There's Cake in My Future (38 page)

So, I pee on the stick and wait three minutes.

Naturally, that means Malika starts pounding on my bathroom door. “Nicole! I need you to pour me milk!”

I look at the stick to see my urine creeping through the white window and the first pink line starting to form. “Can you do it yourself?” I yell to her through the door as I watch and wonder if a second pink line will show up and tell me I’m pregnant.

“I can. But it’s the one-gallon milk, and the last time I did it myself…”

I’ve already raced to my door to open it. “Right. Don’t do that again,” I tell her gently. “I’ll do it for you.”

I quickly head downstairs, pour her some milk, throw the jug back in the fridge, slam the door, then start to head back upstairs.

“Nicole!” Megan yells from upstairs. “I can’t find your ChapStick!”

“Where are you looking?” I yell to her, as I start up the stairway.

“Your bathroom!” Megan yells back.

I pick up my pace and take the stairs two at a time. “Hold on!” I say in a mild panic. “Let me find it for you!”

I run into the bathroom to see Megan holding the stick and looking a bit confused.

“What is this?” she asks me, intrigued.

Crap. We have not talked to the girls yet about siblings. I figured we wouldn’t say anything to them unless something was definite. Otherwise, we’ll either get their hopes or their anxieties up. Either way, why do it? But I can’t lie either. “Um … it’s a pregnancy test.”

“Are two lines good or bad?” Megan asks me.

I smile.

Wow.

“They’re good,” I tell her. “They mean you are going to be a sister again.”

Malika, who has apparently followed me up to the bathroom, starts screaming excitedly. “I get to be a big sister!” I start screaming, too, and she and I dance around the bathroom like idiots.

Megan is smiling, but dignified. “Cool,” she pronounces.

The phone rings. Malika runs to get it while I look at the test.

Two lines, all right. Two very dark pink lines. I look at Megan. “So are you really okay with this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asks.

“Well, a baby changes everything. You might wake up in the middle of the night when the baby cries. You may have to drive around with me doing baby errands. Plus, someone else might hog the TV when you want to watch something.”

“Kind of like what you do for us?” Megan asks me.

I smile. “Indeed.”

Megan shrugs. “Like I said: cool.”

“Nicole’s having a baby!” I hear Malika scream excitedly into the phone.

“No!” I yell, running into the bedroom. “Gimme the phone! Gimme the phone!”

Malika hands me the phone, then dances around the room yelling, “I get to be a big sister!” as I try to talk to her dad. “Honey…”

“You’re pregnant?” Jason asks me in a stunned stupor. “Already?”

“Um…” I stall, not sure how he’s going to react. “Yeah, but I’m really sorry she told you right before the game. I figured I’d tell you tonight when you got home.”

Dead silence on the other end of the line. “Are you okay?” I finally ask.

A moment later, I hear Jason’s choked-up voice. “Yeah.” And a sniffle. “I guess I’m crying.” And then I hear him yell to the locker room, “Nicole’s pregnant! I’m gonna be a dad again!”

And from the other end of the phone I can hear a locker room full of basketball players screaming, “Hooray!”

Fifty

Seema

“You should not be throwing a party in your condition,” Mel says to Nic, as we watch her finish frosting a chocolate cake with gobs of white buttercream.

“Women have been in my condition since … well, since there were women. I’m fine,” Nic insists, as she cleans off a white satin ribbon dangling between the two frosted layers.

Mel hands me a glass of champagne, then pours one for herself.

“You’ve got it straight this time, right?” I ask Nic dubiously, as I take a sip of my champagne.

“I have it straight,” Nic says, irritably. “Mel, you wanted the antique phone, it’s right here. Pull.”

“No, I didn’t want the antique phone,” Mel says as she pulls on a white satin ribbon and pulls out a sterling silver phone charm. “I wanted the passport.”

“But the phone means good news is coming your way,” Nic tells her.

“Not specific enough. I want the passport.”

“Fine,” Nic says, exasperated. She points to a different ribbon. “Passport’s right there.”

Mel yanks out the ribbon.

“Pull gently!” Nic admonishes. “You’re going to get the cake all messy.”

“Better the cake look messy than I get the wrong fortune again!” Mel insists.

“Was it really such a bad fortune?” I ask Mel knowingly.

Mel shyly turns away from me and shrugs. “Fair enough. But I still want the passport this time.”

As Mel carefully pushes the passport charm back in the cake, Nic points to me. “Seema, you want the baby charm, right?”

“Yes!” I say, admittedly uncharacteristically for me.

“It’s right here, under the four o’clock position from the heart cake topper,” Nic tells me.

As I pull out the baby carriage charm ( just to be sure!) Mel asks Nic, “Why do we need a cake topper?”

“It’s just another insurance policy against getting the wrong charms,” Nic says. “Not that we got the wrong charms last time, but this time I want to control my destiny a bit more. Based on the angle of the topper, I can point to each ribbon around the cake and know exactly what charm is hidden inside. Check out this ribbon. That’s mine.”

Mel pulls out a …

Actually, I have no idea. “What is that? An earring?” I ask Nic.

“No, it’s not an earring. It’s a picture frame. It means a future with a happy family.”

Can’t argue with that.

The doorbell rings. “Your guests are here,” Nic says. “Can you guys go greet them while I finish tucking these charms back in?”

“Okay,” Mel says, hopping off a seat in Nic’s kitchen to greet the guests in Nic’s front hallway. “Just remember the passport…”

“One o’clock position. After I place the topper directly in front of Seema!” Nic assures her. “Seema, you’re midnight.”

So an hour later I discover the problem with putting a cake topper on your circular cake as a marker.

If you turn the cake upside down, the cake topper looks exactly the same.

Which means the midnight position becomes the six o’clock position, and the six o’clock position becomes …

“What the Hell?” I blurt out after we have grabbed our white satin loops and pulled.

“No…” Nic groans.

“Okay,” Mel asks, upon seeing her charm. “Can we trade this time?”

ALSO BY KIM GRUENENFELDER

A Total Waste of Makeup

Misery Loves Cabernet

Advance Praise for
There’s Cake in My Future

“Charming, heartwarming, wry, and whimsical. Kim Gruenenfelder is at her very best. This is better than double chocolate fudge cake.”—Beth Kendrick, author of
Second Time Around
and
Nearlyweds

“A delicious read!
There’s Cake in My Future
takes us on a great ride with characters who are easy to love. Funny and touching, Kim Gruenenfelder’s latest is her best book yet! You really can have your cake and read it, too.”—Jennifer Coburn, author of
Tales from the Crib
and
The Wife of Reilly

“Kim Gruenenfelder has done it again! A laugh-out-loud book filled with warmth and insight, and women we can all relate to. This captivating cakewalk is not to be missed.”—Nancy Redd,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Body Drama
and
Diet Drama

“A delightfully witty story about friendship and love,
There’s Cake in My Future
sparkles from start to finish!”—Liz Fenton, coauthor of
I’ll Have Who She’s Having

“With sparkling dialogue and a fun-as-all-get-out story, you’ll want to grab the book, a glass of your favorite something, and settle in for a very happy night.”—Quinn Cummings, author of
Notes from the Underwire

To Brian and Alex—as always

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THERE’S CAKE IN MY FUTURE.
Copyright © 2010 by Kim Gruenenfelder. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gruenenfelder-Smith, Kim.

    There’s cake in my future / Kim Gruenenfelder. — 1st ed.

           p. cm.

    ISBN 978-0-312-61459-1

  1.  Brides—Fiction    2.  Female friendship—Fiction.    3.  Magic—Fiction.    I.  Title.

    PS3607.R72T47 2010

    813'.6—dc22

2010037787

First Edition: January 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-7341-0

First St. Martin’s Griffin eBook Edition: December 2010