Book Club Babies

by Ashton Lee

  “You’re absolutely right. Let’s get him out of here quickly. You tell him firmly but politely to go to the emergency room at Cherico Memorial. We don’t practice medicine here.”

  A few minutes later, Miriam Goodcastle, the energetic, recently hired children’s librarian, popped in with a request to buy some supplies for one of her imaginative story hours, and Maura Beth was happy to spend more time than was necessary listening to Miriam’s plans to stage a Frozen extravaganza.

  “It’ll go perfectly with the colder weather we’re having now,” Miriam said. “All the little girls and their mothers have been just beside themselves since I put up all those posters. I’m expecting a record crowd.”

  Shortly after approving Miriam’s requisition, however, Maura Beth realized she needed to stop dawdling and pick up the phone to do her duty, off-putting as it was. In all the years she had been best friends with Periwinkle, she had only met Mama Kohlmeyer once, and that was briefly when the woman had driven over from Corinth to have dinner at The Twinkle courtesy of her daughter. Only a few words had been exchanged as Maura Beth had been sitting at a nearby table and Periwinkle had introduced them. While Maura Beth had attempted to keep the conversation friendly and alive, Mama Kohlmeyer had cut it short with an inexplicable frostiness that the woman made no effort to conceal. And now here she was being asked to convey some traumatic news to that same woman who was virtually a stranger and wasn’t even on friendly terms with her own daughter.

  Nonetheless, she finally picked up the phone and dialed, her heart surprising her with the way it was racing. Then, after three rings, came the “Hello?” from Mama Kohlmeyer.

  Maura Beth took a deep, cleansing breath for good measure and then politely identified herself.

  “Yes?” Mama Kohlmeyer said. It was astounding how much indifference could be crammed into one little word.

  “I’ll get right to the point. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Maura Beth began, the words coming out more easily than she thought they would, “but your daughter asked me to call and let you know that your granddaughter was born prematurely two days ago. It was a C-section, and Periwinkle is doing fine. Your granddaughter is in the NICU right now at Cherico Memorial. Periwinkle thought you’d want to know. The last report the doctors gave her was that the baby was holding her own for the time being. It might be a while longer before they know whether she can go home, though. Anyway, I promised Periwinkle I’d give you a call.”

  The silence at the other end lasted so long that Maura Beth thought the connection was lost.

  “Hello? ” Maura Beth said. “Are you still there, Miz Kohlmeyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m just the messenger here. Did you have anything you wanted me to tell Periwinkle?”

  The tension flowing through the phone was nearly palpable as Mama Kohlmeyer finally said, “No, I don’t have a message for my daughter. But I do have a question for you. Don’t you go pulling any punches with me, either. I know you and Periwinkle Violet have been thick as thieves for a long time now, else why would she have you call instead of calling me herself? You tell me the truth—does my granddaughter look white?”

  “What?”

  “You heard what I said. Don’t be playing innocent with me. I know you know. Does that baby look white?”

  “No, I don’t know. I . . . I haven’t actually seen her. But I’ve been told she’s a beautiful child. She couldn’t be anything else, I’m quite sure.”

  Maura Beth’s shock only grew as Mama Kohlmeyer said, “I’m reading between the lines, Miz McShay, and I can guess what you’re not telling me. You might as well know that if that child doesn’t look white and if she takes after him, I’ll have nothing to do with her.”

  Maura Beth knew it wasn’t her place to argue, but she did anyway. Her adrenaline was flowing, and she had to stand up for Periwinkle and Parker. “But that’s your granddaughter we’re talking about, Miz Kohlmeyer. Those are your genes.”

  “Don’t you dare say that to me!”

  “I don’t mean to upset you, but facts are facts.”

  Mama Kohlmeyer’s voice rose a decibel level. “This really is none of your business, Miz McShay. Who are you to talk to me like that? You should stick to running that library of yours. Now I’ve told you how I feel. I think we’d better end this conversation right now. Good-bye.”

  The suddenness of the dial tone had the effect of a thunderous cannon shot, and Maura Beth sat at her desk holding the receiver in her hand, completely unable to blink, unable to move a muscle. She couldn’t seem to put it down. If she did, the call would truly be ended, and she would be left with the thankless task of repeating those words to her best friend. How could she possibly bring herself to do that?

  Finally, she hung up the receiver and looked out over the lake again. This time there was no great wisdom waiting for her on the surface of the water. There was even a cloud bank blocking the sun to further prolong her sudden inaction. She only knew that she could not convey such blatant cruelty and further rejection to Periwinkle. Maybe it would be better to lie and say that Mama Kohlmeyer had hung up on her. Yes, that would be better and far less hurtful. In any case there seemed to be no possible reconciliation in the offing between mother and daughter.

  Not when the mother was swimming in a pool of racism and did not care how many people she splashed or even drowned along the way.

  11

  Fallen

  In the days that followed Thanksgiving, the outlook of The Free Sample Sisters seemed to be on the uptick. Elise had been buoyed by her parents’ last-minute decision to stay at the lodge another night after everyone had received the unsettling news of Periwinkle’s premature baby. The upside to a crisis was that it frequently brought out the best in people. The three of them had found the time to talk things out a bit more, and Susan and Paul had seemed to be warming to the idea of their daughter’s unconventional decision.

  “You’ll just have to forgive us if we were a little taken aback at first,” Susan had said as the three of them huddled on the sofa in front of one of Douglas’s crackling fires. “Your father and I would love to have been in on this from the start. Honestly, I think we could have found a way to help you.”

  Elise knew she had to stop being difficult and tap into her seldom-used, gracious gene. “Well, you know me, Mom. I’m nothing if I’m not Helen Headstrong in that alternate universe I run around in where I’m always standing on my soapbox with my picket signs.”

  They had all laughed, and Paul had said, “You do know yourself very well. Just keep us posted from here on, and we’ll look forward to coming down for Christmas. Your aunt Connie says she’ll disown all of us if we don’t show up for her annual gourmet feast.”

  And then Elise had closed the circle of good feeling. “I think I might, too, if you don’t mind her.”

  * * *

  Maura Beth had followed through on her decision to tell Periwinkle that her mother had hung up on that promised call, and that was the end of that. No words had passed between the two of them. The lie had surely prevented what would have been a punch to the gut, and it seemed that Periwinkle was willing to take Maura Beth’s word as gospel and live with it.

  “I’m not surprised, “Periwinkle had said. “The only time Parker tried to talk to her, she hung up on him.”

  “I’m so sorry. But it is what it is,” Maura Beth had said, leaving it at that and feeling that Periwinkle would be satisfied.

  It was far from an ideal situation, of course, but it was better than the raw ugliness of further exposing Mama Kohlmeyer for what she was. That, Maura Beth reasoned, was something that mother and daughter had to tackle eventually on their own in earnest, even if the outcome looked like it might be truly heartbreaking. For now, however, Periwinkle would be concentrating on her baby girl in that incubator, and that was all that mattered.

  * * *

  The collaboration among Elise, Jeremy, and Alex was gathering momentum day by day, and th
e initial tensions generated by Elise had largely dissipated as they had finally gotten one chapter under their belt. They were all gathered around the dining room table on this particular Sunday afternoon with their stacks of notes and laptops; meanwhile, Connie had lit a couple of gardenia-scented candles that she had placed on the window sills for background ambience, telling them that work was always easier with a heavenly aroma lingering. Then she had flitted away, wishing them well with a smile.

  “I know I can go back and pull out a lot of those statistics and some of the interviews I did with single mothers from all backgrounds for my classroom appearance next week,” Elise was saying. “If you want to know the truth, that’s probably when I got the notion to try being a single mother myself deliberately. I certainly was in a position to pull it off financially. So I sat down at my office desk one day and said to myself, why not?”

  “Brave new world,” Alex said, giving her a deferential nod.

  Elise looked at him with visible suspicion. “I’m assuming that’s a compliment from you, sir.”

  “Yes, it is. All of my students are looking forward to hearing about the choice you made, particularly my female students.”

  “That’s a good sign. We all need to be more and more open-minded as the millennium rolls on.”

  Alex raised his hand. “I’ll take the widows.”

  “Guess that leaves me with the divorcées,” Jeremy said. He gave his sister a quizzical glance. “Could we go back and get in touch with some of them again, or do we want to use these initial interviews and let it go at that? They have to be more than a few years old by now.”

  Elise answered quickly and authoritatively, as if she had just been asked a question by one of her students. “That’s a good point. We might want to do another interview since their circumstances might have changed. For instance, if they’ve gotten remarried, their stories would be quite different now. Of course, we could end up with a patchwork quilt of a timeline, but we want to be accurate.” She typed into her laptop at what seemed like lightning speed. For all intents and purposes, it had become her project, and the two men had decided to keep the peace by letting her lead.

  “If they’ve gotten remarried,” Alex said, “then we have another potential category that relates to changes in the nuclear family—the blended family. Were we going to try to include that in the book?”

  Elise pointed her index finger at him emphatically. “Yes, I think we have to. We want to cover all bases. The blended thing is booming among the Boomers. Ha! I like the way that sounds. Maybe it ought to be a chapter title.”

  Alex picked up on her bright mood and stuck his nose in. “A lot of alliteration, though.”

  “Nah, we’ll take out a b, and it’ll fly.”

  “You should be in charge of chapter titles,” Alex said, leaning in and coming off as somewhat flirtatious.

  “I thought we were just going to use numbers for that,” Jeremy said.

  Elise caught his gaze playfully. “What could be the harm in spicing things up just a bit, Jer?”

  “None, I suppose.”

  It was during a much-needed coffee break after thirty minutes of productive banter back and forth that Alex changed the subject. Elise’s intensity and rapid-fire manner could be a bit overwhelming at times. “What’s the latest on your Free Sample Sister and her baby, Elise?”

  “I appreciate your asking about her. Periwinkle’s been at home for a while now,” she told him. “But the baby’s still in the hospital. Making slow progress, though. You can’t rush these things. The baby was so small to begin with. Now, every ounce she puts on makes such a difference.” There was a pause that found Elise frowning. “I don’t know if I could go through something like Periwinkle and Parker are going through. Especially Periwinkle. I mean, not knowing how it will turn out after carrying the baby for so long. To think that it all might be for naught.”

  “I’m sure the odds are against a premature birth for you, Leesie,” Jeremy said. “Too coincidental. Besides, Aunt Connie says you’re doing everything by the letter—when and what to eat, taking your supplements, doing your breathing exercises, and whatever else.”

  Elise looked a bit sheepish, which was something practically foreign to her temperament. “Considering I made a huge scene at that first Lamaze class at the library, I’d have to agree with you. At some point I think it finally dawned on me that everything didn’t have to be a political statement. The next time I returned to Expecting Great Things, I behaved myself.”

  Jeremy’s grin had a sarcastic shade to it. “Yes, Maurie and I were there, remember? You got with the program. It’s just all about making the birth experience more comfortable, nothing else. Maurie and I practice whenever we can, and I think we’re getting pretty darned good.”

  “I’ve always learned from my mistakes. Now, Aunt Connie coaches me all the time, and I really feel very comfortable about it all.” Then she put down her coffee cup and rubbed her hands together vigorously. “Well, shall we get back to our work, gentlemen?”

  * * *

  It was after their collaboration session was finally over that Elise excused herself to go up to her room for a nap. “Doctor’s orders,” she had told them with a smile and then headed up, carefully holding on to the railing all the way.

  Alex and Jeremy remained at the table, scanning their notes and checking files on their laptop screens. Then Alex looked up and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something, Jeremy? ”

  “Shoot.”

  Alex drummed his fingers on the table while screwing up his face. Whatever it was he had on his mind wasn’t coming out so easily. “You’re the only one I can tell this to, so I hope you’ll keep it in strictest confidence.”

  Jeremy gave him a friendly wink. “You bet.”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly how this happened, but . . . well, I think I’ve fallen in love with your sister. Do you have any advice for me?”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I assure you I’m not.”

  Jeremy took his time. This was a curve ball he hadn’t expected from a colleague he had always thought of as well grounded. “I knew you were fascinated with Leesie’s pregnancy choice and all that went into that, but I certainly didn’t think it had gone any further than that.”

  “I’m afraid it has.”

  Jeremy continued to look and sound incredulous. “Please tell me you haven’t said anything to Leesie about this.”

  “No, I don’t think I’d have the nerve. As far as I can tell, this is strictly a one-sided crush.”

  Jeremy put his hands on the table and leaned forward, making solid eye contact in man-to-man fashion. “Listen to me and listen good, pal. I know my sister very well. Better than anyone else in the world does, probably. My parents can’t handle her, but I can. I’ve had to since we were children growing up together. You’re just setting yourself up for an unrequited fall. It’s not that she doesn’t like you—because I know for a fact she does. But strictly as a cohort, as an intellectual equal, not as the romantic lead in the movie of her life. She’s never said or done anything to indicate to me she has room for that. Just for her career and that baby of hers on the way. She’s determined to prove something to the world, and she’s not going to stop until she does.”

  Alex sighed and shook his head. “I know you’re right, of course. But what can I do? I have the feelings I have, and I can’t seem to stop them from getting stronger and stronger.” He pointed dramatically to his heart. “They’re right here, stuck in the middle of my chest, and they won’t go away no matter what I do. I guess they just snuck up on me.” He thought for a second, closing one eye. “Snuck? Is that a word? You’re the English teacher.”

  Jeremy didn’t seem particularly pleased with the remark. “It’s probably sneaked, but who cares? Just what is it about Leesie that’s turned you on so much? I know it can’t be her figure right now. She’s a hot mess most of the time, and she was like that before she got pregnant. That’s only made i
t worse.”

  “That may be, but I just don’t see her the way you do. For one thing, I don’t have all that sibling history you do.”

  Jeremy drew back in astonishment. “If you’re thinking you can have a relationship of any kind with her at this stage of her life, you’re wasting your time. And I don’t think you should say anything to her about his. It’ll probably screw up our collaboration big-time, and we need all the help we can get. I’m giving you polite and fair warning for the last time. Don’t take my sister on that way. You’ll only be taking the fall of a lifetime, I can guarantee.”

  Alex managed an awkward little laugh. “Somehow I knew you’d say that. But I just had to get this off my chest.”

  “Well, now you’ve done that. I can’t do anything about the feelings you have for her, but I can steer you in the right direction. And that’s away from my sister. Keep her at arm’s length as the apple of your eye. I know I’m an English teacher and that sounds trite as hell, and I’m downright embarrassed about spouting it, but right now, I can’t think of anything more original, I’m so stunned.”

  “I guess I’m right in the middle of a hopeless cause, then,” Alex said, shrugging, but he was able to keep a smile on his face. “Maybe it’s the fact that she’s such a loner. I was always kind of a loner myself—you know, not a jock, loved history and all the trivia that goes with it. We have that quality in common. I admire her spunk. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I guess so. But do you think you can keep on working with her under these circumstances?”

  “Oh, sure. We’ve got this great book we want to get published, and I can’t let my emotions destroy that opportunity. I know I can continue to be completely professional about this. Everything went smoothly enough this afternoon, didn’t it? It even smelled liked gardenias the whole time.”

  “Yes, it did. Although sometimes you and I had to make the effort to keep things truly collaborative. Elise is her own whirlwind and tends to leave people behind. I sometimes wonder what it’s like to be one of her students trying to keep up with her.” Jeremy rapped his knuckles on the table twice. “Knock on wood you can live up to what you just said about playing it straight. I think it’s very important you keep it platonic with Leesie if we’re gonna produce a book on schedule. The last thing we need is a difficult romantic entanglement, although I really don’t think it’s possible.”