But they didn't have to ask me to come to the mall with them, and they did. I buy us all Cinnabons before the shopping begins, and they are amazing. If Theo blows me off again, he should probably try giving me a Cinnabon instead of an apology.
Josey's going over her shopping list. “Pencil skirt, blazer, button-down,” she says. “Basically I'm playing dress up as my Aunt Annie.” She points at Theo with her pen. “What do you need?”
“Pants without holes in them.”
“Tay?”
“Absolutely anything that isn't a bridesmaid's dress or a floral arrangement,” I say.
“How about a mini crab cake?” Theo says. “Or a string quartet?”
“Oh my God, shut up.”
“I would absolutely buy a string quartet,” Josey says. “If there were a store for that, I would spend my entire clothing budget on a string quartet.”
“What would you do with them?” I say.
“Just have them follow me around all day. Announcing my presence when I enter a room.”
“You'd be like a supervillian with theme music,” Theo says. “But violin theme music.”
“I'm a really classy supervillian,” she says.
Boy clothes are pretty much the easiest thing ever; Theo doesn't even try anything on, just grabs a pair of pants and we're on to Josey. We go to a department store and go through the sale rack while Theo browses the nearby jewelry counter for something for his mother's birthday. (Josey and I, it turns out, have birthdays a week and a half apart in July. Good luck, Theo.) “Sisters,” Josey and I say in unison when the dressing room attendant tries to stop us from going into a room together. She backs off. Always worked with Aanya, too, so apparently I can pass for the sister of both a white girl and an Indian girl. Good to know.
I look through the clothes Josey brought in. “Are you actually this size?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I hate you,” I say. “I hate you so hard.”
She laughs. “Yeah, all I need is your boobs and I'd have a great body.” She strips down and pulls on her first skirt. It sticks on her hips and she fusses with the zipper.
“Maybe not actually that size,” I suggest.
“Mm. Maybe not.”
“Holiday weight,” I say. “Happens to everyone. I think I have subcutaneous cheesecake from Aanya's house.”
“Nah, it's not that,” she says. She pulls off the skirt. “Okay, we'll get that in a size up and grab the shirts as-is.”
“You don't want to try them on?”
“No, we should talk. C'mon.”
We go to the register and start to check out. Theo wanders over. “Any luck?” he says.
“No,” she says, “I'm just paying for the honor of using their dressing rooms.”
“You are classy,” he says.
“How about you?”
“No,” he says. “Nothing sparkly enough.”
“I don't know why you only buy people jewelry that hurts their eyes,” she says.
“Oh my God,” I say. “He does do that. He absolutely does that.”
“Well, no more presents for you two, then.”
Josey takes her bag from the saleslady and we start walking towards the shoe section, where I mentioned earlier I wanted to see if I could find anything that fits my minivan-sized feet. We do the little dance everyone always does in shoe stores, touching everything like we've never seen shoes before, poking ourselves with the stiletto heels, making the hiking boots walk across the padded benches.
“Okay, so,” Josey says, abruptly. “I'm pregnant.”
I drop my shoe. Theo sets his down gently.
“Holy crap,” I say.
She sits down on one of the benches, shrugs. “I guess.”
“Are you okay?” Theo says.
“Yeah. I haven't thrown up, which is cool. Just missed a period, took a test last night.”
“So this whole time you've just been...pregnant,” I say.
“What whole time?”
“Today,” I say. “We're like, eating Cinnabons and shopping and you're just pregnant.” I sound so stupid, I know it, but...she looks the same.
“Technically I've been pregnant for about a week and a half,” she says. “So the weight gain is less baby weight and more ohhh so this is why I've been shoveling fried rice down my throat.”
Theo sits down next to her. “Okay,” he says.
“Let's not make this a huge deal, y'know?” She says. “There's a reason I'm fine with doing this in a shoe department.”
“How is this not a huge deal?” I say.
“It's just...a medical condition,” she says. “It's like bronchitis or something. I go to a doctor, I get it taken care of, I move on with my life.”
“So you're still good with what we talked about?” Theo says.
She nods, then says to me, “Yeah, before we started...you know me, I made him sit down and have some discussion about what we'd do if I got pregnant or broke his penis.”
“That can happen,” Theo says. “They just snap in half.”
I can't believe they're joking right now. I know that we joke all the time, that we're just one-upping each other constantly, that that's how we talk. But I can't believe they're doing it now.
I can't believe we're acting like ourselves, right at this moment.
“You okay?” Josey says to me.
“Of course,” I say. “This isn't about me.”
“It's not not about you,” she says.
“You guys had this discussion,” I say. “You were prepared for this. It's not about me.”
She says, “This is an inconvenient time to be Catholic, I guess.”
“Can we not do that?”
“Sorry.”
A
