Pushing 40: Mary Anne Spier
Author's Note: The Baby-Sitters Club and all its characters belong to Ann M. Martin and Scholastic. I'm merely borrowing them.
CHAPTER 1
I cried for four hours last night. Four. Between the late late show and the early early show I was a mess of tears, tissues and honey-bacon potato chips. Mostly the crumbs. Because that's what I felt like. A crumb.
Maybe I'd better back up and tell you who I am. My name is Mary Anne Spier. I have brown hair and brown eyes, and I'm all of five foot two. I live in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, in a little yellow house with my best friend, Kristy Thomas, and her teenage son, Jeremy. Kristy and I have known each other since we were toddlers; we grew up next door to each other, until her mom married a millionaire and her family moved across town. Even then, we were still good friends, and we were both members of a successful business, The Baby-Sitters Club. (More on that later.)
I never expected to be single and living with my best girl friend at the age of 38, but then, I didn't expect a lot of things that have come my way in life. Just like Kristy didn't expect to be pregnant at 21. Can you believe she was the first of all my friends to have children? Not that Kristy shouldn't have had children; she's a great mom, and she's raised Jeremy without the help of Jeremy's father. It's just that Kristy was - and still is - the most tomboyish of all my friends. Kristy, pregnant? But it happened. Life is funny that way.
Life has been funny to a lot of my friends. Take Jessi for example. She thought she'd be a famous, or at least a professional, ballerina, but she was sidelined by a broken pelvis at the age of twelve, and now she's a legal aide. Talk about changing your life goals. The good news is that Jessi is married to a really nice guy named Andrew Finley, and they have two adorable kids, Bryton and Max. (Max is a girl.)
Or take Jessi's best friend from back in the day, Mallory Pike. Mal wanted to be an author or an illustrator, and was always lamenting about her looks (glasses, braces, frizzy hair). That was when she was eleven. But by the time she hit eighteen she was super pretty. She became a flight attendant and has gotten to travel all over the world. She's not married, but she's been dating a pilot named Mike for about five years.
Life has been less kind to Claudia Kishi, formerly known as Claudia Kishi Cranwell, then Claudia Kishi Forrester. Claudia has a ten-year-old daughter named Artalia, and the two of them do not get along, so Artalia lives with her father in Texas. Claudia was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes (not like the kind Stacey McJerk has, but more on her later) a few years ago, due to her overwhelming love of sugary snacks. She's been in and out of hospitals, and unlike Stacey, Claud just won't follow the diet her doctor has ordered. Claudia still takes her art pretty seriously. One of her paintings she did after her second divorce, "Deadly Black Bear On A Deadly Dark Night," won some big prize last year. Currently, she lives with her parents.
Who am I forgetting? Oh, of course - how could I forget Dawn Schafer, my stepsister? I actually haven't seen Dawn in a few years; she lives in California with her husband Kent and their three kids: Joston, 9, Greer, 7, and Delilah, 5. I went out to California to visit the family not long after Greer was born. Deep in my heart, I love Dawn - but she has changed. She runs her own business and, I don't know, we're so different now. It's hard.
Okay, so I'm sort of going down the old Baby-Sitters Club Member roster, here, and I know I'm leaving a few people off. Let's see... Shannon Kilbourne - no one's heard from her in ages; last we heard she moved to France. Abby Stevenson is a teacher in upstate New York, and Kristy is friends with her on Face Book - she's married and doing fine.
Who else? Oh yes, of course. Let us not forget the two people I haven't mentioned yet, the two that are actually the reason I spent four hours crying last night:
Logan Bruno and Stacey McGill.
Who are, apparently, having twins.