I had to wait for nearly an hour to see the source of the controversy. The kid who delivers the paper must be down with something because his grandfather, a careful (as in slow) man, always picks up his route. Ever since I received a belated copy, I’ve been saying a prayer of thanksgiving that Dallas is on her honeymoon, and Davin doesn’t read anything but the front page unless it’s assigned in class.
There in the Lifestyles section of my paper is a photo of me sprawled in a chair, looking about eleven months gone, while four very upset men in tuxes reach out to pat, catch or—depending on your point of view—generally feel me up. That they were only trying to help me is completely overlooked. Below this undignified photo op is the caption “Who’s Your Daddy?”
Who knew the wedding photographer freelances as a paparazzo?
At first I thought it was amusing. I can take a joke. After three days of calls from minor talk shows, wanting “the guys” and me to come on and tell all about our unusual relationship, it’s gotten to be annoying.
Tai doesn’t like me passing up these opportunities to “pitch future issues of Five-O.” Easy for her. She doesn’t have to face questions like, “How many men have you slept with since you learned you were pregnant?” Or try to explain to her dentist or her beautician, or her son’s high school English teacher, a Cue Lu! fan, why I won’t talk about “him” when I seem to be willing to expose every other aspect of my pregnancy.
So, I’m avoiding Tai as I slurp a decaf latte in the deli below Five-O and try to concentrate on the three-day-old New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.
I look up as the waitress serves me a toasted bagel with a smear. “What’s a six-letter word for ‘unanticipated affair”?”
“Crisis?”
Of course.
I don’t even bother to check caller ID as I answer my cell. “Who’s the Daddy? Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?”
“Lu?”
“William? You sound funny.” I sigh. “Don’t tell me. You’ve had enough. I’m sorry. I warned you. Next time pick a woman without her own laugh track.”
There’s a short pause. “Obviously something’s going on. Can it wait?”
“Sorry. What’s wrong?”
“Jolie.” He sighs. “She went into false labor last night, and then, after Jon took her home from the hospital, she bolted.”
“As in ran away?” He’s got my attention.
“Yes. We found her, thank God, at the municipal airport.”
“Where was she going?”
“She said something about going to find her mother.”
“Oh, William.”
“She was absolutely hysterical. The doctor says it could just be hormonal but, Lu, she’s claiming now she won’t deliver her baby. She says she’s changed her mind about having it. For the first time in my life, Lu, I don’t have a clue as to what to do.”
“I’m on my way.”
I don’t know what I think I can do for Jolie. I’m not exactly a model of decorum and right thinking. I gave what I’m sure was a critical piece of my mind to the guy who tried to take the last seat on this Long Island railway car. He claimed he beat me to it but—excuse me!—who makes the pregnant lady stand? The conductor intervened and I imagine he’s still cooling off while standing in another compartment.
Hmm. Maybe I will have something to say to a young woman who thinks she can escape giving birth by skipping out on the delivery room.
Once he picks me up William tells me Jolie’s begun to dilate and under the circumstances, he pulled some professional strings to get her admitted into the hospital where he practices even though, technically, she’s not in true labor yet. He says she’s been given a very mild sedative, that she’s not to be upset, nor made to talk about what’s bothering her, and especially not anything about Jon, who left the hospital after she threw a pitcher of water at him and hit him in the head.
I completely block out William’s advice. Who’s going to take seriously a man who looks like he slept in his clothes? There are wrinkle lines in his face from his corduroy jacket, which he must have used as a pillow in the hospital waiting room.
“She’ll be fine,” I repeat anytime he seems to come to the end of a distracted paragraph on our drive to the hospital. “She’ll be fine.”
I repeat this one more time as I push open the door to Jolie’s room.
Sitting in the middle of the hospital bed playing cards with herself, she seems even younger than the woman I remember. Her black hair is loose, flowing down her back like Snow White’s did in books before Disney gave her a thirties coif. Then I notice her belly. Her striped hospital gown covers a globe the size of a Volkswagen. She looks up and sees me about the time I’m thinking, she looks so peaceful I should not be here.
“Are you the shrink?” Her voice is curiously calm but her gaze is alert.
“No, but feel free to call someone to scoot me out if you’d like.” I take a few steps toward her. “I’m Lu Nichols.”
“I remember you.” She smiles, but it’s automatic politeness. “You’re Dad’s ladyfriend.”
I’m completely surprised by how happy her words make me. “Your dad talks about me?”
“Only constantly.” She’s so pretty it makes me a little jealous, shallow creature that I am, for surely this is how stunning her mother must have been at this age.
I touch my bouncing baby, who seems to be practicing the cha-cha at the moment. “I’m surprised your father’s been so open, considering.”
Her gaze shifts to my bump and her smile dissolves. “Dad thinks you’re brave and honorable.” Unlike me, is the unspoken codicil. She goes back to playing solitaire. “Are you in the hospital for a checkup?”
“No, I came just to see you.”
I watch it dawn on her that maybe I’m not a benign visitor. “Dad sent for you?”
“No. I volunteered. Since we share a condition I thought maybe you could use an ally.”
She stops playing. “What kind of ally?”
“Do you mind if I sit?” I indicate a chair by the bed.
“Of course. I should have offered. Are you in pain?”
“Only the backache kind.” I ease my rear into a high-backed chair. The train may be posh, but in my state it felt like one step up from schoolbus. “If I could just put Sweet Tum down for a couple of hours a day, I could happily stay pregnant another six months. Know what I mean?”
She cocks her head to one side. “You’re trying to handle me.” Smart, like her dad. I should have known.
“As long as I’m here…” I point to the cards on her food tray. “Do you play Hearts?” She shakes her head. “It’s easy to learn.”
I pick up the deck and begin shuffling. “Here are the fine points. It’s a game of matching suits and winning tricks with the highest card. Hearts are trumps. But you don’t want to take a trick that leaves you in possession of the queen of spades. Okay?”
She shrugs.
I quickly deal a hand and then hold my breath until she picks up hers.
I want to say things, such as we don’t have to talk about pregnancy, or the baby, or her marriage, but I know if I bring up any of those things I could be asked to leave. So I talk about anything that comes to mind, mostly Dallas’s wedding. I feel like a Talking Head who’s been told to fill airtime for a no-show guest. My audience is mostly silent.
“I don’t want a baby.” Jolie says this after we’ve played two hands. She crosses her arms over her enormous belly. “I should have had an abortion. I’d have one now, if I could.” She sends me a hard glance. “Does that shock you?”
“A bit.” I keep shuffling cards. “Mostly because you’ve done all the hard work.”
“It’s going to be defective.” She shakes her head as I start to deal. “Did Dad tell you that his grandchild is going to be a gimp or a cripple, or something worse?”
“No. I had heard you had tests.” I pile up cards between us, anyway. “After the amnio I thought the doctors discounte
d the possibility of serious problems.”
“What do they know?” She turns her head away. “First they said it was spina bifida, which is a horrible thing to tell an expectant mother. Awful! And then they change their minds after some tests? But I know it’s going to be defective.”
I’m amazed that she’s talking so much. I expected to find a partially catatonic young woman in the fetal position sucking her thumb. Yet, this is not exactly the state of mind one wants for an impending mother-to-be. “So screw them.”
She looks back at me in surprise. I pick up my hand, pretending I’m interested in arranging the cards. “Screw the doctors! Doctors are people and, if you want my opinion, overrated when it comes to having all the answers. I like your dad but he can be a perfect prat at times.”
She says nothing, but I notice her fist tightening on the tabletop. A contraction?
“Having this baby is the wildest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Fifty and no husband? I’ll tell you the secret I’m not making public. I’m having my ex-husband’s child, and even he didn’t want me to have it. But I said, my child, my business. What kind of crazy is that? And then along comes your father, a supposedly smart man, and he hits on me.” I look up with a smile. “Your dad did tell you all this?”
She shakes her head. “He said you had a situation that the two of you were handling discreetly.”
“He said discreetly?” I play a card. “So, you don’t know about the fistfight?”
She blinks. “What fight?”
“My ex-husband was being a royal pain a couple of months ago when your father walked in on our discussion. I suppose he thought he was doing the honorable thing by coming to my rescue. I didn’t need rescuing, but then it wasn’t really about me. They started with accusations but it quickly degenerated into fists.”
She snorts. “I knew Dad was lying about running into a door! He’s never clumsy. I just thought he was too proud to say he’d been mugged.”
“Both came out of it pretty evenly banged up. Men!”
She nods. “Men.” And quite unexpectedly she bursts into tears. “I hate them! Hate everyone!”
“Especially Jon.” My hands tremble as I pull a few tissues and hand them to her, but one of us has to keep a grip. “You’re still furious with Jon.”
She takes a moment to mop up. “You know about Jon and me?”
“I know he made a huge, unforgivable mistake, which only a woman who really loves and knows him well enough to believe that he really means it when he says he’ll never do it again would forgive—one time.”
She sniffs herself back into control. “Was your husband ever unfaithful to you?”
I put my cards down and look her in the eye. “I don’t know.”
Her expression droops. “You mean no.”
“No, I mean I don’t know. I never had a reason not to trust him. But I will never know if that trust was ever broken. It’s like a not-positive test.”
“Mine was. Positive.”
“Right!” I say with genuine anger for her. “Jon’s a bastard. The bastard!”
Jolie jumps at my tone.
I lean forward, my heart brimming for this lonely frightened young woman. “I don’t know Jon. Maybe he’s a generally good guy who got his head stuck in a crack because he was drinking and being an ass, as only a man can. Or maybe he’s a coward who thinks bagging women is a male sport alternative. You know him. Only you know whether he’ll be a good father and husband, or only drag you down if you let him. Give yourself credit for that, whatever you decide. Know that your instincts are right.”
She looks infinitely sad. “I wish someone would fight for me. Jon says he loves me, but he isn’t even here.” The tears start to flow again.
Right about now I want five minutes alone with Jon so I can box his ears and pull his nose, and yell until he’s cowering on the floor! You asinine human being! This is as good as it gets! This is your moment to be more than you ever thought possible, and you’re blowing it! Grow up!
Since I can’t do that, I decide that I, no, we need a change of environment.
I stand up. “Are you under bed arrest or can we go downstairs and get a snack?”
The nurse says we can go to the cafeteria but only if Jolie’s in a wheelchair, and eats only liquid things. The arrangements are made. Fifteen minutes later we’re tooling down the hall when we meet a stunned grandfather-to-be.
“Where are you going?” William stops us just outside the door of the maternity ward, looking like he’s interrupting a jailbreak.
“To the best place for girl talk, anywhere that serves food and drink.” I push him gently aside. “Go home, or go take care of someone else. We have this covered.”
“Yes, Dad.” Jolie sounds annoyed to be interrupted. “We’re fine.”
The look of gratitude he gives me weakens my knees.
Above Jolie’s head, I pantomime “Call Jon.”
His eyebrows rise. I nod in the affirmative.
* * *
Once she warms up, Jolie is very much like her dad: interesting, funny and quite smart. I notice her wince once in a while, and surreptitiously watch the clock, but neither of us says a word about what’s going on.
We have eaten bowls of red Jell-O and shared a vanilla yogurt, chased by mini cartons of milk, when Jolie suddenly gasps and looks down. We hear a soft splash as liquid spills from her wheelchair onto the floor.
I pop up with a big smile. “Congratulations, Jolie! You’re going to have a baby.”
Her eyes widen with panic. “But I don’t want a baby!”
“Sure you do. You want a nice, healthy, happy baby.” I stop a passing nurse, point to the wet spot. “Please tell Maternity Jolie Katz is on her way.”
I start to push her back the way we came. “Now say to yourself between contractions, ‘I’m having a healthy, happy baby. I’m having a healthy, happy baby—’”
“Boy.”
“You know it’s a boy?”
Jolie nods, but grabs my hand. “I don’t think I can go through with this. I can’t!”
I stop and move to stand before her. “I know. I felt the same way the first time.”
“It’s not the pain.” She blinks back tears from eyes that are dark with dread. “I know millions of women deliver babies every year. It’s not the pain.”
I take her face in my hands and say, with the absolute conviction of my own situation, “You’re scared because you don’t know what to expect. But you do know your life is not going to be quite like it was before. And you’d just as soon stay where you are awhile longer while you try to figure it all out.”
She’s blinking really fast. “I wish my mother were here.”
My heart breaks on those words. “That’s how it is. Once you’re a mother, someone always wants you. This is your chance to love and protect and be for your child the mom you need.”
I must sound hokey as anything but, amazingly, Jolie smiles at me. “I can see why Dad likes you.”
“He’s had a lot of practice with the irrational, has he?”
There’s a bit of a flurry once we return to the maternity wing. Then I’m left sitting in the waiting room while William plays doctor. I skim through piles of useful issues of Baby, Modern Mother, and Child. Then I skim through adult fare like Gourmet and Architectural Digest. After that I read whatever comes to hand. After a bottle of water and a package of peanut butter crackers, I realize my work is really done. If I wait on William I could be here until dawn. I should just take a cab to Aunt Marvelle’s.
As I reach for my bag I see a young man enter the waiting room. Ordinarily I don’t stare at strange young men, but he’s something to look at. He’s one of those sun-streaked blondes, with a darker sketch of beard that hollows out his cheeks and accentuates the jut of his jaw. His turtleneck sweater hugs a lean torso. His jeans hang on the rim of hips and cup a decent butt. Finally, he realizes I’m staring, and gives me that sort of half smile of recognition for a woman charmed.
I rise, lifted by an impulse too strong to be denied. I approach with a half smile of my own.
He digs his hands into his pockets as I near, head leaning to one side, the whimsy of self-deprecation in his expression, signaling that he’s had this happen before, and often. He is about to handle an overture from a smitten woman.
“Jon?” I say in a breathy voice.
His smile widens at my use of his name. “You know me?”
“I know Jolie.” I whip back a hand and slap him as hard as I can.
As he yelps and reels away, I sail through the doors that swish open at my approach.
“I’m going to need ice for this,” I murmur, holding my throbbing palm as I head for one of the cabs parked out front.
41
It’s a boy! A perfectly healthy six-pound, eleven-ounce boy.
“Jolie wants to name him William Cuffey Katz!” William’s joy sails across wireless space into my ear. “He urinated all over the delivery nurse. Plumbing works. That’s excellent!”
“I’m so glad, William. How’s Jolie?”
“She was a real trouper. She surprised the doctors and nurses, all of us. I don’t know what you said to her, but it worked. When the pains got rough she even refused anesthesia, in case, she said, the baby would need help after delivery. But he didn’t. Can you believe it? A first-birthing time of five hours and ten minutes.”
“I remember eighteen hours and forty-seven minutes with Dallas. But, who’s counting? I knew she could do it.”
“There’s a few other people I need to call, and then I’m getting out of here. Is it too late to drop by?”
I look at my watch. “No, of course not. I’ll be up.”
Though it’s midnight, Aunt Marvelle and I celebrate the news by toasting with cups of cocoa. Yes, hers had a dash of Baileys, for medicinal purposes.
“That young man’s serious about you,” Aunt Marvelle says as we sit listening to the late September wind.
“I like him, too.”
“You more than like him, Tallulah. You need to decide, and quickly, what you are going to do about that.” She stands up. “Now I’m going to act like an old lady whose bedtime is long past due. Lock up after he leaves. If he stays, lock up, anyway.”
A New Lu Page 28