Free Dedication by Emma McLaughlin

lettuce in Olympia. JenniferTwo is taking pity on you all the way from Philadelphia, and I’m sure when she wakes up tomorrow Maggie will spell out ‘Katie is lame’ with breadcrumbs for the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Get a grip.”
    Chastened, I nod. “Hydroponic lettuce?”
    “Check out his Friendster page.”
    “Okay, grip gotten. And who’s Anne, her guru?”
    “Uh, no.” We wait as a security golf cart passes, its orange lights flashing. “Her girlfriend, soon to be partner.”
    “Shut the fuck up.”
    Laura grins. “And sometimes we get stoned. Now you’re completely up to speed.”
    “Laura!”
    “Not while I’m pregnant.” She cracks up. “You try having twin boys. It’s a miracle Sam and I aren’t crushing Valium into juice boxes.” The cart clears and we cross to Mom and Keith playing patty-cake. “Okay! Let’s do this thing. I want to get the boys in bed by nine.”
    “Yes, I love you—and I appreciate being included,” Mom acknowledges. “But you’re right, I can only take about forty-five minutes of this—” she circles her arms at the crazed pre-Christmas masses surrounding us. “Before I expire. Why don’t I take the boys to the carousel while you two do your thing.” Keith and Mick look rapturously at the garland-strewn apparatus spinning beneath the domed night sky. “All right, gentlemen, I’ll take a hand from each of you, per favore.”
    She stands and the boys grab her hands, giving in to the magnetic pull of the plaster horses. For a second I feel the sensation of her fingers enclosing mine at that age, the assurance. “Forty-two minutes,” she mouths, deftly steering them into the crowd.

    “…had a very shiny nose…” My cranium reverberating with cheer, Laura and I let ourselves be carried along by the shoulder-to-shoulder madness. Bypassing the chain stores optimistically featuring cotton “resort wear” in their windows, we somehow manage to jostle ourselves to the women’s department of Lord & Taylor.
    “Does this come with a free bikini wax?” I point at the mannequins sporting waistlines all of an inch above the crotch.
    “Try finding a pair that covers your ass when you’re pregnant. It’s feast or famine. Either your tailbone’s sticking out or you’re in an army tent. How ’bout these?” She lifts washable suede toward me.
    “Uh, no.” I flip the hanger around to show her where they lace up. “I’d rather not go as a VJ.”
    “Didn’t you get the memo? We’re all supposed to look fourteen now.”
    “Kristi Lehman would be so bummed.” I flip through midriff-baring sweaters. “She didn’t even look fourteen when she was.”
    “She’s running the mini-mart out in Fayville now.”
    “Shut up!” I spin around and give her a shove. “Shut up! How do I not know this?”
    “What?” Laura smiles, savoring my reaction. “We never go out that way. Sam had to install some equipment in Clarkson and stopped to get gas. He said, and I quote, she looks…tired.”
    “Tired!” I shake my head.
    “Tired!” She throws her arms up, her purse sliding up to her shoulder. “Merry Christmas!”
    “God, right back at you.” We stare blissfully at each other. “Crap, what time is it?” Laura asks, checking the clock on her cell and immediately pivots me forward.
    “Twenty-eight minutes, move.”

    Damp with sweat, I grab anything that looks remotely spectacularly grown-up-and-over-you. Laura throws her own selections on the pile, which is soon higher than my sight line. I follow blindly as she leads us, snaking around circular racks of velveteen and faux fur, to the hallway of dressing rooms. She stops abruptly and I tip forward, the pile slipping. She catches it in her arms as we take in the long line of miserable women balancing their heavy coats with their potential purchases and pulling at their turtlenecks.
    “This is ridiculous.”
    “I say drop to your skivvies or we’re going to be here all night.”
    I do, taking more and