Page 25 of Bonus Daddy
“C’mon.” I strode quickly, hoping the speed would help me avoid the complicated feelings brewing inside me. “Do you like ramen?”
“Yes,” she said, her tone unaffected. “Everyone likes ramen.”
I clawed at my tie, tugging a little too violently to loosen it. “Great. Then let’s go. Fucking with ex-husbands makes me hungry.”
Chapter 9
Jess
“I’m sorry we’re late.” I handed the bag of bagels to Max as I kissed Lana’s cheek.
Max grinned at me. “You got onion?”
I smiled. “Of course. Shira saves a few for me on Fridays. You’re still her favorite customer, and she knows I come in to refill your stock.”
“Thanks for that.” Lana passed the baby over, then scooped my girls into hugs.
Kit and Greta had buzzed with excitement all day. More than just about anything, they looked forward to our monthly dinner with my best friend and her family.
Lana and I had worked together as assistants at a PR firm in our early twenties in New York, climbing the corporate ladder together, and had become fast friends. While I married Kenneth, moved to New Jersey, and had babies, Lana went to India to study yoga and transcendental meditation. She came back, traded in her Jimmy Choos for a nose ring, and started teaching.
She started in the Upper East Side, working in luxurious studios, where the money was good, but she got tired of the drama and the ass-kissing quickly. So she used her trust fund to buy a building in Jersey City and transform it into a yoga and meditation center whereshe could offer sliding scale pricing to make yoga more accessible to the local community.
It was part yoga studio, part community activism hub.
She organized food drives and park cleanups and provided space to community organizations. By the time I’d filed for divorce, she was a mainstay in the area. During the hardest years of my life, she introduced me to yoga, and when I fell in love with it, she not only helped me train as a teacher, but she took care of me and the girls.
She was tall and lean, with smooth dark skin, sparkling eyes, and waist-length braids. Today they were twisted into one massive braid that hung down her back.
The woman always wore athleisure. Today’s outfit consisted of mint-green high-waisted leggings with a matching sports bra with thin straps that crisscrossed in the back, along with a matching slouchy sweater tied around her shoulders.
I envied her ability to show her stomach only six months after giving birth.
My tummy only made an appearance when I was doing yoga on my own, and even then, only with my highest-waisted pants.
Lana had often brought in guest instructors so she could continue traveling the world, but then she met Max, a physicist who was a few inches shorter than she was. While she was the definition of new-agey and wild, he was nerdy and straitlaced. They fell madly in love, and when baby Marie Curie came along, they moved to the suburbs.
The girls loved visiting. The house was massive, with a large yard, a pool, and a swing set. Marie was too young to enjoy much of it, but my girls immediately changed into the suits we kept here so they could swim while Max fired up the grill on the patio. Along with the swimsuits, we kept toothbrushes and pajamas as we’d spent a lot of time here over the past year.
While the house was magnificent, the local bagels, according to Max, were not. So I kept him stocked with Jersey City’s finest, and in return, he cooked feasts for us when we came over.
With wine in hand, Lana and I sat on the deck, watching the girlssplash, while Marie sat on a playmat, banging her toy giraffe against the ground.
My heart squeezed as I cataloged all the ways she’d changed in the seven short days since I’d last seen her. “I can’t believe she’s already sitting up.”
“I know.” Lana sighed. “Max is convinced she’s a baby genius.”
“Obviously she is,” I cooed, waving at her.
My best friend let out a light huff. “I’m trying to have reasonable expectations for my daughter here, Jess.”
I shrugged. “Reasonable expectations are lame. Be delusional about your kids. This baby here will probably split atoms during her free time between walking high-fashion runways and qualifying for the Olympic fencing team.” I held up my wineglass. “And compose a few iconic symphonies when she’s bored. Let the girl live.”
Lana giggled into her glass. “I’d never have survived the newborn stage without you.”
“I wouldn’t have survived the past five years without you,” I countered, seriousness edging into my tone.
Lana had pulled me out of the depressive swamp and had helped me rebuild my life, giving me a job and childcare while I finished my master’s in social work. She’d done homework with the girls so I could study and she’d lent me clothes for job interviews. She’d been the most solid of rocks when I needed her.
