Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [99]
JOSIE IS IN my office, running through a list of her contact names who will become my contact names when she leaves in three weeks, when Leigh unexpectedly drops in with Allie. My future niece bounds over the piles of paper and cardboard boxes that litter my floor and wraps me in a smothering hug.
“Can I steal you after work?” Leigh says.
Josie shrugs a compliant shrug and gives me an off smile, so I say “sure,” and agree that I’ll meet Leigh at the tearoom in the Plaza.
Hours later, before I shut down for the night, I call Meg, as I do daily now, to see what I can bring her and how she is coping with bed rest, which she has been placed on through her twentieth week. While so much is tumbling out of control in this new old life, I am determined to ensure that at least one thing—Meg and this baby—do not. Not on my watch, I think nearly every day. Armed with my hindsight, not on my watch.
Tonight on the phone, Meg is as she always is: listless but satisfied. She has all she needs, with her burgeoning tummy and her hope for her future, and sometimes, when I drop by with groceries or DVDs or just to chat, I’m envious of my friend who is so close to losing so much. Because despite that risk, she is content. I see this when she rubs her belly, and her eyes shine bright, and she talks about baby names, even though I wish that she wouldn’t because I somehow think it’s a curse.
I log off for the day and navigate my way through the crowds to the Plaza. The lobby smells of expensive, floral perfume and carpet cleaner, and guests come and go, the elevator button ringing in beat with their pace. I amble into the tearoom, but Leigh and Allie are nowhere to be found, so I wave over the hostess, a lanky, blond six-footer who is undoubtedly an aspiring model.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for a mother and her daughter. They might have put their names down. Leigh and Allie?”
“Oh, right this way,” she says with a wink. “They’re in the private room.”
That’s odd. I wrinkle my forehead and follow her through the parlor. She pushes open a door, then moves aside and allows me through.
“SURPRISE!” The volume of the welcome overwhelms me, and I stagger back two steps in dazed confusion.
Jack rushes forward from the crowd and kisses me.
“I knew you would protest, so we did it in secret,” he says, smiling like he is the smartest man in the world.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” I stammer, trying to pin this down. Is it my birthday? Have I so lost track of time that I forgot my birthday?
“Our engagement party!” he says, then kisses me again. “I didn’t want you to worry about it, so Mom and I thought this would be the perfect solution!”
I pull away from him, and unwrap his arms, like a twist tie on a bread bag, from my waist.
“This is an engagement party?” I say with disbelief, trying to contain my irritation, knowing that guests are watching. “I specifically asked you not to do this!”
“No, I asked you to think about it . . . you didn’t answer,” he offers. “Oh come on, it’s fun,” he says, either not detecting or purposefully ignoring my rancor entirely. He turns around to look at the hundred-plus guests. “Everyone is here.”
I scan the crowd and mostly see Vivian’s well-tailored country club set. I notice Josie in the back, alone and nursing a drink, and my father awkwardly making small talk near the buffet, but no one else with whom I need to share the supposed joy of my nuptials is here. Meg isn’t here. Henry isn’t here. Nothing is different here and now than it used to be: The people whom I need most are gone, and the ones who remain do nothing to help me get to where I need to go. Different names, different faces, but the end result is still the same.
Suddenly, it feels like too much, this party, this life with Jack—all of these people who are so similar to the me that I’m set to become in seven years, the me I’ve grown to loathe and have tried to outrun in vain. It doesn’t have to be this way, I finally