Page 4 of Counting the Days

Rhea took in her usually brazen friend’s timid demeanor, and guilt gripped her stomach. Rhea’s friends were officiallyafraid of her. Not only was she single, childless, and almost a senior citizen, but she also terrified adult women.

“Yep, still swipin’,” Rhea said with what she hoped was a kind smile.

“Glad to hear it. Your person is out there,” Ada said, and squeezed Rhea’s hand in a way that was intended to be supportive but was received as pity.

“God, the whole thing is so fucked,” Tiny said. “It’s, like, a proven fact that getting married and having kids isterriblefor women. I read a legit article that said all the stress and hard work takesyearsoff our lives, and yet…we’re still doing it.” Tiny looked down at her swollen uterus like it was a loaded gun pointed at her forehead.

“Really? Huh, that’s so…crazy,” Rhea said, wishing there was a loaded gun pointed at her forehead. She would gladly shave off a few years for a family rather than spend those years in the retirement home dealing with Carol’s shit.

Ada made a noise of discomfort, possibly from pregnancy pain, but more likely from a desire to change the subject. Rhea and Tiny looked concerned.

“I’m fine; baby just kicked. Baby’s been kicking harder lately,” Ada explained.

Ada had two other children, a girl and a boy, but she always referred to her children in the womb as “baby” and did not want to know the sex before the birth.

Ada took Rhea’s hand and placed it under her belly button.

Rhea felt the tiny pulses against her hand, and her heart filled with love for this nameless infant. Since this was Ada’s third child, Rhea was finding love much easier to access this time around. Ada’s first baby made Rhea so jealous that it took a few months to warm up to her. Rhea was not merely jealous that Ada had a husband and a daughter; she was mostly jealous becauseAda was suddenly giving all her love and attention to someone new.

Ada is my mom,Rhea wanted to tell the helpless newborn.She was my mom first, go away.She never said this out loud, of course, on the off chance someone might walk in on a full-grown woman accusing a newborn of stealing her mommy.

Rhea closed her eyes and tried to imagine the itty-bitty body elbowing the walls of their enclosure. She never got over the miraculous energy of childbirth, the idea that a human being was growing behind that hard layer of skin. A whole life was beginning, and Rhea hoped it would be a beautiful one; she knew, with Ada as their mother, her wish would come true.

Rhea opened her eyes and briefly held Ada’s gaze. Every time they did this, the unspoken, petty moments of jealousy or frustration throughout their twenty-three-year friendship seemed to melt away, and all that remained was the deep love that had occurred between them the moment they met and would somehow continue on long after they were dead.

“Dammit, I gotta piss again. He keeps drop-kicking me in the bladder. Why didn’t you tell me being pregnantsucks balls?” Tiny said, ruining the moment as Tiny often did.

326Days

Rhea parked her Prius ina circular driveway in front of Tiny’s estate. It was not a house. It was, in fact, an estate. She got out of the car and bumped into a young man wearing a vest.

“Are you…an actual valet?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the valet said, holding his hand out for Rhea’s key fob.

It would take Rhea the rest of her life to get used to Tiny’s wealth.

“Oh, but there’s a bunch of boxes, party decorations, and stuff in the back.”

“I’ll have someone bring them in,” the young man replied.

This plan made sense, and yet, Rhea did not let go of her key fob. She wished she had known she would bevaletingat her friend’s house; she would have spruced up her car. Because of the size of Los Angeles, she stored a backup version of everything she owned inside her vehicle. Once she decided to leave her neighborhood, she could never just “run home” and grab something.

Therefore, her backseat contained six jackets of varying degrees of thickness, a pair of sneakers, a sports bra and Lululemonpants (in case she was struck with the desire to jog while across town, despite the fact she had never once been struck with the desire to jog in her own neighborhood), deodorant, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a makeup kit, and several pairs of sunglasses. Los Angeles was not in control of Rhea Darby; she was in control of Los Angeles.

But the worst, most embarrassing sight sat insideeach of her four cup holders:a reusable glass KeepCup with a few centimeters of days-old green tea at the bottom. The valet waited while Rhea tried to think of the right words to excuse the mess he was about to enter.

“I promise I don’t live in my car,” she joked, then panicked because she did not know this young man and he very well might live in his car. “Not that there’s anything wrong with living in your car. In this economy, it’s a luxury to evenhavea car.”

Rhea wished words would stop leaving her mouth, and she blamed Tiny; she really should have known better than to spring residential valet service on middle-class people. The young man smiled at Rhea and kept his hand held out. Finally, she relented.

Rhea passed under a large overhang between enormous Corinthian columns, heading toward Tiny’s front door. She looked up at another employee in a vest holding the door open for her. She made a mental note to add a housekeeper to her vision board; she did not need to throw lavish baby showers with valets and doormen, but she at least deserved a housekeeper.

“Yo!” Tiny said as she approached.

“What’s with the valet?”

“We can’t have Zoe seeing a hundred and fifty cars parked outside. It would ruin the surprise.”