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Chapter 6
Walking into the Red Lion Inn, Colby spotted her friends at a booth in the back. They had been coming to this British-style pub since they were students at Rice. There was a stereotype about English food, but clearly the naysayers had never eaten Shepherd’s Pie. Colby lifted a hand to wave, but they didn’t see her yet. Just as well. She wasn’t sure that she was up for this dinner. Not tonight.
Colby was still shaken after seeing Nate and then finding out that she needed a new place to live, like now. These dinners were generally harder and harder to attend as the lone single person. At one point, they had all been roommates, sharing a few different apartments off-campus at Rice: Colby, Liz, Jane, Debbi, and Kara. Before Liz left for Scotland, she and Colby talked weekly. She talked with Debbi and Jane a few times a month, but they were all busy with their lives and their kids. Sometimes Colby faked plans, just to avoid having to hear about preschool and nap drama or how their husbands were driving them crazy. The dinners used to be once a month, but now it had been a while. She hadn’t realized how long until Jane stood up and Colby saw her. More specifically, Jane’s belly.
“Whoa! Is that a….”
Jane grinned and threw her arms around Colby. “I wanted to surprise you. It’s so much more fun to see people’s faces! Yours is priceless!”
Colby wondered what her face looked like. She honestly wasn’t sure how she felt. Happy, of course. Jane was one of her best friends. But as much as she hated this about herself, every pregnancy announcement hit her right in the gut. More precisely, right in the ovaries.
It’s not about you, she reminded herself. Stop making it about you.Celebrate with your friend.
Colby had been diagnosed right after college with PCOS. She always forgot what it stood for: Poly-something-or-other-Cysts-on-your-Ovaries-Sucks-to-be-you. Close to that. What it meant was that her periods sucked and she would struggle to get pregnant or not be able to get pregnant at all. It made her the unmarried, childless, dateless, broke-down friend in the group. Her friends were great as far as friends could be, but she caught the looks of pity on their faces sometimes and the way they would stop and apologize if they talked too much about their kids. It was painful to take part in these conversations, sure, but feeling like everyone had to tiptoe around certain subjects made her feel even worse. She tried to hide it by being overly excited about everyone’s kid stuff, even when it killed her.
Giving Jane an extra squeeze, Colby was careful to arch her body back so that her stomach wasn’t squeezing in too tightly.
“You aren’t going to break me!” Jane said. “I’m only like four months. I shouldn’t even be showing.”
“Whatever. It’s just because you’re so tiny. The baby has nowhere to hide! You look amazing,” Colby said. She sat down next to Jane after giving Debbi and Kara quick hugs as well. “When are you due? Are you finding out what you’re having? All the details. Or did you already do that?”
“We made her wait,” Debbi said. “Which was a challenge.”
“I had to threaten to steal her stash of candy. Can I have another?” Kara asked.
Jane rolled her eyes but pulled out a small bag and handed Kara a piece of candy. “Anyone else?”
Colby took one, turning it in her fingers. It looked weird. “What is this new devilry?” No one caught the Lord of the Rings quote.
“It’s ginger candy for the morning sickness. More like all-the-time sickness.”
The taste of it wasn’t so terrible, but there was a different kind of spiciness to it that made Colby’s eyes water. Not like peppers, but a different kind of kick. “Yum?”
Kara laughed. “It’s not really candy so much as it’s candied ginger. This is one of the more natural ways to deal with the nausea so you’re not polluting your baby with chemicals.”
“It’s good for making Colby cry,” Debbi said, handing her a napkin.
Colby dabbed her eyes. “This would be great to pass out at Halloween. Especially if you never wanted kids to come back to your house.”
The girls laughed and then Jane launched into baby details. Kara wanted to know about birth plans, doulas, and whether or not Jane had considered a midwife. Debbi moved the discussion to safer waters: baby registry and nursery décor.
Colby felt like she had very little to contribute, but there was hardly a break in conversation even after the food came. Hopefully they didn’t notice that she was quiet. Or maybe they were talking so much on purpose to cover for her, so she didn’t feel like she had to say something. She wished she did have more to say, because that would have kept her thoughts from circling back to Nate.
Today she had purposefully gone out to get groceries during the time the mail usually came. Knowing that he was coming up to the door every day left her feeling oddly paranoid. She felt so many conflicting things about him that her whole body seemed like it was having a nuclear meltdown. Colby wanted to punch him. She also wanted to kiss him. She was furious with him, but also wanted him to ask her out again.
Romantic Colby would have seen this as a sign: Nate, hand-delivered to her front door. But she had locked Romantic Colby in the basement of her heart and wasn’t going to let her out anytime soon. Even if Nate did look even better than she remembered—especially with that beard!
Colby suddenly realized that the table was silent. She paused, fork almost to her mouth, to see that they were all looking at her.
“I’m sorry—did I miss something?”
“I heard Liz was coming home early,” Debbi said. Her husband Steven worked with John at the same oil and gas company.
“What? They’re coming back from Scotland?” asked Kara.
Colby took the bite and talked around her mouthful of food. “Something happened with John’s job. He got a promotion or something here, so they’ll be back in a few weeks.”
“Where are you going to live?” Jane asked. “You got rid of your lease, right?”
