Daisy learned that Hannah was a preschool teacher, that her husband was a nurse at Pennsylvania Hospital, that they lived in Bella Vista, the neighborhood right near the Italian Market, and that they, too, were expecting a girl.
“What about you? Are you really going to do this Bradley stuff?” Hannah had asked Daisy.
“I’m investigating,” Daisy said. “My husband’s a fan of natural birth.” She finished her glass of water. “My husband was also supposed to be here tonight, but he got stuck at work.”
“And he’s not the one actually having the baby,” Hannah pointed out. “Shouldn’t this be your call?”
Daisy toyed with her ring again. She lived in Hal’s house, supported by Hal’s money. She honestly didn’t feel like much of anything was her call these days. “I guess.” She tried for a smile. “Honestly, if they were still doing twilight sleep…”
“Ha!” Hannah’s bark of laughter, startling from such a small woman, was so loud that Daisy saw heads at other tables turning. “I know, right! I mean, I understand it’s supposed to be better for the baby if we don’t get drugs. It makes sense. But we’re people, too, right?”
“We are people, too,” Daisy affirmed.
“So what’s your story, morning glory?” Before Daisy could answer, the food arrived. Hannah’s face lit up, and she lifted her burger with palpable gusto, her jaw seeming to unhinge as she took a gigantic bite. “Oh, God, that’s good,” she said after she’d swallowed. “I’m so hungry all the time. Are you hungry all the time? What have you been craving?”
“I was hungry all the time before I got pregnant,” Daisy admitted. “And I’m eating a lot of grilled cheese.”
“Grilled cheese!” Hannah said. “Ooh. I haven’t had a grilled cheese sandwich in forever. I shall add it to my list.” She’d pulled out a BlackBerry and typed it in. “So, back to you.” She’d looked Daisy up and down. “Where do you live?”
“Gladwyne. And I’m twenty-two,” said Daisy, even though Hannah hadn’t asked.
“Wow. I remember my twenties. Vaguely.” Hannah ate another bite of burger. “How long have you been married?”
“Almost two years,” Daisy said. It was closer to a year and a half, but she wanted to make it clear that she’d married Hal because she wanted to, and not because she’d needed to.
“Mazel tov,” said Hannah, and licked her fingers.
“How old are you?” asked Daisy.
“How old do you think I am?”
Daisy took her honest guess and revised it downward by two years. “Thirty?”
“Ha! I’m thirty-five. A crone!” Hannah patted her lips with her napkin and looked around for their waiter. “Do they have ice cream here?”
They ended up at Scoop DeVille, where they shared a banana split, and when Hannah said, “Do you want to meet up and go for a walk tomorrow?” Daisy hadn’t even had to think about it.
“Yes,” she’d said.
Daisy knew that she and Hannah were going to be friends. She’d hoped that Hal and Hannah’s husband, Eric, would like each other; that they could be couples who did things together, but they’d never really meshed as a foursome. Hal said he liked both of the Magees, but Daisy could tell that he was irritated by Hannah’s loudness, her brassy voice, the way she never wore makeup or heels and would ask anyone anything. Her house was comfortable in Daisy’s opinion, “a mess” in Hal’s （and Daisy had to admit that there was a certain amount of dog hair on, and in, things at the Magees）。 As for Eric, Daisy figured her husband would dismiss a male nurse as a man who hadn’t been able to make it through medical school, a man who probably wasn’t as smart or accomplished and who definitely wasn’t as well-off as he was. “If you like them, that’s what matters,” he’d said after an uncomfortable dinner at the Shoemaker house, where Eric had done his best to act interested in bass fishing, and Hal had barely tried to act like he cared about European League soccer, which was Eric’s passion. “They’re your friends, not mine.”
It turned out that the group that clicked didn’t involve Hal at all, but Daisy and her brother and Danny’s husband, Jesse. Jesse worked in an art gallery and taught dance, and Danny was a counselor at a high school in Trenton. Every month or two, they’d all meet for dinner, sometimes in the city, sometimes in Lambertville or New Hope, or at Daisy’s house, where Daisy could cook. For years, Daisy had been trying to coax the Magees out to the suburbs. “Forget it, I’m not going to the dark side,” Hannah would say. Still, every time Daisy saw a listing for a house she thought would work, she’d text the listing to Hannah, and Hannah would text back GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN.