What The Nursery Needs.... Terry Essig

      Chapter Three

      Catherine thought of little else but her new neighbor for the next two days. It didn’t really affect her work. She could sort baby things in her sleep. Someone brought in a pair of little booties crocheted to look like brown-and-white saddle shoes complete with baby blue socks, and a second pair that looked like Mary Janes also having the sock crocheted right into the pattern. They were too cute to sell. Catherine paid the woman two bucks a pair and brought them home with her Thursday after she closed the shop. She put them up in the spare bedroom with the still-unassembled “heirloom” crib. Then she called her sister.

      “Monica? Hi, it’s Cath. I’ve been thinking. Since my next-door neighbor seems to have taken over this trip to the mall and claimed driving privileges before I could open my mouth, maybe it would be best if Amy stayed overnight tomorrow night. What do you think?”

      “Sounds like fun. Don’s got some kind of business function that’ll probably last till late. Maybe I’ll come, too, but just for the evening. We could order in pizza and rent a chick flick, just the three of us. You don’t think Amy’s too young for a girls’ night out, do you?”

      “Depends on the flick we pick.”

      There was a thoughtful pause. “Yeah. Well, we’ll be careful, that’s all.” Monica cleared her throat delicately. “Uh, Cath, I’ve been doing a little investigating for you.”

      Catherine closed her eyes and leaned against the kitchen wall for support. “No. Tell me you haven’t been out there asking obvious questions and embarrassing me. Monica, how could you?”

      “Take it easy, I didn’t use your name. I said it was for a friend.”

      “Oh, yeah, right. We’ve only lived here forever. Anybody you asked knows me and is going to put two and two together real quick.”

      “Will you stop? What’s done is done. Now just listen to what I’ve found out. Cath?”

      “What?” Catherine concentrated on opening a can of soup. She poured it into a bowl and stuck the bowl in the microwave. She remembered to take the spoon out at the last second.

      “I really wish you’d at least consider waiting a bit longer, see if there’s a chance of things working out with the new next-door neighbor or somebody else before, you know, you go do the other thing.”

      Catherine took her soup out of the microwave and stirred it a bit. “You mean before I go to the sperm bank?”

      “Yes. The information I got isn’t complete, you know, because I was being so subtle and everything, but what it boils down to is there are a few things we failed to consider the other night when we were talking about this.”

      Catherine retrieved the bowl of soup and carefully sipped a spoonful. “Like what?”

      “Your ob-gyn is the one who would know where the closest sperm bank is. In fact, you’d probably have to get a referral from him, I bet. At least that’s what Alice Moran thought.”

      “Oh, God, you weren’t talking to Alice about this, were you? Tell me you didn’t do that to me.”

      “Yes, I did, and I can’t unask her, so cool it and think about what she said. It makes sense.”

      Catherine forgot to blow on the next spoonful in her agitation and ended up burning her mouth. “Oh, damn,” she moaned. “Monica, I’ve been going to him for years. He knows I’m not married. What’s he going to think?”

      “That you want a baby. Come on, Catherine, even if you go the live male route, you’re still going to have to get prenatal care. He’s going to figure it out either way. I’m telling you, if you stick to doing things the way you’re talking about, there’s a lot of this kind of thing you’re going to be faced with.”

      Catherine slumped over the countertop. “Oh, God. This is all getting to be too much. I had planned to find a place where nobody knew me and I didn’t know anybody and have it done, I don’t know—anonymously.”

      “I get the feeling that if you want to be anonymous about this, you’re going to have to wear a bag over your head,” Monica warned.

      Catherine poured the rest of the soup down the disposal, unable to finish it now. Well, she’d known the sperm bank approach would be clinical and unromantic. But then again, there wasn’t much romantic about finding out your fiancé was two-timing you, either. So she’d cope with the embarrassment. There was no viable alternative as far as she was concerned. “I’ll think about it,” she said, knowing she wouldn’t

      “That’s all I ask. We’ll come by around six-thirty tomorrow night, okay? That should give you just enough time to get home. I’ll order the pizza on my way out the door so you’ll have time to change before it gets there.”

      “Fine. Thanks.”

      “See you then.”

      Catherine hung up the phone feeling disgruntled and put upon. Man, this simple little project—having a baby—was starting to develop a life of its own and turn ugly on her. How was she ever going to work up the courage to do this?

      “I’ll pick up some paint Saturday afternoon after we’re back from the mall,” she told herself as she rinsed out her soup bowl. “Yellow. That can go either way, boy or girl. I’ll paint the nursery and set up the crib. That’ll make it more real and give me courage.”

      With that, she turned out the lights and went upstairs to run her hand along the beautiful canopy crib leaning against one of the walls. Then she took out the Mary Jane booties and studied them for several minutes. Baby things. Her baby’s things. Her up-until-she-did-something-about-it, nonexistent baby’s things.

      She went to bed, exhausted.

      Amy and Monica showed up promptly at six-thirty the next night, the pizza man on their heels.

      “Well, you two certainly didn’t waste any time getting here.”

      “Heck no, we’re starved,” Amy informed her aunt. “We got a bag of baby carrots at the store and some crackers with spinach dip. Mom says we have to have more vegetables than just the tomato sauce on the pizza.”

      “Sounds reasonable, I guess.”

      “Did Maura call yet?”

      Catherine’s brows rose. “No, are we expecting her to?”

      Amy shrugged out of her windbreaker and dropped it on the floor by the kitchen door next to her sleeping bag and a plastic bag with her pillow and overnight stuff. “Well, yeah. I happened to mention that Mom and I were coming over here, and she was going to see if her dad would let her come over for the pizza and movie part and then maybe even sleep over, if it’s okay with you. You always fall asleep so early, Aunt Cath, you know you do.”

      Catherine glanced at her sister. “Did she just tell me that I’m getting old?”

      Monica shrugged and set the pizza she’d taken from the delivery boy on the kitchen countertop. “You already knew it, anyway, Cath. Isn’t that why you decided on an alternate route to your goal?”

      “I know, but—”

      “Pick up your coat, Amy. You dropped it on the floor right underneath the hook where it’s supposed to be hung. How much extra time would it have taken to put it where it belonged instead of on the floor where someone will step on it...and right after I just washed it?”

      “Don’t