They brought dinner to Rachel’s. It was so like when Hannah was a newborn and their usual rotation for their monthly meals switched to showing up wherever Rachel and the baby were, so she never had to plan. Or even stand up. Except back then, Rachel was living with her annoying former mother-in-law and one or the other of them would often need to wrestle the baby out of Yia Yia Depy’s arms.
Baby Cassandra was a different story. They only had to wrestle her away from each other, and her mother, and her sister. And her father. It was an altogether more genial tussle, enacted while Rachel curled on the sofa and closed her eyes. Gillian took the opportunity to study her most precious friend. Maybe it was that everything under Depy’s roof was cast in a dark yellowish tone, while Theo and Rachel’s townhome was bright windows and open spaces. Maybe her memories were tinged by her considerable worries about how to help Rachel embark on the life of a single mother. But her heart swelled to see how clear and lax Rach looked in repose. Her keen Mama radar seemed to be churning along on low, rather than vibrating at a constant threat level. More experience with parenting? Cassandra’s general chill nature? Or living in a house full of people who loved her, and who she loved to every depth of her self in return?
Probably that love thing.
“Where’s your big brain bunked off to?” Natalie held a wine glass out to her.
“Thanks.” She sipped the shiraz. “Mmm. Is this to make me forget it’s my turn to read Hannah’s bedtime story?”
“Stories,” Rachel said, without shifting from her cozy curl.
“Even better.”
“It’s so not your turn,” Natalie argued. “You hogged her for practically your whole spring break.”
“That doesn’t count. We were at my house, so she didn’t get to pick her favorites.”
“Agree to disagree, woman. Because Serena and I discussed it, and we decided it totally counts.”
Serena glanced up from cooing at Cassandra long enough to nod.
“See? So give Hannah-girl her hugs then go make our salad. Probably only use half that jicama—it’s a monster.”
“I know how to make salad, Natalie.”
“Great. Perfect division of labor. I know how to read stories.”
“Stop buzzing, y’all.” Rachel flapped a hand their way, still without opening her eyes. “Bring me my girl so I can say goodnight.”
Gillian gave in, setting aside her wine so she could scoop up Hannah from where she was helping Serena admire her baby sis. Half an hour or so later, it was just the four of them sitting around the table. Cassandra dozed nearby, unbothered by their chatter and the clatter of dinner being served.
“I know she’s the most precious baby in a thousand mile radius, but you’re gooing all over her an extra amount today,” Rachel told Gill.
“She’s an extra amount more precious every time I see her is why.”
“True that.” Rach smiled at her newborn. “Ow, my boobs. You’re supposed to distract me from how sweet she is. I think we’re finally past that growth spurt, but no one told my milk ducts yet.”
“Poor Rachel.”
“Distract or get out.”
Serena raised her glass. “Okay, first, a toast to us. It’s already been a big year for us, and we’re not half through it, but we are rocking it.”
They drank to that. “Speaking of the mid-point of the year, do you want to talk wedding at all?”
Rachel slumped against the table with an excess of dramatic gestures. “Gillian. We’re celebrating that we survived two weddings already. And me giving birth. And your conference keynote. Can we please not stress me out thinking about how much I have still to do?”
“Okay, okay. If it’s better that way for you. We’ll just keep waking up to a dozen texts from you every day.”
Serena raised her brows. “It was at least twenty yesterday.”
“And they started arriving before six a.m.,” Nat added.
Rach spared her baby another glance. “Not my fault someone around here isn’t clear about how to snooze all night long.”
“Do you need me to come over more so you can nap?” Gillian asked, already running through slots in her schedule that would let her spell her friend.
Rachel squeezed her hand. “No. Honest. It’s not as easy when Theo’s up in Dallas with Andres, of course, but we’re getting the hang of everything. As much as we can given Cassandra’s growth spurt. Anyway, this is no kind of distraction. Tell me something that’s not going to stress me out or make me leak.”
“Yeah, Gillian. What can you tell us that will keep Rachel’s shirt dry?” Natalie’s voice was all tease-song and smug.
“I know what she can tell us.” Serena tapped her heart. “I heard a couple of things through the husband grapevine.”
Gillian helped herself to more salad, and tried to pass the conversation along with the serving bowl. No one would take it. She sighed. “First off, your husbands should spend less time gossiping about my life. And B, y’all already know I hooked up with Vic.”
None of them looked impressed with her gambit to head off their questions.
“And how up was that hook?” Natalie asked.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“And how many hooks did you up?” Rachel propped her chin on her fist. “Were any of the hooks down low? Did any of the ups get you off the hook?”
“Stop acting like this is a much bigger deal than it is. It’s not the first time I’ve had sex, you know.”
Serena toasted her. “That, we know. Wait—what was his name? The one with the teeth?”
“Oh, Jaws!” Nat snorted. “No, he wasn’t her first, though. It was that chem major who got mad we only had cow milk.”
This was the problem with having friends who’d been around too long. “He name was Jim, not Jaws. And Kaitlynn wasn’t mad, just vegan.”
“Same thing, in her case.” Serena made a thoughtful face. “Do you remember the names of everyone you’ve been with?”
She nodded like it was natural. “Why, don’t you?” She was lying, of course. She’d stopped keeping track, stopped even adding up her numbers, long ago. The tallies didn’t matter. What mattered was her autonomy. Her right and privilege to seek pleasure, to give consenting pleasure, where and when she chose.
“She’s side-tracking you,” Rachel said, then turned her Mama voice on Gillian. “The guys say you and Vic are a couple now. Not just hooking up, not just a one-time. A real honest and true relationship.”
She met her friend’s stern and slightly pissed off gaze. Nodded.
“And we heard it from them first, why exactly?”
Gillian found herself staring at her dessert fork, willing the baby to wake up and take the focus off her. Which was more than jelly-spined enough to jolt her into truth telling. She sighed. “Vic is … y’all, he’s so soft. I can’t even gratify Natalie with a pun about it. He’s always had this, you know, shell about him. Like he’s unbreakable, tough no matter what. Rolls in anywhere and is at total ease, everyone’s pal.”
“He’s affable, I get that,” Serena said.
“It’s not just that. I mean, he genuinely is a people person. Otherwise he’d never have his job, I don’t think. But I’m talking about what’s underneath.”
Nat smirked and everyone shushed her before she could make jokes.
“Is it bad, the softness? Why is it bad, I mean?” Rachel asked.
“No. Not bad. But I can’t ignore it. Can’t just go to bed with him and have him talk about his heart and how he wants to be a couple and let him bring me coffee while I grade and just … not know all the time that his shell might break.”
“Raise your hand if you’re remembering a time Gillian told you to not borrow trouble,” Nat said to the others. All their hands shot towards the ceiling.
“Before I met Theo’s parents and sisters, she told me if they turned out to be possum-suited suffocators, we’d deal with them one claw at a time. And I shouldn’t spent the whole drive to Austin turning them into Depy in my imagination.”
“See? Rachel’s right.” Natalie slid the wine bottle her way, which gave Gill an excuse to look away while she listened to her friends pile on. “You’re turning him into a problem before you even take the time to know if dating him means you might like his soft side.”
“It’s not my liking the soft side I’m worried about.” Her breastbone felt inadequate to the task of keeping her most vital organ in place.
“Well, then, what is, hon?” Rachel’s gentleness pierced all her meagre defenses.
She blurted the words before giving herself a chance to coat them in ironic distance. “What if I break his shell and all that softness spills out and solidifies and then I’ve changed him forever and he can’t rein it in and every time I need soft he’s all hard and rubbery and every time I act sharp he’s got no armor I can bounce off and every time I look for the Vic I’ve known all my life, the one who gets all my stuff because he saw me grow up in my family, he’s gone and this mess of goop is all I can have?”
As distractions for Rachel went, it worked just fine. But none of their comforting, no answers to their questions, and no amount of shiraz quelled the worries buzzing through her brain.