Wait for It

“Diana, you can come into the room now.”

Almost nine hours had passed from the moment that I’d gotten the phone call about my best friend going into labor. Nine damn hours I spent reading about all the horrible things that could happen to a woman when she was giving birth. I’d wanted to throw up seeing phrases like “stitching layer by layer,” “closing a uterus,” and “closing a belly.” If that wasn’t bad enough, there were paragraphs dedicated to clots and a dozen other horrific things that could happen during a pregnancy that had me clamping my legs shut in agony at the airport.

My best friend was giving birth, and I was the one sweating bullets.

Everything after I got off the flight from San Antonio to San Diego went by at the speed of light. I caught a cab to the hospital and found Vanessa’s husband pacing outside her room; this massive imposing figure who I called The Hulk had been wringing his hands. The stress of waiting around, only to be told she was going to have an emergency C-section was one of the longest hours of my life.

They had let her husband into the room for the procedure, but I’d had to wait. Not that I thought I could handle seeing her sliced up like a Thanksgiving turkey, but I would have done it for her. And only her.

Aiden had come out what felt like a year later, his face bright and eyes glassy, and said, “She’s fine and so is the baby. You can see her once they move her to a recovery room.”

It was getting to see her that seemed like another eternity. So when Aiden came by to get me, I started shaking again. It had been years since I’d been anywhere near as scared and upset as I’d been then, waiting to make sure this person who I’d loved almost my entire life was going to be okay. I hadn’t even let myself think that she wouldn’t.

It wasn’t even a little surprising that she was in a private room further away from the general population. If a hospital could be a five-star hotel, this one would have been it. My little Vanny, who had eaten dinner at my house almost every night while we were growing up, had come so far in life. Fancy bitch.

I thought I was okay as Aiden led me into the hospital room. It wasn’t like we hadn’t known for months she was pregnant. Obviously, it was going to happen. I had told myself I was going to keep it together for her; I wasn’t the one who’d had an emergency C-section.

But when the first thing I saw was a baby on a cart beside the bed, something in me was triggered. I sucked in a breath. Then the instant I found her on the bed, pale and looking more than a little high, all weak but somehow still smiling, I sucked in another breath.

And I blinked at her.

She blinked back at me.

I was woman enough to admit I was the one who started blubbering first.

“You have a baby!” I pretty much wailed, throwing my hands up to my face to palm my cheeks.

“I have a baby,” she agreed almost softly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she extended a hand toward me.

We both went into this crying that sounded a whole bunch like “buhuhuhu” as I walked over to her, torn between looking at my best friend and the little piece of her sleeping a foot away.

I had loved this bitch my entire life, and she was a mom. What I felt wasn’t unlike the emotions I had gone through the first time I saw my brother’s boys. It was the exact same, except this time, the reality that this was a new life seemed so much more precious than before.

“I can’t believe it,” I cried, squeezing in between the bed and the baby, aiming for her. One of her hands went around my back and the other to the back of my head as she led me forward. Pressing my cheek against hers, I tried to give her the best version of a hug I was capable of, not wanting to get anywhere near her stomach after the horror she’d just been through.

Her sniffles went right into my ear as she cried. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“I’m so happy I’m here, too,” I boo-hooed into her neck. “Someone had to come and make sure you survived that.” I gestured with one hand toward the cart, not sure she even saw me since we were hugging each other.

Vanessa’s laugh was right into my ear. “That is your nephew Sammy.”

I choked, pulling back just enough so that I could barely see her through my tears. “My nephew?” She was trying to kill me.

Her eyes were clouded, from drugs or emotions, I was sure. She nodded, gulping. “Well, who the hell else is going to be his crazy-ass aunt who takes him to see R-rated movies before his time?”

The noise that bubbled around in my throat reminded me of the sounds Louie and Josh had made when they were babies. Unlike me, Vanessa had three older sisters. Three bitch-cunt-twat sisters, but they were blood nonetheless. I’d sworn a long time ago that some day before I died, I was going to cut each one of those pieces of crap for what they had done to my best friend when she was a kid. But in that moment, I was reminded of what I had always known—we were sisters, Van and I. Blood or not. Different races and all. She’d been the serious, quiet one who kept us out of trouble, and I had been the reckless, loud one who tried to talk her into getting into trouble. We were each other’s yin and yang.

“We’ll start with PG-13 when he’s eight,” I croaked out, leaning over her again to hug her and kiss her cheek repeatedly as we both cried and snotted on each other according to the moisture on places I couldn’t reach. “I can’t believe you really did it. You have a baby.”

“I can’t believe it either.”

I pulled back enough so we could look each other in the eyes again. “We’ve been through some shit, haven’t we?” I asked her, smiling.

Her laugh filled the space between us. “We’ve been through all kinds of shit, D,” she agreed, her voice choppy.

I was sure we both thought the same thing: it was only the beginning.

Together we had been through crushes, boyfriends, heartbreak, fights, family problems, twenty miles, thousands of miles, school, a marriage, death… everything. She must have been thinking of those exact same things because Van, who was so much more reserved than me on a regular basis, kissed my cheek again. She squeezed my hand.

I squeezed hers right back. “There’s no one else I would rather have gone through all that shit with than you, you baby whale. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Van said.

We were all wrapped up in each other when something nudged my shoulder, and when I glanced up, my face feeling puffy and wet for the second time that day, I found Aiden standing right by me with that not-so-little baby in his arms.

“Here,” this massive, mountain of a man whispered.

Using my shoulders, I wiped at my cheeks as much as I could, and cried more as he set the baby—Sammy—in my arms. It had been a long five years since I’d held Louie for the first time. And as I took in that little alien face, my heart swelled and swelled and swelled. “I love him,” I told his parents, meaning each syllable. “You chubby, little chunky monkey, I love you already.” Leaning in a little closer to take in those wrinkled, pink features, I couldn’t help but glance up at Van and puff out my cheeks. I tilted my arms so she could see him again. “You made this. Can I have him?”

“I know.” She sniffled. “And no.”

“You too, Aiden,” I added absently, letting my request go and glancing back at the face inches from mine. Then I glanced back at Van. “This was in your vagina—”

“Diana,” she hissed without the usual amount of zing in her voice.

Looking back at Sammy, I nodded, smiling. “You aren’t the first thing I’ve touched that was in your mommy’s body—”

Vanessa made a choking sound, and I thought her husband might have, too.

She remembered. She remembered that one thing she’d made me hold in my hand that one time when we were twelve.

“But you sure are the best,” I finished whispering to him. I propped him up so she could see him and shook my head. “He would have ripped your ass wide open, Vanny. Look at this head. He has your head.”

She groaned, and I’d swore on my life The Hulk made a sound that was pretty much considered the closest thing to a laugh I’d ever heard from him.

I felt pretty pleased with myself and winked at her. “I really can’t believe you did it. He’s amazing.”

“Whoever thought, huh, Di?”

“I sure as hell didn’t,” I agreed, tearing up again, glancing at my best friend looking like shit on the bed. “Remember how after we watched The Princess Bride, we used to say we were never going to have boyfriends or get married and have kids unless it was with the actor who played Westley?”

Leaning against the bed, I could see Van glance at her husband, smiling. “I’ll never forget.”

“We were going to take turns being his wife,” I reminded her, taking in her child some more. He was such a miracle.

“You were going to get him ten months out of the year and I could have him two,” she informed me. “My mom broke up our fight when we started pulling on each other’s hair, screaming. I remember.”

“Well yeah, I was going to give you half the winter with him. That sounded fair.”

“Cheater.”

I sniffled. “Cheater? You snooze, you lose. I found him first.”

* * *

It was exactly five days later that I found myself in bed with Vanessa. She was on one side, I was on the other, and Baby Sammy was passed out in the middle. We were watching television; at least that was what we had planned on doing. After spending three days in the hospital following her C-section, she’d been released. I’d taken Van’s car back to their house every night, and her husband had stayed at the hospital with her.

Now that she was home, I was helping her with everything possible, trying to enjoy spending time with her and the baby before I had to fly home. I wasn’t sure when the next time we’d get to see each other would be, but I’d bet it would be months. A lot of months.

“Enough about me, how’s everything with you?” Van whispered from her spot a couple of feet away.

I crossed one ankle over the other and kept my gaze on the rerun we were watching of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. “Good. Busy. The usual.”

“You’re a liar,” she muttered, rolling her head to the side to look at me since she couldn’t roll on to her hip to do it.

“No I’m not.”

“You’re rubbing your hand on your leg. You know I know you’re full of shit when you do that.”

My hand was frozen on my leg. Damn it! I hadn’t even realized I was doing it.

“Tell me,” my best friend whispered. “I know something’s up.”

Was something up?

Yeah, it was. Just an hour ago, my phone had rung, on the screen Dallas’s name had showed up.

The day before, he’d called me, too.

And the day before that.

I just hadn’t answered any of his calls. Or called him back. He hadn’t left voice mails, and honestly, it was a relief. I was being a wuss.

Did I know I was being immature? Yes, but every time I saw his name, I couldn’t help but think about what I had said to him in the restroom after the Christy incident.

I could say it: my feelings were still a little raw at her words. Then I felt dumb for opening my fat mouth and telling Dallas his wife was an idiot and hinting that I liked him. I felt stupid, and I hated feeling stupid unless I was doing it on purpose.

I also hated to admit feeling that way, but who else could I tell if I couldn’t tell Vanessa?

“I did something stupid,” I told her.

She went “I knew it!” before asking, “What’s new?”

“Shut up.” I reached over to poke her in the forehead. “Let me make a long story short. There’s this guy—this man, really—”

The pillow hit me in the face so fast I didn’t get a chance to dodge out of the way, and by some miracle managed to catch it before it hit the baby and woke him up. “What the hell, Van? You trying to wake him?”

“He sleeps like his dad. He’s fine. There’s a guy you didn’t tell me about?”

If this wasn’t the same person who I used to text STARTED MY PERIOD. PRAISE JESUS to, I would tell her that she didn’t need to be all in my business. But she was. I didn’t feel bad about not telling her everything because this hypocrite hadn’t always told me juicy gossip the moment it happened in her love life. She seemed to think I had a big mouth.

And she would be right because I did.

“It’s nothing, really,” I hissed over at her, eyeing Sammy to make sure he hadn’t woken up. “I mean, it shouldn’t be anything. He’s married—”

“Goddammit, Diana—”

“He’s separated. Jesus. Calm down. You know I wouldn’t mess around with a married man. He’s separated from his wife and has been for a while, either way, there’s nothing going on between us. He’s Ginny’s cousin and Josh’s coach. He’s really nice to me and the boys because his mom was a single mom….”

“But you like him.”

I sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone more honorable in my life, Vanny. I don’t want to like him. I have to tell myself all the time that he’s married, and he takes that shit seriously. When we first met, he thought I was trying to flirt with him and he got all weird and defensive on me until I told him I wasn’t, but the more I’ve gotten to know him… the more I like him.” I listed off all the things he’d helped me with, except Anita coming over. “And you don’t even know how hot he is in his own way. The first few times I saw him, I thought his face was nothing to write home about, but he is. He really is.” Unfortunately.

“So?”

I sighed. “So, you bitch, besides the fact that he isn’t single and that I know better, we became sort of friends. And I started to trust him.” This was the painful part. “And one day at Josh’s game, the day I left to come see you, that mom I got into an argument with a while back started saying some really mean shit to me, and I just broke down. I didn’t tell her anything back for once in my life. I cried and he gave me a hug to make me feel better, and I basically told him I liked him a lot and that his wife must have brain damage for not being with him.”

I paused. “And I live across the street from him.”

Vanessa’s silence didn’t unnerve me. She was either thinking about what to say, or knowing her, counting to ten multiple times. Finally, she went with, “As soon as I’m not dying, I can fly to Austin and do to that mom what we did to your boyfriend junior year.”

I had to throw my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t bark out a laugh, remembering exactly what she was talking about. “He deserved that potato in his tail pipe.”

“You’re damn right he did,” she agreed. “We’ll do it to that lady this time.”

I grinned and she grinned back, looking so tired but just as pretty as always, even with her six-inch roots and the brassy orange left over from her last teal dye job that had faded over time. I needed to find her a hair stylist close by, and soon.

Van reached over and poked me. “You said he’s separated and you’re not doing anything wrong. There’s nothing that says you can’t be attracted to someone you have things in common with. He’s not the only guy in the world, Di. I know things have been tough for you after Jeremy—”

She’s said the name I didn’t ever want to hear again.

“But he was an asshole, and you know that. If this guy is as great as you think he is, he won’t make it a big deal about you liking him—if he even puts two and two together to figure out that you do—so you shouldn’t either. Maybe he won’t always be separated. Maybe he will.”

Maybe she had a point.

Van kept going. “After Aiden and Sammy, you and Oscar are what I love the most in the world. I want you to be happy, D. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know, buried deep beneath that little bitch shell—”

I had to put my hand over my mouth again to crack up.

“—you stubborn, pain in the ass. If you ever want to date a football player—”

“Nope.” I couldn’t handle all the women throwing themselves at a football player. Vanessa’s husband was an exception. He didn’t like anyone but her. The only reason he put up with me in tiny increments was because that’s how strongly he cared for her.

“Fine then. One day you’ll find some poor idiot to love you.” She smiled at me, reaching her hand across the bed, and I took it. “If you don’t, we’ll pay someone to pretend they do.”

* * *

The next week went by in the blink of an eye. I hadn’t remembered how much work babies were, but good God, it was a lot. Vanessa’s mini-defensive end in the making ate like a teenager going through a growth spurt. I stayed with the two new parents twelve days total, but accepted that I needed to get back home to the boys and a little thing called my job. On the way to San Diego, I had called all my clients and explained to them I had a family emergency—and promised a discount for their next service—so the second I got back to the salon the day my flight arrived, I rescheduled everyone. The next three weeks were going to be busy, balancing all the clients I’d had to fit in from the weeks I’d unexpectedly taken off, while also planning on taking more walk-ins than usual to make extra money.

I was going to be really busy, but I’d make it work. Plus, what could I have done differently? Not been there for Vanessa? The boys and I could live off Ramen for a while and it wouldn’t be a big deal.

* * *

“TIA!” was the shout heard from around the field as this boob-level kid ran full speed toward me.

My first thought was: God, I hoped he didn’t trip and fall. An emergency room visit was the last thing I could afford right then.

My second thought was: I missed the hell out of this guy. Louie and I had talked on the phone every single day, but it was different than seeing him in person.

My third and final thought was: I felt stupid for having started to dread coming to baseball practice. For the earlier part of the day, after I’d agreed with the Larsens to meet them at the ballpark to pick up the boys, I’d started thinking all over again about how I didn’t want to see the other parents on the Tornado. How I didn’t want to see Dallas.

And I was worried if I saw Christy, I might do something everyone would regret.

But now, as Louie raced toward me and took a running leap with this smile the size of the sun on his adorable face, I hated myself for worrying about those people when I had someone so perfect waiting, happy to see me. It was people like Louie and Josh, like the Larsens—my family—who really mattered in life. Everyone else’s opinions and perception shouldn’t even begin to factor in my day.

And as I caught Louie with an “oomph” that knocked half the wind out of me, I accepted that I’d go through everything with Christy all over again if I had a homecoming like this from my boy.

“I missed you, Buttercup,” Louie practically screamed into my ear as his arms went around my neck and he hugged the little bit of breath I had left right out of me. “I missed you. I missed you. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, poo-poo face,” I said kissing his cheeks. “Oh my God, what have you been doing? Are you planning on hibernating for winter? You weigh like ten pounds more than you did before I left.”

Just like when he was a baby, Louie reeled back, smacked his hands—which I was 99 percent sure were dirty—on my cheeks, and jiggled them as he leaned close enough to touch the tip of his nose to mine. “Grandma gave me a lot of pizza and chicken nuggets.”

I laughed. “I can smell it on your breath.”

His giggle went straight into my heart. “Did you bring me anything?”

“Vanny sent you some toys and clothes.”

“Can I have them?”

“When we get home. They’re in my suitcase, greedy.”

He sighed and let his head drop, his entire body arching backward with the movement, making my arms strain with his weight. “Okay.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s go see Grandma and Grandpa,” I told him, already walking with him in my arms.

Louie started to wiggle and I let him slide to the ground, where he took my hand and led me in the direction of his grandparents.

“Were you waiting for me?” I asked, wondering how he’d seen me when I still had no idea where the Larsens were sitting.

“Yeah. Grandma told me you were on the way, so I was sitting there for you.”

This kid. I gave his hand a squeeze and we exchanged a grin. Sure enough, sitting on the first row were the Larsens, their eyes locked on the field. The long, furry white body at their feet made me grin. They’d brought Mac, too.

“Grandma! Tia’s here!” Louie shouted for half of the parents sitting there during practice to hear. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, trying to see who he was talking about, but I made sure to keep my eyes firmly on the only two adults there I wanted to interact with. Mac’s head turned to our direction, his nose twitching, and in the blink of an eye he was up; that white tail slashing through the air violently.

“Diana, honey,” Mrs. Larsen greeted me first with a closed-mouth smile as she got to her feet and gave me a hug as Mac squeezed in between us, hopping off his front feet for attention. Kneeling, I wrapped the giant dog in a hug and buried my face in his coat as he tried licking the skin off my face.

Standing again, I hugged Mr. Larsen next. “Thank you so much for watching the boys for me.” I’d already told them this exact same thing every time I’d spoken to them, but I really was grateful. When my mom heard that I had left for San Diego and that the Larsens were keeping the boys in the meantime, she had gone on this spiel about how I couldn’t just pick up and leave them like that. ¿Que te crees? Who did I think I was, she’d asked. By the end of the conversation, I’d been torn between crying and screaming.

“Any time you want,” Mr. Larsen confirmed, giving my back a pat. “Vanessa and the baby are fine?”

I took a seat on the bleacher beside Mrs. Larsen with Louie taking my left, his hand palming my thigh in a way that had me grinning. “She’s great, all things considered.” I made a line across my stomach and shuddered. “And the baby is perfect.” I set my hand on top of Louie’s and wiggled my eyebrows. “Your new cousin is almost as cute as you are.”

“He is my cousin, huh?” the boy asked.

“Yup.” He’d been calling Vanessa his aunt his entire life. “Maybe we can go visit them soon and make a trip to Disneyland out of it.” I could already picture grumpy Josh’s groans about Disneyland, but he’d have to live with it.

“I always wanted a cousin…,” Louie started to say, blinking.

God, he was so cute.

“And a sister.”

I coughed. I coughed like I’d come down with emphysema randomly. What the hell did he want a little sister for? What was I supposed to do? Pull one off a tree for him?

What was the best response for that?

There wasn’t one, so I pretended not to hear him.

Mrs. Larsen heard him, too, because when I turned to face her, her blue eyes were wide and she had her lips pressed together. I’m glad one of us thought it was funny, because I sure as hell didn’t. I peeked at Louie again, making sure not to make eye contact, and wondered where the hell he’d gotten that from. Didn’t every kid want to be the baby in the family?

The rattle of the fence protecting the people in the bleachers from the field had me glancing up to find a tall boy I could recognize even with a mask and helmet on, as well as a jersey that covered him from his neck to his hands. “Josh!”

He waved his bat and hand at the same time; I could tell he was smiling even with the black mouthpiece protecting the lower half of his face. I really had missed these kids. I couldn’t imagine my life without them.

Josh had just turned around to continue on with practice when I happened to glance to the side and saw him. Dallas was standing off by third base with his hands in the pockets of his frayed, ancient jeans, and he was staring over in my direction. He wasn’t casually looking; he was definitely staring.

I waved, and I was pretty sure he smiled.

* * *

“Goo, are you gonna fall asleep in there, or what?”

“No,” Louie answered, two spaceships held up in the air, their noses inches away from each other.

There was no way the bathwater was still warm. He’d been sitting in the tub playing with his spaceships for the last half hour while I was busy trying to sew the knee of a torn pair of his school pants. Usually on nights when Josh had baseball practice, I didn’t insist that he bathe, but Josh had admitted to me that neither one of them had taken a bath in two days and that just wasn’t going to work for me. While I made a quick dinner of frozen taquitos and a bag of frozen corn in the microwave, the eleven-year-old had showered.

“Then come on. You know you have to go to school tomorrow and you need your beauty rest.”

He smiled at me shyly as he climbed to his feet, still completely innocent, not caring that he was naked. A year ago, back when we’d shared one bathroom, I’d accidentally walked in on Josh. He’d been buck naked and had yelled like I’d gone in there to kill him, screaming with two hands covering his privates, “Don’t look at my nuggets!”

As if I hadn’t seen his little pistachios a thousand times before.

Within the next five minutes, I had Louie dried off and watched as he slipped on his pajamas. The top was Spiderman, the bottom was dinosaurs. After ruffling his hair, I cleaned up the mess we’d made in the bathroom and headed to the laundry room to put a load into the washer. I had just put detergent into the machine when I heard a knock at the front door. I didn’t need to look at my watch to know it was damn near ten at night. Who the hell would be coming by so late?

My neighbor, that was who.

Dallas’s face was tipped to the side when I peeked through the peephole. Letting out a long breath through my nose, I thought about not answering but then changed my mind. I was going to have to see him again soon anyway. Why the hell not get it over with? Maybe he’d forgotten what I said, and if he hadn’t… too fucking bad, I guessed. I couldn’t take it back now.

“Hi,” I said, opening the door wide. He was still dressed in the clothing I’d seen him in during practice, except he wasn’t wearing a baseball cap. I still had his in my car.

“You got a second to talk?” he went right out and asked, his hands loose at his sides.

Was he going to tell me we couldn’t be friends anymore? I knew I was bossy and hardheaded. I was well aware I wasn’t the easiest person to get along with sometimes either. But he wouldn’t be telling me to fuck off now, would he?

Dallas took a step forward, the tips of his worn tennis shoes crossing over into the doorframe, pretty much stopping me from closing the door in his face. His hand went to the back of his neck. He looked tired and tanner than he had before I’d left. “I called you.”

Where was he going with this? “I know. I was just… busy. I’m sorry. I was going to call you back, but every time I remembered, it was already late here.”

The deep, slow breath he let out seemed to hit my chest. “You didn’t come to any of the practices in two weeks. You never answered the door any time I knocked.” He paused, his eyes zeroing in on my face. “You left the game that day. I was going to give you some space, but I didn’t see you after that and I was worried.”

He’d knocked on my door too? “I was out of town, that’s all.” I blinked, making sure to keep my facial expression even. “We’re fine. You didn’t do anything to me.” It was me who had made an idiot out of myself. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

The relief seemed to punch through the lines of his shoulders. “We’re fine?”

If he wasn’t going to make this weird, neither was I. “Yeah.” Then I said the words that made my throat itch like hell. “Of course we’re all right. We’re friends. Want to come in? I have beer.”