A sudden gasp of breath sucked the saliva from my watering mouth down my throat, and I choked.
“Are you okay?” Gena asked, looking up in alarm.
I nodded and patted my chest with my palm, still coughing vigorously. I reached for my water and tried to take some sips between hacking larynx spasms. “Swallowed some…spit.” My sweaty, red face probably looked so attractive.
The server came back to save me in the nick of time. We placed our orders, and Gena asked
, “So, back to the baby subject. I hope you don’t mind my asking but…what’s that like? I mean, do you and Neil ever plan on having kids of your own? How will that work out?”
“I’m never having kids,” I said with a definitive sweep of my arm. “So, I guess it will be a non-issue.”
“But raising a baby,” she said, pushing her glasses back onto her flame red tresses. “I can’t even imagine what that must be like when you don’t want to do it. Are you okay with it?”
“Actually, yeah. I’m fine with it. Obviously, it’s a learning curve. But I don’t feel like having Olivia makes me a mother. I feel like I get to be grandpa’s cool young wife.” Although, Mom had warned me about making friends with your kids. Apparently, it was a big no-no in the parenting rule book.
“I have to hand it to you, when I heard through the grapevine that this happened…” She shook her head. “Rudy told me. He’s really the only friend of Ian’s that I keep in touch with.”
“Ian is friends with Rudy?” That surprised me. At Emma’s wedding, Ian hadn’t really hung out with him. But Rudy had been sitting with Valerie all night, and I’d gotten the feeling that there was something not quite friendly between her and Ian.
Gena nodded. “Not close friends, but we had dinner with him a few times, and he’s hilarious on Facebook.”
“Rudy has a Facebook?” And he wasn’t friends with me? Not that I was surprised. In the Valerie v. Sophie case, he was firmly on the plaintiff’s side, though he could be lovely to me when she wasn’t around.
“Why aren’t we Facebook friends?” Gena asked, suddenly lighting up. She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “I’m sending you a request, right now. You’d better accept it.”
“I’ll do it, right now.” I grinned as I retrieved my own phone.
“What’s that smile about?” Gena teased.
I shrugged. “It just feels really good to be out with someone who’s treating me like a normal human being and not a mourner.”
“I know the feeling. Kind of.” She put her phone down, just as mine pinged with a notification of her friend request. “Can I confess something?”
“Sure,” I said absently as I tapped on “accept”. I looked up. “Fire away.”
“I kind of got in touch with you for the same reason. Everyone is treating me like a tragic divorcée. They’re always trying to set me up with someone, or they’re censoring their language because they’re afraid it will hurt my feelings. None of my married friends want to be around me.”
“Like you’ve got the sadness plague, and they’ll catch it?” I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded to our shared wisdom.
“Exactly!” Her eyes flared wide. “But I’m convinced at least two of them think I’m going to steal their husbands. What is with that?”
“Divorced vagina,” I said in a faux-spooky voice. I even wiggled my fingers. “It hungers.”
She laughed and looked down. “See, I knew you’d get it.”
“How?” Oh, that might come off wrong. “I’m not trying to be confrontational, but aside from having sex, we don’t know each other very well.”
“I think I’m at an advantage, because I read your book. I feel like I know you better than I actually do.”
“The perils of writing a memoir.” I sighed.
“You could do another one,” she suggested. “I mean, when everything isn’t quite so raw. You have an angle. Face it, there aren’t many twenty-seven-year-old grandmothers out there.”
“You overestimate my enthusiasm for the title,” I quipped. The idea of writing another book, even in the hypothetical, made me feel a little panicked. When Neil had been hospitalized, writing I’m Just the Girlfriend had been my escape. An outlet for my pain and my fear. But now, I didn’t want to let that stuff out. It was one of the only things reminding me that I was alive.
God, that was grim.
“Okay, okay. But, if you ever change your mind, put my name in the acknowledgements.” She winked. God, she had the most adorable little wink.