As La Vista Turns

by Kris Ripper

  I didn’t want to get drunk and cry after that. I sat in my condo and stared into space. I lost hours. I called in sick to work and did . . . nothing. At all.

  That was when Jaq started pushing me about finding a girlfriend. A month or two later I asked Dred if she’d pretend we were dating for the sake of appearances.

  It was when I had started wondering if it would have been easier if I’d decided to do all this with someone. For months I had been glad to be single. I liked falling asleep by myself, thinking I might have conceived. But at some point it turned, folding in on itself, and more than I wanted to be alone, I wanted someone to hold me while I cried, again, because this thing that other people seemed to do so easily was a thing I might not be able to do at all.

  This time I took the gym off, like I usually do after an insemination. But I should have gone to play pool with the team, since that can’t really be considered “risky.”

  I didn’t do that either.

  It was too early for any actual signs of pregnancy, which was almost enough to stop me from obsessing over them. So I did the only thing I knew would distract me.

  I went to the farmhouse to bother Dred.

  Preparations were being made for either the apocalypse, or James’s first day at daycare. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, it was hard to tell which.

  Only Emerson and James were in the kitchen. I heard Dred’s voice before I located her out on the back porch, phone clutched to her ear.

  “He is your son, this is your weekend—” She broke off, and I could see her shoulders go stiff. “That’s the funny thing about babies, Bri. They don’t always do what’s convenient for you.”

  I made a face at Emerson. “The famous Bri, huh?”

  “Yeah. It’s like he has exactly the worst timing.” He gestured to the table, cluttered with what looked like a bunch of James’s clothes. “She’s decided to mend and get the stains out of all his stuff so he doesn’t look like a poor kid at preschool.”

  Oh. Damn.

  Outside, Dred’s voice rose. “Brian, it’s your weekend, and you’re taking your son. Stop being a child and try being a father.”

  Emerson winced. “And cue Mildred hangs up, puts her phone on silent, and acts like nothing’s wrong.”

  She came in a minute later and collapsed on the floor beside James, absently picking up his blocks and starting a wall. Her eyes caught mine, lingered, then settled on Emerson. “You’re not still trying to make him a lunch, are you? They’ll feed him, I told you.”

  “He might get hungry. Shouldn’t he have a snack from home? What if they don’t give him anything he likes?”

  “Well, I’m sending him with formula, so he’ll drink that.”

  Emerson didn’t look convinced, but I thought he might be playing along to distract her from Brian. “I feel like he should have comfort foods with him. What if he gets nervous? What if he misses you? He misses Obie when he goes to work every day, and he’s still here with you, or with both of us.”

  “He misses you when you go to work every day, too. He’ll survive.”

  “But . . . he won’t have anyone. He’ll be with strangers. How are you okay with this?” All right. So maybe he really was freaked out. Emerson stepped back. “I don’t understand how people, they just—they drop their kids off and then . . . you don’t even know what’s happening when you aren’t there. How is that okay?”

  Dred sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell you this. But you’re clearly freaking the fuck out, so I will. Listen, there’s an app you can download that’ll let you watch a nanny cam in their main classroom. I guess it doesn’t cover the playground or anything, but the main classroom is big, and that’s where they eat and do activities and stuff, so if you want—”

  “Of course I want, oh my god. Sorry, Aunt—” He paused. “Do we still say ‘Sorry, Aunt Florence’ when she’s actually . . . here?”

  “She’s not here right now.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She shrugged and hid James’s favorite brown bear behind her back. “I don’t know. Maybe we should just try not to be blasphemous.”

  “Bite your tongue. And tell me the name of this app or whatever. I need it.”

  They worked out the app, and the school code, and the parent password or something that let Emerson finally access the correct feed. Which . . . was a little creepy. Not that I objected to the idea of the thing, but that there was a company that had made an app that solely existed so that schools could transmit live streams of kids over the internet so people could watch them. Sure, there was security, but still. Tad bit creepy.

  Since I had nothing better to do, I took over the game of hide-the-bear, to James’s delighted giggles, and Dred went to help Emerson with dinner prep.

  I wanted to kiss her hello. No. I wanted her to kiss me hello. So badly I almost asked for it, for something, for some small token of affection or interest.

  For Dred’s lips to keep me from shattering. It was going to be a bad two-week wait. Usually I could keep myself on the level until I hit day eight or so. That was when I had every pregnancy symptom anyone has ever had, even the ones that conflict with each other. But slightly over twenty-four hours out from the insem, here I was, about to crack into a thousand jagged shards.

  Dred brought a block of cheese down to the table to grate. “You do okay at the midwife’s yesterday?”

  “Here I sit before you, spermed up and ready to conceive.”

  “Spermed up,” she repeated. Both she and Emerson wrinkled their noses. “Gross.”

  “Okay, you know what, my pansexual and homosexual friends, you two have both been spermed up way more than I have in life, so I don’t think you should act like it’s really all that gross.” I said to James, “Sperm’s not gross, buddy. I mean, okay, sometimes it’s a little gross, if you aren’t into it, but I don’t want you thinking that your sperm is gross—”

  “Jeez, stop.” Emerson swooped down to cover James’s ears, which James obviously thought was hilarious. “Don’t talk about the kid’s sperm. He’s eight months old. He, like, barely has balls.”

  Dred burst out laughing. “He has balls, Emerson! That’s my boy you’re talking about.”

  “You know what I mean.” He uncovered James’s ears, and caught him when James craned his neck to look backward and almost landed on his head. “Listen, technically Zane is right, but I don’t think you should be thinking about sperm for like . . . years. Okay? Years, James. Ignore Zane.”

  “I’m gonna tell Future Kid all about sperm.” I sat back, now that James was preoccupied by feeling Emerson’s face. “Sperm and eggs and what pregnancy is and how babies are born. All of it. No secrets.”

  Emerson frowned. “You don’t think some of that stuff isn’t really appropriate for—you know. Kids?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be appropriate?”

  “Because. You know what I’m saying. It’s all . . . sex stuff. Which so isn’t appropriate for kids.”

  “Oh damn.” Dred shook her head and brushed bits of cheese off her hands. “I can’t even believe you just said that to Zane. Man, Emerson. You’re dumb sometimes.”

  “What? How am I dumb?” He looked at me, genuinely stumped. “Did I say something dumb?”

  “You implied that babies exclusively come from sex.” I stared at him and waited.

  Since Emerson actually wasn’t dumb, it didn’t take that long.

  “Oh. Oh shit. You’re having a baby without sex. It never even occurred to me. And I’ve known all along.” He smiled—actually smiled. “Zane, your kid’s gonna be kind of a miracle.”

  “Well, whatever kid I end up having, even if I adopt one of those sex-derived kids, is gonna be a miracle. But yeah. Took you long enough to catch on. So no, for me it’s not about sex. And really, for you it shouldn’t be either. If you and Obie decided to have a kid, you wouldn’t be having sex with one another to make that happen. So sex might be involved for someone, somewhere along the line, but for
you it’d be a whole other process, right?”

  “We are not having a kid,” Emerson said, exaggerating his tone and facial expressions to make James laugh again. “Right, James? No babies!”

  James made really emphatic noises of agreement.

  “Exactly.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Dred observed from the table. “Zane and I can tell you hate children.”

  “I never said I— Oh shut up and grate your cheese. I gotta go work on dinner, James.”

  James let loose a long string of . . . words? Something.

  “I didn’t catch all of that, but I can tell you that we’re having chicken and rice with lots of cheese. I gotta get back to it.” Emerson made certain James was sitting stably on his own before moving away.

  I made my voice innocent and unassuming. “How’s the meditation going, Emerson?”

  “Bite me, Zane.”

  I laughed.

  “Well. I’m doing it. That’s all I can say. It’s a pain in the ass and I feel like an idiot lying there while some guy tells me to breathe into my toes, but whatever, I’m doing it.” After a brief hesitation, he added, “Obie really likes it. He said he sees his breath like it’s a light, like it lights up every part of his body as the guy talks. Whatever.”

  “Lights?” I thought about it. “That could be kind of cool, actually.”

  “Feel free to download the app and try it for yourself.”

  “I might.” Would it make me feel more like my body was a whole thing, and whether it was going to conceive this cycle, or next cycle, or the one after was irrelevant? I definitely needed to stop acting like if I couldn’t conceive, I was a failure. That . . . was not a recipe for success. And not what I’d think about anyone else. If Jaq had fertility issues, I’d be supportive as hell. I definitely wouldn’t think she was anything less than totally okay.

  James started talking to me, and not the usual rootless babbling, but right to me, straight in the eyes. Talking so seriously, so earnestly, that I couldn’t help but nod and smile and hold his gaze like I had some clue what he was saying.

  Out of the corner of my mouth I said, “Hints? Anyone?”

  Dred came around to sit with me. Us. Beside me. Knee brushing mine. “Basically, we just make it up.”

  “Maybe he’s telling her about the sewing machine of doom.” Emerson glanced over his shoulder. “Huh, James?”

  James waved his arms, still babbling, but I looked at Dred. “Sewing machine of doom?”

  “Obie has a bee in his bonnet.”

  “About his sewing machine?”

  Dred snorted. “Oh, not his machine. Mine. And it’s fine where it is.” She stood up and dusted off her pants. “I’ll be back.”

  I watched her retreat up the stairs before saying, “Um. Okay.”

  “Yeah, don’t get between Mildred, Obie, and their sewing machines. She keeps saying her machine is fine in her room, he keeps saying he made the front room into a sewing room so why wouldn’t she put it there, and whatever they’re actually fighting about?” He shook his head. “I have no idea, but it’s got fucking nothing to do with that sewing machine.”

  “But . . . why won’t she move her machine into the sewing room?”

  Emerson deposited his chicken into a roasting dish and washed his hands. “Not that I know anything about it, but I think she likes feeling like quilting is this little nothing hobby she doesn’t take seriously. The second she starts acting like it means something—which it does—then she might fail at it. But what the hell do I know about being a cynical asshole who doesn’t dare hope for good things because hope makes you vulnerable to despair?” He shot a somewhat wry smile at me. “Anyway. They’ve been feuding since Christmas.”

  “I wondered why only some of her stuff was downstairs,” I mused. James had flopped onto his belly and was now playing with the fringe on the big kitchen rag rug. She’d probably want to be alone. Right? “So . . . I’m kind of thinking of going up there.”

  “Go ahead. But don’t come crying to me when she bites your head off. And will you lift James into his chair for me first?”

  “Sure thing.” I’d seen Emerson hold James, but he didn’t like relying on his ability to get to the ground, pick James up, and stand again with a wiggling kid in his arms.

  When the kid was secure in his seat, and Emerson was camped out next to him with an array of thick crayons and a lined notebook, I hesitated.

  “This is a dumb idea, right?”

  “Yep.” He waved his hand. “Go on. If you don’t do it, you’ll wish you had. Soothe the tiger, Zane.”

  “She’s not a tiger.”

  “She really is, but that’s not an insult. It’s what I like about her. All right, James, I’m going to draw a red pepper. What’re you gonna draw?”

  James babbled something incoherent.

  “You’re gonna draw the sewing machine of doom? Sounds good.”

  Make it up. Right. If you don’t know what someone’s saying, make it up. Sure. Sounds good.

  Wait, that might only work with babies.

  Dred was lying back on her bed. My mouth went dry when I saw her, all stretched out, hands over her belly.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.” She didn’t look up.

  If we were dating, but early dating, pre-making-out dating, I wouldn’t sit on her bed. But we’d been fake-dating for months and months. I’d sat on her bed before. I was probably overthinking this.

  I sat down. Next to her. And kicked my shoes off so I could pull my legs up.

  The two of us, sitting on top of her made bed, on a quilt that was all reds and maroons and magentas.

  She sighed. “Would you think it was weird if I said I never wanted to have sex again?”

  I blinked and looked over, but she was staring out the window. “Um. I don’t know. Maybe. Why? Is that— I mean do you—” I ran out of words to leave trailing.

  “No. No, it’s not that, not really. But I think about what it used to be like. Going out, going to Club Fred’s, meeting people, maybe just seeing people I already knew, and that whole dance where maybe you kissed a little, got close, touched their arm, they touched your arm, you leaned in . . .” Another sigh. “I think about that and I’m so exhausted already. I don’t know where I’d find the energy to do even half of it. And then, god, bad sex is like the worst. I think maybe I had it dialed in before, I had some kind of . . . radio waves or something that told me how to talk to people, how to flirt, how to initiate. And now all that’s sort of white noise. And I’m so tired.”

  I risked reaching over to brush my fingers across hers. “You’re totally not allowed to date people while you’re fake-dating me. I demand fake-dating exclusivity.”

  “You know I’d date you for real, right? Like, I assume if that’s what you wanted, you’d say something.”

  I shriveled up into a ball and said nothing. Or maybe I only felt shriveled, but I still said nothing.

  “Sorry, I know you’re not interested.”

  “Oh my god. Shit, sorry, Aunt Florence.” I turned. “I am so interested. Are you kidding me? I obsess over kissing you. I mean, not obsess in a creepy way, but it was a genuine accident the one time and ever since I’ve—”

  She pulled me in and kissed, hard.

  Ohhh, yes, everything was Dred: her lips, soft and warm and so right, and she tumbled me back until she could kneel over me and look down. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something and then decided against it, leaning down to kiss me again.

  I couldn’t breathe but to inhale her breath, her scent, and my hands found her sides. I was careful, not sure how to take what she’d been saying, not sure if she was too exhausted for anything more than kissing, or if she wanted to control the flow of it.

  She groaned and pushed up just enough to speak. “You always talk about being a single mom, how that’s on your list. I didn’t want you to think I was giving you an ultimatum or anything, but that kiss, girl. Damn. Then you went back to normal like noth
ing happened.”

  “I thought you were pretending nothing happened!”

  “Zane.” She kissed me again. “Why didn’t we do this months ago?”

  I moved to touch her hair, then converted it into a light caress down her neck. Her eyes fluttered. “I figured you weren’t interested in hooking up with some broad who wanted to get pregnant.” Then, because that was totally incomplete, I added, “And you’re right. This isn’t on my list. I wasn’t supposed to fall for you like this, and it’s really inconvenient. I have a list, Dred.”

  “Okay, I’ll come back to how inconvenient I am, but did you just say you were falling for me?”

  “Shhh. No one heard that.” I played like I was gonna get up, and she shoved me back down. “Did you mean it before, about not wanting to have sex? Because that’s not a deal-breaker, but I’d like to hear more.”

  “No. Well, sometimes, but no. It’s less that I’m not interested in sex, and more that it’s a lower priority than it used to be.” She stretched out over me, letting her weight come down on one of her legs and sliding the other between mine. Not in a foreplay kind of way. In a “tangle our legs because it’s comfortable and fun to cuddle” kind of way. “Like it used to matter so much to me. I almost can’t believe it. I blame Jaq, by the way. She got me hooked on consistently available high-quality sex, and I’ve never been able to recover. And Brian—for his many, many fucking faults—was a decent sex partner.”

  I tried not to smirk, but come on. “Uh . . . that’s a very nice compliment. ‘Decent sex partner.’ Maybe that’ll go on his headstone.”

  She glared down at me. “Shut up.”