Earlier this week, amid much discussion of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s pre- and post- pregnancy weight, the following was posted on the Citybaby message board: “Bklyn Hot Mamas-To-Be – Let’s meet up!” It named a date when I wasn’t really doing anything, a convenient early-evening time, and a place – a faux English tea shop – in striking distance from my apartment.

Almost immediately, people began responding in the affirmative. “I’ll be there!” someone chirped via keyboard. “Can’t wait!” wrote another. “Looking forward to meeting some of you IRL,” a third wrote, using standard Citybaby shorthand for “In Real Life.” “Woo-hoo,” remarked someone else, “it’ll be our first mommy’s group meeting!”

I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic; I’m just not a “joiner.” And meeting Citybabiers IRL seemed, well, wrong somehow – like pulling the curtain open to find the regular old man wizard. The beauty of the board was its nameless, faceless oracle-ness. Meeting fellow posters IRL meant attaching names and faces to otherwise neutral posts. Now, when someone wrote about a boundary challenged MIL (mother-in-law), I could concentrate on the specifics of the post – how dare she demand to be in the delivery room!?! – but after meeting real live Citybabiers, I’d no doubt wonder if someone I’d met had done the posting. I’d be tempted to insert her into the picture. Instead of responding to the issue at hand, I’d be thinking, “Could that be so and so?” Would going to this seemingly innocent gathering ruin the essential neutral nature of the board? Would meeting the messengers shoot the message board?

I didn’t respond to the post. Instead, I asked the one Citybabier I did know IRL, the one who’d turned me on to the boards in the first place: the Celebrity.

“Of course you should go!” she said.We were splitting a peanut-butter-and-nutella sandwich at the adorable sandwich and smoothie shop, a treat we’d dubbed “the pregnancy special.” “It’ll be fun,” she said.

“You don’t think I’ll just be sitting there wondering which of them had posted stuff about their sex lives?”

“Of course you will be!” She said. “That’s the fun part!”

I pulled a face to tell The Celebrity she was a little evil. “Why don’t you come with me then? Sounds like you’d get a big kick out of it.”

“Are you serious?” she said. “There’s no way I could go. All the posts for the next week would be ‘Guess who showed up at our mommy’s group’ and ‘I couldn’t believe how much weight she’d gained.'”

While a little narcissistic, this was undeniably true.

“Anyway,” she said, licking nutella from her fingertips, “you have to go. If only to report back to me.”

I was skeptical, but when the appointed day came, I made my way to the little Victorian dessert shop. As I waddled over, I couldn’t help but scan the sidewalk for other pregnant wanderers. I saw one, heading down the street in the opposite direction, and wondered if she was attending. And if she was, was she the one who posted about catching her DH (dear husband) with his co-worker?

Soon enough, I found myself in front of the dessert shop. It was the moment of truth. Would I open the door and break the fourth wall of faceless, anonymous message board-dom?

Before I could official decide, a voice called out behind me. “Are you here for the Hot Mamas-To-Be meeting?” I turned to find a fellow pregnant woman smiling and friendly.

“Yeah,” I said, though I quickly hedged. “I really can’t stay long though.”

She said, “Oh, that’s too bad,” and told me her name. As we entered the dessert place, we exchanged due dates. I wondered if she was the one who posted about her mother wanting to stay with her for a month after the baby comes.

But once inside, I stopped wondering about attaching stories to faces. That’s because there was a familiar one right in front of me.

“Eve, I didn’t know you’d be here.” It was none other than Courtney, my nemesis. She stood near a table with three other pregnant people, all of whom, it seemed, were making introductions.

“Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about you being here either.” It was true; I hadn’t. The idea of Courtney being on Citybaby had never crossed my mind. But seeing her here, in the flesh, sure made me wonder what her posts were. Could she not stand her MIL? If so, that was my friend Matthew’s mother! Was her DH unhelpful around the house? If so, that was my friend Matthew!

And, perhaps even more frighteningly, what kind of advice had she posted? Was it possible that in the virtual world, Courtney and I were on the same page? And if so, did that mean that, stripped of our IRL circumstances, the two of us might have a lot in common? Could it be that my enemy was also an Internet buddy?

“Courtney,” one of the others said, “this was such a great idea. Thanks for thinking of it.”

Wow, I thought. Courtney was the one who organized this. Though it did make sense – she did have some sorority girl tendencies. And I knew at least one of her posts now. Thinking this virtual connection could translate into a new, friendlier leaf between us, I joined right in with the accolades saying, “Yeah, what a great idea, Courtney!”

“Well,” she said, giving me that swinch-eyed look that was vintage Courtney, “I figured it would be nice to make some pregnant friends in the neighborhood.”

The implication was clear. The virtual world might be big enough for the both of us, but the IRL world wasn’t.

I quickly introduced myself to the rest of the group, then told them all I had to finish up some work and, sadly, was only stopping by.

“Well, we hope you can make the next one then,” the woman I entered with said.

“Yeah, me too,” I fibbed, and then hastily left, barely registering their faces enough to wonder about their stories.

The Brooklyn Chronicles, a work of fiction, appears each Friday. Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php. The author can be reached at kschwartz@nysun.com.