By the time Dawn Schaefer-Weiss pulled into the driveway of her spanish-style California home, it was about 6:00pm. Dawn had endured a very long day at the office she shares with her stepmother, Carol. While both of them are very successful independent interior designers with impressive portfolios, they had actually teamed up for a new project, mostly due to the size of it but also because of Dawn's pregnancy slowing her down a bit and her having to take off for doctors appointments. They were designing and decorating a brand new high-end steakhouse in Ladera Ranch called Luke's. The owner, Luke Ruben was already a succesful car dealership owner who had met Carol 8 years ago when he had hired the then-named Schaefer Interiors to design a dream closet for his wife, which Carol did very successfully. He trusted her skills and had hired her throughout the years for smaller jobs including designing the nurseries for his two children and redecorating his home office just last year, which Dawn actually had the pleasure of doing Now breaking into the restaurant business, he hired C & D Designs to help him make his new Texas/California fusion BBQ luxurious yet comfortable. So far, Dawn and Carol have worked up a cool concept with dark woods and red accents and lights. Dawn was thinking about also adding red silk panels on the walls to be scattered evenly throughout the restaurant and made a mental note to run it by Carol to see what her thoughts were but in the meantime, Luke had already approved of the wall color and the wood floors they have chosen and the painters are due to finish up tomorrow, with the floors going in 3 days after that. By that time, Dawn is hoping that the custom curved bar she personally designed will be finished and delivered as well, so that can be installed right after the floors go in. It's already a week behind schedule, which is frustrating Dawn a bit but tonight, all she wants to do is have a quiet dinner, watch tv, relax at home and she'll deal with the construction issues tomorrow at the office while Carol will go to the restaurant and check out the painting progress.
She walked upstairs to drop all her binders, fabric and tile swatches and mountain of handwritten notes and sketches on her desk in her home office that she shares with her husband. While they have a spacious 5 bedroom home and can easily have two separate offices, they want to save their extra rooms for the larger family they are hoping for someday. So far, they are using one room for their excersise equipment and the other for their guest room, leaving one bedroom for the nursery but they are planning on moving their home gym to the extra space in their 3-car garage if they are lucky enough to be be blessed with any more babies after their son arrives.
Dawn then headed to her bedroom to change into some more comfortable clothes before going back downstairs to prepare some dinner for herself and her husband, anesthesiologist Dr. Ben Weiss. C & D designs is a pretty laid back office and Dawn and Carol don't enforce any kind of strict dress code, with jeans and tees being the usual for all employees but earlier that day, Dawn had a meeting with Mr. Ruben at the restaurant site so she had to sport a more polished look that day, wearing a black pencil skirt with matching blazer, black faux-suede flats and a red silk blouse, purposely chosen by Dawn to reflect the restaurants color scheme in an effort to make him feel even more at ease with her. She also wore her light blonde hair in a sleek bun, which she undid at soon as she got into her bedroom, placing the bobby pins on her bathroom counter and her naturally straight hair falling down her back in waves, from being twisted into a bun all day. Dawn then tossed her binding office duds in her laundry hamper and walked over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of light blue flowy cotton pajama bottoms and paired it with the first thing her hand touched in her tshirt drawer, which happened to be her UCLA t-shirt that was given to her by Stacey McGill about 5 years ago. As she pulled it on, her hands brushed against her barely there baby bump and she walked over to her floor length mirror and turned to the side to check out her new profile. While she definitely noticed a change in her body, there's no way any stranger on the street would know she was pregnant. She looked down and smiled before saying to her unborn son, "we're getting there" and then headed downstairs to the kitchen.
Health nut Dawn started boiling some water while she pulled a box of whole wheat pasta from the cupboard and began chopping up some kale, onions, tomatoes, garlic and spinach. Her state of the art electric stove boiled water in just a few minutes so after she had finished chopping, she dumped the pot of pasta in the boiling water before dumping her veggies in a neighboring skillet. She remembered she had actually pre-sliced some tofu sausages the night before and dumped those in her skillet, getting everything nice and crispy and by then, the pasta was done as well. After straining her noodles, she dumped them back in the pot and then piled all the veggies and sausages on top, with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, some salt, pepper and a just a little bit of plain soymilk to give it a creamy sauce texture, it was quite the healthy and hearty dinner but as she stared at her suddenly very unappetizing pasta..and with her vegan husband not expected home for hours, Dawn's pregnancy cravings got the best of her. She put all the pasta in a bowl and placed it in the fridge to let it cool down for her husband and then picked up the phone and ordered a medium pepperoni pizza and an Italian antipasto salad. After hanging up the phone, Dawn burst out laughing, with her laugh echoing in her large kitchen before saying to herself, "What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
It only took about 25 minutes for her unhealthy dinner to arrive and once it did, Dawn took it and sat on the couch, propping her feet up on the coffee table and balancing the hot pizza box on her lap and placing the salad container next to her, continuing to switch between the two. She channel surfed for a bit before settling on a Discovery Channel special about earthquakes, thinking a native Californian should always be aware of any kind of recent scientific discoveries. Dawn finished her salad and polished off two slices of pizza before deciding she had had enough so she got back up to wrap the remaining slices in tin foil and find a place in the fridge where she can hide it. She settled on the crisper drawer, under the lettuce. After her sneaky deed, Dawn sat back on the couch, watching TV, waiting for her husband to get home and reflecting on the long phone call she had on her lunch break with her step-sister, Mary Anne. They talked about all sorts of things in that hour, ranging from family and babies, Dawn's pregnancy, Mary Anne's house renovations with Dawn's corresponding design/decorating advice and finally to the Stoneybrook High School Reunion, which obviously Dawn wasn't invited to but it got her thinking about her Palo City High reunion..or the lack thereof because she hasn't heard anything about one but she reminded herself to ask her best friend, Sunny if she may have. Something that Dawn thought was unusual was Mary Anne's suggestion that she come too and Dawn recalled her reaction: "Um, Mary Anne, I didn't go to high school with you guys, remember? I'm not invited, nor do I even want to go because I only talk to a few people from the Connecticut days. Plus, I'm pregnant and I shouldn't be flying anywhere anyways." She wasn't even sure why she said that because she already knew it was still ok to fly and travel. While it wasn't Dawn's intention to be rude, she now realized that maybe her moody pregnancy hormones might have been to blame and it may have come off that way, seeing as Mary Anne ended the conversation soon after but Dawn again thought to herself that she has no right to attend.
Finally getting tired, she went back upstairs to lay down in the bed but couldn't fall asleep, with too many thoughts and memories keeping her awake. She felt she should call Mary Anne to apologize. She started thinking about the first time she met Mary Anne back in 7th grade, having no idea what the future held for the two of them, her mind then drifting to her first meeting with the Babysitter's Club and how lucky she felt that in her new school in a new state, this group of girls accepted her and let her into their club. If only she could have imagined then, all the fun that they would have or that she'd gain a stepsister and stepfather. Memories of all their adventures, ranging from being CIT's at summer camp, going to New York and Hawaii together, the amazing cruise to Florida and the trip to Disney World that followed and even the ill-fated boat race that left her and Claudia stranded on an island with their baby-sitting charges.
She loves California because it's home to her and loves her California friends and family more than anything but realized that she had never had the fun or the amazing memories with them the way she does with the friends she made in Stoneybrook. She was part of a wonderful group of girls who all grew up to be amazing women and while it was nice to have Claudia and Stacey just a car ride away, Dawn regretted not seeing them more often and decided to text Kristy in the morning to say hi and also planned to give Stacey a call later in the day tomorrow to see if her, Ava and Claudia might like to get together in the next few weeks, before the reunion, in the event they were both going.
Before she knew it, was almost 11 when she she heard her husband, Ben come in the room. "Hey babe" he said. "What in the world are you doing still awake?"
"Hey..must be pregnancy insomnia or something" lied Dawn.
"Bummer" said Ben before laying down next to her and giving her a gentle kiss on the lips and then patted her stomach, asking "how's our little guy doing?"
"Well, he's..in there" replied Dawn, adding "I still don't really feel pregnant yet, though."
"Give it time babe." said Ben. "You will."
"Hey, I made you some pasta if you're hungry." said Dawn.
"Oooh, yes! Definitely. Long day. Three surgeries back to back and I haven't eaten since breakfast" said Mike pitifully. "I'll be right back."
As he walked out, Dawn marveled at him. While his intelligence was indeed attractive to her, superficially his physical appearance was even more so. His half Mexican, Half Jewish ethnic background gave him his dark hair and eyes and a light brown skin tone, but courtesy of his redheaded Caucasian father, a bunch of freckles were sprinkled across his nose, in an almost identical pattern to Dawn's sun kissed face. While his crazy and stressful work schedule forced him to eat sporadically, resulting in a slimmer build, every meal he ate was always vegan, healthy and protein rich and he worked out whenever he was up for it. Usually only twice a week but he was still in decent shape.
He returned a few minutes later with his pasta and a glass of diet coke, his one bad dietary habit, and ate his food in bed, watching TV and Dawn laying next to him, her head on his chest. She really loved him just as much as the day she married him, if not more.
"Honey?" asked Dawn?
"What's up?" asked Ben.
"Um..do you think you'll be able to get yourself off the surgery schedule and get any time time off from work? Maybe just 4 days or something? Possibly a Thursday to Sunday?" asked Dawn almost hesitantly.
Ben replied "I don't really know, Dawn. I can certainly check but when were you thinking..and why do you want me to?"
"Weeelll" said Dawn slowly "Definitely next month, after the holidays. Maybe around mid-January? I want to go on a trip with you. I know I'm still allowed to fly."
"Oh, you're talking about a REAL trip?" said Ben who then added "I just don't think you should be on a pressurized plane for a long time. How about San Francisco?!" he exclaimed excitedly, the bay area being his hometown.
"Sorry but I really want to go somewhere farther away" said Dawn.
"Hmm.." thought Ben out loud before saying, "Wanna go back to Portland? I know it will be wet and rainy but remember how beautiful it was?" him recalling the trip they took there about a year and a half ago, visiting the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Hood, walking around downtown Portland together and even breaking their vegan diets to indulge at VooDoo Donuts.
"Oregon isn't really what I would consider further away" laughed Dawn.
"You want to try something more exotic? Like Hawaii? It's only - what, a 4 hour flight?" said Ben.
While a beach vacation appealed to her and she pondered the idea for a second, she quickly shook that notion off before replying to her husband, "That really would be amazing, hon but I was thinking the East Coast."
"Oh..ok." said Ben. "It would be freezing in January but you want to explore The Big Apple?" That could work, I guess. We'd have to buy gloves, hats, thick coats-"
"Oh my Lord, STOP!" interrupted Dawn.
Ben stopped himself and apologized, saying "I'm getting too ahead of myself, aren't I? I guess I need that vacation more than you do!" he laughed.
"It's ok." said Dawn, sitting up and gently taking her husband's hand into hers, displayed that wonderful smile her husband loved so much and said, "Actually, I was thinking about Connecticut."