Good Luck, Fatty

the cat.
    All in all, things aren’t so bad, I figure. And I’m determined to make them even better for Roy, who has settled in like a champ around here, Denise being ten times the mother Marie could ever hope to be.
    “I sterilized his bottles,” I tell Denise, who’s just rolled in from the night shift (almost literally, since she’s about as wide as she is tall now) about Roy. “If you make the formula, I’ll feed him when we get back.” I’ve already got my brother buckled into his stroller for our morning walk, his chubby hand clenched around that flea market rattle I’d intended to gift to Denise and Orv’s bambino.
    Denise beams with love, and I imagine her heart swelling, like mine sometimes does when I think of Roy. “Good girl,” she says, patting me gently on the head.
    I grab the stroller and make a beeline for the door, before Denise notices the tears that are ready to spurt from my eyes. Even though the waterworks are joyful, I don’t want to worry her.
    It’s one of those gorgeous early fall days with a cloudless blue sky and a light, crisp breeze that makes me think of apple cider and jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses and pillow cases full of candy. (But not Milky Ways. I’ve quit those sneaky things for the long haul.)
    “Hang on!” shouts Tom out of nowhere (he’s five minutes early for our jaunt), speeding over to help me with Roy’s stroller, which is bouncing sideways down the steps, practically tipping over. “Let me get that.” He leans his bike against the garage and muscles Roy (and his conveyance) to the ground. “There we go,” he says with a satisfied grin.
    “I love you,” I tell him, because it’s true. And I can’t help myself.
    He doesn’t look surprised. “It’s about time,” he says with mock frustration (and a twinkle in his eye).
    “And…?” I prod. I mean, it’s only fair…
    “What?” he says, putting on a ridiculously confused face that makes me laugh.
    “You know very well what,” I say as we turn out of Gramp’s driveway and into the street.
    “Would I do all of this if I didn’t love you?” he asks, gesturing from me to Roy and even behind us at lame old Buttercup, who has suddenly become our furry caboose.
    He’s right. I know he is. But I still wish he’d come out and say it, because somehow those three simple words seem as if they’ll fill the hole Duncan and Marie have left in my heart. “Suit yourself,” I say with a shrug. “But that just means I’ll have to say it twice as much, for the both of us.”
    “Doesn’t sound so bad,” Tom admits, first stroking my hand (which is glued to the stroller), then slipping an arm around my waist, my hip now bumping his thigh with every step.
    “Care for a mint?” I offer, struggling to wiggle the Yo-Yo prize out of my pocket.
    Tom cups his hand, and I flip one of the powerful little things from my palm to his. Then I pop one of my own.
    We bop along quietly for a block or so, Buttercup weaving around our legs and the stroller, threatening to get flattened at any moment. Roy, on the other hand, is no trouble at all, having drifted off to sleep under his fuzzy blue blankie about ten feet from the house.
    As we turn onto Marigold, I ask Tom, “So what are you going to be for Halloween?”
    He scrunches his nose. “That’s like six weeks away.”
    “I know.”
    “Frankenstein?” he says after thinking a while. “Or Batman. They’re both classic, right?”
    Please let it be Batman, I think. Frankenstein is too close a match. “Yeah,” I say. “Either one.”
    He asks, “How about you?”
    Except for the year I went mummy crazy, I’ve been a witch or a ghost every October thirty-first of my life. “I don’t know,” I say, my mind starting to wander.
    “No idea?”
    I shake my head. “Uh-uh.”
    There is one thing I’m certain about, though: I’m not going to let Tom Cantwell screw me (for a very long time, anyway), because I respect him too much. He’s not some quickie in the bushes or a backseat, back alley bang-job. He’s Tom Cantwell, my best friend since second grade. The boy who saved me from drowning when no one else would. The boy who bought me a pregnancy test, even though he wasn’t in the running as a potential daddy. The boy who, when the time is right, deserves to be the first one to make love with me.
    But for now I’m not ready.
    And I know he’ll wait.
    “You’d make a good Julie Madison,” he tells me, scooping Buttercup off the ground for