“I think the little guy might need a diaper change,” Mark said at one point. When Mary came to take Henry away, he screamed like she was a stranger ripping him out of the arms of his parents.
“I’m real y sorry about this,” Mary said to Mark.
“Not a problem.” Mark brushed the legs of his pants where Henry had been sitting.
“I just don’t know what has gotten into him,” Mary said as Henry kicked and cried. She locked eyes with Lauren. Your boyfriend hates babies, her face seemed to say. “So what?” Lauren thought. She wasn’t so fond of them herself. But she didn’t actual y hate them. You weren’t supposed to hate them, were you? Even if you didn’t know if you wanted them, you were supposed to like them a little bit. Lauren had never thought she would date a baby lover, but she’d certainly never thought she would date a baby hater. She searched Mark’s face for a sign that he was baby neutral, but she couldn’t decipher anything.
The day that Lauren’s sister had her baby, Lauren drove to Boston to see it in the hospital. She hadn’t been planning on it, but as the due date neared it was clear that it was expected of her. She was tired and a little hungover as she entered the hospital room. Her mom and Betsy’s mother-in-law were hovering over the bed, holding the baby like they were going to steal it. When Lauren walked in, they excused themselves to get some coffee.
Before Lauren could even say, “The baby is cute,” Betsy started talking.
“I ripped,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Lauren said.
“I ripped during the birth. The doctor I had doesn’t like to do episiotomies anymore, and he didn’t do one.”
“Epeeze-whats?”
Her sister sighed. “Episiotomies. You know, where they cut the vagina to make it easier to give birth.”
“No,” Lauren said. “I did not know.” She sat down, suddenly feeling light-headed.
“Wel , the birth took forever and the numbness started to wear off down there and I could feel the tearing, and I said, ‘We should do something,’
but no one would listen.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Lauren said. She wondered if her sister was stil drugged up. She must be, Lauren thought, otherwise she would never be discussing such things. Her sister was so embarrassed of everything that once, when they were teenagers, and Lauren asked her if she could borrow a tampon, Betsy turned bright red and cal ed Lauren a pervert.
“They had to stitch me up, which I felt al of,” her sister went on. “I bet it’s a mess down there. I can’t even imagine. And now we have to be careful of infection.”
Lauren looked at her niece, who was red and sort of busted-looking. Her head was pointy and she looked like she had some pretty bad acne.
“It wil go back to its normal shape,” her sister said.
“Excuse me?”
“Her head. It’s just in a cone because it took her so long to make it out of the vaginal passage.”
“Right,” Lauren said.
“Listen, Lauren, can you do something for me?”
“What?”
“Can you take a look down there and tel me what it looks like? I’m imagining Freddy Krueger’s face right now, and it would real y help if you could tel me that it’s not that bad.”
“You want me to look at your stitched-up vagina and describe it to you?”
“Don’t make it sound gross,” her sister said. “Come on.”
Lauren pressed her lips together. She and Betsy had shared a room for fifteen years, and every single night, Betsy had turned to the wal when she changed into her pajamas. Lauren used to wonder if Betsy would ever let a boy see her naked. She’d honestly been surprised when Betsy had announced that she was pregnant.
“Please, Lauren? Please? Before Mom and Mrs. King get back? Please? I don’t want to ask Jerry to do it. It’s too humiliating.”
Betsy started to cry a little bit, her nose running and dripping down to her mouth. It made Lauren want to vomit.
“Oh my God, fine,” Lauren said. “Let’s just do this.”
Months afterward, when Lauren’s niece had turned cute and roundheaded, and Betsy had gone back to her prudish ways, Lauren teased Betsy about this moment.
“My vagina feels dry today,” she would say out of nowhere.
“You’re disgusting,” Betsy would say.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Are we not al owed to talk about our vagina’s moods? I was under the impression that this was a safe space,” she said, gesturing to the car. Lily babbled in the backseat.
“You know what, Lauren? Don’t be a bitch. I had just gone through thirty hours of labor and they should have done a C-section and they didn’t, and I hadn’t been alone with anyone I could talk to about it.”
“It’s fine,” Lauren said. “I’m total y cool with it.”
Once when they were walking down the street and saw a dead pinkish slug on the ground, Lauren hit Betsy on the arm and pointed to it. “Look at that. Did that fal out of your vagina?”
Betsy narrowed her eyes. “I hope when you have a baby, your vagina tears into a mil ion pieces,” she said.
“Wel , thanks to you, dear sister, I’m not sure I wil ever have a baby.”
“Oh, you wil .” Betsy laughed like she knew something. “Believe me, you wil .”
Lauren was scared by Betsy’s knowing voice. Betsy was two years older and Lauren sometimes had to remind herself that Betsy didn’t know everything. Stil , it scared her to think that labor had turned Betsy into a person who talked out loud about her vagina ripping. If that’s what it did to Betsy, what would it do to her? For a while, she stopped teasing Betsy about it. If karma existed, then it wasn’t a good idea, Lauren decided. Then, last Thanksgiving, when the turkey was al done and stuffed, little dried cranberries and hunks of corn-bread stuffing fal ing out of the open cavity, Lauren put her arm around her sister and motioned to the turkey.
“You know what that reminds me of?” she asked.
“Go to hel ,” Betsy said, and Lauren laughed and laughed. Karma be damned.
On their twenty-seventh date, Mark made macaroni and cheese at Lauren’s apartment. They had planned to order Chinese food, but Lauren had had a late lunch and wasn’t hungry, so Mark decided to make a box of Kraft. They sat on the couch and watched sitcoms, and he ate the neon orange noodles as he always did, in huge, heaping spoonfuls. He ate the whole pot and then leaned back and rubbed his stomach. He let out a giant belch and then a happy sigh.
“Lovely,” Lauren said. He smiled.
The two of them sat and watched TV in silence. Then they got into bed and read. In the quiet, Lauren thought about her pastel client from Kansas City staring at the empty place where the baby’s wal would go. She looked over at Mark.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever eaten macaroni and cheese at my apartment,” she said.
Mark put his finger in the magazine to keep his place and moved his eyebrows together. “Huh,” he said. “I guess it is.” Then they both went back to reading.
Wil ard died on a cold November morning. Lauren found him tilted to the side. He was turning white and only one fin was paddling. She was sure he’d had a stroke. She sat in the kitchen with him for a while, and then (believing it to be the humane thing) she took him to the bathroom and flushed him. She did it quickly.
Lauren washed out the bowl, then threw it out. She should have gotten him a real fishbowl. He’d deserved that much. The kitchen looked empty without him there, and Lauren felt alone in her apartment. “This is so stupid,” she said aloud. “It was just a fish.” Then she laid her head on her arms and cried.
“The fish died,” Lauren said, “which can’t be a good sign.”
“Wel ,” Isabel a said, “fish die a lot. I think we had, like, four hundred different goldfish at my house growing up. A couple of them committed suicide by jumping out of the bowl.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lauren asked.
“I’m just saying, it could have been worse.”
; “I don’t know,” Lauren said. “It just feels like a bad omen.”
They were out to breakfast, eating blueberry pancakes on their forty-ninth date, when Mark said, “I would like to hire you.”
“Hire me?” Lauren asked. “You know, I’m already doing it for free. If you started paying me now, it would change the nature of our relationship.”
Mark smiled just a little. “I would like to hire you as a Realtor. I want to buy a new place.”
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Okay.”
Lauren had shown Mark only three apartments before he found one he liked. He went to see it seven times. On the eighth visit, Lauren didn’t even bother talking about it. They just stood and stared at the bedrooms. Final y, Mark said, “I think I’m going to buy it. I like it here.”
“Me too. Let’s look at the closets one more time.”
Mark nodded and went over to the front hal closet. He bent forward so that half of his body was inside. “I think you should live here,” he said. His voice was muffled.
“It smel s like liver?” Lauren asked. She didn’t even know what liver would smel like.
“No,” Mark said straightening up. “I think you should live. Here.”
“Oh,” Lauren said. “That might be a good idea.”
“There’s enough closet space.”
“Definitely.” And the two of them stood and looked at al of the space in the empty liver closet.
The day they moved into the apartment, Mark brought Lauren a turtle. “Here,” he said, like he had just found it in the hal . “A turtle to replace the fish.”
Lauren took the plastic container and looked at the little turtle. She had always wanted one.
“I’l have to go to the pet store,” Lauren said. “I don’t even know what a turtle needs.”
“What are you going to name it?” Mark asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lauren said. She put the box on the table and they stared at it. “Maybe Rudy?” she said. She considered it. It was definitely a possibility. A possibility now, where it hadn’t been before.
I sabela,” her mom said. “There’s no need to be so down. Things seem bad, and they wil until the worm turns. And then, you wil look back on this time and laugh.”
“Until the what?” Isabel a asked. “Until what turns?”
“The worm,” her mom said. “It’s an expression.” She sounded tired of Isabel a. Isabel a didn’t blame her. She was tired of herself.
“Okay, Mom. I should go. I need to update my résumé.” This was sort of a lie and sort of not. Isabel a did need to update her résumé. But she wasn’t going to do it when she got off the phone. She just needed to stop talking to her mother. They said good-bye and hung up. Isabel a sat in the apartment and stared at the dog. Should she go to the gym? It was two-thirty p.m. on a Tuesday. Did people go to the gym at that time? The dog stared back at Isabel a. He seemed to know she was lying about her résumé.
“What?” Isabel a asked him. He sighed and lay down on the floor.
“Sometimes,” Mary said, “when people get fired, they end up getting amazing new jobs. It forces people to get out there and find what they want to do.”
“But I already found what I want to do,” Isabel a said. “And it just so happens that I picked a failing industry. I’m never going to get another job like I had. They won’t even exist anymore.”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “I guess that’s true.” She shifted on the couch, leaning back and then swaying from side to side.
“Are you al right?” Isabel a asked.
“Yeah,” Mary said. “It’s just if I don’t have this freaking baby soon, I’m going to rip open my stomach.”
“Oh,” Isabel a said. “Wel , if that’s al .”
“Maybe you should take a shower,” Harrison suggested after he touched the top of her head. She had been in bed for three days. “It’s kind of starting to smel in here.”
“That’s so mean,” she said. “That is so mean, Harrison.”
“I know.” He hugged her, and when she reached up to wipe her tears away, she touched her greasy hair. It felt like wax. A shower, she decided, wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Okay,” she said. “I’l take a shower.” She went and stood underneath the hot water with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes closed.
She stood there until there was so much steam in the bathroom that she couldn’t see. Afterward, she put on clean sweatpants and brushed her newly washed hair.
“Don’t you feel better?” Harrison asked.
“Yes,” Isabel a said. “I do.” And she did. But she stil slept for most of the day. She just hid it from Harrison better than she had before. When his alarm clock went off, she got up and poured herself a cup of coffee and then sat on the couch and watched the Today show. After he kissed her good-bye, she would wait a few minutes before putting the chain lock on the door and getting back into bed. Around five-thirty, she would get up and wash her face and put on clothes. She’d sit in front of her laptop on the couch until he got home.
“Just job searching,” she would say when he got home.
“You look queer,” Isabel a said to Harrison when he walked in the door. She had never used that word to describe anyone before, but when she saw him that night, it was the only word that was right. “You look queer,” she said again.
Harrison looked at her out of the sides of his eyes and went to get a beer from the fridge. He opened it and leaned his hands against the counter but stil didn’t speak. Isabel a began to get scared. He was going to leave her. Or tel her that he was having an affair. Or that he had a baby. He took a sip of his beer and then said, “They’re downsizing my division.”
It took Isabel a a moment to realize that he was talking about his job. She had been so ready to hear that he had a secret baby that she was almost relieved. Then she realized what he’d said.
“Wait. Are you being downsized? You, yourself?”
Harrison shrugged. “They aren’t real y saying. They’re being real y shady about the whole thing. But my boss did pul me into his office to tel me that there are opportunities for me in the Boston office.”
“What does that mean?”
“It sounded like he was tel ing me that I could work there or be fired.”
“In Boston?”
“In Boston.”
They were both quiet for a couple of minutes. Isabel a wasn’t sure where the conversation was going to go next. They weren’t married. It wasn’t automatic that she had to go with him wherever he went. In fact, it was the opposite of automatic, whatever that was.
“So, are you thinking about it?” she asked.
“I guess so. I’m not sure I have a choice.”
“Right,” Isabel a said. “I guess you don’t.” Isabel a started to cry and Harrison watched her.
“Do you want to go with me?” Harrison asked. It was later, almost the middle of the night. Neither of them was sleeping.
“Go with you where?” Isabel a asked.
“Isabel a. To Boston.”
“Oh,” Isabel a said. “I don’t know. Do you want me to go with you?”
“Yeah, I do. I know it might be unfair to ask, but I do want you to come.”
“Okay,” Isabel a said.
“Okay, you’l go?” Harrison asked.
“No. Just okay.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. What if you just stayed?”
“I can’t,” Harrison said.
“Wel , you could,” Isabel a said. “You could do anything you wanted to.”
“I’m not going to, though,” Harrison said. And then they both lay there until it was morning.
“Isabel a,” her mom said. “The important thing to do is to stay calm and make a rational decision.”
“You say that like it’s easy,” Isabel a said.
“I’m just saying that it’s no help to wal ow in your misery. People have ups and downs, but I’m tel ing you, when the worm turns, you w
il be stronger for having gone through this.”
“You know,” Isabel a said, “I’ve never heard you use that expression before in my life until the last couple of weeks. Not ever.”
“Of course you have. Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who keeps talking about worms.”
“The baby is real y cute,” Isabel a said to Mary at the hospital. “Any closer to a name?”
“No,” Mary said. She squinted at the baby. “I real y thought I would go with Ava, but look at her. She’s too big to be an Ava, don’t you think?”
“Um, I think whatever you think,” Isabel a said.
“What I think, is that I never thought I would have a nine-pound baby, and it’s throwing me off. I pictured Ava being a tiny baby, and now it just doesn’t fit. If I don’t think of a name soon, I think Ken is going to kil me. He stil likes Ava.”
“Henry and Ava do sound good together,” Isabel a said. “Also, I think that Harrison is being transferred to Boston.”
“No!” Mary said. “I don’t believe it.” She immediately started crying.
“Mary? Are you okay?” Isabel a asked.
“Yeah,” Mary said. “It’s just the hormones. Start at the beginning.”
“Do you want to concentrate on naming the baby before Ken gets back?”
Mary sighed. “That could take days. Why don’t you go first?”
“That sucks,” Lauren said.
“I know,” Isabel a said.
“I was wondering why you wanted to meet me in a bar in the afternoon,” Lauren said. “Not that I mind.”
“It seemed like the only place to be,” Isabel a said. She took a sip of her grapefruit and vodka. “Plus, this has juice in it, so it’s completely appropriate to drink it during the day.”
“Total y,” Lauren said. “So, do you know what you’re going to do?”
“I have no idea.” Isabel a started crying. “Except apparently, I’m going to cry about it every day.”
“Good,” Lauren said. “You should cry about it every day. It’s a good release. Crying helps you live longer.”
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