stifled a yawn, somewhat unsuccessfully. “The doctors were keeping an eye on Annabelle’s weight gain, heart development, and lung maturation. Those seem to be the critical things.”
She frowned and looked down at the bags she brought. “I didn’t know how to help, so I went to Nordstrom and bought a shitload of preemie outfits.” She opened the shopping bag to let me see. Yep, a shitload of preemie outfits. There were maybe twenty or thirty of them, and they were sooooo tiny. They looked like baby doll clothes.
“What’s in the other bag?”
She looked at me quizzically.
“The duffel bag.”
She looked down and then glanced away. “Oh, it’s nothing. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Well, it IS something. It’s a physical thing in your hand. Is it full of weed? Why are you acting so weird?”
“What?! No, of course not,” she scoffed.
She groaned and put the duffel on a waiting room end table. I unzipped it and peered inside.
It was Candace’s bridesmaid dress.
“Before you say anything, I already said I hadn’t been thinking straight. I thought I’d bring the dress to show her how lovely they turned out, just to have something to talk about since babies weren’t my thing.” She teared up. “But then on the way here I realized we fitted it for her to be pregnant at my wedding. And . . . and that’s just depressing.” Her wedding was in a couple of weeks. Candace would have been thirty-six weeks pregnant with Annabelle. I wiped my eyes with a tissue and handed one to Jane, too.
“Look, Candace and Wil are going to be in the NICU for a long time, so you’ll be here all day if you wait for them. Wil checks his messages every hour or so. I’ll let him know I saw you outside and that we headed back home together. I have their key so maybe later we can wash their preemie clothes and maybe clean up their place so when they do come home everything will be nice and tidy.”
As soon as I suggested we should clean, Jane wrinkled her nose. A cleaning person came to her place twice a week. Jane wasn’t exactly the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-clean type. She pleaded, “Can I bring Helga?”
“Your cleaning person’s name is Helga?” I’d never heard of a person in this country, living in this century, with the name Helga. It seemed like the sort of name you’d give a minor character in a slapstick comedy series.
“Yes, that’s her real name, and I can ask her to come to their house tomorrow. That’s one of the days she normally cleans my place, but I can skip it.”
“Okay, that sounds great. Did you drive here?” I’d taken a Liftr to avoid hospital parking fees.
BOOP-BOOP! She unlocked a BMW convertible just outside the sliding doors. “I did drive, and you can be my first passenger. Just bought it last week!” Ahhhh, new car smell. Far better than that antiseptic aroma permeating the hospital.
On the drive home, I casually mentioned, “Hey, did you know that Asher wanted me to convince you to abolish all maid of honor and best man dancing requirements?”
She laughed. “Asher’s a disaster on the dance floor. He does this weird boxing-like arm thing and doesn’t move his feet. The only way he even dances at all is if he’s completely drunk.”
“I’d like to ask then, as a favor to me, to make sure you DO have a wedding party dance. And could you make a big stink if he doesn’t come out to the dance floor?”
Jane asked, “Are you SURE you want to be subjected to dancing with Asher for a full three minutes, smiling for the audience, with your hands and bodies touching, while he steps all over your feet?”
Tough call. Cancel the dance, or torture him while also torturing me? “Um, never mind. Let’s cancel the dance.” We pulled into our parking garage and took the elevator to our apartments. “Unless you really want it.”
A flurry of delayed text notifications popped up on my phone when I unlocked my door.
Jane: Where are you? I’m in the waiting room.
Mom: Thank you sending the Seattle article. Waaa! You famous now! You should pic different picture, this one you have double chin. Maybe ask to retake or ask them to erase.
Nolan: I have to tell you something! In person. When I’m back in town ok? A wave of sadness hit me as I read his excited message. Even when he wasn’t traveling, I’d managed to avoid him since the night at