“No. Of course I don’t. But we should think about our options.”
Laurie pulls her feet away, pushes the mute button.
Alan hesitates, dives in. “So we keep it and go on. Like we’re doing.”
Laurie nods. She still isn’t looking at him. He realizes he said “it.”
“Keep the baby, that’s what I meant to say.”
“Okay.” Laurie nods again. “What else?”
“We could arrange for the baby to be adopted after the birth. But that sounds awful.”
“As awful as termination?”
Alan pauses. “You want me to be honest. I don’t know how comfortable I am. With not being the father.”
“It’s okay to say you’re mad, you’re pissed off.” Laurie gives Alan a tiny smile.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes. What are you worried about most?”
“You want me to pick one thing? A million things. Two weeks ago, I was the birth father. Now I’m not. You’re my wife; this is supposed to be our baby. Not your baby and somebody else’s. And I’m sorry if I sound selfish—”
“You don’t.”
Alan turns to the TV. The flames are mesmerizing; they look as if they go on forever. Maybe that’s the best solution of all; the flames will spread from the far away canyon, get closer and closer to Sherman Oaks, wipe out their neighborhood, their house, their baby. Laurie’s baby. His baby. Somebody’s baby.
Couldn’t we get a do-over? That’s what he’d like to say to her. The next baby will belong to both of us. Instead of this, this—freak show baby.
He doesn’t mean freak show. He would never say “freak show” to Laurie. She’s watching him, guessing he’s thinking freak show.
“It’s not like it was,” he says.
“I know.”
“At least the baby is part you; you’re not the one who’s the outsider.”
“Is that what you feel like?”
Alan feels like he’s five years old when on Christmas morning he saw a new bike under the tree with his name on it and he was thrilled until he realized it was his brother Patrick’s old bike that had been repainted. Wasn’t Santa supposed to bring you new things, he asked Patrick and Patrick said Alan was a moron and by the way, Santa’s not even real.
“This isn’t what Dr. Julian promised,” Alan says.
“He promised us a baby. He got that part right. Suppose we’d done in vitro and they messed up the sperm and the eggs,” Laurie says.
“But we didn’t do in vitro and some psycho tech didn’t switch the sperm and the eggs. It was just me, my sperm. My half.”
Laurie looks back at the TV. “You think we should end this pregnancy?”
Admit it, Laurie. You want a do-over too.
“I want a child,” he finally says.
“Good. Because termination was never an option. Not ever.” She reaches for Alan’s hand.
On TV the flames are burning dangerously close to a house on a hillside. Alan hopes the TV cameras don’t cut away so he can watch it burn to the ground.
***
He gets out of bed and tells Laurie he needs to check on some work emails. He does some work, plays a game of Spades, goes on Facebook to see if anyone has posted something funny. Nancy Futterman has added new photos of Trevor and Ava. They’re eating cotton candy at some sort of county fair. He clicks on Nancy’s profile page and sees pictures of Trevor’s preschool carnival where someone has come and twisted balloons into funny animal shapes. “Guess what this one is?” Nancy has written under a photo of Trevor holding a giant lump of misshapen balloons. Nancy’s answered her own question. “An armadillo!!!”
Alan smiles. Texas, armadillo. Good joke, Nancy. He wonders again if she remembers him. If the memories are good or bad. He wonders what she would think about his situation, his situation he can’t tell anyone about. Maybe an outside observer would know what to do, offer sensible advice. Not that he’d ever ask Nancy. Not that he’d ever make contact with her again.
He glances up at the friend request box at the top of the page. Probably a bad idea. She won’t have any interest in connecting with an old boyfriend. And he would never tell her about the baby and the switched sperm, so there is no logical reason to make contact with Nancy again.
He clicks on friend request. Thinks about going back to bed, but instead plays one more game of Spades. He tells himself if he wins this game, everything will work out. The specimens didn’t go missing after all! It was just a misunderstanding! When he loses the first game, he decides to play a second one. He wasn’t concentrating hard enough. The second game, this will be the one to prove that everything will work out exactly the way it’s meant to.
He loses the second game. He should go to bed. Or check on the fires. Rub Laurie’s back. Tell her not to worry.
A ping on his computer announces he has a message. His friend request has been accepted. Well, that’s some kind of good news. He’s ready to shut down the computer when a small box pops open at the bottom of his screen. It’s Nancy Futterman.
“Hello, stranger,” the message says. “What a nice surprise. I was thinking about you the other day. Time FLIES.”
Time flies. He looks around his office, wonders if he should reply, what he should say. Finally writes, “Good to hear from you. I like your Christmas cards. Your children sure are growing up.”
And they look like you and Bob. Lucky you.
“What r u up 2?” Nancy types.
Why isn’t Nancy using real words? Alan has never been comfortable with texting slang. It makes him nervous, like a fraud, like he’s trying to sound cool.
“Not much,” he types. Wondering what the slang would be for “not much” and will Nancy think he’s unhip? “I don’t use the chat feature on Facebook very often.”
He sounds like an old man. Nancy is probably sitting in her 30,000-square-foot McMansion in her tony Dallas suburb laughing at him.
And isn’t it late? If it’s eleven in Los Angeles what time is it in Dallas? Why is Nancy awake? Almost as if she’s reading his mind, her message appears: “Our AC’s out, can you BELIEVE it? It must be 200 degrees in the house. I might have to sleep in the pool. Ha-HA.”
***
Nancy Futterman had incredible breasts. At college when the frosh books came out and everybody in Alan’s dorm went through them and circled pictures of the girls they’d like to go after, Nancy’s breasts won in a landslide. Who would be the lucky guy to see/touch Nancy Futterman’s breasts? Alan didn’t think he had a chance; it took him three weeks to get the courage to talk to her and another three weeks before he asked her out, and amazingly enough, she agreed.
Laurie’s breasts are great. Smallish, but a solid A if he had to rate them. It’s not Laurie’s fault Nancy Futterman’s were better. A-plus. Just a little on the too big size, firm and round with standing-at-attention perky nipples. What do they look like now? Will Nancy put on a bathing suit to go outside and sleep on a float in the pool? Why isn’t she saying anything about her husband? Maybe she’s pissed because he’s a real estate agent and don’t they have contracts with electricians and AC guys? What is Bob waiting for? Nancy is hot; she’s sweating; she can’t sleep. It’s an emergency, for God’s sake.
What’s she wearing right now? If it’s so hot, maybe she’s not wearing anything.
“Can’t you get a fan?” Alan types.
She’s naked. She’s sitting in a dark room, she’s kicked her husband to the curb, and she’s IMing Alan on Facebook.
“Bob’s moving fans around, he has the windows open. He talks about ‘fan technology.’ BULLSHIT, I say.” She adds a smiley face.
“Sorry you’re hot,” he types. Reconsiders. Is that too much of a double entendre? Wait, it’s not a double entendre—his former college girlfriend is sitting in a hot house with a broken air conditioner.
She sent him a message that said, “Hi.” And what is his reaction? To imagine her naked.
He should be in bed with Laurie. Is there anything you need, honey? We’ll make this crazy baby thing work out. Whatever you decide, I’ll go along with it. If you like this guy’s sperm, we’ll use him again. Have a whole family of number 296. I’ll learn to love Indian food; we’ll have lamb rogan josh twice a week, go to Bollywood movies.
Nancy has sent him another IM. “What’s new in ur neck of the woods?”
Don’t get me started, Nancy. Laurie and I have bigger issues than air-conditioning. We’re a mess.
“Not much,” he types. “Got 2 go.”
***
When he gets back to the bedroom, Laurie is asleep. The TV is still on, the fire continues to burn. He slips in bed beside Laurie and rubs her back. She makes soft purring noises even though she’s asleep. On the TV, flames creep slowly up a hillside, growing closer and closer to a gated community.
Jack
The best solution would be for Megan and Normandie to become best friends—not likely, but possible. They could find something in common (besides Jack), start to hang out, and realize—hey, we can share him.
It doesn’t work out that way. Normandie tells Jack he’s a shit and she never wants to see him again. And by the way, she was just about to have sex with him.
Megan figured it out too. “That girl at Falafel King, she gave off this ‘Jack belongs to me’ vibe. Which wouldn’t worry me since she screams virgin so I don’t think you’re sleeping with her. But it’s still douchey for you not to tell me about her. I told you about other guys I went out with.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” Jack tells her.
“Doesn’t make a difference. Why don’t we take a vacay from each other?”
Plenty of fish in the sea, Carter says when he hears the story. Carter tells Jack how he dated sisters at the same time and how messed up that got, but Jack stops listening because like most of Carter’s stories, you lose interest after the first five minutes.
***
He decides it’s a sign. He’s meant to buckle down, study, graduate. The world is telling him he’s made things too complicated; he needs to readjust his focus. Women are a distraction. And he doesn’t have time for distractions right now. He’ll finish up his classes, graduate on schedule. (Almost on schedule.)
So what if he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life yet? Without distractions, he can figure it out. For example, how about religious studies? Not that he’d be a priest; he could be an academic. Teach religion. He can explore his Hindu past—he’s always meant to. His parents celebrate a few Hindu holidays, like Diwali. But they also go to the local Presbyterian church.
Unless being a Hindu priest is cool. He wonders how long you have to train for it and does a degree from UCLA help? What would you do exactly? Do you have to shave your head? He’s not sure how good he’d look without hair. Are Hindu priests allowed to drink beer? Would celibacy be an issue? That’s a deal breaker.
He looks into the requirements for a religious studies minor. It’s probably too late to change to a religious studies major. But he’s pleased to discover he’s already taken a lot of the required classes to meet a minor. Buddhism, Western civ, anthropology, plus an intro to religion class he took one summer. He checks out the classes he’d need, and most of them look interesting. Ancient Jewish History, Roots of Patriarchy: Ancient Goddesses and Heroines. He’s a little skeptical (ha-ha) about Skepticism and Reality. And Medieval Literature of Devotion and Dissent could be a killer. Or not. It’s a toss-up between that and Saint and Heretic: Joan of Arc and Gilles de Paris. Who the hell is Gilles de Paris? Is he some male version of Joan of Arc, like a guy kid who had creepy visions and then got to lead an army until he got captured and was burned at the stake? Cool.
And after graduation, graduate school. In religious studies. Because why not?
Unless it’s a stupid idea. That’s what his mother would say. “A South American studies major and a religious studies minor? What do you do with a degree like that? Visit the Incan pyramids? I suppose you could be a tour guide.” (Actually he’d love to learn about the Incan civilization. He should see if there are any classes available.)
He’s riding his bike through a neighborhood near UCLA, looking at houses. What kinds of jobs do people have to afford these big homes? Did they worry about their majors when they were in college? He could ring a doorbell or two, ask. “Excuse me, what was your major in college?”
Why did his sister have to get all the super smart genes? This isn’t my fault, he should say to his parents. Your genes made me this way.
He could get a doctorate in religious studies. Not be a medical doctor, but still have a PhD. Dr. Jack Mulani sounds excellent.
He passes a house with a vaguely Tudor exterior: white plaster walls trimmed with thick wood beams. The kind of house Martin Luther would like? Probably not. Too fancy for Martin Luther. What kind of guy was Martin Luther? Jack wonders. An arrogant windbag? Did he have a sense of humor? When he tacked his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, did he use a hammer? What kind of nail? Aha, Jack thinks he’s found his thesis: “The Mechanics of Martin Luther Nailing His Ninety-Five Theses to the Church Door in Wittenberg.” Jack knows a little about the Ninety-Five Theses, but he’ll learn more, be able to toss around Martin Luther facts. “By the way, did you know that the ninety-first article in Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses is about the Holy Trinity?”
He’ll talk to his UCLA advisor, sign up for religion classes, get information on the best graduate schools for religious studies. Where would he like to live after L.A.? Somewhere on the east coast, not too cold though. Does the University of Hawaii have a religious studies program? That could be perfect. Surfing, studying, drinking piña coladas on the beach.
He has a new life plan. The best thing that ever happened to him was Normandie and Megan breaking up with him.
***
Megan calls first. Says she’s still mad at him, but she took a happiness survey online and it talked about forgiveness and life being too short and stuff like that, so maybe he should come see Guys and Dolls. Although it’s a pretty strange production because the director has been inspired by the Godfather movies.
Normandie calls a couple days later. “Sorry I unfriended you on Facebook. That was petty,” she says. “We can still hang out sometimes. On one condition.”
“Sure,” Jack says, wondering what the condition would be.
“We date each other exclusively. No Megan. What do you think?”
Jack’s thinking he’d prefer to study so he can graduate and imagine his new life as Dr. Mulani. But he agrees.
“Great,” Normandie says. “I’m serious about Megan though. It’s just me. Because I think our relationship could have real depth.”
Real depth? Jack’s not sure how he feels about that. But at least there’s a chance of finally having sex with Normandie.
“You want to come over tonight?” he asks her.
***
Megan is right about Guys and Dolls. It’s an unusual production, sort of noir-y and humorless. And Jack is confused by the shootout between Nathan Detroit and Skye Masterson in the middle of the “Luck Be a Lady” number.
“The director added the shootout,” Megan explains after the show. “He also wanted a horse’s head at the end of act one, but they talked him out of it.” Jack and Megan are in her bed and Jack has a flash of Normandie, but it’s just a flash and what Normandie doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
Not that Normandie has had sex with him. She still insists on waiting, but promises it will be soon. “I want it to be extra special,” she tells him. “Unforgettable. Something you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”
Megan sticks her bare legs straight up in the air and admires her freshly painted toenails—tiny black skulls
against white. “I missed you,” she tells Jack.
“Ditto,” Jack says. He’s glad he’s back with Megan, and how good could sex be with Normandie? It couldn’t be that amazing.
Or could it?
***
He’s signed up for two religion classes even though his advisor told him his plan was “ambitious.” She didn’t say ambitious in a good way. Jack reassured her and said he felt he was finally on track.
He hasn’t mentioned anything to his parents about his Master Plan yet; he wants the timing to be right. First step, see what his sister is up to because it would be just like her to go and win the Nobel Prize the minute he announces his big news.
Two girlfriends, a Master Plan, a new minor in religion, money in the bank (almost). He’s anticipating other great things, so when he gets a phone call from a number he doesn’t recognize, he figures he’s won five million dollars in a lottery he forgot he entered.
“Is this Jack Mulani?” the voice asks.
“Yes,” he says, thinking the first thing he’ll do with the money is buy a house. With a killer ocean view. And a sports court. And an infinity pool. Nothing too ostentatious…not that you can be super ostentatious with only five mil to spend on a house in Los Angeles.
“My name is Laurie Gaines.” She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and Jack gets a feeling in the pit of his stomach. She isn’t going to tell me I’ve won five million dollars. She’s going to tell me something else.
He hears her take a breath. “I’m having your baby,” she says.
Gestation
Laurie
Laurie recognizes him at once. He looks like the boy in the baseball picture but grown up. Lean and handsome and needs a haircut. At least he’s here; he didn’t chicken out. That’s something, she tells herself. And then she thinks about going back to her car and driving home because this is scarier than she thought, meeting the father of your child for the first time.
Last night, Alan told her it was a bad idea for her to have lunch with Jack. Or “296,” as he refers to him.
Expecting: A Novel Page 10