Laurel forced herself to look ahead. They were nearing the newly renovated strip mall. To her knowledge, restaurants there were little more than storefronts. Most came and went in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a little debris and no memories.
And then again, maybe not this time. Business, apparently, was good and Laurel noted how crowded the parking area was.
She heard Jeannie murmur “damn” under her breath and assumed she was frustrated by the crowded lot. “Okay, how about going to a restaurant across the street?” Laurel suggested. The older strip mall on the other side of the thoroughfare looked fairly empty from here.
Jeannie didn’t answer. She had zeroed in on the lone parking space in the area.
“Ah, here,” she announced. The next second, she’d executed a ninety-degree turn and tucked the car into a space that was the size of an enlarged shoe box. Jeannie beamed broadly as she turned off the engine.
Thank God, that was over. “So, you charge extra for the ride?” Laurel mumbled, only too glad to get out. Her knees felt wobbly and disconnected. She imagined sailors had the same reaction walking out onto the dock after months at sea.
Jeannie surprised her by threading her arm through hers to ensure that she remained upright. “You’ll feel better once you’re inside.”
“I’ll feel better once I’m home, in bed,” Laurel countered. Jeannie yanked open the wooden door and drew her inside.
Whatever else Laurel might have wanted to say was drowned out the next moment as approximately twenty women simultaneously cried out, “Surprise!”
CHAPTER 34
Stunned, Laurel pulled back as the wall of noise and cheer washed over her. She couldn’t go far because her arm was still tucked through Jeannie’s and the latter had a firm grip on her.
“Omigod, Jeannie, what did you do?” she cried, turning in amazement toward her best friend.
“Got into your PDA and invited every woman you know,” Jeannie freely confessed with a wide grin. “Surprised?”
“That’s one word,” Laurel allowed. “Stunned, amazed, overwhelmed would be others.”
She tried to make out faces in the dimly lit entrance but failed. The next minute, she was being swallowed up by the crowd and led off to the rear of the restaurant.
She saw Denise with her cousin and several of her friends—but mercifully, not her mother, Sarah. And then, just as she entered the banquet room, she spied the other women from her office. So that was where everyone had gotten to.
Her sister and mother moved to the foreground, each taking a side. Jeannie brought up the rear. She couldn’t turn and flee if she wanted to, so she allowed herself to enjoy what was happening: this was her baby shower.
“How long have you been planning this?” she asked Jeannie, raising her voice to be heard over the crowd.
“A couple of weeks,” Jeannie answered.
Laurel strained to hear her. The noise in the small room was almost deafening, especially since the voices of the maître d’ and a waiter were added to it and both were conversing in Chinese.
“And you never let anything slip,” Laurel marveled, raising her voice even higher. Jeannie’s previous record for keeping a secret had been an hour. “You’re getting better.”
Jeannie laughed. “Why do you think I was avoiding you so much?”
“Eyes front, Laurel honey, you don’t want to trip now, do you?” her mother coached.
For the time being, Laurel decided to let her mother baby her. What would it hurt?
The Red Dragon restaurant was a great deal larger than it appeared from the outside. It was still narrow, but the actual footage went deep. The shower was being held in the rear banquet room. A huge rectangular table dominated the area. Silvery balloons with babies splashed across them shared space with fierce red dragons painted on the wall.
The chaos seemed rather appropriate, since this baby had come crashing into her life, completely unexpected and unannounced.
“Sit here, dear,” her mother instructed, directing her to the head of the table. “The place of honor.”
Everyone else quickly found their seats.
It was like a game of musical chairs without the music, Laurel thought, watching them. Her mother, Lynda and Jeannie were seated closest to her while everyone else, including Denise and her cousin Beth, filled in the rest of the places around the table. Over in a corner was a table piled high with colorfully wrapped gifts.
The noise began to die down and little by little, all eyes turned toward her.
Laurel felt herself growing emotional. She hadn’t expected this. Her last shower had taken place twenty-one years ago and it had been, she thought, her last shower. She’d planned to have this baby quietly.
Yeah, right. Think again.
She looked at the sea of faces all focused on her. All giving up a bit of their precious time for her.
Laurel was at a loss. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“I do. Let’s eat,” Jeannie declared, waving over the servers who began by bringing in trays filled with appetizers.
Those were followed by the main course, a choice of one of three entrees, all of them numbering among Laurel’s favorites: shrimp in lobster sauce, sesame chicken and Moo Goo Gai Pan. Fortune cookies followed twenty minutes later, before the actual three-tier cake was wheeled in. Unlike the food, the cake had been brought in from somewhere else.
Laurel was coaxed out of her chair with applause before she went to cut the cake. After taking the first cut, she surrendered the knife to the waiter, who smiled as he took over. Servings were quickly cut and handed out.
“I ran out of space ten minutes ago,” Laurel lamented, looking down at the plate that the waiter had placed before her.
“Oh, but you have to try it,” her mother enthused, almost finished with her piece. “It is by far the best cake I’ve ever eaten.” She beamed. “It came from this lovely little Bavarian bakery in Costa Mesa. Lynda discovered it.”
Laurel looked at her sister. This was something new. “You’re scouting out bakeries, Lyn?”
She tried very hard to keep an upbeat note in her voice. When Lynda and Dean divorced, her sister had barricaded herself with a supply of ice cream that could have fed a small village for a year. Had Lynda and Robert broken up and Lynda was turning her attention to cake instead?
“I am.”
There was such a positive note in her sister’s voice, Laurel felt compelled to ask, “Why?”
“How else am I going to find the best bakery to handle making the wedding cake?” Lynda asked the rhetorical question in between bites of her piece.
Laurel exchanged glances with her mother, but Debra Taylor seemed as surprised as she felt.
“Wedding?” Laurel breathed, mentally crossing her fingers so hard she felt cross-eyed. “What wedding?”
Lynda raised her head and looked at her, the smile on her lips bordering on sly. “My wedding.”
Debra’s fork slipped from her fingers, clattering to the plate before it finally fell to the floor. Her eyes were huge as she regarded her second daughter.
“Your what?” she whispered.
Sly vanished, immediately replaced with excitement. Lynda’s eyes were actually sparkling. “My wedding.”
Debra splayed her hand over her small chest. “Lynda, you wouldn’t tease an old woman, would you?”
“I’m too happy to tease anyone,” Lynda laughed. And then she faced her sister. “I’m going to owe you for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”
Lynda was marrying Robert, Laurel thought. She didn’t know she could feel so happy for someone else. If she didn’t feel as if she weighed a thousand pounds, she would have gotten up and danced around the room. Instead, she abandoned the to-die-for cake she’d just begun to sample and grabbed both of her sister’s hands, squeezing them.
“Even beyond that,” Laurel said, laughing. She pulled her sister into a hug with her mother throwing her arms around both of them. “Why didn’t you tell me things were go
ing that well?”
“Because I didn’t want to jinx it,” Lynda answered when she finally got a little breathing room. She was positively glowing, Laurel thought. Wait until she told Jason. “I was afraid if I said it out loud, it would all go away.”
“And he asked you to marry him?” Debra asked.
That was her mother, the fact checker.
Lynda nodded her head vigorously. Opening her purse, she took out the ring box she’d been carrying around with her, waiting to spring the news on her sister and mother. She slipped the ring on and held up her hand for viewing.
Laurel pretended to shade her eyes. “Oh God, some lighthouse is looking for its beacon.”
Tears sparkled in Debra’s eyes as she hovered over her younger daughter. “I’m speechless,” Debra cried.
“This is the best present you could have given me, Lyn. Mom, speechless. Who would have ever thought it?” Laurel said.
Obviously, too happy to take offense, Debra merely waved her hand at Laurel and dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “My baby’s getting married again.”
“For keeps this time,” Lynda added softly, looking at the way the ring caught the overhead lighting and cast out sparkling beams all around the room.
Bracing her knuckles against the tabletop, Laurel pushed herself into a standing position and looked down at the long table. “Everyone, I have an announcement to make.” It took a few seconds for the din to die down and for all the women to turn in her direction. She savored her next words. “My sister Lynda is getting married!”
The news was greeted with exclamations of surprise and shouts of congratulations. Several women rose and came over to their end of the table.
Amid the sound of interweaving conversation, Laurel saw Denise timidly raising her hand, obviously hoping to get her attention. She made eye contact with her daughter-in-law and raised a quizzical brow. Denise mouthed something that was lost in the noise.
Laurel cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Louder,” to her. She saw the girl slowly rising to her feet.
Oh God, please don’t let this be bad, Laurel thought, trying to fathom the strange expression on the young woman’s face. Since the wedding, Denise had gotten progressively closer to her, confiding that, after all these years, she finally felt as if she had a real mother. Was this something about Luke?
Again, Denise mouthed something, but she still couldn’t hear her.
Puzzled, Lynda leaned into her. “What’s Denise saying?”
“Probably something to congratulate you,” Laurel guessed. Taking a breath, she rose to her feet again, longing for the day when she could do it without so much effort. “Everyone,” she declared, “my daughter-in-law has something to say.”
Denise seemed embarrassed at the attention focused on her. She gave the impression of someone who wanted to fold up into herself and disappear.
“C’mon, honey, just spit it out,” someone to her right coaxed.
Denise fixed her gaze on Laurel. It was apparently the only way she could get through this. And then she said, “I’m pregnant.”
The next moment, she was engulfed by the other women at the table even as Laurel slid bonelessly back into her chair. Stunned for the third time in less than an hour.
CHAPTER 35
It seemed to Laurel that the fit behind the steering wheel of her car was getting tighter and tighter every time she got in on the driver’s side. She’d pushed the seat back as far as she could to still work the pedals. What she needed was longer arms and legs.
Either that, or a smaller stomach.
Too late for that, she thought. God, but she felt she’d been playing the part of Dumbo’s mother for the past ten years. She couldn’t imagine Denise getting this way. The girl was a stick. And now she was a pregnant stick.
Wow, Denise pregnant.
Luke, a father, double wow.
Her baby was having a baby.
She’d tried to call Jason to tell him the news, both about Denise being pregnant and about Lynda getting married. But each time she pressed his number, his cell was either busy or out of range. All three times.
Where was he? Why wasn’t he answering his cell?
Maybe he’d come to his senses and had decided to run away.
And then she smiled to herself. No, Jason was one of the good guys. He’d proven that by going with her to those Lamaze classes when he didn’t want to. He’d stick by her no matter what. And having a baby at forty-five was one of those things that came directly under the heading of “no matter what.”
Laurel jammed on her brakes as an SUV drifted into her lane, cutting her off. For a second, as she swallowed a few colorful adjectives about the driver’s mental capacity and listened to her own heart pounding, she struggled to calm down. This afternoon, for the most part, was a blur.
She did recall hugging Denise in the restaurant. Her daughter-in-law had clung to her and whispered “I’m scared” into her ear while everyone else had swarmed around to congratulate her.
At the same time, Jeannie had looked at her and quipped, “It must be catching. Remind me not to drink the water.”
She’d told Denise not to worry, that she would be there for her every step of the way. Denise had turned out to be a good match for Luke after all. Sweet, caring, not a thing like the woman who had given her life. Probably by proxy, Laurel mused, knowing what she did about Denise’s mother.
Mother.
A bemused smile played on her lips as she squeaked through a yellow light. She was going to be a grandmother and a brand-new mother almost at the same time. If she wasn’t careful, she could find herself being overwhelmed, trying to live up to all her responsibilities. Being there for everyone.
She’d raised three sons, she could do this.
And how about Lynda? she thought with pride. Getting married again. If she knew her little sister, Lynda was going to need help with the wedding.
So much happiness, Laurel mused, so little time.
Keeping her eyes and her mind focused on the road was getting to be a challenge. She found that she kept drifting off mentally, making snippets of plans. God knows she was pleased beyond words.
And her mother, well, her mother had turned into the personification of joy right before her eyes. And why not? Laurel grinned to herself. Lynda getting married to not only a decent, good-looking guy but a rich one as well. Just proved that all good things came to he who waits, or in this case, she.
Laurel picked her cell phone up from where she’d left it on the passenger seat and pressed number three for Jason. It rang several times before stopping at four.
Jason’s disembodied voice asked her to please leave a message.
“You never listen to your messages anyway,” she accused the cell—and Jason by proxy—as she ended the attempt.
Closing the cell, she dropped it back on the passenger seat. What if she’d gone into early labor? Granted, that would be really early, but you could never tell. If she did go into labor, she’d have to rely on one of her sons or someone else to get her to the hospital—provided she could reach someone, she thought. All those phones out there and none of them being answered.
In this day and age of technological marvels, she sometimes felt that all they did was provide more ways to get frustrated. Most likely, if she did go into early labor and need a ride to the hospital, she’d wind up out on some corner, trying desperately to hitch a ride. And just who in their right minds would pick up a desperate, pregnant woman?
She was getting carried away again, Laurel chided herself. It was happening a lot lately. She’d never been a withdrawn person by any definition, but ever since this last pregnancy had overtaken her, she’d become a walking bundle of emotions. They seemed to go bouncing all over the place at the slightest provocation.
This too shall pass, she told herself.
Turning right at the corner, Laurel drove down the cul de sac and then turned left at the second house from the end, pulling up into
the driveway. She was home an hour earlier than usual. That was Callaghan’s gift to her. He’d told her that she could make her own hours from now until after the baby arrived.
Twenty minutes after he’d told her, she was on the road home, her vehicle overflowing with packages. The women at the shower had all helped load up her car with gifts. At the time, there’d been almost too many hands helping.
Now, of course, there were none available, she realized as she got out of the vehicle and surveyed the back seat. It was completely stuffed, as was the trunk. For a moment, her can-do attitude almost got the best of her and she unlocked her trunk. She’d never been one to wait around until someone came by to help. Whatever needed doing, she’d always it done herself. But as she picked up the first box, she changed her mind.
For once in her life, she was going to play the role of the helpless little woman. For once, she was going to have the men in her life fetch and carry for her instead of doing it all herself.
Christopher’s car was parked at the curb. Unless one of his friends had come by to pick him up, that meant he was home. Which in turn meant that he could be pressed into service and unload the car for her.
She liked that idea.
“Christopher, are you around?” Laurel called out as she unlocked the front door. Nothing but silence met her in response. Removing the key from the lock, she raised her voice and called again. “Christopher, could you come here a second?”
Still nothing.
Laurel sighed. Her initial thought had been right. Someone had come by to pick Christopher up for whatever it was that kids his age did.
People, she corrected herself. For whatever it was that people his age did. Christopher wasn’t a kid anymore, even though she thought of him that way. Thought of them all that way. Her kids. Her babies.
Laurel shook her head. She was getting as syrupy as a greeting card.
The remedy for that was work, she decided. There was dinner to see to. Even though food was the last thing on her mind, Jason would be hungry. And so would Morgan once he got home.
The Second Time Around Page 20
