It wasn’t often that Diane had the entire house to herself. When she did, she enjoyed the peace and solitude, but today was going to be different because she would be enjoying Nurse Atkins’ company. It had been a long time since the two women had gotten the chance to chat with one another. Diane had even baked chocolate chip and sugar cookies and made some sweet tea for her insatiable sweet tooth.
About twenty minutes later she arrived in her husband’s black Mercedes. Diane heard her pull up into the driveway as she took the last batch of cookies out of the oven. She hurriedly made her way to the front door, opened it, and watched as the mid-forty-year-old woman clumsily made her way to the front door in her black five inch stilettos. Now why is she wearing those shoes? She should be wearing loafers or something more comfortable, Diane thought to herself.
Nurse Atkins paused for a moment to catch her breath before entering the Alderson household. Diane reached out and put her hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”
Certainly the walk from the car to the front door couldn’t have been that long.
“Oh, yes. I just needed to catch my breath for a minute.”
Diane watched a car pass by and waved.
“And how have you been doing my sweet apples with sugar lumps?” Nurse Atkins asked, with her megawatt smile.
“I’ve been okay,” Diane replied.
“Just okay? The sun is shining. It’s a beautiful day so you should be feeling fabulous, darling, and not just okay.”
Diane eyed her shoes. “I’ll be feeling fabulous when you take those shoes off. I don’t want you to break your back in my house.” Nurse Atkins didn’t hesitate to take her shoes off. She simply kicked them off and laid them beside the door.
Diane closed the door behind her. “What have you been up to?”
“I work and then I go home when I’m done. My feet are always too tired to do anything else,” Nurse Atkins replied, as she followed Diane into the dining room area. The two women sat down at the beautiful glass table to continue their conversation. The nurse noted how beautiful it was and was about to compliment Diane on its beauty, but it quickly slipped her mind.
“Then why do you wear those heels?”
“Because I’m trying to lose weight.”
“What?”
“A high school student told me that she got slimmer legs just by wearing stilettos all the time.”
“I don’t see any weight for you to lose.”
Nurse Atkins pointed to her left arm and held it straight out. Then, she shook it from side to side. A slight frown appeared on her face as she watched the jiggling fat on her arm. “I want to get rid of my bat wing fat.”
“I have it too but it doesn’t bother me,” Diane added.
“But I don’t have the confidence that you have. I just wanted to keep the younger version of my body a little while longer but it’s gone. The bat wings have appeared. My boobs are drooping, and my butt of all my body parts has gotten bigger!” Nurse Atkins complained. “I’ve tried diet after diet but nothing seems to work.” She sighed. “You’re not supposed to eat much when you’re on diets, but I’m hungry all the time.”
Diane laid her hand on top of Nurse Atkins hand. “You’re beautiful—jiggles and all.” The nurse chuckled. “Do you know how many women wish they had a nice body like yours?”
She touched her heart. “Thank you, Diane.”
“You’re welcome but you do know that you’ll be wishing for that body when you’re in your eighties,” she said.
“Oh, darling, we mustn’t think that far ahead!”
Diane sat back in her chair and shook her head. “You know, I don’t know why I sat in the dining room when there’s sweet tea in the kitchen…” Before she could say anything else Nurse Atkins jumped up from her seat and entered the kitchen. Diane soon caught up and stood by the kitchen window while her friend helped herself to the tea and cookies.
This time it was Diane’s turn to go on and on about something that concerned her. For the rest of the evening, the two women discussed Cami.
Although she had family members in her hometown of Hattiesburg, MS, her parents never cared much for Rob, and his family had never cared much for her so they didn’t come around Cami and Kaci at all. The only time the girls would see anyone from their father’s side of the family was from time to time while they were out and about in town. Now that they were divorced her girls were all she had.
Following the divorce, her family wasn’t involved in her life any more than they had been before. Her parents hardly ever visited her daughters and the rest of the family was out of the question mainly because of jealously and hatred. During many of her relatives’ time of need, they had asked Diane for money because they assumed that her husband was wealthy since his parents owned several convenience stores. She had refused to give them any because she didn’t have any to give. That caused many of them to get angry with her. She would’ve helped if she could but she had a family of her own, bills to pay, and was attending nursing school. But her family didn’t care about that. They simply shut themselves out of her life. The only relationships that she had were with her daughters and a few close friends.
Her relationship with Cami was tested when she found out she was pregnant. She could’ve told her to move out of the house or get rid of the baby, but she didn’t do that. She wasn’t going to do that to her daughter or her unborn grandchild. Although she was still angry at her for not taking the birth control pills, she loved her daughter and the baby. She was still going to be there for her no matter what.
Diane was going to be a grandmother in her thirties and that was all there was to it. Although she knew that she should have, she didn’t want to discuss her concerns with Cami. They’d have to take the baby to and from the doctor’s office and hire a babysitter—not to mention purchasing necessities. Cami getting a part-time job could help with some of the financial stress that the baby was going to cause but her mother wanted her to focus on her studies. Something that could help them would be having a…
“Baby shower!” Nurse Atkins shouted.
“A baby shower?” Diane repeated. The pitcher containing the sweet tea was low, so she stood and grabbed the pitcher by the handle and headed to the counter near the refrigerator to make more. Nurse Atkins followed closely behind with a cookie in each hand.
“Yes, a baby shower would be perfect! Everyone could bring things for the baby like…” she paused for a moment. “Is it a girl or a boy?”
“We don’t know yet,” Diane answered.
“Oh, well. In that case, you could decorate everything in gold!” She looked towards the ceiling for a moment as if trying to think of something else useful to say. “Oh and it may be better if you didn’t use pink or blue since you don’t know what the sex of the baby is.”
“We should know the sex of the baby before the baby shower.”
“I’m sure the baby shower will be quite lovely, darling.”
Diane turned her back to the woman and stirred the tea bags in the pot. “But it’ll have to be on a weekend that I’m not scheduled to work.”
“And what weekend would that be?”
“I’m not working this weekend but…”
“Fabulous! We can have the baby shower this Saturday.”
“Not on such short notice,” Diane protested.
“Don’t worry. I can handle the invites, the decorations…”
“You can help me if you want but you don’t have to,” Diane added. She knew that there was no way that she could back out of having the baby shower this Saturday. However, she was not going to let Nurse Atkins handle everything. This event was for her daughter, and she wasn’t going to leave such a big project to someone else. Besides, she would be the only one deciding who would attend, and she would choose the decorations herself.
Diane sighed to herself. This was going to be a long, tiresome weekend.