Never Have I Ever(5)

“I’m a porcupine, too,” Char said, tight, and popped her lips shut.

Roux sized up Charlotte, eyes lingering on the roundness of her belly, just now starting to look like more than a big lunch.

“I think this is Kanga,” Roux said, and shot a sly smile at me. As if we had a private joke. The warmth of being included, after that dismissal—I felt it. I won’t deny I felt it. My mouth smiled without my permission. Charlotte’s eyebrows went up so high they disappeared into her bangs, and I hid my face in my strong drink. I took a long, deep swallow. Roux went back to Char’s usurped chair.

Finally Jenny Tugby, who was as warm and bland and comforting as oatmeal, claimed to be a Komodo dragon and said she had to get home. Her baby hadn’t started cereal yet, and she was flexing her shoulders and pulling at her bra. Her breasts had her on a timer, and she needed to go pump and dump her wine-soaked milk. Oliver and I were down to nursing first thing in the morning and at bedtime, but I remembered that tight, skin-stretch feeling from early days, back when my body made everything that fed him. I couldn’t blame her, but at the same time humans were herd animals. As soon as she broke the circle, others would feel it as a pull to take their leave.

Sure enough, as Char finally got to begin her questions, women started leaking away in pairs and singles, quietly, with apologetic waves. First the ones with the newest babies, then the ones with full-time jobs. Most of these light-drinking ladies were rambley and yawning, listing as they disappeared up the stairs. By ten o’clock there were only six of us left.

Tate and Panda had joined Lavonda the Lion Fish on the sofa now that the room had cleared. Tate was very full of pinot noir, with a sweaty forehead and her mouth stained purple at the corners. Roux was back at the bar, slicing up more of my limes on the cutting board.

Charlotte said, “Maybe we should call it.” She looked tired, with pink circles under her eyes.

Roux said, “Definitely. That book was a nonstarter. We should do something else.” She blinked, and her neck elongated, as if a clever thought had only now occurred to her. “I know. Let’s play a game.”

Char bristled. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“It is getting late,” I said, trying for loyal, but I was tempted by the idea of a game.

I’d chosen a husband who liked meat loaf on Monday, tacos on Tuesday, dinner out on Friday with sex after. Charlotte was a lot like Davis; I was naturally attracted to anything orderly. But now I had a baby. I loved Oliver in a whole-body way I’d never known existed, but every day with a baby was the same day.

The closer he came to weaning, the more I missed teaching at Divers Down, both the joy of introducing new divers to the secret world under the waves and the color and noise of the kids in my swim and Seal Team classes. Most of all I missed diving itself. No one dives pregnant, and these first eight months of motherhood had been a sleep-deprived blur. I’d gotten under only half a dozen times since Oliver came, and I was starting to get truly itchy for it.

Now, if Roux had suggested a bank job or even a bungee jump, I would have shown her to the door, and this last gaggle of tipsy mummies alongside her. But staying up past ten on a weeknight to play a game? It was a rebellion that sounded about my speed. I wanted to play.

“Too late to start a game, I think,” Charlotte agreed, trying to sound regretful but not quite making it.

“Poor Kanga,” Roux said to her. “You should definitely head on home. You’re resting for two.”

“Yesh, s’fine. You go on home, Kangroo,” Tate slurred, cutting her eyes at Roux. She’d been very quiet so far tonight, drinking her resentment.

But Char had meant for everyone to go. It was her club, and she was closing it. She paused, and I knew she didn’t want to leave me with some of my least favorite neighbors, all three already drunk, and this usurping stranger. I was torn, wanting to see what happened, but at the same time I didn’t want to end up cleaning Tate Bonasco’s vomit out of my sofa.

“I do not like this,” Charlotte said to me. “Not one little bit.”

Roux was carrying limes and rocks glasses and my room-temp gin back to the coffee table. She overheard Char, and a sly smile spread across her face.

“You aren’t a porcupine,” Roux said, setting out the glasses and expertly pouring shots, not measuring. “You aren’t Kanga either. I know you, lady. You’re that fish. That orange fish in a bowl from The Cat in the Hat. That’s your spirit animal.”

“Oh, my God, you are,” Lavonda said, laughing so hard she choked.

“Roux should not be here when your mother is out,” Tate said in an uptight Fish voice, reaching across a giggling Panda to pat Lavonda’s back.

“Go get some sleep. We’re almost done here,” I assured Char, turning her toward the stairs before she had a rage stroke.

“Yes,” Roux said, “Amy, you play Up-Up-Up with a fish,” making herding motions toward the stairs, and that put the sloshed trio on the sofa into hysterics.

Char stomped up ahead of me, the back of her neck crimson.

“Hey, did you really read the book?” Tate asked over the laughing, so loud we heard it at the tip-top of the stairs. “Because I only read the Spark Notes.”

I closed the door to the basement.

“Good grief!” Char whispered with a fierceness that I rarely saw in her. “How will you ever get them out of here?”