Bianca had warned her, told her it probably wouldn’t happen naturally, not after trying for so long. She had said it kindly, her eyes sympathetic. She had suggested alternatives, was as helpful as a friend could be. Kate couldn’t wait to see how excited Bianca was going to be when she found out that, after all Kate’s fears, after all that time trying fruitlessly, she had gotten pregnant after all.
“Oh, Lord! Lord in heaven!” Kate had whispered that morning, looking at the confirming second red stripe on the pregnancy test in the bathroom.
Then she dropped the plastic-encased strip on the counter and ran downstairs to Grant, nearly falling on the stairs, her socks sliding on the wood, before she grabbed the banister, righted herself, and slowly made her way to the kitchen where their tiny television was showing the morning news and the smell of freshly squeezed oranges and toast was in the air. Soon the air was also filled with her screeches of delight and his loud whoops of joy.
Bianca was usually right, though. Take tonight. She’d warned Kate that the other women might be jealous of Kate's glamorous new look, that women were very competitive in Fairfield County. And Sharon’s reaction said it all. She was giving Kate the evil eye again, which made Kate despair over the friendship she had hoped was growing. On the night they’d met, Sharon seemed to warm to her later on in the evening: talking to her about her job and her new problematic boss. She actually hugged Kate before they all parted outside on the pavement close to midnight. After that, Kate had counted Sharon as a new friend.
Now things were bad again. It was obviously because Bianca's statements were true and Sharon - weirdly because, although she was somewhat older, she was also was far prettier than Kate – was jealous. Kate could see that Sharon was also jealous of Bianca, looking at her with those same dagger eyes, which made more sense.
Being friends with Bianca was nothing like any friendship she’d had before. Bianca’s intense effect on Kate had diminished a little, making her only feel that now-familiar nauseous energy for the first fifteen minutes or so in her company. Then Kate relaxed and settled in, enjoying Bianca’s flattering interest in her. And she was always interested. Particularly in Grant and their marriage in general. If Bianca weren't happily married with a little baby boy of her own, her interest in Grant would worry Kate: a gorgeous and likeable woman like that, peering with such curiosity at her husband. But no, Bianca was just a good friend, always interested in even the most mundane and pitifully boring things.
There was no other way to put it: Kate was Bianca’s pet project. In spite of two full-time jobs as both a mother and a pharmaceutical rep, Bianca had taken a lot of time off to help Kate. She'd overhauled Kate’s appearance, helped her pick out her new car, and invited her and Grant out to several parties and dinners with her and her husband, John - outings that dazzled Kate with all the beautiful wealthy people Bianca knew and the luxurious and exclusive venues where they mingled.
The last few invitations had been declined with an excuse, though, Grant saying he was tired of all of the fake people and just wanted to enjoy some peace at home. When Kate queried him, not knowing exactly what he meant by "fake", Grant just laughed as if she was teasing, which made her quietly embarrassed by her own naiveté. She really didn't understand; they all seemed to be decent people, made of flesh and blood like anyone else, just far more well-cared-for flesh and blood. To her, fake was used to identify people who had altered their appearance in an obvious way: an orange salon tan, gigantic gravity-defying breasts, a wind-tunnel facelift.
With all the time and energy that Bianca had put into Kate, particularly her appearance, Kate knew she should be grateful and not question her advice. Still, she was uncertain and uncomfortable at times with it; the whole glamour-thing was so alien to her. But Bianca knew the ropes and, thanks to her, Kate would fit in better now, not embarrass her children - once they got old enough to notice the difference between her and their schoolmates' mothers - by looking like some bumpkin.
The only area so far where Kate had drawn the line was when it came to shoes. She hated high heels, found them painful on her bony delicate feet. It was a problem between her and Bianca, a problem Bianca had just confronted her about again in the car on the way over, Bianca insisting on driving.
Sitting in the low-slung leather seat of her cherry-red Ferrari, Bianca stretched out elegantly and steered with a ruthless confidence. Kate, on the other hand, was uncomfortable. The seat forced her practically horizontal, her butt inches from the road as they roared along, and she had to strain her neck lifting her head anytime she wanted to look at her friend.
"Really, Kate. You're being silly. Some high-heeled shoes are like slippers they're so comfortable. Expensive ones usually. I can't believe you won't at least try."
"No? Please? I hate them?"
"It's just unlike you. You're so open to everything. Grant must love that about you."
Kate started to protest and then, hearing that about Grant, her mouth snapped shut and her head rested back against the buttery-soft leather of the seat. If there was one thing that Grant didn't love about her right now, it was that she was so open to everything Bianca suggested.
“What have you done to your hair?” he’d said, his eyes wide with shock after the Day of Beauty Kate had enjoyed at a local spa-slash-salon on Greenwich Avenue with Bianca. She and Grant had fought briefly and then Kate promised to let her hair grow back out, feeling secretly relieved as she preferred it shoulder-length anyway and now she had an excuse: Grant.
The clothes were another problem, particularly anything revealing, which seemed to embarrass him. Every new outfit led to a heated discussion with Kate usually being the one to relent and make some adjustment to please him. But the makeup had become the real battle between them, one she wasn't willing to let go once she saw the admiration in the faces of the girls that night after Bianca applied a little makeup to her virgin face. Kate was hooked.
“Just take it off,” he said the second morning she’d appeared ready to go to the office with her face fully "war-painted" as Bianca called it. “Please. Your face is fine without it.”
“My face is plain without it,” Kate said. “Really plain? Even Bianca says-“
“Bianca says. Enough about Bianca. I honestly wish she’d never walked into our office.”
“What? Bianca’s my best friend? Please? You don’t mean that?”
Grant sighed. “No, you’re right. I’m glad you have a friend here. It’s just…can’t she just leave you as you were? I loved the old Kate.”
Kate’s mouth dropped open as a pang of sadness hit her. Was he falling out of love with her? Bianca said it might happen, now that it looked like Kate couldn’t have a child. In a tiny voice she asked, “You don’t love me anymore?”
“What? No, honey,” he said and went to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I love you. I’ll always love you. I just…you just don’t need all this stuff. This crazy new look of yours. I loved how natural you always looked. So fresh. But...no…you wear your makeup if it makes you feel good.”
“It does?” she said, nodding into his shoulder and trying not to get lipstick on him.
Kate swallowed a mouthful of champagne, the bubbles tickling down her throat and looked again at Bianca with gratitude. What would Kate have done if she hadn't met her? Before Bianca, she'd been lost and lonely for friends. Now she had everything a girl could ask for: a loving successful husband, a good friend - scratch that - best friend and guide in this foreign frightening place, and a baby on the way. Baby! She thrilled again, shoulders rising and hand going involuntarily to her stomach while a smile crept across her face.
Bianca took a sip from her champagne glass as well and then said, "Well, this is nice. Though it's still a strange place for us to meet. This place is first-date heaven, not a social scene. Definitely not Chelsea's type of thing."
Sharon said, an eyebrow cocked, her tone cool, "It's not. You're right. Lucie wanted to come here. Said the food was great."
Sharon leaned forward then, looking more interested. "So, you don't think that's a lie?"
"Oh, no," Bianca said in an apologetic voice, her forehead creasing. "Please, forget I said that. I shouldn't have."
Sharon's eyes narrowed. "Then why did you?"
"What are you guys talking about?" Kate asked, confused. Something about Lucie's catering business being a lie? How?
Sharon said, "Bianca said-"
"Really," Bianca interrupted, shaking her head. "Let's not. It's bad enough that I said it the first time. I'm sorry for it. I spoke out of turn."
Sharon leaned back again in her seat and nodded. "Fair enough...actually, I know exactly how you feel," she said, her eyes turning down on the edges with sadness.
"Oh?" Bianca said, now the one to lean forward, her expression avid. "How do you mean?"
Sharon just shook her head, looking down and away.
Kate looked back and forth between the two women. Other than the fact that Bianca clearly had said something bad about Lucie, she was utterly perplexed.
Bianca paused for a moment and then said, a smile spreading across her fruit-ripe lips, "You're a one for secrets, Sharon. May I hazard to guess that this is once again the case of the lovelorn neighbor?"
Sharon colored and Bianca laughed, a tinkling merry sound. Bianca reached for her champagne glass and lifted it up. "I'd like to propose a toast."
Sharon shook her head, face growing even redder.
Bianca looked over at Kate. "Come on, Kate. Lift up your glass with me. We must toast to Sharon and her beloved Dean."
Sharon jerked and stared at Bianca. "You know his name? How do you know his name?"
Kate brightened, feeling less left out finally. She knew Dean. Bianca and she had made a beeline for him that night at Ibiza before going to the bathroom for their makeup session. Bianca had strode through the crowded bar while everyone had stared at her, Kate following like a little scrawny duckling in the wake of a gliding magnificent swan.
When Bianca had walked up to Dean, he'd been looking in their direction, but past them, toward the front dining area where their table was.
"Hello?" Bianca said, dipping her head to catch his glance.
He startled and looked at Bianca, his eyes wide. "Oh. Hi." He seemed dazed.
"My friend wanted say hello, but she's a little shy. Sharon? Your neighbor?"
He perked up. "She did? Really?"
"Really. Only, she told me your name…, but I'm so silly, I forgot it already. Terrible memory for names. Please. Spare me the embarrassment, would you? I don't want to have to ask her again?"
"Oh, it's Dean. And you are?"
"Bianca. And this is Kate. Anyway, we just wanted to say hello. For Sharon. She's a special girl. You're lucky."
"Hi Kate. Nice to meet you both," he said, nodding at them with a friendly smile. "Lucky? Oh, yeah, she's a great neighbor. And she's just seems so...together. And honest. I like that. I just wish...anyway...say hi back to her for me. I'm glad she's speaking to me now. At least through you."
And he did look glad. Sweet, really. Kate was impressed. Sharon had picked a nice guy, which was rare. Most of Kate's friends back home fell for bad boys, always to their great regret. And they did it again and again, like broken records, never learning. Now many of them were married to those boys whose badness came in various shades of trouble: some with the law, some with the bottle or drugs, some with other women, some with their fists - which they applied to their wives or their children or both. Too often it was a combination of all of those things.
"Yes, we'll tell her. Or better: you should come over to our table."
"Uh," he said and shook his head. "Nah. I'm not going to break up your girl's night."
"Oh, come on. She'd love it."
"No, I know when to leave well enough alone. But, don't worry. She'll be hearing from me," he said, looking thoughtful and then straightening. "Yeah, she will be. Actually, I'm going to call it an early night. I've got an idea."
"Oh, tell!" Bianca said, her eyes getting big and sparkly.
"Nope. It's a surprise. But thanks again. Appreciate it. It was great meeting you both, Sharon's friends."
"Nice meeting you, too. Dean," Bianca said, stretching out the "e" playfully. "Okay, Kate. The mirror awaits, if we can manage to elbow our way to it."
"Bye? Nice meeting you?" Kate said and giggled, feeling as if she was in junior high school again and delivering messages of love to objects of her friends' affection. She thought at the time that maybe Dean would be a way to break the ice with Sharon, warm things up between them.
But then Kate had been swept away by the effect of Bianca's ministrations in the bathroom, the other girls' reaction to her improved made-up appearance, and then, just when she would've been asking Sharon more about Dean at the dinner table, there was too much commotion with the bill coming and the other girls leaving and Sharon's startling decision to stay. The night had evolved and improved so much from there that Kate had forgotten to mention it. And maybe she should have. Because at that moment Sharon looked not only shocked, she was starting to look a little sick.
Should Kate say something now? But why had Bianca said that to Dean if it wasn't true? And if Sharon had told Bianca all about Dean, why was she acting like she hadn't? Sharon was a bizarre mystery: warm and friendly one moment, then daggers shooting out of her eyes, then contradictory behavior like this. Kate started to second-guess her interest in being Sharon's friend. Probably better not go there. Sharon may have borne a remarkable resemblance to Kate's friend, Mary, from home, but Mary, had she met Sharon, would probably say, "That woman has taken up permanent residence in CrazyTown and is running for mayor".
Bianca, still smiling, shrugged a little. "Oh, what's the big deal?" she said and then turned to Kate. "Kate? Lift up your glass. We have to toast to true love. The greatest love of all: love thy neighbor."
"What did you just say?" Sharon said.
"Kate?" Bianca was subtly jerking her head at Kate's barely-touched glass of champagne.
Kate took a big breath. This wasn't how she wanted to tell Bianca. She wanted to wait for the perfect moment. But she wasn't going to take even one more sip. It might hurt the baby. "Well, the thing is," Kate said, trying to put on a smile, but finding it hard in the face of Bianca's growing impatience with her non-compliance. "I can't have any more champagne? See, I've got some exciting news? I wanted to tell you earlier, but we were just rushing so much. So...uh...drum roll..?"
"What are you talking about?" Bianca snapped, her impatience turning to irritability.
"I'm gonna have a baby! Me and Grant?" Kate burst out, grinning ecstatically, the words sending a thrill up her spine. It was true! A baby! At last!
Bianca’s eyes bulged, showing white, while her skin drained of color, rendering her usually warm-toned olive skin a pond-scum chartreuse. Her full lips tightened exposing bared white teeth. “What?”
Kate’s hand involuntarily reached for her belly again, as if protecting it from Bianca’s thunderous – almost murderous - expression. Why? What? Bianca?
Sharon perked up, shaking her head a little as if waking up. “Oh, Kate. That's wonderful,” Sharon said, her voice more enthusiastic than Kate had ever heard it. Then Kate remembered. Sharon had told Kate that night at Ibiza that she, too, had always wanted a big family after Kate admitted that was her greatest dream, and that Grant and she were trying – and failing - to conceive. Sharon, unlike Bianca, had been certain they would eventually succeed.
“Ah,” Kate said faintly, eyes darting over to Sharon. “Yes? Thank you?”
“When did you find out?" Sharon asked.
“Just today?” Kate answered. “Bianca? I thought...“ Kate looked back at Bianca. Her friend’s normal coloring had returned and her face was composed again.
“That’s great news,” Bianca
said, her voice sounding a little choked. She cleared her throat and continued in a more normal tone. “And just today? You were at the doctor’s office this morning? Oh, right, it takes longer than that. Did they just call you with the results?” As Bianca said "results", her voice grew tight and rough again and she coughed, covering her mouth and then patting her collarbone.
“Oh? Doctor’s office? No? This was a home test,” Kate said, feeling almost as if she would cry. Why wasn’t Bianca happy? She was supposed to be happy?
“A home test,” Bianca said, her face visibly relaxing. “Oh, then can you can have champagne. Those tests aren’t reliable at all. And you know…” She smiled, her expression sympathetic. “I wouldn’t recommend using those. They disappointed me so many times when John and I were trying.”
“What?” Sharon said. “Those tests are perfectly fine. I mean, Kate, you will want to see your doctor, but-“
“No, they’re terrible,” Bianca said, turning to Sharon and looking distressed. “I had five, maybe six, false results in a row. It was incredibly traumatic.”
Kate stared at Bianca. What was she talking about? “I thought you said you and John got pregnant right away? That you didn’t even try? That was why you thought I couldn’t get pregnant?”
“I never said that,” Bianca said, her heavy-lidded calm gaze returning to Kate, not a flicker of recognition or remembrance in her eyes.
Kate suddenly felt very cold, and both of her hands were now on her belly. Had she imagined it? Or maybe she misunderstood their conversation. Maybe Bianca and John just didn't try as long - months instead of years. That had to be it. Bianca had trouble conceiving after all. No wonder she’d been so supportive and helpful. She’d been there herself.
“Oh,” Kate gasped. “I’m sorry. I just must have-”
“It’s fine. With all the stress you've been under? I'm just hoping that the test was accurate, especially after all you and Grant have been through. It's possible, just unlikely,” Bianca said, her head tilted and eyes softening as they regarded Kate. "You didn't tell Grant, did you?"
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