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“Geez.” I leaned down to put the back of my hand against her clammy forehead. “What’s the matter?”
“Should I get Robby?” Tiffany asked.
“No. I’m fine.” Val shook her head. “I mean, I’m not, but I’m not supposed to say anything—but who cares, right?” She sat up again. “I’m freaking out, Lake. Can you tell? Like really freaking out.”
I’d never seen Val so frazzled, and I’d been with her at her worst. “How come?”
“I took a . . . ugh.” She removed her hat to fan herself, her spiral curls flapping with the breeze. “I should probably wait for Corbin to announce this.”
“I’m here,” he said from the doorway between the den and kitchen. He smiled at Val. “Go ahead, babe.”
“But it’s less than twelve weeks,” she said. “Isn’t that bad luck?”
I dropped my jaw. It wasn’t possible. As far as I knew, Val didn’t even want kids. But apparently, that was becoming the quickest path to have them. “You’re . . .?”
She nodded. “Pregnant.”
I should’ve squealed with joy, or leapt up to hug my two best friends, or even acknowledged what she’d said. Instead, I stared at her with an open mouth. I didn’t see her as Val right then, the girl who’d befriended me when I’d needed someone in my corner. The one who’d always pushed me to be the best version of myself, even when I was at my worst. My best friend in the entire world. I only saw another person who’d gotten something she hadn’t even wanted—something I’d wanted. And all I could think was . . .
Are you fucking kidding me?
15
Val twisted her hands in her lap, rushing out an explanation, as if she felt guilty. “I don’t know if I’m pregnant for sure. I missed my period, so I took a test and it was positive.” She shifted on the couch. “But we haven’t been to a doctor yet. It could be a false alarm.”
“Oh my God, come by Robby’s office,” Tiffany said. “Our kids will be friends. Even if we’re not!”
“It was an accident,” Val said to me as if she needed to explain. “Corbin and I are still getting to know each other.”
“You’ve known each other forever,” I said, my voice sounding distant and foreign even to my own ears.
“Not this way. We’ve only been dating a year and a half.” She and Corbin exchanged a look. “I’m not ready, I know I’ll fuck it up—I mean, I just said fuck and Tiffany’s baby probably heard it through her stomach—she has ears by now, right?” She paused, as if expecting one of us to answer. “I don’t even know,” she continued, “because I’m completely clueless about this kind of stuff. Oh my God. I’ll be a terrible mom.”
“I’m not worried,” Corbin said, tucking his hair behind his ear with a shrug. “We’re going to be killer parents, Val.”
The calm confidence in Corbin’s voice should’ve soothed all of us, but Val still looked sick. And me? My palms were getting clammy, too. Was I supposed to feel better that this was an accident? Because somehow, that seemed worse. She didn’t even want this baby. But I did, and so did Manning, and we’d been through a lot. We needed this. We had ways of molding the universe to meet our demands, so why couldn’t we do it? How was that fair?
Was there anyone who didn’t get knocked up at the drop of a hat? At this rate, the people in my life were going to overpopulate the entire west coast.
“You going to ralph again?” Corbin asked Val.
She shook her head. “I think it’s passing.”
“I’ll get you a ginger ale,” he said, heading for the kitchen.
Val kept looking at me as if gauging my reaction. This wasn’t about me. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. She hadn’t done this to hurt me, but it sure felt that way. I moved my hand, which felt about fifty pounds, and put it on her knee. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be great. And new moms are supposed to fuck up, so you’re basically a natural.”
“You better decide if you’re getting married now or after,” Tiffany said. “You don’t want to look like I do on the most important day of your life.”
“We’re not getting married,” she said.
Tiffany wrinkled her nose. “Ever?”
“Ever.” Dee and Dum ran circles around the couch, stopping every few seconds to whine at us. “It’s a dumb tradition. No offense, but it’s not for me.”
“I want to be a wife as much as I do a mom,” Tiffany said, shrugging. “But whatever. I guess Lake is the only one doing it the right way.”
Yet I’d been the only one ready and willing—and actively trying—to do it out of order. “There’s no right or wrong way,” I said quietly.
“Corbin was such a playboy for so long,” Tiffany said. “I can’t picture him as a dad.”
