Futures and Frosting

by Tara Sivec

  “How the hell was I supposed to know any of this? And I thought that was just a nickname for them and they shortened it to fit on the packaging. I was using the formal name,” Jenny tells her as she continues to move her hips around in a giant circle like she's trying to hula hoop in slow motion.

  We all just stand around staring at her while she does her weird mating ritual to get Benjamin’s balls loose. It's like a train wreck we can’t turn away from.

  “I am never letting anyone use the bathroom in my shop. Ever,” Liz says under her breath.

  “Ooooh, I think I got one loose!” Jenny exclaims.

  “I totally love you right now!” Drew tells her.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Claire states, throwing her hand over her mouth and running for the exit.

  19. Oops, I Did it Again!

  After a week of being sick off and on, Carter forces me to go to the doctor. Other than throwing up a few times, I feel fine. I know he's making a big fuss over nothing. But regardless, I haven’t been to my doctor for anything other than my yearly pap test since Gavin was born. He's a general practitioner so he is Gavin’s doctor as well. With all the time I've spent in that office with my son and his check-ups, colds, shots, fevers, diaper rashes, and everything else under the sun, there is no need for me to go in there if it isn’t absolutely necessary. I’m the type of person who doesn’t go to the doctor unless I’m bleeding from the eyes or monkeys are flying out of my ass. I figure my heath and well being will be perfectly fine through osmosis just by walking into that place every couple of months with my son.

  When I call my doctor and tell him my boyfriend is being mean and making me get a physical, his exact words are, “Claire, you know there’s more to you than your vagina. I’ve scheduled you for tomorrow.”

  Whatever. What if my vagina is the best part? What do you have to say about that, Doctor Dick?

  Actually, I really do love our doctor. I have never seen him wearing anything other than jeans and a t-shirt. He’s very down-to-earth and Gavin loves him. Plus, if I’m going to let a guy stick his hands up my snatch once a year, he better make me feel comfortable if he isn’t buying me dinner first.

  I'm currently sitting on the exam table in a lovely ensemble of a paper shirt that opens in the front and a paper blanket the size of a newspaper that is supposed to fit around my ass. The room is a balmy fifty-two degrees, and I have been waiting forty-five minutes so far. Needless to say, I'm in a super mood by the time Dr. Williams finally shows up.

  “Claire, how are you doing today?” he asks as he walks into the room with a nurse following close behind.

  “Oh, I’m just super. Did you do something new with these gowns? They seem to have much more coverage,” I say sarcastically.

  “Ah, Claire, you always say the nicest things,” he laughs as he takes a seat on his little stool with wheels and looks over my chart.

  The nurse comes up next to me and takes my blood pressure and checks my pulse, reporting the numbers to Dr. Williams so he can notate them.

  “Well, your BP is good and you don’t have a fever. When was your last menstrual cycle?”

  I count backward through the weeks in my head and then stop and count again.

  “Well, it was…I remember it was a Tuesday because that’s the day my supplies are delivered, and I was in the middle of signing for the white chocolate when I felt cramps,” I ramble, trying not to panic.

  One, two, three, four, carry the seven, multiply by eight…FUCK!

  I glance over at the calendar hanging on the wall. This month shows a black and white cat with wide eyes and both of its paws covering its mouth as if to say 'Oops!'.

  Fuck you, you stupid cat! I can’t count with you staring at me like that. And if cats really could say “Oops” they’d do it when they shit on the SIDE of the litter box instead of in it.

  I stare at the squares and the numbers on the calendar until they all start to blur together, either from eye strain or tears, I'm not sure which.

  “First, how about we just have you scoot down to the end of the table and we’ll check you out. You’re due for your yearly exam next month anyway so we might as well get that taken care of,” Dr. Williams says as he slides his chair closer to me while the nurse pulls out the extension at the end of the table and adjusts the stirrups for my feet.

  I lie back and put my legs up in the air while the nurse slides a table over with the pap test kit already set up on top.

  Right now, I wouldn’t mind a little Drew humor to take my mind off of things. Something to the effect of, “How’s that cunt scrape coming along?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut while the doctor goes to work, sticking his hands where only one man has gone before.

  “So, have you been watching the new Bachelorette? That chick is a train wreck!” Dr. Williams says with a laugh.

  “Um…”

  “Did you see when she got all trailer park on that one guy? Wagging her finger and shaking her head? You can take the girl out of the trailer park…” Dr. Williams trails off with another laugh as I hear the metal clink of the speculum.

  “My daughter likes to watch that stupid show just to see the pretty dresses she’s going to wear,” he tells me as he continues working between my legs.

  No really, it’s perfectly fine to talk about reality television and YOUR KID while your fingers are all up in my business. How does this work when he’s at home? Is it the exact opposite when he’s sitting around the dinner table? “So did I tell you about this woman today? Her cooch hadn’t been shaved in days. What a trainwreck! Can you pass the potatoes? I only treat her because she’s got a pretty uterus. How did you do on your spelling test, Cindy Lou?

  Dr. Williams finishes digging to China, slides back and slips off his rubber gloves while he stands.

  The nurse takes my arm and helps me sit up. I try to situate the paper shirt and skirt thing to cover myself back up but it seems like the fucking thing shrunk. I give up and just keep my legs as tightly together as I can. It doesn’t seem appropriate to flash the goods to the doctor now that the exam was over. It would be like walking up to your dentist in the grocery store and showing him your teeth. There is a time and a place for everything.

  “So? Is everything okay? What’s next?” I ask, hoping since he hasn’t said much during the exam, aside from television gossip, that all is good and I'm worrying for nothing.

  “Well, we’ll order up some blood work, and I’ll see you back here in four weeks,” he said with a smile as he wrote something else on my chart. “Congratulations, you’re pregnant!”

  ~

  Did you know The Dollar Store sells pregnancy tests? It’s true. And even though all these stupid dollar stores should change their names to “The Dollar Store – Everything Isn’t Really a Dollar, We Just Like to Fuck With You”, pregnancy tests are in fact one of the few things there that actually only cost one dollar. Which begs me to ask the question why the hell did I get a dirty look from the cashier when I asked for all thirty-seven tests? Like that’s never happened before? They are pregnancy tests for ONE DOLLAR, people. Gavin gets one dollar for doing chores around the house every once in a while. Even HE can afford to buy a pregnancy test. Why a four-and-a-half-year-old would need to buy a pregnancy test is beyond me, but these are the facts.

  Arguing with the cashier and telling her I hope she slams her ginormous tits into the drawer of the cash register probably isn’t my finest moment, but it keeps my mind off of the fact that I might be pregnant.

  Yes, I said might. I have just finished peeing on the twenty-third test and Dr. Williams had told me I was pregnant when he fondled my uterus, but he could have been wrong. Doctors get things wrong all the time. They remove a kidney when they mean to remove a gallbladder, and they forget to take clamps and shit out of someone before they sew them up. He could definitely be wrong about my uterus. How many uteri does he stroke on a daily basis? Maybe he's just off his game. Maybe he hadn't even been touching my ute
rus but had his hand around my spleen. But that would probably mean he was up to his elbows in my vagina. It had been uncomfortable, but not elbows-deep uncomfortable.

  I stand at the sink in the bathroom and stare at the pregnancy test in my hand, waiting for the five minutes to be up so I can gouge out my eyes when I see another positive result. When the timer on my cell phone beeps with the new tone (“SWEET MOTHER FUCKING JESUS IT’S TIME!”) I downloaded just for this purpose, I glance down and try not to cry.

  An hour later, Carter and Gavin come home from the store and find me curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the bathroom, surrounded by used pregnancy tests, instructions, and ripped open boxes.

  “Mommy, where did you get all these magic wands?!” Gavin asks excitedly as he runs into the bathroom.

  He picks up one of the tests and pretends like he's Harry Potter, aiming the test at random objects around the small bathroom yelling, “I curse you with my magic wand, punk toilet paper!”

  I don’t even lift my head from the cold tiles; they feel too good on my tear-stained cheeks to move. I watch him with my eyes and wonder briefly if I'm a bad mother for letting him play with something that I peed on. That just starts another crying jag when I realize I will be a bad mother to two kids now. I have a vision of the future where both of my children are sitting in a tub of pee while I'm comatose on the floor.

  Carter walks to the doorway and takes one look at me and the litter on the floor and jumps into action.

  “Hey, Gavin, how about you put down that wand and go get the bubbles we just bought. I’ll even let you blow them in your room.”

  “Sweet! This wand smells funny anyway, and it’s making my hand wet,” Gavin states as he drops it on the floor and runs from the room.

  “You should probably tell him to wash his hands,” I mumble from the floor.

  “Eh, he’s going to be playing with bubbles, which are like soap, so it will all even out,” Carter replies as he steps into the room and sits down on the floor next to me.

  I sit up, pushing tests and boxes out of my way so I can cross my legs and sit Indian style across from him with our knees touching.

  “So, how was your day?” Carter asks gently as he reaches over and brushes my hair out of my eyes.

  I sniffle and look around at the mess.

  “Oh you know, the usual. I worked, ran some errands, some guy put his hands up my chimichanga, complimented my uterus, and I got into a fight with a clerk at The Dollar Store.”

  “Was it because practically nothing in that store is a dollar?” he asks.

  “Oh my God, right? What the fuck is up with that? I don’t go into a store called The Dollar Store to buy a five dollar toy. Someone needs to school these people on proper advertising,” I complain.

  A few seconds of silence lapse, and I knew Carter was waiting for me to mention the huge “I'm pregnant” elephant in the room. Fuck that elephant! He can just sit there in the corner eating peanuts and shitting on the tile while giving me looks of disgust.

  You’re the one shitting on the floor, elephant, don’t give me that look.

  Carter spreads his legs out on either side of me, reaches over and grabs onto both of my ankles, unwinds my legs, and pulls me across the floor to him. He re-hooks my ankles together behind his back and puts his hands on either side of my face, forcing me to look him in the eyes.

  “Say it,” he whispers. “I missed out on this the first time. I want to hear you say it.”

  My throat is so tight I'm positive I won't even be able to take another breath, and he wants me to talk?

  “Please?” he pleads softly.

  He smiles at me and I can see his eyes start to fill with tears. I want to tell him so many things, but I'm too overcome with emotion and frankly, a little bit of puke. Two words are about all I can muster.

  “I’m pregnant,” I whisper back with a sniffle.

  “You’re pregnant?” he asks with a huge smile.

  Um, duh? What the fuck do you THINK all this is about? Oh my God, what is wrong with me? I’m sorry! I love you!

  “Are you not happy about being pregnant?” he asks, showing the first sign of worry since he stepped into the room.

  “I figured YOU wouldn’t be happy. You’re totally screwed now. If you decide you don’t like me, I’ve got you for eighteen years. I’m your baby mama times two. That’s triflin’, yo.”

  Carter laughs and wrapped his arms around my waist so he could pull me up against him.

  “Stop trying to quote Kanye. You’re not a golddigger, and there’s no question whose kids they are,” he tells me as he cups my cheek with one hand and rubs it softly with his thumb.

  “That’s what you think. Sperm from the floor of the sex toy shop might have jumped off of the carpet and up into my vagina. No telling who this one belongs to.”

  He stares at me for a few minutes before kissing the tip of my nose.

  “I know you’re freaking out. It’s okay. Just talk to me. Whatever you’re feeling, I want to know. And I am perfectly fine with this. In fact, I am EXTATIC with this. There is absolutely nothing that could ruin my good mood about this news,” he affirms.

  There cannot be a more perfect man in the world than him. Fact.

  “Really? Because I’m pretty sure we conceived this child the night I ate that pot cookie. I’m eighty-four percent positive our child is going to be born a pot head. It’s going to come out with dreadlocks and wearing a Bob Marley onesie. Its first word will probably be, ‘Whaaaaaazzzzzzzzuuuuup’. It’s never, ever going to sleep through the night because it’s always going to have the munchies.”

  Carter chuckles and tightens his hold on me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and rest my chin on his shoulder.

  “If that’s the case, we’ll just have to make sure we have plenty of Cheetos on hand at all times and some Grateful Dead music to play in the nursery,” he states.

  I sigh and turn my head so I can rest my cheek on his shoulder and burrow into the side of his neck.

  “It’s going to be fine. I promise you. I love you and I’m not going anywhere. This is the best news you could have ever given me. Nothing could make me happier right now.”

  Gavin suddenly comes bursting through the doorway.

  “Dad, woke up dis morning, got myself a gun’ is on!” he says excitedly. “And my wiener feels funny again. It won’t stop being tall.”

  “Oh my God. I take that back. THIS is the happiest moment of my life. My son just got a boner for Sopranos,” Carter whispers.

  “Like father like son,” I deadpan.

  Carter pulls me up from the floor of the bathroom and tells me to leave the mess and that he’d clean it up later. He tells me I'm not allowed to do anything else for the rest of the day but lie on the couch and let him wait on me. He always knows exactly what to say to make me feel better, and he takes such good care of me. I'm an idiot for being disappointed that he doesn’t immediately ask me to marry him. He loves me and he's happy we're going to have a baby. I can’t help but wonder though why he hadn’t asked. He obviously isn’t in shock like I am so there has to be another reason. As I curl up on the couch with my head on Carter’s lap, I try to ignore the pain in my heart at the thought that maybe he doesn’t think I was marriage material.

  20. Did Not Finish

  Three months later

  “So what you’re telling me is you wanted him to drop down on one knee and ask you to marry him in the bathroom?” my mother asks.

  I roll my eyes and reached for another balloon to blow up. My mother has offered to help me set everything up for Gavin’s fifth birthday party the next day. We are having it at the shop after hours. I let Gavin invite a few of his friends from preschool and think having a party in a candy store will be fun for them. As soon as my mother walks in the door of the shop she can tell I'm not myself. I blame my mood swings and crying jags the last few months on pregnancy hormones, but she knows better. The number of times we've talked on the phone, I
gloss over what's wrong. Now that she can see me in person, I can’t hide anything from her.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me, chickadee. I’m just trying to make sure I understand this correctly,” she says as she hangs a “Happy Birthday” banner on the wall. “You thought it would be romantic and beautiful if, once he found out you were pregnant, proposed immediately. So you wanted him to propose out of guilt and obligation for knocking you up instead of out of love.”

  Well when you say it that way…

  “No! I mean…I don’t know. I just would have liked for the effort to have been made. Maybe even a comment about us getting married or getting engaged at some point in the future. The fact that he hasn’t said one word about it in three months just sucks,” I tell her. “Every day I keep waiting for him to bring it up and every day that goes by and he doesn’t, I get more upset. What if he doesn’t think I would make a good wife? I know he loves me, but maybe he’s not IN love with me. The kind of love that makes you want to do everything in your power to ensure you spend the rest of your life with that one special person. Maybe I’m not that special person for him.”

  Jesus. Talk about depressing. How does anyone even stand to be around me lately? I’m a disgusting, emotional, needy chick. No wonder Carter doesn’t want me.

  “It makes sense I guess. Look at all the years I spent hating the idea of marriage. I thought it was pointless and could only end in disaster. Karma is biting me in the ass.”

  My mom walks over to me and pulls me into her arms, my growing stomach acting as a stopper to keep us from getting too close.

  “Baby, any fool can see that Carter is IN love with you. Have you ever paid attention to that boy when you walk into a room? His whole face lights up. And he’s constantly touching you in some way. A brush of his hand on your cheek, wrapping his arms around your waist, kissing your shoulder...he does whatever he can to be close and connected to you,” she says, pulling away so she can look at me. “And don’t give me that bullshit story about you hating the idea of marriage.”