“Like sausages,” she says. “Cankles, isn’t that what they call fat ankles?” She puts her elbow on her knee and rests her chin on her fist. He should reach over and take her hand.
But he hesitates. Ever since the D & C, he’s been afraid of doing the wrong thing. “It’s going to be okay,” she told him in Dr. Liu’s office as they prepped her for the D & C. And when it was over, she said, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Yes, he wanted to say to her. It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. Watching the person I love more than anything in the world have the remains of what was supposed to be our baby scraped out of her. Wondering what they do with the remains of the pregnancy. Do they call it remains? He decides he never needs to know the answer.
***
Another hard part of the miscarriage has been letting people know what’s happened, telling the story over and over. To his parents, Laurie’s mother, their friends. “Laurie’s doing fine,” he said. “Yes, we’re disappointed, but we’ll try again.”
He’s not sure how word got out at Palmer-Boone, but when he comes in, his secretary, Wendy, tells him how sorry she is. “My sister had a miscarriage and now she’s got three kids. And a fourth on the way.”
He hears that from everybody at Palmer-Boone, as if they’ve gotten together to come up with the same story—it happened to my sister/cousin/mother/brother’s wife and now they have a girl/boy/oodles of children.
Craig from accounting pops his head in Alan’s office, says he’s sorry but, “Hey, at least it wasn’t a stillbirth.”
Craig wears Ralph Lauren polo shirts, the version with the giant rider and polo pony, the one that announces, “My shirt is really expensive.” Alan is holding a cup of hot coffee and he wonders if he splashes it against Craig’s face if the burns will be first, second, or third degree.
“Yeah,” he says to Craig. “We’re pretty lucky.”
When Craig is gone, Alan looks out his office window to the San Gabriel Mountains, a gorgeous view on unsmoggy days. All the Palmer-Boone VPs get corner offices with floor-to-ceiling windows, another Palmer-Boone perk, like a lifetime supply of three-ring binders.
The best Palmer-Boone perk turned out to be meeting Laurie. Seven years ago, he was standing in line at a Staples in Burbank and noticed a pretty woman in front of him. She was wearing shorts and had great legs. Leaning forward, he peeked into her basket. “Those are mine,” he said.
“Excuse me?” She turned to him and frowned. Great legs, equally great big, gray-blue eyes.
“My company. Palmer-Boone. We make those. Pressure-sensitive materials.”
She looked at him as if he’d escaped from a mental institution. “Pressure-sensitive materials? You mean mailing labels?”
“Palmer-Boone makes more than mailing labels. We’re a multibillion-dollar company with offices all over the world. Office supplies, retail branding, automotive and industrial products—you can probably tell I get a little too into this.” Shit, was he making a fool of himself?
“I’ve always wanted to know everything about pressure-sensitive materials,” she said.
“I could tell you. But then I’d have to kill you.”
She laughed when he said that, and he saw she had a slightly crooked, loopy smile and he thought, That’s a smile I’d never get tired of. She had that smile as a child; she’ll have it when she’s an old lady. When I’m an old man and we’re growing old together. Huh. Why was he thinking about growing old with a woman he just met in line at Staples?
She watched him—oh no, is she reading my mind? “Would you like to buy me a cup of coffee? My name’s Laurie,” she said.
***
Peter comes into his office and joins him at the window. “I heard the news. Sorry.”
“Thanks.” Peter is his closest friend at Palmer-Boone, probably his closest friend in L.A. They met playing company softball, colliding with each other in center field trying to catch a fly ball. Neither succeeded; the other team scored and won the game. Alan cut his lip; Peter sliced open his chin. Blood brothers.
“How’s Laurie?” Peter asks.
“She’s hanging in there.”
“Good. Give her a hug from me. How about you?”
“I don’t need a hug.” Alan forces a grin. “I’m hanging in there too.”
Peter nods. “Good. You know what helps? Beer. Lots and lots of beer.” Peter starts out, turns back. “Did you see Craig’s shirt? What an asshole.”
***
After dinner Alan asks Laurie if she wants to get frozen yogurt. Their house in Sherman Oaks is walking distance to Ventura Boulevard, lined with dozens of shops and restaurants.
“I’m too sleepy,” she says. “But you go. If you bring me a cup of cookies ’n’ cream and put it in the freezer, I’ll eat it tomorrow. Thanks.”
When he joins her in bed later, she rolls away from him. She needs her space. Or is she acting like she needs her space hoping he’ll come close, that he’ll comfort her? They’ve been together forever and suddenly he can’t read her signs.
He should roll over, bend his knees into hers, feel her body slide into his; his breathing will match hers, and everything will be like it was before.
Before the baby that never was. Thinking that makes him ache, a physical pain deep in his body, as if he’s aware of his bones.
***
Should he ask her more questions? How she’s feeling? He doesn’t want her to feel worse. For a smart man, sometimes he feels clueless. Like how he’ll make a joke instead of facing a problem directly. He knows Laurie gets annoyed, and when she calls him on it, he tends to make another joke. Which makes her more annoyed.
Not that they fight much. Their marriage is in a good place. Nine out of ten, ten being best. If you had to graph their marriage, he thinks it would compare to most marriages. Highs and lows. Troughs. Parts you slog through, like the miscarriage. A few years back, they had some money issues when some of their investments went south. And then the roof leaked and Alan’s car needed a new transmission. “When it rains,” Alan said. And Laurie didn’t laugh. “Blue skies up ahead,” Alan announced, and in retrospect he shouldn’t have made so many jokes—it would have been better to simply say their finances were fucked and they’d have to spend less and borrow money from his parents to get through the next couple months.
But nine out of ten isn’t bad—and it’s always important to have data to back up your analysis. When they were dating, Alan listed Laurie’s best and worst qualities and assigned values to each. He mentioned that to her but didn’t go into specifics. He thought she’d think it was funny. She didn’t. “You did some kind of risk analysis on our relationship? Do you have a spreadsheet on me somewhere?”
“Of course not,” he told her, vowing to destroy the spreadsheet the minute he got back to his apartment.
“A guy who makes spreadsheets. And tells dumb jokes,” Laurie said. “What am I doing going out with you?” She looked at him. “So? When you ran the numbers in your analysis…how did I do?”
He grinned at her. And shrugged. “You’ll have to guess.” And he realized: My jokes are dumb?
***
“It’s freaky, thinking about getting fat,” Laurie said to Alan back when she found out she was pregnant. “Do you think I’ll get fat?”
“I’ll love you anyway,” he told her. “Blimpy.”
“Funny. Why can’t men get pregnant? If I got three wishes, that’s what one of them would be.” She checked her reflection in the mirror. “I hope I don’t gain eighty pounds.”
“Then can I call you Blimpy?”
“Sure, as long as you get used to being called One Ball. Because that’s what’ll happen if you make fun of my weight.”
She sounded serious. Eighty pounds or eight hundred pounds, he would always love her. Well…eight hundred might be pushing it. When they start
ed dating, he was in awe of her body. She’d been a swimmer in high school and college and still had wide swimmer shoulders and strong thighs that tapered to high, tight calves. She’d told him he was the first nonswimmer she’d gone out with. “So that’s a little weird because all the other guys I dated, I already knew what they looked like practically naked.”
She hung out with guys in Speedos. He tried not to panic. His body was okay—he played lacrosse in high school, still went running and spent time at the gym. But compared to a swimmer?
“Why don’t we go to the beach next weekend?” she asked him.
She wanted to see him without his clothes on. He told her he had plans during the day. How about a movie?
Later she suggested he visit her at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, near his office, where she would swim laps sometimes in the afternoon. At this point they hadn’t had sex yet—would the reveal of his body be a deal breaker?
“It’s hard for me to get away,” he said.
Bull by the horns, he decided. He’d invited her to his apartment for dinner. Midmeal he left the table and came out of his bedroom wearing his boxers. And nothing else. She’d just taken a big sip of wine and almost did a spit take.
“This is what you get,” he told her as he pulled out the elastic of his boxers and let them snap back against his waist. “Does my body make you wild with desire?”
They didn’t finish dinner. Instead, they went into his bedroom and made love for the first time.
The first time, then many times—years of having sex and trying not to get pregnant and then trying to get pregnant and—boom—pregnancy. “I promise to never call you Blimpy,” he said to her. And then asked the more serious question, the harder question. “You’re going to love me the same, won’t you? After we bring home the baby?”
Laurie ran her finger across her upper lip. “Hmmm. I doubt it. The baby will always come first. Sorry.”
She was kidding; he knew she was kidding. He hoped she was kidding. But it scared him—he was used to being the person she loved most.
***
With no more pregnancy, no baby to bring home, has he lost his chance to learn how to share? He’s never been good at sharing. After growing up as the youngest of five and a lifetime of hand-me-down toys and Levi’s, now he likes things that are his. New, unused. Like his love for Laurie. He can’t imagine loving someone as much as he loves her. Of course he’ll love his baby, but does that happen right away? It’s a baby. At least for a while. Not exactly a person, somebody you can have a conversation with. More like a puppy. No, that’s not right. A baby isn’t anything like a puppy; it’s a human being, the product of love between two people, the history of life repeated over and over, like his mother says—the thing that’s left.
He sounds like a dick. He’s thinking about a puppy. Yeah, that’s what he’ll tell Laurie to cheer her up about the miscarriage: “Hey, it doesn’t really matter. Why don’t we get a puppy instead?”
“Thanks, hon,” she’ll say. “Now I’m all better.”
He doesn’t suggest a puppy; instead, he calls Laurie at the Hidden Valley office and suggests they drive up to Ojai for the weekend.
Ojai is exactly what they need. An hour and a half north of L.A., tucked into a small valley between mountains that glow pink in the sunset, the town is quiet and charming, with art galleries and great restaurants. No freeway sounds or smog, and they can smell jasmine outside their window. They have a wonderful time and even though their room at the B and B is tiny and the bed is old and creaky, they don’t care and have sex before dinner. And then again in the morning before breakfast. They take long walks and eat dinner outside at a restaurant under a canopy of tiny white lights that look like stars.
As for birth control, they don’t mention it. If it happens, it happens. If not, oh well—the weekend reminds them there’s a reason they’re together in the first place. And sex isn’t only about procreation.
***
Life returns to normal. Weeks turn into months. Alan and Laurie go to Lake Arrowhead with friends, investigate yard sales, eat too many deviled eggs at a Palmer-Boone picnic. They paint their front door red after Laurie saw an article in Real Simple magazine that explains how your house needs to make a good first impression. When they are done, Alan nods and says, “Okay, but it looks like we live in a firehouse.”
Laurie loves her job with Grace. “I’m like a Valley detective,” she tells Alan. “Tracking down the old, the new, the bizarre. Grace calls me an urban explorer.”
“Do you need a pith helmet?”
“Yuck, who wants pith helmet hair?”
“Matching pith helmets, that’s what we need,” Alan says. Laurie laughs and she is the girl in line from Staples, the woman he married. When she’s not looking, Alan will go on Amazon and track down pith helmets. He can already hear her laugh when she opens the box.
***
Laurie’s car is in the driveway when he comes home from work. He thought she’d told him she and Grace were going to meet a man who runs an accordion school in Atwater Village. When he walks inside the house, he smells onions and garlic and peppers. In the kitchen he sees a pot of chili on the stove. No Laurie.
He heads to the bedroom, but Laurie is sitting on the floor in the yellow room, surrounded by pieces of the crib.
“Chili for dinner tonight,” Laurie says. “Before I’m felled by the curse of morning sickness.”
Chili, morning sickness, crib pieces. It takes a few seconds for Alan to process everything.
“I know, crazy. Here we go again,” she says. And looks down at a screw in her hand, as if she hasn’t figured out where it goes yet. He sits on the floor beside her and pulls her into his arms.
Jack
He wishes he could remember her name. He thinks it’s Megan. He watches her sleep. She’s smiling, and he wonders what she’s dreaming about. She makes little puff sounds and he’s pretty sure her name is Megan.
Unless Megan was the girl in the bar wearing a tube top and dancing on a chair. No, that girl was Kerry. Jack closes his eyes and he’s back at the bar in Westwood—loud and crowded and hot, and he’s thinking of leaving until he notices tube-top girl. Naturally, Danny knows all about her.
“Scary Kerry,” Danny tells Jack.
“She’s hot,” Jack says, watching as Scary Kerry dances and tugs at her tube top to keep it from falling off.
Danny makes a gagging sound. “You know that plant? The one that catches flies and looks amazing on the outside, but inside it’s got like razor teeth.”
“A Venus flytrap?”
Danny nods. “Scary Kerry’s vagina.”
Scary Kerry doesn’t look like the kind of girl with a razor vagina. But you never know, so Jack decides to head off, and when he’s almost at the door, he sees an attractive, dark-eyed girl sitting by herself at a table in the corner. “You get stood up?” he asks her.
“That’s your pickup line?” she says.
“No. It was just a question.”
She looks him over. He returns the favor: big brown eyes she’s made darker by lining them in black, blond hair with deliberate black roots. He bets she has a single tattoo—a butterfly on the small of her back.
“Are you a smart-ass?” she asks him.
“Maybe.” He wonders if he should sit down or if she’s waiting for her boyfriend, a big guy who’s going to show up and beat the shit out of him.
“Are those your friends?” She nods toward the clump of guys at the bar. Surfer-handsome Danny surrounded by drunk, flirty girls; heavy-eyed Carter is dangling a spoon off the end of his nose.
“Fraternity buddies.” Jack nods.
“Oh, you’re in a fraternity,” the girl says. “I should’ve guessed. Which one? Phi Delt. No, that’s not right. Sigma Nu? Wait, I got it. SAE. Hipsters.”
Jack frowns. She says hipsters like sh
e means pussies. “What do you mean, ‘hipsters’?”
“I’m right?”
Jack doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction—but what’s the point of lying? “Yeah, SAE.”
“Your rep’s that you’re super straight. You know, boring.”
“Are you in a sorority?” he asks her. She doesn’t look like a UCLA sorority girl.
“The whole Greek thing is overrated.”
Jack grins. “You went through pledge week and didn’t get a single bid.”
“Fuck you,” the girl says, but she’s smiling. “I’m in the theater department; I don’t have enough time. And that’s fine, I’m happy.”
“Except you got stood up.”
The girl shakes her head. “Theater people are flaky. You get used to it.”
They talk about UCLA, what they like (lots of different people, a beautiful campus, living in L.A.), what they hate (terrible parking, too many students, living in L.A.). He tells her he’s a senior; right now he’s majoring in history, but since that’s his fourth major in three years, he won’t have enough credits to graduate until next year.
“What’s the big deal about graduating on time?” she asks him.
“My parents expect it.”
“It’s your life. Duh.”
He doesn’t want to talk about his parents. He’s in a good mood. Why ruin it?
She tells Jack about the play she’s doing, Medea. “It’s an awesome story. This woman gets revenge on her cheating husband. Jason, the Golden Fleece guy, dumps Medea for Glauce, King Creon’s daughter. So Medea decides she’ll get even by killing Glauce and her father, and she has this genius idea of sending them golden robes covered with poison. And if that doesn’t make Jason crazy enough, she’ll kill her own children.”
“Whoa,” says Jack.
Expecting: A Novel Page 3