I stepped into the condo and scanned the room as Lance closed the door behind me. The place could have been declared a national disaster. The luxury condominium that I knew he had to be paying at least a couple of grand a month for was a mess. I couldn’t see the floor through the litter of Chinese take-out boxes and it stunk to high heaven. The burgundy-colored leather sofa was covered with clothes, papers, books, and dry cleaner bags.
“Lance, what’s that smell?” I fought the urge to cover my nose.
“I haven’t been able to take out the garbage.” If Lance hadn’t taken that moment to look as though he wanted to sink though the floor with shame, I would have turned around and walked out.
Just then the sound of a baby crying filled the apartment. I turned and looked at him. His hand was over his eyes as he impatiently rubbed his temples.
“He’s been like that since I found him last night,” he said.
“Found him?” I repeated.
I followed Lance back into the bedroom. It looked like the rest of the apartment except that in the middle of the bed, on top of the New York Times front page, a little baby lay flailing his arms. I fought the urge to throw up as the smell of baby poop permeated the room. I took a step closer to the bed and stared down at the little baby boy. Lance’s spitting image lay looking back up at me.
“Congratulations. What’s his name?”
“Michael.”
“Where’s Michael’s mother?” I knew that there wasn’t a woman in her right mind that would be crazy enough to leave her baby with this man. Lance was the last person in the world that I’d trust to baby sit.
He twisted his face into a grimace. “I don’t know where she is. We hooked up for the weekend at the end of last summer and she just disappeared. All I know is that when I opened the door this morning, he was there in a stroller. By the time I got downstairs, she was long gone. All I had was this baby, a suitcase, birth certificate, and a damn note.”
I moved towards the bed and gingerly began pulling back the elastic straps that held the soiled diaper around his tiny waist. Concentrate on the problem, I kept telling myself. “Where are the diapers?”
“In the bag.”
I rolled my eyes. “Make yourself useful. Get me a diaper and come over here.”
Lance handed me the Pamper as if holding a bomb. “Bring over the wipes, too.”
He dropped the carton by my side and then turned to move away. I grabbed his shirtsleeve and held it tight in my fist. “Don’t you dare move!” I ordered. “This is your mess and you’re going to help me clean it up.”
“Men in my family don’t change diapers,” he said.
“Well, the men in my family don’t have babies out of wedlock,” I snapped back.
I was holding on to my sanity by the skin of my teeth. Of all the things I’d expected of my friend, this was the last. His marriage to Sherrie: big mistake. But who can hold a grudge when a man gets suckered in by a pretty face? But a one-night stand with a woman who abandoned her son in a hallway? My respect for him all but disappeared.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Take responsibility,” I answered sarcastically. I paused, took the baby’s legs, and gently lifted his rear end out of the soiled diaper. “Now wipe it all off.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he groaned.
“No, you’re not. Just start wiping. Hold your breath if you have to.”
It took us ten minutes to get Michael clean, dry, dusted and Pampered. After we were finished, he just lay there, his little round face wrinkled with smiles, gurgling and kicking his tiny feet. I reached down and picked up the tiny bundle and inhaled the sweet scent of baby powder, only to grimace as his hands grabbed hold of my hair. I turned to see Lance bagging up the diaper and the newspapers that had been strewn across the bed.
“Here.” I leaned towards Lance, ready to transfer little Michael into his arms.
“That’s okay. He looks really comfortable right where he is,” he responded.
“Lance, this is your son. It’s about time you got used to holding him.”
He sighed and reached out. Little Michael seemed to recognize the other half of his genes, because his chubby arms reached for his father.
“What am I gonna do?” he complained.
“Be a father?” I joked. “Call your Mom?” I could imagine what Mrs. Phillips would have to say about this mess.
“Did that this morning. Do you know how hard it is to get into contact with someone on a cruise ship? I offered to buy her and Dad round-trip tickets home from the next port, and an outside cabin with balcony on any cruise they wanted if they helped me out. Mom blessed the hell out me and hung up.”
“You really planned to drop your own child on your parents’ doorstep?” I stared at him as if he had crawled out from under a slimy rock.
“Don’t look at me like that, Lee. You’ve seen my place and you know a consultant’s life is either on the road or on a plane. There’s no way I can make it as a single parent.”
“You’re telling me this why?”
“I have to be in San Francisco on Monday for a company meeting.”
“Yes and…” I waited for the shoe to drop.
“Can you keep Michael for me?”
I shook my head and took a deep breath as I watched the baby move his little neck to get a closer look at Lance’s watch. I almost wanted to say ‘yes’ just because I couldn’t condemn anyone, much less a baby, to the living conditions in the place. Lance’s look of serene confidence stopped me cold.
“No.”
The expression of complete shock on his face had the little girl in my head cackling with glee. His expression looked like mine the day I found out that he was marrying Sherrie.
“Lee, come on now,” he began. “You can’t leave a brotha hanging. I don’t know anything about taking care of a kid.”
“Then you might want to do what all consultants do: learn. And I suggest you start taking notes, because I can’t help you with this one, Lance.”
“Can’t or won’t?” he shot back.
“Both.”
Letting the obsessive-compulsive side of me out, I turned and automatically started picking up the clothes lying on the floor. I balled them up and put them in the white laundry bag that had been tossed over the chair.
“Lee, it’ll only be until I find Christine.”
“At least you remember her name,” I snorted. I walked out of the bedroom and began to pick up things in the living room. I put myself on autopilot. Moving distracted me from letting go of the anger that I had buried inside. It was the same anger that had eaten at me since that night in Sherrie’s apartment.
“I was still hurting from the divorce, Lee. I met her the day the divorce was finalized. I was drinking, and she and I just connected. I was lonely and she was there and open and honest. I thought—”
“Lance, stop right there.” I shook my head. “You didn’t think. If you had we wouldn’t be having this conversation and little Michael wouldn’t be trying to eat your fingers. Have you fed the baby?”
“I tried this morning and he didn’t want it.”
“What time this morning?”
“About nine o’clock.”
I looked at my watch and sighed: one o’clock.
“He’s hungry. Come with me to the kitchen and I’ll show you how to make his formula.”
“Look at that, Michael,” he cooed. “Auntie Leah’s such a natural. She won’t let anything bad happen to you, like leaving you alone with Daddy.”
“Don’t try it, Lance. No games, no manipulation, or I walk out that door.” It was an empty threat, but the anger I injected into my voice made it believable.
“Okay.”
I dug though the baby bag and pulled out a can of formula. It only took me three minutes to mix it properly and pour it into the small pot.
“You’re going to need more of his formula,” I pointed out after pulling out three extra cans.
“Can I order it online?” he asked.
I gritted my teeth at his dumb question. Can I order it online? What world was he living in? Not mine.
“No. I’ll write you out a list of things to buy. The supermarket down the street should be stocked with baby supplies. You’re going to need more Pampers, wipes, bottles, disposable inserts and some snacks.”
I paused, giving Lance time to enter the grocery list into his PDA. I just shook my head and turned back to pouring water into the pot and setting it on the stove. “You have to make sure that everything’s clean. Michael’s immune system isn’t as developed as ours. He’ll pick up colds and viruses more easily. Put his bottles in boiling water to sterilize them before filling them with formula. If you pick up the disposable inserts, you won’t have to sterilize the bottles every time you prepare one.”
By the time I finished giving Lance notes on preparing a bottle and formula, Michael was ready to eat. His whimpers had turned to cries before the bottle cooled enough for him to drink. I sat Lance down on the coach and showed him how to hold Michael slightly elevated so that he wouldn’t choke.
“Now give him the bottle.”
“Wow,” Lance said as the baby started sucking hard on the plastic nipple. “Guess he was kind of hungry.”
I smiled. “When he starts to slow down, take away the bottle, place him over your shoulder and gently pat his back so he can burp.”
I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a monogrammed Polo hand towel. I walked behind the coach and placed the towel over Lance’s shoulder.
“Babies have a tendency to spit up after they eat, so I suggest you keep a towel with you at all times. If you forget to burp him he’ll get gas, and you don’t want a baby with gas. Trust me when I say that he’ll be miserable and he’ll make you miserable, too.”
“Where did you learn all this stuff, Lee?”
“From the Discovery Channel,” I said sarcastically. “I learned from helping out in Vacation Bible School while you were too busy trying to hide from Mrs. Rigley.”
His lips turned up in a tired smile and I looked at him closely. A sob welled up in my chest at the sight of him holding the small squirming bundle. We’d played house in the middle of his parents’ den. I’d fix him dinner, hold my little Raggedy Anne doll, and pretend we were married and living in a big house with a white picket fence.
In my imagination, Lance would come home from a long hard day in the office and Max, the poodle I’d always wanted, would greet him at the door with slippers while I stood next to the kitchen table looking cute in my designer apron and sexy high-heeled shoes.
“I’m sorry, Lee. God, I’ve made such a mess of my life. I guess I haven’t been thinking. I wish…”
All I needed was another shoulda, woulda, coulda session. The sight of Lance holding the little boy in his arms was one more nail in the coffin of my dreams. I had to cut this off quickly, so I lifted my hand and gestured for him stop.
“Lance, before you start crying a river…” Like the Mississippi I felt welling up behind my eyes. “You’ve been given a precious gift. Don’t mess it up by blaming yourself.”
He hugged Michael closer to his chest and looked down at the little bundle whose eyes were already half-closed in slumber. “What am I going to tell my boss?”
“The truth.”
He rubbed his head and sighed. “Man, they’ll never believe it.”
“Give it a try.”
“How am I going to keep him? He’s too young for pre-school, right?”
I just stared at the fool and kept my mouth shut.
“Right,” he sighed. “I guess I could request a leave of absence.”
“Let me help you out. There’s this wonderful thing called paternity leave, and I think that you can qualify for it given your extenuating circumstances.” My voice was laced with sarcasm.
“How much time do I get?” he asked, beginning to look a little more alert.
“A month, I think.”
“One month. That’s a lot of time.”
“Trust me, it’ll pass quickly. Now, raise him up a little and gently pat him on the back.”
Lance gave me a look filled with uncertainty, and I couldn’t help smiling. “You can do it. He won’t break, but he will cry.”
When Michael let out a loud burp, the grin that spread across Lance’s face stretched from the Bronx to Staten Island. You would have thought the man had just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.
“Now why don’t you lay Michael down on the bed and put some pillows around him in case he rolls over.”
“Do I lay him on his back or on his stomach?”
“Put him on his stomach so he won’t choke in case he spits up again.”
“Then what do I do?” he asked.
I groaned. “First, take out the garbage and get a maid.”
“I’ve already got one. She comes on Monday.”
“Then you need to extend the contract to three days a week. Before all that, you need to go down the street, get baby supplies and food. There’s nothing but beer, mold and frozen French fries in your refrigerator, Lance. You’re a father now. I think it’s time you started living like one.”
After he’d gone I started cleaning the apartment. I thought about how easily those earlier words had rolled off my tongue. You’re a father now. I wanted more than anything to just watch little Michael sleep, but I walked out of that bedroom and started cleaning. I’d finished with the living room by the time Lance unlocked the front door. I watched as he came in followed by two delivery boys with bags of groceries.
“Did you buy the whole store?” I asked while helping him put the groceries away.
“Nope, but I got enough bonus points to pick up an eight-person gourmet meal for Thanksgiving,” Lance boasted.
I just looked around the bag-littered kitchen floor and fought to keep the hysterical laugh in my throat.
We took our time in the quiet kitchen. I threw away the expired boxes of Frosted Flakes and filled the empty shelves with canned goods. After I finished putting the last cans of spinach and green peas in the cabinet, I felt Lance’s hand on my shoulder. I allowed him to pull me into his arms and I was enveloped with his scent of talcum powder and cologne.
I finally saw Lance not as the boy he had been but the man he’d become and I could have slapped myself. All that time spent waiting, hoping, dreaming for a person who only existed in my memories. I’d thought I’d always want to be in his arms, but at that moment it wasn’t Lance’s arms I wanted wrapped around me. I wanted Sean, and that knowledge washed over me like a bucket of ice-cold water. History just kept repeating itself. Here I was again wishing for a man I could only have in daydreams and fantasies, wanting to have somebody else’s arms to catch me instead of my own.
Chapter 12
I woke up Sunday morning with a runny nose, red eyes, and a headache. The wonderful day I’d spent with Sean seemed a decade ago. I could barely remember the smell of the orchids and the perfect day Sean and I had shared. Turning over and getting out of bed was the hardest thing in the world.
I’d have lain there all day with the blinds closed and the sheet pulled up to my neck if Simba hadn’t started his meowing. Damned cat sounded like he hadn’t had a meal in weeks. I knew that if I didn’t get up and pour him a bowl of his veterinarian-prescribed kitty food, the Himalayan next door would join in the yowling and then there’d be hell to pay for disturbing the Sunday morning peace.
I wanted to pick up the phone and talk to my mother even though I knew what she’d say. “You need to have your behind in church and not in the bed. Your father and I didn’t raise no heathens.”
But she and Pop were lying on lounge chairs in the Caribbean. I knew they’d be partying all night and playing shuffleboard in the morning before hopping off the cruise ship for a day filled with shopping and guided tours.
“Got a problem. Talk to the Lord.” Mom’s words echoed in my head. I’d talked to the Lor
d all last night. My tears and sobs sent out a plea for guidance or a little peace from the haunting specter of being alone for the rest of my life. Everybody except me seemed to have someone.
* * *
One of the things I loved best about my job was the ability to work from home. I’d just finished sketching out a new web page design when the clock struck five. The muted sound of children playing drifted through the open windows. The hard rain last night had washed away the humidity and pollen. Looking down at the smooth interface and well-positioned web bar, I smiled. All it needed now was content and color. By the time the web designers finished with it, the homepage would practically jump off the screen.
I was just clearing the table when the doorbell rang. Sighing, I pushed the chair back and stood up. The last thing I needed was company. Rounding the table, I walked through the living room, undid the bolt, and opened the door. Sean stood there wearing an old pair of jeans and a white tee shirt.
“I come bearing gifts,” he announced, holding up two plastic bags.
“What kind of gifts?” I asked, trying not to smile.
“I bring you Singapore noodles and white chocolate raspberry ice cream.”
“Okay, you can come in.” I stepped aside, waving him into the room. I followed Sean into the kitchen and watched as he put the ice cream into the freezer.
I pulled out two glasses and filled them with ice cubes and sweet tea. “So what’s the occasion?” I asked after we both sat down at the table and started eating.
“Rena called me.”
My grasp loosened on the chopsticks and I dropped a baby shrimp.
“She told me you sounded a little down on the phone when she talked to you earlier this morning.”
“I’m fine,” I denied.
“Really?” he questioned.
“No,” I replied honestly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, now that you’re here,” I answered, not really wanting to get into to it.
“Don’t want to talk about it, Leah?”
“Not really. Maybe later,” I suggested, taking a sip of tea and hoping that later would never come.
* * *
An hour later, after filling myself with noodles and ice cream, I almost felt like myself again.
Frost on My Window Page 12