—ONE—
November 2007
I was sniffing glue again.
“Ahem.” Kendra delicately cleared her throat as she rounded the stack and caught me in my favorite spot at the Chatsworth Library, the squishy chair in the key-shaped nook. I was now holding the book innocently in my hands, like a normal library-goer. Which I was. Except for my overwhelmingly passionate desire to read books and reread them, hold them, surround myself with them, and yes . . . sometimes even smell them. It wasn’t just the heady scent of glue in the spine. It was also the scent of the pages—timeworn or slicked with new ink—and the old cloth cases, how the linen had aged. The smell of imagination and escape.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kendra had some secret book-adoring practices of her own. At least, I hoped she did. After all, Kendra was the librarian at Chatsworth Elementary School, where I started teaching art last fall.
“I’m going to check this out. You ready, Dodie?” Kendra gestured toward the novel I was holding, A Charmed Life.
“Yep.” With one last longing glance at all the treasures lining the shelves, I followed her to the circulation desk.
Both our phones made the shloomping sound of a new text message. I dug my phone out of my “I Brake for Books” tote, and Kendra and I both gasped as we read our friend Sullivan’s text:
ALL CLEAR! Heading out to Addis Ababa tomorrow. Olive’s in 20?
“She’s really going!” Kendra said.
“This is so exciting!” I clapped my hands. Kendra raised an eyebrow. But how could I not be excited? A baby! Sullivan’s baby!
On our way, I typed back.
Hurry! Have to pack etc . . . plus they just took the cc chip cookies out of the oven!
Twenty minutes later Kendra and I burst through the doors of the café. Sullivan was shaking her head as we sat down. “We missed it?” I cried, my grin fading quickly. “I risked my life and limb for a cookie, and they’re gone?”
“Hey!” Kendra objected. “I wasn’t driving that fast.”
“That’s because I made you slow down.”
“Wasn’t the idea to get here quickly?” Kendra said, smiling in spite of herself.
“Well, you didn’t exactly succeed,” Sullivan pointed out. “But did you really think I wouldn’t have saved you a reward for your efforts?” She handed both of us a wax paper sack. I could feel the warm cookie steaming up the insides. My mouth watered.
“Thank you.”
“You’re the best!”
“I even waited to eat mine,” Sullivan said proudly. I could tell by the tiny streak of chocolate in the corner of her mouth that she hadn’t completely waited . . . but who could blame her? Olive’s straight-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies were legendary—more warm dough than actual cookie, which was just how I (and, apparently, most of the other residents of Chatsworth) liked it. After having caught me licking the beaters all through childhood, my mother always joked that it was no coincidence my nickname, Do, was pronounced the same way.
None of us spoke as we savored the cookies. We got lost in the Madagascar vanilla mixed with heady cinnamon and neon-yellow eggs fresh from the farm blended with deep, almost smoky-tasting chocolate chips. I was drunk on pastry. As I sucked the last bit of melted chocolate off my finger, the world slowly seeped back into focus.
“Okay, tell us everything,” Kendra said as soon as we finished.
“The passport and clearances from the US Embassy finally came through, so I can go back to Ethiopia and bring him here!”
“Congratulations! That’s amazing!” I wiped away a tear. They both looked at me strangely. “It’s just so great.”
Sullivan was my best friend from art school and the reason I now lived in Chatsworth. A little more than two years earlier, she had decided she wanted to be a mother and had started the adoption process. After tons of paperwork and sleepless nights, she had met her son six months ago. The wait since then had been excruciating. Now she could finally bring him home.
“What time is your flight?”
“Ten p.m.”
“Okay, I’ll be by tomorrow morning with a few things.” I had actually devoted a corner of my coat closet to presents for the new baby for the last six months—onesies, blankets, books. The pile was starting to get a little overwhelming.
“Are you ready to be a mother?” Kendra asked.
“I am so ready. Um . . . speaking of mothers, what is mine doing here?” Sullivan asked, looking over our shoulders as Mackie O’Reilly made her way over.
“Surprise! I had a feeling I might find you girls here. I’m taking you shopping, Sullivan.” Mackie’s sparkling venetian-blue eyes and heart-shaped face hinted at the youthful beauty she had maintained through the years.
Sullivan got up and flashed us a grin. “Sorry, ladies; Gramma calls.”
“Of course,” Kendra said, hugging Sullivan goodbye. “Safe travels!”
“I’m so happy for you. Can’t wait to meet him.”
“Thanks, Do,” she said. “I’ll keep you guys posted.”
“Want to split a scone?” I asked Kendra when they were gone.
“Sure. Pumpkin caramel?”
“Why not?”
On the other side of the café, a young mother was strapping her daughter into a stroller. The little girl had a tiny pink bow in her hair, a ruffled dress, and a grin from ear to ear. The mother plopped a kiss on her forehead. Her husband handed her a coffee.
“Wouldn’t you like to be that lady right now? Or Sullivan?” I said dreamily. How could anyone not adore babies? With their lovely-smelling skin and their little heads covered with baby-bird fuzz, those dimples denting chubby cheeks, their hiccupy laughs. I had never felt in any rush to get married; I really wanted to be with the right person when that happened. (A good thing, too, since my dating life in Chatsworth had pretty much been nonexistent.) The urge for a baby of my own was like a thirst, though. At thirty-two, I still had time. But I had always envisioned myself married, with at least one child by now, instead of going on a year and a half without a date. And even that one had sucked.
Because our family was small and I hadn’t had much chance to be around babies growing up, I started babysitting as soon as I was old enough. In fact, I had spent so much time taking care of little ones that by the time I graduated from high school, the money I’d saved up almost covered my first semester of art school. The year after I graduated from college, I worked as an au pair for a family in a suburb of Paris with their adorable Zen-like baby and their three-year-old, who looked like someone out of Madeline and acted as sassy as Matilda. But that was more than five years ago, and none of my friends and neither of my sisters had kids yet, so I was at a serious baby-cuddling deficit.
Kendra shook her head vehemently, waking me out of my daydream. “Nope. Uh-uh.”
“You mean not right now,” I clarified.
“I don’t ever want to have kids.”
“You just feel that way because you haven’t met the right person yet.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t want to have a baby. Once I find that right person, I want to be able to be selfish. I want to stay in bed every weekend until noon.” She grinned wickedly. “When we finally do get out of bed, I want to be able to let my Sunday—or whatever day—take me where it will, without having to repeat the same routine over and over again. And when our currently nonexistent but future fabulously rich friends invite us to spend an impromptu weekend on their yacht in the south of where-the-hell-ever, I want to be able to pack my passport and a bathing suit and go.”