AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

"I was thinking that I could, you know, pack him a little cookie box," Carol said. She was already arranging said cookies into one of the white cardboard boxes that they used for take-out cookies for the offices around town that frequently ordered small-scale catering from The Gypsy Rose Café. They kept the boxes and portable coffee boxes on hand, and Carol already knew that the white boxes neatly held twenty-five cookies. "Nineteen cookies for nineteen weeks."

"You think that man's gonna eat nineteen cookies?" Jacqui teased, laughing and shaking her head as she worked on the order that she was preparing.

"Not by himself," Carol said. "He'll have time after lunch to hand cookies around. Besides—it doesn't even matter if he brings them home and we eat cookies for a week. It's the thought that counts, right?"

"You're right," Jacqui said. "And—I think it's a good idea. We've got some of those permanent markers in the drawer over there for doing our little specials and things. Why don't you decorate his box?"

"To Daddy, from Sprout," Carol said, smiling to herself as she carefully selected the variety of cookies that she'd take to Daryl from the trays they had made. "Happy lucky number nineteen."

"I love you," Jacqui added. "How are the cookies? While you're over there…"

"Just like I told you we would," Carol said. "We're running low on the macadamia nut cookies. And…I don't think hazelnut chocolate is going to make it to the end of the day, either."

"I'll get some going," Jacqui said. "The MHC just sat down about five minutes ago, and they always do the whole menu—coffee, meal, cookies, and more coffee."

"The MHC?" Carol asked, decorating the box with the message that she and Jacqui had decided upon. She'd been in the back almost the whole morning, other than when she was making her rounds to refill a few coffee mugs and to make sure that condiments were stocked. She peeked out, but without knowing where to look, she wasn't sure what she expected to find. Jacqui tapped her on the shoulder and drew her back to finish up her decoration and to get a bit more in the way of an explanation.

"I call them the Man-Haters-Club," Jacqui said. "They're not exactly friends with Sadie. To be honest, she says she can't stand them, but they're work colleagues. They work at the University with her, and I guess they heard her talking about the café or something, so they started coming here recently to have their little department meetings or something. I don't know. They have some kind of meetings. Professor meetings or whatever it is they do. Anyway, I don't think you've waited on them too much, it's usually me who gets their table. They tip well, but they're really something."

"What do they do?" Carol asked. With Jacqui's guidance, she knew where to look, so her next glance out gave her a clear view of the five women sitting around a table with some assorted books, pens, and legal pads. Most of them looked sophisticated in something like business suits, but two of the five were wearing jeans and t-shirts that were worn enough to look like they might be cleaning the house or catching a football game on television.

"I don't know. From what I can tell, they're professors of Man-Hating 101. I just wait on them and take their tips," Jacqui said. "I try to keep conversation to a minimum and stick mostly to—do you want to try our brand-new coffee flavor?"

Carol laughed at Jacqui's joke.

"Have you taken their order yet?"

"No. I give them time to settle in," Jacqui said. "I've got to get this order out, anyway."

"I'll get their order," Carol said.

"I thought you were making Daryl lunch?" Jacqui responded.

"I am," Carol said. "But I've got time. Besides—if I'm leaving to take Daryl lunch, that means I'm leaving you with most of the lunch rush…again. The very least I can do is try to get some of it done for you before I leave."

"I don't mind the lunch rush, really," Jacqui said. "You take the after-school rush and the closing-crowd just about every day for me, and I'd much rather not have to deal with them. I've got the MHC."

Carol picked up her pad.

"You deliver that to your tables," she said, gesturing to the plates Jacqui was wrapping up with some finishing touches. "And take a bathroom break. I'll get their orders so you can start working on them when you come back."

Jacqui sighed dramatically, but Carol was immune to her fake annoyance at this point. They'd worked together for far too long for it to be truly effective anymore. Carol gathered up menus, blew Jacqui an air kiss, and winked at her for a little extra playfulness before she slipped out and made a beeline for the table where the women Jacqui had dubbed the MHC were sitting and talking to one another. As she reached the table, Carol prepared herself to interact with them and pasted on her best smile.

"Welcome to The Gypsy Rose Café," Carol said, handing menus around. "I'm Carol. I'll be taking your orders, but Jacqui will be taking care of you later. Our coffee specials today are a sweet cream latte that's really good, and cinnamon vanilla macchiato that's good cold or hot. Can I start you off with coffee?"

The women knew what they wanted, and the order was easy enough—everyone wanted coffee, black, the café's special blend. Carol promised them a carafe for the table. It was easier for she and Jacqui to do that when so many people wanted the same thing, especially when they were obviously serious coffee drinkers. They'd probably drain two or three of the pots before they were done. Before Carol could ask if they wanted anything else, all five women ordered watered, as well.

"Would you like to go ahead and put in lunch orders?" Carol asked. "The rush hasn't started yet, so if I put these in, you probably won't have to wait too long."

"What's your lunch special today?" One of the women asked, looking at Carol over a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that were somewhat reminiscent of a pair that Carol had owned in the seventies.

"Today we have the grilled pimento," Carol said. "It comes as plain or jalapeño. You can get a whole with chips or a half with soup. I'd recommend the tomato soup if you're thinking of going in that direction. It's a perfect comfort meal."

As though Sprout agreed with her assessment, Carol's stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl and Sprout kicked hard enough that Carol couldn't question what she felt. She rubbed at the spot where her little one had beaten out an SOS for lunch—apparently favoring a nice sandwich and a bowl of soup.

All the women laughed at the loud noise. It would have been impossible to miss. Carol's face burned warm. She was almost certain that people a table or two overheard the growl.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Apparently it comes highly recommended," one of the women wearing jeans said with a laugh. Carol smiled at her, appreciative that her comment felt warm and friendly.

"I didn't know that my little one had such strong opinions on it," Carol said. "But—it really is good. We make the pimento cheese homemade."

"I want that," the woman said. "I don't want it to be spicy, though. And I definitely want the soup, but I want a whole sandwich, too. Can I do that?"

"It's a little more than the daily special," Carol said. "The special is just the half a sandwich and the soup or the whole sandwich without soup."

"I'll splurge," the woman said. Carol smiled and nodded, writing down her order.

"Do you want anything else?"

The woman said she'd wait to order dessert after she ate, but her order spurred on the orders of her tablemates until the entire table had ordered some variation of the sandwich and soup that Sprout had so loudly recommended.

"I'll put this order in for you ladies so that your orders can come out before the big rush hits," Carol said. "And I'll get that carafe and those mugs—and water. I'll bring a pitcher of iced water for the table, too." They all accepted her explanation of what she was going to do, and Carol took the order to Jacqui so that she could start working on it while Carol handled shuffling everything else to the table. She'd been doing this long enough that, even limiting the weight of what she carried to stick with her doctor's orders, she almost had serving down to a perfectly choreographed dance. She filled all the coffee mugs before leaving a full carafe of hot coffee in the center of the table. She did the same with the glasses of iced water. "Is there anything else I can get you ladies before I leave you to Jacqui's very able hands?"

"Is there any reason you won't be staying with us?" One of the women in one of the suits asked.

Carol smiled.

"Jacqui usually takes off earlier in the evenings," Carol said, "and I usually take lunch off. I like to go and eat with my husband. Today I'm taking him lunch and surprising him."

"You just—randomly surprise your husband for lunch?" One of the women asked.

Carol shrugged and nodded.

"Sometimes," she said. "It's a special day for us. I'm…pregnant…and it's the first day of an important week for us."

She felt her face burn warm. Nobody could understand the importance of reaching week nineteen—not like she could and, bless his heart, like Daryl desperately tried to understand. It wasn't his wound, but he surely did his best to lick it clean for her with just as much dedication as anyone could have if they'd suffered it themselves.

"So, you're just going to—what? Show up somewhere? At his place of work, perhaps?"

Carol's stomach tightened. Sprout must have felt her uneasiness. Her stomach didn't growl again, but the baby definitely delivered another relatively solid blow with a foot, elbow, or some other body part. These were harder than the bubble-type movements she'd felt before, but her doctor had promised her that they'd become more and more pronounced until, maybe in the next week or two, Daryl might even be able to detect them. She'd told Carol something about the location and tilt of her uterus—something Carol had hardly heard thanks to her euphoria of simply knowing Sprout was healthy—and she'd explained that it would make it easier for him to feel Sprout's movements sooner rather than later. Carol touched her hand to the spot where Sprout had moved, covering it over in case her touch could somehow comfort the tiny little baby nestled deep within her. Carol didn't like the idea of Sprout being upset, even if was nothing more than a reaction to the chemicals in their shared bloodstream.

"He—doesn't always work at the same place," Carol said. "I call his boss or…or a workmate. Find out where he's working. I get there a little early and meet him when he's leaving for lunch."

"Because you don't trust him?"

Carol felt struck. It felt like she was suddenly getting the third degree from a group of strangers who gave her smiles she didn't believe anymore and had no more connection to her than the fact that they liked the coffee she brewed and patronized her establishment.

"I trust my husband," Carol said. "I absolutely trust him. It isn't about trust. It's about—taking him lunch because he likes when I make food for him."

"So—he expects you to make him food and bring it to him, wherever he's working?"

"He doesn't expect it…" Carol said. "He likes it. And I like to do things for him that he likes."

"It's really very interesting," one of the women said. "We're actually working on a piece about wives who are essentially tricked into meeting their husbands' demands by being mind-fucked into believing that they enjoy serving their husbands."

"I do enjoy serving my husband," Carol said. "I mean—I don't serve my husband. No more than I'm serving you right now. But I'm certainly not mind-fucked."

Carol's face grew hot, and she didn't know if she was embarrassed or angry.

"I don't mean any offense, of course," the woman said, apologetically. Still, the saccharine quality of her words made Carol not believe them at all. "I'm sorry if you took it that way. I only meant that—it reminded me of what we were working on. We're compiling the results from a series of interviews from these disillusioned women whose eyes were later opened about their marriages. For most of them, it took a divorce after some shocking revelation to make them realize what really should have been huge red flags about their relationships. If you're surprising your husband at lunch, aren't you at least a little concerned that, one day, you might surprise him and get a surprise yourself? Some other woman might have surprised him at lunch or…something like that?"

Carol frowned and shook her head at the woman.

"Not my husband," she said. "He'd never do anything like that."

"Many of these women didn't really know their husbands. Not like they believed they did. That's kind of the idea behind the piece—the fact that we never really know people entirely, no matter how intimate we believe we are with them."

"I might have agreed with you," Carol said. "If we were talking about my ex? I could stand here all day and tell you how some people will fool you long enough to make you what they want you to be, and to get from you what they want. They'll make you believe all kinds of things about them and about yourself. I would agree with you, if we were talking about my ex. But you don't know my husband. I do. And—he's not that kind of man. He's a good man. An innocent man. He's not guilty of any of that kind of thing…"

"All men are guilty of some of it," one of the women said with a laugh.

Carol felt a tugging in her belly. She plastered on the best customer service smile that she could muster.

"I guess—we'll just have to agree to disagree, ladies," she said. "But—I wish you luck on the piece you're writing. If you'll excuse me…I have to…help Jacqui with a few things. She'll need to…get ahead of the lunch crowd. And I should see how your order is coming."

Carol didn't stay to hear any response. She didn't explain that she couldn't stay and talk to them any longer because she couldn't tolerate their words. She didn't tell them that she could practically feel the minutes slipping away to her break, and Daryl would be leaving for lunch soon if she didn't hurry. She didn't say anything else to them, she simply headed for the back.

"They're waiting on their orders when you get them," she said blankly to Jacqui when she walked in the back. Jacqui had clearly been taking orders elsewhere, because she was making coffees when Carol came in. She'd clearly started on the sandwich orders, but it took time to toast them all, and she was manning the grilling sandwiches while she made coffees. Jacqui was, like everyone in service, Carol assumed, a master at multi-tasking.

"Are you OK? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm fine," Carol said. "I just—need to go. I'm running behind."

"You finished your message on the box, but you didn't finish packing your cookies," Jacqui said. "I packed a few more to hit nineteen. I found that piece of ribbon. It thought it looked pretty. I hope you don't mind me tying it on there. I took a minute to pack you both something to go. Specials—neither is spicy. I know Sprout protests if it's too hot."

Jacqui smiled, clearly pleased with her preparations for Carol's lunch. Even though Carol still felt a bit shook up from the strange conversation with Jacqui's appropriately dubbed MHC, she recognized the kindness of her friend. She pulled Jacqui to her in a quick hug.

"Thank you," Carol said sincerely.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Jacqui asked. "You look pale and you're…are you shaking? Carol—talk to me—is your blood sugar OK? Are you sure you should be driving? You want me to call Daryl?"

Carol recognized the real concern in her friend's voice. She shook her head and gave her the best smile she could.

"I'm fine," she said. "It was just—some things they said. They made me think about…Ed, and…you know how that makes me feel."

"I knew I shouldn't let you deal with the MHC," Jacqui said.

"Don't worry," Carol assured her. "I'll go find Daryl, and we'll have a wonderful lunch. Thank you for that. I don't know how you knew, but you packed exactly what Sprout wanted."

Jacqui smiled warmly, clearly very pleased with Carol's happiness over the food.

"You just be careful," Jacqui said. "And if you start feeling light-headed, you promise me that you and that precious baby will pull over and call someone, Sweetie."

"I promise," Carol assured her, gathering up the food that was packed. "Don't worry about me, and don't stress too much over the lunch rush. I'll be back to help clean up and restock for the afternoon."

"Don't you worry, because I don't. They'll get what they get, and they'll all learn to love it," Jacqui declared, returning Carol's wink from earlier before she turned her attention to flipping freshly grilled sandwiches onto plates. Carol gathered up the food and left Jacqui to her work. As she crossed the café, she shifted the bags to her left hand so that she could text Merle and find out if he knew where Daryl was on the schedule.