Two of a Kind

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “Can’t you at least tell them who it is?” Ida said.

  “Well, since that’s already common knowledge . . . It’s the singer Xiomara.”

  “Xiomara!” said Sylvia.

  “That voice!” added Betty.

  “And a beauty besides,” Naomi said.

  “Andy says that she’s very nice too,” Ida said. “Not stuck-up or snobby in the least.”

  “Imagine,” said Sylvia. “Beautiful, talented, rich . . . and nice. Some people have it all.” She looked at Andy. “Speaking of having it all, I want to tell you about my niece. Divorced, an attorney with a very fine firm, two boys. Also a real looker.”

  Oliver, who’d been counting the minutes until this would be over, was suddenly alert. Was there a plan to, like, fix his dad up? But there was already someone in his dad’s life. Or someone who should have been. Someone who was absolutely perfect.

  “Ta-da!” Ida said. Ignoring Sylvia’s last remark, she set out a huge dish of chocolate-covered matzah and a round, multitiered Jell-O mold.

  “You better move fast,” Sylvia said, playfully wagging her finger in Andy’s direction. “I promise you she won’t be single for long.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, but you see, I, that is—”

  Oliver listened to this exchange with interest. Well, if his dad could answer for him, why not return the favor? “Oh, you don’t know?” he said to Sylvia. Everyone turned to look at him. “My dad’s dating this terrific woman named Christina. Christina Connelly. They’re, like, practically engaged.” There was a brief silence in which all heads swiveled to stare at Andy. Then everyone started talking at once.

  “But you said—,” began Ida.

  “Well, that’s very nice—,” added Sylvia.

  “We’d love to meet her,” Naomi said.

  “Connelly?” asked Betty. “So she’s Irish. Don’t they say the Irish are one of the lost tribes of Israel?”

  Oliver sat quietly and observed the little flurry he’d set in motion. Now, why had he said that about Christina? To bug his dad? Maybe. Wishful thinking? Maybe that too. He’d like it if Christina married his father and came to live with them.

  “Christina and I are hardly engaged, Oliver,” said Andy. Again, there was silence and this time it was broken only by Ida.

  “That’s enough about Andy’s lady friends,” she said as she cut into the mold; the translucent layers quivered a bit from the assault of the knife but otherwise remained intact. “Now, who’s having Jell-O?”

  • • •

  The Sunday after the seder was bright and clear, perfect for raking and bagging dead leaves, and picking up the random soda bottles, candy wrappers, and all the other crap that had blown into the garden in back of Old First Church. Oliver hauled a big black bag over to the far end and took another bag to fill. He had not stopped coming out here; even though his dad was being such a dickhead about Christina, there was no reason he had to give up seeing her. And to his relief, Andy had not suggested it.

  And hey, there was Christina now, dressed in jeans, a gray sweater, and those cool white Keds she liked to wear. Oliver stopped his raking and went over to say hello. She gave him a hug; if she was thinking about his father, she never let on. Then she picked up a pair of clippers and went over to the hedge along the church wall where a couple of people were clipping back dead branches. Summer was one of them.

  Oliver stood with the empty bag in his hand, watching Summer twist and stretch. Her boobs strained against her sweatshirt; he could stand here all day looking at them. For the past couple of months they had been hanging out. They hadn’t actually, like, done it; Oliver had not done it with anyone. But Summer would be the one, so he could take things slowly, get to know her first. It felt kind of good.

  “Louise said I’m your partner for today.”

  Oliver turned around to see Liam, a pudgy sophomore whose dad occasionally dropped in for the monthly church meals.

  “Sure, whatever,” Oliver said. “Want to grab a bag?”

  Liam got the bag and joined Oliver in the cleanup. He didn’t talk much, but that was okay; he worked hard.

  “They let dogs back here?” Oliver scrutinized the turds he’d just uncovered.

  Liam looked over. “Cat shit,” he said succinctly, and went back to bagging.

  It was getting hot. Oliver unzipped his hoodie and peeled it off, leaving it in a heap on the ground. When it got in his way, he nudged it aside with his foot.

  “Hey, careful. You might step on that.” Liam knelt down to pick up the black iPod Touch that had slid out of the hoodie’s pocket and was now gleaming in the sun.

  “Thanks. I, like, totally forgot I had it in there.”

  “You forgot?”

  “Yeah, well, I never use it anymore. I listen to music on my iPhone. . . .” His dad had upgraded him to the latest model just recently.

  Liam was still looking down at the black rectangle. “Whatever,” he said.

  Oliver stood there awkwardly. It was so obvious what Liam thought: rich kid who not only didn’t appreciate having an iPod, but rich kid who didn’t even remember having one. Liam did not live in a shelter; Oliver knew that much. But if his dad was bringing him to meals at the church, they couldn’t have a lot of money. Liam handed the iPod to Oliver, who was about to put it in the pocket of his jeans but abruptly pushed it back. “Here, you take it.”

  “What?” asked Liam.

  “Keep it,” Oliver said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I never use the thing. Like I said, I forgot I even had it.”

  “Well, thanks, then. Thanks a bunch.” He ran his fingers reverently over the iPod and then carefully tucked it away before picking up his rake.

  Oliver was about to do the same when he thought of something else. He checked the hoodie, and there in the other pocket were the earbuds. He handed them to Liam, who took them without a word. But when they broke for lunch—sandwiches brought by Miriam and Lee—Liam brought Oliver a sandwich, a bag of chips, and two cookies before taking his own food. Then he plunked down beside him. “So, like, what bands are you into?” he asked.

  Going back on the subway that night, Oliver was tired but happy. The day outside, working, had been satisfying, and the unexpected incident of the iPod had made him feel like he’d done something, like, useful in the world. He and Summer were going to hang out tomorrow. And to his surprise, his dad was home and asked if he’d like to have dinner together.

  “You mean one of those no-fat, no-taste meals Lucy makes?”

  “I thought we could order in . . . Japanese, Thai . . . ?”

  “Okay,” said Oliver, warming to the idea. “Where’s the menu?”

  But when the food came, Andy’s phone buzzed and off he sprinted to the hospital, leaving Oliver to eat his spring rolls and pad Thai alone. When he finished, he felt restless. He didn’t have any weed—he’d been too scared to score after his expulsion from school—and his dad’s liquor cabinet did not hold much appeal. Neither did the zillion and two offerings on television, which he clicked through furiously before abandoning the remote in disgust. He tried the porn on his computer, but even his favorite sites felt all wrong. These girls were getting paid to do this shit. That had never mattered before, but tonight, it just turned him off.

  The computer was still on, though, and on impulse, he navigated away from the picture of the naked girl on her knees, blowing some guy with a shaved head. He wanted to write something, but he wasn’t sure what. It had to do with the day he’d spent, at least the part of it before he had gotten home and it had taken a nosedive. No, he was thinking about the first part, with that, like, hard, enamel blue of the sky above him, the smell of the soil, the bright burst of flowers—he didn’t know their names—the way his back and shoulders ached, but in a good way, from all that raking and bagging.
The thing with the iPod would be part of it. Summer too. Also a poem about gathering leaves by Robert Frost he’d read when he was still in school. He remembered the first few lines and easily found the rest online. Sweet. He’d call his essay or whatever it was “A Day in the Garden,” and it would be, like, a little of everything: memoir, journalism, even poetry. He started tapping, furiously, impatiently, on his laptop. Seven pages later he looked up. It was almost eleven o’clock. He went into the kitchen for a glass of water, returned to the laptop, and tapped out another five pages. Then he read it once, twice, a third time, making little changes as he did. And then, for no reason that, like, made any sense, he sent the whole thing off to his former English teacher at Morningside. She loved the paper he’d done on Robert Frost; maybe she’d like this too.

  It was after midnight when he got into bed. Lying in the dark, he heard his dad’s key in the lock, and a minute later, his dad’s voice outside his door. “Oliver?” Andy called softly. “Are you still up?” But he didn’t answer, and his father went away. The words he’d written seemed to carry him up and over some crest, and he fell asleep with their rhythm still tapping softly in his brain.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The sidewalk in front of the hospital was so jammed Andy had to fight his way to the entrance. Not only was there the usual crowd of paparazzi associated with any move Xiomara made, but there was also a construction crew; now that her delivery was imminent, she had paid the hospital some exorbitant sum of money for the privilege of redoing the VIP suite where she would give birth. The workmen were supposed to use the service entrance, but clearly some of them had not gotten the memo.

  Andy was fed up with the media circus. It just made his job so much harder. But he knew he’d do the same thing next time he was asked. Once these women sat across from him, poured out their stories—miscarriages, stillborns, ectopics, moms who’d taken DES—he listed toward them like plants in the sun. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to get past a camera-wielding guy blocking his path. “Coming through.” The guy was planted like a redwood in the middle of the sidewalk. “I’m a doctor; I work here and I need to get in.” Still no response. “Could you please move?” Finally, acting like he was doing Andy a major favor, the guy stepped aside. Je-sus.

  The VIP suite, down at one end of the maternity ward, was sectioned off by double doors that could be locked. It was as spacious as some Manhattan apartments, with a kitchenette, a large private bath that had both Jacuzzi and sauna, ample closets, and three good-sized windows that the construction workers were now covering with plywood—Xiomara was taking precautions against an intrepid photographer scaling the walls of the hospital and finding a way to snap pictures of the birth itself. Wouldn’t those fetch a nice price? Though he’d heard that she had agreed to sell the first shots of the baby to People or Us for some ungodly sum—this to appease the media gods no doubt—and then planned to donate the money to a women’s hospital in Africa. There were also painters and a carpet installer at work; someone was overseeing the arrangement of various pieces of rented furniture as well as a fifty-odd-inch plasma TV. What a production.

  Andy watched for a few minutes before heading out the door and back down the hall. It was excessive, to be sure, but if rich people wanted to pay for the right to redecorate, why not let them? The hospital could certainly use the additional revenue. He’d have to tell Christina about this—then he remembered he wasn’t seeing Christina anymore. God, he missed her. Missed her more than he’d expected given they had only been seeing each other for a few months. She didn’t have a big presence, but damn, she had an enduring one. He wondered whether she had started seeing anyone else; he hadn’t, though one of his old college buddies, Joey Colabella, was trying to fix him up with someone. Andy agreed to meet the woman but then kept putting it off; he just didn’t seem to have the heart. He was going to be seeing Joey and the rest of his college crew soon and he hoped Joey wouldn’t harp on it.

  He stopped in to the see the patient he’d delivered the day before; both she and her twins were doing well. Then he thought of Artyom Petrinovic and he decided to stop in at the neonatal ICU to see how he was doing; maybe Perry could update him. Perry wasn’t around, but Andy managed to find a nurse he knew on this unit. “How’s the Petrinovic baby?” he asked. “Last time I checked, he’d gained a couple of ounces.”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?” It wasn’t looking good.

  “We lost him. Not even an hour ago. Dr. Perry was going to call you.”

  “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Where are the parents?”

  “They’re here, filling out some paperwork. Come on, I’ll take you.” She brought him to a small office where Valentin and Olga Petrinovic sat, a mountain of forms in front of them on the table.

  “I just heard,” he said. “And I can’t say how sorry I am.”

  They swiveled, as if in unison, toward him. “Thank you, Dr. Stern,” Valentin said. His normally ruddy cheeks were pale and his eyes were red. Olga did not speak at all, but pressed her face into her husband’s chest. There was something so intimate about the gesture that Andy felt he had trespassed simply by witnessing it. “I haven’t spoken to Dr. Perry yet, but from all accounts, this was some horrible twist of fate, some fluke—”

  “God’s will,” Olga said bitterly. “If you believe in God. Which I do not.”

  “What I mean to say,” Andy began again, “is that no one could have predicted this. No one. And if you ever consider trying again, I hope you’ll let me be the one to help you through.”

  Valentin put his arm around his wife. “If we try again . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

  Andy was glad to get out of there. He was through seeing patients for the day and ready to head back home, but he continued west and stopped in at the florist’s on Lexington Avenue. “Hello, Andy,” Gus said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need a bouquet of flowers, very simple, very elegant,” said Andy. “And all white. You can call Joanne in the morning; she’ll give you the address.”

  “Your friend in Brooklyn? Don’t worry; I’ve got her on file—”

  “No, not her,” said Andy. “This is a condolence bouquet. A patient’s baby died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Gus said. “I’ll take care of it first thing. And when you need to send flowers to Brooklyn again—”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be doing that,” said Andy. “Or if.”

  “You look like you had a tough day. Rotten day, in fact.”

  “That I did,” Andy said.

  “I’m just about to close up here; what do you say we go and knock one down together? My wife’s got her book club tonight, so I’m on my own.”

  Andy waited while Gus closed up and then they sat together over a couple of beers. Gus ordered chicken potpie and Andy, broiled halibut. He didn’t talk about the Petrinovics’ baby or the split with Christina. Instead, they moved from the Yankees to the Jets, to soccer and then golf. It was only after they’d finished and Andy had handed his credit card to the waiter, waving off Gus’s attempts to chip in, that the conversation turned somber again. “Your Brooklyn friend?” Gus said. “I thought she seemed . . . special. Like she might be the one.”

  “You met her?” Andy said.

  “She came into the shop, don’t you remember? You sent her.”

  “Oh that’s right.” Christina had had a job helping stage an apartment for a Realtor; she’d needed some flowers and Andy had recommended Gus.

  “I liked her a lot,” Gus continued. “I thought she was a real lady.”

  “Maybe too much of a lady.” Andy looked down at the crumpled napkin in his hand. “We were just too different.”

  Back in his apartment, everything was quiet and dark. He thought Oliver was out but decided to peek into his room just the same. He was almost startled to see his son, body curled like a comma, asleep on his
side. His face was not visible, only the mass of blond curls; this was the way he used to sleep when he was a toddler. Andy was about to close the door quietly and leave, but some impulse sent him into the room, where he stood, hovering. He had an urge to kiss him on the top of his fair, curly head, and he gave in to it—lightly, stealthily—hoping he would not get caught.

  The next day, he had to slog through his session with Cassie; he’d been chased out of a lousy night’s sleep by a series of nightmares that involved tunnels, swamps, and an earthquake thrown in for good measure. But he got through the workout and, as always, felt better as a result. Oliver was up early and ate a bowl of cereal while Andy had his coffee; their conversation wasn’t stellar, but it wasn’t barbed either. He then walked briskly to his office feeling like he’d been restored, at least partially. Yeah, he was still dejected over the breakup with Christina and deeply saddened by the death of the Petrinovic baby. But today offered a fresh start.

  His first patient of the day was Beth Klein. She was pregnant, just over three months, which meant she had passed safely through the most vulnerable stage. He wasn’t taking any chances, though; he would continue to monitor her very closely. He sent her into the ultrasound room and waited a few minutes before following.

  When he stepped inside, the lights were turned down and the screen and monitor all ready. Pam, the technician, had everything set up just the way he liked; the lubricating jelly had even been warmed, so he did not have to deliver the cold, rude squirt onto his patient’s bare skin. “How are you feeling?” he asked, applying a smooth coat of the jelly.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I’m being super careful, just like you told me.”

  “Good,” he said. “Careful is good.” He passed the wand over her abdomen. The fetus was about three inches in length by now. The neck was developed even though its head was still disproportionately large; he could see it clearly on the screen. He could see the tiny arms and legs too. Everything looked just as it should. He moved the wand up and down, back and forth. He might even have been able to tell the sex if the legs had been splayed, but he didn’t bring that up; some patients wanted to be surprised.