Good Luck, Fatty

tracing abstract shapes in a gully of dirt with a birch twig and waiting on Duncan and Marie to fetch me, mangy old Buttercup’s adorable face peeks out from under the Royale.
    I’m no expert on cats, but I think Buttercup’s what you’d call an orange tabby; he’s got a faint stripe pattern to his creamsicle-colored fur that reminds me of a tiger’s (and makes me figure I should’ve christened him something more rugged, like Rocky). What I don’t like about Buttercup are his eyes, which resemble milky, yellowish-green pools of baby puke.
    I hold the twig in the air, and Buttercup rubs his neck, his cheek, the tip of his nose along its pocked-bark exterior, scratching a series of previously dormant itches. “They’re late,” I tell him about my parents, who should’ve been here fifteen minutes ago.
    He nudges my fingers in an understanding way. Absently I reciprocate, stroke his saggy belly, tickle him until he whips away, agitated from the over-petting. “Get back here,” I say at his tail, which slices through the heavy, storm-charged air. “Buttercup!”
    At the sound of his name, he cocks his head, goes into a prissy pout, his pink nose upturned, shoulders ramrod straight, not to be bothered with the likes of me. Nothing hurts me more than Buttercup getting in one of his moods, punishing me by disappearing for days on end. Luckily I’ve perturbed him to such an extreme only twice in our seven-year friendship.
    I pucker my lips, squeak out a high-pitched kissing sound that coaxes him back to my side. Before I can make nice with him again, though, an unfamiliar brown minivan sputters to a stop at the curb out front (or where a curb ought to be, since our sick, patchy lawn bleeds right into the crumbling street). My mother’s shadowy form twists around in the passenger seat, and the van’s back door slides open from the inside.
    I give Buttercup a goodbye scratch under his chin, and then, with a grumble and a huff, haul myself off the grass. When I clamber into the back of the van, Duncan and Marie go mum. “What?” I say.
    Duncan responds, “Hmm?”
    Two of the three seatbelts have been mysteriously removed from the backseat. The final one is twisted in knots, its buckle stuck in a way that won’t allow it to stretch across my abdomen. “Nice deathtrap you’ve got here,” I mutter.
    “Good to see you, Roberta,” my mother says.
    I fiddle with the seatbelt until we hit the highway, at which point I resign myself to living dangerously. By the time I get this nasty, gnarled mess straight, we’ll be sitting down to a meal in Duncan and Marie’s barn in Hollyhock. “What took you so long?” I complain.
     “Our appointment at the ob-gyn ran late,” Marie says breezily.
    My parents, a pair of trauma surgeons accustomed to living in the third world, are so concerned about this pregnancy—and my soon-to-be brother, Roy—that they’ve enlisted obstetric help? “That’s weird.”
    “How so?” Duncan asks. “Medical professionals are frequently behind schedule.”
    I tug a Milky Way from my pants and munch it down in two bites. Tomorrow, I swear, I’m gonna quit these things. “That’s not what I meant,” I say. “It’s weird that you guys went to a doctor, because…well, you’re doctors.” This is the most intimate thing I’ve said to my parents in my whole memory. And I regret it.
    Marie taps her belly. “We’re not taking any chances this go ‘round.”
    My father says, “Certainly not.”
    I toss the candy wrapper onto the pristine-yet-shabby floor. “Are we almost there?” I ask. The van is starting to feel like an overgrown cage.
    Duncan sucks his teeth. “Nine minutes, give or take,” he tells me.
    That’s better than ten, I guess. “What’s for dinner?” I try asking. Because, truth be told, I’m rather hungry.
    My mother laughs. Not a friendly guffaw or a healthy, isn’t she precious? chuckle. More of a derisive snicker, the kind of laughing-at people try to disguise as laughing-with. “One track mind, huh, Roberta?”
    I extend my leg, rap my toes against the back of her seat. “It’s just Bobbi,” I say. “Or Bobbi-Jo. I haven’t gone by Roberta in years.”
    “I don’t care for either of those,” my father says, in a tone that comes off sounding like a period at the end of a sentence. “But it’s your name, so it’s up to you.”
    Score one for the good guys. “Bobbi, then,” I say. Case closed.
    Silence envelops the van for a good five