by Paloma Meir
I stopped off at a toy store in Beverly Hills on the way over to and bought close to everything for my nephew. Baby T-Ball, baby basketball, and all the other toddler sporting goods. I was impressed by the selection. My trunk was packed full with brightly colored packages.
I pulled up to their house a little early, hungry after a big day out in the surf. I went straight into the kitchen to scavenge food from the caterers who were still setting up. Bowls of pasta, every oily food you could think of and jelly donuts. Score.
I filled my plate and sat down at the center island and tried to keep out of the way of the servers. I searched through the pile of mail looking for a magazine that would interest me. There were a lot of science and medical periodicals. I needed Time or Newsweek, catch up on current events, have something to talk about with my parent’s friends.
An open letter fell out of the pile, thick cream-colored card stock with an embossed ZM at the top. Zelda had written my mother. No surprise there.
It was there. I opened it. I read it. My mistake. Zelda was pregnant. I ran to the bathroom and threw up all the slippery food I had eaten. That was it. The end of any dream I ever had with her. No going back. It hurt more than when she hadn’t come home from Spain. She was poison to me. She couldn’t make a sane decision to save her life.
“Danny is that you? Are you okay?” My mother asked through the closed bathroom door.
“Fine.” I opened the door to let her in.
“Danny you’re sick. Let me take you to your old room. You can lie down until the party starts.” She put her hand on my forehead, “Did you eat the pasta? Oil has always been hard on your stomach. I’ll make you some toast to absorb it. Maybe a tiny glass of scotch.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I turned away from her to wash my hands in the sink.
“Tell you what?”
“About Zelda. About the baby?” My stomach cramped again. I covered my mouth, so much for clean hands.
“Oh Danny, did you read her letter? It came in the mail today. My baby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that you still had such strong feelings for her.” She put her hand on my back and led me upstairs to the room that only reminded me of her.
“I would feel better in the study.” She paused seeming to understand why. Back down the stairs to the study. I lay down on my father’s old leather sofa. She pulled up the footstool, sat down next to me and held my hand. I felt like I was five again.
“I’m sorry. After the Labor Day party Valencia told us your room had been slept in. We wondered about you and Zelda...”
“I can’t explain it. She left the next day. I thought I had put her behind me. I can’t shake free of her. ”
“I’m going to play psychologist for a moment because she’s just a girl, I mean a woman. It’s hard to remember that you two are adults now. From where I sit she’s your youth. A youth you haven’t wanted to let go of.”
“Mom I work every day, I make money, I’m a homeowner. I am an adult.”
“You’re successful. You haven’t brought home the same girl twice since you came home from college. You’re on the beach all day. You don’t have any real responsibilities.”
“I’m 27, what do you want? You and Dad didn’t even meet until you were in you thirties.”
“You’ll be 28 next week… then 30. When does it stop? Your father and I were in medical school and worked overtime in hospitals. We weren’t playing on the beach.”
“You’re trying to get me to go back to medical school? No thanks. I set my life up the way I like it.”
“Then find meaning in it. You’re drifting. That has nothing to do with Zelda.” Her name felt like a knife.
“Mom I miss her. Any possibility is dead. Let me be sad for a moment.”
“Okay Danny... I’ll bring you some toast. Would you like me to send your father in?”
“You think I’m sad? This would tear him apart. Don’t tell him.” My nausea turned into laughter. My mom joined in patting my head.
“You’re going to be okay.”
Chapter Six
I had planned for Paolo and I to fly into Los Angeles for the holidays but I couldn’t shake my morning sickness. My favorite dark chocolate covered oranges made me ill. All my sweets repulsed me. Dairy, I could only eat dairy products. Yogurt three times a day. The doctor had given me a huge multi vitamin I hated because it upset my stomach further.
Silviana had taken over my studio enlisting her two cousins to keep my production current. The smell of the dyes was intolerable. I would only go in on Fridays to help with the sewing. I missed my work. I was left with nothing but television and sometimes books when I could focus. My concentration was gone.
Paolo seemed to prefer me helpless on the sofa all day and in bed all night. His controlling ways that had always charmed me before began to annoy me. His scent made me nauseous. I took to putting Tiger Balm under my nose when he was home. My doctor told me that I would adjust towards the end of my second trimester. My doctor was a liar. The nausea did fade, but my concentration did not come back and Paolo was a musky smelling beast of a man.
My favorite part of the day was lunchtime. Carolina, my oldest friend, was an English Professor at a small college in New Hampshire. We spoke on the phone endlessly when her classes were over for the day. I wished she would come visit me. I missed her so much. We had fallen away over the years but talking to her again made it feel as if we hadn’t lost anything. She promised to come out at the end of June when my baby would presumably be born.
My mother made a plan to come out alone for a week, which would be interesting. I hadn’t spent time alone with her in years, not really since we took those endless series of Krav Maga classes when I was a teenager. With all the weight I had gained I would have to take them again. I made a note to look them up in Madrid. I was a whale and my breasts were comic proportions.
My baby to be wasn’t real to me. I hadn’t done much to prepare for its arrival. I would start interviewing nannies the following week. I worried I didn’t have what it took to be a proper mother. In those moments I was grateful for Paolo. He was gung ho on being a father. If I had known it would mean so much to him I would have gotten pregnant much sooner. That’s a lie. I would have moved away from him to Paris or London.
I shook the selfish thoughts out of my head. Most of the time I was curious if not happy. I had always known I had a narcissistic side to myself, but the people around me had always encouraged it for a million different reasons. I knew I would have to get over my rampant self-interest especially in my appearance to be a good mother. I considered cutting off my hair, but the thought brought back too many bad memories. I thought of running around in yoga clothes like so many other expectant mothers, whom I did not want to befriend. My clothes were my toys, my expression. I couldn’t give that up. I hoped the Universe would open up to guide me.
A positive note was that Paolo stopped talking about getting married. Danny had been right about that. I was too young. Being married had never been something I put much thought into. My shoe collection had taken up a greater space in my mind. I had been spoiled by attention in my life, first from Danny and then from Paolo. A legal paper stating commitment seemed redundant.
I lay on my sofa wrapped in cashmere blankets eating cheese and yogurt waiting for my new world to begin in June.
Chapter Seven
Like the good son I had always been, I did what my mother suggested. She wanted me to have a purpose. I found a purpose. Business school for me. Get my MBA.
I drove up to the USC, transcripts in hand and finessed my way into the program even though the application had been due the month before. The program would take two years, not too bad. I didn’t know if I would ever use the degree but as they say knowledge is the one thing nobody could take from you.
I continued with my day trading in the mornings, riding the wave up and down. It was like the pattern of the ocean outside my window. Some days were bad, but I knew that in the end I alw
ays won. My sports ethic paid off. I had patience, never folding when the market was down.
I wasn’t the oldest at the University or even my program. My old friend Serge had come back from South America. He had had gone down to Peru for a vacation after graduating from college. He ended up staying and playing soccer for their premiere league for a couple of years.
We ran into each other at a cafe in the business school hall. In his dreadlocks and post Grateful Dead wear I don’t know how I recognized him. My friend had changed, his preppy clothes and attitude long gone. Serge had good eyes because I don’t think I looked like my old self much either.
“Danny?”
“Serge?” Big bear hug exchanged. We took our trays and sat down at a corner table. “Where have you been man?”
“Playing soccer in Peru. I’ve been home for a little over a year now. Law school.”
“Physics, Soccer, now Law, how does that happen?” I laughed.
“MIT... a little too intense for me in the end. Peru would take all day to tell you about. Law? Money, that’s it.” He laughed.
“You’ll have to wear a suit." I eyed his threadbare shirt and shorts, which truthfully weren’t much different from what I was wearing.
“I have two more years to get that together. Live for the day my man. What have you been up to?”
“Same as you, back to school for a reason that doesn’t mean much. Business school, getting my MBA. Didn’t do medical school. Surfing mostly, you surf?”
“A few times. What are you doing this weekend? Could you get me back up on the board?”
“Come out for the weekend. I’ll teach you. How’s Carolina?” I didn’t care, but it seemed like a question I was supposed to ask.
“She’s teaches literature at Thornton College in New Hampshire. She’s happy, never comes home. Those two took off. Carolina, Zelda, boom out of this world. Did you hear Zelda’s having a baby?” I should have known better than to bring up Carolina. To talk of her was to talk of Zelda.
“I heard.” I said as casually as possible.
“She’s due in June. Carolina is flying out for the birth. Come home to visit her parents? No. Fly around the world to sit by her friends’ bedside? Yes. Zelda still with that old man? Predictable.” Serge was going to have to lay off pot if he was going to be a lawyer. His thoughts jumped around.
“How was that predictable? She was with me for five years. I’m only a year older than her.” I didn’t want to know his answer.
“Your answer was in your in your statement, “She was with me”. She liked being led around, so she could think her big important thoughts such as “which shade of black is the true black.” he laughed, “Kidding man, she wondered which translation of Madame Bovary was truest to Flaubert’s original version. I could do this all day... That’s not really fair to her” He looked down for a moment and then up with a smile, “The two of them... their books were more real to them then their own lives. I miss them.”
“I miss them too.” I said without thinking.
“Dude you’re not still hung up on her?”
“No way. Done with that.”
“Liar.”
Serge slowly moved in with me over the following weeks. At first it was falling asleep on the sofa after being out in the waves all day. Then he stayed for the weekend. Then he was just there living out of his backpack. Finally I bought a bed for the guestroom I had used for my office. I worked off my laptop, so it wasn’t a big deal. I liked having him around.
He had changed in more ways than his appearance. He was messy, always wearing the same clothes and super relaxed about everything. He had been an intense kid always pushing himself with the science and all the other academics. Even with that he still found time to dominate on our lacrosse team.
When it came to our studies the old Serge came out. He set up a schedule for us to study to maximize our free time, just like he had done for us in high school, and for finals when we were in college. He could cram twice the information in half the amount of time. The guy was a monster, which made the fact that we both slipped into hardcore beach slang funny.
He would head into town a few times a week to tutor rich kids, as he called them, for the SAT or science. MIT was a big deal to the parents, so he was always in demand. I guess he made the most you could be paid for lessons. He didn’t talk about it much.
Our free time that he had organized our studies for? Surf and chicks, again his word not mine. He was a babe magnet. They loved him with his crazy hair and sensitive ways. He was a perceptive guy, well rounded.
We would run up to Pepperdine sometimes to have lunch in their cafe. The college girls loved him and he didn’t exactly fight them off. It got a little weird. We were getting too old for them. I told him and he was okay with that. Other than that fast, fun times we had in our little beach community. It was good to have my buddy back.
He didn’t bring up Zelda anymore.
Chapter Eight
” Push Mi Tesoro.”
“You’re almost there.” Carolina said.
”I’m going to go sit in the living room. Let me know when the baby’s out.” Anthony looked a little woozy.
I lay on my bed pushing and breathing until my head was light. They had put a rubber sheet underneath my layers of dark colored cotton quilts so as not to stain the bed. I was in pain, but the pain was heavenly. I at peace with the world, surrounded by all the people I loved.
My Paolo’s eyes were alive and sparkling, His proud belly had grown with mine. He held my hand kissing it. I pushed harder. He kissed me deeply. We would be a family, the three of us. Our baby would be dark and strong like him with his curious mind, and love of languages. Our baby would live the life of the mind. Our baby would be a poet or an explorer.
As I pushed I knew our baby would be a girl. I saw her growing up with her father’s Moorish skin. Her hair would be long like mine, always in a braid. I saw her in long dresses, the wind blowing them as she walked away through time. She would have large dark eyes that would cast out the ugliness of life, strong hands with which she could always protect herself against the spiders of this world. I wished her wealth of the mind and heart. I saw her on a bed like mine pushing another life into this world, the cycle forever going on, the matriarchy strong throughout eternity. Louisa, that was what I would call her. My baby I would always love and always know, my baby I would be there for her every step of the way in life until I had nothing left to give.
The mid-wife Astrid rubbed almond oil onto my perineum and vulva gently stretching me. She was an angel of mercy anticipating my every pain or thirst and satisfying them with massage and ice chips. We had no language in common but were able to communicate through looks and my squeezing of her hand. Her head nodded efficiently when it was time to push. Paolo had found her. He had taken care of everything so perfectly. Such a wonderful father he would be.
I pushed one last time. My Louisa was here, caught in her father’s arms. My family clapped. Carolina cried coming to me and giving me hug. Paolo lay down beside me on the bed bringing my girl, my beautiful Louisa to me. My eyes unfocused from the pushing and exhaustion, I could hardly see my baby. I held her in my arms, put her to my breast. She latched on hungry from her journey into the world. The suckling released a rush a love throughout my body. I drifted off to sleep.
“Zelda are you awake?” Asked my mother. She held my Louisa as Carolina sat next to her, petting my baby’s head.
“My baby.” I reached out to take her, finally seeing my beautiful girl. She was white as snow with the bluest eyes. “I imagined her dark like Paolo. I saw her whole life ahead of her. She’s so beautiful. Look at those red lips.” I kissed my sleeping girl.
“All baby’s have blue eyes. They’ll change over the next few months. She is beautiful, even more so than when you were a baby.” My mother beamed.
I held my sleeping beauty. Her face so chubby and she smelled like cinnamon rice. I nestled my nose into her neck, breathing her in.
Her sparse hair was a reddish blond, so soft. I ran my fingers delicately over her head mindful not to touch her soft spot.
“Where are Paolo and the men folk?” I asked.
“Up on the roof smoking cigars.” Carolina turned to my mother, “Natalie could you run up and get them? They’ll want to see Zelda and Louisa now that they’re awake.” My mother leaned down to give my Louisa and I a kiss before going upstairs to the rooftop patio. Astrid sat at the foot of my bed rubbing my feet.
“She’s beautiful Zelda. I feel like she’s mine too.”
“Carolina it was so strange I had this vision of a dark girl, a feminine copy of Paolo but I woke up to a baby that’s me, except for the eyes of course.”
“Louisa will thank you one day for her beauty.” She looked away for a moment. “When was the last time you were home Zelda?”