Inside their home, Joan pats dry a whole chicken, bending over and reading her mother’s recipe as she does. The hummingbird cake fell slightly on top; she took it out too early, but John raved about it. He ate two pieces the night she served it, teasing her that he hoped she would love him when he gained an additional thirty pounds. When no one was looking, she had a few bites of what was left of the cake this morning for breakfast.
She reads her mother’s writing: Sprinkle salt and pepper inside the cavity and over the chicken. Cut up three tablespoons of butter and put it inside. Cut up another three tablespoons of butter and place it around the outside of the chicken. Joan does as instructed and uses a paper towel to wipe the butter from her hands. She peels the skin from a clove of garlic and puts it inside the chicken, along with half a lemon and a chopped stalk of celery with its leaves. Having placed the chicken inside the preheated oven, she sets the timer for an hour and fifteen minutes and picks up the second recipe, this one for rosemary-parmesan potatoes.
These are so good with roasted chicken! Her mother wrote beneath their name on the card. Remember how many you would eat? Always make extra! Joan looks at the ingredients:
1 to 1½ pounds of new potatoes. Red potatoes work, too.
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary. Don’t use the dried stuff in a jar!
2 to 3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese. Yes, buy a wedge and grate it!
Joan cuts the potatoes in half and mixes them with all the ingredients, sprinkling a little salt and pepper on top of them. “They look yummy,” she says, lecturing herself again for not learning how to cook before now.
May 2012
Lauren steps inside Glory’s Place and notices that Gloria, Miriam, Andrea, Heddy, Stacy, and Amy are looking at Gloria’s computer inside her office. She peeks her head into the room and Gloria looks over the top of the computer at her. “Come on in, babe. We’re looking at some of the pictures for the new website.”
Without Lauren realizing it, the words tumble out of her mouth. “I’m pregnant.”
As if on cue, the six women look up at her at the same time, letting her words register with them. “What?!” Gloria says, sliding her chair back and running with her arms open to the ceiling toward Lauren with the other women following behind. “Did you just find out? Does Travis know? You didn’t tell us before him, did you? That would never do. If you didn’t tell him, we’ll just pretend we don’t know.”
“He knows!” Lauren says, laughing.
“Oh, that’s good!” Miriam says. “The father can get awfully offended if someone knows he’s about to be a dad before he does.”
“Well, I wasn’t offended, but you can imagine my surprise when someone else knew that I was pregnant before I even knew,” Lauren says, grinning.
“The doctor?” Stacy says.
Lauren shakes her head. “No. Andrea.” She points her finger at Andrea, laughing. “You knew!”
Andrea smiles. “I suspected. That’s all.”
“When are you due?” Gloria asks, both of her hands resting on the backs of Lauren’s shoulders.
“Sometime in December, but I don’t know a date! I have to find an obstetrician!”
“And we have to plan a baby shower,” Heddy says.
“But before that we simply have to do something with Lauren’s home,” Miriam says. “A little color to make one realize they’re not part of a lab experiment when walking through the front door, and a kitchen table is definitely in order, and a crib inside a nursery. And we simply must hang some things on the wall so the baby doesn’t cry out in boredom from the plainness of it all.”
Gloria shakes her head. “There are days when I think, ‘Today’s the day. Miriam won’t blurt out whatever is on the top of her head. Today Miriam’s brain will have a filter.’ But then you say things like that, proving me wrong … again.”
Miriam opens her mouth to defend herself when Lauren lifts her hands, laughing. “It’s okay, Gloria. I agree with everything Miriam said.” Miriam gives Gloria a smug smile. “I’ve been wanting to do things with the house, but I just don’t know what. Now that we know a baby is coming, I definitely want to make it more homey.”
“Then I’m on it!” Miriam says, thrusting her index finger into the air.
Gloria sighs. “Those are the most chilling words that Miriam could say to anyone: ‘I’m on it!’ Oh the terror of it all!”
SIX
May 1972
“Don’t let it get to soft ball,” Joan’s mother, Alice, says.
Joan sighs on the other end of the phone. “What exactly does that mean? The recipe says to get it to softball, but you say don’t let it get to softball. Why do they call it softball anyway?”
Her mom chuckles. “It’s not softball, like the sport. It’s soft ball. It starts at 234 degrees. But don’t let it get to 234. Take it off the burner when the thermometer gets to 233.”
Joan stares at the thermometer in her hand with red liquid in the bottom that will climb up through the thermometer as the temperature rises. “My thermometer doesn’t say 233. It just says softball.” She catches herself. “Soft ball.”
“Just take it off the burner before it reaches soft ball,” her mother says. “You can also test a little bit of it by pouring it into some cold water. If it forms a soft ball in your hand, you know that it’s ready.”
Shaking her head, Joan says, “There’s no way I’m trying that. I don’t even know what that really means. Well, if anything, we can
