Emily Giffin - Baby proof

The next morning, I find Jess in her room, doing last-minute packing for her trip to Alabama with Michael. Against my better judgment, I tell her about my nightmare.

She says, "Well. Fortunately, you will be reclaiming Ben prior to their wedding day ."

I give her a blank look, and she says, "Like on Monday?"

I shake my head and say, "There isn't going to be any reclaiming … And I'm not going to go through with seeing Ben on Monday."

" What ?" she says.

"I'm canceling," I say emphatically.

"Oh, no you're not ," she says even more emphatically.

"There's no point," I say with a listless shrug.

"There is too a point," she says. "Look, Claudia. The fact that they got engaged doesn't really change the analysis here."

"Yeah, it does," I say.

"No, it doesn't!" she says. "If Ben can get a divorce from the love of his life, he can most certainly break off an engagement."

"How do we know that she's not the love of his life?"

"Because you are," she says. "And you only get one of those."

"Since when do you subscribe to that notion?" I say.

"Since I've finally experienced true love."

"Well. I got news for you, Jess. Ben loves her," I say. "He wouldn't propose if he didn't love her. He wants a baby, but not that badly."

"Fine. Maybe he does love her in some narrow way. But he loves you more and you know it… He doesn't have full information. He needs full information. Once he knows that you want children, he'll have to break up with her."

"I don't want children."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't," I say. "I would have been theoretically willing to have his."

"Same difference."

"Not really."

She zips up her red Tod's bag with authority and says, "Well. I say we let Ben be the judge of that. Shall we?"

Meanwhile, my own Thanksgiving plans are up in the air until the eleventh hour. Maura almost always hosts a dinner at her house, but for obvious reasons, this year is the exception. Daphne is the logical backup choice because my father, understandably, refuses to go to Dwight and Mom's house, but when we tell my mother the plan, she gets on her soapbox about "you girls never coming over here." And then shoots off on another tangent about how we've never really accepted Dwight. I am in no mood for her nonsense so I quickly squelch her spirit and say, "Listen here, Vera. We're going to Daphne's. You can't even cook."

"We can have food brought in," she says.

"Mom. Drop it. The decision is made."

"Says who?" she says in the voice of a small child.

"Says me," I say. "So join us or don't. Entirely up to you."

I hang up and decide that the only true beauty of hitting rock bottom is that nothing can really faze or rile you. Not even your mother.

A few minutes later she calls me back with a conciliatory, "Claudia?"

"Yes?" I say.

"I've decided."

"And?"

"I'll come," she says meekly.

"Good girl," I say.

Thanksgiving morning is bleak and gray and drizzly, but also unseasonably warm, a depressing holiday combination. It takes every bit of will I have to get out of bed, shower, and dress. One of my mother's life principles flashes in my head- if you dress up and look pretty, you will feel better . And although I basically agree with this, I discard the advice and settle on an ancient J. Crew rollneck sweater and a pair of Levi's with threadbare knees. I tell myself that at least it beats sweats and sneakers, which I resist only because I can just envision "wearing sweats and sneakers on Thanksgiving" listed in a Suicide Warning Signs pamphlet.

I can't find a cab so I have to walk to Penn Station and barely make my noon train. I am stuck in a seat facing backward, which always gives me motion sickness. Then, about halfway to Huntington, I realize that I left my fancy rwenty-eight-dollar pumpkin pie from Balthazar on the kitchen counter. I say shit aloud. An old woman across the aisle from me turns and gives me a disapproving stare. I mouth sorry , although I'm thinking, Mind your own business, lady . Then I spend the next twenty minutes worrying that I will turn into the kind of disgruntled person who dislikes old people. Or worse, I will become a bitter old person who hates the young.

When my father picks me up at the train station, I tell him that we need to swing by the grocery store to pick up a pie.

"Screw the pie," my dad says, which I translate to mean, I heard about Ben's engagement .

"No. Really, Dad," I say. "I promised Daphne I'd bring a pumpkin pie."

Translation: I'm a total loser. All I have left is my word .

My dad shrugs and a few moments later we pull into the Waldbaum's parking lot. I run inside, grab two skimpy pumpkin pies, already reduced to half price, and head for the express "twelve items or less" lane.

Fewer , I say to myself, thinking of how amused Ben was when I corrected grammar on public signage. Twelve items or fewer, dammit . I truly hope that Tucker is a math-science girl in the strictest sense of things and screws up her pronouns on a daily basis. She is Harvard-educated, so I know her mistakes aren't overt, as in, Me and Daddy are going to the store , but with some luck, she might be prone to making other sorts of mistakes-the kind intelligent people make while believing that they are being intelligent. Like failing to use the objective case for all parts of the compound object following a preposition, as in: Do you want to come with Daddy and I ?

The beauty of this is that Ben will be forced to think of me every single time. Then, one day, he might break down and share with Tucker the trick I taught him so long ago: Try each part of the object in a separate sentence. "Do you want to come with Daddy?" "Do you want to come with me?" Hence: "Do you want to come with Daddy and me ?" Maybe her eyes will narrow and a cloud will pass over her face. "Did your ex-wife teach you that one?" she'll say with disdain born from jealousy and failure to measure up. Because she might be able to put people back together again, but she will never be able to diagram a sentence as I can.

Then, as I'm paying for my two sorry pies and some Cool Whip, I see Charlie, my high school boyfriend, get in line behind me. I usually like running into Charlie, and other high school friends, but my divorce has changed that. It's just not the sort of update you feel like inserting in small talk, but at the same time, it's rather impossible to avoid mentioning. Besides, I've about reached my quota for chance meetings this week and don't have it in me to be friendly. I keep my head low and slip the checkout girl a twenty.

Just as I think I'm going to escape, Charlie says, "Claudia? Is that you?"

It occurs to me to pretend that I didn't hear him and just keep walking, but I like Charlie and don't want to come across as an urban snob-something he once accused me of being-so I turn, smile, and give him my best impersonation of a happy, well-adjusted adult. "Hey, Charlie!" I say. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"You, too, Claudia!" he says, pushing forward his last-minute items: a gallon of whole milk, three cans of cranberry sauce, and a box of tampons. "How ya doin'?"

"Fine!" I say brightly as I look down and see Charlie's son shaking a pack of orange Tic Tacs. He looks exactly like Charlie's kindergarten photo, which was framed in his foyer the whole time we were dating. The little boy looks up at his father and says, "Can we get these, Dad?"

I anticipate a, No. Put it back , which is the standard parental grocery-store retort, but Charlie says, "Sure. Why not?" and tosses the Tic Tacs on the belt.