Frenemies(67)
“Are you the model of adult behavior, Amy Lee?” Georgia demanded from behind me. “Because I think you’ll find that sniggering at people is usually frowned upon on the playground.”
“I should have known that the two of you would just gang together and wallow like it’s senior year of college again,” Amy Lee spat.
“Have I lost my mind?” I asked no one in particular. “Why the hell are we talking about college? The last I checked that ended when we graduated seven years ago!”
“Some of us graduated,” Amy Lee retorted.
“You see, Gus?” Georgia asked acidly. “Amy Lee is just better than we are. She works harder now, just as she did then, which is hard to imagine, I know, since she’s so f*cking perfect. She’s just better.”
“I don’t know about better,” Amy Lee snapped. “But let’s see—I don’t lie about who I’m sleeping with, nor do I thrash around in my bed like some f*cking opera heroine for whole days.”
“You condescending—”
“The two of you can’t even come to a New Year’s eve party without turning it into a circus!” Amy Lee continued, talking over Georgia.
“You really are full of yourself, Amy Lee,” I told her, because the hell with deep breaths, I wanted to slap her. “If we’re such a trial for you, I’m surprised you kept us around as your best friends in the entire world for over ten years. So I guess that makes you the real psycho here, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t even yelling, or particularly snide. In fact I was the calmest voice in the room. And yet, it was like I’d slapped her the way I’d briefly imagined.
Amy Lee seemed to crumple in front of me. Her face sort of folded in on itself, and it took me a long, horrified moment to realize that she was crying.
Amy Lee never cried.
She didn’t cry when her heart was trampled by her high school love, when she broke her finger, or when her body betrayed her once a month. Or even at her own wedding. No tears for Amy Lee—that was the rule. She was all about stoicism and grim determination. Once, long ago, she’d gotten a little misty-eyed during a particularly intense conversation over tarot cards and cheap red wine, but we’d been all of nineteen then and she blamed the wine.
So it took me a while to realize that what she was doing was sobbing. I might have thought she was convulsing, except I saw the tears. I didn’t have to look over at Georgia to see that she was as floored by this as me—I could feel her hand digging into my arm, where she was holding on to me for dear life.
“I am not psycho!” Amy Lee said, between gulps of air and more floods of tears. “I just feel psycho!” She took both of her hands and placed them on her belly. “I’m f*cking pregnant!”
If it was possible to get more still and more silent, we did. It was as if Georgia and I turned to stone right there in the doorway. Amy Lee sobbed some more and backed into her room, where she sat on the edge of the bed and held her face in her hands.
“Oh my God,” I said, hardly breathing. “Are you serious?”
“Like I would joke about the fact that I’m going to be someone’s parent,” Amy Lee snapped, obviously recovered. Sure enough, she sat up again and wiped her eyes. “Georgia still has issues with her mother and she’s about to turn thirty—”
“About to? Hello? In April, thanks, and let’s not rush it!” Georgia yelped. She let go of my arm when I glared at her. “Sorry, Gus.”
“And you know what?” Amy Lee asked, still somewhat emotional if her shaky voice was anything to go by. “I can’t believe neither one of you noticed! I told you Oscar and I were going to start trying!”
“You said it that one time,” I said, stung. “And then you never mentioned it again!”
“I haven’t touched alcohol in months!” Amy Lee cried. “Is there a bigger sign than that?”
“You told me you were taking on the designated-driver role to be fair to Oscar,” I reminded her. “I’m sorry that I took what you said at face value. And who cares, anyway?” I took a step into the room. “How far along are you?”
“And why didn’t you just tell us?” Georgia demanded, finally roused from stone for a reason other than defending her age. “You’re a walking hormone bomb, for God’s sake. No wonder you wanted to kill us.”
We both inched into the room, and sank down on either side of her on the bed.
“Can I … ?” I asked in a whisper, and held out my hand. She wiped at her eyes again, and nodded, and I laid my palm across her belly, where there was a slight rounding. The sort of thing that would suggest a weekend with Toll House cookies on a figure like mine, but meant something else entirely on tiny little Amy Lee. I let out a breath, awed.
Georgia, wide-eyed, leaned in and placed her hand next to mine. Amy Lee took a ragged breath, and let it out into the sudden stillness of the room around us.
“I’m about three months along,” she said in a quiet voice. “You’re not supposed to say anything until then, because so many things can happen.”
“Nothing is happening to my godchild,” I declared, and I could feel my eyes begin to well up as I began to think of the ramifications of that. I had thought everything would change when Amy Lee got married, but Oscar had added to the life we were used to living together. I had no idea what a baby would do.