Read Online Mommy Tracked by Whitney Gaskell - Free Book Online Page A

Dolphin Street Café, a little sandwich shop in downtown Orange Cove. It was a pleasant restaurant that did a brisk breakfast and lunch business, specializing in paninis and homemade coleslaw. The windows were open, letting in a cool breeze, and ceiling fans rotated lazily above. The bistro tables were already filled, as were the tall stools that lined the counter. Enormous photographs of Orange Cove hung on the wall—scenes of the river, the bridge, a stop-action shot of a train chugging past downtown.
    Chloe was already there, sitting at a table in the corner, her blonde head bent over a plastic-laminated menu. She looked up and waved when she saw Juliet approaching.
    “Hello,” Juliet said, sitting down.
    “Hi! Thanks so much for meeting me,” Chloe said, leaning back in her chair. Her voice was just as perky as it had sounded on the phone, but Juliet noticed that Chloe looked tired; there were black smudges under her eyes, and her face was pale and slightly bloated. Her pregnant stomach swelled in front of her, and her belly button had already popped out, like one of those plastic temperature gauges that come with turkeys.
    Oh, Christ , Juliet thought with dismay. I hope she isn’t going to want to talk about her pregnancy. That’s right up there with having to listen to someone blather on about their diet or whatever dream they had last night. Like anyone’s ever interested.
    “The timing worked out well. The lunch engagement I had scheduled was canceled.” Juliet made a point of checking her watch. “But I don’t have a lot of time, so why don’t we order and get right to your questions.”
    Chloe hesitated and blinked a few times, clearly startled by Juliet’s brusqueness.
    “Oh…okay,” Chloe finally said.
    The two women studied their menus in silence for a minute, and then the waitress came by and took their order. A cheeseburger with extra cheese, extra mayo, and a side of fries for Chloe, and a raisin–walnut chicken salad for Juliet.
    “I’m always hungry lately. I know I’m supposed to be eating for two, but most days it’s like I’m eating for twelve,” Chloe said, sounding apologetic, once the waitress had left. “Anna told me you had twins.”
    “Yes. Four-year-old girls,” Juliet said, unable to keep a note of pride out of her voice.
    “Wow. I’ve always thought that being pregnant with twins would make you twice as hungry—and have to pee twice as often,” Chloe continued, with a conspiratorial laugh.
    “To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember. It’s been a while since I was pregnant,” Juliet said.
    She’d found this was the best way to avoid the sort of intimate conversations most women loved jumping into. It started with shared pregnancy cravings, which sounded harmless enough, but—as Juliet knew from experience—that would just open the floodgates. All of a sudden she’d be listening to whines about husbands who didn’t do their share of chores around the house, or bouts of postpartum weepiness, or episiotomies that went astray, leaving the new mom with a numb vagina. None of which Juliet wanted to know about.
    As Juliet had hoped, her unwillingness to discuss the frequency of her urination while pregnant seemed to dampen Chloe’s enthusiasm for the subject. The younger woman fell silent and busied herself by rummaging through her brown shoulder bag. She pulled out a small tape recorder and a yellow legal pad on which she’d neatly written a series of questions.
    “I must admit I have an ulterior motive in writing this story,” Chloe confessed. “I work at home—I’m a freelancer—and I haven’t figured out how that’s going to happen after the baby’s here. I know I want to keep working, but I want to spend time with the baby too. I guess I’m trying to figure out a way to have it all.” She laughed again, this time a little self-consciously, and pushed her short blonde curls back from her face. “In fact, this might sound a little…well,