Page 8 of Unexpectingly Happily Ever After

Brit Spears–she dropped the ’ney in the 90s when the other Britney Spears became famous–and I have been friends since ninth-grade gym class where we discovered that it was easy to get out of playing basketball with a well-timed groan about our “monthly friend” while holding our stomach.

I’ve never been one for sports.

The two of us are now well into our twenty-seventh year of friendship, enduring her parents’ divorce, my mother, her stepmother, Brit’s three weddings and subsequent divorces, and my pregnancy and resulting three children. I still love her, but she can be a bitch sometimes.

The cry of the baby sends Morgan running out of the room.

″No more talk about kids tonight,” Brit says, waving a forkful of tart through the air. A pastry flake drops onto her blouse. “That’s all you seem to talk about these days. You need a life, Casey!”

I’ve lost track of how often Brit has told me that.

″I have a life, Brit. And my kids are a big part of it, which you’d understand if you had kids.” And pretended to be a better friend, I add silently.

″Do you blame me? After watching what you went through during your pregnancy? And you?” Brit turns to Morgan, who has returned with Carson.

″What did I do?” Morgan asked as she settles onto the couch. Without even asking, she hands me Carson.

″Hello, pretty baby,” I coo, full of smiles. Carson reaches out and grabs a fistful of my red hair. Morgan hands me a warm bottle and as I offer it to the baby, her blue eyes blink sleepily at me. I tuck her closer and Morgan covers her with a blanket.

There’s nothing better than holding a warm little body in your arms.

″This.” Brit waves her arms. The baby has distracted me and I have no idea what Brit is upset about. “The two of you are baby crazy. Still!”

Ah, yes. Her usual rant.

″For you, Morgan, to willingly go through all this without a husband…” Brit shakes her blond hair, still so full and lush from her blowout two days ago. “I really don’t understand.”

″How do you get your hair to stay so nice?” I ask as I idly stroke Carson’s foot. Baby feet are the cutest things ever. Her toes are tucked into the yellow onesie I gave her, passed down from Lucy. “There’s no way my hair would stay that way after a day, let alone two.”

″You have difficult hair,” Brit says with a smug smile.

Imeet Morgan’s gaze and hide my smile. Attack averted. Every time we get together these days, Brit doesn’t hesitate in expressing her displeasure at the fact Morgan and I have kids. I think she’s jealous, and I’ve called her out on it more than once, but it didn’t go anywhere because Brit didn’t want to discuss it.

I’m used to her comments about the kids, seeing as how I’ve had almost seven years to get used to it. But Carson isn’t even a year old yet. My kids were three when Brit eventually stopped moaning and groaning about all thechanges,but Carson seemed to have instigated the resurgence.

Especially since Morgan had Carson on her own.

Not that Morgan’s the first woman to have a baby out of wedlock, but I like to think I gave her the idea.

When I was thirty-five, I underwent a bit of a crisis, thinking that my biological clock was about to run out of batteries. This was thanks to a long out-of-print book my mother gave to me, calledA Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood.It came out in the 1940s.

A lot has changed since then, including the age women have babies.

After I read the book cover to cover, I freaked out and decided I needed to get pregnantimmediately. Of course, it’s never that easy, especially when you discover your current boyfriend “cuddled” up with another woman at a wedding.

They weren’t exactly cuddling but I’ve changed the story to make it more PG since I’m the mother of young children now.

At the time, I was used to dating disasters and quickly bounced back. I was quick to come up with a few plans to make a baby happen; sperm donors, artificial insemination, and random guys on the subway. The best idea was having a baby with my ex-boyfriend, David, who by that time had realized he was gay.

That would have worked, had it not been for a drunken night with J.B.

I realize the doctor who wrote the book was a quack, but I still blame her for the stress I went through. I don’t credit her for me getting pregnant because that would have happened anyway.

Or maybe not, if I’d had a better history of dating. I like to think J.B. and I would have eventually gotten together, but who knows? It took long enough.

Morgan fell in love with my kids at the same time she fell out of love with her boyfriend at the time, Derek. But she stuck with him for two more years because she wanted that unconditional love that I had from the kids, and he seemed to be her best bet.

Knowing you’re the most important person in your child’s life is scary as hell sometimes, but really amazing all of the time.

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