She snorted. Funny how there already was a third.
The lie mattered, but what also mattered was that she had been ready to think about kids, to imagine pregnancy and birth and babies and toddlers and all the roly-poly love that came with them. If she was pregnant – she allowed herself to think in hypotheticals, her hands mechanically shampooing her greasy hair, the feeling of rinsing like a baptism, washing away the past month of dysfunction – then it would be OK.
Everything would be OK. To be more precise, it would all work out in the end because she absolutely, positively, undeniably was not pregnant. And couldn't be. It just wasn't true, and as long as she willed it to not be true, she didn't have to face any of the long term consequences of having a billionaire baby daddy.
Or two.
A quick rinse was all she could manage as her legs and arms felt like jelly, her body shivering no matter how much she turned the shower faucet for more hot water. Time to get out. A quick toweling and new pajamas, plus a robe, helped with warmth. By the time she wandered out, combing her hair, she still felt the underlying tiredness and a smaller blanket of nausea, less intense but more pervasive, like a layer of fascia within her body, ever lurking but not always obviously felt.
Greeting her in the kitchen were Josie, a freshly-washed coffee pot, and three boxes on the kitchen table. Pink, white, and purple.
Ah, fuck.
"Josie!" she wailed.
"You're really glowing," Josie replied in a tone of flattery. Snuggles was in Josie's lap (how had she managed that?) and the cat turned and gave Laura the stare of doom. You're pregnant! its eyes said. And I don't care.
"That's anger, you idiot." The boxes stood there, judging her. Who came up with the names for these things? Early Pregnancy Test was fine, but First Response? What was she, a 911 call? Little cardboard soldiers of doom, ready to deliver a message from the front lines that she had lost, and it was time to surrender to the truth.
Never surrender!
And now she was quoting cheesy 80s songs in her mind. This was how far she had fallen.
"Water?" Josie poured more sparkling water from the green bottle and handed it to her.
"You just want to make me pee."
A sweet smile. "I just want to make sure you're hydrated. It reduces nausea."
"And makes me need to pee."
"Does it?" Josie asked, overly innocent and disingenuous. "How convenient."
Resentment kicked in with a healthy side of sour stomach. "Why are you so determined to prove I'm pregnant?"
Josie leaned in, blinking rapidly, her face serious and relaxed, the look jarring to Laura. She hadn't seen her friend this still and composed since...well, never. "Because if you are pregnant, ignoring it can only hurt you and the baby. I'm a nurse, Laura. I know how important prenatal care is. I've worked labor and delivery and I've worked the post-partum wing. I just want to make sure you don't do anything you might regret."
"Like what?" A shadow of something sinister crept into the room. What did Josie mean?
"Like ignore the reality of being pregnant and not get early care. Once you know the truth, you can do the right thing."
"The right thing?" She peered at Josie, wondering if she was implying what Laura thought she was implying.
"I mean get the care you need. Whichever way you choose. Early treatment is best no matter what."
Whoosh. Laura sighed deeply. Whew. "For a minute there, I thought you were saying I should get an abortion."
"Not my decision to make, or to influence." Josie shook her head, her vehemence a little unsettling. What if Laura needed to bounce ideas off her bestie? Isn't that what BFFs were for? Another round of nausea made her close her eyes and breathe slowly, deeply, as if she were getting through a contraction.
Staying perfectly still, Laura took in Josie's response, her body a bit more grounded after the breaths. No judgment. "Right," was all she could think to say.
Josie's face was neutral as she picked up the pink box and began opening it. "This one doesn't need first-morning urine, so you could do it right now, if you want."
Oh, God. A cold wave of everything washed over her. This was real. Her entire fate was in the hands of a thin stream of pee and a little plastic stick with chemicals on it that would measure her future in the form of one, or two, pink lines. The floor seemed really close, the walls closing in on her. Josie's face went from the look of a professionally neutral nurse to that of a concerned friend.
“Breathe. Just breathe.”
“Easy for you to say,” Laura gasped, hands white-knuckling the back of a chair, her kitchen screamingly pink. Now she understood Dylan's reaction to all the color – it really was dramatic, wasn't it? Viewing her life through an outside lens had become the new norm.
And now through the lens of baby.
Laura reached for her water and took a sip. “OK. But you have to be the one to read it and tell me what it says.”
“No problem.” The concern that had crept into Josie's eyes freaked Laura out. This was, most likely, the most mature conversation they had ever had in their entire friendship. Somber. Deliberate.
Bring back flaky Josie, please.
“Here. Just fill the cup and I'll handle the dipstick.”
“That's what she said,” Laura joked. Josie cracked a toothy smile. She looked at the little cup. Seriously? Her entire life rested in what the pee told them? Josie was now the Pee Whisperer?
Dissembling. “Laura?” Josie asked, nudging her gently to the bathroom.
Memorable pees came to mind. Straddling a Big Gulp as she raced down the Pike to make it on time to a concert. Peeing on a Bush in 2000 on election night (her mom's idea). Peeing in a trough at the outdoor amphitheater while visiting cousins in Ohio.
Peeing for a stick that would determine her fate? This was #1 on that list now.
What an honor.
Filling the cup was easy, some of the stream missing and hitting her wrist, warm and cloying, Her own urine never bothered her but right now, everything bothered her, stomach a barometer of stress and hormones. Hormones that could be detected by the reactions the chemicals in the little cloth-line end of the pregnancy test's stick. Urine-filled cup in hand, she emerged and shoved the warm container in Josie's hand.
“Thanks.” Josie made a flowery production of dipping the stick, waiting the appropriate amount of time, then setting it on the table.
“Do, do, do, do,” she hummed. The music to Jeopardy, the little ditty they play while the contestants wager as much as possible to win final jeopardy – where some people bet everything and fail, and others bet everything and succeed in ways that exceed their wildest dreams.
No final jeopardy for Laura, though. The only way out was through.
Through pee.
“How long does this take?”
“Three minutes.” Josie stared at the stick as if it were a chess opponent in check. Laura forced herself to go and wash her face, then brush and floss. That should kill three minutes, right? She wandered back into the kitchen to find Josie frozen in place, face serious and scowling. She looked like a chihuahua doing an impression of Grumpy Cat.
“How much more?”
“Fifty seconds.”
Laura let herself remember Mike's hands, those gentle, enormous fingers that laced so effortlessly, so eagerly, with hers when they walked together. Dylan's eyelashes. The scent of both when they –
"How much longer?" Laura asked, her foot bouncing a mile a minute as she sat down at the kitchen table, legs crossed, her fingers drumming on the top.
"Thirty seconds," Josie answered. "Twenty less than the last time you asked."
"Shut up." To her surprise, the smart as**s went quiet. Damn well she better. This was no time for jokes. Josie's fingernails caught Laura's eye. Each was a rotation of a positive and negative pregnancy test. She inhaled sharply.
“Jesus, Josie, your fingernails! Have some compassion!” Did she seriously go out and have the hot dogs changed to this?
“I thought they were cute.” Josie shot Laura a sideways glance and rolled her eyes. “Someone's lost her sense of humor completely. Besides, the hot dogs made you puke, so I just changed them.”
“Yeah, well, I must have puked up my sense of humor along with my lunch. If it means so much to you, go find it in the toilet.”
Ding! The oven timer beeped and Josie met her eyes, both of them scared shitless, Laura moreso. It was her life in the balance, after all, and while her best friend could be the most empathic person on the planet, she couldn't give birth for her.
Laura covered her eyes. "You look. I can't."
"Okay." Silence.
"Josie?" Laura could feel the sandpaper in her voice, could hear her unacknowledged truth, knew exactly what Josie was about to say but needed her to say it. To make it real. Her stomach roiled and that full-body flush – not the good kind – flooded her senses again. She willed herself to take deep breaths. Three of them, to be exact, before Josie finally said:
"It's positive."
“It – what?” She snatched the stick away from Josie and forced herself to look. Pregnant. Belly swelling, hands growing, her face and skin felt like a sheet of someone else's cells. Something was growing in her. And it wasn't an infection or a crush or an idea or anything else she'd fostered or cultured or spawned.
