I undressed my top half and shrugged on the belly like a backpack in reverse. My sweater barely fit when I tugged it back on, and I hoped it wouldn’t stretch the knit fabric beyond recognition. One wall held a bank of floor-length mirrors. I took in my profile and gasped.
I’d seen pregnancy stretch and mold Carly’s body four times. Each child affected her differently—Maura preferred to sit just under her rib cage, Patrick hung low, Kevin held himself back and widened Carly’s ass like a long-distance truck driver, and Josie, the heaviest baby at almost ten pounds, was the only one to give her stretch marks, like a tiger had attempted to claw off her belly button. I suspected Carly was secretly proud of the way her body announced her impending motherhood to the world, and looking at myself, false belly jutting out like I’d swallowed a basketball, I felt an odd sense of pride, of presentation. Here it is—look what’s happening! Here is an everyday miracle, right under your nose! I suddenly understood why Sophia would consider naming her child Faith. Looking at that belly every day was an exercise in it.
I snapped a quick photo of myself in the mirror. Maybe it would be the only time I’d see myself like that. Then again, maybe it was a portent of things to come. Flush with an unfamiliar kind of excitement, I rejoined the party.
“Ladies, grab your jars!” Sophia screeched. “Men, choose your spoons!”
The women dashed for the table holding jars of baby food, elbowing each other to snag the smashed peas or beef stew. Carly, who had reemerged, chose neon-orange pureed carrots, dipping her finger daintily into the soupy mess and tasting it.
She hadn’t approached me since returning to the party, making a beeline for Sophia Carver-Wittelstein and pulling her to the cavern between the bar and stone fireplace for an intensely private conversation. Jealousy spiked quick and hot. Why couldn’t she discuss Maura’s latest drama with me? Was I really that useless when it came to understanding kids?
Feeling suddenly low, I drifted over to where the men stood. One large-bellied man shoved a spoon in my hand, a long-handled number with a large, shallow tip.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
He gave me an odd look. “You ever play that game where you balance the egg on a spoon and walk across the room? This is the same thing, but you use your biceps to balance the open jar of baby food on your belly until you get to the fireplace, where you’ll try to keep it in place while your—er—wife feeds you. First one to polish it off wins.”
“Are you serious?”
“We’re all serious. Have you ever seen these women play? They’re brutally competitive.”
I glanced at the expensive Persian rug covering most of the floor, and the blood sank from my face. “It’s impossible to keep it balanced for that long.”
“Why are you complaining? You’ve got an unfair advantage,” he said, gesturing to my boobs.
Okay, asshole, game on. “Where do we line up?”
The men ordered themselves vaguely by height, each woman wedging the open jars of baby food between the fake belly and her man’s chest and upper arms. Carly nestled the jar into my cleavage. “Get it in there,” she said, tugging hard on the underwire in my bra.
“How am I supposed to keep it upright?”
“Try not breathing for a while,” Carly said acidly, and again I wondered what Maura had done. She snatched the spoon from my hand and strode over to where the other women waited, their willowy bodies drifting forward in anticipation.
Two Hispanic women brought out a roll of plastic sheeting and unspooled it over the carpet, while Sophia Carver-Wittelstein took her place in front of the massive stone fireplace, holding a scarf. “On my word,” she said, and then, “Go!” the scarf wafting through the air.
The men and I scuttled slowly across the floor like drunken crabs, bent awkwardly, knees creaking. I pushed my arms together, and the jar stayed firmly lodged between my boobs and belly, my eyes focused on the pink banner waving above Carly’s head. I outmaneuvered, I dodged, I jostled. The second my toe hit the finish line, Carly lifted the spoon and began shoveling pureed carrots into my mouth. It dripped down the corners, plopping onto my nice sweater. “Thhhtop,” I said, trying to get her to slow down, but her eyes gleamed.
“Suck it up, buttercup. We’re winning.” The jar shifted, and I hunched over, desperate to keep it upright. The baby food tasted disgusting—slightly metallic and sour—and I fought a dry heave. “Don’t even think it,” Carly murmured, spooning more into my mouth. A cold glob fell onto my chest, and I tried to ignore my desperate need to wipe it away. She shoved the spoon in again. And again.
And then I did the worst thing I could have possibly done.
I sneezed.
The average sneeze can move at up to one hundred miles an hour and has a radius of ten feet. Unlike most other areas of my life, I was apparently above average in this arena. Droplets of bright orange goo splattered the creamy silk blouse of Sophia Carver-Wittelstein, the smooth ivory stone fireplace, and the shocked faces of the well-groomed women standing frozen before their husbands, spoons aloft.
Carly grabbed the baby-food jar from the floor where it had fallen. “It’s empty!” she crowed. “We win.”
“Disqualified,” Sophia Carver-Wittelstein said as she used a cloth napkin to dab frantically at her face. “She didn’t eat all of it.”
The other women nodded in agreement.
“Sneezing is an act of God,” Carly argued. “That jar was empty. The food was in her mouth. No one said she had to swallow it.”
Sophia began her counterattack, the other women jumping in until the Carver-Wittelsteins’ living room vibrated with the sound of increasingly raised female voices. Then silence fell, suddenly, as if someone had kicked the party’s cord out of its socket.
“Did I miss the good part?” Dr. Bridget stood in the doorway, naturally blonde hair resplendent in a sea of fakery. It was as if one of the big stones had been pushed to the side, and she appeared, golden and angelic, the patron saint of epidurals.
“She’s here,” Sophia Carver-Wittelstein said in a fierce whisper. The women parted, clearing a path for Dr. Bridge, which she took, straight to the bar.
The whispers and murmuring reached a fever pitch, a room full of buzzing bees.
Dr. Bridge swirled her red wine in its glass and took a healthy sip. “I’m not on call this weekend,” she said, grinning. “Dr. Warner is.”
Sophia Carver-Wittelstein shared a meaningful glance with another of the pregnant ladies. Dr. Warner worked this side of town, but he was a he, and a former college basketball star. I’d gone to him once or twice before switching over to Dr. Bridge, and he was nice enough, but a terrible conversationalist. And he had big hands. Not Paul Pietrowski big, but large enough that they should have been a serious consideration in his career choice.
“Wonderful,” Sophia Carver-Wittelstein said, smiling tightly. “Then you can relax.”
“So can you, Sophie,” Dr. Bridge said. “That baby’s not ready to come.” Dr. Bridge took another swig of wine and caught my eye. Her eyebrow lifted at the sight of my bulging belly and carrot-covered boobs. “Did I miss all the fun already?”
“Next game!” Sophia trilled.
The caterers brought out a huge metal tub full of water and carried it outside onto a stone balcony. The cold October air whooshed in when they opened the glass doors, and I shivered. “What now?” I asked Carly.
“This one is so fun,” she said, her eyes shining wickedly. “You’ll love it.”
I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to love it at all. The men and I assembled on the balcony. Sophia stepped out as well, though someone had thought to cover her in a cashmere wrap. She dropped an armful of rubbery things into the water. “Nipple bobbing! He who can grab the most nipples in a minute wins,” she shouted triumphantly, and the men roared. “And no teeth!” she added with an exaggerated wink.
“Well, that’s no fun,” said the man next to me. His baby belly had shifted to his side, ma
king him look like he suffered from a very large kidney tumor. Dried pureed peas stuck to his neatly trimmed beard.
I stayed back, last in line, before realizing my mistake—by the time I reached the front, ten men would have slobbered and snotted into the water, making my dip a germy, disgusting dunk into a human cesspool.
“I’m not doing this,” I said to Carly.
“You so totally are. You will bring shame on the House of Brophy if you don’t. And you’d never want to do that, would you?”
I wanted to say that I technically was not a member of the House of Brophy, but then . . . I wanted to be. To belong. What was a little inhaled dirty water compared to that? I could capture nipples with my teeth. I could do what was necessary.
“Suck and spit,” Carly murmured. “One at a time, and use your teeth if you have to. Be methodical, not frantic,” she added as we watched a guy sputter and bob. Water soaked the front of his dress shirt, his hair, and the tops of his ironically paint-splattered canvas sneakers. Sophia Carver-Wittelstein called time, and he regarded his small pile of bitten nipples with disappointment.
Carly shoved me forward. “You’re up.”
Salmon-colored nipples floated atop the murky water. Sophia Carver-Wittelstein smiled cruelly. “Go!” she screeched, and Carly roughly dunked my head.
The water was lukewarm, not bracingly cold as I’d expected, and for some reason that was worse. The rubbery edge of one nipple touched my mouth, and fighting nausea, I grabbed at it with my teeth, coming up to spit it onto the table. “Again!” Carly shouted and pushed at the back of my head, hard. The momentum sent my forehead into the bottom of the tin basin, and I jolted forward, catching myself with my hands, but it was too late. The basin tipped, water sluicing down my front, drenching me from head to toe.
“Disqualified!” Sophia Carver-Wittelstein trilled.
Someone handed me a towel. “I’m done,” I muttered to Carly as I followed her back inside.
“Oh, no, you don’t. One more,” she said. “You’ve done great so far. This next game should be easy for you, especially if motherhood is in your future.”
I wondered if I could handle one more. Everything was sticking to me, my sweater, my hair; even the water had somehow gotten under the fake baby bump and made my skin itch. My eyes felt swollen and tired, and the muscles in the back of my neck bunched up like an accordion, but when I glanced up, Dr. Bridge was giving me the thumbs-up. “You can do it,” she mouthed.
We lined up again, wounded warriors, covered in filth, disfigured by battle. The table had been cleared of baby food, and in its place lay two baby dolls, each one balancing atop a pile of diapers. The game was a simple relay race, Sophia Carver-Wittelstein explained. We were to divide up into teams, then dash for the table when she blew her whistle, change the baby, rush back to our line, and hand it off so the next person could repeat the process.
One problem—no one wanted me on his team. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Carly said, and she nudged me toward the front of one line. “She’ll go first,” she told the pea puree–encrusted hipster dude, and he backed up to make room for me.
I’d just gotten into place when the whistle blew. I half stumbled to the table, catching the baby just before it tumbled to the floor, and ripped its diaper off. I grabbed a diaper from atop the pile. Piece of cake, I thought. I’ve done this a thousand times. Maybe I couldn’t balance baby food on my fake pregnant stomach or catch floating nipples with my teeth, but by God I could change a diaper under pressure. Plus, there was no A+D to remember, and this baby wouldn’t be squirming and screaming bloody murder. I could do this.
I tugged the diaper around the baby doll’s tush and peeled the adhesive strips from the flaps, pressing them onto the plastic. When I lifted the doll, the diaper fell right off. The plastic strips had failed to adhere. Growling, I snatched another diaper from the pile. Same problem. I tried another, pressing the strips with my fingers until they ached.
“Come on!” my teammates cried. “We’re losing!”
“Who doesn’t know how to change a freaking diaper?” someone called.
“Single,” said another. “No kids.”
I grabbed another diaper, this time running my hand over the strips. They felt slick. “Something’s wrong,” I croaked, indignation clogging my throat.
“Yeah,” said a male voice. “We lost.”
The other team cheered. I felt a hand on my shoulder and got turned around so dizzyingly quick that it took me a moment to realize I was looking at my sister, her face waxen and bloodless. When she spoke, her voice was low, but it cut into my daze. “Karma sure is a bitch, isn’t she?”
“What?” I said, my whole body shivering. “What are you talking about?”
“Kara Svenson says hello, Mrs. Brophy.”
I thought I might throw up right where I stood, all over Sophia Carver-Wittelstein’s pristine stone fireplace, but expensive wine apparently liked to stay put. “I’m sorry,” I managed.
“Are you? So is Kara Svenson, immigration-lawyer extraordinaire, who was so happy to meet me last week and so sorry she didn’t have better news and is so looking forward to meeting me at the fucking deportation hearing!”
Heads swiveled in our direction. “Let me explain,” I pleaded, lowering my voice to a whisper. “He asked me not to tell you until things were certain.”
“And you listened?” she hissed. “How could you? How could you even carry on a normal conversation with me, knowing something like that?”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, hoping if I kept repeating the words they might start to mean something. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I think you need to leave,” Carly said. “I can’t look at you. If I do, I’ll have to deal with all this and I don’t want to right now. I want to drink a few glasses of wine and eat a gourmet lunch and feel like my life is not falling apart.”
“But—”
“No. Stop talking.” She ran a trembling hand over her pale face. “Go. I’ll make an excuse to Sophia,” she said, and left me standing, wet as a used dishrag, in front of the gaping hole of a fireplace. I closed my eyes, wishing it would swallow me whole.
“Do you want to get out of here?” A voice. Female.
“Yes,” I said, not caring who it was. I opened my eyes. Dr. Bridge stared back at me, holding my purse in her outstretched hand.
“Then let’s blow this place.”
CHAPTER 20
“There’s one problem,” Dr. Bridge said as we dashed down the slate staircase leading to the driveway. “Tim dropped me off because I planned on drinking their very expensive wine. I haven’t got a car.”
“Can you ride on the back of my bike?”
“Haven’t done that since the seventh grade,” she said, but she looked excited, not wary. “I know a place that makes great margaritas. It’s not too far, and they use real lime juice. Worth the ride.”
“Shout the directions loud enough so I can hear them.”
We rode for a while, Dr. Bridge laughing and holding on to my shoulders for dear life, crossing from Willow Ridge into neighboring Ranger Park, a more urban-type suburb despite its name.
Casa Mamacita was a traditional-style Mexican restaurant occupying the corner of a busy intersection. We locked up my bike and went straight for the bar. “Dos margaritas, por favor,” Dr. Bridge said. The bartender shot me an uneasy glance. Or rather, my stomach. I’d forgotten to remove the fake baby belly.
I was tempted to leave it on to freak him out, but instead, I asked for directions to the bathroom. I flicked the light on and nearly screamed at the horrific woman looking at me in the mirror. My hair had blown wild on the ride over, sticking straight off my head. My teal sweater had dried oddly, bunching up in places and marred by patches of crusted baby food in others. My eye makeup had turned from elegant to raccoon.
I looked disturbed. I felt disturbed.
My phone showed zero messages. I typed one to Carly: I really am sorry. Can we talk for just a
minute?
I’d just finished peeing when a response came through: I need to think about you before I talk to you. And right now, I think I never want to talk to you again. Stay away.
Baby belly folded over my arm, I sidled up to the bar. The bartender’s eyes rounded. “Not pregnant!” I shouted. “Bring on the margaritas.” I looped the fake belly onto the stool next to me and plopped down next to Dr. Bridge. Strangely, I missed the extra weight in front, the pressure against my skin. I felt colder and shivered. My drink appeared, and I took a swig.
“I usually like those parties,” Dr. Bridge said after gulping down half her margarita. “But that was a little intense. Carly offered you up like a lamb to slaughter. What’s going on between you two?”
I told her about Donal and his possible deportation, and the secret I’d been asked to keep. Telling it to someone else brought a fresh wave of shame. “I betrayed her.”
“More Donal’s fault than yours,” Dr. Bridge insisted, signaling to the bartender for another round. “You were in a tough spot.”
“Try explaining that to Carly. I broke the sister code.”
“Sounds like you were just trying to do the right thing.”
“I can’t seem to do anything right lately,” I said, polishing off my drink to stay in line with Dr. Bridge’s pace. I wanted to get tipsy before I turned morose. “I’m starting to think maybe there’s something wrong with my instincts.”
“Why do you say that?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s because it seems like there are all these little changes going on in my life, and I don’t know if I’m the one who caused them, or if I’m just reacting to things. I also don’t know if that matters or not. It should matter, right?”
The bartender arrived with not only our margaritas but also tequila sidecars, salsa, and a basket of chips.
All the Good Parts Page 16