Chapter 16
Birdsong woke Natalie. In the bed next to her, Gabby sighed and stretched, her eyes still closed, waking up slowly like she always did.
Natalie looked up at the ceiling, yesterday coming back to her. She’d already let Rob reject her mind, and then, like when she was younger and willing to sleep with jerks who thought they were so much smarter, she had offered up her body instead. But Rob wouldn’t even take that.
Normally, the first time she had sex with someone, the potential intimacy of it overwhelmed her. She had to have a few drinks beforehand to cast a pleasant haze over the whole thing, to dull the anxiety of revealing herself so fully to another person. But last night with Rob, a strange and reckless feeling had come over her. She’d pulled back from him in the lake, terrified by the knowledge that he really saw her. But next to him in that bed, she’d suddenly wanted to reveal herself and to see him fully in return in a way she never had before. It had been so big and new and scary that she couldn’t even ask him without pretending it didn’t mean that much to her.
Now the hurt she was feeling cut much deeper than a regular rejection. She was furious with herself. No, fury required energy. She was just drained. A tear traced its way down her cheek, and she brushed it away.
“Oh, Nat,” Gabby said in a foggy voice, reaching out to touch Natalie’s wet cheek.
“God, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
Natalie turned in to her best friend, who enfolded her, stroking her hair in silence for a few minutes. Last night, Gabby had opened the door to Natalie’s choked “Can I sleep in here with you?” She hadn’t asked any questions. She’d just pushed Angus out of bed and ordered him to go elsewhere, then spooned Nat until she fell asleep.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Gabby asked now, and Natalie pulled back. The two of them curled on their sides, facing each other, Gabby’s eyes full of sympathy, their hair spread out messily on their pillows. Here they were, having a sleepover, as if they’d been transported back to when they were roommates, to the nights they’d accidentally fallen asleep in each other’s beds because they hadn’t wanted to stop talking.
“It’s exhausting to want things,” Natalie said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Things I have to fight for that no one wants to give me.” Gabby nodded. “I can’t…I can’t keep feeling all this rejection. Maybe it’s time to stop fighting and take the things that come to me instead.”
“Maybe,” Gabby said, touching Natalie’s cheek again. “But I hope you don’t do that forever.”
Natalie squeezed Gabby’s hand, then rubbed her eyes. “What time is it? We should get up.”
Gabby groaned. “I could lounge all day. Work has really been taking it out of me. I thought I could catch up on rest this weekend, but I’m still pooped.”
“Too much sun.” Nat put her hand on Gabby’s forehead. “Or are you sick?”
“No, I feel fine otherwise. Except, I guess my boobs are a little tender—”
She cut herself off, and they gaped at each other.
“Do you think it’s…?” Nat began.
“Could I be…?”
“Have you and Angus been trying?”
“No! The plan is to wait a couple more years. And you know I am rigorous about taking my pill.” Her eyes widened. “Except for when I got food poisoning this month—there were a couple days where I couldn’t keep anything down and basically just slept all the time, and I may have skipped a pill then.”
“Shit,” Natalie said. “But there could be a million other explanations.”
“Yeah.” Gabby took a deep, calming breath in through her nose and let it slowly out of her mouth. Then, in a high, fast voice, she asked, “You wanna come to the pharmacy with me real quick?”
Nat jumped out of bed. “Let’s go.”
They ran to the car. As soon as Gabby turned the key, the Hamilton soundtrack that Angus had insisted on playing during the entire drive there began to blast from the speakers. Gabby turned it off with a sharp jab. “I love that Angus loves it,” she said, “but after a full year, I simply can’t listen anymore.”
Gabby drove them carefully up the winding tree-lined road to the nearest CVS and bought a pregnancy test. Then, as she followed the GPS back to the house, she kept up a stressed, steady monologue.
“If I’m pregnant, and we should remember that it’s far more likely that I am not, we could make it work with our finances. We’ve got that extra room in the apartment that we’ve been using as a home office slash art studio, but who needs a home office? It could be a nursery for now.” She turned down the winding lane back to the lake.
“And we’re near Prospect Park, which would be a good place to take walks so the baby could experience nature. I wonder if the Uppababy is really worth it. And sure, I sometimes look at momfluencer accounts, so I have a bit of a sense of what to expect. Not that you can ever really understand until you’re in it.”
Natalie stared at her friend. “What the hell is an Uppababy?”
“A stroller,” Gabby said, as if it were common knowledge.
Angus and Rob were still out on the water when they returned, though Nat could just make out them paddling back (or rather, Rob paddling back) in the distance. Melinda’s car was gone—she’d texted Gabby that she had gotten bored with Dante and decided to take them both back to the city. Gabby turned toward the cabin. “Let’s go inside.”
“Don’t you want to wait for Angus?”
Gabby gave her a look. “Excuse me, no. Remember? If this is anything, you’re the first one I tell.”
Natalie’s heart flooded with love for her friend. “Now come on,” Gabby continued, “because I’m really anxious and need to know.” They grabbed hands and ran into the house together.
After peeing on the stick, Gabby came out to sit with Natalie on the mattress in the bedroom where, just an hour ago, they hadn’t realized how easily their lives could be upended.
Gabby’s leg jiggled up and down. “My God, I never knew a few minutes could last so long.”
“Do you need distraction?” Natalie asked.
“Yes, tell me something interesting.”
“Um…”
“Anything. Please. I don’t care what it is—”
It came out in a rush. “Rob and I made out in the lake.”
Gabby shrieked. “I knew it! Well, not about the lake, but I thought I sensed a vibe—” She cut herself off. “Wait, did he make you cry? What did he do, and do I need to kill him? I like Rob fine, I don’t want to hurt him, but I will.”
“He and I are just…I don’t know. He’s a dick, but you should let him live.”
“I want all the details—”
Natalie looked away as she tried to figure out how to even begin. Her eyes fell on the test between them. “Gabby,” she said, and pointed.
A hushed moment as they took it in. Tears beaded in Gabby’s eyes. “Holy shit. I’m having a baby.”
“You’re having a baby.” They both spoke in whispers. Somehow the news felt so big that all they could do was whisper in the face of it. Like walking into a cathedral, reverent. Natalie squeezed Gabby tight, holding on to a body that was already changing in ways she couldn’t comprehend. “I can’t wait for there to be even more of you in the world for me to love.”
“Aunt Natalie,” Gabby said into her shoulder. Then she sat back. “Do you think…? I’m not going to lose myself, am I?”
“No,” Natalie said, though it was more of a hope than a certainty. Because as happy as she was now—practically full to bursting—the joy was bittersweet. Their friendship had survived marriage, but things were different than they had been, diminished. A baby, well…they’d soon be living in two different realities. Natalie literally could not imagine having a child right now. Even if things continued to go well with Jeff and they decided to take that step, it would be years away. And what was it that Gabby had said in the car at one point during her stressed-out monologue? Not that you can ever really understand until you’re in it.
“I hope Angus isn’t sad or disappointed,” Gabby was saying now. “He’s just starting this new job, we’d talked about taking all these trips—”
A clatter sounded outside the bedroom—the screen doors opening, someone tripping through them. “I think they’re back,” Natalie said, “and he’d better not be disappointed.”
“Yeah. It’s his swimmers that did this.”
An unpleasant image of Angus’s swimmers in her head, Natalie followed Gabby out into the living room, where Rob and Angus were finishing drying off. Rob caught Natalie’s eye, then looked away, then looked back again as if trying to interpret her expression.
“Angus?” Gabby asked. “Could we talk for a minute?”
He was bending over and toweling off his hair, but he whipped back up to standing at those words. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” Then he registered the pregnancy test, still in Gabby’s hand. “What is…?” he began, his mouth sagging open. He took in Gabby’s hopeful, overwhelmed face. He blinked rapidly as he processed the situation. Then, “We’re having a baby?” he asked, whispering just like Gabby and Natalie had.
Gabby nodded, and at that confirmation, Angus turned incandescent, beginning at once to grin and to sob. “Oh, wow!” he said through his happy tears. “Oh, wow.” He ran forward and swept Gabby into a kiss, then picked her up, spinning her around as the two of them began to laugh, an uncontrollable burst of feeling between them.
Suddenly Angus froze and set her down, his face full of terror. “Should I not have done that?”
“What, picked me up?”
“Yeah. Was it dangerous for the baby?”
“I don’t think a bit of twirling is going to hurt it.”
“Thank God,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Whew, almost gave myself a heart attack there!” He kissed her again, then leaned down to her stomach. “I never want to hurt you, little buddy.”
It was extremely corny, but Nat felt a tingle in her throat anyway. She started to back away, thinking that maybe the two of them needed a moment alone. Then Angus looked up, zeroing in on her and Rob. “Godparents!” he said.
Gabby laughed. “Honey, they’re not Catholic.”
“Oh right. Godparents in spirit, then.” He stepped away from Gabby for a moment and caught both Natalie’s and Rob’s hands, pulling them in for a group hug, all four of them locked together.
The feeling of Rob’s body smushed against hers was nearly unbearable. Her relationship with Gabby was about to change. But in that moment, despite everything that had happened that weekend and everything that was to come, Natalie looked at Rob and smiled. He swallowed, smiling back at her, and in unison, both of them wiped their eyes.