“Tough day at the office?” Lucy asked, scooting around to snag the Coke. Absolution in a can, she thought, still munching her last Milano as if the zero calories in the drink made up for the fat-saturated calories in the cookie. But hey, the equation worked for her. She opened two cans and handed one to Jana, who took a healthy slug, then burped before answering.
“Ah, sweet Coke buzz,” Jana said, then let out another deep sigh.
It was then Lucy noticed the fatigue lingering around Jana’s eyes, the pinched corners around her mouth. And she immediately felt like the leading candidate for Worst Friend Ever.
She knew she’d spent the past two weeks in All-About-Lucy Land, but given the big changes she’d made, it had been kind of hard not to be. Unleashing her new self on the world had been both exciting—and exhausting. Perversely, that made accepting those changes herself that much more difficult. It was sort of like having your arm in a sling and having everyone question you endlessly about what happened.
Old acquaintances took very satisfying double takes, and a surprising number of new people paid attention to her. Sometimes at night she’d lie in bed and wonder why appearances counted for so much, why having blonde streaks and a perfect arch to her eyebrows made such a difference. Which was silly because she knew damn well they did, having been on the other side all of her life. So all this attention should be making her feel wonderful. And mostly it did. But it could also be surprisingly disconcerting. Sometimes it even kind of pissed her off, which made no sense whatsoever. She’d wanted the self-improvement makeover and was thrilled with the results.
And yet, she was the same Lucy Harper inside, and no one had cared to get to know her before. The same guys who smiled at her now, with her tan legs and shorter skirts, wouldn’t have given her the time of day before. She tried to think of it as having come up with an improved marketing plan for meeting people. Sort of like slapping a new cover on an old brand of cereal. She’d just improved her odds of getting picked up off the shelf, that was all.
To quiet her silly, niggling concerns, she’d naturally turned to Jana. Jana might not agree that the makeover had been necessary, but even she had to admit that Lucy 2.0 was the better model. Not that Jana had come out and said so, but, well, duh. Just look at her.
Vivian had been right about one thing, though. It was all a matter of finding her inner rhythm. Even Jana had given her that much. But she wasn’t confident enough to let go of the surface changes and hope that her newfound rhythm would garner her the same kind of attention straight hair and spike heels did. Then there was Grady, who was no help whatsoever. He wouldn’t even give the new her a chance. She had to believe he’d come around in time. He had to. Because otherwise who was going to help her get a handle on it?
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a rotten friend since I’ve gotten back. No talk about Glass Slipper or any reunion crap tonight. Scout’s honor.”
Jana snorted. “Neither one of us was ever a Scout.”
“Only because Andrea Steiner’s mother was troop leader. And I still say we should have joined. God, could you imagine their faces when we bumbled in, in all our divine dorkiness, right into the middle of the Junior League of Brownie Troops?”
Jana just shuddered. “I’d rather not, thanks.”
“So, tell me what’s up with you. I know Dave was thrilled to get the chance to go to Europe to play those exhibition games, but it had to have been hard having him gone. I still say it sucks that you couldn’t go with him. First I abandon you on our annual beach trip, and then that.”
“I couldn’t get the time off from work then, anyway. I would have lost whatever toehold I had on covering the opening of football season.”
“Well, you must be happy to have him home finally.”
“Yes, definitely happy.” She’d said it easily enough, and sounded as sincere as ever, but then she looked away, then down at her uneaten cookie.
Though Jana was good at putting up the tough-chick front, Lucy knew it was hard on her when Dave was traveling. Jana wasn’t used to leaning on anyone, but Lucy had watched her best friend fall hopelessly in love, and as much as it had thrilled and excited Jana, it had also rattled her pretty badly. Jana had grown up with a mother who found true love every Friday night around closing time, leaving her a bit shaky on concepts like intimacy and commitment. And yet with Dave, Jana had finally found something real.
Lucy had envied her as much as she’d been in awe of the personal strength she knew it had taken for her best friend to reach out and grab on to what she wanted. Especially when it was a long-term relationship with the first man she’d ever truly loved. It came easy to Jana when it was about a career move, or telling someone else—namely Lucy—how to run her love life. But this had been the first time she’d been confronted with such a personal emotional challenge, and the concept of trying and failing was terrifying.
And though it wasn’t easy for Jana to admit she loved him as much as she did, much less that she’d somehow found herself leaning on him, counting on him, depending on him . . . they’d made it work. And Lucy had never been prouder of her, or happier for her. And, sure, a little envious, as well.
So the idea that there might be trouble in paradise pinged at her heart and her conscience. God, just how far up her ass had she stuck her head, anyway? It’s no wonder Grady was in absentia. “Is everything all right between you two?”
Jana’s lips curled a little, but since she was still staring down at her lap, Lucy couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace. “Everything is fine,” she said.
Lucy leaned down to catch her eye. “Really?”
Jana finally glanced at her, and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “Really.”
Lucy gasped. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”
Jana, who never cried, not even when they’d skipped school—twice—to see a matinee of The Last of the Mohicans, sniffled. “Nothing. Everything.” She hiccuped as she tried to stifle the tears. “Dave and I are fine. So take the Worried Mama Look off your face, okay?”
“Okay,” Lucy said, knowing she couldn’t. “So, if you and Dave are fine, what’s with the tears?”
“I seem to be doing that a lot lately. But don’t worry, they are tears of joy. Terror-filled joy,” she added, more under her breath, “but joy.”
“So, you’re happy.” It was, understandably, a tentative statement. When Jana merely nodded, sniffled, then downed a whole Milano in two bites, Lucy shook her head and said, “You wanna buy me a vowel here or something?”
“Didn’t Grady tell you?” she said around the crumbs on her lips.
“Grady and I have spoken a grand total of twice since he dropped me off here two weeks ago. Neither conversation lasted longer than five minutes. Apparently, he’s extremely busy.” Her tone made it clear what she thought of that excuse. “I know he’s probably neck-deep in some top-secret, hush-hush project, but when isn’t he? And since when has that prevented him from making time for his two closest friends?” Or one of the two.
And she knew the answer to that one. Since one of those friends turned herself into something he could no longer identify with.
Jana looked shocked. “Really?” she said, the word muffled by the last of the cookie crumbs. “When you said you hadn’t talked much, I didn’t realize—” She broke off, sighed. “Jerk. All men are jerks.”
Lucy frowned. “That’s usually my line. After which you tell me that all men are jerks except for Dave, and the one who’s going to fall madly in love with me at some future moment in time. A moment, by the way, which I’m still waiting for.”
“So you think,” Jana muttered around another swig of Coke.
“What?”
Jana hiccuped twice, then burped. “Do you think guys have any idea that we belch better than they do?”
“Do you think I don’t know when you’re trying to change the subject?”
Jana just smiled. “So, don’t you want to know why the happy tears?”
&nbs
p; “What? Oh, right! What didn’t Grady tell me because he was too busy being a closed-minded jerk?”
“Nothing. I mean, I barely mentioned it in passing. He probably forgot. It was hardly even newsworthy at that point, since we’d only started trying, and I only mentioned it then because I wanted to take his mind off of—” She broke off, looked panicked for a split second, then downed the rest of her drink. “Work,” she managed. “Take his mind off work. He really is busy.”
“You’re babbling,” Lucy said, more confused than ever. “You never babble. Come to think of it, you never cry, either.” She grabbed the empty can away from Jana. “What’s in this, anyway?”
Jana just grabbed another one and popped the top. “My last night of caffeine, that’s what.” She swigged, hiccuped, then looked at Lucy with a big scared-as-hell grin plastered on her face. “What I’ve been trying to tell you is, Dave and I decided it was the right time to start thinking about, you know, moving to stage two, and—”
“‘Stage two’? What was stage one?”
“Marriage,” she said, as if Lucy was completely dim. “And well, you know neither of us had an exactly traditional upbringing, so it made sense for us to wait. To be sure we could handle it. Except when it comes to the two of us, we’re apparently incapable of waiting. I should have learned that when I slept with him on the first date, then married him eight months later. And really, who ever really knows if they’re ready, right?” She polished off the rest of can number two in one long swig.
Lucy took the empty can when she was done, staring at her like she’d lost her mind. Mostly because she was fairly certain she had. “Did you try and play hockey again with Dave?” She reached out and groped around Jana’s scalp. “Because you’re acting like you got hit with a puck.”
“Actually, that’s a pretty good description,” Jana said. “My short-term memory is shot and I’m constantly forgetting where I put things, probably because I throw them down wherever I happen to be standing when I have to suddenly run to the bathroom.”
“You’re sick?”
“It’s okay; I’m getting used to it. Well, I’m not, but then, I don’t seem to have any real say in the matter. They tell you saltines, but that’s crap. Sour balls are the real key to survival.”
“‘They’? Who are ‘they’?” Lucy finally grabbed Jana’s waving hands and gripped them tightly so her friend had to look her in the face. “Survive what? For God’s sake, just tell me already!”
“I was all prepared to make charts, the whole routine, you know? But we won’t have to.”
“I’m so glad for you. What kind of ‘charts’?” She’d known Jana almost her entire life and she’d never once seen her like this. Giddy, bordering on hysterical.
“We won’t need the charts!” Now Jana was squeezing Lucy’s hands so tightly the blood flow had stopped and the tips had started to tingle. “God, Luce, it’s all so damn scary. And I swore I was going to wait a while, until I was sure, you know, that it was going to take, before saying anything to anyone. Or at least until I got used to the whole idea. But I can’t wait.”
“Great. Please don’t hold back on my account.”
Her smile shifted then; it became sort of smug, like she had this awesome private secret. Her eyes, on the other hand, were filled with a kind of awe and more than a little fear. “Terror” still seemed the appropriate adjective. “Apparently Dave is as good at scoring off the ice as he is on the ice, because we only stopped using protection last month and I’m already—”
“Pregnant!” Lucy gasped as it finally hit her. “Oh, my God! Oh! Jana!” Then she smacked her friend on the arm—lightly, given her condition, but still. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jana laughed, sounding almost drunk. “What do you think I’ve been doing? You just needed to listen.”
“And Grady knows? And he’s not here to celebrate with us? God, all men are jerks.”
“No, you’re the first. Outside of me and Dave, that is. I only told Grady we were trying. It was while you were gone. I was going to tell you, too, but it all sort of progressed past that part really fast. God, now that I think about it, I guess I was already pregnant when I told him we were trying!” Her laugh was a bit dazed, and Lucy noticed her hand hovering protectively over her stomach.
“How long have you known?” Lucy felt even more awful now. Here she’d been all preoccupied about playing dress-up for a stupid school dance and her best friend was embarking on one of the most exciting and terrifying journeys of her life.
“Not long. A week.”
“A week? You’ve known for an entire week and you didn’t tell me?” Lucy couldn’t imagine keeping something that huge from Jana, but then, this was huger than huge. Life-altering huge.
“You know I wanted to call you first thing, but Dave and I were sort of in a state of shock. I couldn’t even really process it. I mean, I was a few days late, which I figured was like Nature’s joke on me, just to psych me out or something. We’d really just gotten comfortable with the idea of not using anything, you know? It’s easy to say you want to start, but scary as shit when you actually don’t put that diaphragm in. Then, bang!, no period and, well, we both knew there was no way I was pregnant the first time out. But we went out and bought the tests.”
“Plural?”
Jana smiled a bit sheepishly. “You see one blue line and you don’t believe it. But when you’re surrounded by blue lines and pink X’s, well, it’s sort of hard to deny reality then.”
“How did Dave react?”
“We were both sort of stunned speechless. In fact, we’re still kind of in a daze. Like it’s not real yet. Except I’ve spent the past five days puking my guts up and it’s not because I ate the moo shu at Pagoda House again.” Again with the somewhat loopy-terrified grin. “So I guess it’s real.”
Lucy leaned forward and pulled Jana into a tight hug. “I’m so thrilled for both of you,” she whispered fiercely. “You’re going to be a great mom.”
Jana shuddered. “Please, dear God, don’t mention the M-word. Not yet.”
Lucy laughed. “You might want to start applying it, since you’re gonna come out the other side of this as one whether you want to or not.”
Jana shook her head. “I can’t even contemplate telling mine, much less think about all the ways I can screw up being one myself.”
“All first-time parents think that.”
Jana nodded. “Some with more reason than others.”
“I bet Dave isn’t worried.”
“About being a dad?” Jana paused for a second. “Once he gets the stupid I-knocked-her-up grin off his face, he might be. But, nah, you’re probably right. With his gargantuan family, he’s got nothing to worry about. He’s already diapered half of Quebec, just with his nieces and nephews alone.”
“When are you going to tell his family?” She knew Jana was in no hurry to tell her own mother, who would just as likely freak out at the prospect of being forced to admit she was a grandmother than anything else.
“Not until I’m through my first trimester. Unless he can’t wait that long. We’ll see them at Christmas like we always do.” She groaned. “I’m not even letting myself think about that. I’ll be suffocated.”
Privately Lucy thought that would probably be the best thing that could happen to Jana. But she knew better than to say it. “Well, I think it’s amazing and fantastic and I can’t wait to play Auntie Lucy.”
“Yeah, don’t be so smug, Auntie,” Jana informed her. “Just because you don’t have to lug this thing around in your stomach all winter and give birth to it at the end, don’t dare think I don’t have every intention of completely using you afterward. Dave and I will need personal time to deal with the whole being-parents thing, so you and Grady will be our default babysitters. Dirty diaper changes and all.” She pointed at Lucy. “Fair warning.” Then she snagged the cookie bag. “Now, can we please dive into that pizza? I’m eating for two here.”
Still digestin
g the whole idea of babysitting, Lucy didn’t move fast enough and Jana commandeered the pizza box, as well. “Should we, you know, call Grady?” Lucy asked. “Maybe if he knew your news, he’d get over being mad at me long enough to come celebrate with us.”
Jana flipped open the box and took out a heavily meat-laden slice.
Lucy craned her head to look over the lid. “What happened to our veggie special? You hate ‘greasy meat products’ on your pizza.”
“Apparently, pregnancy hormones bring out the carnivore in me. I’m just going to puke it all up, anyway,” she said, happily sinking her teeth into the cheesy slice.
“Gee, thanks for that lovely visual.” But Lucy’s stomach growled as the smell of bacon and sausage assaulted her senses. She snagged a slice of her own. “If I gain more weight during this pregnancy than you do, I’m going to make you pay. I don’t know how, but I will.”
“Yeah, body weight being such a big issue for you.”
Lucy snorted. “Says the woman who has never been called ‘scarecrow.’ ”
Jana patted her belly. “Which means you get to smirk when they call me ‘balloon belly.’ ”
“Except your balloon will naturally deflate,” she reminded her dryly. “Scarecrow is forever.” Just because Lucy was tall and skinny didn’t mean she’d thought of herself as having a good body. Ever. When you spend your adolescent years being called “beanpole,” “stick,” “praying mantis,” and the like, you didn’t look in the mirror and see Heidi Klum staring back at you. You saw knobby legs, scrawny arms, lumpy hair, and a seriously flat chest . . . no ass or hips, either. In her world, everything was baggy and shapeless, because she was shapeless.
And yet, somehow, Vivian had managed to find clothing—and padded lingerie—that created at least the illusion of a shapely figure. Vivian dePalma, the Houdini of dressers. Lucy had begun to see why she’d been so popular with the Hollywood stars. But she was still getting used to having clothing that felt so . . . binding. Even if it was the binding that created the curves in the first place. Slight as they were.
Sleeping with Beauty Page 16
