The Friendship Pact

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “My mother was divorcing a judge who was set on destroying her....”

  “You were afraid you wouldn’t get in. And afraid that if you did, you’d fail....”

  True.

  “But I could see that. I knew how badly you really wanted to go. I knew what you really wanted and nagged you to fill out those forms.”

  True again. “We filled out the forms together,” Bailey reminded her.

  “Jake’s not dating anyone....”

  Bailey’s heart leapt. She’d come so close to letting that man talk her into something she knew she’d regret.

  She’d almost let him talk her into running away and getting married.

  For a whole weekend, she’d considered the idea. Had let herself imagine what it would be like to be married to Jake and have it work out the way it had for Kora and Danny.

  But then that Sunday night, facing work the next day, she’d complained about a partner at work and Jake had told her she could quit her job if she wanted to. He’d promised to support her if she wanted to open her own firm. And she’d heard the judge again, so clearly it hurt, as her mind replayed a conversation she’d overheard between him and her mom the night before they got married. He’d told her mom basically the same thing. Only for Mom it had been about going to law school. But when it came right down to it, he’d so lovingly and persuasively suggested that her mother didn’t need to waste time going back to school. He was perfectly capable of supporting them and she might not like the course as much as she expected or be as good at it as she wanted to be and...slowly, day by day, the relationship made in heaven had fallen apart.

  Kora and Danny might make it forever. But if they did, they were the exception. Just like Papa Bill and Mama Di had been for their generation. In her experience, most couples who stayed together didn’t do it out of happiness or love. They did it because it was easier. Or for financial security. And their homes were filled with boredom. Or silence. So were their lives.

  Unless they were unfaithful to each other and found a different life, a new life, outside the home.

  She didn’t want it. Couldn’t take that chance. “Jake was asking about you.” Kora’s voice fell into the silence. “I’m sure I could...”

  “No, Kor.” She was absolutely positive. She wasn’t going to make that mistake. No matter how much Kora wanted her to have her happily ever after.

  She wasn’t an easy person. She got snippy. And had a tendency to be standoffish. She wasn’t good at trusting and no relationship survived without it....

  “Okay.” Kora’s fingers running gently through her hair felt good. Safe. “You don’t want Jake, that’s fine. I totally respect that....”

  And because she knew that Kora honestly and sincerely wanted what was best for her, as she did for Kora, because she knew, deep down, that they’d really truly die for each other, Bailey said, “It’s not that I don’t care for him, it’s just that...”

  “...you’re afraid to get married.”

  Okay, maybe she was. Or maybe she really wasn’t the marrying kind. Either way, the end result was the same. She was sure she didn’t want to get married.

  And none of that changed what was most important to her now.

  Bailey wanted to be a mother. A good mother. A child would complete her in a way nothing else—including marriage—ever would. And she honestly and soulfully believed that she could give a child a world full of love while bringing him or her up to be an asset to society.

  She believed that.

  Somehow she had to get Kora to believe it, too.

  Chapter Seven

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I followed Bailey through the door of the fertility clinic Tuesday morning. All I knew was that time was running out—on my chances to save her from herself. Bailey deserved to experience the fullness of life, with the joys and the comforts and securities that a family of her own could offer her. She deserved a partner to shoulder every single care with her, to have her back and to have as much invested in the victories, too.

  All her life she’d had to go it alone—except for me, of course.

  And while I’d always be there for her, I couldn’t live in her home with her. I couldn’t get up for middle-of-the-night feedings or share the housework. I wouldn’t be able to hear the child cry out in the night, or be the one who stopped for milk on the way home from work. I couldn’t take turns with diaper changes and baths, or sit at the table every night and share in the joy of every first time. And who would there be besides me? I hoped I’d be present for some of them. The first step, maybe. Or first smile.

  But... My mind was wandering.

  Bailey had checked in and we were told to sit in a waiting room that was empty except for two other women.

  “It’s not very crowded,” I whispered. “Don’t you think, if they were good at this, there’d be a lot more people here? A lot of fertility clinics are in it for the money. They prey on people who are desperate to have kids and—”

  “They aren’t crowded because they’re careful not to schedule too many patients at once.” Bailey leaned over to whisper behind her hand. I’d worn pants and a matching jacket, just as she had today. I’d needed to feel as powerful as she always looked.

  I was out to protect my best friend—maybe even save her life.

  “They understand how nerve-racking this whole process can be and they do everything they can to make it as comfortable as possible, including guaranteeing that there’ll never be more than a five—or ten-minute wait.”

  I opened my mouth to point out that the other two women didn’t look very happy, but the door opened before I got a word out and we were called back. With trepidation weighing down every bone in my body, I followed Bailey through the private door and down a lushly carpeted hallway, wondering if the two women who’d been there before us would be pissed that we got in ahead of them.

  * * *

  So, that went well...not. Bailey was quiet as she pulled out of the clinic’s driveway an hour later, but Koralynn’s silence was more acute.

  “I need to do this, Kor.”

  “I can see why being a single mother is a fine choice for some women.” Koralynn stared ahead, her hands on top of the brown Coach bag that matched her shoes.

  Bailey liked her best in sweats. With no makeup.

  She liked herself best that way, too.

  “But, as the counselor said, some of those women have lost the love of their lives. You’re afraid to give love a chance,” Kora continued, her voice calm in that way that sounded as if carefully controlled emotion could bubble over any second.

  It never did. It just sounded like it could.

  “She also said not every woman has a ‘love of her life,’” Bailey reminded her, thinking back over everything Marybeth, the counselor, had discussed with them.

  At first Marybeth had assumed she and Kora were partners, wanting to have a baby together. Kora seemed to take less offense at that misunderstanding than at Bailey’s wanting to go this alone.

  More frustrated than she’d ever been with her friend, Bailey was at a loss as to what to say here. How to help Koralynn understand.

  “Did you even listen to her, Bail?” Kora was asking in that same tone of voice. “She spent half an hour discussing the hardships of being a single mother. Which is why so few women willingly choose that course!”

  Whoa, it was worse than she’d figured. Kora’s tone was rising. As close to yelling as Koralynn ever got.

  “You aren’t one of those women, Bail. You have options. And time. Lots of it. We’re just twenty-eight!”

  “You’ve been trying for a year,” she said, feeling petulant.

  Disappointed.

  And scared to death.

  She was a lawyer. Had aced debate class. She could come up with mo
tivation and justification, with winning arguments, for practically every situation.

  In the car that day, all she could muster was, “I have to do this, Kor.” Rather than deterring her, the hour with the counselor, during which she’d heard exactly what Koralynn had heard—mostly the negatives—had only and oddly made her conviction stronger.

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” she said. “Not if I’m ever going to be happy.” Some things were just clear without explanation. How could Kora not see that?

  “If you do this, you’ll never know the happiness you might have missed out on.”

  Bailey gripped the steering wheel, turning toward the restaurant they’d decided on for lunch, although she was no longer hungry.

  She also didn’t want to leave Koralynn like this. They’d had their spats. Their arguments. But they didn’t ever stay mad at each other.

  “I’m not you, Kor,” she said, not for the first time in their lives. “I’m not like you.”

  Koralynn turned toward her then, a beautiful blonde men ogled wherever she went—a woman who was not only smart, but wise, too. Bailey could feel the warmth of her gaze.

  “I know that, Bail, and if I thought for one second that this really was the choice that would give you everything you want, I’d be fighting to make it happen.”

  Bailey felt the truth in her words. But...

  “You have blind spots, too, you know.” She didn’t think before she spoke. Didn’t even realize what she was saying until she heard herself. “What if, this time, what you want for me really is what you want for me and not what’s best for my life?” Once the words started, Bailey couldn’t stop them. They’d been bottled up for so long; she’d refused to give them thought, let alone voice. But she wasn’t just fighting for herself now. his was about her child. “Face it, Kor, with you and Danny so tight, most of the things you’re involved in are couples things. We have Thursday-night fitness class. And anytime Danny’s on a business trip or working late, we get together. But otherwise, our lives don’t gel so much anymore. I miss you like hell and I know you miss me. I need more of you in my life and I know you need more of me, too.”

  Her throat got dry, and she saw that Kora’s eyes filled with tears. “I do need more of you, Bail. So many times I look up to share something with you and you aren’t there. Danny’s everything I could possibly want him to be, and I am so in love with him, but he’s a guy, you know? He’ll never get me in just the way you do....”

  The words were a huge comfort to Bailey, who’d been feeling so lonely during the past months—since she’d broken up with Jake. But Kora’s words also tied Bailey’s stomach in knots.

  “What you need is for me to be half of a couple, too, so that we can do things together like we used to....”

  Back when Kora and Danny could pair Bailey up with Jake. Or anyone else who was available for a night out. Back when another male body was all it took to complete the foursome.

  Kora pulled back. “You think I’m saying all of this because I’m looking out for myself?” The shock in her voice reverberated throughout the car. And hurt like hell.

  “Not purposely or knowingly, no.” Bailey had to stick to her plan. But she couldn’t lie to Kora.

  “But you think it?” Koralynn leaned back against the door of the car.

  “Can you tell me, from your heart of hearts, that there’s no possibility that I’m right?”

  A glib answer, a safe or easy answer, couldn’t come from Kora’s heart of hearts. Bailey held her breath.

  “No, I guess I can’t.” Kora’s shoulders slumped as her face fell.

  And Bailey felt a new sense of hope.

  * * *

  I had plans to spend the summer relaxing enough so my body could do its job. Getting pregnant in other words. I wanted a baby so desperately.

  I’d printed out calendars, brightly colored and decorated with little baby pictures, to log my daily temperatures.

  I’d been looking at nursery decorating folders on Pinterest. I wasn’t sharing any of that process with Bailey. I was afraid to. What if my passion to have a baby pushed her further into her life of isolation?

  But I missed her like crazy. She’d been right about that. I needed her. The same way she needed me.

  I needed her no matter how she lived her life. I just wanted for her what I’d always known she yearned for—a family of her own. A home of her own. One that was as filled with love and acceptance and assistance as mine had been.

  Bailey’s whole life had been lived one step removed. She always held a bit of herself back; that way, if there was failure or pain, it wouldn’t destroy all of her. Other than with me, I don’t think she’d ever been completely committed to another person. I’d felt her pain since the time we were in grade school. I’d spent my entire life intent on helping her get what she’d always wanted. What she’d needed and deserved. And now, when she was finally at the point where she could get it for herself, she was letting fear stop her.

  “Think about it this way,” I told her on the phone late one night in June. Jake had been over for dinner and was still pining for Bailey. But he’d met someone. Bailey could be letting her last chance with him slip by. “A child is only a temporary fixture in your home. What about the rest of your life?”

  “I’ve been living alone for a long time, Kor. I’m really okay with it.”

  “Being okay with it and being happy are two different things.”

  “I’m happy.”

  “You’re settling.”

  “I’m not you, Kor.”

  “Of course not. And I don’t want what I want to get in the way. But I know you, Bail. And I know you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face here.” Again, I thought without saying it. “I’ve seen this so many times.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The impasse between us was making me physically ill. So did I back down? Just give up?

  People had been giving up on Bailey all her life. What if this was the critical time? The moment she needed me most? Did I have what it took to scale her walls and haul her over them? Was I even supposed to try?

  Danny was in bed asleep, which was right where I should’ve been, except that I couldn’t stop thinking about Bailey. So I’d kissed my husband and left our bed to call my friend.

  “I can’t stand this anymore, Bail. I feel that you need me to stay strong and help you see what I can see from the outside, looking in. But you could be right. Maybe I’m too focused on what I think you should do because I don’t understand you anymore.”

  It hurt to say the words. But it didn’t change how I felt about her. “We’re no longer kids,” I said. “Life isn’t as easy as it used to be.”

  And maybe, in spite of everything, we had grown apart.

  “I need to have this baby, Kor, and I can’t do it without you. Without your support.”

  She could. Technically. If something happened to me, Bailey’s life would go on. But I knew what she meant. I couldn’t fathom my own life without her, either. Did that make me selfish? Was I giving up on her because I wasn’t strong enough to fight her demons when she wasn’t capable of fighting them herself? Or maybe even capable of seeing them?

  Sitting curled up in a wingback chair in my living room, I laid my head against the fabric and shivered, wishing I’d pulled my robe on over my nightgown. The night had been so warm earlier, Danny had thrown off the sheets.

  I was tired. And headachy. And having my period again. All things Bailey would have known in the past. Things I’d have told her.

  “Okay. Tell me I should trust you to know what’s best for you,” I said. Let me off the hook here, Bailey, was what my words felt like to me.

  But I was willing to live with them if that was what it took to have my friend back. To be the friend she needed. Maybe all f
riendships faced this. A growing up. I swallowed back tears. Like I’d said, I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was a wife. Soon to be an expectant mother.

  And I had more than most.

  “I want you to be honest with me, Kor.”

  “I’m always honest with you.”

  “No, I mean, I want you to do exactly what you’re doing.”

  “Giving up?”

  “No.” I straightened as silence fell between us.

  “You want me to continue showing you the way I see you...” I said tentatively.

  “Yes.”

  Oh, my God. So I wasn’t losing it. My mind. Or our deep connection.

  “You don’t agree with me,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “You believe I’m thinking of myself and what I want.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Right where we’ve always been, I guess,” she said, sounding tired, too, but better somehow. “We keep yakking until one or the other of us sees the light.”

  “So you’ll wait to do anything until we’ve...reached a consensus?”

  “Yeah. As long as we keep trying to figure out which of us is screwed up on this one.”

  I swallowed again, so relieved to have my friend back.

  “I love you, Bail.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I went to bed. And slept.

  Chapter Eight

  Over the next six weeks, Bailey and Koralynn had several calm conversations regarding artificial insemination for a single woman. Kora agreed that there were times when the process was a good choice, although she still liked the idea of both a male and a female influence in the formation of the child’s emotional and mental life.