I can put the stand on the floor, but that would be weird. Why did I even buy this thing? And how can eclairs make someone...stop talking. And it was not a good kind of silence when you love what you see. Ben's face went blank, and the smile he greeted me with at the door disappeared. The colorful tiny eclairs are the puppies of dessert and I was expecting an "Ah" and would've settled for "Cute," but not this.

The phone in his pocket beeps. Ben stands up, walks around the island, takes the cooked pizzas out, and puts new ones in. My fingers holding on to the metal frame are hurting. The floor it is then. I move to put the heavy thing down when the doorbell rings. Ben grabs his phone and does not head towards the door. Maybe he has a camera on the phone, and he can see who's there? A delivery man? I start lowering the metal frame to the floor. The doorbell rings again. Ben ignores it like he's been ignoring me for the past several minutes. Maybe he's too deep in his head and didn't hear it? I better go check.

"I'll get it," I shout, hoping my voice cuts through whatever is running through his head.

"Great." I startle at his response, but he does not look at me. Instead, he turns away and exits the kitchen through the door that I suspect leads to the garage.

I huff. I reposition the metal frame in my fingers, so it pinches a little less as I walk to the entryway and tug the door open, trying not to drop the plates that are still under my armpit.

"I didn't know what else to get for the ba—" Linda looks up from her phone, and a white cardboard box in her hand freezes in front of my face.

Linda wasn't on the guestlist. She's not Angie's friend. She's...What is she doing here?

"I thought you are Ben. I'm Linda, Ben's girlfriend, and you are?" She does not recognize me.

"Am."

I look at her smiling face, and she's as pretty as she was five years ago. The crisp white dress she's wearing gives her an air of sophistication and accentuates her small waist. Her green eyes are friendly and expectant. I take a couple of steps back to let her through, and the metal frame chooses this time to slip out of my hand and fall on the tile floor with a loud clang.

I pick it up and close the door Linda left open.

"Are you with catering? Can you do something with these cupcakes?" Linda offers me the box. 

Is she for real? Because I'm wearing a white top and a black skirt? Because I opened the door? Why can't I be one of the guests? But I take the box with the arm that continues to squeeze the three plates for the tiers.

"Where's Ben?" She picks up one of the party favors and peeks into the bag. " Where's Mr. Leonards?" She asks when I don't reply.

"The garage, I think."

"Oh." Linda puts the party favor bag back and sits down on the couch facing the yard, her legs—an artful display of tan skin and robin-egg sandals. She types away on her phone, dismissing me with her silence.

What's wrong with me? Why does this hurt, and why is my old friend self-doubt back telling me Ben's not going to break-up with someone who looks like she belongs in the spacious room that can be on the cover of a magazine. A real princess and not me, who's only ever been a principessa in my grandparents' eyes.

"...and in this minivan, the passenger seats can fold into the floor, and you can even hawl...I don't know...something big in the back. And the seats are so soft, even my back is feeling better." Angie's voice filters through. Mike holds the door, and Tall is in the kitchen first, followed by Angie, Ben, with an enormous bowl and two pizzas on top, and Mike.

The white dress rustles past me, and Linda lands a kiss on Ben's lips and takes the two pizzas that are about to fall. "Let me help you, baby. Where do you want them?"

Ben nods towards the stove where there's a spot freed up by the pizzas that are in the oven.

"Hold on." Ben's eyes leave mine, and he doesn't let Linda put the pizzas down. He repeats the maneuver I saw before he disappeared in the garage, and the cooked pizzas are on the counter, while the ones from Linda's hands are in the oven.

I'm watching them next to each other, and they look good, they look right. They can be the couple the romance covers have. The box and the metal frame disappear from my hands, and I feel a tug on the plates under my arm.

"Here we go." Angie's now the one carrying the box with the cupcakes to the couch with her.

Mike's the new holder of the metal frame and the plates. "Where do you want them?"

"That's what I was trying to figure out when Linda got here. There's no more space."

"These cupcakes are adorable. Thanks, Am," says Angie.

"I brought those. They are from the new boutique cupcake shop downtown. Aren't they precious?" says Linda.

"I thought you were getting the dessert." Angie looks at me.

"More desert?" says Ben.

"What other dessert is there?" asks Angie.

"Eclairs." "Cannoli." Ben and I say. We look at each other, and I smile, then titter, then guffaw, and Ben joins me, laughing so hard he has to wipe off tears.

"Well, these two already have an inside joke, that didn't take long." Angie eyes Ben and me with a grin. "Are you going to tell us what's so funny, or is that a secret?"

We start laughing harder.

"Whatever it is, we are too late to get in on the joke." Tall lowers himself next to Angie. He looks frail, and the wooden stick he used to walk over there rests next to him. He's still tall and bold, but the beard is gone, and his wrinkles multiplied over the years. I turn to go and hug him when the doorbell rings.

"I'll get it," I say. What's the worst that can happen?

***

"But what if the Italians hate Ben for vandalizing the recipes?" I grab a bottle of cold water from the fridge for myself and another one for Angie. I drain half of the bottle, and the cold liquid travels down my throat, making my stomach seize.

"I'm just going to stay here for a bit and see if my back hurts less. The rental chairs are not the most comfortable things to sit on for hours. And the heat doesn't help either." She lies down on the couch, removes her flip flops—the only footwear that fits— and props her swollen feet on the armrest. "The chance Italians will see the book is pretty slim. He's not an international superstar but a minor YouTuber. Another idea. What if you supervise? Ask him to be part of the project and make sure your Nonna would've approved of whatever he comes up with."

"Why would he want that?" I swallow the last drop of water from my bottle.

"It's that or no book at all. It's his choice, but it might be the best of both worlds."

How did I not think of that?

"I think I need to pee," says Angie. "Help me up?"

I get her to her feet, and she goes into the hallway that leads to Ben's office. The bottle of water I guzzled is now making its way to my bladder, and the idea of waiting for Angie to free up the bathroom becomes uncomfortable.

There must be another guest bathroom upstairs. I'm not doing anything terrible, and there's no one in the house but for Angie and me. The rest of the guests are looking at the photos of Angie and Mike as babies, trying to guess Angie's answers to a questionnaire I've provided, or are decorating onesies with fabric paint. I creep up the stairs.

The first door I open is a gaming room, and is a replica of what Ben used to have in his apartment. The same giant TV, the same black leather chairs on the ground. The second door is another room that's empty but for a couple of boxes in the middle. The third door is the bathroom. That was easy. 

No longer uncomfortable, I take my time to fix my clothes and hair and dab a piece of toilet paper on the shiny spots on my face. My makeup didn't survive the heat, but I left my bag in the hall closet downstairs and can do nothing to rectify the situation.

Stil in stealth mode, I step out into the hallway. Voices come from the gaming room. I keep walking. My feet make no sounds on the carpet.

"...Ben? Please?" says Linda.

"Ok." Ben replies.

I inch past the door and pause at the top of the stairs in case I can find out what Ben's agreed to

"Oh, thank you, baby, I'll make sure it's worth it for you," says Linda. "Spending three days in New York at the end of September will be beautiful, we can do some sightseeing as well, and I'll make sure to make reservations at a couple of posh places so you can ask the chefs your sciency questions. We'll make the best of it. It doesn't have to be all about me."

"Should I book a hotel now?"

Are they planning a vacation together? How about the break-up? I walk down the first flight of stairs.

"Oh no," says Linda. "We'll be staying at my parents' place. They won't have it any other way. I prefer we fly together, though, can you..."

Back downstairs, I look around for Angie. She's on the couch looking pale.

"Oh, you're back, I wonder where you've gone to. Do you have a pad I can borrow? I can't seem to get to the bathroom fast enough these days."

"I might." I get my bag from the closet, find my emergency pad, and hand it over to Angie.

"Ok. I don't know why I even sat down. Help me up again, please?" We repeat the tug and up maneuver, and she disappears in the direction of the bathroom again.

Tall opens the door to the patio and sees me. "When are you doing the desert? The onesie decorating is winding down, and the kids and I were promised cupcakes."I point at the floor where the cupcakes are on the top tier, the eclairs on the second, the cannoli on the bottom level of the stand. We have twice as much of every kind of desert still left.

"Can you ask Mike to take it outside? I'll go check on Angie in the bathroom."

The bathroom door is closed. I knock.

"You OK in there?"

"I'm not sure." I hear movement, the lock clicks, and Angie opens the door and motions me in.

"I've been googling it, and I might be in labor," Angie says.

"Might?" I watch Angie rub her lower back and lean on the counter. "Won't you know if you are in labor? And isn't your due date three weeks from now?"

"I don't know. I've never given birth before, but apparently, back pain is a sign, and I might be leaking amniotic fluid."

"What? Do I need to call an ambulance? Should I get Mike? What do we do?"

"Yes on Mike and no on the ambulance. Dammit. My hospital bag is at home. I won't call Mom and Dad until it's confirmed. They're still in Brazil."

"Stay here. I'm getting Mike. Breathe, that's supposed to help, right?"

I run out of the bathroom to go outside and find Mike, but he's in the living room on the phone pacing around. Ben's sitting bent over on the patio door threshold, surrounded by pieces of broken plates, smashed cupcakes, eclairs and cannoli. What have I done?

Specious:

1) apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible

2) pleasing to the eye but deceptive.

And that's why I was so excited writing about the baby shower. I had a lot of fun with this chapter and started on the next one. Did you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it? 

NaNoWriMo:  13,616 word so far. I'm moving along well.