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Ziggy

You know what’s more awkward than failing at adulting?

Keeping the extent of your failures a secret from your parents.

Thanks for lunch at your club, Mom. Also, you know that company Dad got me an interview with? Welp, that’s over now. Funny story. Abby Nora’s brother-in-law was there, and he was harassing me, and I tossed my cookies all over him, and so I’m fired. But don’t worry. I don’t have to move back in with you. The security guy from last night offered to let me house-sit for him. I can probably squat there for a while . Oh, by the way, Abby Nora hates my guts now.

I stab another rosemary potato cube on my plate as I sit with my mom and her real estate agent friend at a table in the opulently appointed Heartwood Valley Owners Club dining room. If I say anything beyond thanks for lunch , the rest of it will spill out .

Telling my parents I accidentally got pregnant and I want to keep the baby?

Easy.

Telling my parents it happened because I had a grief-fling with a random guy in a port in Greece the night after I found out Abby Nora wasn’t the friend I thought she was is completely different.

They think we’re still besties. That I’ve seen her since I got back and that she’s thrilled I’m home again. That I’m not telling her about my own pregnancy yet so that I let her finish out hers with all eyes on her.

Every time I start to tell my parents what actually happened with Abby Nora, I get a knot in my gut and my legs quiver and I break out in a sweat.

They will be so disappointed .

It was easier to tell them I’m pregnant and can’t find the father than it will be to tell them I had a BFF breakup with my longest-standing friend.

My soulmate friend. The sister of my heart who knew all of my deepest fears and secrets.

The bestie who was drifting away.

How did I not notice?

How did I not realize that I was the one who initiated every text conversation and phone call for the past few years, and that she shared less and less of her own personal life every time we talked?

Mom waves a ring-covered hand in front of my face. “Sweetheart, you haven’t touched your chicken.”

“My stomach is off.” It’s an easier answer than I told you I didn’t want the chicken today .

Mom means well. But she doesn’t listen sometimes.

Other times, she listens very well .

“Oh, honey. I can imagine. Jet lag can do such terrible things to your stomach.” She smiles at Niki, the real estate agent who’s joined us with a tablet to show us houses that she thinks would be a good fit for me. “When I was jet-lagged with Ziggy, I wanted avocado and peanut butter almost every day. The peanut butter, we could afford. The avocados, not as much.”

Niki, a kind woman in her mid-forties, blinks slowly at Mom but doesn’t question why jet lag would cause stomach problems and cravings. Or how one can be jet-lagged with someone else.

It’s a rule in places like this.

You don’t question what the eccentric rich lady says.

Right now, I wish Mom wasn’t the eccentric rich lady. I wish we hadn’t moved into Roland’s swanky Heartwood Valley mansion. That I hadn’t met Abby Nora. That Mom and I still lived in our one-bedroom apartment in the Warehouse District.

But wishing Roland out of Mom’s life is awful and makes me feel guilty.

He makes her happy. Their life together makes her happy.

Just like I get to find what makes me happy.

Maybe I don’t need a house.

Maybe I need a one-bedroom apartment in the Warehouse District.

“I was on an overnight flight once where beets caused a large problem,” Niki says.

I’ve asked my family to please not tell anyone about my pregnancy until I’m at least into my second trimester, and yes, I continued the excuse of letting Abby Nora have the pregnancy spotlight as the reason. Jet lag is Mom’s code word today, and Niki clearly thinks we’re actually talking about travel.

Necessary.

She runs into Abby Nora’s in-laws all the time. Real estate circles and all that.

Mom swirls her chardonnay and smiles at Niki. “I love beets. We used to grow them in a community garden.”

Niki turns to me. “Do you have any interest in gardening, Ziggy?”

I swallow another potato.

Why do rosemary potato cubes taste like heaven? I’m not even jealous that my mom is having wine and I’m not. That’s how good this potato is.

“I have interest, but I don’t know if I have the time or energy.”

“That’ll come and go for the next few years.” Mom’s face freezes. “As you get over jet lag.”

This was a terrible idea.

“It’s a lot of work to start over when you have big dreams,” I say. “Even when you have support.”

“Yes! That’s what I meant. You’ll have a lot on your plate the next few years while you pursue your…big dreams.” She fiddles with one of her earrings as she smiles at Niki again. “We should make sure to limit our search to the Belmont District or here in Heartwood Valley. Guaranteed yard space for gardens for when Ziggy has the energy and time for it.”

A blond head catches my eye behind Mom, and I flinch.

Abby Nora’s here.

Here .

With her mother.

Being escorted to a table near the windows overlooking the golf course lake .

It’s the first time I’ve seen her in person since I was home on a break in early January, and the grief hits me hard and fast at knowing I can’t leap up, run across the room, and hug her like I used to.

My former best friend is in a navy-blue dress that shows off her baby bump, doing the full belly-waddle of an almost-nine-months-pregnant woman. Her due date is early August, but she’s far enough along that she could give birth any time now.

And I won’t be among those getting a baby announcement. I won’t be among those taking her meals so she and her husband don’t have to think about eating like my mom used to for new moms in our old neighborhood. I won’t be dropping by to offer to watch the baby so she can take a nap in the middle of the day.

She doesn’t want me to.

And not because I have little firsthand experience with babies myself.

But because I did something wrong or we grew apart while I wasn’t paying attention or because we were never as close as I thought we were in the first place.

That last potato suddenly isn’t settling so well either.

Dammit .

I jerk my attention back to Mom.

She’s staring at me.

So is Niki.

So much for them not seeing me flinch.

I stab another potato. What were we talking about?

Chicken. Avocado. Beets. Right.

Gardening. “I don’t even know if I want to garden yet. And there are community gardens all over the city. I’d rather focus on finding a low-maintenance house that I can afford right now.”

Mom sips her wine while she studies me. It’s a young chardonnay from Napa. Probably has notes of peach and hibiscus. Likely on the drier side.

Probably delicious.

And all I want is a Tums.

She sets her glass down and looks at Niki. “Ziggy’s father and I will be happy to give her a down payment. Let’s not limit things yet.”

“Mom, you don’t have to do that. I have a nice nest egg. I can afford to buy a house on my own.”

“Sweetie, your life is about to be hard enough. With your—erm—dreams. Let us do this one little—oh, look at that house.”

That house on Niki’s tablet is big enough to justify a moat and a drawbridge in the surrounding acres of the yard. I shake my head. “That’s so much more space than I need.”

“But what if you want a home office one day? And a play— art room. My baby definitely needs an art room. I know how much you love to…art.”

If Niki hasn’t figured out yet that I’m pregnant, she will in the next five minutes.

And I don’t know if I care anymore.

I should.

The biggest reason I’m not talking about my delicate condition is that I don’t want Abby Nora saying I only got pregnant because I was jealous of her and wanted what she has.

And does it matter?

Does it ?

Actually, yes .

Yes, it does. I don’t want Abby Nora knowing anything that she could use to hurt me. Directly or indirectly.

Would she mock me for not being married before getting pregnant?

Probably.

She talks— talked to me constantly about Josh being the thing that completed her life. She thinks marriage is the best.

I stab a potato and don’t look in Abby Nora’s direction. “I can find a studio if I want to art .”

“But do you want to go to that effort, sweetheart?”

“Art studios will have other artists that I can ask for advice since I’m out of practice at arting.”

I don’t think arting is a word.

Though, if I switched into Italian, they might have a word for—no.

Nope.

No switching to Italian words.

Then I’m showing off .

“We can look for a house that has an art studio and public gardens nearby,” Niki says. “I showed a lovely four-bedroom south of downtown just last week that had a ladies’ paint night shop just a few blocks away. And I heard they’re expanding to offer pottery wheel classes.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of options for what I want in a city this big,” I say.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise like someone’s watching me, and it takes every ounce of determination to not look around the dining room to see if Abby Nora has spotted me.

“The sooner you find it, the better,” Mom says. “I’m worried about you in that hotel. I wish you’d move in with us while you look for a house. ”

I lift my brows at her.

She blushes.

We both know what else I won’t say out loud in front of Niki today.

I don’t move in with people who walk around naked every Tuesday .

I’ve heard people say Mom married Roland for his money, but it’s not true.

Whenever anyone implies that in my presence, I promptly inform them she married him for his dick just to make them uncomfortable.

But the truth is, she found the love of her life when she met Roland. She would’ve married him regardless of the size of his house and bank accounts.

If anything, the money made her more uncomfortable at first.

It would’ve made me more uncomfortable if I hadn’t had Abby Nora.

And now my throat is getting tight. Dammit .

“I’m used to living in a cabin the size of a dorm room,” I remind Mom and Niki. “With a roommate. I don’t need a big house. I just need a house that feels right.”

“Don’t discount that a house with room to grow could feel right. What if you want more—art hobbies? Art. Hobbies. Collections. What if you want a dog? What if you open a catering company and you need a good home kitchen before you have the cash to buy an industrial kitchen?”

“Then I’ll move.”

Mom sighs.

I sigh.

My phone buzzes, and I subtly check the text message under the table while Mom and Niki ignore me to discuss the benefits of a large house in one of Copper Valley’s most expensive neighborhoods.

It’s Miranda, my stepsister.

When I came home last summer, Mom and Miranda and I took a trip down to Charleston and toured the city and had a spa day and ate amazing food and shared a vacation rental house and laughed and talked for hours.

Miranda was six to my thirteen when Mom married Roland, and we only saw her every other weekend and a few weeks every summer, so we weren’t tight before I left for culinary school. She graduated college right before our trip last year. It was fun to reconnect and spend time getting to know her as an adult, and we’ve texted and kept up on socials more in the past year than we ever did before. We even started talking about a vacation, just the two of us, or Miranda flying to Europe and coming on one of my cruises.

And now, the baby has changed everything.

Clearly, Miranda isn’t coming to the Med. Mom’s not talking about girls’ trips with both of us. She’s not talking about her ladies’ club and their volunteer activities. She’s not even talking about introducing me to her book club.

She’s talking about diapers and cribs and playrooms and how stressed I’ll be without any time for myself.

She’s talking about buying me a mansion so that I’ll never have to worry about running out of space.

And all I want is a girls’ trip to make me feel normal.

Like I haven’t completely upended my life.

Like I still have friends I can trust in my life, even if they’re related to me and I don’t want to live with one of them.

Call me when you’re done , Miranda’s text says. We’ll get ice cream and I’ll tell you all about our parents’ plans to build a little carriage house at the back of their property so that you and the baby are always there .

I eye my mom.

Then Niki, who’s one of Mom’s friends from her garden club.

My phone buzzes again.

Miranda: In case you missed the subtle hint, once you check into the Parental Unit Hotel, they’re never letting you leave.

Miranda isn’t saying anything I haven’t known on some level. It’s the bigger reason I got a hotel room instead of staying with them when I got home.

I know my parents love me. I know I’m incredibly lucky to get along with both my mom and my stepdad. I didn’t take his last name, but I do call him Dad when we’re together, and it fits.

He took me to dance classes. He showed up with Mom at nearly every one of my high school plays. He taught me to play chess and drove me to school early so I could take extra language classes—my choice—and he had more patience than my friends’ parents when I was deep in the throes of puberty with mood swings and breakdowns.

Miranda says he handled her teenage years well too, even if he was overbearing about her boyfriends, which I also experienced firsthand.

But despite me leaving home at eighteen for culinary school and moving to Europe at twenty-three with my first cruise line contract, my parents are struggling with the idea that I’m a grown woman who can choose to raise a baby on my own .

They’ve convinced themselves I was at sleepaway camp when I was working onboard and that I’m still a teenager.

I want my parents to once again be who they were when I was an actual teenager.

Except for the overbearing with the dating part.

I could do without my stepfather staring silently at every boy who came to pick me up for a dance or a movie or a picnic.

I’m not good enough for your mother, so how do you expect me to ever believe any of these immature balls of hormones are good enough for you?

It was endearing once.

By the time I left home, I was thrilled to not have to introduce dates to my parents.

Not that I dated a lot.

I’m apparently too picky . Abby Nora called me that once and I thought it was funny.

Now I wonder if she’s right. And also if it was meant as an insult.

I grab my water and don’t look in her direction.

“Ziggy, we’ll add this one to the tour list.” Mom shows me the mansion in Heartwood Valley that’s on Niki’s tablet again. “Ooh, the dessert tray. How does dessert sound? Do you feel like dessert?”

My stomach clenches. “I do not, thank you. Excuse me. I need to use the toilet. Ladies’ room . I need to use the ladies’ room.”

I retreat to the restroom, where something worse than morning sickness is waiting.

That something is a massively pregnant blonde in a navy dress with a diamond ring the size of a quarter sparkling in the lights as she messes with her hair in one of the individual mirrors over the row of white marble sinks.

My eyes meet hers in her reflection as I freeze in my tracks, stifling a good fuck that I want to utter in Italian.

Abby Nora stares back at me.

She’s such a stuck-up cunt .

It’s impossible to see her and not hear her words in my head.

I should’ve done a sweep of the room before I came in here.

I should’ve made sure I knew where she was.

But I didn’t, and now we’re face-to-face for the first time since before I witnessed her telling everyone at her baby shower that I’m a stuck-up cunt.

“Ziggy.” She stutters like she, too, can hear her words echoing off the restroom walls, even though nothing echoes off the demure ivory wallpaper in here. “Oh my god, it’s so good to?—”

“Great to see you too,” I blurt.

She stares at me as she reaches for a cloth towel from the basket between the sinks.

There’s no warmth. No true it’s good to see you . No regret or apology.

Just awkwardness.

And I don’t think it’s because she’s heard what I did to her brother-in-law last night.

He didn’t recognize my name from her wedding, so I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me. Him calling me a cunt was probably because it’s a favorite word in their family. There’s a solid chance that he’ll never tell about last night because he doesn’t know he’s supposed to.

And I suspect she would definitely want him to .

I start to turn around to leave—I’d rather go puke in a bush outside—but then I stop myself.

I square my shoulders.

And I make myself turn around to face her again as she finishes wiping her hands, which she shouldn’t need to do after messing with her hair.

One more clue she’s nervous.

“Why?” I say.

She blinks. “Why what?”

“Why don’t you like me anymore? What did I do?”

Her nose twitches as she makes eye contact with my chin. “What are you talking about? Of course I like you. Duh. We’ve been friends forever, haven’t we?”

I swallow. “Right. Forever.”

I’ve had two months to fully accept that Abby Nora doesn’t want me anymore.

And I need to not care as much as she doesn’t.

But here I am, my stomach in knots just from seeing her, my bruised heart bleeding again, letting her see how much she’s hurt me.

I don’t want her to know I’m hurt.

Except she’s the one person I could always go to whenever I was hurt before.

“You should’ve told me you were coming home. Honestly, I’m hurt you didn’t.” She drops the cloth towel into the used basket and rubs a hand over her stomach. “We should do lunch before the baby’s born. You know. Make it up to me.”

“Right. Lunch.”

“It’ll be so fun. Like old times.”

“So fun.”

“Call me. But do it quick. Before baby.” She laughs.

It’s fake .

It’s so fake.

I will not get sick again. I will not get sick again . “Of course.”

She pushes out of the restroom without a hug, without another glance back, but with the fakest smile I’ve ever seen on her face.

A toilet flushes, and I realize what’s just happened.

We aren’t alone.

She knew it.

And now whoever is in there can tell people that I’m the problem. That I’m making up drama where there is none, and poor Abby Nora is dealing with her best friend going crazy while she’s so heavily pregnant, and isn’t that the last thing any woman needs?

I dash into the nearest stall, sit, and breathe as quietly as possible.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I can get through this. My stomach is fine.

The bottle of Tums I’m keeping in my purse is half-empty. Constant companion these days, but they help.

What would help more would’ve been not running into Abby Nora.

Is it bad that I don’t want to live in Heartwood Valley or the Belmont District so that I can establish a social circle for myself that definitely won’t intersect with Abby Nora’s social circle?

The sink turns on.

“Grow a pair, Ziggy,” I whisper to myself under the noise of the running water.

I was so distracted by defending my honor against a man last night that I didn’t even realize I was about to puke on him. You’d think I had a pair.

Apparently not .

I pull up my text messages as soon as I’m sure I don’t need to toss my lunch.

Miranda’s sent another message, and so has Francesca, my former roommate from the cruise ship, but my shaky finger accidentally hits the message beneath hers, and I’m instead looking at the other conversation I’ve had over text today.

Holt: This is Holt Webster. Security guy from last night. Brydie gave me your number. Wanted to talk for a minute. Can I stop by? Best in person.

My stomach clenches again.

I don’t like Holt.

To be more precise, I don’t like the way my body responds when I’m around him.

The man had the absolute audacity to be leaning against a Jeep in four-hundred-thousand-degree heat in a backward baseball cap, a faded gray Crow’s Nest Bakery T-shirt, and jeans.

Jeans .

In this heat.

Without a visible drop of sweat on him.

And for a split second when I spotted him, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to always have a friend with a great ass who can tackle people who are mean to me and who says “Don’t worry about it” when I apologize for the mess all over his clothes?

Or something like that.

Maybe something a little dirtier.

Especially when he started talking about his kitchen.

Not that I’m in any position to explore anything with him .

He’s leaving the country.

I’m pregnant.

He probably has a girlfriend. Possibly one here and one there.

I’m pregnant.

He very likely doesn’t want to be the person who would’ve come barreling into the bathroom and rescued me from that awkward moment with Abby Nora.

I’m pregnant.

Brydie told me he plays lacrosse professionally, which explains the muscles. I know even less about lacrosse than I do about rugby. Dad bought his rugby team after I moved overseas, and I haven’t been home during the season, ever. Mom calls it his little retirement hobby, even though he’s not retired yet.

Not by a long shot.

Hence hobby .

And speaking of Mom—I only get so long in this bathroom before she comes looking for me to make sure I didn’t throw up and pass out, so I need to quit breathing and overthinking everything and finish up in here.

I switch back to the message with Miranda and make myself be normal.

Me: How did you get out? Of living with them, I mean .

Bubbles pop up telling me she’s texting me back nearly immediately, and then?—

Miranda: I wasn’t carrying their grandbaby .

Me: I fucked up, didn’t I ?

Miranda: You fucked something.

I snort in the bathroom, hear it echo, and freeze.

No sounds.

I think whoever was in here has left.

I hope.

I’m very grateful for you , I text to Miranda.

She’s the only person I’ve told about Abby Nora’s baby shower outside of my friends on the ship. So she’s the only person here at home who knows.

Miranda: Aw, I’m grateful for you too. Also, in case your mom hasn’t told you, they called your hotel this morning to pay your bill .

I cringe.

Me: Do they realize how controlling this looks? Mom’s trying to convince me I need to let her buy me a house in Heartwood Valley .

The response is quick enough that I guess she’s doing voice-to-text.

Miranda: I had a ton of fun with you at lunch yesterday and definitely want to do it again every week, so I hope you understand how much it costs me to tell you that I think your only option is to run away to Canada but tell them you’re in Napa.

I completely relate to what she’s saying.

I hesitate just a moment, then reply.

Me: I loved spending time with you too, and I need you to know I’d say that regardless of how many other friends I do or don’t have here. You’re not a consolation prize, okay? You’re pretty damn awesome.

Miranda: Oh, I know. You’re very lucky I find you tolerable.

I crack up again because I can picture her grinning as she says it.

I send her a heart emoji, then pop over to my hotel app.

And—yep.

She’s right.

My credit card has been replaced by a number I don’t recognize with my mom’s first initial and last name attached to it.

On the one hand, I’m grateful that my parents care and want to help take care of me.

But on the other, I already feel like a fuck-up for losing one job because I’m pregnant—which happened during a one-night stand that turned out to be a poor coping mechanism for losing my bestie—moving home, and then getting fired from another job.

There’s nothing wrong with accepting help.

But I don’t need help.

And I don’t want the complicated feelings of obligations to go with it.

Especially because I do sometimes feel like I had an unfair advantage when Mom married a man who paid for culinary school for me, then pulled some strings to get me the interview with Lusso Cruises.

I want to visit my parents because I want to see them. Not because I need things from them. Not because I want to use their connections. And I don’t want those lines to get blurry .

But they know everyone. And anyone they don’t know would recognize their names.

And that’s what has me returning to the message from Holt.

He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know who I’m related to.

He’s not someone who’s offering me a place to stay because my parents asked him to. Not someone who has any connections to Abby Nora. Not someone who will care one way or another what happens to me in the coming months.

Not someone who will be there every day for the next month. Month and a half, even. He said six weeks.

A house to myself—with a dog, no less—sounds pretty fucking awesome right now.

Provided it’s nowhere near Belmont or Heartwood Valley.

So I take a leap and text him.

Me: I’m not saying yes or no, but could I meet your dog and see your house?

My parents can’t pay my hotel bill if I’m not living in a hotel.

And they can’t give me a guilt trip about moving out if I never move back in.

And Holt won’t even be there. He’s leaving for a lacrosse camp in Europe . Brydie said it a half dozen times last night while I was in earshot, most of those times to women who were asking if he was single.

And yes, I noticed that she didn’t give a straight-up yes or no answer.

I took a leap when I accepted the job with Lusso Cruises. I met locals in various ports and had meals in their homes and still get emails with family updates.

Sometimes you have to jump.

And meeting a dog isn’t jumping .

It’s dipping a toe in the water to see if it’s the right temperature.

Holt replies almost immediately.

Holt: Home the rest of the day .

Me: Great. Send me the address.