by Kate Rorick
Who seriously knew his flowers.
“These kids aren’t going to know what hit them,” Nathalie said.
“I hope so,” Lyndi replied, satisfied that the staffer was making the crystals fall in the appropriate raindrop-like fashion. “Hey, thanks for convincing the prom committee to hire us. We needed a beta test of our new event services.”
“No thanks necessary—this is amazing.” Nathalie lightly touched one of the freesia blooms. They moved, arm in arm from the entryway into the main ballroom.
“I love the theme they chose—the Roaring Twenties. Check out the tables! One of our wholesalers had these art deco planters I couldn’t pass up and they work perfectly.”
“I’m sure they do. Why couldn’t you have thrown my baby shower?”
“I got my creative gene from somewhere, you know,” Lyndi said, turning to her. “If you called her, I know she’d pick up.”
Nathalie felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “She didn’t.”
Nathalie still hadn’t spoken to Kathy. After her conversation with her father, she didn’t know who was supposed to reach out first. She’d opened up her email at least once a day, and wrote an email that just said, “I’m sorry.”
She just never managed to press Send.
It had been a month. And while every other part of Nathalie’s life had markedly improved, there was still this shame, right in the center of it.
She will always be my mother.
But even if she did manage to connect, she was scared to death of what Kathy might say.
That Nathalie was ungrateful. (She was.)
That she was a brat. (Also true.)
That she never wanted to speak to Nathalie again?
“You’re right,” she said to Lyndi, desperate to change the subject. “I should try her tomorrow. Look, the first arrivals are coming in.”
“Awwww . . .” Lyndi turned into a puddle of mush at the sight of the starched and pressed eighteen-year-olds looking more mature and spit-shined than they ever had before. The girls striding forward with confidence, and the boys not quite fitting into their tuxedo shirts. “They’re so cute!”
“Yeah—David’s going to be sorry he missed this. He could have shown all these boys how to wear a suit.”
“What is David doing tonight?” Lyndi asked.
“He’s putting together the crib.” At long last, David was assembling the IKEA furniture for the nursery. Assisted by a six-pack of his favorite IPA, of course.
“Wow. It’s really happening soon, isn’t it?” Lyndi replied.
“Not for another four weeks,” Nathalie said quickly. “And you will be three weeks after that. Does Marcus have the crib up?”
“Actually, we’ve been figuring out some of that stuff . . .”
“Where the crib will go? I don’t wonder, in your tiny apartment, you’re going to have to feng shui the crap out of that place.”
“The crib. And the couch,” she added enigmatically. “And everything else.”
Nathalie’s brow came down, but before she could ask what Lyndi meant by “everything else,” there was a gasp from behind them.
“Oh wow—this is beautiful!” Sophia said, her eyes on the flowers, the gilt, the long strings of crystals glinting in the candlelight.
“Sophia!” Nathalie cried, coming over to embrace her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a chauffeur,” Sophia said, winking. “I just dropped Maisey and Foz out front.”
“Maisey’s taking Foz?” Nathalie’s eyes lit up with the delight of gossip.
“He’s a very nice young man,” Sophia replied, softening. “I know my daughter doesn’t have any plans to drink, but I still didn’t want them driving, with all the crazies on the road tonight. But I couldn’t not sneak in for a peek of the place! Lyndi, this is gorgeous.”
As Lyndi murmured her thanks, Nathalie saw out of the corner of her eye a veritable goddess enter, towing a familiar curly-haired young man in her wake.
“Holy moly—is that Maisey?”
“Yep,” Sophia replied, beaming. “A friend of mine in costumes hooked her up with the dress, and she let me do her makeup for once.”
“Foz looks like he got struck by lightning. He’s utterly gobsmacked.”
“As well he should be,” Sophia declared.
“I can’t disagree with that,” Nathalie said. “And as a chaperone, it is my duty to make sure that he remains respectfully awestruck.”
“So, what are our other duties as chaperones?” Lyndi asked. “Do we monitor the drama? Count the votes for prom king and queen?”
“Actually, from this side of things, prom can be pretty boring. You just make sure no one spikes the punch—”
“There’s a punch table?”
“Not since movies set in the 1950s. It’s metaphorical punch,” Nathalie explained, and the other two nodded in understanding. “You’re mostly here to make sure that everyone acts appropriately. But honestly, in my ten years of proms, I’ve never had to break up a fight. Never even had to comfort a crying girl in the bathroom. The most exciting thing I did once was find someone an emergency tampon.”
“Well, here’s to a boring prom,” Sophia said, watching her daughter lead Foz to the dance floor.
“Uh, I think this prom just got a little more exciting,” Lyndi said, looking down at the floor. Nathalie followed her gaze. She was looking at the skirt of Nathalie’s green dress. Strange, but there was a dark splotch on the front. It was warm, and wet. A long trickle ran down the inside of her leg, pooling in a puddle on the floor beneath her.
“Nathalie. I think your water just broke.”
Chapter 25
“THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN!”
Nathalie’s mind screamed her objections. Or perhaps she was screaming the words aloud—it was difficult to tell in the rushed aftermath of her bodily fluids leaking all over the banquet hall floor. After a stalled second—during which Nathalie ascertained that she really did break her water and hadn’t accidentally peed herself—Lyndi and Sophia jumped into action.
“Call an Uber!” Lyndi cried.
“They’ll take forever to get here,” Sophia said. “You should see the street outside, it’s like a parking lot with all the kids arriving. We’ll take my car.”
“I’ll go tell the principal we have to leave.”
“I’ll go bring the car around. Next stop, hospital!” Sophia said, as she trotted past an incoming group of glammed-up seniors.
Meanwhile, Nathalie stood staring at the puddle currently ruining her strappy sandals.
This was not the plan.
Because of course, Nathalie had a plan. It involved going into labor gently, at home. Making good use of all the aromatherapy candles and soothing mood music she had been researching. When her contractions were five minutes apart, she would calmly tell David it was time to drive her to the hospital, where Dr. Duque would be waiting with a room ready to deliver her daughter into the world.
It was, to be frank, the perfect plan.
And it was one that wasn’t meant to be implemented for another four weeks!
But instead, she was standing in the middle of a ballroom floor at a high school prom, with a bunch of high school seniors staring at her in shock and mild horror.
Yeah, not the plan.
Not having a hospital bag packed was not part of her plan.
Also not the plan? The low aches that began spreading rapidly, radiating from the back of her hips down her legs—like period cramps but so, so much worse—before she was loaded into the back of Sophia’s car.
“Is this a contraction? Is this what it feels like?” she remembered saying before another wave of aches overtook her.
Lyndi only gave a small unknowing shake of her head, but Sophia nodded as she sped through another turn.
“Granted, it’s been a while for me, but yeah, that sounds like a contraction.”
“Oh God, this is horrible! Why would anyone do this . . . I mean, it’s fine.
This is totally fine,” Nathalie managed to say, once she saw just how unblinkingly gray her little sister looked in that moment.
Sophia swerving through downtown traffic like a NASCAR driver was also not the plan—but at that moment, Nathalie was grateful for it.
However, getting to the hospital and discovering that Dr. Duque wasn’t coming in, because she was on vacation in Mexico for the weekend? DEFINITELY NOT THE PLAN.
“Hello!” chirped Dr. Keen. “How are we doing?”
“WE ARE IN LABOR,” Nathalie gritted out.
“Yes you are,” Dr. Keen replied, her smile not even falling a millimeter. “Let’s get you set up then!”
They processed Nathalie quickly. When the nurse timed her contractions, Dr. Keen shifted from chipper and unconcerned to chipper and “Let’s get you into a room. Now.”
Sophia and Lyndi trotted behind her as they wheeled Nathalie into a delivery room, and practically threw her into the bed.
“Go ahead and put on this robe, and then we’ll do an exam, see if we need to call anesthesia.”
“Fuck yes, we need to call anesthesia.”
“Yes, but if you’re too far along, we won’t have time, so . . . chop chop and get changed!”
“She’s too young,” Nathalie said, as soon as Dr. Keen was out the door. “It’s like she’s a kid with a play stethoscope.”
“Uh, she’s my doctor, and I trust her,” Lyndi replied, as she helped Nathalie out of her green dress.
“That’s because you are young. You think your generation knows everything.”
“Considering young Dr. Keen is going to deliver your baby, you better hope they do,” Sophia said, and Lyndi smirked.
“That’s not helping,” Nathalie gritted out. Another contraction gripped her, and she buckled on the bed. This baby . . . this baby could be here any moment! And it occurred to her that David wasn’t.
“Crap I forgot to call David!” Nathalie gasped, reaching for her phone.
“Relax, I called everyone,” Lyndi said.
“I’m not going to relax until he’s here!”
“Well, then you can relax now,” came a harried voice from the doorway.
David.
He was there. His hair was standing straight up. He was wearing what he affectionately called his “work pants”—a pair of jeans that had survived since college with paint splotches and holes in the knees. His eyes grazed over the other occupants of the room, and honed in on Nathalie. He rushed to her side, kissed her forehead, and took her hand.
“I thought we had four more weeks,” he said.
“So did I,” she replied weakly.
“I think that’s our cue,” Sophia whispered to Lyndi, and they shuffled toward the door.
“We’ll be in the waiting room . . .”
“No!” Nathalie cried, panic oddly rising in her chest. She didn’t know why, she just knew that she didn’t want her sister or Sophia to leave. That, as long as she was flanked by these wonderful women, she would be okay. “You guys should stay.”
“Really?” Sophia smiled.
“Really?” Lyndi looked a little green.
“Don’t worry, Lyndi,” she replied. “You can stay on the ‘waist-up’ side of the line.”
“Yeah, kid,” David said, smirking. “Think of it like a trial run.”
Lyndi shot her brother-in-law a look of mock disgust she had perfected at the age of twelve while he laughed at her. Then, Lyndi came over and took Nathalie’s other hand.
“Oh no you don’t try and stop me . . .” A voice moved down the corridor outside. “Now WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER???”
Nathalie turned to her sister in shock. “When you say you called everyone . . .”
“Yeah . . . everyone includes Mom,” Lyndi affirmed.
“How did she get here so fast?”
“She was at my apartment helping with some stuff,” Lyndi replied. “You’re going to have to talk to her eventually.” Then she called out, “We’re in here!”
A quick turn of kitten heels clacked along the linoleum, and suddenly, Kathy burst into the room, trailed meekly by Marcus.
“Kathy,” Nathalie said, her voice small. It was incredibly odd to be in a hospital bed about to give birth, but feeling like a little girl caught after breaking something precious. But Kathy just rushed to Nathalie’s side, wedging in next to Lyndi.
“Nathalie, honey,” she said softly. “You’re going to do just great. I know it. Everything you do, you do so well.”
She felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She opened her mouth to give what could only be a ham-fisted apology for her behavior, but Kathy spoke first.
“Now, your dad is on his way, but I don’t want him to miss a minute. I’m just going to video things until he gets here.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think—”
“Now, tell me, Nathalie,” Kathy said, pulling out her phone and holding it up, “how dilated is your cervix?”
Nathalie looked to Lyndi, who elbowed Marcus, for help.
“Hey, Kathy, let me see if I can make it so your video is high-quality resolution,” Marcus said, reaching for her phone.
“Oh thank you, Marcus. I want to make sure I get everything,” Kathy said, as Marcus discreetly turned off the camera.
“I should find the waiting room,” Marcus said as he handed the phone back to Kathy.
“No, you should stay,” Lyndi said to Marcus. “David said I should, as a trial run.”
“Not a bad idea,” Marcus replied, eyes on Nathalie.
Before Nathalie could reply, another voice came from the door.
“Mom!”
Odd, because no one should be calling her mom quite yet. Nathalie shot a look to her sister. But Lyndi just threw up her hands. “This one is not on me.”
“Maisey, what are you doing here?” Sophia said, rushing over to the door.
“Haley said someone’s water broke, and saw you rushing out of the ballroom, saying you were going to the hospital! Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” Sophia replied. “With me, at least.”
“Jeez you run fast, Maisey.” Foz Craley’s out-of-breath voice came from the doorway. “Is everything . . . oh. Uh, hey, Ms. Kneller.”
“Hi, Foz,” Nathalie replied. Because really, what else could she possibly say? “Enjoying prom?”
“Certainly memorable.” He nodded, edging his way into the room behind Maisey. “So it was your water that broke on the ballroom floor, I guess?” At her nod, he smirked. “I think you prevented several teenage pregnancies tonight.”
“Hey, there’s a silver lining.” Lyndi smiled at her.
“You’re having a baby, Ms. Kneller! This is so cool,” Maisey said, looking around the room. “I mean, weird, but cool.”
“As long as you’re here, you should come in,” Nathalie said.
“Really?”
“Why not—we already have six people, what’s two more?”
Foz looked at Maisey, as if issuing a dare. “I was considering going pre-med.”
And so, surrounded by her husband, her sister, her friend, her stepmom, her quasi brother-in-law, her student, and her student’s prom date, Nathalie gave birth to a baby girl.
It wasn’t as straightforward as it was in the telling, of course. For a time, there was nothing to do but labor and wait for what was to come.
The nurse came in and hooked up the various monitors and IVs she would need. Dr. Keen examined her and said she was at six centimeters . . . just under the wire to get her epidural, thank God.
The handsomest anesthesiologist in the world came in and inserted a line into her spine, making her go pleasantly numb from the waist down.
That was when she really managed to relax.
But it seemed like the medication had barely taken effect, before Dr. Keen was back in the room, doing an exam . . . declaring her at ten centimeters. And suddenly . . . everyone in the entire hospital was in her room.
Equipment dropped down from
the ceiling, lighting her vaginal cavity like a movie star during her big scene. Nurses and attending doctors crowded in, and crowded out Kathy and her nonfunctioning camera phone.
She was told to push.
She pushed.
She didn’t particularly care that a dozen people were currently looking up her well-lit vagina.
More pushing. Quite a bit more pushing. More people coming in. And then . . .
“Are you ready to meet your daughter?” Dr. Keen asked, from somewhere between Nathalie’s legs.
Nathalie nodded, clutching David’s hand. Then suddenly . . .
She was here.
A very surprised and goo-covered baby was held up by Dr. Keen, and placed on Nathalie’s chest.
And everything else faded away.
She peered up at Nathalie with squinty confusion. As if waiting to be introduced.
“Hi,” she managed to breathe. The baby had a shock of dark hair, standing up on its ends exactly like her father’s. She had ten fingers, ten toes. She was so very small, but somehow managed to be the entire world wrapped up in a six-pound package.
Nathalie barely noticed as the room began to cheer, to cry. Kathy clutching Lyndi’s hand. Lyndi clutching Marcus’s. Sophia had her arm wrapped around a tired Maisey, while Foz typed busily on his phone.
“You don’t mind that I livestreamed this, right, Ms. Kneller?”
She shrugged Foz’s query off. Literally nothing else mattered. The banal faded into the background. They took the baby to the baby station on the side of the room to do some basic tests—weight, length—after asking David if he wanted to cut the cord. Dr. Keen and the nurses finished the delivery (she was asked if she wanted to keep her placenta. She said no.) and cleaned Nathalie up, and then the baby was back in her arms again.
Everyone gathered around, wanting a look.
“She’s so tiny!”
“Good job, sis.”
“Oh dear, she definitely has your father’s ears.”
“Is anyone hungry?” This last from Marcus.
Nathalie practically got whiplash nodding at Marcus. She had just pushed a baby out of her body, that had to be a couple thousand calories burned, at least. She was starving.
“Is there a cafeteria?” David asked.