Page 6 of Counting the Days

“Tiny told me I have to wear one.”

“Yes, you do,” Rhea said, and they stood there, staring at each other.

His eyes were a tractor beam; she could not move as long as he was looking at her. She did manage to take off her own hat and hand it to him. Why she did not just point at the nearby box with the lone hat in it, she did not know.

“Oh, that’s okay, I don’t wanna take yours—”

“I have more.”

“I’m Danny.”

“Rhea.”

“Surprise!”rang out all around them as Zoe walked in the front door and screamed, falling to her knees as if being attacked in a parking lot late at night. An OB-GYN would have been concerned; Ada looked delighted.

—

In the past eight years,Rhea Darby had attended twenty-three baby showers. She had gotten disturbingly good at guessing how many pastel M&M’s were in the jar. She knew all the baby-themed songs by heart: “Ice Ice Baby,” “I Got You Babe,” “Baby Got Back.” She always crushed the inevitable game of Name That Tune. But Rhea’s greatest skill was appearing to enjoy herself at these functions when in fact she was in a great deal of emotional distress. The intense celebration of motherhood forced her to feel her childless feelings over and over again, and she could only soothe her pain by throwing herself into the party and pretending everything was totally fine.

The one baby shower tradition that made pretending difficult was filling out the blank “Parenting Advice” cards for the mommy-to-be. Rhea did not have parenting advice; she was not a parent, and standing in front of everyone, racking her brain to think of wisdom she did not possess, perpetually challenged her ability to feign having a blast. One of the lovely things about this baby shower was the lack of “Parenting Advice” cards, since this was Zoe’s second child and she presumably no longer needed them.

The other lovely thing about this baby shower was the location; a party at Tiny’s house always meant an abundance of fancy food and alcohol. But although Rhea had just finished her third Clase Azul margarita and was embarking upon her second plate of grass-fed brisket, she could not shake the feelings of isolation and otherness. No matter how many times she attended weddings and baby showers without a plus-one, the loneliness still stung, and instead of dulling over time, it sharpened.

Rhea knew she did not have to be alone; she could track down one of her friends and help them wrangle their toddlers or pretend to have an adult conversation while they kept one eye and half their brain focused on their offspring. She could forceTiny to leave the group of mommies-to-be she was standing in, but she just wanted to find a single, nonpregnant woman to talk to about anything other than marriage or motherhood. The only woman who fit that description was Zoe’s fourteen-year-old niece, and Rhea considered it, but the girl’s eyes were chained to her phone.

Rhea had no choice but to do the very scary thing she had been avoiding: ditch her giant plate of meat and find Cute Guy. As she stealthily searched, she overheard a group of moms complaining about lack of sleep and a group of dads bragging about their child’s height percentile. She walked by a couple holding hands, admiring the artwork on Tiny’s wall, wondering aloud if they were actually in the presence of an authentic Hockney;they were.

Just as Rhea was about to start asking strangers if they had seen the cute guy wearing a hat with Zoe getting her first tattoo on it, she spotted him in conversation with an unknown man. She gathered all her courage, took a deep breath, and…slowly walked past him. She stepped behind a corner and resisted the urge to peek out and see if she had successfully pulled his attention. She waited a few minutes before deciding to do one more lap. This time, she moved so close to him that their arms brushed, but she smoothly kept walking.

After a few more minutes of hiding behind another corner, she feared Cute Guy was not falling for her bold mating dance. There was a high probability that he had not been flirting with her and genuinely just wanted a hat; this thought was too depressing to bear.

Her only option was to interrupt his conversation and witness whether his face fell in disappointment or lit up with delight; the thought of doing so made her hands cramp. She needed another drink before she could barge in and force herselfon the poor guy. She ordered a margarita and decided to head outside and drink it all by herself to highlight the fact that she was alone in the world.

She found a spot in the backyard that overlooked Tiny’s stunning new vegetable garden and sat down in the immaculate grass. The sun was kissing her face, trying to cheer her up, but she ignored the persistent warmth and sank further into her funk, consoled only by her incredible margarita, which she was now sadly one swallow away from finishing and then being truly friendless.

“Rhea?” a low voice said, and Rhea turned to find Cute Guy standing over her.

Her mouth was full of margarita, so she could only say, “Mmhmm.”

“Mind if I join you?”

Rhea scooted over. She absolutely hated herself for scooting over. She was sitting on an enormous mound of grass; there was at least an acre of room for him to sit down, and yet she scooted over. Fortunately, he did not seem to notice and sat next to her.

“Good news for you. This is the best spot in the house,” she said. Tequila had thankfully lubricated her earlier awkwardness. Her tongue felt loose with tipsy flirtation.

“Really?”

“Oh, definitely, look at that.” She pointed to half a dozen elevated garden beds bursting with life. Eggplant and zucchini gleamed in the sun. Plump tomatoes weighed down their vines. Trellises held green beans and squash while butterflies and bees hovered above the whole overwhelming display of abundance.

“Ah, you picked this spot for the view,” he said.

“Well, yeah, but the whole thing looks fake…’cause it is.”

“You don’t think those are real vegetables?”

“No, no, they are, but neither Tiny nor Jason planted them.I guarantee they paid a small fortune to have some company come in and install this whole charade to make them look like they have a green thumb. That, my friend, is a bullshit garden.”

He laughed. “So cynical.”