7. Az
— ? —
Az
Roz has hung streamers from every surface in the backyard.
Pink and yellow and mint green, twisting in the Bakersfield breeze, and there are paper lanterns in the oak tree and a banner over the back door that says IT’S A GIRL in glittery letters.
She’s been planning this for weeks, texting me photos of centerpieces and cake options, calling to ask if I prefer buttercream or fondant, if I have dietary restrictions she should know about.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” I said last week.
“Hush. My granddaughter deserves a proper welcome.”
Now I’m standing in the kitchen, watching through the window as women I’ve known for five years set up folding chairs and arrange gifts on a table with a pink tablecloth.
Eli’s aunts and cousins, neighbors who remember him as a kid, friends of Roz’s from church who always ask when we’re moving back to Bakersfield like Los Angeles is a phase he’ll grow out of.
These are my people too, now. My family.
And none of them know that I’ve been crying in the bathroom for twenty minutes.
“You look beautiful.” Roz appears beside me, smoothing my hair. “That dress brings out your eyes.”
“You made cucumber sandwiches.”
“Finger sandwiches are mandatory. It’s in the baby shower bylaws.”
I laugh, and it’s almost real. Roz has been a better mother to me in seven years than Diane managed in twenty-four, and sometimes I still can’t believe I get to keep her. Even if I lose everything else.
“Where’s Eli?” I ask.
“On a call. He’ll be out soon.” She squeezes my arm. “You okay, honey? You seem tired.”
I’m twenty weeks pregnant with swollen ankles and a husband who’s been on that call for forty-five minutes, but sure. Tired works.
“I’m fine.”
“Az.” She tilts my chin up, studies my face. “You know you can talk to me. About anything.”
For a second, I want to tell her. About the hospital bag and the calendar blocks and the folder on my phone that gets bigger every day.
About the way her son looks through me now like I’m furniture.
But this is her day too, her celebration of the grandchild she’s wanted since our wedding, and I can’t ruin it. Not yet.
“I know,” I say. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She kisses my forehead. “Now go sit down. You’re supposed to be the guest of honor.”
The backyard is warm and beautiful and full of people who love me, or at least love Eli and have accepted me by extension.
I make my way through the crowd, hugging aunts, accepting congratulations, deflecting questions about whether we’ve picked a name.
June, I want to say. We’re naming her June after the grandmother who would have spoiled her rotten.
But I keep it private. Keep something that’s just ours.
The guest of honor chair is under a balloon arch, decorated with ribbons and a sash that says MOM TO BE in gold letters. I’m heading toward it when I stop.
Someone’s already sitting there.
Brynn is perched on the edge of the chair, the sash draped across the armrest, opening a gift from the stack. She’s got tears in her eyes, actual tears, as she holds up a tiny yellow cardigan.
“This is so beautiful,” she says, voice wobbling. “El’s on a call, so I’m holding the fort for Az. She’ll be right out.”
The aunties coo. Someone says “What a good friend.” And I stand there frozen, watching this woman open presents for my baby shower in my chair under my balloon arch while my mother-in-law’s neighbors tell her how thoughtful she is.
Something inside me goes very cold and very still.
I walk forward, slow and controlled. The crowd parts a little as I approach. I’m obviously pregnant now, belly leading the way, and people move for pregnant women even when they don’t mean to.
“There she is!” someone calls.
Brynn looks up. Her face cycles fast, surprise to calculation to recovery, before it settles into delight. “Az! I was just keeping your seat warm. Come sit, mama.”
I stop in front of the chair. Look at the sash on the armrest. The gift in her lap. The tears still glistening on her cheeks like she rehearsed them.
“You’re in my seat,” I say.
“What?” She laughs, glancing around at the watching crowd. “Oh, I was just-”
“Again.”
The word hangs in the air. Brynn’s smile falters.
I reach down and lift the sash off the armrest where she’s draped part of it. Settle it over my own head, adjusting it across my chest. My belly. The baby who is mine, not hers, no matter how many bags she packs.
“You’re in my seat again, Brynn.” I say it sweet as pie, loud enough for the aunties, for the neighbors, for everyone in this backyard who’s been watching her play pregnant for the last ten minutes. “That’s twice now.”
Her face goes white, then red, then rearranges into what might be embarrassment, or rage, I can’t tell anymore. She stands up, smoothing her skirt, laugh brittle and bright.
“Of course! I was being silly. Here you go, mama.”
She steps aside. I sink into the chair that was always supposed to be mine, and the crowd resumes their cooing, their gift-giving, their questions about nursery colors and middle names. Brynn disappears toward the drink table, and I catch Roz’s eye across the yard.
She’s watching me. She saw all of it. And her expression is hard to read, sad, maybe, or worried, or both.
The shower lasts another two hours. I open gifts and exclaim over tiny socks and pretend my face doesn’t hurt from smiling.
Hank takes approximately four thousand photos.
The cake is lemon with raspberry filling, and it’s delicious, and I eat two pieces because I’m growing a human and I’ve earned it.
Eli appears halfway through, looking rumpled and apologetic, phone still in his hand.
“Sorry, sorry.” He kisses Brynn’s cheek as he passes the drink table, then mine, and settles into the chair someone’s placed next to me. “Halo needed to finalize some press stuff. I’m here now.”
“You missed the games.”
“What games?”
“Guess the baby food. Measure the belly.”
He winces. “I’ll make it up to you.”
Brynn materializes at his elbow, handing him a piece of cake. “I saved you the corner with the extra frosting. I know you like the flowers.”
“You’re the best, B.” He takes the plate, and she squeezes his shoulder, and I watch his free hand come up to pat her fingers like it’s nothing, like it’s normal, like his wife isn’t sitting right there watching another woman feed him at her own baby shower.
He doesn’t see. He never sees.
Later, after the guests have left and the gifts are loaded into Hank’s truck for the drive home, I find Roz in the kitchen. She’s washing serving platters, up to her elbows in soap suds, and she doesn’t turn around when I come in.
“That was a beautiful shower,” I say.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“Roz.” I lean against the counter beside her. “What’s wrong?”
She scrubs a plate that’s already clean. Once, twice, three times. Then she turns off the water, dries her hands, and finally looks at me.
“That girl,” she says slowly.
“Brynn?”
“She’s loved my son since she was nine years old.”
The words knock the breath out of me. I stare at her, waiting for a punchline that doesn’t come.
“What?”
“I watched her follow him around every summer when they were kids. She used to sit on our porch for hours waiting for him to come outside. She wrote his name on her notebooks. She cried for a week when he got his first girlfriend in high school.” Roz’s jaw is tight.
“I told myself it was a crush. Kids grow out of crushes.”
“Roz-”
“I told him at your wedding.” Her voice breaks slightly. “The night before. I said, Eli, that girl has been in love with you since you were children, and you need to set boundaries or you’re going to hurt your wife. And he laughed at me.”
I can’t breathe. The kitchen is too small, the air is too thick, and somewhere outside I can hear Eli laughing at something Brynn said, the same laugh his mother just described.
“He laughed?”
“He said I was being dramatic. He said Brynn was like a sister to him, and I was reading into nothing, and I needed to trust him.” Roz grips my hand, hard. “I should have pushed harder. I should have made him listen.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m his mother. I know him better than anyone, and I let him brush me off because I wanted to believe he was right.” Her eyes are wet. “I see the way she looks at him, Az. I’ve always seen it. And I see the way he doesn’t look at you anymore, and it breaks my heart.”
“He doesn’t-” I start, but I can’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t what? Doesn’t see it? Doesn’t care? Doesn’t love me enough to notice that another woman is slowly taking my place?
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to my son.
” Roz cups my face in her hands, calloused palms warm against my cheeks.
“You brought him back down to earth when he was getting lost in all of this. And I will not watch him throw that away for a woman who’s been waiting in the wings his entire life. ”
Through the window, I can see Eli and Brynn standing by the car.
She’s saying something animated, hands moving, and he’s nodding along like whatever she’s saying is the most interesting thing he’s ever heard.
He used to look at me like that. Before the tour, before the fame, before she moved into every corner of our life.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper.
“You fight.” Roz’s voice is fierce. “You fight for your marriage, and if he won’t fight with you, then you know everything you need to know.”
I nod. I hug her. I let her press a Tupperware of leftover cake into my hands and promise to call when we get home.
***
The drive back to LA takes two and a half hours. Eli drives.
“Eli.” I turn to face him. “The chair at the shower.”
“Az, we’re not doing this again.” He drags a hand down his face.
“We are. Because that’s the second time. First my seat at the concert, now my seat at my own baby shower. Both times, she was in them. Both times, you defended her.”
“Because there’s nothing to defend! She was keeping your seat warm. She was excited. That’s not a crime.”
“She had my sash draped over the chair. She was crying over baby clothes like she was the one pregnant.” My voice climbs and I let it.
“She’s emotional! She’s been my friend since we were kids, she’s invested in this.”
“Invested.” I laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to me. “Your mother told me she’s been in love with you since she was nine. That she warned you at our wedding. That you laughed.”
Eli’s hands tighten on the wheel. “My mom needs to mind her own business.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Did your mother warn you about Brynn at our wedding? Did you laugh?”
He’s quiet for too long. The freeway stretches out ahead of us, dark and endless, and I can feel the answer in his silence.
“She said something,” he admits finally. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“You didn’t think it was a big deal that your best friend is in love with you.”
“She’s not in love with me. She had a crush when we were kids. That’s different.”
“Is it? Because she’s in my house every week. She’s at my appointments. She packed my hospital bag without asking me. She’s in every single milestone of this pregnancy, standing exactly where you should be, and you-”
“Jesus, Az.” His voice is sharp. “You sound crazy.”