Baby & Bump (The This & That Series)

by Moss, Brooke

Marisol made a face. “Whatever. When do they start serving alcohol?”

  Candace swatted at her. “It’s not a cocktail party.”

  “It should be.” She scanned the room. “Look at this place. It could use an upper, if you know what I mean.”

  There were women—all round and ready to drop a baby at any minute, just like me—sitting in varying stages of relaxation. Some were between their husbands’ or boyfriends’ knees, breathing peacefully while they rubbed circles on their backs. Others were lying on their sides on a beanbag or pillow, while their men kneaded their feet lovingly. The mood in the room at the learning annex was as relaxed and calm as a bathtub filled with warm water and bubbles.

  In my corner of the room, Candace was on my left, texting Brian, who was unable to get the Sesame Street DVD to work. And Marisol was on my right, checking her eye makeup in a compact mirror. I was the only single mom in the group.

  Awesome.

  “This environment is conducive to the environment you’ll want to bring your baby into,” the silver haired lady said as she sauntered around the room. Her fingers touched Marisol’s shoulder as she passed. “Speak softly. You don’t want your baby coming into a world full of noise and confusion.”

  Marisol glanced up at her. “Me? Oh, no, it’s not my baby. It’s hers.” She jabbed her thumb at me and shuddered. “I’m just here to help with the old heave-ho and all that.”

  I closed my eyes. This was my support system? “Marisol, please.”

  She laughed at her own joke. “Come on, loosen up, Lex. You’ll be so drugged out, you won’t care what I call it.”

  “I delivered all of my kids naturally,” Candace announced.

  “Yeah, well you’re a freak of nature.” Marisol rolled her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. She knows not what she says.” I held out my hand to the teacher. “I’m Lexie Baump. This is my first child, and I haven’t decided on natural or medicated childbirth yet.”

  Marisol elbowed me. “Oh, be serious.”

  The teacher shook my hand. “I’m Maureen. And I hope to convince you that you’re capable of bringing your child into the world without medication. We’re going to teach you primitive methods that have been used by natural mothers for centuries.”

  “Primitive is right.” Marisol snorted. “I’m definitely going to need a cocktail.”

  Candace put her arm around me. “You can do it, Lex.”

  Maureen beamed down at us. “It’s so nice to see modern families like yours having children. I do hope you’ll enjoy the class.”

  She walked away, and I slapped a hand on my forehead. “That’s what we look like? A couple?”

  Candace giggled. “It is very modern.”

  “Then who’s Marisol?” I gestured at our friend, who was lying back on the provided pillows with her eyes closed.

  “She’s our girlfriend.” Candace said, matter-of-factly. “We’re polyamorous.”

  “Sweet.” I ignored the aghast stares from the other moms.

  We watched Marisol for a beat, her ample bosom rising and swelling. Most of the men in the room were staring at her, but that was because she’d come to Lamaze in a short skirt, and was now curled up like a kitten on the floor. “This isn’t exactly the place for a nap, you know.”

  “Oh, take it easy on her.” Candace dropped her voice low, so that only I could hear it over the sound of the instrumental music Maureen had turned on. “She’s gonna get dumped in a few hours. Let her rest up.”

  I bit my lip, hope and shame coiling together like smoke in my chest, making everything feel tight and uncomfortable. “Do you think so?”

  “Well, it’s not like you don’t want it to happen.” Candace raised an eyebrow at me.

  “I don’t. I just. I don’t know what I want to have happen,” I hissed. I was so torn. When I walked away from Fletcher at that concert, I’d secretly hoped he would show up at my apartment later that night, single and completely unattached, with an engagement ring in his pocket. And possibly wearing nothing but his Elvis tee shirt and a smile.

  But I also wanted Marisol to be happy. And there were times—amongst her gripes and whining—when it seemed as though dating Fletcher made her happy. Who was I to take that away from her?

  “Well, you’d better figure it out pretty quick,” Candace whispered, as Maureen took her place at the head of the classroom. “Because when Marisol meets up with him tonight, I can almost guarantee you that things are gonna get sticky really fast.”

  “What? Who’s sticky?” Marisol pushed herself up next to me and rubbed her eyes. “Ugh. I’m so tired. I’m bored, too. How long does this class last?”

  “In a hurry to get to Fletcher’s?” Candace fished. I shot her a dirty look, but she just shrugged innocently.

  Marisol ran her hand down her hair, frowning. “No. Not especially. Just in a hurry to get it over with.”

  I picked at a loose thread on my jeans, not wanting to sound to obvious. “Well, how do feel about breaking up with him?”

  She waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. I mean, our food rep asked me out last week, so I’ll probably set something up with him. I’ve been kind of keeping him in my back pocket.”

  “Larry asked you out?” I gaped at her. She was the only person who would line up backup boyfriends, just in case her current one didn’t pan out.

  “I didn’t really want to go, but he’ll be a nice distraction.” Marisol sighed. “I just don’t like getting dumped. I really thought that Fletcher and I had chemistry, but—”

  “Welcome to Prepared Labor and Natural Birthing, everyone.” Maureen held her arms wide and scanned the crowd. “It’s my goal to make you all feel at home, at peace, and enveloped in a hug from Mother Nature—”

  “Oh, wow. This really is pretty granola,” Candace whispered.

  “But what?” I asked Marisol, ignoring as Maureen described the breathing techniques we would be practicing in class.

  She dropped her voice low. “Oh, you know what I mean. When I met Fletcher, our physical connection was hot. I mean, hot. I really thought we were going to make sparks together.”

  I felt like I was going to be sick.

  “But after a month or so, it was clear that his mind was somewhere else,” Marisol explained. “The only reason I stuck it out was because he’s a freaking doctor. A hot one, at that. I mean, have you seen his ass in a pair of jeans, Lex? Good Lord, it makes me want to go to confession!”

  Had I seen Fletchers’ butt? Um, yeah. I’d seen his butt. In my head, I’d made movies about his butt.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, well, I guess it’s nice.”

  “Nice?” Marisol widened her eyes at me. “Give me a break. He’s got the kind of body that could turn a nun into a whore.”

  The woman next to us shushed us.

  Marisol turned to her. “I know you didn’t just shush me.”

  “Ladies, focus.” Maureen scolded us. “Repeat after me… hee, hee, hooo… hee, hee, hooo.”

  “The first time we messed around, I couldn’t get enough of him, you know?” Marisol went on. I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from screaming. “I couldn’t get his shirt off fast enough. And the pants? Forget about it.”

  “I thought you hadn’t slept together,” I said through grit teeth.

  Candace nudged me. “Not the time.”

  “We haven’t. And now we won’t. Probably.” I winced, but Marisol didn’t take notice. “We made out, I guess. But every time we got close, his daughter would need something. Or his phone would ring and it was the hospital. Or he…”

  My eyes bugged out of my head. “He what?”

  Her brows knit close together. “He would pull away. Say he needed to be somewhere. Find some excuse to avoid sex.”

  “Yes!” When Marisol wrinkled her nose, I added, “I mean, yes. I understand. That would be really tough.”

  “Exactly!” She threw her hands up. “I mean, how long am I expected to go without getting laid?”

&nb
sp; The woman sitting next to Marisol scowled at us. “For heaven’s sake, would you talk about this later?”

  Candace mouthed the words, shut up at us.

  Maureen stared down at us with a double-chinned frown. “You’ll never bring your baby into this world naturally if you don’t know how to choose your focal point.”

  Marisol and I breathed like obedient students.

  Once Maureen moved to the opposite end of the room, she leaned close to me again. “But it wasn’t just the ass, you know? When Fletcher and I were together, there was hope. Does that make sense?”

  I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

  “Fletcher made me feel like settling down might not be so bad,” she said. “I would watch him with his kid and it got me thinking. Maybe the whole monogamy, husband and kids, white picket fence thing really is all it’s cracked up to be.”

  I gaped at her. This was not the Marisol I’d been friends with since college.

  She raised her eyebrows. “What? I can’t want domesticity?”

  “No, no. You can.” My voice cracked. “I just never thought I’d see the day. I didn’t realize Fletcher brought that out in you.”

  This complicated things. It wasn’t like I was surprised by the way he made Marisol feel. Hell, seeing Fletcher in faded Levi’s would’ve made a tree ovulate. But the thought that Fletcher’s familial appeal was now making Marisol ovulate? She deserved to have a life with someone. She deserved to have kids, and dogs, and the American dream. But why did it have to be Fletcher she wanted it with?

  “I didn’t realize it, either.” Marisol picked at her nail polish. “I just hoped that if I stuck it out long enough, we’d finally gel, you know? Maybe I’d finally figure out how to connect with his kid—”

  “Martha.” I looked down. “Her name’s Martha.”

  “Whatever.” She shook her head. “Then maybe he and I could find some common ground, because Fletcher really is great. And we’d be even more great if he’d finally let me get him into bed—because we all know once he’s in bed with me, all bets are off.”

  The woman next to her sneered, while her husband nodded enthusiastically.

  Marisol turned her body so that she was facing me. “I could never get through to him. I had to initiate all of our dates. I had to call him. I had to remind him to take me places, and to invite me to things. It’s like I was the guy in the relationship. Can you even imagine?”

  “All right, everyone. Cleansing breath.” Maureen pressed a hand to her stomach and demonstrated her deep breathing. “In and hold, and out and relax. Good job. Everyone join in.”

  The group all sucked up air in unison, except Candace, Marisol, and me.

  “Wait a minute,” Candace leaned forward so she could see Marisol. “You mean to tell us that you’ve never planned a date, or pursued a guy before?”

  Marisol offered a nonchalant shrug. “No. Have you?”

  Candace pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, good Lord.”

  “The worst part is, I think Fletcher is seeing someone else.” Marisol pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “He’s always distracted, his mind always seems to be somewhere else, and he just can’t focus on me.”

  Heat crept through the collar of my shirt, scorching the skin up the sides of my face to my hairline. Fletcher hadn’t been focusing on Marisol, because he’d been thinking about me. And I couldn’t even begin to explain how backwards that felt. But oh Lord, it felt good.

  Candace’s elbow jabbed my arm.

  “Ow.” I rubbed my puffy arm. “What was that for?”

  Candace mouthed, Tell her.

  Shaking my head, I pressed my lips together. I couldn’t admit to Marisol that the woman Fletcher had been obsessing over was me. I couldn’t admit that we’d kissed. She’d never forgive me. I wasn’t even sure I’d forgiven myself.

  “Now, I want everyone to lay back between their partner’s legs.” Maureen grinned at the group. “We’re going to practice feeling each other’s breaths. Bring your bodies in unison to help your child enter the world.”

  I looked from friend to friend. “Who wants the honors?”

  “That’s my cue.” Marisol pushed herself to her feet. “Smoke break.”

  “Come here, Lex.” Candace watched her go. The rest of the class slid into position and proceeded with unifying their bodies and all that. “She’s smoking again?”

  I grunted as I sat between her knees. “She must be stressed out.”

  Candace started to drum a silent tune on my back with her hands. “I wish she knew about you and Fletcher.”

  My chest clenched. “Why? He’s already dumping her. And I already feel awful.”

  “She’ll find out eventually, you know.” Candace stopped talking for a moment while Maureen passed by. “I mean, eventually you and Fletcher are going to want to go public with your relationship. She’ll be hurt if she finds out through the grapevine and not from you. You’re in love with her ex boyfriend, Lex. An ex boyfriend she apparently actually cared about.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that?” I craned my head to look at my cousin. “For the first time in the history of Marisol, she starts contemplating domesticity with the one man in the world I can’t imagine my life without?”

  “Shhh!” The woman next to us pressed her finger to her lips.

  Candace turned my shoulders, forcing me to face forward. “Listen,” she whispered. “I know Mar is hard to take. And I know she’ll probably be over this break up by the end of the week. But I also know she’ll be devastated when she finds out that you didn’t have the decency to tell her that you’re with him yourself.”

  “She may never have to know,” I hissed.

  “Come on, Lex. Don’t be dumb.” Candace rested her hands on my shoulders. “You aren’t going to spend the duration of your relationship in your teensy apartment.”

  “Of course not,” I mumbled. “Fletcher’s buying a house.”

  She sighed. “You’re better than this, Lex. Lying by omission is as bad as lying, and you know that.”

  Candace’s words sat in my ears, prickling and burning me from the inside out. I knew she was right. I wasn’t stupid.

  “Husbands and life partners, rub circles on mom’s back.” Maureen announced, demonstrating the motion. “Remind her how much you adore her. Remind her of your passion and devotion.”

  Candace went back to patting out a tune on my shoulder blades. “My passion and devotion to you doesn’t change the fact that you need to come clean. I won’t keep a secret like this from her forever.”

  I looked around at all of couples. All of the women had their eyes closed, and their mouths were all pulled into O’s while they huffed and puffed. My life was so grossly different from all of these other moms. What I wouldn’t have given to be sitting there with a loving, devoted husband, instead of my know-it-all cousin—who was completely, annoyingly right.

  “I can’t do it,” I finally told her, letting my face drop into my hands. “I can’t bring myself to tell Marisol.”

  A pair of platform pumps appeared in front of me.

  “Tell me what?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sure enough, at ten o’clock that night—long after I’d gotten home from my Lamaze class and slid into my favorite flannel nightgown that provided plenty of room for me, the baby, and possibly an Oldsmobile—the call from Marisol came.

  “He actually had the audacity to use the line on me, Lex. The line all guys use when they’re dumping a woman. It’s not you, it’s me, he says.”

  She hadn’t even given me a chance to say hello yet. She’d just launched into her tirade as soon as I picked up the phone.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. And I was.

  I didn’t know when I would hear from Fletcher. The only thing I allowed myself to focus on was that my friend was upset. “I’m sure it really is him, and not you.”

  Marisol had no idea how right I was. At least she didn’t know I
’d made out with Fletcher. At least, I didn’t think so.

  “No kidding it’s him.” She sniffled. “I’ve never been dumped in my life. Freaking loser.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Marisol, are you crying?”

  I hadn’t witnessed her crying since 2007, when she found out Valentino had stopped designing clothes.

  “No.” I heard the sound of a tissue being yanked from a box. “I’m just… I’m… checking to see how you were. You looked pretty tired after your what’s-it-called tonight.”

  “Lamaze class.” Rolling my eyes, I settled down on my couch and pulled a blanket over my legs. “So what else did he say?”

  “Oh, well, apparently he bought a house from Corbin. Did you know that?” Marisol’s voice was letting lower by the second. She didn’t get squeaky and high pitched like typical chicks do when they cry. She grew progressively more pissed off and dangerous. Like a hand grenade, just waiting to go off.

  I winced. “Um, yeah. I just assumed you knew.”

  “Well, you would think!” She yelled. “I was dating him, for hell’s sake. But, nooooo. Why would he tell me? Or invite me over to see it? Or ask my opinion on wall color?”

  “You’re mad about wall color?”

  “I’m mad because he dumped me!” Marisol shrieked. “I mean, he’s moving next week, and hasn’t even asked me to help or to even see the place, and that speaks volumes about what he thinks of me. Not to mention, despite my efforts tonight, the guy won’t sleep with me. I’m insulted!”

  “Oh.” My heart did a happy dance. I took a sip of a nearby glass of juice to celebrate. I’d like to propose a toast…

  “He’s gay. He’s clearly gay. I mean the writing is on the wall.”

  Choking on the juice, I slapped a hand on my chest. “So, um, did Fletcher say anything about, you know, anyone?”

  I was pretty sure I was safe. Marisol hadn’t started cussing me out in Spanish yet.

  “Of course not,” she said, sighing. “He’s acting all noble, like he’s doing the right thing. But I’m not new to this rodeo. I know he’s seeing someone else. Or at least thinking about it.”

  My stomach clenched. “You do?”