guts. But if I had to work under her?” I shook my head. “I’d have to look for new work.”
“But you love Jon’s agency.”
“I do, but he wants to retire eventually. And working under Kathryn would be like working under the reign of a movie villain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she let all his plants die and put up cubicles in the office so nobody could talk unless they were on lunch breaks.”
Dana shook her head. “How can someone with so much be so unhappy?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Movement at the front doors of the restaurant caught my eye and I saw my brother and his wife, Casey, step inside. Or rather, I saw her ridiculously large pregnant belly step in, followed by the rest of her body and her doting husband, who spotted me over the top of his short wife’s head and waved.
I waved and watched as they made their way over. Casey was so rotund she had to choose her course between tables strategically in order to make her way to our table. They were both bundled up in layers of winter clothing to ward off the chilly Vancouver weather. We hadn’t yet seen a day of snow, but the temperatures had been low enough that it would snow if the stars aligned. For now, we were stuck with afternoon rain and freezing-cold nights. That meant there was no snow but plenty of ice on windshields in the mornings.
Casey drew up to the table first and rested both hands on her belly. I noticed but did not mention that she wasn’t wearing her wedding rings. I assumed they no longer fit because her poor hands were pink and swollen.
“Before either of you ask me how I’m doing,” Casey said with her chin lifted, “let me answer you. I’m fat, I’m swollen, I’m starving, I’m nauseous, and these monstrosities are the only shoes I own that fit my stupid feet.” Casey lifted one foot to show off her black Crocs with holes on top.
Gardening shoes.
I swallowed my chortle along with a sip of wine. Underneath the Crocs were candy-cane-striped socks. She wore leggings that seemed a little too big for her and a long sweater that went almost to the middle of her thighs and was pulled tight over her stomach.
Eli waved his hands to get my attention and shot me a warning look not to crack any jokes at Casey’s expense. She still had about a month of pregnancy left ahead of her and she’d been done with the whole brewing-a-baby game long before now. Unfortunately, she wasn’t one of those women who seemed to like being pregnant. She struggled with morning sickness a lot as well as other more personal issues that neither of them had divulged to me or Dana.
I nodded at Eli’s weather-worn sneakers before smiling up at my sister-in-law as she unwrapped a scarf from her neck. “Don’t worry about the Crocs, Casey. They’re nicer than Eli’s sneakers. Look at those things. Dude, you need to throw those out.”
Casey laughed.
Eli deflated with relief. He’d probably been having a rough day with his suffering wife.
My sister-in-law took the seat beside me and smiled. “You always know what to say, don’t you?”
“I try,” I said.
Eli ordered iced water and a Shirley Temple for Casey and a pale ale for himself. By the time their drinks arrived, Dana had already launched back into her story about her patient with the perfect mouth.
Eli shared a look with me. “At least we don’t have to wonder which one of the three of us came out the weirdest.”
“Hey,” Dana said. “That’s not nice. I’m not weird.”
“You willingly put your hands in strangers’ mouths,” Eli said.
“And you enjoy it,” I added.
“Weird,” my brother and I said in unison.
Dana rolled her eyes. “I help people for a living.”
“I help trucks for a living.” Eli chuckled. He’d followed in our father’s footsteps and gone into heavy-duty mechanics right after high school. He had a natural inclination toward mechanics ever since he was a young boy. I’d always been the kid sitting in the garage with our father solving math equations and studying eight or so chapters ahead of my class, while Eli had his head under the hood with our father, who desperately wanted me to pay attention as well but couldn’t hold my attention long enough to teach me what a spark plug was.
We all had our strengths. Mechanics and cars were not mine. They were Dad’s. And now