Page 114 of Pipe Dreams
She and Nate worked for a good hour and a half until the lone flight attendant announced that she would serve dinner soon. Lauren had been smelling food for the past half hour, and it was strangely unappealing. Her stomach felt sour, which was odd. Flying had never bothered her before.
“To start I can offer you Caesar salad or gazpacho,” the flight attendant said. “Then, would you prefer the crab cakes, the chicken parmesan, or the Thai beef?”
Nate and Becca ordered, but Lauren tried to wave her off. “I’m really not hungry this evening. Thank you.”
“We won’t get to the rink until it’s tenP.M.New York time,” Becca pointed out. She and Nate were staring at her.
“Um, I’d love a roll with butter,” Lauren said slowly. Bread was the only thing that appealed to her at the moment. Even the salad sounded wrong. “And maybe I’ll try the gazpacho.”
“Certainly.”
Becca sat down at the table beside Nate, who put away his computer. The flight attendant offered everyone wine, and nobody accepted. Lauren was glad that she rarely drank at work functions. It would make her pregnancy-induced sobriety seem less peculiar.
Unfortunately, when the food was delivered, Lauren’s queasiness did not improve.
Nate had asked for the Thai beef. It looked beautiful—slices of meat over a bed of noodles, bright green snow peas mixed in. But the scent just hit Lauren all wrong. She broke off a bite of bread and buttered it. She put it in her mouth and chewed.
A moment later, the flight attendant opened the door to the little galley kitchen and all the food smells intensified.
Suddenly there was too much saliva in Lauren’s mouth. With shaking hands she shoved her seatbelt off. Bile began to climb her throat as she slid out of the seat and dove toward the jet’s bathroom.
She made it just in time, slamming the little door and sliding the lock which activated the lights. Miraculously, she hit the toilet dead center, vomiting up what little was in her stomach.
Holy crap. What a wretched time for morning sickness to announce itself.
Lauren wiped her mouth on a paper towel and tried to think. Her pregnancy book had warned that nausea often hit during week six, or four weeks after conception. Standing there over the toilet, trying to decide whether or not she was going to puke again, she did the math.
She was two days into week six.
Jeez.
It took a while until Lauren was ready to venture out of the bathroom. After she was sure the awful moment had passed, she washed up again and used one of the disposable mouthwash packets provided in the fancy medicine cabinet.
She looked herself over in the little mirror. She was a little pale, and her eyes were red from watering, but otherwise she looked no worse for wear. Nevertheless, she felt exposed, as if she wore a label on the lapel of her suit jacket reading:pregnant and freaked out.
Feeling paranoid, Lauren opened the bathroom door just a crack, hoping to find her dinner companions distracted by their work or a movie.
They were distracted all right—Nate held Becca’s face in two hands, and he was whispering softly to her. Lauren held her breath, wondering if he would kiss her. But after a moment, he sat back.
Lauren eased the door shut, counted to thirty and then banged it open before emerging. Wearing her best poker face, she moved slowly back toward the table.
Nate and Becca were sitting side by side, ignoring each other again.
Of course they were.
All their entrees had been cleared away already, praise the Lord, except Lauren’s roll and butter were waiting. Without a word, Lauren sat down and tore the roll in half. Her stomach felt as empty as the Grand Canyon during a drought. And although she had zero experience with morning sickness, she knew without a doubt that bread would steady her.
Hmm. The pregnancy book had annoyed her with the number of times it had said,listen to your body. But her body demanded bread, and it wanted it right this second.
“Are you okay?” Nate asked when it became clear that she wasn’t going to volunteer any information about her violent disappearance.
“Yep.” She took another bite of the roll, and no bread hadevertasted so good.
“Is there a bug going around?”
She lifted her eyes to his and found worry. Nate was quite fastidious. During flu season he always asked her to distribute bottles of Purell all around the office, and he used it liberally. He was probably thirty seconds away from breaking out a hazmat suit and scrubbing his hands. “I’m fine,” Lauren said quietly. “You’re not going to catch a bug.”
He did not look convinced.
