When Girlfriends Step Up (15 page)

“Robin! What’s new with you?”

We made small talk, and I learned that she was currently dating a very successful architect who was going to take her to the Florida Keys this winter, since he’d gotten a big project down there.

“I’m going to be there the whole season! Christmas and New Years too, isn’t that wonderful and so exciting for me?”

Nothing had changed. It was still all about Mom, but I couldn’t care less. Years ago, I’d let myself get over the fact that I didn’t have that traditional “mom figure.”

“That’s nice, Mom. I’m happy for you. Listen, I wanted to share some good news with you.”

“Oh, you met an architect too, honey? Or a successful businessman? Oh, architects make such great lovers. So in tune…” She rambled on. She sounded like she’d returned from one of her feel-good, do-good, and be-good retreats, incense burning around the clock, and meditation teachers and people called “life guides” helping her find her aura or color or something voodoo-hokey like that. She’d become very New Age a year or so ago. I wasn’t in the mood to hear about it, though, much less entertain the notion.
 

“Mom, no, nothing like that. I, uh…” I decided I’d come right out and say it. “I’m going to have a baby.”

She was speechless. I couldn’t coax a response out of her until I said, “Can you please say something? Anything?”

“Robin Elaine Sinclair, are you telling me you’re pregnant?”

Just now coming out of a hypnotic state? In denial? Bad phone connection?

“Yes, Mother. I’m going to have a baby. I wanted to let you know you’re going to be a grandma.”

“What? This and no architect?”

“Forget the architect.”

“No businessman?”

“Drop the businessman, architect thing, Mom. That’s
your
life.
I’m
having a baby.”

When she asked who the father was and I vaguely told her that it was some guy who’s out of the picture now, that it didn’t matter, her response was curt and loud. “Don’t come to me looking for a handout!”

“I’m not asking for a handout, Mom!” I was appalled at the assumption. I’d made it through college without ever asking for help except once, only for a little gas money. I’d be damned if I was going to ask her to help out with a baby.

“Then why are you calling me?”

“To tell you the news. God, Mom, I thought you’d want to know that your daughter is having a baby.”

“If she were married or in a committed relationship, sure. Not knocked up with some bum’s baby.”

“Mom—”

“Robin Elaine, you disappoint me. How could you do this to me?”

As always, the conversation went right back to her. Could she ever get off her damn throne and realize that there was more to life than what happened in her multi-colored, hazy-dazy world?

“Well, I thought you should know.” I didn’t know what else to say. So far the only people who seemed to give a damn about my being pregnant were my girlfriends and the couple of guys who were connected to our tight-knit group. No support from family. Not even the baby’s father.

“And I was hoping that you’d find some joy in this. But, well, I guess you’re just as bad as the father,” I said, surprising myself with my bold choice of words.

“What is that supposed to mean, young lady?”

“I thought you’d be able to find some excitement. Be
some
how happy for your daughter. I’m doing this all on my own, you know? No man. Evidently no family. Of course, I have my friends. And I’m living with Lara.”

“Lara? Who’s Lara?”

“God, Mom, you really don’t know anything about my life, do you? No care for anyone but yourself.”

“You watch your tongue young lady.”

Here we go, a lecture. Just what I need.

“You better grow up if you’re going to be a mom yourself.”

You’re one to talk!

“I’ve got to go, Mom,” I said, finished with the phone call a good five minutes ago. “Lunch break is over. Got to get back to work if I’m going to schlep it as a single mom, you know?”

“Have you told your father?”

I sighed. “Going to email him tonight. You know I don’t talk to him. He won’t care, much less notice, that I’m pregnant.”

“He won’t be any more thrilled about the news than I am.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Mom.” I was much too drained to deal with her antics any longer.

“I owe you some congratulations, I suppose…before you go.” She sounded forlorn or preoccupied. “So, there you have it.”

“Thanks, Mom.”
Thanks for nothing.
“Gotta go now.”

The call, unlike the one with Brandon, went pretty much according to expectations. I didn’t expect my mother to be thrilled with the news. I didn’t expect her to give me votes of confidence or even heartfelt congratulations. However, I didn’t expect her to completely shut me out. I suppose in her own little way she
did
congratulate me and keep the lines of communication open. But I couldn’t turn to her for any form of support, least of all emotional. My mother had checked out from the family gig a long time ago and now it was all about the men, the vacations, Vive le whatever floated her boat, and nothing difficult or demanding. She’d said repeatedly that she was in the “highlight of her life” and didn’t want to be “bothered with the shitty things.” I guess my news was categorized as the shit. Oh well. Another one bites the dust.

Chapter Ten

If there’s one thing that can turn a frown upside down, it’s a shopping spree. Granted, shopping for maternity clothes, or what I occasionally like to call “glorified muumuus,” does not necessarily qualify as a
real
shopping spree. But when you’re four months pregnant and seem to be growing larger by the day, a shopping spree not only helps alleviate random and totally unexpected mood swings, it becomes absolutely critical. I could barely zip my jeans anymore. Many of my dress shirts couldn’t be buttoned completely, and what still managed to zip, button, or close up pulled unattractively (and uncomfortably) taut against my skin.

“Shopping emergency, indeed!” Lara said, as we walked into what looked like a hip, modern, and no doubt slightly pricey maternity clothing store in Downtown.

“Thanks for this, girls,” I said. “I’m lucky I found what I’m wearing as it is. I’ve been getting so used to wearing ridiculously baggy clothes to work all I have left is the stuff that barely fits.”

“Yeah, and the packed like a sausage look is very unbecoming,” Claire kidded, giving me a gentle shove.

Claire, Lara, and I were on a maternity mission that Saturday. I couldn’t stand one more day without some appropriate clothing hanging in my closet.

“I’m not wearing that,” I told Claire, who was holding up a bright yellow knee-length dress that was covered in small black polka dots. “It looks like a test pattern. Are you crazy?”

“Claire, that’s pretty hideous,” Lara said, stifling a laugh.

“Just because I’m preggo doesn’t mean I need to look like 1995 computer desktop wallpaper.”

Claire grabbed a light pink dress, also knee-length, but pattern-less and only sporting a small ribbon around the waistline, with a small bow set off to the left. “How about this?” she said. “This is way cute. And I’m sure this ribbon will come right at the top of the little baby bump. It’d look way cute.”

“Well it
does
lack a hideous pattern.” I took the dress from her, keeping it for consideration.

“What size are you, anyway?” Lara asked. She was rifling through the racks of dresses and skirts.

“How the heck should I know?”

A sales associate walked up at precisely the most opportune time. She offered her help, and Lara took the lead.

“Our friend here,” Lara pointed to me, “is about four months along, and we have no idea what size she needs. We’re looking for some semi-formal-like clothes for the office.” I nodded when she shot me a questioning look. “And some everyday kind of clothes too.”

“Basically a whole new wardrobe,” Claire said.
 

I softly poked Claire in the ribs when the sales associate wasn’t looking.

“Ow, what was that for?”

“Have you seen these prices?” I whispered while the sales associate was speaking with Lara. “I can’t get a whole new wardrobe from here.”

“Come with me, ladies,” the associate said, taking the pink dress from me, and saying, “This will look fantastic with your blonde hair. Natural?”

“Of course,” I said, lying through my teeth. I knew it, the girls knew it, my hair dresser certainly knew it. I hadn’t been naturally blonde since I was in grade school, but I insisted, like the “natural” red headed Lucille Ball, that my blonde hair was anything but artificial. I don’t know why I kept up the lie, but I used it one day, too embarrassed as a teenager to tell the world I was unhappy with what God gave me, and the lie just stuck.

“So beautiful,” the associate said. “Well, follow me and we’ll get a dressing room started and get Mommy here on her way to a whole new, fabulous wardrobe.”

I glared at Claire, and she glared right back.

“See, a whole new,
expensive
wardrobe,” I said.

“Ha,” she laughed teasingly. “And you’re a natural blonde.”

I gave her one more playful poke in the ribs before Lara ushered us along like a mother duck.

“How many more must I try?” I said brusquely. Lara was zipping up the back of a cream summer dress that I thought was much too short. Claire had her hands at my waist, tugging the dress down.

“Too short,” I sighed. Claire nodded.

 
“Now wait a minute,” Lara said, standing back as far as she could in the narrow dressing room. “It’s super cute.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s adorable, Robin.”

I looked in the mirror. The dress came halfway between my knees and my woohoo.
Way
too short.

“Hell no,” I said, making a motion for someone to start unzipping me. “Uh-uh, girls. Take it off.”

It’d been like this the past four or five outfits, each one seeming to look worse than the previous.

“I don’t get it,” Claire said. “This stuff is supposed to be high end and everything’s either too short or too tight in all the wrong places. And we have the correct sizes.”

“At least most of the office clothes worked,” Lara pointed out. “Those black and grey slacks and those pastel dress shirts we found are really nice.”

Lara was trying to keep the situation upbeat as my face said it all: I wasn’t happy. I didn’t love any of my new clothes, even though the office clothes
would
be nice, but those were for work. Then what? Schlep around the house in ragged muumuus or sweats? That’d be a great confidence booster. Sure to rally the men with that ensemble.

“How about we get these work clothes and then try a new store? There are tons around here.”

“Good idea, Lara. What do you say, Robin?”

I shrugged, starting to lose my luster.

“Come on, it’ll get better. And this stop wasn’t a total lost cause,” Lara said.

“Can we at least find a place that doesn’t have such high price tags?” I asked. I flipped over one of the dress slacks’ tags. “Not that these prices are all
that
bad. For these office clothes, at least.” The tag read
$59.99
. “I don’t know what normal maternity prices are, but those dresses! That disgusting yellow thing you showed me, Claire, was like a hundred and fifty bucks or something.”

“Hey, it wasn’t
that
disgusting.” Claire made a pouting face as Lara picked up the clothes we decided I’d purchase, then led us out of the dressing room.

“I’m sure we can find something else,” Lara said.

When it came time to pay for the clothes, Lara surprised me and beat me to it. She whipped out her American Express and said, “I’ve got this one.” I insisted on our way out of the store that she should not have picked up the tab, and that I owed her. I wasn’t exactly broke, but she insisted that there would be plenty more expenses headed my way. And if she could afford to help, she wanted to.

“Besides,” she said, opening a door to another maternity clothing store a few doors down. “Brandon might not send some cash your way like he said he would, and you don’t need financial stress on top of everything else. And it’s fun for me. Don’t worry about it.”

Lara was already giving me a bargain on rent. At first, she suggested I only pick up a utility bill or two, but I demanded that she let me pay for things fifty-fifty. After several minutes of back-and-forth, we had agreed that we’d go fifty-fifty on the utility bills and rent. Then she quickly added, and refused a rebuttal, that she pay for my parking permit and groceries. Case closed; there was no arguing. And now she was picking up the tab on my maternity clothes.
 

By the end of our shopping spree, we’d accumulated more outfits and accessories than I thought possible. I figured we’d be lucky if we found a small number of outfits that I could make work for the office, and perhaps a new pair of pants or a couple of shirts that I could use for all non-office hours. But we made out like bandits!
 

“I’m beat,” I said, rubbing my lower back. “And I’ve been having some lower back cramps lately.”

“That’s normal, right?” Lara asked, breezing over the lunch menu at a sidewalk café near Pike Place Market.

“Yeah, but not so painful until I really get bigger, when I’ve got all that weight to carry around.”

“Maybe it’s the jogging. Maybe you’re doing too much or it’s too strenuous,” Claire posed.

“No,” Lara said. “I think it’s just normal baby stuff. Maybe what you need is a massage. We should book you a prenatal massage.”

“Oh yeah! I’ve heard they’re really amazing.”

“Me, too. What do you say, Robin?”

“Please.” I held up one hand. “Let’s let my credit cards cool down a minute. I’m not a pampered princess who can book massages spontaneously.”

“Well—”

“And don’t offer to pay for it,” I cut Lara off. “You’ve done enough girls. I’m
already
a pampered woman.”

The waiter came by and took our orders. I ordered a club sandwich with extra chips on the side—obviously.

“And she means extra,” Claire added. The waiter looked at us with raised eyebrows and scrawled on his notepad.