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pudding she is.”
    “Daddy’s little girl. Stubborn as her older sister is sweet. How’re the twins?”
    “Growing like superbugs.” Maya finds herself touching the small pouch of skin above her pubic bone reflexively. The Caesarean scar is the only remaining physical evidence of her first—and last—pregnancy. After the twins were born, Nick had suggested she get her tubes tied—a notion that horrified her, though she couldn’t put her finger on why. It wasn’t as if she yearned for more children. In any case, the infrequent-sexmethod of birth control seemed to be working just fine these days. “They’ve just started nursery school, you know—for socialization reasons—and I’m trying to keep them off sugar and processed food, but it’s hard. The other mothers are always bringing stuff in. I’ve given the teachers strict instructions, but I’m not sure they actually follow them. Last week Isla asked out of the blue if she could have some Smarties. How would she even know Smarties existed? I felt like she’d asked me for a cigarette.” Maya takes a sip of bitter tea and tries to focus on the antioxidants.
    “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” says Bradley. “One little Smartie’s not going to kill her, is it?” He slips his phone back in his hoodie and pats his pecs as if to check they’re still there.
    “Well, no, but it does make me wonder why I bother being so careful when other people are so irresponsible. I don’t even allow them wheat products because of the GMO factor. Apparently the strains of wheat we eat now bear no resemblance to the ancient grains, which is why gluten intolerance is so rampant. Anyway, they’ve had a clean diet, so why shouldn’t I try to keep it that way as long as possible? You know studies have linked refined-sugar intake to autism, so it’s not like I’m being paranoid here.”
    “Of course not.” Bradley pats her arm, then raises an eyebrow in mock surprise. “Nice tricep, girl.”
    “Thanks. I have this amazing trainer …” Maya feels a smile blooming across her face. Bradley keeps his hand on her a bit longer than usual. When he pulls it away, she feels the skin burning where his fingertips have been. She springs up, suddenly conscious of the time. “I’d better go. Crazy non-stop day.”
    Bradley winks goodbye, and Maya hip-swivels her way through the crowd of stroller-wielding postpartum dieters andanxious girls clutching yoga mats. Despite her best efforts not to, she imagines Bradley’s eyes on her ass the entire time.
    Once belted safely into the car, engine purring, Maya tips her throbbing forehead to the cool leather of the steering wheel. She breathes in the correct and conscious way—in through the nose, out through the mouth, letting the air swirl in the back of her throat. She imagines the blood in her veins oxygenating, spreading energy through the outer reaches of her body. Despite this exercise in self-soothing, she gets a flash of herself as a hopeless bourgeois cliché—an overeducated, underemployed housewife on the verge of an affair with her personal trainer—and she is suddenly overwhelmed by the increasingly familiar sensation of waking up after a long, disorienting sleep in a room she’s never seen before.
How the hell did I …?
    It wasn’t always like this. Back in school, when she first met Nick, Maya was the “together” one. Quietly confident and possessed of a blasé charm, she was the better student of the two, and by far the more socially confident. Nick had to work for a full semester to get her attention. When they first met through Gray, she’d just started dating one of Nick’s fraternity brothers, an arrogant rower and engineering major who liked to get drunk and belittle Nick for his fussy taste in clothing. Maya remembers her first feeling toward her future husband as one of pity for the reverse discrimination he endured (she was particular about her clothing too, after all, and why should girls be