Page 163 of Dirty Like Dylan

“She’s here, at home. Her water just broke,” I explained, “and she wants Maggie to come over. She asked me to call you to see if you know where she is.”

After a slight pause, Zane said, “I’ll send her over,” in his smoky-sexy-sleepy voice.

Then he hung up.

Exactly seven minutes later, Maggie was at the front door.

Which was incredibly interesting, if you knew that Maggie—who’d professed to be “completely single” at the shower, when the girls were dishing on their love lives—lived about half an hour away, on the opposite side of downtown, near Granville Island. Zane’s new house in West Vancouver, however, was easily a seven minute drive from here at this time of night.

“I didn’t know you were seeing Zane,” I said, quietly—since maybe it was some kind of secret?—as she hurried into the house, looking flustered.

“What? I’m not seeing Zane,” she said, her clear gray eyes fixing on me. I could’ve almost thought she was joking, but there was no trace of amusement on her face.

Oops.

She either wasn’t seeing Zane, possibly, or more likely, given the vibe I was getting off of her, she wanted me to shut the fuck up about it.

Message received.

“Okay. I—”

“Where is she?” She tossed her purse on a table and headed across the foyer.

“Upstairs. Cleaning up…”

I followed Maggie up the stairs, filling her in. I didn’t want to seem rude or anything, but I was deeply relieved that she was here, so that the pressure was off me. I really didn’t know Jessa very well, I knew next to nothing about giving birth, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I could be helpful other than taking photos and maybe calling 9-1-1.

Now that Maggie was here, it was kind of exciting, actually. I’d never experienced a birth before.

When we walked into the master bedroom, Jessa was standing there, looking a little lost. She’d ditched her pretty but comfortable party clothes and changed into loose-fit yoga pants and what looked like a man’s white T-shirt, stretched over her belly. I felt bad for her when I saw the look on her face, somewhere between fear and I-wish-it-was-tomorrow-already.

Luckily, Maggie knew what to do. She swept right in and took charge.

First order of business: giving Jessa a hug. Then she stuffed a few last-minute items into the hospital bag Jessa had prepped. She steeped peppermint tea. And she calmed Jessa down when she started babbling anxiously about Brody not being here and what if she went into active labor and what if he missed it and how could she do this alone.

“You’re not alone,” Maggie said firmly. “You’ve got some of the best medical care on the planet. Brody will be back. You’re going to be fine. Now fill me in on what the midwife said.”

So Jessa filled Maggie in, and they got to planning out the next twenty-four hours.

First, sleep.

Then breakfast, then a morning walk.

Acupuncture at a clinic that specialized in treating pregnant women, which could, apparently, sometimes help to induce labor.

Then a disgusting smoothie made of castor oil, frozen fruit and almond butter, which was also supposed to help induce labor. “The almond butter’s to help disguise the taste a bit,” Maggie explained to me, “because apparently it tastes like shit and makes you sick.”

All of this, assuming the contractions hadn’t started on their own.

If they did, we timed them, then headed to the hospital when they were a few minutes apart and intense—intense defined as Jessa being unable to speak through a sentence while she was having one.

If the contractions didn’t start, tomorrow at midnight, Jessa had to check into the hospital anyway. “Basically, we have twenty-four hours from the time the water broke,” Maggie filled me in, “to try to induce the labor naturally. After that, the hospital takes over and induces medically. With drugs. And Jessa’s hoping to avoid that. She wants to do this whole thing drug-free, which I told her is insane, but hey, I’m not the one with a baby about to come out of me.” She gave Jessa a look, and Jessa gave her a look back.

“Why twenty-four hours?”

“Because when the water breaks,” Jessa said, “that means the amniotic sac has ruptured and now bacteria can get in there and cause infection.”

“For whatever reason,” Maggie said, “they put a twenty-four hour time limit on that.”

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