Born in Death (In Death 23)

She lifted out, gently, the little booties and hat done in a rainbow of pastels. It seemed to Eve every woman in the room went gooey. And when Mavis took out the blanket, there were exclamations, and fingers reaching out to touch and stroke.

“It’s lovely,” Mira commented. “Absolutely lovely. She’s just given Mavis an heirloom.”

Obviously thrilled, Mavis managed to level herself out of the chair to grab Peabody in a giddy hug. Flushed and shiny, Peabody accepted the compliments.

“Um, since you’re up,” Peabody began. “You got one last gift coming from your hostess. Dallas?”

“Jeez. That’s my cue.” Eve set her drink aside, crossed the room. Since Peabody had nagged her brainless on just how it had to be done, Eve took one edge of the cover as Peabody took the other.

When they whipped it off the chair, Mavis actually slapped her hands to her heart. “Holy shit! Holy shit! It’s the exact one I wanted. Oh, oh, look at the colors! And I’ve been sitting in it this whole time. Dallas!”

It was Eve’s turn for a hard hug. “It’s the ult in rocker systems. The absolute! You didn’t have to give me a present. The party was enough.”

“Now you tell me.” It was the exact response needed to make Mavis laugh instead of cry. “Go ahead, take it for a spin.”

When it wound down and thinned out, and there’d been no catastrophes, no emergency child-birthing procedures, and happy faces all around, Eve figured she’d scored a winner.

She also figured on dumping herself into a hot jet tub with a double bellini until she was comatose.

“The guys are heading back,” Peabody announced. “They’re going to load up your haul, Mavis. Leonardo, McNab, and I will get it all up to your apartment.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Trina told her. The beauty consultant had her hair in a complicated pattern of braids and curls today, and in showy magenta. She turned her eyes on Eve. “You’re due for a treatment.”

“Don’t start on me. I’m riding on alcohol and sugar.”

“You did good. You get a break. Sit down, Mav, take a load off.”

“I’m too juiced. I can hardly wait till Leonardo gets a load of all this stuff. It was the best of the best, Dallas. And now I’ve got to ask you for something else.”

“We forgot something?” She glanced around. “There can’t be another baby item left in Manhattan.”

“No, it’s about Tandy. She’s still not answering. It’s like hours now, and I keep seeing her in her apartment, in labor. I want to go by. Would you come with me. Please?”

“You’ve had a really big day,” Trina reminded her. “You should go on home and rest.”

“I just can’t, not until I make sure she’s okay. She doesn’t really have anybody. And I…I’ve got so much of everything.”

Sensing a new jag, Eve stepped in. “Sure, no big. We’ll run by there, and I’ll take you on home after.”

Which meant a long delay in becoming comatose, but it got her out of hauling presents out of the house. Of course, it meant she was now solely responsible for a tired, emotional, churned-up pregnant woman.

“Don’t have the baby on my watch, Mavis,” Eve warned as she loaded her friend into her vehicle.

“I’m solid, don’t worry. Just a little tired. And I know I’m probably being a zero about the Tandy thing, but I can’t help it. She’s been like my knocked-up buddy for months now, and I talked to her just a couple days ago. It was all ‘I can’t wait till Saturday,’ and how she’d sprung for this new outfit for the shower. She wouldn’t have forgotten about it, Dallas.”

“Okay, so we’ll check on her. If she’s not home, we’ll talk to a couple of her neighbors. She went into baby mode, one of them probably knows.”

“Sure, sure. Could be she went to a different center for some reason. The midwives work at more th

an one. That’s probably it. Wow, she’s probably had her baby! Or she’s having it now.” Mavis began to rub her belly. “I might be up next.”

“Just not today, okay?” she slanted Mavis a leery eye. “Absolutely not today.”

“No way! I want time to play with all the gifts, and put all the little outfits away, and make it all abso perfect before little Roofus or Apricot come along.”

“Roofus? Apricot?”

“Just trying them out.”