by Judy Baer
There’s little I’m able to do about anyone in this office. If I could actually fix things around here, I would have fixed Mitzi long ago.
“And what do you propose I do with him?” Should I get him out of those repulsive lavender dress shirts Jennilee keeps buying him because it’s her favorite color? Or make him quit threatening to lift fingerprints off the refrigerator if any of his food is stolen again? Hardly. Harry doesn’t notice things like that. I doubt he even knows what color shirt he has on.
“He’s in the men’s restroom constantly. Now his laptop is set up in there. What’d we buy a desk for, if he isn’t going to use it?”
“You know how Bryan is, Harry. He’s always been skittish.”
“Skittish is one thing, bonkers is another.”
“Is he getting his work done?”
“Yes, but I don’t see how.”
“Could he be…” I cleared my throat. How does one ask such a delicate question? “Unwell?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Far as I can tell, nobody’s ‘well’ in this office. Just do something about it, Whitney.”
Once again, the buck stops here.
Harry’s right. Kim’s jumpy as a kangaroo mouse over this adoption thing, Mitzi is a certifiable lunatic, I’m feeling queasy in the mornings, and Betty is a relapsed eBay addict. Why should Bryan be sane?
Betty inundates all of us with baby things she thinks we should buy, from lamps that look like balloons to balloons that look like giraffes to giraffes that look like lamps.
Queasy, Jumpy, Nutty and Obsessed. I’ll just add Bryan to the list of names that didn’t make Snow White’s short list—Wacky.
I picked up the telephone and called Chase.
“Hi, sweetheart.” His low, delighted tone gave me a thrill of pleasure. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I have a delicate question I thought perhaps you could answer.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
Making sure no one could overhear me, I told him about my concern for Bryan. “If he’s really sick, I can’t ignore it. As a friend, I have to say something. If he’s just barmy, he fits right in around here. What should I do?”
Chase was quiet for a long time, considering. “Weight loss, unusual behavior, poor coloring, nervousness, a lot of time spent in the restroom, maybe an upset stomach…that could be a lot of things.” He hesitated again.
“Chase?”
“This sounds crazy, but it’s possible that Bryan has Couvades syndrome.”
“Is it serious?” I repented of all the flippant thoughts I’d ever had about Bryan.
“It’s sympathetic pregnancy, the male counterpart to pregnancy. Sometimes men suffer symptoms for which there are no physiological explanations, such as indigestion, increased or decreased appetite, headaches or mood swings. The word couvades is derived from the French word couver, which means ‘to hatch.’ In some cultures it’s actually an intentional ritual. It generally resolves upon the birth of the baby.”
“You mean you think that Bryan has morning sickness?”
“It is normally found in men whose wives are pregnant, but…”
“Bryan isn’t even married!”
“No, but he’s obviously very sensitive to his coworkers. There are two pregnant women in your office, and one who talks about adoption nonstop. Maybe, just maybe…”
“And what am I supposed to do about that?” I wailed.
Kim looked up curiously, but I made a face at her and waved her back to her work.
“You and Bryan have known each other a long time. Ask him if he’s feeling okay. If he hesitates, tell him he’s welcome to talk to me. Maybe Jennilee has noticed these changes, too.”
“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “I’d better think a little more about this.”
His voice lowered. “I love you, darling. How about a date later?”
“Deal,” I said absently. I hung up and stared blankly at my computer screen. Now what?
Poor Harry. Instead of having three people expecting babies in his office, he has four!
Scheduling our work hours around this is going to be more complicated than I ever imagined. Let’s hope Bryan delivers first.
Friday, July 23
Mitzi hummed as we walked down the street to a café to get a bite of lunch. I’ve never seen her in such high spirits as she’s been in recently.
“Isn’t it fun?” she chortled happily.
“What’s fun?” Kim, frustrated by the slow turning of the adoption wheels, sometimes gets a little tetchy about Mitzi’s enthusiasm.
“I got a cartful of maternity catalogs and baby magazines yesterday. I’m going through every one to pick out what I want. I can’t buy anything yet, of course. I still have five weeks until my amniocentesis test. Once I know for sure if I’m having a boy or a girl—look out, Mall of America!”
I said nothing until we were seated at the café and had placed our orders. Even lunch has become weird. Kim ordered a club sandwich. I ordered a chicken breast, a side of cabbage—which I don’t much like—and fruit. Mitzi ordered chips and salsa and a double, double chocolate fudge dessert. While I’m striving for healthy, Mitzi is giving in to every food craving she’s ever had. There are artichoke hearts, sardines, fig bars and guava juice in the refrigerator at the office right now that prove my point.
“So you hope to find out the sex of your baby?”
“Of course. How else can I decorate properly? I thought of doing yellow and green and something with doggies and kitties, but that’s silly in this day and age, when I can find out if I’m having a boy or a girl.” Mitzi looked up from her chips. “Aren’t you planning to find out? They are recommending it for everyone these days.”
“Chase and I want to be surprised.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“It isn’t a long wait, only a few months. I’ll have years to decorate. Mitzi,” I began cautiously, “what will happen if you have the amnio and discover something you don’t like?”
“I’ll like either a boy or a girl, silly. Why do you even ask…Oh.” The meaning of my questions dawned on her. “You mean, what if there’s something wrong with the baby?”
She stared down at her plate for a long moment. When she looked up, her eyes were flashing. “Why do you do this to me, Whitney? I was all excited about the test, and now…So you really aren’t planning to have the test?”
“I’m happy to take what I get, babywise.”
“So am I!” she responded indignantly. Then she paused. “So why am I doing this if all I want is to pick color swatches for the nursery?” She glared at me ferociously. “Whitney, you’ve got to stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop making me think! You ask me questions that drive me crazy.”
“Good.”
She didn’t speak to me all the way back to the office.
Tonight I asked Chase what he thought about my conversation with Mitzi as we lounged together outside on the deck chairs and looked at the stars. He put his hands behind his head and gazed upward.
“Amniocentesis is useful. If a woman is having a repeat Caesarean, it’s important to establish dates on the pregnancy. The LS ratio predicts respiratory maturity in infants—”
I cut him off before we could get too deep into doctor jargon. “But what about using it just to discover if you’re having a boy or a girl or if the child has genetic defects? That wouldn’t change anything for us,” I hesitated. “Would it?”
“Of course not. We’ll love the child we get.”
I got up from my seat and curled against him on his lounge chair. “For me, double-checking on what the Maker of the universe is creating in me seems a pretty audacious thing to do.” I rested my hand on my belly.
God is in charge. He created hummingbirds, sunlight and rain. I don’t need to do a quality check before the bundle arrives.
“Some people, even if they plan to carry a pregnancy to term, feel the need to know that everything is all right. Or,
if it isn’t, they believe the knowledge will give them time to prepare,” Chase pointed out.
“I realize that. It’s not my place to judge. I haven’t walked in Mitzi’s Jimmy Choo footwear. I just want her to think this through, that’s all.”
“You’re a good friend to her, Whit. In spite of all her crazy-making and her annoying habits, you’ve really been there for her.” He looked at me with such love in his eyes that I felt emotion clutching at my throat.
What wonderful thing did I ever do to deserve him?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saturday, July 24
“I’m mad at you.”
I held the telephone receiver away from my ear and looked at it in surprise. That’s not usually the kind of wake-up call I get on Saturday morning.
“Hello, Mitzi. Nice to talk to you, too.”
“Arch says to tell Chase that the guys are going to meet at our house this morning to talk about their next project. He’s supposed to call Kurt, too.”
“I’ll give him the message. Now do you want to explain your greeting?”
“You scrambled my brain, and I resent it.”
I refuse to take responsibility for Mitzi’s brain-scrambling. It’s been a long time in coming, and it started way before I knew her. One can’t get that scrambled overnight.
“Do you want to come to my house and talk about it while the guys are meeting over there?”
“I don’t know. I’m really mad at you.”
“Pick up Kim. I’ll put the coffeepot on.”
They appeared at my doorstep, Mitzi and Kim—sans Wesley—promptly at ten o’clock. Kim was carrying a white box from the bakery, and Mitzi held a bag full of chocolate doughnut holes. She requires chocolate by her bed now, to soothe her to sleep at night and as a morning pick-me-up. Chase has suggested, tongue in cheek, that she may need a chocolate intravenous drip before delivery.
Kim caught my eye as Mitzi tramped past me with barely a “hello.” Mitzi is a very small-framed person, but she can stomp like a lumberjack.
“What did you do?” Kim whispered.
“I have no idea. That’s why I invited you over, to find out. The suspense is killing me.”
By the time we got to the kitchen, Mitzi was arranging bakery goods on a plate. She slammed my cupboard door shut after finding three mugs. Then she slapped the mugs on the table and splashed coffee into them. She was right. She was very angry.
I sat back and waited for her to heap burning coals upon my head.
“I did not sleep last night because of you.” She narrowed her eyes and glared at me. “And I always sleep at night.”
“Sorry. What did I do?”
“Don’t play Little Miss Innocent with me! You know perfectly well what you did!”
Kim’s head was swinging back and forth as the verbal tennis match unfolded before her.
“I really don’t know. It would help if you told me.” Why do I put up with this? I wonder. As a high-maintenance friend, Mitzi has reached the top of the charts.
“All that talk about whether or not I should have amniocentesis to find out my baby’s sex. Now I don’t feel like doing it anymore, and the nursery draperies won’t be in until spring! I can’t order them until I know what color they should be.”
Kim played absently with the napkin she’d pleated into a paper fan. “When I was pregnant with Wesley, most of my pregnant friends were having it done. Many of them wanted the reassurance that their babies were healthy and normal, with no genetic problems. But even if I did find that something was amiss with my baby, I knew I’d still carry it to term and love it and raise it.”
“I want to know,” Mitzi said, “but I wouldn’t do anything about it if the news were bad. This baby is mine no matter what!
“You Christians drive me crazy,” Mitzi muttered. “Until I met you guys, I always thought that Christians were fanatics, but sometimes you actually make sense.”
Thanks. I think.
Then, without any warning, Mitzi clamped her hand over her mouth, turned an unlovely shade of green and headed for the bathroom.
Morning sickness. Just like Bryan.
Chase and I were eating crackers in bed, watching the late news and discussing the conversation we’d had that morning. He indulges me in all my quirks—saltines in bed, foot rubs, banana bread with orange marmalade—a relatively new whim—and watching old John Wayne Westerns, which, while not as fun as watching Elvis, pleases me no end.
“Sounds like Kim said it all,” he commented.
“I do understand Mitzi, though. It’s hard to get my head around the fact that this isn’t just my baby or your baby,” I mused. I’d brought the peanut butter with me to bed, and I was scraping it onto the crackers with a butter knife. If I don’t weigh a ton by the time this pregnancy is over, it will be a marvel. I’m already wearing Chase’s boxers to be comfortable. A vision of loveliness, if there ever was one.
“What do you mean?”
“This baby isn’t our possession, but its own little being. He or she won’t exist to make us proud or to feel good about ourselves. Ultimately, this child will have to answer to God, just like the rest of us.”
“It’s entirely different when you think about it that way, isn’t it?” Chase put his arm around me. “That the child in your womb, once it is born, is an eternal being. Talk about starting something you can’t stop! No matter how many years he or she is on earth, that child will now exist for eternity—either with God or without Him.”
“With Him,” I said immediately. “I’m already praying about that. I want our children to know Him personally, like we do.”
“That’s what God wants, too.” He put a finger under my chin and tipped my face toward his. “God is good, Whit. Look at us.”
Friday, July 30
“Where’s Mitzi?” Harry came out of his office at 11:00 a.m. “I’ve got something I want her to work on.”
Kim and I exchanged glances. Bryan dipped lower in his seat.
“Mitzi didn’t come in today.”
“What do you mean, ‘didn’t come in’? She always comes in, even when we don’t want her to.” Harry plopped a file on her desk and went back to his office. “Tell her to get it done as quickly as possible.”
“Where do you think she is?” Kim asked after Harry had closed his door. “He’s right, you know. Mitzi is always here.”
“I called her house, her cell phone, her car and her hairdresser. She’s nowhere to be found.” I kept my voice light, but I had to admit to being worried. Mitzi is nothing if not dependable. She enjoys making us miserable here at work.
“You don’t think she’s sick, do you?”
“Maybe she’s shopping for maternity clothes,” Betty suggested.
“Or getting a manicure and pedicure,” Kim postulated.
“Eating her way through a Godiva chocolate shop?” Bryan hypothesized.
At four-thirty, about the time I was wrapping up for the day, my phone rang.
“Whitney?”
“Mitzi? Where have you been? I was thinking of coming by the house to check on you….”
“Will you? Right now? Can you bring Kim?”
“Sure,” I stammered.
“Hurry, Whitney. I really need you.” She gave a teary little hiccup and dropped the receiver back into its cradle.
Kim was watching me.
“She wants us to come over. She says she needs us.”
“Needs us? What, like Swiss cheese needs holes?”
“She sounded genuinely upset.”
“I’ll tell Kurt to feed Wesley.” She grabbed her purse off her desk. “Let’s go.”
Mitzi must have been watching for us, because as soon as we got out of the car she came to the door. I wondered who it was at first, the petite, dark-haired, makeup-free, barefooted woman in intentionally tattered designer jeans and a man’s white T-shirt.
Her eyes were large in her face, and dark rings smudged beneath them. Her lips were rosy, even with
out lipstick, but her mouth was tremulous, as if she could cry at any moment. Mitzi is a lot of things, but this was a side of her I’d never seen before—as fragile as a brown and brittle leaf in late fall. She looked as though if I touched her, she might crumble into a hundred little pieces.
Today, the irrepressible, indomitable Mitzi was a faint shadow of her usual self.
She opened her mouth to say something and abruptly closed it again.
“Let’s go inside,” I suggested as I took her arm and guided her into the vast foyer of her house as though she were a porcelain doll.
She stumbled a little as I led her toward the large sunlit kitchen at the back of the house. Mitzi’s kitchen, although she hates to cook, would make a professional chef’s mouth water. Commercial-grade refrigerator and stove, two sinks, two dishwashers, warming ovens, a microwave-convection oven, gleaming carving knives, granite countertops. And all Mitzi ever admits to making is an occasional smoothie. Talk about overkill.
Kim found mugs and heated water in the microwave for tea while I scoured the cupboards for chocolate. It wasn’t hard to find. An entire pantry was stocked with the stuff. The paradox didn’t escape me. Mitzi, who for years has been trying to make me fat by tempting me with chocolate éclairs, is now a more serious chocoholic than I am.
The irony is delicious.
She allowed Kim and me to stir sugar into her tea and toss a napkin across her lap.
It crossed my mind that I should call Arch at the clinic, but I decided to wait until I heard what was troubling Mitzi. He’s a podiatrist, after all, and her husband. For impartial, clear-eyed medical advice, I need Chase.
“Now what?” Kim whispered to me. “She’s hanging on to that mug as if it’s a life raft and staring into the bottom of the cup like a treasure map was drawn there. What do we do?”
I took a stool and pulled it close to the counter across from Mitzi. “Do you want to talk about it? Kim and I are both good listeners.”
She looked up from the cup, and her eyes were brimming with unshed tears.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Something terrible happened, and it has to do with my babies!”