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The Baby Chronicles
Judy Baer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Tom, who is patient beyond measure.

I love you.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Chapter One

Monday, March 1

My assistant, Mitzi, cancelled the office waiting room subscriptions to Vogue and Elle and replaced them with Fit Pregnancy and American Baby. I realize now that I should have appreciated it when she was only giving me fashion advice.

Frankly, the one magazine Mitzi should be allowed to read is her signature publication, Harper’s Bizarre (sic).

My name is Whitney Blake Andrews, and today I’m starting a new volume of my personal journal. It’s been quite a ride since that first day two years ago when I began keeping what I fondly call The Whitney Chronicles. My best friend, Kim Easton, has overcome breast cancer, and her son Wesley has turned three. I’ve been made vice president of Innova Software, located in downtown Minneapolis, and been married for almost two years to Dr. Chase Andrews, the most incredible husband in the universe. That’s my personal bias, of course.

And Mitzi Fraiser is still the most aggravating person on this planet, but she’s my aggravating person, so I love her anyway. Most of the time…at least some of the time…in brief spurts…Hmm…I do remember having a pleasant thought about her sometime between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I think.

Kim stopped over after work tonight so that we could debrief each other on our day at the office. She likes to come to my house for three reasons. There is no LEGO embedded in the carpet, Ernie and Elmo are not the anchormen during the evening news, and there is always chocolate.

I’ve been sacrificing myself in the name of medical science, researching the curative uses for chocolate. It has the same health-promoting chemicals as fruits and veggies. It’s the least I can do for the good of mankind. How often did I dream Mom would tell me to eat my chocolate cake instead of my Brussels sprouts?

Oh, yes, that’s another thing I don’t understand about Mitzi. She hates chocolate. This is another indication that she is an extraterrestrial—something Kim and I have suspected all along.

“What’s up with Mitzi these days?” Kim curled her feet beneath her on my overstuffed couch, looking all of fifteen, instead of her actual thirty-three years. “She’s been acting weird lately.”

“More than usual? How can you tell?”

Kim grinned and took a piece of milk chocolate with almonds. “The magazines, for one thing. I got a copy of Pregnancy in my mailbox this morning. And the fact that she’s turned into the food police. Did you see her whip that Twinkies out of Bryan’s hand yesterday? You’d have thought he was having a toxic-waste sandwich.”

Bryan Kellund was my assistant before Mitzi was assigned to me. He’s the only person I’ve ever known who can disappear in plain sight. He fades into the background as though he’s wearing wallpaper camouflage. That’s why I’m so amazed that he found a girlfriend who’s even more inconspicuous and retiring than he. They cook tapioca pudding to spice up their dessert menu.

Bryan’s current idea of subterfuge is sneaking into the office break room and substituting decaffeinated coffee for the fully leaded stuff and then patiently watching and waiting for Harry’s and Mitzi’s energy to wane. I’ve caught him a time or two, but I never say anything about it because I’ve done it myself. Anything that makes Mitzi and Harry a little less hyperactive is fine with me.

“I’ve learned not to attempt to figure out what Mitzi is up to,” I said. “Frankly, I’m more curious about Harry.”

My boss, Harry Harrison, is a software genius and our office mascot. Okay, Harry’s not our mascot, exactly, but his hair is. Two or three years ago he discovered the curly perm and he’s resembled a Chia Pet ever since.

“I think he’s depressed,” I murmured, more to myself than to Kim.

“Harry? Don’t you think I’d recognize it if Harry were depressed?”

Kim has battled depression much of her life. She now has it under control with medication and lots of exercise to get those endorphins moving.

“Wouldn’t you be depressed if your claim to fame was being washed down the shower drain?” I persisted. “Have you looked, really looked, at Harry’s head lately?”

Understanding dawned on Kim’s pixielike features. “His thinning hair, you mean?”

“Thinning? Kim, he’s only six strands away from a comb-over.”

“Shades of Rudy Giuliani—you’re right. No wonder he skulks into the office wearing that wool felt hat that makes him look like an Indiana Jones wannabe.”

“We need to be nice to Harry. My own dad’s hair is starting to thin, and he’s very sensitive about it. Mother caught him wearing a baseball cap in the shower last week. She says he can’t stand to see the reflection of his head in the mirror.”

And that’s only one of the many weird aging games my parents play. Dad now insists he’s in male menopause. What it really is is revenge for what my mother put him through when she was “of a certain age.”

“‘…vanity of vanities! All is vanity,’” Kim intoned.

“You can say that again. Harry and Dad may be prime examples, but look at all the silly, pointless things we’ve done….”

“The grapefruit diet?”

I never did get into that. I was in love with a cabbage soup diet that produced enough gas to replace fossil fuels.

“Remember the Approved Veggie Diet? The only ‘approved’ vegetables were arugula, chicory, bok choy, kohlrabi, leeks and dandelion greens.”

We waxed nostalgic about the smoothie diet—best made with ice cream; the metabolism-revving diet—basically seasoning everything with cayenne pepper; and “EEAT”—Ecclesiastical Eaters Anonymous Training, a diet group at church that actually worked.

Kim rubbed her brow. “What does my weight matter when Wesley is etching new creases here every day? No one cares about my figure when they see the Grand Canyon on my forehead.”

“‘Can any of you by worrying add a single day to your life span?’” I quoted, knowing just how crazy she is about that naughty little buzz saw of a boy. “But back to Harry. If food is the way to a man’s heart, then good hair is the way to his ego. If Harry actually goes bald, he’ll have to start therapy.”

“Men are definitely wired differently from women,” Kim agreed. “I see it in Wesley already. He and his dad spend hours piling blocks into pyramids and knocking them down. They laugh and high-five each other like they’ve just invented football. Yet when I ask Kurt to vacuum the floor, he says ‘Didn’t I just do that last month?’ as if he detests repetition in any form.”

“Knocking things down and picking things up are two entirely different concepts. One is male, the other, female. Even Chase says so.”

Chase. Two years of marriage, and I love him more than ever. God really knew what He was doing when He put us together. It doesn’t hurt that his sandy hair is shot with gold, his eyes are an inky Crayola blue, and his physique…There’s only one way to describe it—hunky. Oh, yes, and he’s crazy about me, and a doctor besides. This morning he sent me yellow roses for no reason at all except that he loves me.

“Now you’re thinking about him,” Kim observed grumpily. “You’ve got that moonstruck look on your face again.”

“And you don’t feel that way about Kurt anymore?” I teased.

“Of course I do.” Kim’s attention drifted from me to some private thought of her own. “I wish…”

“Wish what?” I held the candy dish under her nose to refocus her with the scent of chocolate.

“Kurt and I have been talking lately—” Kim reached in and took a piece of Dove dark chocolate, fortifying herself for a heavy-duty conversation “—about having another baby.”

My stomach took a roller-coaster ride from peak to valley and up again.

“Wesley will love a baby brother or sister! That’s wonderful….”

Frankly, Wesley has become a bit of a tyrant, having control as he does of two entire households—Kim’s and mine. It wouldn’t hurt a bit to have a new baby around, someone who instinctively knows how to establish a dictatorship. It may seem absurd to think of a baby as a despot, but I can’t think of an autocrat more qualified to put Wes in his place.

My excitement evaporated when I saw the expression on Kim’s face. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course it is!” she blurted, and burst into tears.

At that moment, a flurry of activity erupted as my cats, Mr. Tibble and Scram, growling and hissing, rolled together past our feet in a single absurd kitty ball.

“Ignore them,” I advised.

“Won’t they hurt themselves doing that?” Kim snuffled.

As she spoke, Mr. Tibble tired of the game and went limp, as if his bones had liquefied. Scram tumbled halfway across the room by himself before he realized he’d been abandoned, then stood up and marched off huffily, his tail straight in the air in a gesture of disdain.

I’d insulted Mr. Tibble deeply when I introduced Scram into his peaceful kingdom, but he’d taken on the kitten with aplomb, taught him who was boss and generally made Scram a being subservient to his own royalty. Just like what Mitzi tries to do with us at work.

“So tell me about this new-baby conversation,” I urged, “and why it makes you cry.”

“If we don’t hurry up, Wesley will be grown-up. I don’t want a large age gap between him and a baby brother or sister.”

There’s not much danger of being all grown-up when one still sucks his thumb, refuses to sleep without his blankie and demands Cheerios in church, but when Kim is emotional, logic flies out the window.

“What’s stopping you?”

Kim looked pained. “Kurt is worried about my health. He’s been on the Internet trying to find out if getting pregnant with my personal history of breast cancer will increase the risk of the cancer recurring.”

“And…?”

“If the cancer returns while I’m pregnant, treatment options are limited. Chemotherapy can be given without hurting the baby, but it is not given in the first trimester, when the major organs are forming. He knows I’d never do anything to harm the baby, even it if were risky for me. Kurt is afraid of my having a recurrence. He doesn’t want me putting my own life on the line.” She rolled her eyes helplessly. “He’s been spouting information about hormones like they were football statistics.”

“Is the danger real?”

“It is definitely real in Kurt’s mind.”

“‘Accept the authority of your husband,’” I murmured. “There’s the rub.”

“That might be a thorny issue for some, but to me that means voluntary compromise and teamwork with someone I love and respect. Kurt and I have discussed it. Whatever we decide will be mutual.” She looked troubled. “But he has even stronger feelings than I. He’s convinced I would be inviting problems if I had another baby right now. He’s also afraid that being pregnant might exacerbate my depression.”

Not a minor concern, considering Kim’s history.

“He wants to have another child, but not at the expense of my health. He’s adamant about that.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “The idea of not giving birth again breaks my heart! I desperately want to have a brother or sister for Wesley.”

“Aren’t you putting the cart before the horse? Who says you won’t? Besides, is this about giving birth or about being a parent? There are other ways to…”

But she didn’t seem to hear me.

After she left, I put some lasagna into the oven, tore up lettuce for salad and still had over an hour before Chase was due to arrive home from work. I couldn’t get Kim out of my mind. How would it be like to be caught in the place in which Kim found herself? Another child, or her health. What would it serve if having another child deprived Wesley of his mother?

To distract myself, I picked up our wedding photo album. Looking at those pictures always turns me into a slobbering romantic. When Chase arrived for dinner, I met him at the door holding his slippers and a newspaper and doing my most seductive siren imitation. Unfortunately, his cousin’s dog, Winslow, had made a hash of his slippers last weekend, and to find them I’d had to dig through the garbage can. Fortunately, they didn’t smell too bad. Since we both read the paper at work, I’d also had to substitute an O magazine for the Tribune.

Clever man. He knew immediately that something was up.

“Now what have you and Kim been doing?” he asked as he put his arms around my waist and gathered me to him. “Last time you tried the newspaper-and-slippers routine on me, you’d agreed to foster a potential seeing-eye puppy without talking to me first.”

“Did you even consider that it might be because I love you and I want to show it?”

“No.” He grinned, and his dimples deepening. “I know you love me. You show it every day and in every way. Something else is going on.”

I ran my finger along the chiseled line of his jaw and was supremely thankful to have this man is in my life. Blessed. I am so blessed.

I stared into the inky blueness of his eyes and watched them grow round with surprise as I whispered, “Chase, how do you feel about having a baby?”

Chapter Two

Though I’d caught him off guard, radiant warmth spread across Chase’s features.

He took me in his arms and kissed me until I totally forgot our topic of conversation. When he finally set me away from himself, he held me at arm’s length to ask, “Do you really mean it?”

“Huh?” My lips were deliciously swollen and rosy, my cheeks were flushed, and a little mechanical monkey in a red suit was riding a bicycle around in my head where my brain had been. Over two years together, and the impossible just keeps happening—I fall more and more deeply in love. If this is the way God’s will feels, then never let me out of it.

“A baby? You’re ready?”

I tipped my head and stared at him. “It’s not as if we haven’t talked about having children before, Chase.”

“True, but I’ve never heard you say you’re ready for them, either.”

I have to admit that several things have been standing in my way—the thought of having my blissful relationship with Chase change when a little third party arrives, what I would do about my job at Innova, and the enormous responsibility of bringing a brand-new soul into the world for eternity.

There’s also that little issue of my mother. Even though she desperately wants grandchildren, she’s recently begun telling people I’m her younger sister. She says she’s not old enough to have a daughter my age. It’s problematic to have my mother stop aging while I continue to grow older. When I surpass her in age, she’ll have to start introducing me as her big sister.

Becoming a grandmother might send her over the edge. Then again, why worry? She’s been dancing pretty close to the edge for some time now.

The baby conversation feels right this time. Maybe it’s because Kim’s been harboring the same thoughts, or that Mitzi keeps leaving baby magazines and maternity clothing catalogs on my desk at work. It was Mitzi who decided I needed to get married and registered unwilling me for an evening of speed dating with Hasty-Date. She’d had high hopes that someone would take pity on me and ask me out. Hasty-Date turned into a Hasty-Dud, but I ultimately met Chase, who is Kim’s doctor and Kurt’s good friend.

I’d also humored Mitzi when she told me I had to get rid of all my out-of-date clothes and found me a personal shopper. And the time she said my hair would look great in cornrows. When Mitzi decides it’s time for something to happen, there’s no stopping her. Could I put up with Mitzi’s pride if she thought she’d convinced me to have a baby? The idea gives me cold chills. I can already imagine her volunteering to be my conception coach, carrying a megaphone and a stopwatch and cheering me on.

“How do you feel, Chase? This isn’t something you can agree to, just to make me happy. When we make this decision, we both have to be ready.”

Chase is far too indulgent with me. He lets me eat saltines and drink hot chocolate in bed and wear his new T-shirts as pajamas. He shares his toothbrush with me when we’re traveling and I’ve forgotten my own—the definitive sign of true love. The only thing he really holds the line on with me is football. I can snuggle with him, blow in his ear, rub his back or sleep on his shoulder. But I cannot turn the television off during an interception thingy, walk in front of him during a touchdown or keep asking him why they have “downs” instead of “ups.” It’s a small sacrifice on my part, I think, since I really love taking naps in his football jersey on Sunday afternoons.

“I can’t imagine anything I’d love more than having a beautiful little mini-Whitney around the house.”

“It could turn out to be a mini-Chase.”

“As long as you’re involved, he or she will be perfect.”

“Besides, there’s no way we can duplicate me. Dad says I’m one of a kind.”

“He’s correct there.”

“He also says I wasn’t spoiled as a child but that I just smelled that way.” I learned humility from Dad.

“Life will imitate art.” Chase pulled me close and cradled me in his arms. “And you, my dear, are the highest art form I know.”

As I closed my eyes and let him kiss me again, I reminded myself never to let Mitzi know that those baby magazines she left on my desk had had any effect on me whatsoever.

Tuesday, March 2

The idealistic baby fantasy lasted almost twenty-four hours. Then Kim asked us if we’d watch Wesley while they went out for dinner and discussed the “you-know-what” issue.

I know why they didn’t want Wesley along while they were trying to decide if they should have another child. Wesley—precocious, beautiful, intelligent, gifted, spoiled Wesley—is the finest form of birth control ever invented.

He marched into our house on chubby BabyGap jean-clad legs, pulling a little wheeled suitcase. He shrugged off his denim jean jacket, ruffled his pale blond curls, opened his big baby blues in an expression of vast innocence and said authoritatively, “Disney-dot-com.”

“Wes, you know Aunt Whitney doesn’t let you play on her computer,” Kim chided.

“Sorry, buddy. The dot-com era bit the dust. Didn’t you hear? According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s still in recovery mode.”

He stared at me, his lower lip wobbling tremulously, a single perfect tear forming on the center of each of his lower eyelids, giving me an opportunity to relent and stop the floodgates of misery and mayhem about to erupt.

I, like a fool, didn’t bite.

In slow motion, Wesley’s world, and even Wesley himself, crumbled. He fell to the ground, opened his mouth and let out a wail that shattered all my crystal in the dining-room buffet, scared Scram and Mr. Tibble off the couch and into the bedroom and put a slight crack in the picture tube of my television.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. The television was not damaged.

“What’s this about?” I yelled to Kim over the din.

“He’s in a phase. Just ignore him.”

“It would be quieter in here if my house were sitting in the middle of an airport landing strip.”

“He’s had separation anxiety lately. His supper is in his little suitcase. You know what a fussy eater he is.” Kim smiled weakly. “If we do have another baby, I don’t think we’ll indulge him or her quite so much.”

“Good idea.” I picked Wesley up by the armpits and made a wet, noisy raspberry sound on his bare belly. He quit crying out of sheer surprise, waved goodbye to his mother and demanded ice cream. So much for separation issues.

Chase walked upstairs from the basement. “Who’s being murdered up here?”

“Say hi to our houseguest.”

“Hey, buddy.” He and Wesley high-fived. “How about some smoked oysters and a little football?”

Wesley chortled and lunged out of my arms toward Chase.

And so much for the fussy-eater thing.

Tonight was different from the other times Wes has stayed with us. I kept imagining him as my own little boy, with us not for a few hours, but for a lifetime.

As the evening progressed, I tallied in my head all the wonderful—and not-so-wonderful—aspects of being a parent. Clearly there are glorious things about having a child.

 1) The way a baby smells after a bath—soap, lotion, powder and that natural fragrance of sweet breath and fresh skin.

 2) Baby toes.

 3) Baby kisses.

 4) Watching him suck his thumb as he soothes himself to sleep.

 5) The kittenlike snore that reminds me of a purr and signals he’s no longer messing with my mind and is really, truly, asleep.

 6) Pink, full lips relaxed in an innocent smile.

 7) The comical way Wesley holds my face in his and turns it toward his own when he wants my attention.

 8) Long, fine eyelashes that delicately fringe sleepy eyes.

There are, however, some not-so-blissful things about having a little one around, too.

 1) The way a baby smells after depositing a large treasure in his training pants.

 2) Baby toes—when they are uncovered because said baby has flushed his shoes down the toilet.

 3) Baby kisses—when they are open-mouthed and that same mouth has recently been eating smoked oysters and crackers.

 4) Watching him suck his thumb, biding his time, waiting for me to turn my back on him so he can wreak more havoc in my household.

 5) The strange sounds children make in their sleep—the snuffles and grunts that make me leap to my feet to check on said child every few minutes.

 6) Full, rosy lips screwed up into a pout.

 7) The way a child can manage a vise grip on your face so tight that it feels like he might screw your head off to get your attention.

 8) Long, fine lashes through which he can turn a glare into a full-scale emotional assault. With a look, Wesley can make me feel guilty for everything I’ve ever done to him, including administering vitamins, combing his hair, stopping him from putting his finger in a light socket and preventing him from pulling off my cat’s tail without anesthetic.

 9) Potty training—and little boys with very bad aim.

 10) Stubborn refusal to wear “big boy” pull-ups to bed. Changing bedding. Twice. In three hours…

Sometimes it’s best not to record everything in one’s journal. It makes reality too clear and, well, too much of a reality.

Chase, of course, loved every minute of the evening—me getting soaked when Wesley splashed in the bathtub; me standing on my head trying to get him to eat green peas; me setting off a crying jag by suggesting that Wesley might sleep better if his pajamas weren’t on backward.

It appears that as long as I serve smoked oysters with crackers to them as they sit on the couch watching men in ridiculous outfits try to injure each other over a bit of pigskin and a pumpful of air, everything will be fine. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but Chase came down on Wesley’s side of every issue.

About toilet training: “Little boys need the practice. Don’t worry, the floor can be washed.” By who, I wonder?

About flushing: “I’m sure Kim and Kurt have lots of other shoes he can wear.”

About pet care: “Don’t worry, Scram will grow another tail.”

“Chase, are you going to be one of those indulgent fathers who thinks everything his son does is cute?”

“It will be, won’t it?”

“What if your daughter decides it’s okay to pee on the floor, flush her shoes down the toilet, eat oysters and burp?”

He thought about it for a moment before answering. Then he glanced at me hopefully. “Then I won’t have to worry about guys flocking to our door asking her out on dates before she’s ready.”

Before she’s thirty, you mean.

Chapter Three

Wednesday, March 3

To whom it may concern:

To the owner of the leaking Ziploc bag that at one time may have contained a sandwich and some baby carrots that now houses fuzzy mold and oozing liquid, please remove your biological warfare project from our refrigerator. There are some in this office who want to keep their lunches cold and do not want vomitous yellow gunk dripping onto our yogurt cups. If this is not done immediately, fingerprints will be lifted from the plastic bag and the guilty party will be fined large amounts of money and forced to eat the contents of the baggie.

The Management

War has broken out in the Innova lunchroom, and it isn’t pretty. We’ve been eyeing each other with suspicion, covertly watching our once-trusted friends and coworkers stash their lunches in the break-room refrigerator to identify consistent patterns of behavior. Betty is my top suspect, for leaving a Tupperware container of cottage cheese and pineapple on the counter until the cheese aged into a yellowed slime the texture of yak milk.

Harry usually picks up something at the deli, so I assume the half-eaten pastrami on rye that’s fossilizing on the bottom shelf is his. Bryan is hard to pin down because he brings his lunch in everything from old bread bags to cast-off foam containers. Mitzi carries her meal in a tidy Gucci purse she’s turned into a lunch box. I suspect that beneath that designer exterior lurks a plebian plastic bag carrying the hard-boiled eggs that she intentionally leaves in the fridge for weeks at a time to torment the rest of us. Old eggs give off a distinctive rotten, sulfurous smell that is easily recognized but requires a full-scale refrigerator cleaning to eradicate.

And that’s part of the problem. Nobody wants to be in charge of cleanup, so we’ve allowed a zoo of microscopic bacteria, fuzz, mold and moss to build and flourish. Our lunchroom is not called the Bacteria Buffet for nothing.

I’ve ordered Mitzi to do the dirty deed, but she says it isn’t in her job description, that removing toxic waste is the task of a professional. Her only concession to helping out with this office problem was to send her cleaning lady in one day to do the job—and then submitting her bill to me for payment.

Mitzi breezed into the break room on strappy sandals that matched her pink designer suit, put her Gucci lunch box on the table, opened it and took out a delicate tray of sushi. She batted her fake eyelashes at me and put the sushi in the refrigerator. Then she took a bottle of designer water out of the bag and tripped off to her desk to file her nails, read the paper and make sure she and her husband had secured tickets for the symphony—all of which, she insists, are somewhere in the “unwritten” agreement concerning her job description.

Mitzi missed her calling. I could see her as an executive for a company run by Barbie and her stiff-legged dolly friends. Barbie has a Dream House. If she ever develops a Dream Office, Mitzi is the one for her. Work would involve picking out professional-looking suits in all shades of pink, refurnishing rooms with expensive furniture and groaning over long days at the office when one should really be at the beach.

“There you are, Whitney. I’ve been looking for you. Where have you been?” Harry had a stack of contracts in his arm and a frazzled look on his face.

“Standing here. You’ve gone by the door three times and looked in.”

“Nonsense. You must have been hiding.”

I didn’t bother to point out that hiding from the boss during office hours is frowned upon, even here at Innova where the expression “running a loose ship” was probably invented. Besides, I know from experience that around here, you can run but you can’t hide.

“Take a look at these, decide what we should do about them, report back to me and we’ll determine our next step.” He thrust the papers at me as if they were the proverbial hot potato. All Harry really wants to do is design software. Things written on paper bore him, even contracts that bring in paying customers.

He spun on his heel to leave, then paused and turned back. He’s very graceful for a short man who’s carrying more weight that he should around his middle.

“Whitney, I don’t say it much, but I really do appreciate what you do around here. Bringing you into the Innova family was the smartest thing I ever did.”

I blinked, dumbfounded. “Why, Harry, thank you…”

“And get those things back to me ASAP and tell Mitzi to get the lipstick off her teeth on her own time.” The touchy-feely moment was over, and he was gone.

The Innova family. I like the sound of that. Dysfunctional as it is, I’m glad I’m part of it, too. Then the word family brought me back to the conversation Chase and I had had last night, the one about starting our own little family.

How much, really, had the idea of having a child right now been sparked by the thought of sharing those special months with Kim? We shop together, we eat together, we pray together. Maybe being queasy and nauseous together would be fun, too.

After work I stopped at Norah’s Ark, my favorite pet shop, to get food for Mr. Tibble and Scram. Norah was behind the counter, having a deep conversation with a turtle. Her dark, curly hair was fastened into a ponytail that erupted from the top of her head. She has remarkable gray-green eyes, full of humor and compassion and a ready grin.

“Hi, Whitney, how’s Mr. Tibble? What’s Scram up to? Oh, yes, and Chase?” Norah always asks about the pets first.

After leaving the pet store, I picked up a pizza and arrived at home by six-fifteen. Chase was already there. Odd. He usually doesn’t arrive until seven or after.

At least I thought he was home. His car was in the garage, but the house was dark. I found him in the darkened living room, lying on the couch with a pillow over his eyes. Mr. Tibble was sleeping on his chest, his head nuzzled beneath my husband’s chin. Scram, who’s learned his place in Mr. Tibble’s pecking order—below the bottom—was sleeping across one of Chase’s ankles.

When Mr. Tibble heard me come in, he turned his head and sleepily kneaded his claws into Chase’s chest. That started a chain reaction. Chase jumped at the needle-sharp nail pricks, Mr. Tibble yowled and hung on by his claws to Chase’s shirt. Scram, jettisoned off Chase’s leg and sure he must be somehow the cause of all this commotion, headed for the hills, or, in this case, the back of my favorite chair.

“I usually don’t see this much excitement when I walk into a room,” I commented, first prying Mr. Tibble off Chase and then rubbing the broad part of Chase’s chest where the cat had been hanging.

“So much for a nap. I think I may be going into cardiac arrest. Could you do CPR on me, please?” Smile lines crinkled around his beautiful blue eyes, and I felt my own heart do a little lurch.

“Oh, I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” I put my arms around him and kissed his lips. “What are you doing home? I didn’t expect you until seven.”

“Tired, that’s all. I got done early today and decided to sneak out.” He brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. “Maybe I’m getting old and can’t keep up the pace.”

I searched his face, unable to tell if he was joking or serious, but he smiled at me and, as usual, banished every sensible thought from my brain.

After dinner, as we sat together on the sofa, Mr. Tibble and Scram once again snoozing next to us, Chase asked. “What’s Mitzi been up to today?”

The Mitzi saga is Chase’s idea of a soap opera, and I’m his verbal TiVo. I replay my day with Mitzi every evening so he can have a few laughs.

“That podiatrist husband of hers is clamping down on shoes with pointed toes. She says he’s seen a rash of bunions lately and wants her to wear flats. As you can imagine, Mitzi is fit to be tied. She’s been wearing sensible shoes out of the house and hiding high-heeled shoes in a briefcase and bringing them to work but has begun to feel that’s being ‘unfaithful’ to her husband. Recently she forced Betty Noble to stay late and teach her how to sell her shoes on eBay.”

“At least she didn’t waste work hours on it,” Chase commented.

“She didn’t have time. She was too busy researching cellulite cures during the day.”

“How is Kim?”

I waved my hand. “Up and down. Chase, do you think Kurt is right to be so worried about her having another child?”

“Kurt’s cautious. The man is going to be a certified public accountant. Those types don’t make their money taking risks. It’s in his nature to be cautious. There was a time that it was assumed that the hormone surges of pregnancy fueled breast cancer. That’s not so black-and-white today, especially in women like Kim whose cancers were caught early. Kurt and Kim need to get all the facts from their specialist and then make the decision.

“It can go either way,” Chase added matter-of-factly.

“For women whose cancers are caught early, a subsequent pregnancy may not be nearly as dangerous as was once assumed. Still, Kurt can find information out there that says a woman’s survival is affected negatively, as well. They need to be talking to their doctors, not scaring themselves on the Internet.”

“It’s so hard for them.”

“They’ll be okay, Whitney. They’re a praying pair.”

Of course. I felt my mood lighten. “You’re right. They have the God factor on their side.”

Chase pulled me close. “Did you think anymore about our conversation last night?”

“I didn’t think about much else. Poor Harry didn’t get much bang for his buck from any of his employees today. I prayed about it, too.”

“I know. I did—”

The phone rang, interrupting what Chase was about to say.

“Whitney, this is Kim. What are you doing?”

“Having a romantic tête-à-tête with my husband.”

“Oh, good, I didn’t interrupt anything important, then.”

Chase overheard her comment, rolled his eyes and went to make coffee, leaving me alone with the conversation.

“Very funny.”

“What are you guys doing tonight?”

“Nothing. Especially since you interrupted our romantic talk.”

Kim didn’t take the hint.

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I came over? I’m feeling a little stir-crazy here. Today Wesley developed a fascination for fishing in our saltwater aquarium. He spent the morning turning light switches on and off until I thought I was either living with a strobe light or having a stroke. Then he picked up a terrible word from the neighbor child, which he’s finally tired of saying. And about two minutes ago I discovered that he’d been tinkering with the knobs on our stereo. I thought I would turn on some nice, soothing rain forest music and nearly blew out my eardrums.”

So it had been a day just like any other with Wesley.

“Does Kurt have class?” He’s finishing up his degree in accounting and preparing to sit for the CPA exam while driving a truck during the day to pay the bills.

“He does. It’s me who needs the diversion. Wesley discovered he can make the entire house tremble if he sets the tuner knobs just right. Until Kurt arrives to put a lock on the cabinet door, I’ll be peeling Wesley off the entertainment center. If I go deaf before Kurt gets home, I won’t be able to hear what Wes is doing next.”

My experience with Wesley is that when I can hear him, it’s okay. It’s when things are silent that I begin to worry. Entire rooms can be colored with crayons up to a height of two feet from the floor in virtually no time at all. Uncleaned litter boxes can be emptied onto many square feet of flooring. Kitchen cupboards can be cleared of their contents and many cereal boxes opened. Oh, no, noise isn’t the problem with Wesley. Silence is. Of course, it’s not my house that’s trembling.

“Can we come over?” Kim was as determined as a bulldog. I knew that even if I did say no, it probably wouldn’t stop her.

“I suppose…”

“Good. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.” The line went dead.

“What was that about?” Chase returned from the kitchen carrying a huge butterscotch walnut sundae and two spoons.

“Kim’s sanity is slipping. Wesley has discovered he’s mechanical.” I told him about the stereo.

Chase shuddered and then sighed. “I guess I’d better start making more sundaes.”

When in doubt, eat. It’s one of my coping mechanisms, too.

When they arrived, Wesley marched into the house first and flung himself at Chase’s leg, where he stood with both his little Nike-shod feet on Chase’s shoe. He refused to let go of Chase’s leg, forcing him to walk stiff-legged down the hall to greet Kim, dragging Wesley with him.

“Too bad he doesn’t like you,” I muttered to Chase. “The child is like a barnacle attaching itself to the hull of a ship. How are you going to scrape him off?”

Chase winked at me. “You’re just jealous that it’s not bedtime yet.”

Chase is Wesley’s favorite playmate, but I am queen of the bedtime story and back-scratching professional extraordinaire. I come into my own with Wesley the moment he starts rubbing his eyes and wanting to cuddle.

The color was high in Kim’s cheeks, and from the glint in her eye, I could tell that she and her son had come to an impasse and leaving the house was their only logical recourse. With Kim and Wesley, as with Kim and Kurt, when stubborn meets stubborn, it’s like two mountain sheep ramming horns. Nobody wins, and everybody gets a really bad headache.

They didn’t even have time for the normal niceties. Wesley bounced off Chase’s shoe and went straight for the huge plastic box that harbors his toys, dumped them onto the floor and then started chasing the cats. Mr. Tibble, wise to Wesley’s ways, dodged him by leaping onto the just-out-of-reach-for-Wesley back of the wing chair. With an intelligence born of experience, he also tucked his long black tail beneath him so that there were no handholds for Wesley to swing on. Scram—not the brightest bulb in the package—was rescued by Kim, who scooped him out of Wes’s grabby little mitts.

I, as silently as I could, breathed a sigh of relief. Kim is always saying, “He’ll grow out of it.” That’s true, but he always grows into something else.

“Okay, you two,” Chase demanded. “What’s up?”

Kim took the sundae he offered her and sank onto the couch with a relieved sigh. “I’m half-deaf from that sound system Kurt insisted was everything we’d ever need and more, I’m exhausted from running after a three-year-old with boundless energy and limited common sense and I’m smart enough to know that Uncle Chase and Aunt Whitney can make me sane again. Do you have any cherries for this sundae?”

This is the woman who wants another child? If the baby is anything like Wes, there isn’t enough ice cream in the world to keep any of us sane—and the biggest nut may turn out to be Kim herself.

Chapter Four

“What stage is he in now?” I inquired sweetly. “Heat-seeking missile, search-and-destroy mission or kamikaze LEGO airplane pilot?” I could hear Chase and Wesley roaring with laughter about something hysterical in the kitchen. My recent attempt at a chocolate layer cake, probably.

“Maybe Kurt is right,” Kim said glumly as she plunged her spoon into the melting mound of vanilla bean ice cream. “Maybe it is a bad idea. Not for the reasons he brings up, of course, but there are some grounds for calling it quits.”

Perhaps Wesley really has driven Kim off the deep end. “What are you talking about?”

“Having another baby, of course.” She stared at me accusingly. “Didn’t you hear a word I said?”

“Surely you won’t let a three-year-old determine whether or not you have more children.”

“That’s not it. Like I told you before, we both want more children, but Kurt is being difficult—no, impossible—about my getting pregnant again. Today he announced that the pregnancy shouldn’t happen because he’s been reading up on my condition on the Internet and he’s not willing to put me through anymore stress. Whatever happened to deciding this together?”

Kim crossed her arms over her chest. “You’d think he’d consult me before putting his foot down. That’s what we agreed to do. I’m the one taking all the risks. I deserve a vote in this.”

“It seems only right. Why didn’t he?”

“Because he says I’m letting my emotions overrule my common sense and that I’m not being rational.”

“And are you irrational?” At the moment, she appeared suspiciously so.

“Of course not! Well, maybe…just a little…No!” She waved her spoon in the air. “Whitney, you have to help me convince Kurt that having another baby is a great idea. You’re practically my sister. He listens to you.”

I rolled my eyes and sank deeper into my recliner. I may believe I am my brother’s—or sister’s—keeper, but this is ridiculous.

After Kim left, I discussed the twists and turns of Kim and Kurt’s lives and logic with Chase. As always, he is cautious not to make judgments without having the full picture. With Kurt and Kim taking opposite sides on the issue, the last place either of us wants to be is in the middle.

He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. I love it when he does that, because I get a great view of those pectorals he works on at the gym and a peek at his washboard abs when his shirt pulls tightly across his torso. I love watching Chase, feeling his chest rise and fall as we sit together on the couch watching football or hearing him humming to himself in the other room while he reads the paper. I delight in him just because he exists. Miraculously, that’s just the merest hint of the pleasure that God gets from being in a relationship with me.

I’d almost forgotten I’d asked Chase a question—too occupied with my happy little visual feast—when he finally spoke. “This may be a matter of ethics.”

“‘Ethics?’ People have babies all the time and don’t think about the moral principles behind it.”

“Maybe they should. It’s not a frivolous thing to bring a child into the world. In Kim and Kurt’s case, there’s more to consider than for some.”

His expression was intense. “If Kim’s cancer were to recur—and I don’t believe it will—there’s always the risk that she won’t be around to raise either Wesley or the new baby.”

“You can’t think…” But the thought had crossed my mind, as well.

“No. I don’t think it will happen. I know Kim’s case. I believe she’s fine, but I’m a doctor, not a visionary. I respect Kurt for not only being concerned for Kim’s safety, but also for Wesley’s well-being. Granted, he’s gone a little overboard….”

“Kim’s very frustrated right now.”

Chase looked at me oddly. “Is she depressed?”

“No. Not that I’ve noticed.” A dim lightbulb finally flickered faintly in my brain. “You mean because of the hormones?”

“Kim is depression-prone. Kurt’s not only worried about Kim’s physical state but her mental state, as well.”

We’d all walked with Kim through a very bad time that none of us—least of all Kim—wanted to repeat. “Do you think that a pregnancy will affect her in that way?”

“I can’t blame Kurt for being wary.”

For all the heedlessness and lack of consideration with which some babies are conceived, one thing is still true. Every time parents bring a new child into the world, it is here for eternity. Another soul who exists not only in the present but in infinity. Now and forever.

No wonder Kurt is thinking this through so carefully. The enormity of the responsibility, once one begins to think of it, is mind-boggling.

Friday, March 5

The next morning, Bryan, showing more energy and enthusiasm than he has in months, collared me as I entered the Innova office. His eyes were narrow and his pupils, angry pinpoints. “Are you the one who took my pierogis out of the refrigerator last night?”

Pierogis? I’ve never tasted one, and from the look of them, they are definitely not something anyone would want to steal. In fact, they’d probably be pretty hard to give away. Bryan, whose Polish grandmother has made them for every holiday since he was a child, has an unnatural attachment to these lumps of dough filled with mashed potatoes or sauerkraut. More peculiar yet, she makes dozens of them and gives them to him as a Christmas present. Bryan freezes them and metes them out slowly between Christmas and Easter so he doesn’t run out until his grandmother refills his stash on his birthday. He guards them like gold nuggets and brings them to work boiled or fried in butter. At noon, he heats them, slathers them with sour cream and eats them at his desk

“Bryan, you know I’d never steal anything, especially your Christmas present.”

He sagged and looked woeful. “I suppose it’s my own fault, leaving them there overnight. They were just too tempting, and someone just couldn’t resist.”

“Tempting?” I put a knuckle between my teeth to keep from laughing. Bryan took it as a signal of my upset and sympathy.

“Who could pass up my grandmother’s pierogis? I should have known better than to leave them in the refrigerator to entice people. If you discover who might have taken them, will you let me know?”

Move over, Nancy Drew. Now I’m on The Case of the Purloined Pierogi.

Mitzi entered the office in a cloud of Chanel N° 5 and the aroma of chocolate. “Treats, everyone!” She set a bakery box on my desk and opened it to reveal chocolate éclairs and chocolate doughnuts frosted in chocolate and covered with sprinkles.

“Why do you do this to me, Mitzi?” I take Mitzi’s treats as a direct attack on my waistline. Because Mitzi doesn’t like chocolate, she can ignore it completely. She knows that I, an admitted chocoholic, will succumb repeatedly before the day is done.

“Self-preservation,” Mitzi said with her characteristic straightforwardness. “I like people around me who are heavier than me. It’s good for my self-esteem.”

“What about my self-esteem?”

“Oh, you’re in charge of that,” she retorted airily. “I can’t take care of yours and mine, too. Éclair?”

No wonder I leave the office with a headache.

“Have you seen the pierogis Bryan left in the refrigerator?” I asked, hoping to catch Mitzi in a petty crime.

“Those white lumps he eats for lunch? They look like brains and boiled cauliflower.”

Now that’s a visual.

“His lunch is missing today.”

“He can have an éclair. I’ll put them in the break room.” And Mitzi tripped off happily, acting as if she’d solved every problem but world peace.

Then Kim slouched in wearing a baggy sweater and jeans even though it wasn’t casual Friday. When I greeted her, she walked by me as if I wasn’t there.

Now, I’m accustomed to that kind of treatment from Mitzi, who is usually too involved in her own little world to notice mine. But Kim? That’s another story.

I caught up with her in the back room. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” She flung a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the refrigerator and slammed the door. “Nada. Zip. Nil. Zilch. Nothing.”

Before I could point out that there seemed to be a whole lot of “nothing” going on, she burst into tears and flung herself into my arms, toppling us into a file cabinet. “The doctor said no, Whitney. What am I going to do?”

It took me a moment to recall that yesterday was the day Kim and Kurt were to visit her oncologist.

“‘No?’” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that?”

“Not exactly,” she snuffled. “He said ‘not yet.’ My oncologist is very conservative, and he recommended that I wait. Since my cancer was caught very early, it’s not likely another pregnancy would be dangerous, but he wants to follow me medically for a while longer before I try to have a second child. Of course, Kurt picked that up and ran with it, reminding the doctor about my issues with chronic depression.”

This didn’t sound good. “And?”

“The doctor called to consult with a specialist, who said that women with a history of depression before pregnancy are almost twice as likely as other women to show signs of it while they are pregnant. It has to do with hormone imbalances.” Her face crumpled. “My doctor started talking about my susceptibility to postpartum depression, and Kurt put his hands in the air and said, ‘That’s it. There’s no way I’d ask my wife to go through that again.’”

“The doctor tried to assure Kurt that babies exposed to antidepressants in utero don’t seem to be set back by it, but you know how stubborn Kurt can be. He never heard another word the doctor said.”

“He’s trying to take care of you, Kim. You can’t fault him for that.”

Kim scrubbed away her tears with the back of her hand. “I know it. And I know we have to be in agreement about this before we try again. But I don’t think he’ll change his mind. He says he loves me too much to jeopardize my health.”

“It’s hard to argue with that. He loves you, Kim. He’s seen you in both physical and emotional pain.”

“Not having another child will hurt me, too!”

That was something I wasn’t going to touch. Only God was smart enough for that one.

Friday March 19

Today, I was innocently minding my own business as I put treats out for afternoon coffee. My plan was to infuse the staff with pure sucrose, to give them a sugar high that would last until the end of the day, so we could get some work done around here.

“Ahah!”

The door to the office coat closet flew open and crashed against the wall behind it, revealing Byran standing there, piles of extra toilet paper at his feet, his head in a tangle of wire coat hangers.

I dropped the Tupperware container of divinity I was carrying and grabbed my chest with both hands. “CPR! Call an ambulance! Someone, start CPR!”

“Sorry, Whitney, I thought you were the Pierogi Bandit.” Bryan slunk out of the storage closet where he’d been hiding and began to pick up the white globs of divinity candy that were now on the break room floor. “You had white lumps in your hands. I thought…”

“Give it up, Bryan. Ask your grandmother to make you some more pierogi. Give me her number and I’ll ask her. You can’t continue to leap out of cupboards and shuffle through our desks looking for food.”

“It’s just wrong,” Bryan insisted. “There’s a thief on the premises, and I’m going to find her.”

“‘Her?’”

“There are four women in this office and two men. It’s got to be a woman. The odds are in favor of a female.”

Talk about allegiance to your gender. I wish some of that loyalty would rub off on Mitzi. For the past two weeks, while Kim has been utterly distracted by her debate with Kurt over another child, Mitzi has turned into Lady Godiva—Godiva chocolate, that is. She’s even had her housekeeper bake goodies for the office—German chocolate cake, cookies, fudge and seven-layer bars. I might as well just slather them directly onto my hips as process them through my mouth. Betty the office dragon is beginning to mutter about banning treats from the lunchroom entirely, but Harry, who has to consume a lot of calories to maintain his waistline, wouldn’t be happy. And if Harry isn’t happy, nobody is happy.

Otherwise, life has been fairly routine. Chase is covering for another doctor who’s on a mission trip, and he hasn’t been home enough to even discuss the baby issue. The main man in my life has been Mr. Tibble.

The problem with Mr. Tibble is that no matter where he is, according to him, he is on the wrong side of the door. If I’m in the bathroom with the door closed, Mr. Tibble wants in. If he’s stuck with me while I’m in the tub, he wants out.

He finds it amusing to go into the laundry room and bat the door shut behind him, barricading himself in with the food, water dishes and litter box. Poor Scram is so traumatized that he refuses to leave the laundry room for fear he’ll never be able to return. I’ve had to keep the litter box in the living room, where Mr. Tibble cannot seal it off from Scram. This does not provide enjoyable evening entertainment.

Scram has learned to be resourceful and now drinks out of the toilet off my bedroom. This does not make for pleasant daily ablutions.

Until Mr. Tibble learns something useful, like behaving himself, he’s going to put a crimp in both our television watching and our bathing. On top of all this, he makes it clear that he regards us as inferior beings. If you need an ego boost, don’t get a cat.

Tonight we had dinner guests, all of them unannounced. That meant that I threw together the meal—a cauliflower-bacon-and-broccoli salad, cold cuts, bread and soy ice cream. It wasn’t exactly gourmet fare, but if it had been just Chase and me, we would have made caramel popcorn and eaten ourselves into a stupor in front of the fireplace.

As it was, Mom, Dad, Kim and Wesley all arrived at our front door at once.

When my mother comes to visit, she often brings food. I’m not sure if she thinks she won’t get any at my place, or that it will all be raw, organic and unsalted. Tonight she came bearing one of her signature desserts, a frightening confection she calls “dirt cake.”

It’s a mousselike dessert of cream cheese, whipped topping and vanilla pudding that Mom serves in a flowerpot. She tops the mixture with crumbled chocolate cookies—the dirt—plastic flowers and a host of gummy worms oozing out of the soil. It tickles her to serve it with a child’s plastic shovel and watch people’s expressions.

“Mom, do you have any idea how many calories are in that disgusting-looking thing?”

“It’s not disgusting, it’s cute. It was a big hit at my book club.”

I popped a gummy worm into my mouth. “It’s not very healthy. Think of all the sugar, the preservatives…”

Mom glanced in my hallway mirror and put the back of her hand beneath her chin where the first sign of sagging skin was still in her future.

“Preservatives? Don’t take them away from me, darling. I need all the help I can get.”

Chapter Five

Monday, March 22

“Whaddayamean, you want it by Thursday?” Harry roared through his closed office door. I began to count the seconds until he’d roar again. One, two…

“Whitney, get in here!”

Three.

Harry was at his desk, riffling through the stacks of papers that spilled willy-nilly over the edges of the desk and onto the floor.

“Maybe I can find what you’re looking for,” I suggested tactfully. Harry views paper as having as much relevance to the present day as dinosaur eggs. Armed with his cell phone, BlackBerry, iPod, DVD player, CD player, memory stick, hard drive, external drive, tape recorder, Dictaphone, tablet PC and walkie-talkie, Harry believes paper is obsolete.

That’s what I’m for—keeping the obsolete in order and out of his way.

“That contract we signed with Franklin and Terrance? When did we say we’d meet with them to discuss the changes they want?”

“Thursday.”

He sagged like a deflated balloon. “That means I can’t go to my mother-in-law’s place for dinner.” The import of his statement sank into his consciousness, and he straightened a little. Then he grinned. “That means I have an actual excuse. I don’t have to eat her salt-free tuna casserole or those hockey pucks she calls biscuits.”

“I’m so glad you’ve turned this into a plus so quickly,” I murmured.

“Call my wife and tell her what’s happened.”

“No fair. I’m sick of being the bearer of bad tidings.” Harry couldn’t go to his mother-in-law’s last week, either, and he missed out on a Scandinavian feast of boiled cod, boiled potatoes and white cake—food so pale it would disappear in a snowstorm.

“You’re good at it, I’m not. Besides, my wife believes you.”

“That’s because I always tell the truth.”

“Whatever. Listen, I’ve got to get busy on this. Close the door on your way out.” He promptly turned me out. I was as relevant as the three-day-old newspaper lying on the floor beside his desk. Therefore, I was able to stand there and study him, my mercurial, bighearted, Danny DeVito-like boss, without his even noticing my presence.

Harry’s aged in the past couple years. Another chin here, an additional roll around his waist there, two more scowl marks on his forehead…but the biggest difference is definitely his hair loss. For over two years, he’s managed to look as if he had, if not a full head of hair, at least an energetic and animated one, but now even the curly perms aren’t doing the trick. Today he’d been running his fingers across his pate and he’d disturbed the carefully arranged and lacquered spit curls so that they stood on end like exclamation points and question marks hovering above his head.

Quietly I slipped out of his office. Kim, who I’d barely had a chance to talk to all week, caught my arm as I passed her desk. “Let’s go out for lunch soon.”

“Great. Where do you want to go—”

“Let’s do Vietnamese. I’ve been craving pho,” Mitzi chirruped helpfully from behind us.

We spun around to find Mitzi licking her chops.

“Let me guess. You want to eat with us now because Arch won’t be home for dinner.”

“Podiatry convention,” Mitzi said, as if that explained everything. Mitzi often joins us. She never waits for an invitation. Instead, she bestows upon us the privilege of her esteemed presence.

“So Dr. Foot isn’t coming home tonight?”

“His name is Archibald Whitman Fraiser the third,” Mitzi said primly. “Not ‘Dr. Foot’ or ‘Sole Man.’”

“Right. Archie.” I mentally patted myself on the back for my heroic self-control. Not once have I pointed out the ludicrousness of a foot doctor whose name is Arch.

“What is ‘fuh,’ and why would anyone want to eat it?” Kim asked.

“Beef noodle soup.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

I picked up my sweater and headed for the door, glad that I had soup to anticipate. Last time Mitzi picked the restaurant and recommended the food, we ended up at an Indonesian place. Fortunately, neither of us ordered Mitzi’s suggestion, semur otak, which, we discovered later, was beef brains sautéed in spiced sauce. More proof that you can’t trust someone who doesn’t like chocolate.

“Kim, you really need to consider a new wardrobe,” Mitzi observed as we walked through the dimly lit restaurant decorated with faux bamboo paper, red brocade and elaborate hand-carved panels. “Preppy is fine, but…”

“Tailored,” I blurted out automatically. “Kim likes her clothes tailored.” I didn’t want Kim and Mitzi to get into it before we’d even been seated. If Mitzi says Kim’s clothes are too preppy, then Kim will say Mitzi’s are too Barbie, then Mitzi will tell Kim that if she’d ever read a magazine that had some meaning, like Vogue, instead of burying her nose in something fluffy like Newsweek, she’d know how people dress these days. To that, Kim would reply…Well, it’s just better if I stop the conversation before it gets started.

Much to my surprise, Kim turned around, gave Mitzi a munificent, approving smile and said, “Mitzi, for once I think you’re right.”

Mitzi nearly tripped and fell headfirst into the koi pond. “You agree with me?”

“Yes, I do,” Kim said firmly. “Today I think everyone is right.”

Even Mitzi? What had made Kim’s mood turn on a dime? Last I’d talked to her, her and Kurt’s negotiations over the baby issue had reached an impasse.

Mitzi regarded Kim suspiciously. Historically, Kim and Mitzi haven’t agreed on anything. So far, they haven’t even agreed to disagree.

After that, Mitzi couldn’t take her eyes off Kim. She observed her warily, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop or to find out what kind of joke Kim was playing on her. I ended up ordering spring rolls and chicken sticks, with three bowls of pho to follow, while Mitzi charily ferreted out clues as to why Kim might concur with her about anything.

Mitzi observed Kim guardedly until the appetizers came. Then she picked up a chicken stick, waved it in the air and demanded, “What’s going on with you?”

“Me?” Kim tried to look innocent, but her eyes were sparkling.

Then, as if she was simply too full to hold it in any longer, she blurted, “Kurt and I are going to have a baby!”

Mitzi, who had been drinking from her glass, turned into a human fire hydrant and spewed it across the table.

“Kim, are you kidding me?” I gasped. “For real? Are you sure?”

“It’s not exactly what you think, but…” Kim hugged herself with glee.

“How many ways can you be pregnant, silly?” I felt giddy with pleasure.

“I have to tell you what—”

“That’s just awful!”

Shocked, we both turned to stare at Mitzi. Her livid face was the color of an eggplant. “Just awful…” she muttered. “Why you?” Then, so softly that I almost missed it, she added, “Why not me?”

I was still unsure about what I’d just heard, but Referee Whitney came to the rescue. “Settle down, you two. Kim, you first. I thought Kurt was worried about having another child.”

“He was, but we settled that. We’re going to adopt!” She glowed incandescently. “I don’t know why we didn’t consider it initially. I want to love, nurture and raise another child. I want Wesley to have a brother or sister. Adopting is the perfect answer. We won’t be rushing into a pregnancy before the doctor gives me the go-ahead, we’ll get the baby we all want, and some child will get a loving home. We’ve been praying about it, and everything is falling into place. Kurt’s as excited as I am.”

“Adopt? You aren’t having one from—” Mitzi pointed to her flat belly “—here?”

“No, but I’m having one from here.” Kim put her hand over her heart. Then she scowled. “Why do you think my having a baby is ‘awful’ anyway? I’m a wonderful mother!”

“It’s not that…I’m sure you are…Wesley will grow out of this stage he’s in eventually…he’s got to improve sometime.” Mitzi wasn’t doing herself any favors.

Then she surprised us both by bursting into tears.

Mitzi does not cry. Much, I expect, for the same reason that the Statue of Liberty does not cry—she’s too hardheaded. Granted, Mitzi can make others cry, but she is traditionally tough as nails. As she says, “crying ruins your makeup.” But tonight she threw caution—and a lot of mascara—to the winds.

It took both Kim and me, patting her back, hugging her and murmuring helpless platitudes—and some fervent unspoken prayers—to calm her down.

Finally, over steaming bowls of pho, she started to talk.

“I didn’t mean I’m not happy for you, Kim,” she mumbled into her broth, “or that you shouldn’t have more children. I’m sure Wesley will grow up to be human eventually.”

I kicked Kim under the table to stop her from lunging over it to throttle Mitzi.

“But I wanted to be the first one to announce I was going to be having a baby.”

I realized that my jaw was hanging somewhere by my kneecaps and shut my gaping mouth. Kim, too, looked dumbstruck. Mitzi and a baby? Those two things went together like, well, like a hairpin and a flashlight, a toenail clipper and a feather boa, a cotton ball and a spare tire. Frankly, I think Mitzi and a baby are the most unlikely combination of all.

“You’re going to have a baby?” I choked out. “A real one?” I don’t know why I said that, except that most everything else about Mitzi is artificial—her nails, her eyelashes…

“Of course a real one! At least I thought I could.”

Mitzi looked as though she might start to cry again. “Arch and I have been trying to get pregnant for almost two years. Our doctor recommended a fertility expert. He’s optimistic, but offers no guarantees.”

“So you will be having a baby soon!” Kim blurted. “They can help so many infertile couples these days. We’ll all pray for you, won’t we, Whitney?”

“Of course.” I did a double take as I glanced at Mitzi again. She was scowling as if she’d just put her foot in a wad of discarded bubble gum. “Mitzi?”

“You realize what this means, don’t you?”

“Not exactly.” I never have a clue what anything means to Mitzi.

“If Kim’s going to adopt, she won’t be gaining a lot of weight or looking anymore fat and dumpy than she already does.”

Mitzi can ruin a compliment like no other living being.

She turned her sharp eyes on me. “That means that you’ll have to get pregnant, too, Whitney, after Arch and I are expecting.”

“I will?” Chase and I hadn’t discussed planning a baby around Mitzi’s whims. “Why?”

Mitzi rolled her eyes and looked at me as if I were dumb as rock.

“Because if I’m going to grow a stomach like a basketball, there has got to be someone in the office—besides Harry—who is fatter than me!”

Of course. I can’t think of a better reason to bring a child into the world than to make Mitzi’s waistline look good. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.

Chapter Six

“Why didn’t you tell us you were trying to get pregnant?” Kim demanded. “We could have prayed for you and your health all along.”

An uncharacteristic look of uncertainty flickered on Mitzi’s features. Mitzi is nothing if not confident—confident to the point of crazy-making, in fact. As Harry says, “Mitzi may be mistaken, but she’s never uncertain.”

“I thought I’d get pregnant right away, and I wanted to surprise everyone.” She eyed Kim speculatively. “Especially those who think I’m an irresponsible bubblehead.”

Everyone on Planet Earth, you mean?

“When it didn’t happen right away, I thought I’d better wait until that little strip turned color.”

I imagined Mitzi with a case of home pregnancy kits, testing, testing and retesting, like Dr. Frankenstein waiting for his monster’s finger to twitch.

“We thought it was a fluke, of course. I never fail a test of any kind, so I didn’t see how I could fail this one. But now that weeks have turned into months…” Genuine puzzlement filled her face.

“The doctor says that there are wonderful fertility drugs available.”

The expression of distaste on Mitzi’s face spoke volumes. Mitzi doesn’t like unpleasant or disagreeable things. These include gargling, splinters, hangnails, cleaning out the stuff left over in the kitchen sink and looking at herself in a mirror when she’s having her hair colored. Putting a worm on a fish hook or washing squashed bugs off a dirty windshield—even if it is the windshield of her Porsche—is beyond consideration. I’d never get her started on a hair clog in the shower drain or the thought of Mr. Tibble or Scram urping a hair ball, either.

Her aversion to the nastier parts of everyday life is legend around our office. She once tried to get the fire department to come because she’d heard rumors that someone on the first floor had seen a mouse. She refuses to look in garbage cans for fear there might be a browning apple core inside. Then there was the day that Bryan came down with the stomach flu and she sent him home in a taxi with a brown paper grocery sack over his head so he wouldn’t breathe on her.

Any sort of test recommended by a fertility specialist no doubt ranked right near hair ball urping with Mitzi. Clearly, Mitzi is motivated to have a child, or she would never consider it.

She reached into her Kate Spade purse and took out a slender metallic silver case, the kind expensive jewelry might come in. She opened the top and tilted the case toward us so that we could see what was inside.

“A thermometer?” Kim and I yelped together.

Mitzi snapped the case shut and put a finger to her lips. “Shh. I don’t want the entire world to know about this.”

“When did they start selling thermometers in jewelry stores?” Kim wondered aloud.

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is the case for my diamond tennis bracelet. You don’t think I’d carry a basal thermometer around in the ugly plastic thing it comes in, do you? I have to take my temperature every morning before I get out of bed.”

“Then why do you have it in your purse?”

Mitzi looked at Kim as if she had oatmeal for brains. “Because,” she said, drawing out every word as if she were talking to a sweet but slow child, “my housekeeper is cleaning my bedroom today. I couldn’t just leave it lying around and announce to the world what we’re doing, could I?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” As soon as I said it, I wished I could take back my statement. Maybe Mitzi and Arch, even though they didn’t have to, felt shame or embarrassment that they were having trouble getting pregnant. Me and my big mouth. Insert foot, stroll around.

My high-school girlfriend, now the mother of two, had walked in Mitzi’s shoes and opened my eyes to the “comforting” things people say to women struggling to become pregnant. “If one more person tells me to relax and that I’ll get pregnant right away or to be patient, I think I’ll scream,” she’d told me. “And the next person says they know exactly how I feel, is going to ‘feel’ something they didn’t expect, like my hand over their mouth.”

Needless to say, I got the idea. Minimizing fertility problems is a knife in the heart to people who want a baby in their arms.

“I’ve also had my thyroid checked and we’ve been taking blood tests. If they don’t show anything, then…” Mitzi hadn’t noticed that I’d checked out of the conversation for a moment. She began throwing around words like follicle-stimulating hormones, ultrasound, hysterosalpingogram, biopsy, and several words that ended in -scopy, and I wondered how any of them would stack up against a discussion of one of Mr. Tibble’s hair balls.

Lord, I pray that Mitzi gets pregnant soon. Otherwise, it’s going to be a very tense spring and summer at Innova Software. I already have more information about Mitzi and Arch’s life than I care to.

For the first time in all the years I’ve known her, I saw fear flicker in Mitzi’s eyes. “But what if…” She left the question unfinished.

Beneath the flawless makeup, the two-hundred-dollar haircut and the designer suit, I saw the real Mitzi—uncertain, afraid, and longing for a child she wasn’t sure she’d ever have.

Kim gently laid her hand across Mitzi’s. “You can’t give up now, when you are just finding the help you need.”

“I’m an overachiever. Everyone says so. I should be able to do this on my own.”

Overachiever? That’s a quality I haven’t noticed in Mitzi, at least not around the office.

Still, my heart goes out to her. She’s been struggling for two years with the “what-if” of not being able to have a child. That’s a pain I, never having been in her position, cannot judge.

Later, back at the office, I still felt rattled by the alien expression of apprehension in Mitzi’s eyes.

Betty was at her desk, eating garlic stir-fry out of a white paper box. The odor wafted through the room, and I felt my eyes sting. I hope she finishes her lunch down to the very last snow pea, because if she leaves her leftovers in our refrigerator we’re going to need gas masks.

“Did you go out for Chinese?” I picked up the paper from her fortune cookie. “Treasures will come your way from unexpected places. Beware of the dishonest merchant.”

It figures—eBay again, even in Betty’s fortune cookie.

“Bryan brought it back for me from a Vietnamese restaurant.”

“What was that about?” Mitzi came into the break room, chewing on a large dill pickle.

I stared at the pickle. “And what is that about?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Hah. Mitzi replying to a question by saying “Oh, nothing,” is like asking Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun what they’re doing, gathering armies and polishing swords and having them innocently say, “Oh, nothing.” There’s always more than meets the eye.

“You don’t like pickles. Aren’t you the one who made the waiter take back a burger last week to remove the pickles and replace the meat so you wouldn’t have to taste pickle juice?”

“That was last week.” She took a determined bite of the gherkin.

“You didn’t have a palate transplant, did you?”

She glared at me in sheer annoyance. “If you must know, I’m practicing.”

“For what? A pickle derby?”

“For being pregnant.”

“Sorry, Mitzi, I don’t get it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Whitney, you have no foresight whatsoever. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have our girls’ night out on your calendar! You should really spend more time planning ahead.”

That’s what I thought I was doing by leaving girls’ night out off my calendar. Mitzi always plans it, and sometimes I just don’t want to have my body massaged with stones—there are already enough rocks in my head, thank you—to hear a clothing historian lecture on the invention of the girdle, or to attend an in-home brassiere party where we can all be fitted in the privacy of someone’s four-foot-by-four-foot bathroom. Kim, Betty and I have gone along with Mitzi’s wacko ideas, because we know camaraderie around the office helps foster a teamwork approach, but if she gets us invited to another one of those brassiere parties, I’m outta here.

“And just what are you planning ahead for, might I ask?”

She bestowed on me her “You poor, benighted idiot” look. “For when I’m pregnant, of course! Midnight cravings? Pickles and ice cream? Don’t you ever read anything other than software magazines?”

“Let me get this straight. You hate pickles, so you are practicing eating them so that when you get pregnant and have a craving for them, you will be able to tolerate them?”

“Of course. I want the entire pregnancy experience. I have to learn to eat pickles. Eating ice cream will be no problem.”

Weird as it all is, I’m impressed. If Mitzi will go to such lengths for a baby she isn’t even pregnant with, I can’t imagine what she’ll do for one she’s able to hold in her arms.

I looked at her, pickle halfway to her mouth.

She glared at me so I couldn’t speak. “Don’t you dare make fun of me, Whitney. Not only do Americans consume nine pounds of pickles per year per person, but Elvis loved fried pickles!” She turned and stalked off.

Well, if it was okay with Elvis, then it’s okay with me.

Monday evening, later, March 22

Chase was in the kitchen when I got home, making himself a tuna fish sandwich. Mr. Tibble and Scram were weaving in and out between his legs like skaters making figure eights on the ice. Scram was meowing at the top of his lungs. He thinks it never hurts to ask for what he wants—especially if it’s from one of his favorite food groups. Mr. Tibble normally doesn’t stoop to Scram’s level and act like a cat. He allows Scram to speak for him and express his displeasure. He also lets Scram steal food off the table and promptly takes it away from him. He does not let Scram go into the litter box first, sleep in his bed or have the one catnip mouse in the house that hasn’t been beheaded. For some reason, whenever I think about Mr. Tibble, I’m reminded of Mitzi.

“Hi, honey.” I slipped my arms around Chase’s warm, taut middle and laid my head against his back. I could feel him breathing, and his innate, irresistible masculinity held me there as firmly as if he were a magnet and I a metal shaving. “How are you feeling today? Stomach better?”

“I feel great. Must have been something I ate.”

“There could be something going around. Or maybe you have morning sickness.”

He put down the mayonnaise, wiped his hands on a towel and turned around in my arms to kiss me on the forehead.

“You understand, of course, that I can’t dignify that with a response.”

“Wise choice.” I plucked a carrot from the plate he’d prepared for himself.

“There’s too much pregnancy conversation in my life. I have more information about what happens when a couple goes to a fertility specialist than I ever wanted to know. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try to get Mitzi to quit talking, it doesn’t work. I’m the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. Mitzi is the water and it’s hopeless to think I can hold her back.”

“Sometimes medicine can be an insane business—the E.R., people coming in on drugs, hallucinating, hyperventilating, bleeding—but it’s nothing like your office. Insanity there is considered the norm.”

“No one does drugs, but there is definitely a lot of hallucinating going on.” And I began to entertain Chase with Mitzi’s newest prepregnancy scheme, learning to love the common pickle.

Chapter Seven

Friday, March 26

It wasn’t until today that Chase and I had time to sit down together and rehash our week. After dinner we curled up together on the couch, I with a cup of jasmine tea and Chase with espresso.

I only drink espresso when I can dip sugar cube after sugar cube into it, something my one-hundred-pound mother taught me. Since all this baby-nutrition-good-health conversation has started buzzing around the office, I feel guilty even considering a dietary no-no. Mitzi can read in my eyes when I’ve enjoyed food she’s barred herself from having, and she can smell toffee on my breath from forty paces. It can’t last forever, of course, because Mitzi loves junk food.

“Since when did Mitzi become such a force of nature?” Chase asked when I told him. “She’s always been a climactic upheaval, but recently she’s gained momentum.”

“She’s more serious about this than about anything I’ve ever seen, including sending me to Hasty-Date to find a man and shopping for the perfect pair of Prada shoes.”

That might have sounded shallow to an outsider, but Chase got my drift. I told him about the basal thermometer and the list of tests Mitzi and Arch were facing.

Chase whistled. “That should give them a pretty clear picture of what’s going on.”

“Not entirely,” I muttered. “No one has even considered what it’s going to be like to work with Mitzi while she goes through this. Aphids eat their mates, right? I’m afraid Mitzi will devour us like so many cheese crackers before she’d done. She’s had so many mood swings I feel like we’re already dizzy.”

“It’s an emotional time,” Chase murmured.

And an emotional Mitzi is quite a sight to behold. Today she was alternately crying tears into her penne pasta salad with artichoke hearts, gorgonzola and pine nuts—nothing as plebian as a cheese sandwich at lunch for Mitzi—and laughing hysterically at the cartoons in the newspaper. Mitzi is becoming a split personality, and we at Innova have been watching her crack. When she got weepy over Blondie and Dagwood, we retreated to the safety of our desks.

“This has to hurt her more than she cares to let on,” I told Chase.

Chase suddenly took my face in his hands and kissed me soundly. It was the kind of kiss that, had I been standing, would have made my knees weak. Since Mr. Tibble and Scram were currently sitting on my kneecaps and had made them completely numb, the kiss only blew every sensible thought from my head as I kissed him back.

He stroked my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs and murmured, “You are amazing, Whitney.”

“What did I do to deserve that? I want to know so I can do it again.”

“You have compassion for Mitzi, even though she drives you crazy. You never dwell on the negative in anyone’s personality and always look for their humanity.” He grinned at me and, numb though they were, my knees did weaken. “Maybe that’s why I feel so fortunate to have you love me.”

“I love you because you are impossible not to love,” I told him. “Sometimes my heart hurts, I love you so much.”

“Hurts? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s a good hurt. It feels as though it might explode with joy.” I snuggled into his chest and sighed.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what was that sigh about? It wasn’t the sigh of a totally happy woman, now was it?”

“No fair. You know me too well.”

“So spill it. What’s not right in your world?”

“It’s Kim. She’s…” I searched around in my mind for a word, and could only come up with one. “Obsessed.”

Chase tucked me closer to himself, a sign that he was ready and willing to listen.

“They are finding adoption complicated and intimidating.” I thought back to this morning when, during her coffee break, Kim had filled out a self-assessment quiz meant to help her and Kurt identify their feelings and goals about adoption.

“Whitney,” she’d said, her eyes wide, “I assumed we’d adopt a healthy infant and raise him or her as we did Wesley. I didn’t even consider the children with disabilities who are in desperate need of parents.” She’d held out a paper for me to read. “Look.”

“Which disabilities in an adoptive child,” the sheet had read, “would you be willing to consider?” The inventory had been nearly a page long, listing everything from premature and drug-exposed babies to those with Down syndrome, blindness and a host of family history issues, such as diabetes, mental disorders and alcohol addiction. Then it had asked which racial heritages she and Kurt would consider and whether they had gender preferences or would think about taking twins.

“How can I decide? If a child needs love—needs us—then we would take it, wouldn’t we?” she’d lamented. “And what about all those we can’t take? What happens to them?”

“She either wants to bring all the children home with her or give up on the process entirely, depending on her mood,” I told Chase.

“They’re forgetting something important,” he commented. “They already have someone who is willing to direct them, someone who will find the perfect child for them—if it’s His will.”

I looked Chase in the baby blues. “You are absolutely right. God is on their side. He knows if they should adopt a baby or not. And He also knows who and where that baby is right now. Perhaps it isn’t even born yet.”

You knit me together in my mother’s womb…My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret…Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

Psalms 139:13-16

I, too, sometimes forget God is in charge and try to tackle the world on my own.

“You’re so wise.” I brushed my fingers against my husband’s cheek. “Kim and Mitzi are both doing the ‘What-ifs’. No wonder they’re nervous.”

It makes more sense for Mitzi to be nervous. Although she doesn’t seem to mind that Kim and I are Christians, she doesn’t appear interested in joining the club herself. Just because she and Arch once committed to join a denomination in order to marry in a particular church, that didn’t make them Christian anymore than standing in a kitchen makes one Julia Child.

“Ah, for the good old days.” He gathered me into his arms and nuzzled his nose into my hair. I detected the faint, crisp smells of shaving lotion and soap.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I want to have a baby the old-fashioned way. You know, homemade, a do-it-yourself endeavor…”

“And if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?”

He grinned, and his even white teeth flashed. “It’s a project I’m willing to commit my life to.”

“Like the post office? ‘Neither rain, nor hail, nor sleet will stop…’”

“Something like that. In fact, I think playing post office is a good place to start.”

I didn’t even hear Mr. Tibble or Scram complain when I dumped them off my knees and onto the floor so that I could get my arms around my husband’s neck.

Monday, March 29

On Monday morning, Mitzi dealt out party invitations around the office as if they were Old Maid cards.

“For you, for you, for you…” She paused and gathered herself together before putting one on Bryan’s desk. “For you…”

Bryan isn’t exactly the life of the party. In fact, he can suck the energy right out of one. If he overhears an argument, he gets nervous and hides in the bathroom until it’s over. “What’s this?” Kim held hers up to the light to see if the flat vellum envelope contained a bomb.

“Arch and I are having a get-together on Saturday night. There will be appetizers, a buffet by the pool, music, and scads of doctors and their wives there. I thought it might be good to water down the intellectuals with you guys.”

Leave it to Mitzi to extend a gracious invitation.

“Suddenly, I think I’m busy,” Kim retorted.

“Don’t get huffy. You know what I mean. I don’t want these people discussing appendectomies and thyroidectomies all evening. You’ll be a diversion.”

“Like a juggling clown, or someone who does balloon art? You aren’t helping your case, Mitzi.”

“I’m having the food catered by Ziga’s.”

Ziga’s is a well-known dining spot on Lake Zachary, where Mitzi lives.

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? They have the best food I’ve ever eaten.” Kim exchanged a resigned glance with me over Mitzi’s head. We’re a family; we show up for each other no matter what—especially when food is involved.

Thursday, April 1, April Fools’ Day—Innova’s Annual Day of Celebration

Forget Presidents’ Day, Labor Day and the Fourth of July. April 1 is my company’s day to howl. Quite literally, in fact.

The first thing Harry did when he walked into the office this morning was to stub his toe on the leg of Kim’s desk and start hopping around as if he was riding a crazed pogo stick.

“Ouch, ouch, owww…”

Immediately, Kim jumped up to help him, Bryan headed for the bathroom to get out of the way, and Betty lunged to the phone to call for help. I, meanwhile, had the presence of mind to find the man a chair so he could sit down. But it wasn’t until Mitzi sauntered over to examine the damage to Harry’s shoe, that he erupted out of the chair and yelled, “Gotcha! April Fool!”

We all groaned in unison. How could we have let Harry get away with the first April Fools’ gotcha? There is, after all, a trophy at stake for the one who tricks the rest of the office with his or her April Fools’ joke. Harry had, in the first moments of the day, set the standard high. Now, if one or two of us did hoodwink the others with our stories, we’d still have to face the play-offs—a highly competitive game of dominoes, something to do with Mexican trains or chicken scratches or whatever Betty dreams up.

It’s not like the traveling trophy is so fabulous or anything. It’s actually a spectacularly ugly lamp with the names of past winners taped to the shade, but such is the competitive element of our office that everyone takes pleasure in displaying it in a place of prominence in their homes. Mitzi won it last year and had a small decorative niche installed in her basement family room to show it off.

After a high-level meeting of the minds over the water cooler, we decided to play a group trick on Harry in retaliation for catching us all so early in the day.

While I distracted him with a bogus question about a spurious client, Mitzi sneaked into his office and took his car keys out of the pocket of his jacket and passed them off to Kim, who, on her break, went outside to the parking lot. Harry always parks in the first row of cars, those nearest our building. In fact, if there’s no opening when he arrives, he circles the area until someone leaves.

Kim reparked the car in the fifth row and returned to the office unnoticed because Betty was intercepting him with another counterfeit question. Kim handed off the keys to Bryan, who put them back into Harry’s pocket and was back at his desk before Betty let Harry return to work.

Then we all sat holding our breath, waiting for lunchtime.

Harry breezed out of his office and called back over his shoulder, “I’ll be back at one. I see I’ve got a luncheon meeting with a client today.”

Mitzi smiled and waved at him as he left, never letting on that she had fabricated the luncheon just to get him out of the office and into his car.

Then we all stood at the window and watched.

Harry strode to his parking space and, without even looking at the car, thrust the key into the lock. When it didn’t fit, he glanced up and did a double take when he saw that he’d been trying to breach a gleaming black Hummer instead of his charcoal Jeep Cherokee.

He glanced around the parking lot, and then at his key. We hooted with laughter as he tried the key in the lock a second time, as if hoping that upon feeling the familiarity of the key, the Hummer, like Cinderella’s coach, would turn back into a pumpkin.

I’ve got to give it to the man, he’s persistent. He stormed up and down the long row of parking places for nearly five minutes before spinning on his heel and marching back toward the building.

When he arrived, we were ready for him.

We greeted him when the office door banged open. “April Fool!”

Harry folded like sails collapsing from a dearth of wind.

“You! You? You…” Then he grinned. “Man, that was good!”

Like sportscasters recapping the game’s best plays, we rehashed every moment from Harry arriving at the Hummer to him returning to the office.

And the day only went up—or maybe it was down—from there. Mitzi put a thin layer of Icy Hot on the toilet seat in the ladies’ room and nearly drove Betty wild. Bryan, with a piece of thin fabric on his lap, waited until I bent over and then ripped it in half. I immediately clutched my backside and headed for the back room to check out the damage. I also vowed to lose five pounds before his laughter stopped me. I’d been had.

There was a fake spider on Mitzi’s keyboard, which stopped all progress in the office for twenty minutes while we talked her down from her chair, and a bloody gash on Kim’s knee, which turned out to be ketchup.

I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I went home and fell asleep on the couch and Chase had to carry me to bed.

No fooling.

Friday, April 2

Mitzi was two hours late for work today and came in white as a sheet. Her hair, a never-a-strand-out-of-place do, looked as though she’d combed it with an eggbeater, her jacket was missing a button, and she had a run in her stockings.

“Are you okay?” I hurried to her as she stood propped against the reception desk. “Did you fall?”

She looked at me hazily, as if she recognized my voice but couldn’t remember my name. “I’ve had the most terrible morning.”

Kim and I helped her to her desk while Bryan ran for water and Betty fluttered helplessly around us.

When her color started to return, Kim demanded, “What happened to you, anyway?”

“Shh. She probably came from the doctor. She said she had to have some tests this week.”

“No tests,” Mitzi bleated. “I had my teeth cleaned. The stress was enormous.”

The stress of having her teeth cleaned had caused this? I hope I’m nowhere near the delivery room when Mitzi goes into labor.

Chapter Eight

Saturday, April 3

“Do we have to go to this party?” Kim bleated as we neared Mitzi and Arch’s neighborhood, an upper-crust outpost where traffic doesn’t make noise, children are born with silver spoons in their mouths and crabgrass never grows.

“Do you want a little cheese with your whine?” I asked sweetly. “Or do you want us to drop you off here and let you walk home?”

“You’re a hard woman, Whitney.”

“You’re the one who made me promise that I’d get you here, no matter how often you protested or how many excuses you had.”

“I left my vulnerable, defenseless child with a babysitter I hardly know, and you made me come anyway!”

“Wesley is as defenseless as a munitions factory, and the babysitter is the girl next door.”

Kim grinned slightly. “That’s true. Wesley has been a challenge lately. But he’s growing so fast and learning so much. I don’t want to miss anything….”

“Kim, he’s learned to burp at will. That is not a good reason to stay home and videotape him. Besides, you said yourself that we’re here to support Mitzi because she’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

Kim quieted at that. We at Innova have formed an unspoken club, one that centers on making sure that whoever is having a bad day gets extra support. Even Harry has noticed Mitzi’s uncharacteristically weak moments, and once told her to “Go make yourself a cup of tea or something.” Meanwhile, Betty Noble, whose sister adopted two children, is showing real tenderness toward Kim.

Bryan, however, is absent from the office more and more, especially from the rooms Mitzi inhabits. I’ve weighed the idea of setting up a mini workstation in the men’s room, so that when he’s hiding, he doesn’t fall behind in his work. I’ve also been waiting for the right moment to approach him about his behavior, but so far he’s managed to elude me. I’ve considered calling his girlfriend to see if something is seriously wrong with him. Unfortunately, she can be as vague as he. Talking to Jennilee is like having a conversation with the Cheshire cat as he fades in and out.

I was pleased to see Bryan and Jennilee pull into the driveway of Mitzi’s house just ahead us. The house is a huge white wedding cake of a mansion with a colonnade over the walkway that spans the entire front. The portico is huge, with oversized wooden doors that drifted open silently to reveal a tall, gray-haired butler looking down his nose at us as we huddled together like Tin Man, Dorothy, Lion and Scarecrow on their first visit to the Wizard of Oz.

“I didn’t know Mitzi had a butler!” Kim hissed into my ear.

“She doesn’t. She hired him for the occasion.”

“Rent-a-Jeeves? Really? Cool!”

Chase and Kurt, blissfully unaware of anything other than the fact that there was bound to be great food inside, hurried us past the intimidating butler and into the house. Mitzi drifted across the foyer in a vision of teal chiffon that made her skin look like porcelain and her eyes like jewels.

Sometimes it’s difficult to remember this elegant side of Mitzi when she’s setting up a security camera in the break room to see who has been stealing her imported designer water out of the refrigerator or calling every office supply store in town to find a pen fat enough so that her fake nails don’t click together when she writes.

“You came!” For a moment, Mitzi looked truly delighted. Then she burst that bubble. “I thought you’d never get here. They’re replaying a face-lift and tummy tuck in the living room and a gall bladder horror story in the den. Worse yet, Arch and his friends are debating bunion treatments in the living room.” She pushed at Chase and Kurt. “Go ask them about the Super Bowl or something. Find out if they think the Yankees or the Red Sox will win.”

I patted Chase’s arm. “Go on, dear, ask that. I’m sure the answers will be interesting.”

He rolled his eyes as he and Kurt walked off, first to the buffet table and then to the big-screen television in the entertainment room, where, no doubt, Mitzi thought someone from the National Hockey League was facing off with the Gophers basketball team. Such is sports in Mitzi’s world.

“Nice party.”

Mitzi gazed around absently. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Kim took her by the arm. “Now, if you’ll just show me where the chocolate is, nobody will get hurt.”

“You can’t say I’ve never done anything for you,” Mitzi said obliquely, and pointed toward the dining room.

There, Kim and I found the sort of treasure we might have expected at the end of the rainbow. A chocolate fountain, running with the thickest, sweetest chocolate this side of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Around it were piles of fresh fruits, tiny cakes, pretzels, handmade marshmallows, cookies and anything else that could be dipped in chocolate.

Kim rushed right in to spear a bit of pound cake and thrust it into the dark, sweet waves.

“Just pick me up when the party’s over,” she instructed. “I’ll be right here. I don’t plan to move for hours.”

“I still don’t understand what you people see in that stuff.” Mitzi spoke as if chocoholics everywhere were a species to be pitied. “Oh, by the way, there’s Black Forest Cake, German Chocolate cake and a double Dutch fudge cake on the buffet table.”

Kim’s eyes glazed over with bliss.

“What’s this about, Mitzi?” I hissed. “Chocolate everywhere?”

“What else could I do? I don’t want to be tempted to eat the leftovers.”

By midparty, Harry and Betty and their spouses had also arrived, making us a little island of software geeks in a world of medicine. We were in Mitzi’s vast dining room, packing food into our mouths like chipmunks and debating the merits of key lime pie over chocolate pecan turtle cheesecake, when Mitzi’s husband, Arch, strolled in.

Now, Arch, although the kind of man you know is just itching to wash his hands every fifteen minutes, the kind who alphabetizes his socks—Angora, Black, Cashmere, etc.—is a really nice guy. He’d have to be—or else stone deaf—to put up with Mitzi. In fact, he adores her and finds her as entertaining as late-night television. What’s more, he has cultivated a blind spot for her foibles and eccentricities, much as we at Innova have had to do. Mitzi is just, well, Mitzi. She employs stealth technology, much like the cloaking device used to hide starships on Star Trek reruns, to charm people. Then she blows them out of the sky.

“Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. When those guys start talking ingrown toenails, it can go on for hours.” He grinned his toothpasty smile. “Chase, there’s a group in the other room talking treatments for football injuries. And one of the docs used to be a physician for World Wrestling Entertainment. Thought you and Kurt might be interested.”

For a moment, I’d actually forgotten that my husband, too, was a doctor. I am so grateful he doesn’t bring his work home with him. An appendectomy retrospective over dinner is not my idea of a relaxing meal. Of course, Kurt, a WWE fan, led the way out of the room. Then Arch turned to Betty and Harry. “Maybe you’d like to see the new twenty-seven-inch computer screen I purchased for my office.” Arch looked—dare I say it?—archly at Betty. “It’s great for shopping on eBay.”

Before they left the room, he turned to Kim and me. “By the way, Mitzi told me to tell you to meet her by the front stairs. She wants to show you something.”

As we made our way past the scowling Jeeves, the string quartet and the cluster of women who were going to need chiropractic treatments after they took the multicarat diamond-crusted jewelry off their necks, Kim whispered. “How did Mitzi get a gem like him?”

“She’s pretty and funny and he doesn’t have to work in the same office with her?”

“Well, there is that…”

Mitzi swooped down upon us, grabbed my arm and towed me up the curved staircase without explanation. Her flight of stairs hinted not only at antebellum Southern plantations, but also, oddly, at Andy Warhol. The wall along the sweeping white steps is decorated with somebody’s ancestors, strangers Mitzi picked up in an antique store, and large bright acrylic paintings of Mitzi and Arch. I don’t know how, but the look actually works, even though I keep expecting to see Marilyn Monroe or a large Campbell’s soup can in the mix.

The hallways are carpeted a soft yellow, perfect with the white-painted woodwork and florals and landscapes in many shades of green. In each piece is a hint of the same maize color as the walls, like the soft yellow light of the sun. Discreetly placed speakers enveloped us with rain forest music.

“This is beautiful, Mitzi.” Kim stared up at the architectural details on the ceiling. “Did you decorate it yourself?”

“With help. That’s why I wanted you to come upstairs. I need some decorating advice.”

As Mitzi tripped on ahead, Kim and I stared at each other. Mitzi asking us for advice? Had the world tilted on its axis when we weren’t looking? Were we being thrown into an alternate universe where everything was upside down and backward?

Mitzi is the giver of advice, not the taker—advice about clothing, diets, behavior, grooming, nail art, body polishing and any other subject matter she deems worthwhile. No matter how many times we’d tried to stop her, Mitzi is the gift that keeps on giving.

She halted in front of a door so quickly that Kim and I nearly fell on top of her.

“This is it.” Drawing a breath as if to steel herself, she opened it and stepped inside.

The only way I can manage to describe what we saw was Toys “R” Us meets Ralph Lauren meets stuffed-animal factory. The walls were streaked with various test colors—pale pinks, blues, yellows, peaches, greens and creams. There were more animals than Noah had on the ark, overflowing a bright red-and-blue playpen. Three cribs lined one wall. The round one with the jungle-print mattress and bumpers and the lion-tiger-and-elephant mobile was my immediate favorite.

“What are you doing? Starting a new business? There’s more stuff in here than in Kmart!”

Mitzi’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I wanted to decorate a room for my baby, and all I’ve got here is a big mess. No theme, no color palette, no…”

“No baby?” Kim said gently.

Mitzi sat down on a big yellow ball like the one I use at the gym. “I thought it might encourage me while I’m going through all these tests. I’m beginning to feel like a pincushion and not a person.” Her voice trailed away, and she stared in the direction of one of the cribs. “It just reminds me that perhaps I’ll never have a baby and this room will be a monument to my failure.”

“Failure? Mitzi, don’t feel that way.”

“How should I feel? Isn’t that what women are designed to do? Have babies?” Her eyes glittered. “I know you all think I’m a big goof-off at work, that I’m just there because I’d be bored staying home, but that’s not true. I actually…”

I waited for her to say she loved us.

“…am used to you now and it’s not so awful.”

How do we keep our heads from swelling?

“But my body isn’t cooperating. Can you even begin to understand how that feels?”

Kim took Mitzi’s hand. “I know my issues aren’t the same as yours, but my body hasn’t always cooperated, either. Depression and breast cancer—I didn’t ask for either, but there it is. That doesn’t mean that I am only a cancer survivor or a depression-prone female, anymore than you are only an infertile woman. That’s a small part of who we are as people, not the sum total of our lives.”

Mitzi looked at her doubtfully. “I suppose so.” I could see her gaze had cleared. Little lasers were emanating from her eyes. “It’s like Whitney before she found Chase. She wasn’t a total loser, but it was kind of hard to remember that.”

“Wait a minute,” I protested, “I—”

But Kim stopped me. “Yeah, just like that. She was never a loser. Not for a minute. And neither are you.”

Well, thanks for that. I think.

“Maybe you jumped the gun by trying to set up a nursery when you’re still working with the doctors.”

A cunning look flickered on Mitzi’s face. “I suppose I did, but it usually helps to be ahead of the pack.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“Now if you want a nursery as nice as ours, you’ll have to copy me, not the other way around.”

“You mean this is all about being first?” I took her by the shoulders. “Mitzi, I can assure you that there is no way that you will ever be less than cutting-edge in the style department, so just relax. Get pregnant first, then do the nursery. It will be easier, I’m sure.”

I could see her blue mood lifting. “Good idea.” Then her eyes began to sparkle. “But I have picked out baby names, and I’m never going to tell you what they are. You’d probably want to copy me.”

“No doubt.”

As if I had a tendency to run out and do whatever it is Mitzi does. If that were true, right now I’d have blue nail polish on my toenails, enough gloss on my lips to wax the floor at Grand Central Station and an ego the size of South America.