Tales From the Crib

by Jennifer Coburn

  Zoe wanted to throw a baby shower because she loves me. I have no doubt about it. My mother wanted me to affirm that the baby would make it because she believed that would bring me good fortune. I am certain of her pure intentions. My aunts, Bernice and Rita, cared about me and didn’t want me to piss off God by being presumptuous. And Kimmy supported whatever decision I made because she is a kind, decent, and genuinely supportive person. But everyone had her own baggage around my baby shower.

  Everyone, that is, except Jack, who had moved into my old home office. He said he didn’t have an opinion about whether or not I had a baby shower. Whatever I decided, he said, was cool with him. The difference between Jack’s response and Kimmy’s was that my sort-of-husband was emotionally checked out. It’s not that he’d support whatever decision I made. He just didn’t care.

  The shower was at my mother’s apartment in Greenwich Village because, as she put it, “No one’s going to New Jersey.” She had a point. I didn’t know any of the women in my neighborhood because they were all mothers, so we never connected through playgroups, preschool, or at the playground. Even without friends who had children, I always knew exactly how old JJ would have been. Going to birthday parties for other kids would’ve been too much.

  Plus, it wouldn’t be fair to the birthday child to have some psycho grab the piñata stick and beat the rainbow-colored donkey because she was enraged at the injustice of her infertility. Who needs the childhood memory of me swinging a bat, screaming through tears about how any crack whore living in an alley can give birth, but I couldn’t?

  Zoe tried to find a no-carbohydrate dessert, and quickly found that there’s no such thing. Oh sure, some diabetes boutiques try to pass off their asparagus torte as a delectable treat, but no one in their right mind would consider it a dessert. I kept telling Zoe that she should cater the party for the guests and not concern herself with the fact that I couldn’t eat anything sweet or with more than a teaspoon of flour.

  Gestational diabetes. I got that diagnosis about a week after the sciatica became so severe I needed a cane to walk. I remember the call came through on my cell phone just as the Wendy’s near my house was mounting a thirty-foot inflated chocolate frosty cone on its roof. No cookies or cake. No rice or pasta. No bread. A bite of fruit and maybe three beans were acceptable. The nurse assured me there were foods I was able to eat-cheese, meat, and all the leafy vegetables I could pile on my plate. Oh joy. It was basically the Atkins Diet with the added bonus of needling my finger and analyzing blood three times a day. And let’s not forget that fabulous way of waking up every morning by peeing on a matchstick-sized strip of alkaline paper. I’m not a morning person and the strip was quite small. ‘Nuff said.

  At the baby shower three women from the agency where I used to work filled me in on all the post-layoff gossip. Kimmy wore a winter-white leather jumpsuit that looked as if it were tailor-made for her, which it very well may have been. Sometimes I look at her and try silently brokering body-swapping deals. Some may call this prayer. First, I ask if I can look like her, then counter my own proposal by offering to settle for a week with her body. Then I compromise again, and say I could be happy with her legs and face, and pretty soon I’m chopping my lovely cousin into parts and taking the leanest, loveliest cuts for myself. Her arms are quite well defined too, but I’m not greedy. I just want the legs and face. Maybe the ass and tummy too, if I may.

  My aunts Rita and Bernice drove in from Long Island for the shower. They are a portrait in opposites. Bernice sees the good in every situation. When her husband died, she said that while she’d miss him very much, she was happy to get a break from his heart-healthy diet. Rita, on the other hand, is in the habit of pretending to spit after any of her negative comments. In other words, every time she speaks, there’s cause to pretend she’s spitting on the ground beside her. Once I was trying to shave off a few pounds and declined her offer for ice cream. “Why no ice cream, big shot?” Rita snapped. “You think you’re too good for ice cream?” I have no idea where this came from, or if, for that matter, there were people who felt too good to eat ice cream. Was there a moral position on ice cream?

  Zoe told the group about a new reality television show she was producing called Real Confessions. Basically the show would consist of pixilated faces confessing their sins to a hidden camera. At the end of the confession, an Alan Funt-like character would ask through the screen if the congregant had ever heard of Real Confessions. In theory, the person would have a knee-slapping great sense of humor about this and exclaim, “Well Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, am I on TV?!”

  “Zoe, I was raised Catholic,” my mother chimed in.

  “No one wants their confessions aired on national television. Why would anyone agree to this?”

  “Complete absolution,” Zoe said. “No contrition. No Hail Mary. No rosaries, no nothing. Let us air your confession and you get off with no penance.”

  “A ‘get out of hell free’ card?” I asked. “Exactly!”

  “How do you get the Church to go along with it?” Kimmy asked.

  Zoe explained. “Plenty of churches have turned us down, believe me,” she rolled her eyes as if to suggest they were being ridiculous. “The show offers a $15,000 donation to the parish for every confession we’re able to air.”

  “So if the person gets mad that her sins have been recorded by a hidden camera, the priest has an economic interest in smoothing things over?” I asked.

  “Cash money, baby. Father O’Neil on Staten Island is one smooth operator, let me tell you,” Zoe laughed. She put on her best Irish accent. “No one made you do the sinning, my boy. You and the devil did that on your own. Now make good with the Church and let these fine people air your confession. No one but God, you, me, and the fine people at FOX Television will ever know it’s you. Think about it, Tommy boy. We’re looking at lots of rosaries for adultery. Aren’t there other things you’d rather be doing?”

  My guests laughed at Zoe’s story. “There’s a church in Schenectady that plans to replace their stained glass with their proceeds from the show.”

  Kara from the agency asked if congregants might shy away from confession if they fear they’ll be recorded.

  “Maybe people will behave better so they won’t have to confess and risk being caught on hidden camera,” Zoe said.

  “I’m not religious, but it seems more than a bit tacky to turn a spiritual ritual into entertainment for others,” Anjoli said.

  “This is why Jews don’t have confession,” Aunt Bernice chimed in. “Who needs the whole world knowing your dirty laundry? Better to just feel guilty for a bit, promise to nevah do your bad deeds again, and go about your business.”

  “That’s not why we don’t have confession,” Rita snapped.

  “You think Talmudic scholahs were thinking about reality TV when they voted against confessionals?”

  “I don’t think they voted, Rita.” Bernice pursed her lips with victory.

  “I’ve got to tell you, I don’t think people are going to watch a bunch of faces they can’t see,” I added.

  “Sure they will,” Zoe agreed. I didn’t love everything Zoe did professionally, but I adored her, and therefore accepted some of her harebrained schemes. I proudly mention her cute sports ball bags, but typically don’t let people know about her failed endeavors, like the handbag designed to look like human testicles—hair and everything. Truly gross.

  The discussion of confessions was a segue for Anjoli to tell one of her favorite stories about herself—the time she was banned from Ceausescu’s Romania for illegal trading of Kent cigarettes for crystal. Apparently Kent refused to export to Romania after some falling out over taxes. The people, however, were hooked and loyal to Kent brand smokes. There was also some scuttlebutt about Anjoli’s affair with the goalkeeper for the Romanian national soccer team. “So I told the guard that simply carrying forty pairs of men’s Levi’s did not make me a smuggler,” she regaled. The story went on for twenty minutes before m
y friends from the agency declared that Anjoli was hilariously outrageous and they wished their mothers were more like her.

  “Thshe was defnnnntly a trwipp,” I spat.

  “Jesus, Lucy, what happened to your face?!” Zoe cried.

  “A chaleyre!” Rita pretended to spit on my mother’s hardwood floor.

  “There’s no evil curse on our Lucy,” Bernice said.

  “Whath?” I noticed spit shooting out of the right side of my mouth. I picked up my cane and hobbled to the mirror as fast as I could. One eye was open too wide and the right side of my face looked frozen.

  “She’s having a stroke,” Zoe panicked. “Get a cab. We need to get Lucy to the hospital.”

  “I am?!”

  “Let’s go,” Anjoli grabbed her purse and headed toward the door. “The hospital’s across the street.”

  As I used my cane to hobble across the street to the hospital, I wondered if something was wrong with the baby. “If I’m having a stroke, will the baby be okay?” I asked my mother.

  “All is well. Your body is in perfect harmony. You are a vibrant, healthy soul encountering a momentary health challenge. You are releasing disease and embracing health,” she said in a hysterically calm voice.

  Zoe chimed in. “A stroke won’t affect your baby,” she said so assuredly I believed it. Then I caught a glance of myself in the reflection of a window.

  “Holy schlit!” I looked like Mary Jo Buttafuoco after Amy Fisher shot her in the head.

  Chapter 5

  As it turned out, I was not having a stroke, but rather was mysteriously stricken with Bell’s palsy. No one knows for sure whether it’s a virus or a hex or what, but this wretched thing paralyzed half of my face. I’d never really appreciated how much I move the muscles in my face until half of them quit working. In the hospital emergency room, Anjoli brought me a bottle of mineral water from the cafeteria. After the first swig, I felt the cool water rolling down my chin and onto the right side of my crushed silk emerald top. “Holy schlit! My mouth won’t close,” I cried.

  “Let me get a straw for you, darling,” Anjoli offered. She returned moments later with a white plastic straw and the suggestion that I seal my lips closed with my fingers. “I dunt fink vat will be neshassary,” I rolled my one good eye. But it was. As soon as I sucked on the straw, I felt water shoot out of the right side of my mouth.

  “This is going to make eating rather challenging,” Anjoli said sympathetically.

  I slurred, “Eating became difficult when cookies went off the menu.”

  “Challenging, darling,” Anjoli corrected. “Release the struggle consciousness. Challenges can be overcome. One can rise to a challenge. Difficulty sounds so hopeless. Words are affirmations. Affirmations are manifestations. Manifestations—”

  “All right already! Eating will be challenging, are you happy?”

  “In general or at the moment?”

  “Good God, Mother!”

  Anjoli was right. Trying to eat without the use of the right side of my face was extremely challenging. I used my hand to push my jaw up and down to help chew food. But my greatest obstacle to surmount was the fact that my right eye would not fully close. When one considers that we blink every few seconds, it’s easy to see how after only an hour my eye became a stinging, irritated dust trap.

  “Mom,” I said, on the brink of tears. “My eye is challenging me.”

  “Darling!” Anjoli hugged. “Where is that doctor?! First they leave you in a waiting room, then they keep you waiting in an exam room. This is what’s wrong with Western medicine.”

  Before she could start the inevitable tirade about the arrogance of doctors, I asked if she could find a patch to protect my right eye. “Of course, Lucy. You let Anjoli take care of everything.”

  I must say, our day in the hospital was Anjoli at her most nurturing. When I say she doesn’t have a maternal instinct in her body, I don’t mean to sound harsh. And I don’t mean to sound as though I don’t love her deeply. My mother is a vivacious woman who’s had more adventures than anyone I’ve ever known. She has friends in every corner of the world, and has been banned from three countries for harmless yet illegal shenanigans. Yet mothering wasn’t really her thing. She was her thing. The upside of having a self-absorbed mother was that I became self-sufficient at a young age. It certainly wasn’t as though I was left completely on my own. I knew that if I ever really needed help, my mother would be happy to outsource it to the most qualified consultants. As a child, sometimes I wondered why Anjoli wasn’t more involved in the day-to-day aspects of parenting. As an adult, I realize that she simply could not give what she didn’t have.

  In fifth grade, I remember my best friend, Vicki DeMattia, opening her lunch box and finding a note from her mother. I love you, Vicki! Sometimes Mrs. DeMattia included more, like what they would do together after school or how many kisses Vicki owed her from their Monopoly game the previous night. I got notes from Anjoli, too. They were typed and left on the dining room table. They went something like this: Lucy: I’m at the theatre tonight and won’t be home till after you’re asleep. On the table, please find ten dollars for dinner. Be sure to include a vegetable and a green salad. Rinse lettuce thoroughly. Pesticides can kill you. Anjoli.

  By seventh grade, the notes stopped and it was assumed that I’d know how to fend for myself for dinner if there was a ten-dollar bill on the table. There were three dinner options at my house. In reverse order of preference: Number three—broiled chicken dusted with paprika. Number two—ten on the table. And number one-dinner with Mom and her boyfriend, David, at a five-star restaurant. For ten-on-the-table nights, I memorized the take-out menus of every restaurant within a ten-block radius of West Eleventh Street, which was no small task. The family of my old pal from PS 41 owned a Chinese restaurant on West Eighth Street. There was always Ray’s Pizza down at the corner. And sushi bars were just starting to sprout up all over Manhattan. Some nights my friends would call and ask if it was a ten-on-the-table night. If it was, I’d eat at their house for dinner, cut them in for three bucks, and pocket the rest. This is how I got the money for my first stock purchase. That, and undercutting the Quad cinema’s popcorn prices and selling it to moviegoers who were waiting in line.

  When I was a kid I asked my mother if there was a Santa Claus. She asked if I wanted the truth or the bourgeois lie.

  “Truth!” I insisted.

  “Santa’s a character, not a real man,” she told me.

  “What about robbers?” I asked.

  “Real,” she answered.

  “Monsters?”

  “An illusion.”

  “How ‘bout witches?” I asked.

  “Debatable. It depends on what type of witch you mean.”

  I didn’t understand what she meant. The only type of witches I knew wore pointy black hats and flew around on broomsticks. “Oh, Lucy, they’re fake too,” Anjoli said. She noticed I seemed a little overwhelmed by the avalanche of information. “Look, darling, I could feed you some pedestrian bullshit about the tooth fairy and Santa and the Easter bunny, but I think more of you than that. You’re a child, not an imbecile, and I refuse to patronize you. How will I have any credibility with you later in life if our first years together are based on lies?”

  “There’s no tooth fairy?” My worm-sized lips quivered.

  “I’m the tooth fairy,” Anjoli told me.

  “Oh.”

  “How do you feel about what I just told you, Lucy?”

  “Sad.”

  “For that I am genuinely sorry, darling. Two good things have come from our chat, though. One, you now know that Anjoli would never lie to her little girl. And two, you have expressed your feelings beautifully. I’m sorry that you’re sad, but identifying and articulating your feelings is a real breakthrough in a child’s development. Now that that’s settled, I need a favor from you. You know I’m mad about you and you’re the most fabulous daughter a mother could want. When you call me Mommy, it pushes my b
uttons and makes me feel older than I really am. Plus, you’re a precocious child. Why don’t you call me Anjoli?”

  We weren’t like mother and daughter. It was more like two single women sharing an apartment in Greenwich Village in the seventies. Except I was five.

  Nearly thirty-five years later, we were in the same hospital where I was born. Anjoli had just found an eye patch, which I was securing to my head as I walked to the bathroom. The doctor on staff popped his head in the door. “Whoa, an eye patch and a cane! All you need now is a parrot on your shoulder and you could be a pirate.” He laughed alone. “Err, um, okay, what have we got here today?” He grabbed my chart and read, “Mrs. Klein?”

  “A wannabe comedian in a white coat,” Anjoli shot back. I glared, hoping she would cease her attack on the doctor. My mother absolutely hated doctors. If they were a racial group, my mother would be considered a bigot. They were all arrogant jerks as far as she was concerned. She didn’t need to know anything more about them except that they were doctors. I had tired of her anti-doctor tirades years ago, but it was disconcerting to think that she was about to anger the doctor who was ready to treat me.

  “When are you due?” the doctor asked.

  “Her due date is February second,” Anjoli answered for me.

  “Ground hog Day,” Dr. Michaels added. “My favorite movie.”

  “One of mine too!” Anjoli sounded excited, and far less hostile toward the doctor. “A light comedy with a profound spiritual message about repeating mistakes until we evolve with foresight and wisdom.” Oh God, she sounded like a movie reviewer for Flakey Times. “What about you, doctor? What drew you to the film?”

  “Oh, well I think Bill Murray’s hysterical,” he said. I knew this answer would undoubtedly disappoint Anjoli. He put on his best Bill Murray slur and said, “I’m going to blast those darned gophers!”