by Sally Quinn
“O’Grady’s right. I guess you’re never really lapsed. I just thought I was. It’s not like I’m completely back in the fold. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this past year. You say you don’t know me. Well, that makes two of us, baby. I’ve never been particularly introspective. The whole process makes me uncomfortable. Especially knowing your beliefs, or lack of.”
“But what about the test? Have you totally changed your mind about abortion?” She was trying to sound calm and unjudgmental.
“I didn’t know I had until you mentioned the test. The idea of it just blew me away. Not the knowing. The having to make a decision if there was a problem. I couldn’t face that. Then I had to figure out why.”
“So why?”
“It’s God’s will. You have to accept what He gives you. That spares you the moral decision. You don’t want to be tempted to do the wrong thing. You don’t want to put yourself in the wrong position. Especially since I’m not sure I’d be good enough to be the father of a seriously defective child. I’m not sure I could cope. Not having to make a decision makes it easier somehow. If the amnio or whatever the test is doesn’t turn out right and you have an abortion, you’re asking me to jeopardize my soul.”
“Do you really believe that?”
She wasn’t challenging him. She was just being matter-of-fact. She understood that he found the whole subject challenging on a much higher level. It wasn’t a personal conversation anymore.
“I may have rejected the art form of the Catholic church, but the intensity of it survives. It just does. I’ve had many late night talks about this with O’Grady and, privately, we always end up agreeing that it may not make any sense. Yet we say to each other, ‘Yeah, but who’s going to take the chance?’ ”
She didn’t know what to say so she didn’t say anything. Very unusual for Allison. This was so unlike Des, this sort of reflection. He had never talked about anything like this to her in all the time she’d known him. Part of her was thrilled with his new openness, his new depth. It was so exciting to learn that somebody you thought you knew so well was more complicated than you could have guessed. Part of her was a little embarrassed. She found the mere discussion of anything religious embarrassing. Partly she felt angry. She had bought into one thing and she was getting another. She had believed Des was not religious and she had married him, gotten pregnant by him. Now she was being told that her husband, this man she was to spend the rest of her life with and raise a child with, was not only religious but a Catholic. How would that affect Kay Kay? Would he try to indoctrinate her? She couldn’t allow that. Yet she could see how strongly he was affected by it. Could he control it? This was something she had not bargained for. She was going to have to think about this one. It was clear to her, though, that the most important thing for both of them now was to be honest.
Des broke the silence.
“If you had found out that there was something wrong with the baby… would you have had an abortion without telling me?”
She had no choice but to lie.
“I don’t know.”
* * *
Walt had been more relieved than she was. He got up from his desk and came around and hugged her, right in his glass office in front of the entire newsroom.
“I really thought you were dying of a brain tumor,” he confessed.
“Des doesn’t want me to tell anyone yet,” she said. “He says it makes for a very long pregnancy. But I don’t care. Now that I know everything is fine I want to tell everybody.”
“Well, now’s your chance. Let’s do it at my so-called Wednesday morning meeting. It’s just about that time.”
This particular meeting was routine and boring. There was an announcement of a brown bag lunch. Each week, a different person from the Daily was chosen to speak at lunchtime to anyone in or out of the paper who was interested in that person’s topic. There was a change in the TV section layout… an announcement of a personnel change in the top management of the company, and the birth announcement from two foreign correspondents married to each other. Everyone in the meeting was shuffling through papers, staring at the ceiling, glancing at their watches and doodling.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Walt. “Allison is going to have a baby girl.”
Somehow adding “baby girl” made it seem almost like a fait accompli. Even Allison was startled.
Pencils dropped and so did jaws.
Everyone stared at her as though Walt had announced she was going to give birth to a baby elephant. She burst out laughing.
The men looked down at the table and shuffled their papers. They seemed to be almost embarrassed. The Living editor, who was a woman, smiled encouragingly.
“What’s the matter, guys?” Allison could feel her own face redden unexpectedly. “Walt didn’t exactly announce that I’ve got a brain tumor.”
One by one they got up self-consciously, as the meeting was over, and came over to her, shook her hand, congratulated her, and then left quickly. Walt smiled at her as he rushed out explaining that he had an early lunch and would talk to her later. Only she and the Living editor, with whom she had never gotten along, were left.
“That’s very exciting,” she said, smiling warmly and putting her hand on Allison’s shoulder. “When are you due?”
“Christmas Day, actually.”
The two women chatted about Lamaze classes, breast feeding, biodegradable diapers, nannies, things Allison would never have dreamed of discussing before.
“There’s a mother’s lunch once a month where we all get together and talk about coping,” said the editor. “I hope you’ll join us this month. It might be helpful.”
Some sort of door had been opened and she had been invited into a secret society.
For the rest of the day there was a steady stream of women coming by her office, stopping her in the aisle, introducing themselves to her in the ladies room—many of them she had never even met before—offering playpens, clothes, names of baby-sitters, advice.
The men were interesting, too. Out of earshot of other men, they confided in her about their wives, their children, their home life. She began to realize that this made her a human being in their eyes, a woman, instead of the hard-nosed ambitious automaton. In fact, it seemed all she had to do was tell people she was pregnant and she was immediately turned into the bloody Virgin Mary.
It was time. She felt fulfilled in a way she hadn’t ever imagined possible, and Kay Kay wasn’t even born yet. Professionally she had done everything she had wanted to do, been everywhere she had wanted to go, visited more countries, flown on more airplanes, attended more parties. This was like embarking on a new adventure, a new assignment. It would be good for her marriage, good for her and Des. It had been too easy for them to spend all their time working. Without Kay Kay she could see how they could look at each other in another five years and say, “Now what?”
And what a perfect due date. What a fabulous present. For once in her life she really would have a Merry Christmas.
* * *
“I’m having lunch with Sadie.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“I’m not,” said Des.
“Have you already asked her?”
“Yes.”
“So there’s nothing I can say about it?”
“It’s an interview.”
“Give me a break.”
“It’s a one-year-after-the-assassination story.”
“You called and asked her for an interview? Des. You couldn’t have been that insensitive.”
“She called to congratulate us about the baby. She offered.”
“Just like that. Hi, Des. It’s your old girlfriend, Sadie, you remember the widow of our assassinated President. Well, in case you’ve forgotten it’s one year ago and I thought you might want to tell the world how I’m feeling about the whole thing. It would be a big scoop for you, an exclusivo. Whaddya say, big guy?”
“Sonny.”
“Don’t So
nny me, Des. I’m not stupid.”
“She’s in love with somebody else.”
“What? Did she tell you that? This is terrific. What a ploy. I’m safe. I’m in love with somebody else. So it’s okay to have lunch. Allison won’t mind. Just who is she in love with anyway? The doctor who took care of Rosey in the emergency room? That would make a great story. Is she going to tell all at lunch? On the record? How many millions of dollars would you like to bet that this interview never sees print?”
“This is not like you.”
“This is exactly like me. Where are you going to take her anyway, i Ricchi so everybody in town will see you together?”
“If I wanted to be with Sadie, I wouldn’t have married you.”
“It’s just that I…”
“You’re pregnant and you don’t want me running off with another woman, is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“Sonny, I love you. I love our baby already. I’ve never been happier and we have only more happiness ahead of us. I have no interest in Sadie Grey and I never will for the rest of my life. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Those are the magic words.”
“Good. We’re over that hump.”
“Still,” mused Allison. “She’s very attractive, very tragic, she’s a single parent. And she needs a father for her child. I can’t believe she’s not interested in you. You would be the perfect father for Willie.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just intuition.”
* * *
Allison was furious with Des.
He had been on “Meet the Media” that weekend and had blasted the administration, the President, and Foxy over the way they were handling the Colombian drug situation.
Watching it in their bedroom on TV, Allison had practically had an anxiety attack. It was October and she was seven months pregnant; she did not need the aggravation of having Des go out on such a limb. She had just been reading one of her baby books, which emphasized the notion that expectant women should be as calm and serene as possible during their pregnancy so that the fetus would not experience any stress in the womb.
This particular Sunday morning he had really outdone himself, which of course the host and the producers loved since they made news that way and it made the show more interesting.
Des had barely walked in the door when the phone started ringing. It was the editor of the Weekly calling from New York, a social-climbing horse’s ass of major proportions who saw his invitations to the White House going right down the drain. Des held the phone at elbow length so Allison could hear what he was saying.
“I think you ought to give up that show,” Allison began in a murderously controlled voice, after he hung up.
“Why? Just because that asshole thinks his social life is in jeopardy?”
“I’m just beginning to think that journalists should be read and not seen or heard.”
“Since when? I’ve noticed you’ve appeared on plenty of these goddamn opinion shows. More than I have, in fact, since they’re always desperate for women who can put two words together and don’t have two heads.”
“We obviously can’t have a conversation without you getting competitive.”
“Competitive? What the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m trying to make a point here if you would just listen. I’m saying that I think journalists are getting too self-congratulatory, too involved with what they think and not with what they’re reporting. I think television has done this to many of us and I don’t think it’s healthy. It’s all about airtime and exposure and money and big book contracts and not a whole hell of a lot about ‘seeking the truth,’ if I may be so corny. It’s just all very self-serving and I don’t like it.”
“Since when did you get religion?”
“You may have noticed I haven’t done it for a while. It just made me uneasy. Too often I felt tempted to say something, not just because I believed it but because I wanted attention, I wanted to be controversial, I wanted to be talked about, a star. I didn’t like what it was doing to me and I don’t like what it’s doing to you. I don’t think you feel as strongly about the President’s drug programs and Colombia and Foxy as you said you did. I think you wanted to stir things up. I don’t blame your editor for being furious. I would be, too. You don’t need it and the magazine doesn’t need it and I don’t need it and Kay Kay doesn’t need it.”
“Oh for Christ’s sweet sake,” he said. “You can all go fuck yourselves. I have a good mind to just quit the magazine and do television full time. I’m sick of it, sick of him, and I could become sick of you if you don’t get off my back.”
With that he walked out of the bedroom and slammed the door. They didn’t speak for the rest of the day and that night he slept in the guest room. Kay Kay kicked and rolled around in Allison’s stomach all night as though it were she who had had the fight with Des. Allison spent the whole time talking to her in a soothing voice, playing classical music and rubbing her stomach. Finally at dawn Kay Kay quieted down and they both went to sleep.
Des’s discontent with his work hadn’t been lost on her. She had never heard him express it so strongly before and she wanted to get over their fight so they could talk about it.
She brought it up again the next evening when they came home from work. They were sitting in the little study. She waited until he had lit a fire and fixed himself an Irish on the rocks. She was curled up in her usual spot on the sofa. Only now she needed a pillow to place against her stomach to lean on, it was so big. She found it interesting about herself that she not only didn’t mind having a large belly but she rather liked it. So many women seemed to feel ugly and ungainly when they were pregnant. She only felt prettier, sexier, more radiant the more she grew. The only downside was the fatigue. She had barely made it through the day, she was so tired, but she didn’t dare let anyone know it. Not only that, but she was so preoccupied with Kay Kay and now Des and his problems, that she was finding it difficult to concentrate on her work. It was getting harder and harder and she was feeling guilty. The fact was that she really didn’t want to be at work anymore. She wanted to be home knitting booties. Home with her husband and her baby. A year ago the whole idea of it would have made her gag. Now it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
Des was ready to talk. He clearly didn’t want to prolong their fight any more than she did, and she could see that he was probably feeling ashamed of his behavior the day before. It didn’t take much for him to open up once he saw that she really wanted to be sympathetic.
“This job burns people out, Sonny,” he said.
He was standing, leaning over the mantel. It gave him a better view of her girth, he liked to tell her.
“I have to deal with overbearing editors in New York who think they know more about Washington than I do. New York always thinks Washington’s in bed with their sources, that we whore for various sources, that we don’t have enough access, that we will practically commit fellatio for access. Frankly, and this may surprise you considering what you said about me last night, but I don’t give a shit about access journalism. I think it’s dangerous and essentially unhealthy. I can’t stand the fights anymore. I’m sick of them. Everybody thinks Washington gets too much space. They’re right even though it’s heresy to admit it. I can’t stand the interbureau hassles. Who owns the national security staff, the White House reporters or the State reporters? I’m bored with the screaming matches on the squawk box with New York. Last Friday we had everybody in the room giving the bird to the box. You don’t know who’s in the meeting in New York, you don’t know who you’re insulting.”
He was pacing the floor, rubbing his hands through his hair.
He had kept all this from her the past year. Why was he bringing it up now when she didn’t have the strength or the ability to deal with it? Why was he doing this to her? Was this his way of getting attention? That’s what fathers-to-be were supposed to do.
Yet she surmised that if she didn’t give him the attention and sympathy he needed from her she wouldn’t get it from him. She couldn’t risk that—not now, anyway. She would just listen.
“I hate having to go to New York to schmooze and hang out,” he was saying, “just to keep them from thinking this is a hostile outpost. Even one day away from here can be a mistake. The animals get loose from their cage. It drives me crazy that the New York writers have their own opinions and go off half-cocked, completely ignoring our reporters and their files. The story this week on drugs was so fucking screwed up that they had to rewrite the whole thing. The writers were exhausted and all they wanted to do was go home. Tempers were short, conversations were edgy. At one point I could hear the phone clattering as the writer in New York threw it against the wall. Then he said, ‘Excuse me, I’ve got to go calm down.’ Just another happy Saturday close at the Weekly. It’s enough to make you go find a quart of vodka and get totally shit-faced.”
“It would seem you’re not a very happy camper,” she said, with some affection and a little fear.
“I’m not, Sonny. I’m bored out of my gourd. I’ve done everything I want to do at this magazine. I’m proud of what I’ve done, but it’s time for me to leave.”
Allison felt her stomach turn. This was not the time for Des to decide to quit his job. She needed a sense of security, not upheaval, in her life.