by Julia Kent
Josie’s heart pounded in her chest, but her mind came back, the shattered pieces assembling into a loose facsimile of what she’d been seconds ago. Nodding, she kept her head down and pretended to eat a sliver of something from her plate, the texture like Styrofoam peanuts.
She pondered the way Laura’s hand grasped the fork as she ate her food with such joy and enjoyment, how Madge raced to and fro, not in a frantic way, but with purpose, with ruthless efficiency and with a drive that Josie admired. She wasn’t generally the type to get sappy or reflective like this. It came as a surprise, like so many other things these past few months. Staring at Laura, she felt her heart grow and a tiny part of her wanted to shave off just a little of what Laura had with Mike and Dylan, to hold it inside her chest, to turn to it when she was lonely or desperate.
The relationship that those three shared was something that Josie studied carefully. Everything from the nuanced looks between Dylan and Mike to Laura’s plaintive gasps as she described how the three had worked these past few months to fit together as one. Laughter filled most of their conversations. It was awkward for Laura to be the new one in a three-way relationship, but as time passed, she had navigated it with increasing grace and ever-lessening insecurity. Josie felt her preconceptions, about everything from what daily life must be like to whether Dylan really was as much of an ass as she had initially thought, melt away as Laura’s groundedness grew.
It turned out Dylan wasn’t an ass at all.
Being wrong was not part of Josie’s repertoire. Even that, though, was fading as she realized how much of the world she thought of in black and white terms. She was right, they were wrong. She was smart, they were idiots. She was emotionally evolved, they were assholes. You couldn’t see the world as black and white so easily in a long-term threesome relationship, could you? She opened her mouth to ask Laura that question, pretty much knowing the answer. Black and white means that there are only two options—so when there’s a third, that you absolutely have to include and respect, then how does that relationship math work?
“Where was I?” Laura asked. “Oh. Right. So the guys are on autopilot all the time. They’ve been together for ten years, and so this is all old hat to them. There’s no room for my ideas. For me to imprint on the way everything flows.”
As if knowing that Josie were about to ask her a question, Laura locked eyes with her. Before Josie could even open her mouth to speak, Laura’s eyes got wider than Josie had ever seen them, as if her eyeballs were about to pop out. The clanking of the fork against Laura’s plate was all Josie could hear as she watched her friend’s pale, creamy hand reach down below the table and grasp her abdomen, her head pitched down and an audible, long inhale coming through her nose.
“Braxton Hicks?” Madge muttered, eyebrow cocked up as she walked by.
Josie was starting to be on Madge’s side, silently counting to herself as Laura started to breathe again on the exhale, in and out, for what Josie counted to be thirty-seven seconds. The nurse in her shifted to a different kind of math, not relationship math but labor math. How long were the contractions? How many minutes apart were they? How intense were they?
Laura’s hands reached up for her face and smoothed her blonde waves away. Calm eyes peered back at Josie, though Laura’s face was considerably flushed. “It’s okay,” she said—long inhale, long exhale. “Just a crazy Braxton Hicks contraction.”
“Okay,” Josie said simply. Who was she to argue with a pregnant woman? Nature would win. No need to poke the ripe lady.
Laura reached for the fork and started to stuff a piece of cake in her mouth, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, she looked at Josie and said, “So, I have a business proposition for you.”
Whoa. Big topic shift. As her shoulders relaxed, Josie realized how relieved she was to change the conversation. More talk about the cozy world the threesome created threatened Josie’s tenuous stability right now.
“No. I won’t host a Mary Kay party for you,” Josie joked.
“No, not that. But, hey! You know, my mom did really well with them.”
“Yeah, I know. The pink Cadillac kind of tipped everybody off.”
Laura’s face went from an amused, flushed look to one of nostalgic sadness. Josie had only met Laura’s mom once, before she’d passed away a few years ago, a freak asthma attack that turned deadly. Obviously, she would never meet the baby—and Laura’s dad had taken off years ago. They’d bonded over being fatherless when they had met in college. It was a club no one wanted to be in.
It wasn’t a surprise to Josie that Laura, feeling alone in the world, had been so happy to find a whole instant family in Mike and Dylan.
“Laura, you realize ‘a business proposition’ makes it sound like you want to rope me into some MLM scheme.”
“MFM, actually.” Laura coughed.
“Wha?”
Laura put her fork down, leaning in, an intense stare practically pinning Josie in place. “I think, financially, we’re a little beyond that. MLM, I mean.”
“Well,” Josie answered. “Mike and Dylan are. You…”
Insecurity poured out of Laura in waves stronger than any contraction. “You know, just because the guys told me to quit my job and just take care of the baby and that they would support me, doesn’t mean—”
Josie held a palm up. She could see that Laura was on the verge of tears over this and had really struggled already, pride almost overriding their offer. “Laura—Laura, I’m just joking,” she assured her. “I know the drill, and if I were in your shoes I’d have quit in a heartbeat too. Trust me, anything to get out of the daily grind.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Josie said. “Do you have any idea what it’s like working on a research trial for Alzheimer’s? Talking to old people every day”—she corrected herself—“that’s fine. The problem is that I’m dealing with people who are deteriorating. So every time I see them for a new appointment, most of them, first of all, don’t remember me, and, second of all, they’re worsening. It’s pretty depressing to work a job where all of the people I see and serve are getting worse.”
Laura furrowed her brow. “You went into geriatric nursing, Josie,” she said slowly, as if talking to a child. “Didn’t you expect that to be the case?”
Leave it to Laura to state the obvious. “Sure,” Josie protested. “But Alzheimer’s is a different animal. It’s one thing to work with some ninety-year-old woman who forgets things once in a while but is otherwise sharp and has a body that’s failing her. You try seeing a sixty-two-year-old or a seventy-three-year-old with kids and grandkids, who points to his wife of thirty or forty years and says, ‘Can you tip the cab driver?’”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Day in and day out. Not nearly as hard, though, as having Dylan bring you coffee in bed and Mike not attune to your shower desires.” Meow. Where did that come from?
A patient, controlled look clouded Laura’s features. She took two deep breaths and smiled sweetly. “You really want me to start talking about the shower desires Mike does meet? Because I have some stories that—”
“Stop!” Josie shrieked, fingers in ears. “I deserved that. Just stop,” she begged.
“Go into another kind of nursing.” Laura tapped her belly. “Labor and delivery.”
Josie had an answer for that, but before she could open her mouth and spit it out, Laura leaned over again, grabbing her belly and doing the deep inhale. By Josie’s guess, that was about seven minutes. Slowly, Laura worked her way through the contraction—about the same amount of time as before, thirty-eight seconds. In her phone, Josie had programmed Mike’s number, Dylan’s number, the labor and delivery numbers for all the hospitals in the area, and even a handful of personal cell phone numbers for the OBs she knew in at least a casual way.
Without violating any confidentiality, Josie had called the doctors about a month before, explaining the basics of Laura’s situation. Depending on which professional she t
alked to, the polyhydramnios made the delivery moderate or high risk, but Laura was determined to have a natural birth.
Now was probably a really terrible time to explain to Laura that she would make a horrible labor and delivery nurse. During her rotation of clinicals as a nursing student she’d actually dropped a baby once—fortunately, only three or four inches before catching it again. And the experience had chilled her so deeply that she had no desire whatsoever to do it professionally. Be there with her friend through the whole thing, from start to finish, just as another body in the room there to support the mom? No problem. Have an actual professional role with responsibilities? No way.
Laura took a deep breath, drank about half of a glass of water, and gave Josie a giant smile. “Oh, well, maybe I’m just a little dehydrated.”
Or maybe you’re just about to have a baby, Josie thought, but smiled back with the same fake look. “Okay,” she said.
She was saying that a lot lately. It was about all she could say because what she really wanted to say was, “Jesus fucking Christ, Laura, get in the goddamn car and let me take you to the hospital right now.” But she wouldn’t. She would be Nice Josie and keep her mouth shut.
“So, this business proposition,” Laura said. “As you know, Mike and Dylan are filthy stinking rich.”
“I kind of noticed, and most of Boston knows that too, now that there was the news report.”
“Yeah.” Laura just shook her head. “Hell of a way for me to find out, right?”
Josie softened. It was hard to realize it had only been a couple of months ago. “Right.” When Laura had met Dylan and Mike they'd kept the fact that each had inherited more than a billion dollars from their late lover, Jill, from Laura. She'd found out from a local newscast. Not the most romantic way to begin a relationship. Shortly after, she'd discovered she was pregnant. The reunion had been rocky. So far, so good, though, and the three had carved out a most unusual, though thriving, relationship.
Something about Laura's demeanor put Josie on alert. It was the silences, the pauses, that were getting to her, not the actual words in between. The crafty part of her brain started to feel suspicious. She’d had a feeling that this conversation was coming, but she hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
“Mike and Dylan have given me…some…”—Laura stumbled over her words—“leeway in spending some money.”
“You mean they give you an allowance,” Josie said bluntly.
Laura pursed her lips. “Yeah.” As if in retribution, she leaned over and speared the last fried green tomato and shoved it indelicately in her mouth.
“Why fight it?” Josie said, waving her arms in an expansive gesture. “You’re with two billionaires. They make more money every year off the interest of that trust than most baseball players or football stars. Just go with it, Laura.”
About seventeen different emotions flashed across Laura’s face. Fortunately, for now, none of them was pain. A furtive glance showed Laura’s belly higher and tighter. That was good. As long as it didn’t suddenly drop lower, this was still fine. Avoiding a mad run for towels and shoelaces to boil in the back here at Jeddy’s was her short-term goal. Although, if the baby was born here maybe they could name her Jeddy.
Josie stifled a giggle and tried to look serious as Laura was saying something to her.
“And so I figure all you’d need is an office, very little advertising money, and maybe an assistant, a computer system with software—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Josie shook her head as if in a fog. “What are you talking about?”
Madge interrupted them. “Anything else?” She tore the bill off a pad, which Josie found puzzling. They used a computerized system for everything, and yet Madge still wrote out all the bills by hand. Slapping the paper down on the Formica, she said, “You need something, you flag me down.” She started to run away, stopped herself, turned around like a robot, and marched back. Squatting down slightly, Madge put a hand on Laura’s shoulder and caught her eyes. “It’s going to be okay, hon. You’re going to do a great job.”
Laura’s eyebrows raised high, and her bright green eyes watered, seeming to thank Madge without words. Josie felt tears fill her own eyes, the compassionate gesture catching everyone off guard. Satisfied that her words had helped, Madge’s impossibly clay-like face cracked into a semblance of a grin.
She stood up and said, “Besides, everybody forgets the pain of shitting out a ten-pound turkey.”
“Bring me a hot fudge sundae. NOW!” Laura gasped.
Madge cackled as she typed the order into her little device and ran to the kitchen.
Josie just rolled her eyes. “What is up with that woman?”
Laura waved her hand. “Eh, forget about it. I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t want to talk about shitting an eight-pound football.” Laura frowned. “Does it really feel that way?”
Josie pointed to herself. “How the hell would I know? I’ve never had a baby.”
“I still think it’s barbaric,” Laura said through gritted teeth. Oh boy, here we go, Josie thought. For the past month Laura had ranted about how barbaric birth was, and how unfair it was that biology had designed women's bodies this way. Why couldn’t there be a better way? And on and on and on. Even Mike—calm, peaceful, mellow Mike—was getting tired of the rant. It was born (pun intended) of fear. They all knew that. None of them had ever given birth, and two out of the three of them weren’t even capable of it.
Josie could just watch and observe and cringe on the inside as she imagined what Laura was about to go through. She knew all the arguments that the suffering was worth the baby, but the pain, the loss of control, and the sheer horror of just imagining the pain, had consumed Laura recently. The three of them might be there to support her, but they really couldn’t offer anything but a few clucks of sympathy and what they hoped were helpful factoids.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Laura said, shaking her head, her voice clipped and no-nonsense. “I want to talk about this business idea.”
“You want me to go in on a business with you?”
Laura snorted. “I don’t exactly need capital funding for a business project, Josie.” Madge delivered the ice cream sundae and Laura absentmindedly took a bite. “I want you to run the business,” Laura said, her voice low and serious suddenly.
“What business?” Josie asked.
Laura cocked her head and took a deep inhale, her upper body lifting higher as the rest of her stayed in place, like she was two parts of one being. “The business I was just describing.” She tried to lean forward and whispered, “I can’t be any more discreet because I can’t reach forward more.”
“Why do you have to be discreet?” Josie hissed back.
“Because the idea is for a dating company that…you know…” Laura motioned as if it were a secret or something to hide.
Josie mimicked Laura. “You know what?”
“A threesome dating service,” Laura whispered.
“What?” Josie screeched. She reached across the table and grabbed Laura’s sundae. “Gimme that. I need it more than you do right now.” Plunging the spoon in, she shoved a big gob of vanilla ice cream covered in hot fudge and salted caramel sauce into her shocked mouth. She enjoyed the rich, yummy goodness long enough to let Laura’s words sink in. Through a muffled mouth she said, “Are you out of your mind? You want me to run a business like that?”
And just then Laura bent her head down and took a deep inhale, and Josie knew exactly what the rest of her day was going to be like.
This one, by Josie’s calculations, was five minutes from the last one and forty-five seconds long. She knew that if she suggested to Laura that they go the hospital right now Laura would freeze, get angry, and rip her tongue out. Not necessarily in that order. It was time to be covert and to betray her best friend.
Josie stood and nodded toward the bathroom. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Laura smiled, a shaky grin that Josie hoped w
as a sign that somewhere on the inside she was facing reality and realizing that this baby was coming. Maybe not right now, but soon.
The bathroom was exactly the same as it had been the last time she’d been here, and probably the way it’d been ten years ago. No doors, shower curtains the only sense of privacy. No big deal to her because she didn’t need to use the toilet. She needed to use her smartphone. Dialing Mike, she hoped she’d get through to him because he’d be much easier than Dylan.
Luck was on her side.
“Hello?” his deep baritone answered.
“Hey, Mike, it’s Josie.”
“Oooooh,” he said, the word long and slow. “This isn’t a call to invite us over for dinner now, is it?” he said, a spark of merriment in his voice.
Of the threesome, Mike had taken Laura’s pregnancy most in stride, viewing it as an opportunity to work on patience, love, calmness, and some sort of awareness thing that he was always going on about. He and Dylan had gone with Laura to an eight-week birthing course that focused on hypnosis. Mike had been a thousand percent into it, while Dylan cracked jokes the entire time, asking the instructor where exactly in the parking lot Laura could sign up for the epidural. Dylan would have done his best unintentional Hammy-the-squirrel-on-crack imitation the second she uttered the words “Laura” and “labor.’
“No, I’m not calling to ask you if you want to watch the next game or come over for a Super Bowl party.” She could feel the smile in her voice coming through as if it matched his, met it in the middle, and danced with it. “I think it’s time. I can’t be sure, but the contractions are coming about five…six minutes apart and probably—well, the last one lasted forty-five seconds.”
He gasped. “That close?”
“Yep. She’s claiming they’re Braxton Hicks contractions and is guzzling water as if it were going out of style. But…I-I mean, I’ve never had a baby.” Josie stumbled over her words, trying to explain her feelings about this. She could be wrong, and this could be yet another example of false labor, but something about the way Laura was handling these was different. She tried to explain as succinctly as possible. “Bottom line: you and your hyperactive Speedy Gonzalez partner will be ready for me to call you to meet me and Laura at the hospital sometime today.”