Page 3 of Salty Pickle

I lower my voice. “I mean, it only takes five, right?” I plaster on the same smile I did at my yoga studio when the questions came about my growing belly.

Of course, at that point, April and Summer were planning to be the other two moms.We would raise the baby in love and sunshine and unbridled femininity. Make flower crowns from the meadow. Swim naked in the rivers.

But April got a chef internship in France.

Then Summer met a guy and eloped to Vegas, of all the horrible places, full of unnecessary electricity and poor decisions.

And that left me and Matilda to raise the baby.

The man shifts next to me, probably uncomfortable with my situation,or mydefamation of male performance, or both.Whatever. I don’t care what he thinks.

I shouldn’t, right? Sometimes a girl gets in a situation.

But this guy was something. Tall. Gorgeous. I wasn’t looking for a future.

I got one, though.

The woman tugs out a handkerchief and waves itas ifI havebadjuju she should ward off. Or maybe Matilda is pooping in her wrap. “Are you headed to the financial district? In the middle of the workday? With thatthing?”

Here we go again. “Matilda is not a thing.”

“Nownow,” the man says. “Don’t be mean to the girl. She’s obviously in a real pickle.”

Funny he should say that. Pickle Media is the name of the company I found when I looked up the man I got dared into flirting with eight months ago.

I check Matilda’s diaper wrap. Yep. Poop. Great. Now she needs both milking and a clean-up.

The woman stands as the car slows, tucking her dog under her arm. “Thank God this is my stop.”

The man chuckles and pulls himself up by the silver pole. Apparently, it’s his stop, too. “Good luck. If you start selling goat cheese in the city, look me up. Stanley’s Emporium.”

“You’re Stanley?”

“The one and only.” He laughs. “Among the Stanleys in New York.” The door opens, and he moves toward it.

I study the map on the wall and count the stops until I’m in range of Wall Street. Six. I feel a tickle on my feet and look down to see Matilda chewing on the strap of my shoe.

“No, no, baby.” She nibbles when she’s nervous. I tuck my feet under the bench, but she’s eaten halfway through the strap. I’ll fix it later.

The car lurches forward. I tighten mygutas much as I can with an eight-month pregnantbellyto avoid tilting into the teen girl who has plopped down next to me.

I guess I do stick out here in my socks and sandals, the elastic of mycolorful paisley skirt pulled up over my belly so it’ll fit, and my choppy self-cut hair. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’m having a baby in a month. April and Summer are gone, along with their car and cell phone. My job at the yoga center is on hiatus, with no more access to running water and a bathroom since I handed in my key to the building.

I’m at my last resort.

And believe me, if Court Armstrong is even close to as brooding and salty as I remember, he’s absolutely the last resort.

2

COURT

Literally nobody at Pickle Media likes their job.

I stare at the summary of this quarter’s performance reviews and wonder how the hell I’m going to forward them to Uncle Sherman.

After last quarter’s fell dramatically, I assumed something was wrong with the supervisors conducting the reviews and hired an outside firm.

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