Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [75]
Harrison was standing next to a dorm building, checking his BlackBerry. She watched him from behind. How was she supposed to be okay just hating him and then loving him on alternate days? What if that never stopped?
She went up behind him and stood on her toes until her nose was right next to his ear, and then she snorted softly and slowly. He tilted his head like she was tickling him, and he lowered his BlackBerry. She kept snorting until she heard him laugh and then she stopped and kissed the back of his neck.
“Hey, dirty pig,” he said, turning around. “There you are.”
“There you are,” she said. She put her face next to his and snorted again until he smiled and kissed her.
Everyone was talking about babies. It all started when someone suggested that Shannon was getting married because she was pregnant. “She just met the guy six months ago,” their friend Annie said. “And here we are at their wedding. It’s a little suspicious.”
“You think there’s a bun in that oven?” Lauren asked. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe she just wanted to get married,” Isabella said. Then, to change the subject, she asked their friend Katie how her pregnancy was going, and Katie launched into a speech about how hard it had been for her to get pregnant the second time. “You just always think it will be so easy,” she said. “I already had Charles, and I just figured I’d be able to get pregnant whenever I wanted.” Katie paused here to take a sip of her water, and Lauren looked hopeful that the conversation was over, but then Katie continued. “Anyway, I bought a book called Taking Charge of Your Fertility, and it really changed my life,” she said.
Annie squealed, “I bought that book too! It’s amazing.” The two of them began discussing how they tested their cervical fluid to find out when they were ovulating.
“Cervical fluid?” Lauren whispered to Isabella.
“Discharge,” Isabella whispered back. Lauren put down her cake and picked up her drink.
“That’s really gross,” she said.
“No kidding,” Isabella answered.
When the two girls started comparing the difference between fluid that was like “egg whites” and fluid that was “fluffy,” Lauren got up to get them new drinks. When she came back, they were talking about placenta. Isabella grabbed the drink from her and smiled.
“Remember when Michael Jackson said he grabbed the baby with the placenta still on it?” Lauren asked. Isabella laughed and shook her head.
“What?” Lauren asked. “That’s really my only placenta story. I’m just trying to participate.” The two of them snorted with laughter.
Everyone kept bringing up Michael Jackson. He had died earlier in the week, and every time Isabella turned on the TV, he was looking right back at her. It was impossible to forget about him. Even the band at the wedding was playing a lot of Michael Jackson. Shannon’s wedding was turning into a Michael Jackson memorial concert. It was weird.
“You know what song has been in my head for like a week?” Lauren asked. “ ‘Billie Jean.’ It just keeps playing, and I don’t know what to do about it. Do you think it will make me go insane? It’s just always there in the background of my brain, ‘Billie Jean is not my lover …’ ”
“You have the worst voice,” Isabella said.
“It’s really sad about Michael Jackson,” Katie said.
“I don’t think it is,” Lauren said. “I don’t know why, but I wasn’t sad at all.”
“Do you know what you’re going to name the baby?” Isabella asked.
“Well, I like Jason but I’m not sure.”
“Maybe you should name him Blanket,” Lauren said.
Isabella wanted everyone to stop talking about babies before Mary came over to the table. Mary was pregnant two weeks ago, but no one knew that. She’d confessed to Isabella and Lauren one night when they were at her apartment. Lauren had brought