Little Earthquakes Read Free Page A

cheekbones that could have cut butter, eyes that looked topaz in the candlelight, and a drum-taut tummy pushing at a light-brown cashmere hoodie. She had perfectly manicured fingernails and, Becky could see once she’d pulled off her socks, perfectly pedicured toenails and a diamond on her left hand the size of a sugar cube. I know her, Becky thought. She couldn’t come up with a name immediately, but she knew her occupation. This woman—her name was something exotic, Becky thought—was married to the man who the Sixers had just traded a center and a point guard to get, a superstar from Texas with some ridiculously high points-per-game average who also, Andrew had explained during the one game Becky had watched with him, led the league in rebounds.
    Theresa sank to the floor without using her hands. As if, Becky thought. “Let’s begin,” Theresa said in a slow, lulling voice that made Becky feel like curling up and taking a good, long nap. “Why don’t we go around the circle. Everyone can share their names, how far along they are, how the pregnancy’s been, and a little bit about themselves.”
    Yoga Barbie’s name turned out to be Kelly! An event planner! This was her first pregnancy! She was twenty-six years old, and she was twenty-seven weeks along! And she felt great, even though things had been hard in the beginning because she’d been spotting! And on bed rest! Yay, team, thought Becky, stifling another yawn. Then it was her turn.
    “I’m Rebecca Rothstein Rabinowitz,” she said, “and I’m twenty-nine and a half weeks. I’m having a girl. She’s my first baby, and I’m feeling pretty good, except…” She glanced ruefully at her belly. “I feel like I’m not really showing yet, which is kind of a bummer.” Theresa gave a sympathetic nod. “What else? Oh, I’m a chef and manager at a restaurant called Mas in Rittenhouse Square.”
    “Mas?” gasped Kelly. “Oh my God, I’ve been there!”
    “Great,” Becky said. Whoa. Her own mother hadn’t been that enthusiastic about eating at Mas. But the restaurant had just been written up in Philadelphia Magazine as one of its “Seven Spots Worth Leaving the Suburbs For,” and there’d been a very nice picture of Becky and Sarah. Well, of Sarah mostly, but you could see the side of Becky’s face at the edge of the frame. Some of her hair, too, if you looked carefully.
    “I’m Ayinde,” the beautiful woman on Becky’s other side began. “Thirty-six weeks. This is my first pregnancy as well, and I’ve been feeling fine.” She laced her long fingers over her belly and said, half defiantly, half apologetically, “I’m not working right now.”
    “What were you doing before the pregnancy?” Theresa asked. Becky bet herself the answer would be swimsuit model. She was surprised when Ayinde told them she’d been a news reporter. “But that was back in Texas. My husband and I have only been here a month.”
    Kelly’s eyes got wide. “Oh my God,” she said, “you’re…”
    Ayinde raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. Kelly closed her mouth with a snap, and her pale cheeks blushed pink. Theresa nodded at the next woman, and the circle continued—there was a social worker and an investment banker, an art gallery manager and a public radio producer, and one woman with her hair in a ponytail who had a two-year-old already and said she was a stay-at-home mom.
    “Let’s begin,” said Theresa. They sat cross-legged, palms upraised on their knees, eight pregnant women sitting on a wood floor that creaked beneath them as the candles flickered. The women swayed back and forth. “Let the breath flow up from the base of your spine. Let it warm your heart,” she said. Becky rocked left to right. So far so good, she thought, as Theresa led them through a series of neck rolls and mindful inhalations. It wasn’t any harder than Interpretive Dance had been.
    “And now we’re going to shift our weight to our hands, lift our tails in the air, and