AllFreeNovel
Share Us
February 2009
Ken and I were so poor for the next few years, living on his salary as movie theater manager and the pennies I got as an intern while we both finished college, but we never felt it. We had everything we needed—friends and family and our cute little house and cars that still ran despite the fact that Ken was too cheap to do any routine maintenance on them at all.
But, when I finally graduated, when I finally got my big-girl job, when I finally had money in my pocket and free time on my calendar…baby fever hit. And it hit hard.
Unfortunately, my husband was immune to that particular disease.
“Can I go off the pill now?”
“No.”
“What about next month?”
“No.”
“What about next year?”
“Um…no.”
I had been begging and bargaining and pleading with Ken to let me have a baby for almost two years when my new best friend and colleague, Sara Snow, stepped in.
Sara and I got hired as school psychologists for the same school district at the same time. We met at the new-hire orientation, and it was love at first sight. She was the only person I’d ever met whose sense of humor was even more irreverent and off-color than mine. The things I only thought but didn’t say out loud…she said ’em.
“Do you think I’ll get fired for listing drowning as one of my intervention recommendations?” Sara looked so innocent with her big brown eyes, long black eyelashes, and cute little Afro that she wore, pulled up in a poofy bun on top of her head, but on the inside, she was pure evil.
I laughed into my pomegranate martini. “Do it. Nobody reads our reports anyway.”
“Maybe I’ll recommend parental sterilization while I’m at it. This kid’s mom, BB”—Sara leaned across the table at our regular happy-hour spot, Bahama Breeze, and looked me dead in the eye—“she had a flesh-colored beard…just like Spencer Pratt.”
I almost choked on my pink vodka. “She did not!”
“And she was wearing a shirt that said, Chubby and Dangerous.”
“Shut up!” I coughed.
Sara smirked and leaned back in her booth. “I shit you not.”
“Well, I had a parent tell me during a consultation today that her son isn’t doing well in school because he’s a Taurus.”
“Ha! That’s gonna be you one day.” Sara tipped her half-empty martini glass at me. “I see you with, like, five kids, all named after different constellations, and you’re going to send in notes to the school saying, Please excuse Cassiopeia from school today. Her moon sign is in retrograde.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I rolled my eyes. “The moon is never in retrograde.”
Sara chuckled.
“Besides, I’ll be lucky if Ken gives me one kid,” I grumbled. “He’s dragging his feet so hard, Sara. He wants to wait, like, five more years. And, when I do finally get pregnant, he’s probably gonna want to name the thing something financial, like Cash or Benjamin or—”
“Dow Jones?” Sara smirked.
“Exactly.” I shook my head in feigned sorrow. “I’m gonna have an only child named Dow Jones Industrial Average Easton. Pray for him.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I tested a kid last week whose name was Anointed Love.”
I snickered. “It does actually. What the hell does he go by?”
“I dunno.” Sara shrugged. “I just called him Ted.”
“Ted!” I cackled, drawing glares from the other diners.
