“Or Anne Marie. Or Cindy. Something that didn’t start with a P. I think we have enough P’s by now, don’t you?”
She waited for my noncommittal murmur before she continued, “But Peter said that since we’d started, and all the others have P-names, this one should, too.”
“Poppy is a pretty name.”
“It’s better than Pippa,” Jill said darkly, by which I guessed that Pippa might have been the front-runner in Peter’s mind.
“Are you ready?”
Jill turned to Derek, who had asked the question. “We’ve been through it three times already. By now it’s just another trip to the hospital.”
Just another trip to the hospital, like just another trip to the grocery store—except instead of cereal and milk, you came home with a baby. “You’ll let us know if there’s anything we can do, right?”
“Sure,” Jill said, “but my parents are taking the kids,and my mom will be around after the baby comes. And Peter’s mom will come up from Boston to spend a couple of weeks, too. We’re all set.”
“You’ll let us know when it happens, though, won’t you? Derek’s right, you do look like you’re about to pop.”
“Any day now,” Jill confirmed. “My due date is in just over a week, but sometimes they come early.”
“Did the others?”
She shook her head. “Paul was a day late. Petey was two days late. Pamela was right on time. With that in mind, it sounds like Poppy might be early.”
She put her hands against the table and levered herself up to her feet, wincing, as the cashier waved to let her know her take-out order was ready to go. It took her a second to find her center of gravity once she was upright. “I’ll make sure Peter calls you when it’s time. It won’t be too much longer, I think. Or so I hope anyway.”
She waddled over to the cashier and then out the door with her lobster rolls. On her way back to the auto shop with lunch for her husband, I assumed.
“She looks great,” Derek said.
“For being the size of a small house, you mean?”
He grinned. “For being pregnant. Pregnancy agrees with her. Makes her glow.”
Good thing, too, as many times as she’d been through it. Counting back in my head, I calculated that Jill had been expecting babies for thirty-six out of the past seventy-two months. Wow.
“You ready to get outta here and back to work?”
I nodded. “We’re going to the lumber depot, right? To look at kitchen cabinets?”
“Fine with me,” Derek said. “On our way back to the truck, let’s go by way of the hardware store and pick up some paint samples.”
I nodded.
And regretted it as soon as we turned from the little side street where Derek’s favorite deli is located, onto Main Street.
Waterfield’s main drag is a turn-of-the-last-century construction: three blocks full of two- and three-story red brick Victorian commercial buildings starting at the harbor and going inland. There are businesses, shops, and restaurants on the first floors of the buildings, and offices, storage, and sometimes living space up above. The hardware store was about halfway down the street, in a two-story building. The second floor is a loft: Derek’s loft, to be precise. And directly across the street from it is another loft, one that belongs to Derek’s ex-wife. She’d bought it after she sold the McMansion she and Ray Stenham had shared, some seven or eight months ago now. Ostensibly, the reason was to be closer to work—the offices of Waterfield Realty are also on Main Street—but I’d always suspected she did it at least partly because she knew it would annoy me. Or maybe that’s just my paranoia rearing its ugly head.
Anyway, when we turned the corner onto Main Street, there she was, on her way up the sidewalk in our direction, looking like the proverbial million bucks.
The first time I met Melissa James, she knocked on the door of Aunt Inga’s house to introduce herself and to tell me she could sell the house for me. Aunt Inga had been
She waited for my noncommittal murmur before she continued, “But Peter said that since we’d started, and all the others have P-names, this one should, too.”
“Poppy is a pretty name.”
“It’s better than Pippa,” Jill said darkly, by which I guessed that Pippa might have been the front-runner in Peter’s mind.
“Are you ready?”
Jill turned to Derek, who had asked the question. “We’ve been through it three times already. By now it’s just another trip to the hospital.”
Just another trip to the hospital, like just another trip to the grocery store—except instead of cereal and milk, you came home with a baby. “You’ll let us know if there’s anything we can do, right?”
“Sure,” Jill said, “but my parents are taking the kids,and my mom will be around after the baby comes. And Peter’s mom will come up from Boston to spend a couple of weeks, too. We’re all set.”
“You’ll let us know when it happens, though, won’t you? Derek’s right, you do look like you’re about to pop.”
“Any day now,” Jill confirmed. “My due date is in just over a week, but sometimes they come early.”
“Did the others?”
She shook her head. “Paul was a day late. Petey was two days late. Pamela was right on time. With that in mind, it sounds like Poppy might be early.”
She put her hands against the table and levered herself up to her feet, wincing, as the cashier waved to let her know her take-out order was ready to go. It took her a second to find her center of gravity once she was upright. “I’ll make sure Peter calls you when it’s time. It won’t be too much longer, I think. Or so I hope anyway.”
She waddled over to the cashier and then out the door with her lobster rolls. On her way back to the auto shop with lunch for her husband, I assumed.
“She looks great,” Derek said.
“For being the size of a small house, you mean?”
He grinned. “For being pregnant. Pregnancy agrees with her. Makes her glow.”
Good thing, too, as many times as she’d been through it. Counting back in my head, I calculated that Jill had been expecting babies for thirty-six out of the past seventy-two months. Wow.
“You ready to get outta here and back to work?”
I nodded. “We’re going to the lumber depot, right? To look at kitchen cabinets?”
“Fine with me,” Derek said. “On our way back to the truck, let’s go by way of the hardware store and pick up some paint samples.”
I nodded.
And regretted it as soon as we turned from the little side street where Derek’s favorite deli is located, onto Main Street.
Waterfield’s main drag is a turn-of-the-last-century construction: three blocks full of two- and three-story red brick Victorian commercial buildings starting at the harbor and going inland. There are businesses, shops, and restaurants on the first floors of the buildings, and offices, storage, and sometimes living space up above. The hardware store was about halfway down the street, in a two-story building. The second floor is a loft: Derek’s loft, to be precise. And directly across the street from it is another loft, one that belongs to Derek’s ex-wife. She’d bought it after she sold the McMansion she and Ray Stenham had shared, some seven or eight months ago now. Ostensibly, the reason was to be closer to work—the offices of Waterfield Realty are also on Main Street—but I’d always suspected she did it at least partly because she knew it would annoy me. Or maybe that’s just my paranoia rearing its ugly head.
Anyway, when we turned the corner onto Main Street, there she was, on her way up the sidewalk in our direction, looking like the proverbial million bucks.
The first time I met Melissa James, she knocked on the door of Aunt Inga’s house to introduce herself and to tell me she could sell the house for me. Aunt Inga had been
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