No notes this time. Yay!

Chapter Three


Claudia ushered her friend into the house and closed the door behind her. "It's naptime, and I just got her down 10 minutes ago. Why couldn't you knock?"

"Sorry Claud. I forgot. The part of my brain that remembers naptime doesn't work."

"Well wait till you have a baby with colic. You'll never forget again." She shifted Mimi to her other shoulder and crooned to her soothingly. Already the wails were starting to subside. A couple of minutes later she was asleep again. "Let me go put her down." She headed up the stairs and into the nursery, Stacey hot on her heels.

"Wow. You did a good job with this place," Stacey whispered. They were standing in Claudia's old bedroom, former headquarters to the BSC. It was now Mimi's room, a wonderland of Winnie the Pooh and friends. Claudia had painted a mural of the Disney characters over the walls, even doing a blue sky with fluffy white clouds on the ceiling. The only non-Pooh decoration in the room was a portrait of Claudia's grandmother, Mimi's namesake. Stacey stared in awe, not seeing a nursery but a 13 year olds bedroom. The crib stood where the bed once had, the dresser where the easel was, and the changing table replaced the desk under the window. Baby clothes filled the closet, and a rocker stood where the directors chair use to be. "It's all changed. I still remember this being your room."

"That's right, you haven't see the finished product. That'll get you to come down more often." Claudia finished changing her daughter's diaper and cradled her lovingly. "You want to hold her?"

"I don't want to wake her up."

"You won't. She likes being held while she sleeps. I think it makes her feel secure." Gently she transferred the little girl to Stacey's arms. "See." Indeed, Mimi didn't fuss or wake. She just wiggled a little, snuggling deeper down into her soon-to-be godmother's arms.

"She's beautiful. She has your face." Mimi looked almost exactly like her mother.

"Wait till she's awake. Her eyes are bright green, just like Alan's." Gently she took the baby back and laid her in the crib. "Come on. She'll be out for awhile and we have things to catch up on." Claudia switched on the baby monitor, dimmed the lights and tiptoed out.


"Well. Four months. Took you long enough to come see me." Claudia moved
around the kitchen, getting the preparations for dinner ready. "I forgot; can you eat pasta?"

"Can I see the package?" Claudia handed her the box and started chopping veggies for the sauce. "What on earth made me agree to play hostess tonight? Like I have time to make dinner for 14 people."

"I believe it was your idea. In fact, and I quote, "I want all of us, significant others included, to get together at least once before the christening. And since I called in the pact, I'll play hostess." End quote. It was your idea babe." She handed the pasta back to Claudia after having read the ingredients. "I can eat this stuff. Thank for asking by the way."

"I know what I said. And I want us to get together. You, Mary-Anne, Jessi and Abby are the only one's who have even see Mimi. Not to mention I'd like to meet Jimmy, before he and Dawn get married. And Kristy came back. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity here, and who knows when it'll happen again. You'll go back to New York, Kristy will go running back to Seattle to hide from her memories, Dawn to LA and her law practice, Mallory to Chicago to write her books, and Abby will go to Boston and finish med school." Claudia dumped the green peppers and onions into a frying pan and began to sauté them. "It might be another five years before we all get together again, so I want this time to be special. All of us coming back to the home of the BSC is the only way for that to happen."

"You're right of course. Can I give you a hand with anything?"

"Yeah, can you put the garlic bread together? The bread is in the pantry and the butter-and-garlic mixture is in the fridge." Stacey found the items and set to work assembling the dish. The two women worked and talked about every trivial thing they could think of, but none of the really big stuff. By unspoken agreement the tough stuff would come later, when the rest of the girls were there. Claudia talked mainly about Mimi, Alan, and the art classes she taught at Stoneybrook Elementary. Stacey told her about life in New York, a new play that she and Sam had seen the week before, and the virus that had shut down all the computers at work. Just as they ran out of things to say, the doorbell rang. Right on cue the baby monitor clipped to Claudia's belt let out a wail.

"I'm going to go get her, can you answer the door?" Claudia didn't wait for a response before heading up the stairs. Stacey said a mental thanks that she hadn't been asked to get Mimi, and headed for the foyer. She opened the door and found Dawn and Mary-Anne standing on the steps, their significant others standing off to the side.

"You're here!" Squeals of excitement and happiness resounded through the neighborhood as the three friends reunited. The noise level rose even further when Mallory and Jessi snuck up behind the little group, and jumped into the fray. "I can't believe it." They might have stood on the steps all night, talking and laughing excitedly if Claudia hadn't come out and scolded them for leaving the door open. Instantly they all shut up, and stared at the little girl resting on her shoulder.

"Get in here and sit down. I don't want the baby getting sick." Once inside she turned to them and grinned. "You can talk now." Everyone started chattering again, cooing at the baby and telling everyone how wonderful they looked. Jessi and Mary-Anne hung back a little, having seen Mimi before. But Dawn and Mallory were enraptured.

"Claud she's absolutely beautiful. The photo's don't do her justice." Dawn had Mimi held securely in her arms. The baby smiled and tugged on her long blond hair. "Ouch!" Gently she disentangled the little fists and handed her to Mallory.

"Short hair is the only way to go with an infant. I learned that two weeks into it. She loves to grasp and pull things." She gestured to her own short hair. "Hence the Mommy hairdo. Can I get anyone anything to drink? Alan will be home shortly and promised to bring the wine, but for now I have soda, tea and juice." A chorus of orders overwhelmed her, sending Stacey to her aid.

"Is Kristy here?" Mallory asked. She was busily playing This Little Piggy with Mimi's bare feet. "Did she really come?"

"She and Abby should be here any moment," Mary-Anne answered her. "Listen guys, she's changed a lot. Don't push with questions when you see her. She'll talk in her own time."

"What do you mean she's changed?" Jessi asked as she stirred the pot of spaghetti sauce. "Is something wrong with her?"

"Not really." Mary-Anne cursed herself for even opening her mouth. "Just be patient with her okay? Coming back here has been really hard on her."

JImmy spoke up for the first time. "I'm sorry to sound so dumb, but I don't know any of you beyond Dawn and Mary-Anne. Can you help me out here?" The girls looked at each other and giggled. Dawn too the lead and started the introductions.

"This is Claudia. She and her daughter Mimi are the reason we're here."

"Don't forget me," Alan cut into the conversation as he came in to the room. He pecked his wife's cheek and lifted Mimi out of of Jessi's arms for a cuddle, before depositing a couple of bottles of wine on the counter. "I'm Alan Gray, husband and father to these two beautiful ladies."

"Pleasure." He and Jimmy shook hands and sized each other up. Dawn groaned in her head for letting them near each other. When Sam joined them, she could just imagine the things they'd get up too.

"And this is Jessi." Dawn gently steered her fiance back to the matters at hand.

"The teacher right? Second graders?"

"That would be me. Teacher and ex-ballet dancer." An ankle injury in Jessi's freshman year of college had forever derailed her professional dancing career. Amazingly she had never looked back, drawing instead on her love for children and getting a teaching degree. She and Claudia both taught at nearby Stoneybrook Elementary. She still moved with the grace her years of training had instilled, but she'd never dance the way she had again.

"The redhead is Mallory. She writes those books about us. _Adventure's in Babysitting_. We're all still waiting for the royalties she owes us."

"And you're going to keep waiting. Those books are only loosly based on the BSC." Mallory grinned and shook Jimmy's hand. "It's nice to finally meet someone who'd put up with our crazy California girl here."

"Loosly based? Set in a fictional small Conneticut town, starts with four memebers, eventually expands to eight, the first letters in all the names match, along with physical descriptions, parents marrige status's and number of siblings. You even matched some of our old clients names." Mary-Anne shook her head in mock disgust. "You ought to be sending us every penny you make."

"Yeah, us poor medical students can use all the money we can get." A new voice piped up from the outside of the crowd, causing heads to turn. Abby was standing there with a big grin on her face, Kristy behind her trying to hide her belly for as long as possible. Sam was already working his way through the crowd to his wife.

"Hail, hail the gangs all here!" Alan shouted, right before his wife smacked him in the arm. "Now we can party!