanding a story line that had her fighting a horde of frost giants and ultimately sacrificing herself (until she was revived next season, natch) in an emotional blaze of glory.

  “I overheard Roger saying her latest changes put the finale over budget by a cool million.”

  “That will be forgiven just as soon as they get the ratings on the episode,” Sophia said.

  Yes, the producers might hate it, but the bitch of it was, the fans would love it.