she had one yet, was hidden by the table. A boy or a girl. A niece or a nephew. Aunt Veronica, I would be. I used my napkin to sop up the spilled water. “Are you going to find out?”
She held up a finger, chewing. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Soon. In a month. I’m due in June.”
“It’s good you’re hungry,” my mother said, with something like doubt in her voice. Her face was still flush, excited. “With both of you girls, I was nauseous the whole time. Even in the second trimester.” She looked down at the pizza and wrinkled her nose. “Just the smell of this would have sent me over the edge.”
“That’s how I was just until a month ago.” Elise leaned back and rested her hand on her belly, and as soon as she did this, she looked pregnant. I couldn’t see any bump or swelling, but it just looked like something a pregnant woman did. “I felt like I was on a boat for two months,” she said. “Bobbing. Bobbing.” She crossed her eyes. “Even in my sleep, I was bobbing. I had to keep bags in my car. More in my desk. One in my briefcase.”
I ate and listened as they kept talking, about cravings, about fatigue. Elise had taken naps in her office, under her desk. My mother said she’d done the same when she was teaching, when her students had gone to lunch.
“Ginger helps,” she said. “Not for being tired, but for the stomach. I used to suck on candied ginger, I remember.”
My gaze rested on the candle in its little red holder, and their words moved over my head. This was a new situation. My mother and Elise were usually awkward together, hesitant, two strangers at a party hell-bent on talking but without much to say to one another. Now they had this thing between them. I already detected a shift, our old triangle changing slants.
“You have a good OB?” my mother asked. “You want to get references, Elise. It’s important.”
“Hmm.” She took a long sip of water. “Well. We thought we would wait and find an OB out here.” She blinked at both of us. “Since we’re moving back to KC in the spring.”
Bombshell number two. My mother looked too happy to breathe. It was like watching a game show where the prizes just get bigger and bigger, until the winning contestant goes into convulsions. My mother had just won a grandchild and both of her daughters living close to home. I was pretty happy, too. Maybe everything wouldn’t feel so over, so sad, once Elise came back.
She reached for another piece of pizza. “Charlie got a great offer, and he knew how much I wanted to come back here. They want him right away. He’ll start in February.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m the one who gets to stay behind and pack up all our stuff.”
“Oh, honey.” My mother looked a little crestfallen. “That’s a lot to do when you’re pregnant.” She shook her head, lips pursed. “And knowing you, you’ll work right up until you leave.”
We were quiet for a while. The birthday people had gotten up and left, and most of the tables were empty. “Crimson and Clover” played on a neon jukebox in the corner. We chewed and swallowed, all of us still smiling, but avoiding each other’s eyes. A question, I knew, hung in the air. My mother had her hand over her mouth.
“So you’ll get a job here, too?” I asked. I pretended to be fascinated with a string of cheese hanging off the side of my pizza. Half of what made Elise so intimidating was the way she could focus her gaze, making any question I asked feel stupid. “After the baby, I mean?”
“Nope.” She picked something off her shoulder, her nails manicured, her polish clear. “I’m just going to stay home with Junior for a while. Or Juniorette.”
“How long is a while?”
Elise chuckled, as if my mother had asked her about the weather in Australia, or how many seconds were in a year. “I don’t know. First grade?”
My mother put her pizza down. “Honey, you can’t be serious.”
Elise stopped chewing. She gave my mother the look—the long, steady gaze that said to any opponent, You are about to be devoured.
“This is a problem for you?”
“Anyone want parmesan?” I held up the shaker. We all knew my dad’s old joke: It’s a free topping. Learn to like it!