“Maybe you two figured all that out,” Dylan added, finishing his coffee off and looking around for Madge as if she held the only life preserver on the Titanic, “but Mike and I have no idea what you two are planning.”
“You guys didn’t talk about it?” she asked Laura.
“When we are able to talk to each other at home,” she said, “it’s never the three of us. Whichever one of us is in charge of the baby, the other two are out cold somewhere on the couch, in bed, on the toilet—”
“Hey! I was tired,” Dylan interjected.
“You fell asleep on the toilet?”
“Don’t judge.”
“Fine.” Josie held her hands up in a gesture of supplication. “Let’s get back to business.”
“Let’s,” Mike added.
Madge whipped past with a thermos of coffee, pouring Mike and Dylan’s and then slamming the pitcher on the scratched tabletop, throwing down a little bowl of creamers and flashing past.
“She’s my new girlfriend,” Dylan said, emotion infusing his words as he cradled the cup of java as if it were a precious stone or his child, who was currently suckling off of Laura, the sounds of smacking hard for Josie to weed out as the baby latched on and off over and over again, making Laura wince.
“That doesn’t hurt, does it?” Josie asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee from the pitcher and started to look at the menu.
“Of course it hurts.” Laura glared at her. “Can you imagine having a baby’s mouth on your nipple twelve hours a day?”
“Twelve hours a day?”
“That’s what it feels like. You’d be all cracked and sore and peeling and—”
“Ah, God, I don’t want to hear it!” Josie said. “Please, I’m about to eat.”
“You’re a nurse. If you don’t have a cast iron stomach and can’t hear a few details about breastfeeding, then—”
“I’m a research nurse now. I deal with old people.”
“Not for long,” Laura reminded her.
Josie bit her bottom lip, curling it in under her top teeth. Madge saved her from what she wanted to say, which was Not in the way you think, but instead she was forced to order as the old coot bore down on her, looming over, casting her shadow on Josie’s seated form.
“What can I getcha? A hot doctor?”
Deflating, Josie said meekly, “I’ll just have the fried green tomatoes and a tossed salad with Italian.”
“What’s going on with you and Alex?” Madge asked, suspiciously. “He’s moping around, too.”
Four sets of eyes lasered in on her, Dylan’s eyebrows raised high, Mike calm and peaceful as always—either that or he was too tired to actually care.
“I would like the fried green tomatoes and a tossed salad with Italian dressing,” Josie repeated, over-enunciating the words.
She was pissed.
These were her people, all right. These were her crazy people that she wanted to get away from.
“Okay, then,” Madge answered, mimicking Josie’s affect. “I. Will. Get. You. The. Wat. Er. And. The. Food. You—”
“Oh, God, cut it out!” Dylan snapped. “Just—just take the order.”
Laura snapped back, “We’re all curious. We all want to know what’s going on with Alex. Doesn’t kill you to be patient.”
“Yes, it does. I want my food. I’m hungry.”
Now it was Josie and Madge’s turn to watch, because this was the first time she’d ever seen them snipe at each other like this. Trouble in paradise? Could it be?
“Well, maybe you wouldn’t be so hungry if you had remembered to make lunch for everybody like you were supposed to,” Laura said. Narrowing her eyes, she shifted the baby, who popped off and started to scream. “Oh, dammit,” she whispered under her breath, fumbling with her shirt, looking around the room, her eyes filled with tears, and Josie felt everything melt away, filled with a sense of compassion for how hard this really must be for all of them.
Baby Jillian’s wails filled their corner of the restaurant, drawing stares from fellow diners. “Omigod, people are staring. I don’t want them to see me breastfeeding.”
“Why not?” Mike asked. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.” His voice was reassuring but there was an irritability there.
Dylan went into protective mode, craning his head around the restaurant looking for a fight. He clearly didn’t want to find one with Laura, so any passerby would do. “If anybody says anything I’ll give them a piece of my mind,” he mumbled, looking around like a Navy SEAL doing a reconnaissance mission. “You have every right to breastfeed, and it’s beautiful and they can all just f**k off.”
Madge just shook her head. “We didn’t do that when I had my kids.”
“Do what?”
“Breastfeed. Only the hippies did that.”
“You weren’t a hippie?”
She threw her head back and cackled. “Honey, I was more Mad Men than Woodstock.”
She quickly took the rest of the orders and ran off to the kitchen. Laura shifted the baby out from under her nursing shirt and threw a burp rag on her shoulder, propping Jillian upright.
The back of her little head had a thin layer of that dark blonde hair that had been so lush at birth. It had worn away like a balding old man in the spot where she lay against the sheets. Josie had seen that in newborns before and knew that the baby’s hair would be back before her first birthday. Right now the bald spot was adorable and a reminder of how vulnerable and really, really tiny this baby was.
A belch like a sailor’s, better than anything Josie had ever heard back home at Jerry’s bar, from her mom or during any of the many booty calls that her so-called boyfriends had ever belched out after a night of partying and too many beers. It was so loud that a group of college students—mostly guys but a couple of girls sprinkled in the eight top—cheered, giving baby Jill a round of applause.
That finally seemed to crack the tension at the table, Dylan and Mike shaking their heads and laughing as even Laura tittered just a bit. Dylan finished half of his second cup of coffee and then leaned in, his forearms resting and stretching out on the table across from Josie.
“How, exactly, do you plan to structure the business? Let’s talk about the space.”
Josie caught Laura’s eyes. Laura nodded. Overwhelm was all too easy at this stage for the new parents. Hell, it was easy for Josie and all she had to do was take care of a cat.