The Favor by Adele Griffin

Author:Adele Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

Thirty-Two

No matter how carefully I word it, I feel like a nag when I send Evelyn a second text that I hope she’ll drop by Frankie’s shower. The first text went unanswered, and this time she sends a breezy I’ll try!, so I’m surprised to see her when I show up at the apartment the next Sunday. At the door, I’m greeted by two enormous bobbling bunches of balloons—one pink, one blue—over which a gold banner reads BABIES IN BLOOM.

“Nora!” Trix plants a kiss on my cheek as she takes my bag of gifts. Frankie’s little sister has his star quality but goofier—the comic foil to Frankie’s svelte leading man. She checks over her shoulder as she drops her voice. “You just missed the FaceTime drama,” she whispers. “Our parents aren’t coming after all. They’re saying they ate bad calamari at Carmine’s last night. They’re at the hotel.”

I sag. “Really?”

“Really.” Disappointment hangs off her. “All Frankie wants is things to be normal. So I’m cranking up the happy. I made a cute little coconut cake, and we’re playing a shower game called Don’t Say Baby!” She reaches into her front overalls pocket for an oversize diaper pin that she fastens to my sundress strap. “If you say the word baby, someone can take your pin! The person with the most pins wins a lululemon robe.”

“Oh, so fun,” I lie as Trix leads me into the living room, a pink-and-blue jungle of crepe paper and balloons. She sets my bag—half a dozen cotton sleep sacks Singer-sewed by me—on the console heaped with gifts, and she shepherds me around for introductions. I meet some of the neighbors and say hi to the faces I know—Mrs. Tanaka and Lisa Ann, who introduces me to her husband, Russell… But all I see is Evelyn, standing by a far window, chatting with Seth.

She’s wearing a navy Akris jumpsuit that I sourced for her last month, and in her Van Cleef pendants and Gucci gladiator sandals, she looks like a goddess of plenty.

“Spell!” she calls out and then leaps across the room to envelop me in a jangle of necklaces and bracelets. I feel the firm, warm bump of the pregnancy; a point of contact that overwhelms me and leaves me feeling slightly light-headed.

“Oh,” I say. “The baby.” That’s my baby. My very own baby.

“Strange for you,” she says, her eyes limpid with understanding. “Here I’m this whole other person, and it’s your own precious thing.”

“It’s fine—the good strange.” I feel Seth watching. “The nine-month babysitting job, you called it on one of your posts. I loved that.”

“Well, and that’s just the way to think of it, Spell. Anyway, I told Seth I’m here to scope tips for our own fabulous winter shower,” she says. “I can’t stay long, but I did get to meet those adorable babies.”

“Baby! You said baby!” Trix cries. Evelyn, who is holding the diaper pin in her hand, now drops it into Trix’s palm like it’s something that’s been stuck in a dog’s mouth.

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