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call her, anyway. She’s been so sweet about taking all my calls and answering all my crazy questions that I just gave her a guardian angel pin with my baby’s birthstone in it.”
    â€œHow do you know what the birthstone will be?” asks Julie, who is quickly establishing herself as a nitpicker, in Peyton’s opinion.
    â€œI’m due in the beginning of June. It’s a pearl.”
    â€œJune is moonstone.”
    â€œIt’s actually pearl.”
    â€œI don’t think so, but whatever. Anyway, the baby might be born in May. That’s an emerald.”
    â€œIt won’t be. Both my other kids were two weeks late and induced.”
    Julie persists, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean this one will be.”
    â€œTrust me. It does.”
    â€œSo Rita’s going to deliver your baby?” Peyton asks Allison, to steer the irksome conversation away from birthstones and back to the midwife.
    â€œYes, and Kate’s and Julie’s, too. And maybe Wanda’s.”
    â€œMaybe not,” Wanda pipes up.
    â€œOh, you’ll be convinced the second you meet her. She’s great. Hopefully she can make the next meeting.” To Peyton, Allison says, “Rita had to cancel tonight because she has a patient in labor.”
    Peyton can’t think of anything to say other than a lame “Oh.”
    As the conversation drifts on, she can’t help wondering if she’s out of her element, and not just amidst these know-it-all New Yorkers. Maybe she should have given single motherhood more thought before jumping headlong into artificial insemination.
    But Dr. Lombardo encouraged her not to delay. Her fertility was diminishing with every month that brought her closer to her fortieth birthday . . . or so he said.
    She got pregnant on the second attempt.
    â€œYes, but what happens if you do meet somebody now?” Kate is asking, wincing as another contraction subsides. “It’s hard enough when you’re on your own. But now you’ve got to find somebody who’s going to love you and your baby.”
    â€œOr babies,” Allison contributes wryly. “Believe me, he doesn’t exist.”
    â€œYeah, and what are you talking about, Kate? You have somebody. You and Gary are getting married in the fall, right?”
    â€œRight. I’m just saying—”
    â€œYou just want the rest of us to live happily ever after, right?” Julie says. “But trust me, Kate, some people aren’t meant to be married. I’m one of them.”
    â€œBut don’t you want your baby to have a father someday?” Wanda asks. “I know I do. Babies need two parents.”
    â€œWell, if that’s how you feel, you should have married the guy who got you pregnant,” Allison tells her.
    â€œNot an option.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œHe’s already married, remember?”
    On that bleak note, Peyton tunes out of the conversation again. She’s fallen in love three times, to no avail. That part of her life is history. Looks like she’ll have to be content with sex dreams about her ob-gyn from here on in.
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    â€œIf you hold out a few more hours, you can have a Saint Patrick’s Day baby, Laura.”
    â€œ. . . Few . . . more . . . hours?” the woman sprawled in the bathtub grunts between gasps for breath. “Are you . . . out . . . of . . . your goddamned mind?” The last few words are hurriedly snarled before giving way to a high-pitched moan.
    â€œLaura!”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Rita assures Laura’s embarrassed husband with a smile. “Believe me, I’ve heard worse. And I was only kidding about holding out, Laura. Bad joke, huh?”
    â€œYou don’t really think it’s going to take a few more hours, then?” the man asks, face pale, mouth drawn. “I don’t think she can take much more of this.”
    It’s been a grueling twenty-hour labor already.