mobile was my immediate favorite.
“What are you doing? Starting a new business? There’s more stuff in here than in Kmart!”
Mitzi’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I wanted to decorate a room for my baby, and all I’ve got here is a big mess. No theme, no color palette, no…”
“No baby?” Kim said gently.
Mitzi sat down on a big yellow ball like the one I use at the gym. “I thought it might encourage me while I’m going through all these tests. I’m beginning to feel like a pincushion and not a person.” Her voice trailed away, and she stared in the direction of one of the cribs. “It just reminds me that perhaps I’ll never have a baby and this room will be a monument to my failure.”
“Failure? Mitzi, don’t feel that way.”
“How should I feel? Isn’t that what women are designed to do? Have babies?” Her eyes glittered. “I know you all think I’m a big goof-off at work, that I’m just there because I’d be bored staying home, but that’s not true. I actually…”
I waited for her to say she loved us.
“…am used to you now and it’s not so awful.”
How do we keep our heads from swelling?
“But my body isn’t cooperating. Can you even begin to understand how that feels?”
Kim took Mitzi’s hand. “I know my issues aren’t the same as yours, but my body hasn’t always cooperated, either. Depression and breast cancer—I didn’t ask for either, but there it is. That doesn’t mean that I am only a cancer survivor or a depression-prone female, anymore than you are only an infertile woman. That’s a small part of who we are as people, not the sum total of our lives.”
Mitzi looked at her doubtfully. “I suppose so.” I could see her gaze had cleared. Little lasers were emanating from her eyes. “It’s like Whitney before she found Chase. She wasn’t a total loser, but it was kind of hard to remember that.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested, “I—”
But Kim stopped me. “Yeah, just like that. She was never a loser. Not for a minute. And neither are you.”
Well, thanks for that. I think.
“Maybe you jumped the gun by trying to set up a nursery when you’re still working with the doctors.”
A cunning look flickered on Mitzi’s face. “I suppose I did, but it usually helps to be ahead of the pack.”
“What on earth do you mean by that?”
“Now if you want a nursery as nice as ours, you’ll have to copy me, not the other way around.”
“You mean this is all about being first?” I took her by the shoulders. “Mitzi, I can assure you that there is no way that you will ever be less than cutting-edge in the style department, so just relax. Get pregnant first, then do the nursery. It will be easier, I’m sure.”
I could see her blue mood lifting. “Good idea.” Then her eyes began to sparkle. “But I have picked out baby names, and I’m never going to tell you what they are. You’d probably want to copy me.”
“No doubt.”
As if I had a tendency to run out and do whatever it is Mitzi does. If that were true, right now I’d have blue nail polish on my toenails, enough gloss on my lips to wax the floor at Grand Central Station and an ego the size of South America.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
