Page 13 of Get A Fix

“Clothespins would have saved me in the past,” she said as I passed her Taylor. “I do have hair clips.”

“Okay. Where’s the blanket and the clips? Both in your mountain-climbing gear?”

“So funny,” she said as Gemma coughed.

“One nuggie at a time,” I warned her daughter, using the word Gemma had earlier when we ordered, and the one all my nieces and nephews did as well. “Are you all right?”

Big smile for me.

“Show me your airway is not compromised by breathing in and out like this,” I said, then took several deep breaths and blew them out.

She looked at me like she wasn’t sure I was all right, but performed for me anyway.

“Thank you.”

She shook her head at me. I turned back to her mother. “She’s very dismissive and judgmental. Have you noticed this about her?”

She was smiling at me like I was dear, and I started rummaging in the backpack, where she told me the clips probably were, and after quite a bit of looking, I came up with them and a good-sized cotton baby blanket. Once she was ready, Taylor went under the blanket, I used the clips, and even when the two-month-old grasped the blanket and gave it a tug, there was no movement. Ainsley looked over at me, eyes wide.

“See? No ta-da moments.”

“I will invest in clothespins.”

“They work better. Easier to get on and off. Celeste also recommends balancing small bowls on your baby’s head while they nurse so you can keep eating.”

She chuckled. “I’ve rested many a sandwich there in my day.”

“There ya go.”

After lunch that I bought, even over her objections, we found an area where Ainsley and I could sit and talk. She put Taylor to sleep in his car seat, and we started talking about the wedding we were both there for. We had discovered over our shared meal that we were going to the same place for the same reason—her niece Bitsy’s wedding.

“What’s with the name Bitsy? It’s Elizabeth, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“So Liz was a no-go? Or Beth? Or, I dunno, Lizzie? I hear there’s a great book heroine with that name.”

Big smile. “Listen, rich people have darling nicknames that make no sense. Bitsy’s brother’s name is Sebastian, and they call him Bash.”

“Bash is better than Bitsy.”

“What’s interesting is that the groom, Orson Phillips, is actually a friend of Jeff’s.”

“Jeff is your husband?”

“Yes. They were all on their annual guy weekend to Vegas. All his frat brothers get together and go, and I guess Bitsy was there with some of her friends, and when they met, it was love at first sight.”

“How romantic.”

She smiled. “You said that very sarcastically.”

“I’m impressed is all, that Jeff gets a whole weekend getaway with his buddies every year. That sounds lovely.”

“It is.”

“And do you have a vacation where he watches the kids alone every year?”

She didn’t immediately respond. “I don’t, no, but I don’t have a big group of friends from college either. I didn’t pledge.”