Bundle of Joy? by Ariella Papa Page B

smiling.
    “Am I going to be an aunt or what?” Ana yelled. She had interrogated Maura and gotten the information she wanted.
    Then Crystal chimed in with, “I was once certain I had chlamydia based on my discharge, but luckily it was a yeast infection. It was before I came out.”
    I heard Mike say that there was another bathroom downstairs.
    I panicked. Jamie was already too invested in this. Raj had tried to be the voice of reason, but what if it was negative? Wewere all there. Raj, me, Maura. And then I got a little sad: her mother was there. Regardless of the outcome and whether or not she knew it, Jamie was going to be okay because she had so much support.
    “Okay, it’s time,” Jamie said. Her left eye twitched the way it did whenever she was nervous. “Voul, I don’t know if I can look. Can you do it?”
    “Okay,” I said. I picked up the stick that my best friend had just peed on. This was a true test of friendship.
    I stared at the little window, unsurprised by what it showed. I looked up at Jamie; I didn’t have to say anything.
    “No,” she said, her voice soft and incredulous-sounding. She took the stick from my hand and looked for herself.
    I held onto her wrist.
    “I can’t believe it,” she said.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, stupidly.
    “What’s going on in there?” Maura asked, banging on the door again.
    “I just don’t get it,” Jamie said. She looked at the stick again, as if she was hoping the results would be different. “My temperature was up. According to everything I read, it means I should be—”
    Jamie had always been good at making everything seem okay for me. I wanted to make this seem okay for her. I wanted to be there for her.
    “We’ll be out in a minute,” I yelled toward the door, to Raj and her family, who still had hope. I pried the test from Jamie’s hand, wrapped it in toilet paper and buried it at the bottom of the trashcan.
    Jamie didn’t look like she was ready to leave the bathroom, so I sat down, with my back against the door, and looked up at her.
    “What?” she said.
    “Nothing. I was just trying to think of the right things to say.”
    “Yeah? What did you come up with?”
    “‘Don’t worry, Tiger, you’ll get ’em next time’?” I said.
    She looked at me, and for a second I thought she was going to cry. But she started laughing. And it wasn’t one of those “oh, you don’t understand” laughs. This was a real laugh, a Jamie laugh.

8
    I got home late Monday night after three days with the Jacobses. I loved hanging out with them, but after three days of Trivial Pursuit, getting drunk in the sun, and taking hesitant bike rides, I was ready again for my own space and my own schedule. The Jacobses seemed to thrive on pretending they had a dysfunctional family. But they wore their quirks like a badge of honor. However much they labeled Ana as the paranoid one or Mike as the snob, they loved it. They loved being a part of their own little Jacobs group, but although they considered me a part of the family, I wasn’t. It was something I was always conscious of when I was with them.
    The music was blaring when I opened the door. In my living room I found a cosmopolitan crew of people who worked at Armando’s restaurant. I winced as I spotted the chef cooking stuff up on our stove. I had spent the weekend trying to avoid being by the barbecue grill. Fires still scared me.
    “Voula,” Armando said, getting up and sending Nadia tumbling off his lap. “Howah you, bella? ”
    “Fine,” I said, looking around at the well-dressed group. Ididn’t like feeling out of place in my own apartment. “Looks like you’re having a party.”
    “Yes, nothing big, little come-together.”
    I smiled. It was always funny hearing Armando use expressions that he hadn’t quite mastered.
    “Pino is making some pasta. You must have some wine.”
    That was all I had been drinking with Jamie. Once she got her period she started drowning her sorrows in