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It might have seemed foolish to tack on that last part, but it was surprising how many conversations with Holli ended on that grim note.
I forced myself to smile when I said, “Okay, tell me.”
She breathed in through her nostrils and closed her eyes then breathed out through her mouth before saying, “Don’t judge me. But Deja and I are having a baby.”
“Don’t judge you?” I shrieked automatically, almost flying up from my seat. “Holli, that’s amazing! Why would I judge you?”
“Because you don’t want kids,” she said, then amended, “except for Olivia, obviously.”
“Just because I don’t want something doesn’t mean you can’t ever want it.” I did not tack on, duh. “Is this… Are you pregnant or—”
“Oh, god, no. I’m not the one having it. Deja is. And she’s not pregnant, at least, not yet. We’re using my egg and her friend Easton’s sperm, and she’s going to carry it.”
“That is a lot of steps,” I observed.
“And let me tell you, not a single one is pleasant. I already had the eggs harvested, and it hurt like a bitch. They take this big ass needle—”
“Nope,” I warned, one hand over my mouth.
“Whatever, the point is, it’s a pain in the ass. I wanted to tell you, though, because this is a long process, and we’re finally, finally underway. It just feels like…now, it’s really going to happen. All we’re waiting on, now, is finding out if the embryo implanted.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t told me before now.” Did I have a right to feel a little hurt? That seemed kind of foolish. I didn’t clear major life decisions with Holli. And lots of people liked to keep pregnancies under wraps until things were more certain. Like, until they were pregnant, for example.
Holli shrugged. “If it had been just me, I would have definitely told you. But Deja didn’t want to announce all of our business to everyone.”
“I get that. But what changed her mind?” I hoped Holli wasn’t breaking Deja’s confidence to me, though I didn’t think she would ever do that.
“I am a total mass of raw nerves and anxiety, and she thought that talking to you would put me at ease. Because I have questions.” She opened her purse and took out her phone. “Hang on, I have a list.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be much help with your current situation,” I said cautiously.
“Not the current part, no,” she said, scrolling her finger determinedly across the screen. “But the part comes when we have a baby, and I fuck up as a parent.”
Though I couldn’t exactly imagine Holli as a parent, I couldn’t imagine her fucking it up worse than most people. And while that might not have sounded like a ringing endorsement, now that I was actually responsible for a child, I realized that it wasn’t a low bar to set at all.
“I don’t think you’re going to fuck your kid up,” I said firmly. “Take that from someone who is pretty sure she’s fucking up parenting every single day.”
“Just humor me, okay?” She squinted at her phone. “How can you tell if a baby is hungry or needs its diaper changed?”
“You check and see if its diaper is wet, and if it isn’t, you feed it.” I thought back to last year. “But it could be tired, or bored, or gassy. But always start with hungry or wet. Those are the two easiest.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “Tired, though?”
“Yeah.”
“If they’re tired, they just sleep, right? They’re babies.”
I didn’t want to laugh at her, because I didn’t want to scare her out of her mind. “Not always. For example, you know how you get when you’re out at the club and you’re drunk off your ass and I have to drag you home?”
“Hasn’t happened in a long time, but yes. Continue,” she said.
“That’s the stage Olivia is at, right now. Wasted Holli, who either wants to sleep wherever she falls or fights her roommate because she doesn’t want to go to bed. There’s nothing in between.” Just describing it, I felt like I needed a drink. “Infants are actually pretty easy, compared to toddlers.”
“Are you trying to comfort me? Because you’re not.”
I screwed up my face. “Fair. Next question.”
“How much puke is involved?” she asked without hesitation.
“I don’t know. Any puking Olivia did, like normal infant puking, was mostly over by the time she came to live with us.” I wouldn’t tell her about the spaghetti incident.
“Poop.”
“So much poop. Sorry, I can’t soften that up. And even if you have a nanny, you’re not going to escape it. They do not wait for the nanny to show up.” I fixed her with a grave stare. “Promise me, promise me, you will not become one of those moms who talks about poop all the time on Facebook.”
