I smiled back at the already smiling Mrs. Avadhanam. She slapped her hand on my shoulder and pointed at her kid playing in the lawn. Mrs. Kamat looked at me and rolled her eyes as I hid a snigger before Mrs. Avadhanam looked back at me. I looked at my husband who was deep in conversation with the rest of the men, his appetizer plate dangerously balancing on his knee. To avoid a disaster, I smiled at Mrs. Avadhanam, again, slid away from the bar stool and took the appetizer plate from his knee. He smiled at me and gestured for more of the salsa. I gave him my stink eye, refilled his plate and brought it back to him. Coming to the get-together was kind of a sudden decision.
I looked around noticing the other ladies’ clothes. They were nice dresses, probably from Nordstrom or Dillard’s and I looked at my $7.49 Doctor Strange t-shirt that I bought at Walmart. All the ladies were talking about their kids. Absent-mindedly I ran my hand over my almost full-term growing stomach. I wondered if I would be one of these mothers frantically trying to force-feed my baby and talk about which elementary school would be better. I looked at my husband again, who was simultaneously eating and talking about his latest project at work. His eyes met mine and he gave me a wink. I blushed a little and looked back at the ladies trying not to look bored. The family dog came up to me and tugged at my pants. I slid out of the stool again and sat on the floor to pet him. He put his head on my knees as I ran my hand through his thick fur.
There was nothing here that was going to hold my attention. The baby kicked again making me smile. Mrs. Kamat looked at me with apologetic eyes. I gave a soft shrug and continued playing with the dog. The Kamat kids came over and dragged their dog away. With difficulty, I hoisted myself into a standing position, let out a huge sigh and blew a raspberry. All the ladies looked at me with a weird look, a few disgusted looks were thrown around, but only Mrs. Kamat laughed at me. I wandered around the house until I found the kids feeding their fruit to the dog. Shaking my head, I headed to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I should have at least applied some lipstick and maybe mascara. Before I could go out I felt something trickling down my maternity pants. I looked up into the mirror, smiled at myself. I cleaned up and rushed outside.
Mrs. Kamat looked at me and then at my stained leggings and gave an excited squeak.
“We need to get out of here,” I yelled at my husband pointing at my tummy.
*****
