Read Last Night at Chateau Marmont for Free Online Page A

that, although you all share a work environment, your future child and their future children are not required by law or physics to be the same gender, right?”
    “I’m not sure about that. . . .”
    She laughed again. “So are you guys going to find out? Or is it too early to ask that question?”
    “Well, being that I know we’re having a boy, I don’t really think it’s relevant, but Michelle wants to be surprised. So we’re going to wait.”
    “Aw, that’s fun. When’s the little one due?”
    “October twenty-fifth. A Halloween baby. I think that’s good luck.”
    “I do too,” Brooke said. “I’m marking it in the calendar right now. October twenty-fifth: I’ll be an aunt.”
    “Hey, Brookie, what about you guys? It’d be pretty nice to have first cousins be close in age. Any chance?”
    She knew it was hard for Randy to ask her such a personal question so she was careful not to jump down his throat, but he’d hit a nerve. When she and Julian had married at twenty-five and twenty-seven, respectively, she’d always figured they’d have a baby around her thirtieth birthday. But here they were, already past that and nowhere near even starting to try. She’d broached the subject with Julian a few times, casually so as not to put too much pressure on either of them, but he’d been just as casual with his response. Namely, that a baby would be great “someday,” but for now they were doing the right thing focusing on their careers. So although she did want a baby—actually wanted nothing more,
especially
now, hearing Randy’s news—she adopted Julian’s party line.
    “Oh, someday of course,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant,the exact opposite of the way she felt. “But now’s just not the right time for us. Focusing on work, you know?”
    “Sure,” Randy said, and Brooke wondered if he knew the truth. “You’ve got to do what’s right for you guys.”
    “Yeah, so . . . listen, I’m sorry to run but my break’s over and I’m late for a consult.”
    “No worries, Brookie. Thanks for the call. And the excitement.”
    “Are you kidding me? Thank
you
for the incredible news. You made my whole day—my month. I’m
so
excited for you guys! I’ll call later tonight to congratulate Michelle, okay?”
    They hung up and Brooke began the trek back to the fifth floor. Incredulous, she couldn’t stop shaking her head as she walked. She probably looked like a crazy person, but that would hardly draw attention at the hospital. Randy. A father!
    Brooke wanted to call Julian and tell him the news, only he’d sounded so stressed earlier, and there really wasn’t time. With one of the other nutritionists out on vacation and an unexplained influx of births that morning—nearly twice the usual amount—her day felt like it was moving at warp speed. It was good: the more she moved, the less time she had to wallow in her exhaustion. Besides, it was exciting and challenging when they got hit like this, and although she complained to Julian and her mother, she secretly loved it: all the different patients from every walk of life, each in the hospital for hugely varied reasons but still in need of someone to fine-tune a diet to their specific condition.
    The caffeine hit exactly as planned, and Brooke banged out her final three appointments quickly and efficiently. She had just finished changing from scrubs into jeans and a sweater when one of her colleagues in the break room, Rebecca, announced that their boss wanted to see her.
    “Now?” Brooke asked, watching her evening begin to disintegrate.
    Tuesdays and Thursdays were sacred: they were the only days of the week she didn’t need to leave the hospital and head uptown toher second job, a position as a visiting nutritionist for the Huntley Academy, one of the most elite all-girls private schools on the Upper East Side. The parents of a Huntley alumna who’d died in her twenties of severe anorexia had set up a fund at the school for an