Rich and Pretty(48)
“I’m not mad about the wedding, it’s just . . . Why do anything if you’re not going to do it the right way? I was trying to do it the right way.”
“You always do.”
“I’m supposed to be jumping for joy at this news, but it’s supposed to be separate news. My two milestones are blurring into one.” Another sip of the wine. That’s three. She wants a fourth, but not brain damage. She pushes the glass toward Lauren. “Drink this please, so I don’t.”
“Glad to oblige. I’m double fisting it. Because this is cause for celebration. Fuck the wedding. You’ll look beautiful. Who cares?”
“I’ll look beautiful.” Sarah pauses. She is not the kind of person who likes to spend a lot of time talking about what she looks like. It’s like Meredith, talking about being single. It’s a bore.
“I’m going to be Auntie Lauren,” Lauren says, then, “You’re not telling Huck and Lulu.”
“I am not telling Huck and Lulu. This is going to be complicated, though. I’ll need to keep this under wraps for . . . ten weeks? It’s going to be like a British sex farce. Mistaken identities, going in and out of doors.”
“Just say you’re tired from wedding stuff. You’re golden.”
“Huck’s already bought a case of wine he wants at the rehearsal dinner. At your rehearsal dinner. He says the rehearsal dinner is always more fun than the wedding. It’s the A-list. The out-of-towners and the friends you actually like. There’s less dress code and more drinking and better speeches.”
“That’s why your amazing matron of honor is in charge of it. Because he’s right, it’s going to be more fun than the wedding. And if Huck wants a case of wine at this thing, he better call me and we can get that sorted out.”
“Maid of honor, you idiot. But if I don’t drink the special wine it’s going to be . . . suspicious.”
“Oh, come on.” Lauren sips Sarah’s wine, then goes back to her gin. “We used to be very accomplished liars. You’re forgetting.”
“We did lie.” Sarah remembers: missed curfews, forged excuse notes, twenty-dollar bills from Lulu’s purse.
“All little girls lie, it’s what little girls do. So lie. Do teenage Sarah proud. Besides, if Huck loves this wine that much, he’ll be trashed. People never notice if other people are drinking, unless they’re alcoholics, and if there are any alcoholics watching you, they’re going to think you’re an alcoholic, not knocked up.”
“I find this weirdly reassuring.”
“As you’re meant to. A few months from now this will all be a distant memory, and you’ll have a baby and you’ll be a mom and holy shit, I need this second drink all of a sudden.” Lauren pauses, then, almost accusingly, “Wait, what about names?”
There’s a short list. Sarah’s had it for some time. “I wasn’t exactly all excited to have this big wedding. I only recently started to come around and sort of . . . enjoy the thought of it. Thinking about how all these people I like are going to get together one day in April and be in the same place and eat this good food. It sounded nice. Now I feel like an * for not feeling excited about the baby and saying f*ck all to the wedding, and I mean, sure, f*ck all to the wedding and yay babies, but how did this happen?”
Lauren is quiet. “Well, when a sperm meets an egg.”
“I mean, we’re old, Lauren. We’re old now. This is it. Life is happening to us. I called Jill, you know? After you told me you ran into her?”
“You did?”
“I did. I’m not even sure why, I was curious or something. And she was like—the baby this, the baby that, and she said, the thing about having a baby is you’re never alone again, ever, in any meaningful way, ever for the rest of your life.”
“She can’t say that. Her kids are babies. They’ll turn out to be teenagers like us and we had nothing to do with our mothers for a while there. I still have nothing to do with my mother, really.”
Sarah shudders. “Envisioning the baby inside me as us as teenagers is not exactly reassuring. All I mean is, suddenly it’s happening to us. Life is happening to us.”
“Life is always happening to us.” Lauren finishes her cocktail, pushes the glass of wine back across the table. “Have another sip, he won’t grow a third leg or anything.”
She takes a small sip. “Okay, now seriously, take this away. Do you want to get dinner?”
“It’s five o’clock.”
“Early bird special?”
“Yeah, let’s get dinner.” Lauren signals for the waiter. “I’ll get this. Celebratory drink on your big day.”
“Do you really think life is always happening to us?”
“I do,” Lauren says.
Lately she feels so stupid. It’s the pregnancy, Sarah tells herself, then remembers she’s pregnant, and gets angry. For days, she vacillates between those two states: idiocy and rage. Joy—about the pregnancy, the wedding—it’s out there somewhere, she tells herself.
At the moment, nothing holds her interest. The fat paperback she’s been picking at is lying splayed open on the coffee table. It’s good, but the television seems more appealing at the moment. Jeopardy! is on, and she’s playing along, talking out loud, unembarrassed. Dan doesn’t care. He sits at the little desk by the window, tapping away, oblivious.