“But Trina loves barbecue!”
“Can y’all please stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Trina says. “I do love barbecue. And can we do Mason jars?”
I’m expecting Kitty to denigrate Mason jars again, but she doesn’t say anything of the sort. She says, “What do we think about edible flowers in the drinks?” I’m pretty sure that was one of my ideas that she just stole.
Trina does a shimmy in her seat. “Yes! I love it!”
I’m quick to add, “We could do a nice punch bowl and float some flowers on top.”
Kristen gives me an approving look.
Bolstered, I grandly say, “And as for the cakes, we’ll need a wedding cake and a groom’s cake.”
“Do we really need two cakes?” Trina asks, chewing on her nail. “There won’t be that many people there.”
“This is the South; we have to have a groom’s cake. For yours I was thinking yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.” Trina beams at me. That’s her favorite kind of cake, just plain. Not exactly exciting to bake, but it’s her favorite. “For Daddy’s, I was thinking . . . a Thin Mint cake! Chocolate cake with mint frosting, but with Thin Mints crumbled on top.” I have such a vision for this cake.
This time Kitty’s the one to give me an approving nod. I feel more in my element then I have in weeks.
17
KITTY’S MIXING NAIL-POLISH COLORS ON a paper plate while I’m looking up “celebrity updos” for Trina’s wedding hair. I’m lying on the couch, with pillows propped up behind me, and she is on the floor, with nail-polish bottles all around her. Suddenly she asks me, “Have you ever thought about, like, what if Daddy and Trina have a baby and it looks like Daddy?”
Kitty thinks of all sorts of things that would never have occurred to me. I hadn’t once thought of that—that they might have a baby or that this pretend baby wouldn’t look like us. The baby would be all Daddy and Trina. No one would have to wonder whose child he was or calculate who belongs to who. They’d just assume.
“But they’re both so old,” I say.
“Trina’s forty-three. You can get pregnant at forty-three. Maddie’s mom just had a baby and she’s forty-three.”
“True . . .”
“What if it’s a boy?”
Daddy with a son. It’s a startling thought. He’s not exactly sporty, not in a traditional male sense. I mean, he likes to go biking and he plays doubles tennis in the spring. But I’m sure there are things he’d want to do with a son that he doesn’t do with us because no one’s interested. Fishing, maybe? Football he doesn’t care about. Trina cares more than he does.
When my mom was pregnant with Kitty, Margot wanted another sister but I wanted a boy. The Song girls and their baby brother. It would be nice to get that baby brother after all. Especially since I won’t be at home and have to hear it crying in the middle of the night. I’ll just get to buy the baby little shearling booties and sweaters with red foxes or bunnies.
“If they named him Tate, we could call him Tater Tot,” I muse.
Two red blotches appear on Kitty’s cheeks, and just like that, she looks as young as I always picture her in my head: a little kid. “I don’t want them to have another baby. If they have a baby, I’ll be in the middle. I’ll be nothing.”
“Hey!” I object. “I’m in the middle now!”
“Margot’s oldest and smartest, and you’re the prettiest.” I’m the prettiest?? Kitty thinks I’m the prettiest? I try not to look too happy, because she’s still talking. “I’m only the youngest. If they have a baby, I won’t even be that.”
I put down my computer. “Kitty, you’re a lot more than the youngest Song girl. You’re the wild Song girl. The mean one. The spiky one.” Kitty’s pursing her lips, trying not to smile at this. I add, “And no matter what, Trina loves you; she’ll always love you, even if she did have a baby which I don’t think she will.” I stop. “Wait, did you mean it when you said I was the prettiest?”
“No, I take it back. I’ll probably be the prettiest by the time I get to high school. You can be the nicest.” I leap off the couch and grab her by the shoulders like I’m going to shake her, and she giggles.
“I don’t want to be the nicest,” I say.
“You are, though.” She says it not like an insult, but not exactly like a compliment. “What do you wish you had of mine?”
“Your nerve.”
“What else?”
“Your nose. You have a little nubbin of a nose.” I tap it. “What about me?”
Kitty shrugs. “I don’t know.” Then she cracks up, and I shake her by the shoulders.
I’m still thinking about it later that evening. I hadn’t thought of Daddy and Trina having a baby. But Trina doesn’t have any children, just her “fur baby” golden retriever Simone. She might want a baby of her own. And Daddy’s never said so, but is there a chance he’d want to try one more time for a son? The baby would be eighteen years younger than me. What a strange thought. And even stranger still: I’m old enough to have a baby of my own.
What would Peter and I do if I got pregnant? I can’t even picture what would happen. All I can see is the look on Daddy’s face when I tell him the news, and that’s about as far as I get.
* * *
The next morning, on the way to school in Peter’s car, I steal a look at his profile. “I like how you’re so smooth,” I say. “Like a baby.”
“I could grow a beard if I wanted to,” he says, touching his chin. “A thick one.”
Fondly I say, “No, you couldn’t. But maybe one day, when you’re a man.”
He frowns. “I am a man. I’m eighteen!”
I scoff, “You don’t even pack your own lunches. Do you even know how to do laundry?”
“I’m a man in all the ways that count,” he boasts, and I roll my eyes.
“What would you do if you were drafted to go to war?” I ask.
“Uh . . . aren’t college kids given a pass on that? Does the draft even still exist?”
I don’t know the answers to either of these questions, so I barrel forward. “What would you do if I got pregnant right now?”
“Lara Jean, we’re not even having sex. That would be the immaculate conception.”
“If we were?” I press.
He groans. “You and your questions! I don’t know. How could I know what I would do?”
“What do you think you would do?”
Peter doesn’t hesitate. “Whatever you wanted to do.”
“Wouldn’t you want to decide together?” I’m testing him—for what, I don’t know.
“I’m not the one who has to carry it. It’s your body, not mine.”
His answer pleases me, but still I keep going. “What if I said . . . let’s have the baby and get married?”
Again Peter doesn’t hesitate. “I’d say sure. Yeah!”
Now I’m the one frowning. “ ‘Sure’? Just like that? The biggest decision of your life and you just say sure?”