Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [95]
“I’m so sorry,” I told her twenty minutes later. At her instructions, I’d put on my swimsuit, then a cover-up, one of Frank’s button-down shirts. We were having breakfast by the pool: eggs Benedict, fresh-squeezed orange juice, a basket of muffins and croissants. I’d looked at the prices, then shut my menu fast and tried to tell myself that maybe the prices were in Monopoly money, or some kind of currency used only in this hotel that had no relationship to actual dollars and cents. Waiters in white shirts and green pants or skirts hovered, waiting to swoop in the instant we needed something: more water, more coffee, more tiny bottles of honey and jam for the croissants.
“Please. I feel terrible that I had no idea how exhausted you were!” She looked at me earnestly from under the deep brim of a straw sunhat tied with a jaunty pink ribbon that matched her dress. “You have to take care of yourself.”
“I’m sure the baby’s fine,” I said.
She waved one freshly manicured hand. “I don’t care about the baby. I mean, I do care about the baby, of course I care about the baby, but I care about you more right now.” She gave me her dazzling smile. “You’re not just the Tupperware, you know.”
“I know,” I muttered, feeling guilty for ever having doubted her, for comparing her to the scrawny, ancient, resentful wife in some book that I’d read.
“So here’s the plan,” she said. “You’re getting a prenatal massage at two...”
“Oh, India, really, I’m fine.”
She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And then a facial and a mani-pedi, and I’ve got a car taking us to Joe’s Stone Crab at seven—it’s a little bit of a drive, but it’s supposed to be the place down here, and we’re not leaving until we eat some Key lime pie.”
“That sounds amazing,” I told her . . . and then, feeling shy, I said, “but first, can I go for a swim?”
She indicated the ocean like she’d grown it herself. “Go on.”
I floated in the warm, salty water, the skirt of my maternity suit flapping out around me as the waves lifted me up and lowered me down. I wondered how the boys were doing, how Frank was managing without me . . . then I decided that everyone would be fine; that I was here, and I should try to enjoy it.
I rinsed off in my room, then went down to the spa, where I half dozed through a blissful afternoon of being tended to, four hours where all I had to do was lift my arms or close my eyes or tell the masseuse how much pressure I liked. All I had to wear for dinner was my plain old black dress again, but when I got back to my room there were shopping bags arranged on the bed, clothes peeking out of pink and pale-blue tissue: a sundress made of pale yellow linen, a skirt, and a few scoop-necked jersey tops, the same kind of flip-flops India had worn, all with the price tags cut so that I couldn’t see how much they’d cost.
I let the crisp fabric of the sundress fall over my shoulders and hips and smoothed lotion from the hotel’s little bottle on my skin, then took the elevator down to where India was waiting for me in the lobby. There was another car outside that took us to South Beach. The restaurant was big and crowded, full of groups that all seemed to be celebrating something. Over dinner—caesar salad, warm rolls, crab legs for both of us—India told me her story—how she, too, had grown up without much; how she’d gone to Los Angeles to try to be an actress, how she’d moved to New York City to work in public relations, how she’d met Marcus in a Starbucks, of all places. “What was that like?” I asked. What I really wanted to ask was, how had she found the confidence to go to a city all the way on the other side of the country, to get herself the kind of job I hadn’t even known existed, to turn herself into the kind of person Marcus wanted? She was so much smarter than I was, so much more clever, and I listened closely as she explained how she’d figured out what publicists were and what they did; how she’d made connections and networked with the right people to get an internship, then a job.
At the end of the meal, over decaf coffee and a slice of that