A New Lu

by Laura Castoro

  “So maybe I should have asked this first. Are you certain it is Dad’s?”

  Talk about your pregnant pauses… My daughter has a mean streak. From Jacob’s side of the family, I’m certain. I feel myself vibrating like a too-tight violin string before words come thrumming out of me. “Your private snooping missed something, Dallas. Her name is Sandra, and she’s partial to yellow tulips.”

  “You’ve been checking up on Dad?” Davin shakes his head. “That’s cold, Dallas.”

  “Why?” I turn to him. “Did you know about her?”

  Poor Davin. He turns bright red. “He might have mentioned seeing someone. Been a while since he was, you know, out there.”

  “Dad’s been calling you for dating tips?” For once Dallas’s indignant shrill matches my own exasperation. “I cannot be here now.”

  Dallas turns on her heel, a move she perfected in drill team, and heads for the exit. She’s found her backpack and made it to the front door before I catch up.

  “Dallas, wait. Where are you going?”

  “After all I’ve done to help Dad see his duty—and he calls Bimbos Anonymous for advice!” She manages to look both devastated and brave at the same time. “But that isn’t the point, is it, Mom? This plan of yours to try to win Dad back—I don’t understand why it’s not working.”

  “For the last time, I wasn’t playing Baby Roulette.” Yet I have a feeling this is not the last time I’ll have to say this to the people in my life. “The only thing more horrifying to your father than the fact that I’m pregnant by him is that I might have the baby.”

  “Then this is a horrible mistake, one that is hurtful and—dangerous to the family, to you. I won’t pretend otherwise. I’m leaving, Mom. I need to think, alone.”

  When she has closed the front door, Davin says from behind me, “Way to break up a party, Mom.”

  I turn to him. Amazingly, he’s again smiling.

  “How long have you known about Sandra?” I know this is breaching the father-son confidence clause but I’ve had enough ugly surprises for one season.

  “It’s not like that, Mom.” He shakes his head quickly. “I didn’t know Dad was seeing someone particular. But don’t worry about Dad dating, Mom. It’s just something men do. Doesn’t mean he’s serious. I mean, you’re going to have a kid, right? If it’s a boy, Dad will come running back.”

  That’s too much honesty, even for me. But Davin is on a roll, feeling the need to comfort as he follows me back to the kitchen.

  “Think about it, Mom. Dad’s always on my case. Says I’m not living up to the standards of a son of his. Another son might deflect the heat—Whoa! Hold up. What if Junior makes me look bad?” Davin’s thoughts snap him out of his slouch. “Give Dad a new son to rear and he might just write me off!”

  As I’ve said before, Davin’s smart. He’s just sometimes a little slow on the uptake. I reach for one of the dished-up bowls of dessert that has started to melt.

  Davin is suddenly a man with a plan. He comes up and hugs me from behind. “You can’t have another one of us, Mom. It’s always been a perfect balance. One boy, one girl. You can’t mess with the family arithmetic.”

  “Mother Nature can, and has.”

  He releases me. “Whose side are you on, Mom?”

  Doubt and a genuine sense of betrayal lurk in his soulful gaze. “Do there have to be sides?” I pat his cheek. “Come on, have a bowl of ice cream.”

  But as I slide one toward him, Davin backs up a step. “I, uh, need to make some calls.”

  I wonder if he’s going to call Jacob. I can’t really afford heart-to-hearts via Bogotá, but the price of parenting comes steep these days.

  My ankles are throbbing by the time I’ve cleaned up after dinner. I feel uncomfortable in the middle, too. Two extra bowls of ice cream and brownies could account for that. Sometimes comfort requires a lot of calories.

  When I sit down on my bed and kick off my shoes, it looks as if I’m wearing bobby socks under my hose. Sadly, those are my ankles.

  “More water, less ice cream,” I mumble to myself as I head toward the bathroom for a glass of water. A pregnant woman needs lots of water. She doesn’t need a daughter who thinks she’s been betrayed by her mother’s fertility. Or a son who thinks he can be replaced by a sibling whose sex has yet to be determined.

  Maybe I haven’t made the smartest moves lately. Perhaps I could have done a better job tonight. But I can’t go back. Don’t want to.

  If I had to do my life all over again, I’d sit down and cry. Who knows that different choices wouldn’t mess up the good parts entirely?

  I reach for the phone to call William. I said I would. I’ve wanted to. I’ve been debating doing it for days. It just didn’t seem right to call him before I had told the family about the baby.

  Yet as I scroll through my Blackberry to find his number, it occurs to me that with my family in turmoil perhaps I shouldn’t complicate my life further. I’ve just seen how unhappy Dallas and Davin are about things so far. Mom’s got a boyfriend isn’t going to go over well. I don’t want to hurt them. Now, if I could just keep him a guilty secret…

  I put down the phone. Since when could I keep anything as wonderful as William a secret? Maybe in a couple of weeks, when things settle, I’ll call.

  18

  Despite her “stay-and-sleepover” hosting of nearly two weeks ago, I didn’t expect Andrea to keep our bimonthly shopping date. After all, she had to put out Dr. Yummy, er, Mark, to accommodate me, something she was quite vocal about once he’d left.

  She hasn’t called or answered any of my messages. Not even when I left her a detailed rant about just how unwisely I handled Dallas and Davin. I didn’t bother her with last night’s call from Jacob. Dallas had called him. Woozy from a twelve-hour flight from Bogotá, he still packed an impressive amount of curse words into each sentence. I hung up on him, of course.

  Davin left for his Catskills summer job Monday. He swears he’ll call regularly to check on me. This is to show he’s technically on my side, but I suspect it’s only because technically he still lives with me.

  But here Andrea is, on Thursday morning as usual, standing in my bedroom while I try to find something decent to wear.

  “So, am I going to be a godmother, or what?”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of my lifestyle choice.” I say this while trying to hold in a stomach that wants to be free to express itself.

  Andrea shrugs elaborately. “What’s to approve? You’re crazy. I’m crazy. We just have different crazies. This kid is gonna need a lot of help.”

  Once she’s watched me complete the marvel of zipping up my pants, she looks alarmed. “Promise me you won’t look like a bag lady for the entire nine months.”

  “Too tight, huh?” I’m trying to perfect breathing tiny sips of air so my zipper won’t pop.

  “Dios mio! Come on!” She grabs my arm.

  As she pulled me through my house, she says, “Pregnancy is the perfect excuse for guilt-free shopping. If there’s ever a time to say there’s nothing in my closet, this is it!”

  Shopping is Andrea’s therapy for everything. There is no problem so intractable or tragedy so overwhelming that it can’t be eased by the acquisition of apparel. Shoes are her particular weakness. The last time she broke an engagement with a guy, I watched her spend $600 at a discount designer shoe store in SoHo in a single afternoon. The cash layout might not sound like a lot in these days of Jimmy Choos. But what Andrea bought for that price is. Twenty-five pairs! That’s because she wears a size six. Something fabulous is always left over in the smaller sizes.

  “It’s summer,” she said in answer to the cashier’s amazement. “You can’t wear sandals but a season. They get those greasy toe prints on the leather.”

  “Gourmet baby food. Twist-top throwaway bottles.” Andrea’s on a roll as we pile into her car. “Furniture, strollers, car seats. And the clothes? Are you ready? Carolina Herrera is doing maternity fashions! I
’m going to show it all to you.”

  I’m not sure I can get into the maternity-fashion mood. Clothes haven’t meant much to me in a while. Big-tent clothing seems even less appealing. Besides, the wallet is shrinking with the prospects of unemployment. News of Tai’s “tragic accident” on the icy slope of some minor alpine peak is all that stands between me and unemployment.

  I try to explain all this to Andrea as we drive up to the first stop.

  She stares at me as if I’d suggested W stop publishing. “You’re giving up on the woman in you!”

  She’s got a point. The image in the bedroom mirror wasn’t wonderful. Maybe I do need shopping therapy.

  “You’re going to love this. There are lots of improvements in styles since you had Davin.” Andrea is marching toward the first store, only to halt and turn when she notices I’ve fallen behind. “How come you’re walking like John Wayne?”

  “Sitting in these pants cut off circulation to my thighs.”

  The first store Andrea pulls me into is an education in itself. Pregnancy trends change from decade to decade. Since Davin is twenty, it appears I’m a couple of generations behind.

  I’m feeling pretty good about the advances in maternity clothing until I try on the under belly pant. I pull them on and let go. They slide down around my hips. I try to lift from the front but there’s only a couple of strategic inches of material that keeps my bum from showing. “I don’t get it.”

  Andrea heaves a big sigh. “My sister Inez has two pairs. It’s for when a woman’s huge. The backside takes up the slack in the back while the belly swells over.”

  “You mean my—stomach will show?”

  “That’s a really fashionable summer look with younger women,” the salesclerk says from the other side of the door. I try to believe there’s nothing snide in her tone. “A little halter top and you will be set for the beach or sightseeing or whatever.”

  Whatever is right. The sight no one will be seeing this or any other summer is my naked belly, pregnant or not.

  After I purchase a few practical items for every day at the discount store, Andrea insists we check out an upscale maternity boutique. I say it’s just for grins but I should know better. In spite of my resolve just to look, I’m enthralled by a sleeveless black silk sheath whose polka-dot shear overdress ends at the knee in a flounce of feathers. Put my hair up, give me a pair of big dark sunglasses and a cigarette holder—no—a pair of long black gloves and I’m pure Holly Golightly. All for $495.

  “You need this.” Andrea’s voice is an unqualified yes. “As your mother-of-the-bride dress.” Andrea opens the door so fast the clerk nearly falls on her face. “We’ll take this,” she says to the stumbling woman, and points to me.

  “Andrea!” I say in a warning voice, for I don’t have the money for something this extravagant that I’m destined never to wear.

  “You’ve got layaway?”

  The clerk nods. “Thirty percent down. The rest within sixty days.”

  “If you don’t want it, I’ll buy it and give it to my pregnant cousin,” Andrea says as the clerk bags it up.

  “Which one?”

  “Who knows? Someone’s always pregnant in a family the size of mine.”

  “I wish you the best of luck with your upcoming event,” the clerk says when I’ve plunked down the first installment.

  My brows shoot up. “You don’t think I’m too old to be having a child?”

  She smiles serenely, her commission safe. “It’s nothing unusual. We get a lot of forty-year-old mothers in here.”

  I smile. Forty. A decade regained. Take that, Tai!

  june

  Once a woman has “ripped her breeches,”

  as my grandmother would say, with family and friends,

  what they think just doesn’t matter anymore.

  She will, however, often form a closer alliance with the truth.

  —“When a ‘Good Woman’ Goes Bad”

  CUE LU!

  19

  The tone is set before I even glimpse Tai. The moment the elevator doors glide open onto the offices of Five-O I feel the frost of perfection.

  It often happens at successful galas, fetes and other all-important events. Someone arrives, and for a perceptible moment, there’s the sense of snow falling from a bright July sky. How can this be? And yet there it is. Those in the know count the number of times this freeze-frame of interest galvanizes the jaded throng—and use it to sell everything from CDs to soap.

  “She’s back,” Babs mouths at me as I approach. Uh-oh. We’re down to pantomiming on the first day of Tai’s return. Not a good sign. Just how “terrible” was the accident that kept her out of work two weeks?

  “Editorial staff meeting at ten o’clock.” This Babs manages in audible tones as she scoots down the hallway toward the boardroom.

  My watch reads nine-forty-five. I’m technically not late. Good. Want to get this over with before I turn on my computer. I’ll just pop in on Tai for a sec.

  Just as I reach her office the door swings open. Out she comes, accompanied by her male equivalent. Once such men were called pampered. Now they are “metro-sexuals”—straight males whose grooming habits are so particular that they will walk up to the women’s cosmetics counter in a department store to buy Kiehl’s or Clinique for Men. His pale hair is Ralph Lauren perfection. No way to gauge the age of that chiseled-chin, sharp-nosed attraction. Every inch is custom-tailored.

  Tai smiles at me but prevents my “hi” by saying to her companion, “See what I mean?”

  She must mean me because he turns his head in my direction. I’m observed for the nanosecond the truly sophisticated will give a subway token lying in the street as they pass it by. A sketch of a smile, and they move on.

  As they walk away in perfectly matched strides, I think, Fine. Have it your way. We’ll have an audience for the showdown.

  I’m feeling myself again. Morning sickness is a rapidly fading memory. My mind is functioning and eight hours is again enough sleep. Best of all, the results from the first round of screening tests came back negative!

  My regular ob-gyn, after picking her chin up off her examining-room floor, has promised her office will be discreet. After today, it won’t matter.

  I check my watch. If I hurry, I won’t be late.

  Tai is in full stride when I appear in the boardroom doorway. She conducts meetings while in motion behind the imported Italian leather chair she requisitioned for the boardroom. She holds up an arm to show she’s wearing a cast on her right wrist, one of those Velcro-tabbed removable ones that leaves her fingers free to gesture and type.

  “The sprain completely ruined my concentration,” she says as I move on to find my chair. “Absolutely excruciating! I could barely eat or sleep. Running was impossible.” She touches the corner of an eye with the pad of the middle finger from said afflicted arm. “I’m sure I show signs of the strain.”

  As Crescentmoon, Babs and KaZi reassure her that that is not so, Rhonda and I exchange glances.

  “Hard to get worn out in a Swiss spa,” Gwendolyn murmurs under her breath.

  That’s when I look at Tai again, really look, and am struck by how incredibly wonderful she looks. It’s something I can’t put my finger on. She’s lit from within, as if she swallowed a halogen light.

  Even when basking in attention, Tai doesn’t overdo it. The pacing resumes. “I’ve called this meeting to introduce our new design strategy.” She pauses behind Mr. Metro. I tell myself that he’s not smirking.

  “It came to me while I was away that what Five-O lacks most is a male point of view of today’s woman.” Tai lays her injured wrist on the man’s shoulder. “No one knows the male mind better than Marc Kazanjian.”

  She pauses a fraction of a second, expecting applause, perhaps. She gets a fraction of a second of silence. She goes on. “It required all my persuasion to lure Marc across the country. He comes to us with amazing credentials. Details, Maxim and most recently Trends.�
��

  “It’s against our mission statement.” Crescentmoon’s soothing voice flows through the room. “We are by and about women.”

  “And who knows more about women than men?” Tai counters smoothly.

  Other women, I think to myself, and hear Rhonda murmur something too low to be picked up.

  “This is whack,” Curran says more audibly.

  I sense recalculations taking place around the table. We’re a small staff. That means we’ve already worked out the “you’re in my space” rules of office etiquette. The intruder looks as if he’s accustomed to a lot more room than we collectively own.

  “Our mission statement precludes males in major positions,” Crescentmoon reaffirms. Her little-girl voice sounds prissier than before.

  “That’s why Marc is on loan.” Tai’s irises are dancing. “He’s here to coordinate our ‘New Lu’ series. Over the weekend Marc evolved a design strategy for the series and tie-ins that are just fabulous. We’ve been so off the mark.” She turns to look at me. “And Lu obviously needs close guidance. She’s not kept a single appointment with Rodrigo.”

  In other words, Marc’s being here is my fault.

  All eyes turn to me. Got to hand it to Tai. She can deflect a hit with the skill of a Beltway spin doctor.

  “What do you say about all this, Lu?” Tai asks.

  Under cover of the table Gwendolyn pats caution on my thigh. Am I spoiling for a fight? I’m maggoty with it. But I can be mature and above the fray. As long as I don’t have to address Tai directly.

  I look at Marc. “I’m sorry, Marc, but you’ll have to count me out.”

  Tai takes a moment to fold her arms beneath her perfect small breasts. “Lu. Lu.” Could any name sound more pathetic in her mouth? “I see you’ve beefed up a bit while I was away. Are you afraid you can’t recover your premenopausal self?”

  Gwendolyn jerks her hand away.

  Oh, thank you, Jesus! In my head I hear Tina Turner’s gravelly voice talking about singing “Proud Mary.” We’re going to do this nice and rough!