The Search Angel by Tish Cohen

knocked you off your feet?”
    “Grab me one of those nursing pillows, would you?” says Ginny, pointing to a pile of cushions and toys. “My head is going to explode.”
    Eleanor hands her a faded denim croissant-shaped cushion.
    “No. Hold it above me.”
    Eleanor hooks her empty mug in one finger and holds up the pillow. “Like this?”
    “Just press it over my face and hold it down until I stop writhing.”
    “That’s it. I’ll threaten him this time.”
    Ginny struggles to her feet. “Don’t say it’s because of me!”
    Eleanor marches into the break room and sets about making a fresh pot of coffee. “Honestly, Ginny. What do you care what he thinks?”
    “Did you see the guy? He’s gorgeous. Even his name is gorgeous. Noel. Who’s named Noel these days?” Ginny drops into a chair at the table.
    “Well. Simmer down. You’re married. With children.”
    “The headaches aren’t my usual. These don’t start out like typical migraines—no blurry vision or anything. This pain just slams me out of nowhere.”
    “You don’t think …”
    “What? It’s a tumor? That’s a nice suggestion.”
    “No. I just wonder.” Eleanor waves toward Ginny’s midsection as she pours two cups of coffee. “You know. Whether you’re all … babied up again.”
    “There is no way I’m pregnant.”
    As Ginny reaches for the mug, Eleanor says, “Maybe you shouldn’t drink that until you know for sure.”
    Ginny cradles the mug to her chest. Her eyes search the wallpaper for confirmation, but the suggestions of fertility and pastoral bliss do nothing to help. “It isn’t even possible. We never even had time to look at each other, let alone—” Ginny stops, closes her eyes. “Oh no.”
    “What?”
    “Shit.”
    “What?”
    “One night. There was one night, we had time. Mother of God, it cannot be happening again. It cannot. It cannot. It cannot.”
    It would be the worst timing of all Ginny’s pregnancies. Eleanor’s assistant does not suffer pregnancies well. She grows as big as a delivery van and the nausea lasts clear into the third trimester. Sylvie is coming and Eleanor will be alone. She’ll need Ginny more than ever.
    Without a word, Eleanor grabs a Oui ou Non pregnancy kit from the table Ginny recently labeled
Oops, I did it again
. Testing is a waste of time. Ginny is pregnant again, Eleanor can feel it in her left shoulder. In a few weeks, she’ll be complaining about the fizzy feeling in her abdomen; no woman seems to be able to feel her baby’s squirming as early as Ginny Hardwell. Feels like drinking toomuch 7UP and having the bubbles trickle up through your core, she’ll say.
    Eleanor drops the pregnancy stick into Ginny’s lap. “I’m going next door. What’d you bring in your lunch? Anything sweet? Dessert-like?”
    “A pecan-raisin butter tart, that’s your threat?”
    “I’m going to kill the guy with kindness.” Eleanor shrugs as she opens the door to go. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll use my teeth.”
    “Tell him I say hi!” Ginny calls, ripping open the package and heading for the bathroom.
    In the Death by Vinyl entryway, Eleanor stands face to face with a dusty brown ten-foot Sasquatch figure with a hockey mask for a face. A sign hangs crookedly from a chain around his hairy neck: go away. Nice. Good for business. In one of the creature’s lifeless hands, being held by a foot, is a baby doll in a nautical playsuit. Behind Bigfoot are panels of chain-link fencing that separate the cash area from any customer foolish enough to believe the owner is remotely interested in trading merchandise for something as banal as cold hard cash.
    In her hand is Ginny’s dessert, wrapped in a pretty blue napkin. Not that she’ll come right out and say the tart is homemade, but she did go to the effort of removing the Auntie Jane’s Bakery packaging with its line drawing of a country cottage. Mass-produced baked goods—even those depicting curls of smoke coming from Auntie