I stir the tray of beige chicken and dumplings that I did my best to dress up with fresh chives, and watch the snow fall in thick flakes outside the hospital cafeteria window. I feel lucky to be warm, even if it is because of the heat given off by the burners at work instead of snuggled up under an afghan with Devon.
“So, your little sis is due pretty soon, eh?” Dexter says, probably because he just served a very pregnant woman a cup of chicken noodle soup. “’Bout three weeks?”
He’s right, though I haven’t talked to Dexter about Annie having her baby for a long time. “How did you know?”
“Oh, a young woman told me. Maybe a friend of yours?” He gestures to a table in the middle of the cafeteria.
Samara. Why is she talking to my boss about my sister? Is she trying to make my job as hard to take as school?
Belle catches my eye and her face explodes into a smile. She tugs on Samara’s arm and points at me. Samara turns and offers a weak wave. I adjust the latex gloves on my hands and wiggle my fingers back for the sake of Belle. She doesn’t need to know yet how nasty people can be, how her sister stole Annie from my life and then ditched her when Annie became an embarrassment, leaving me to pick up the pieces.
Again, I wish I was tangled up with Devon and his kisses right now. Ever time we touch I fantasize about being alone with him again like we were a week ago at Kasey’s house. I made an appointment for next week at the Parenthood Clinic, this time so I can find out about going on the birth control pill. If I’m going to sleep with Devon, I want to be able to do it with no reservations or distractions from the other areas of my life. I want to be able to enjoy our every touch without worrying about a condom breaking and a baby coming into existence.
“May I please have two servings?” a customer asks, snapping me out of my fantasy.
I comply and try to focus on the food.
“So how’s your sis feelin’?” Dexter asks when the line of customers dies down.
“Not bad, I guess.” I don’t really want to know about her swollen feet or anything else I saw when I flipped through her copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. “She’s due February twenty-seventh, but Mom thinks she’ll go early because she’s so big now.”
“My little niece Emmaline,” Dexter says, “she was born three weeks early, and let me tell you her mama’s belly was as big as a house. I wasn’t sure how much more stretching her little body could take. Of course now our Emmaline’s a perfect sized little girl. She’s gonna be three next week.” Dexter serves a cup of clam chowder. “I tell ya, there’s nothing like a little girl.”
***
I’ve barely kicked off my non-slip cafeteria shoes when Annie meets me in the hall.
“They found someone to adopt my baby,” she blurts.
A whoosh of relief rushes into my lungs. “Oh my gosh, no way! Already?” Once Annie has the baby and she’s adopted, there’ll be no more connection to Harris, no more need to hide and lie.
Then I see – really see – Annie’s expression. Her tight smile, pinched cheeks, and small fists.
Frustration wells inside me. This was what she wanted, what she was dancing about only a few months ago, her karmic decision to give her baby up to a couple who couldn’t have children on their own.
“What’s wrong?” I demand.
Annie shakes her head, turns around, and stares at the TV. It’s on the animal channel. A snake is devouring some sort of small rodent. I have a feeling whatever she’s been watching has not been good for her mood. “Harris,” she starts.
“Forget him. Don’t let him make you change your mind.”
“It’s not that,” she says. “It’s just…Harris never called back.”
“Good,” I say, not caring that it’s a lie.
Annie glares.
“I’m not mad at you,” I say as gently as I can. “Just him.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not your job to be mad at him.”
“Don’t you get it?” I stand in front of the TV. “Harris doesn’t care and he certainly doesn’t deserve to know anything about you or the baby, so just forget him. If you’re waiting for him to tell you to keep the baby and he’ll come home and the three of you will be a family, you’re wasting your time.”
Annie puts her hands on her belly. “What would you know about it? What would you know about loving a guy and having him love you back?”
“Are you that self-absorbed?” I ask, throwing her words to me back at her.
She sinks into the recliner like I shoved her.
“Devon and I love each other, OK? We really love each other. Whatever you and Harris had – or thought you had – that wasn’t it.”
Annie’s cheeks turn red. “You don’t know anything about what Harris and I had. You never even met him.”
I pinch my lips shut.
“He gets me. He understands me,” she says.
“Well maybe I would ‘get’ and ‘understand’ you too if you would talk to me,” I say, using air quotes and everything (as if it will help her “get” and “understand” my point).
“You could never understand.”
“Because I’d never had a boyfriend? Because I haven’t had sex?”
“No! Because you hated me and my friends and didn’t want anything to do with me as soon as I started high school,” Annie snaps.
“You picked jerks for friends!”
“You were nasty to them as soon as I started hanging out with Justine! You didn’t give her a chance to like you.”
I mean to sigh but it comes out a growl. “What are you talking about? I was totally nice to them.” Though the truth is I can’t remember anything other than the way they judged my hair, my clothes, and my weight with a simple look and upturned nose.
“You judged them the same way you say they judged you,” Annie says.
“Whatever,” I say. “They are treating us both like crap now so quit defending Justine.”
Annie tips her head and stares at her lap, eventually saying, “He said it. He said he loved me.”
“So he could have sex with you,” I say, not able to stop. “Why else would a twenty-year-old college guy want to be with a high school girl?”
“Shut up,” she says, her eyes red and raging. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Dad bursts into the room. “What’s going on in here?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Everything’s fine,” Annie says quickly, folding her arms over her stomach.
“Yeah, fine,” I say.
That’s when Dad takes the 35mm camera from behind his back and snaps a picture.
“Dad!” we both say.
“I’m still in my work clothes,” I complain, looking down at my gravy stained shirt.
“I look like a fat slob,” Annie says, as if she ever has.
“Sorry girls. I have to use up the rest of this film. Besides, you both look lovely.” He takes one more shot for good measure and he leaves the room.
Suddenly exhausted, I rub my forehead and collapse onto the couch. On the TV, a commercial for cat food featuring singing kittens fills the silence between.
Annie speaks first. “I told Dad he could take pictures at the hospital.”
“At the hospital,” I repeat like one of Kasey’s parrots.
“Yeah, when the baby’s born,” she says.
I imagine what it would be like to see pictures on the mantel of Annie laying in her hospital bed with a baby in her arms. A baby that’s no longer hers.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I say, because I am. Yelling won’t help anything except maybe send Annie into early labor. (I read about that in her book, too.)
Annie pushes her hair away from her face. “Just because you never liked Justine, it didn’t mean you had to stop being my friend.”
“Annie, Justine can’t stand me,” I say.
“No,” Annie says. “She was always just jealous.”
“Jealous?” I touch my poufy hair and picture the zits sprouting on my chin.
“Because you and I were best friends.”
Were. It’s funny how things happen, how we let them happen, and how we don’t know how to undo the past. But if the past was different between me and Annie, would it also be different between me and Devon? Me and Kasey?
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that? About Justine?” I ask.
“I didn’t want you to hate her more.”
“I never hated her. Not until this year when she was totally nasty to you.” I lean back into the couch so I’m staring at the top of the fireplace to the framed photos “You don’t think it will make you sad? To look at the baby pictures from the hospital?”
She shrugs. “I’m hoping it will make me happy. Seeing her might remind me of why I gave her to a couple who couldn’t have kids. I think remembering that will make me happy, don’t you?”
Annie’s response almost makes too much sense. I wonder why I even questioned her to begin with.
Then I know why: I was thinking of myself. No matter how weak Annie may seem because she can’t get over Harris, I’m wrong.
Annie is strong and I will help hold her up.