“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 was 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.”
“Today? You know, you don’t have to spend the whole day with her,” Mike said, his voice so neutral Josie had a hard time reading it on the phone. If they were face to face she could see the way the skin around his eyes wrinkled, the emotion in his irises and pupils, whether his hands were tight in fists or loose and free around his hips. Did he mean he didn’t want her to spend that time with Laura? Did he mean that he was grateful that she would spend that time with Laura? All of this reading of intentions and emotions was making her tired, and she wasn’t even part of the threesome.
She was, however, a fourth wheel most of the time—and maybe that was why she read intent and emotion into so many things. She was a foreigner in the country of Mike, Dylan, and Laura; culture shock, perhaps, had set in recently along with a healthy dose of jealousy. That was getting tiring, too.
“Mike, I want to spend time with her. This is important for me too, you know? And I think you guys will be there for the birth and she’ll need you two hundred percent.”
He chuckled. “And we’ll need you there, too.”
Her heart swelled at being acknowledged, at being wanted—needed—in the moment that represented the great bridging over for her best friend from “just Laura” to “Laura the mommy.”
“Thank you,” was all she could think to say.
“No, thank you,” he said, and sighed. “I guess I need to go let Dylan know, don’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“You know he’s going to go and buy another eight-foot bunny.”
“Yeah,” she said. The baby’s room was already filled with toys Dylan had been buying for the past few months, or that his parents had sent. The whole family had an apparent fondness for oversized African animals.
There was a hesitation on Mike’s end of the conversation. It was melancholic, uncertain, and she reached out to it. “Hey, Mike.”
“Hmm?” As the conversation continued she could sense him pulling into himself, charging up for the biggest event of his adult life. Hers, too. Hell, everyone’s.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“I know.” The smile came back in his tone, an easy, warm baritone that made her feel safe and secure, shaking off her earlier shattering. “It’s going to be great,” he answered.
“It’s going to be horrible,” Laura moaned as Josie wandered back to the table to find the sundae glass empty and Laura tight-fisted, leaning forward in her seat.
“What’s going to be horrible?” Josie asked.
“The birth!” Laura practically shouted.
Aha. Time for a walk.
She threw a few bills on the table to cover the check and grabbed Laura’s elbow, helping her to stand. Josie peered at her, staring her down. Laura’s face was more flushed, with a red that crept down into her neck and upper chest, the outer edges of her hairline starting to get wet with sweat. Trying desperately to keep the accusing tone out of her voice, Josie said, “You had another contraction while I was in the bathroom, didn’t you?”
“I had a twinge.”