Read Totlandia: The Onesies, Book 1 (Fall) for Free Online

rejection file yet again.
    “But accepting twins…won’t that set a precedent?” Like a dog with a bone, Mallory couldn’t let go of any apparent problem.
    “It hasn’t in the past,” Joanna reminded her. “We’ve got the Bentley twins in the Foursies.”
    Mallory frowned. “But they were one of each, a boy and a girl.”
    Bettina’s hand on Mallory’s forearm was gentle but firm. “Things always have a way of working out.”
    In other words:   It’s a foregone conclusion, so shut the fuck up.
    Mallory started to speak, but then thought better of it.
    “Fine,” Bettina continued. “That brings us to Lorna Connaught. Her husband is Matthew, and her son is Dante. She’s on the San Francisco Foundation board and volunteers at Glide Memorial—”
    “She’s also your brother’s wife, isn’t that right?” Mallory’s words sliced the air like a saber.
    The other women hid their smiles as best they could.   Touché.
    Bettina waited a full sixty seconds before acknowledging the accusation. By the time she did, her lips were once again pursed into a stony smile. “Everyone here knows me well enough to presume I’d never play favorites. Lorna’s good name and deeds stand on their own merits. In fact, I’ll recuse myself from voting on her. If you pass on Dante, their little family will certainly be disappointed, but they’ll weather it in stride. That is the Connaught way. Our tribe are hearty folk.”
    The other committee members exchanged anxious glances. Apparently none of them could cipher her true feelings about Lorna Connaught. Was Bettina’s recusal some form of admission that she couldn’t stand her sister-in-law? But wasn’t that bit about “good name and deeds” her way of indicating they’d be fools to vote against Lorna, who also carried the Connaught name?
    Not to mention that she had called the Connaughts a tribe. Did that mean they had Native American blood flowing through their veins? If so, and the committee voted them down, would they be branded as racists?
    It was all terribly disconcerting.
    Fuck the aspirin. Bring on the martini shaker. No glass needed.
    Having successfully heightened their fear factor, Bettina’s lips curled into a smile. “There is also Chakra Crutch. Stone, her husband, is a professor at Berkeley. Their son’s name is Quest. Chakra has even offered to head up the club’s organic vegetable garden.”
    Sally gave a loud sigh of relief. “Thank God! I’ve been saddled with that committee since my little Lucy was a Onesie! Well then, the woman certainly has   my   vote—”
    Bettina’s frown shut her up her instantly. “Sally! You know the rules. Our votes are anonymous, remember?”
    Sally nodded so vigorously that Linus lost his hold on her nipple. The two-year-old’s frantic wails had her shifting him to her other breast.
    “And last but not least, there is also Kelly Bryant Overton, and her little boy, Wills,” Bettina announced. “The Bryant name is ‘old San Francisco,’ if you get my drift.”
    Drift?   The committee was practically gagging on the inference. “Old San Francisco” meant that Bettina—whose own lineage went back to the Gold Rush on this side of the country and to New Amsterdam on the other—had probably grown up with this Kelly person. If that were the case, did Bettina expect two of the six votes to go to her personal connections?
    Or was there only one vote they’d have to give up? Was her relationship with Lorna Connaught in name only?
    She’d said it herself: already they had more boys to choose from than they needed. There was one knock against the Connaught tot, as well as the Overton kid. In any regard, the other moms and tots—that Jade person and her son, Oliver and all their dot-com connections; the cute twin girls with the well-connected father; Ally, the ballet patroness-slash-lawyer’s wife and her sweet little girl, Zoe; the eco-friendly professor’s wife—
    It was all so damn confusing!
    For the