Chapter 13
DON’T YOU WANT ME?
When I woke up just after eight on Saturday, Barry was gone, probably to the gym, and this was a relief. Things were overall icy yesterday; I’d apologized and he said “all good,” but I suspected we were in fact not yet all good.
I scrawled a note onto my Post-it pad with a kitten border in case he came back while I was still out, but nothing felt right.
I wrote Thanks for the smoothie, but then crumpled the note and went with I’m the worst. Then I tried Have a nice day, and then the same note but with an exclamation point.
I peeled that one off too and wrote it back out without the exclamation point but ended up crumpling that one as well.
I settled on Out with Kate. See you later and slipped out of the house, leaving a pile of pale blue Post-its in the garbage beneath my yogurt cup.
He’d been spot-on in his guess that I wouldn’t have told him—I wouldn’t have. I’d convinced myself that I’d been protecting myself, protecting the baby even, by not telling him, but I could see how learning this would be hurtful. Of course he was hurt.
I took the bus to the diner because I hadn’t seen Josie in a few days, and it wasn’t busy so she interrogated me while I ate.
I sat at the counter and she and Marcus peppered me with questions about Barry, what he was like, if they could go to a game with me, what was he doing staying in my house, were we sleeping in the same bed, would we start dating, and also did he like his burger?
“I am begging you to bring him to karaoke,” Josie said. I watched as she poured salt into the glass shakers from each table.
“Absolutely not.” I sipped from today’s Kiss Me I’m Pregnant mug.
Marcus poked his head out of the slot into the kitchen, “You’re bringing him to karaoke?”
“No,” I said at the same time that Josie said, “Yes.”
“I’m not sure he’s going to talk to me after last night, much less sing karaoke with me.”
“What do you think his song is?” Marcus asked.
“‘Sexy And I Know It’?” Josie guessed.
“‘Don’t You Want Me’?” Marcus said, and I glared at them both.
“He probably doesn’t even have a song,” I said.
I tried to imagine Barry singing karaoke, huge hands around the little green mic that Josie hooked up to a machine probably as old as me.
Karaoke was a quarterly ritual; we’d gather at Josie’s house to sing and eat Marcus’s empanadas with some of he and Josie’s other friends.
Kate came once, but she really didn’t like karaoke, so I doubted she’d come again if she didn’t have to.
She did get wine drunk and sing Shania Twain with me that one time, though, so I think she had a good time.
In December we’d be singing in a karaoke bar instead of Josie’s living room—special occasion for Josie’s birthday.
“Everyone has a song,” Marcus said before retreating into the kitchen to watch whatever was on the stove. I dipped a fry in my ketchup and chewed it slowly. The bell above the door rang, and Josie smiled and told them she’d be with them in a minute.
“Just invite him. You’ve got a few weeks to make nice,” she said, and stole one of my fries before walking away from the counter.
Kate picked me up after breakfast for shopping, and the ride was quiet, neither of us really talking or singing with any of the songs on the radio.
At one point Kate slid an old Kelly Clarkson CD into the player, but even through the first two tracks she didn’t so much as hum along.
I picked at my already-chipped nail polish until she told me to stop picking at them.
I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be mad at who just then, or if I was overthinking things and Kate was just tired.
We didn’t have to talk all the time, but usually we did.
“I think it’s gonna snow today,” she said when we pulled into the parking lot, and I mumbled a lament about the cold.
The store was mostly empty as we made our way through the women’s clothes toward the section where all the plastic mannequins had big, distended bellies stretching the loose blouses and wrap dresses.
We both went to the sale racks first, one of us on each side.
Kate didn’t have to ask my size, just started grabbing things and slinging them over her forearm.
I was looking for a couple pairs of pants, a new bra, and a minimum of three shirts.
Kate said I should get something nicer, too, maybe a dress, just in case, and I said maybe.
An early 2000’s pop playlist played quietly above us with the slight hum of the fluorescent lights.
“Are you mad about the date?” Kate asked as she studied the tag on a pair of denim overalls. “I’d have been mad if you didn’t tell me.”
“I was being a little ridiculous,” I said, because Barry was right about that. “You aren’t expected to tell me every single thing that happens to you.”
“I know,” she said. She held up a blouse with a loud floral pattern, and we both shook our heads before she stowed it back on the rack. “I just didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“Do you like him?”
Kate shrugged and looked through another few shirts, their metal hangers sliding against the rack. “I thought I might.”
“What happened?” I held up a purple shirt with ruched sides that wasn’t entirely offensive, but the front dipped low and I was still trying to adjust to my extra cleavage. I put it back on the rack and investigated a black long-sleeve.
“I thought the date was going really well, but then he was asking me about my aspirations.”
“Like a job interview?”
“No, I think he was just trying to get to know me.”
This sounded like reasonable first date talk, if not a little formal. Maybe he was just like that, though, a real academic type.
“Did you tell him you run a successful company?”
“That’s the thing.” Kate put a dress over the stack of clothes on her arm that I would never wear, but I’d try it on to humor her.
“He was weird about it. Kept asking if it was really what I wanted to do, like running a janitorial company was something no young person in their right mind would actually want for themselves.”
“Oh no.”
“I know!”
“Jerk.”
“I know,” she said again, more resigned.
We started making our way to the dressing rooms, each of us carrying no less than ten items. I grabbed a couple of comfortable-looking bras on the way, ones with no underwire that claimed to be good for during and post pregnancy. The tired attendant let us into a room without counting the pieces.
“I told him if he thought it was such a poor profession choice he should stick to dating other professors, and then I left.”
“Before or after the cinnamon roll?”
“Before,” Kate said, and it sounded like that was the detail she was most hung up on.
“Wow, badass.” I was filled with a burning rage that this guy would try to make her feel smaller than him, cool professor or not.
Kate sat on the little stool in the corner of the dressing room and assessed the pair of jeans I’d just pulled on.
They didn’t button, just had a stretchy band of fabric that fit over my stomach to hold up the denim.
They looked just fine, if I paired them with one of the longer shirts, but the work polo wasn’t going to cut it.
“Those are fine, but try the overalls,” she said.
They were perfect, and so comfortable that I sent her back to get another pair in a darker color.
“I’m sorry about the date, Katie,” I said as I moved both overalls to the “Yes” hook along with one of the bras and the soft black shirt that claimed to be “slimming.” I wasn’t sure how anything could (or needed to) be slimming when I was swollen everywhere. “Has he texted you?”
“A lot, yeah. Apologizing and stuff, but I am dutifully ignoring him.”
I tipped my head and frowned at this news. Kate handed me the red dress with black bows, which did end up looking cute on me and very festive.
“Is there any chance he didn’t actually mean it in a weird way?”
Kate’s nose scrunched as she thought about it.
“Could he have been asking if taking over Dad’s business was your real dream? Versus an obligation?”
“You know I don’t think about the company like that.”
I did know; I think Kate really liked the idea of running Harvey Janitorial. She liked hiring people who needed a chance, being a good manager, running an organized ship, expanding the business, and further, she was good at it.
Kate sighed and I could see her mind working over the possibility. “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible. But his tone about it put me off.”
“His loss,” I said, and Kate nodded. I could tell she was a little sad about it, though. The sister sense. “I’ll buy you a cinnamon roll.”