by Wenke, John;
“I can’t eat that stuff. I’ll die.”
Mina laughed.
“Well, I’ll guess you’ll have to die. Because I’m not cooking till Baby’s out and I’m feeling better. It makes me sick to look at raw, uncooked things. I want home-style cooking and I’m going to have it. We’ve talked about the alternative.”
“We need to hire a cook.”
“No way! I hate having strangers around.”
“Well, I’m not going to cook. Not at my age.”
“No problem. I have their number. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They even deliver.”
“All right! I’ll try. I’ll try to cook.”
“I want it simple. I can’t eat anything fancy.”
Ringold, who hated supermarkets but loved Mina, took this belated plunge into domestic cookery. He shopped for food and prepared the meals. He found what it was like to bang carts with the hurried masses, and then what it was like to wash crud from lettuce, boil canned peas, singe roast beef, and slap ground meat into balls. He kept slicing his fingers. Bleeding flesh was one of the costs of loving Mina. His three previous marriages had foundered because he had refused to love his wives. He had always been just who he was—this difficult person, grumpy, imperious, intimidating, a winner all the way, with his niche near the top, a network vice-president of programming at ABC. Over the years, he had ratings and sponsors and producers to worry about. Wives were surely a problem, as were the barking lawyers of wives, but they were best left to his own barking lawyers. It was preferable to stay at the office or in his city apartment, far better to dance bicoastal or shut himself in his study.
But Mina was the first wife who was not an underling, a cringing climber with the mountain of desire of either the cutting cliffs of the entertainment industry or the social pinnacles of Old World Greenwich. With Mina he had done the cringing, the climbing, all the placating, even the compromising. He found himself making most of the promises. He was amazed that she liked but didn’t need him. She had her own life, her own career, and her own reconverted farmhouse just northeast of Greenwich. By age thirty-seven Mina Grant had made executive editor of Spectacle Books, trailing a decade-long string of megahits. Finally, after an expensive chase, she accepted him. He then prepared the image of a marriage made for gourmet restaurants, long trips and fast cars, these lovers and advisors peeling along in adjacent lanes, chatting on the cell phone. Shortly before the wedding, he moved in with her. He had gotten rid of his escape routes: he sold his house in New Canaan and his Upper East Side apartment—all rent controlled as it was. Mina wouldn’t stand for nights over in the city. It was his job to get home—to their house by law but hers in fact.
Shortly after their honeymoon in Moscow, he listened astonished to her sudden talk of baby, baby, baby. This from Mina, who had scoffed at the notion before. Rather than blowing up, stomping his feet, and moving out, as he had when his other wives were crazy enough to talk about baby, Ringold listened, and he listened. He found himself saying, “Yes, well yes, I guess so, yes.” All the while his stomach roiled, and he felt himself sliding into a pit. Baby! Lest he’d seem insufficiently enthusiastic, he found himself hiking his voice to the compliant pitch Mina expected. He controlled one-fourth of network prime time programming, but he didn’t control Mina. She had him over this very large barrel. Love had him rolling back and forth, feet off the ground, holding on, looking silly. Love had him saying yes, yes to baby, he who had always seen babies as clogs to the body, wallet, and soul, necessary evils for others to produce, an inevitable downside in the creation of adult television viewers.
Now sweating at the sink, feeling slightly like a killer, Ringold jabs the bird with bent prongs. His hand slips and slashes the scalding water. He drops the fork, cuddles his fist, and jumps around. The giblets are still rock solid. He is about to declare an impasse and shove it back in the microwave, but he is arrested by Mina’s muffled screams.
He leans forward and slides open the window. Early spring air bites his face. The window seems a TV screen. The scruffy mole-humped lawn and budding trees resemble a placid set, though greatly in need of color and lighting. Again, Mina screams.
“Put it down, Jake! Let ’er go!”
From the left, Jake Barnes, the cat, trots a few feet ahead of the waddling, full-blown Mina, four days overdue, her black hair a streaming tangle, her loose white gown flapping.
“Put it down! You’ll kill it. You’ll kill the poor thing.”
In his jaws, Jake Barnes holds a blue jay, a prize catch. His gait brims with nature’s pride, but he keeps looking back, uncertain, his eyes scrunched.
Ringold’s heart stabs.
“Stop running! You’ll trip in a rut.”
With the suddenness of computer spatter on a scrolling screen, facts assail him: a month ago, Baby dropped and then a week ago Baby dropped again. Baby’s head is now fully engaged, down deep in the pelvis, upside down and butting the softening, dilating plug. Gravity strains, membranes stretch, and there she is running, chasing that spoiled, ugly cat.
Jake Barnes circles back and swishes beneath Mina’s swatting hand and snapping fingers. With the balance of nature tilting against her, she can’t waddle and bend at the same time.
Ringold’s chest pain switches channels. It’s in his stomach now. Acid burns.
“Stop chasing the ratter! It’s nature.”
“It’s gross! He’s going to kill it. Jake! Stop! Don’t be gross! Stop! Stop!”
With his slightly bubbled paunch shifting inside his cotton sweater, Ringold hustles from the sink, skitters through the breakfast nook, yanks open the back door, slams out the porch screen door, and thumps down four wooden steps. He runs pigeon-toed, gasping. Mina has chased Jake Barnes back to the garage and almost has him cornered. The bird is dead by now, Ringold realizes, scared to death probably—what with the ambush, the crunching feathers, and this massive, wailing woman. It’s enough to make Ringold drop dead. Twenty yards away, Jake Barnes crouches and cowers, hunching backwards, dragging his kill, protecting it.
Mina suddenly freezes and arches up. She spreads her legs like the prongs of a large compass and puts her hands to her ears. In a second, she grabs her loins, and spins to face him.
“Oh, Mitch!” she gasps. “It happened. I’m soaked. It’s a flood down there. Hurry! Get a towel!”
Ringold stops. “I’ll get a white one. In the meantime, don’t move!”
Ringold clambers for the house, his heart all hammers, his head bursting, stomach afire. All those books and classes didn’t entirely fail him. He knows there’s trouble if the water runs brown: he’ll have to call emergency and then drive like a maniac, horn blasting, lights flashing. If the fluid is clean, he’ll dial the doctor, grab her stuff, and zoom to the hospital.
Ringold doesn’t go ten feet before his brain snaps into place. He stops, yanked by a chain, and spins.
“What am I doing?” he spatters. He hustles toward the arrested Mina, her eyes bulging and lips trembling.
“I’m not getting a towel. I don’t need a towel. If your gown is discolored, we go right to the car. I’ll phone the hospital on the way.”
Ringold slides to his knees. Like a child peeking under a tent, he lifts the hem and gathers cloth in bunches, feeling for wetness, bringing it to his face. He rolls up the damp and now soppy linen. Soon he’s standing, holding her crumpled gown to the light, exposing massive hams—her hips were so thin—inside those stretch panties. He squeezes fistfuls and the fluid runs in clear rills over his wrists. His heart loosens. He wants to sing, but his bowels go squishy.
“It’s okay. It’s clear. We’re fine, Mina. Baby’s fine. Just try to relax and we’ll be on our way.”
“Ugh! OMIGOD!” Mina hunches over and hugs her womb.
Ringold panics: she’s having the heart attack! He drops the gown and squeezes his head.
“What is it? What is it?”
Her face strains and her neck pulses. She huffs, puffs—HHHH—HHHH—HHHH—HHHH—now snorting, like a grampus.
“Are you timing it!” she gasps. “HHHH—HHHH—HHHH!”
“Timing what?”
“HHHH—HHH—HHH—HH.”
Her breathing subsides and Ringold perceives.
“That’s labor!?” Relieved. “What a dope I am!”
He checks his Rolex, trying to set the automatic timer.
“It must have been 12:14.”
“Get the towel, please! I’m still dripping.”
“Let’s get into the house. Let it drip! I’ll call the doctor, but we have to go.”
“I want to change.”
“You can’t change. There’s no time to change. I’ll get a towel and the stuff and then we go. No messing around!”
Ringold is shocked by his tone. His cowed, compliant veneer had gone the way of Mina’s water. He let the beast slip out, the snappish dictatorial beast, all growl and impatience, the chained creature he frequently let loose on incompetent producers or lazy assistants. Repentant, fearing Mina’s backlash, Ringold reacquires his kindest tone.
“Let me help you, darling.”
With his left hand supporting her elbow and his right hand wrapped around her back, he guides her to the house. At the foot of the steps lays the dead blue jay.
Ringold groans, “I just remembered. I was trying to clean out the chicken. I left the water running.”
“Go, you idiot!” Mina shoves him. “I can walk.”
Ringold kicks the blue jay into the wood chips and stamps up the steps. Barging into the kitchen, he splashes, and skids to the counter. Water pours over the ledge, running down the cabinets and across the tile. Like a canoe adrift, the oven stuffer floats and turns. Ringold shuts the spigot and yanks the stopper. With a suck, the cresting water heaves and subsides. Ringold turns. The water has washed across the tile, down two steps and into the family room. He slides to the far wall and grabs the phone.
“What a mess!” Mina shouts. “You wrecked my house. We can’t go anywhere till we clean this up.”
“Don’t come in here! You’ll fall. This floor’s like a grease slick.”
He jabs the memory button and number four, the doctor’s code. He sails across the floor, pulling the long cord. He steadies himself on the doorpost and gives the phone to Mina.
“Forget the floor. We’re at least twenty minutes from the hospital. We’re not taking any chances with Baby.”
“You’re right. But we should at least call Martin.”
Martin Stavitz is their close friend and neighbor, a recently axed IBM senior executive, settling softly to earth under his golden parachute. In these weeks he is always looking for something to do. For a man used to crunching deals on the international market, there never seems to be enough house for him to putter around in.
“Martin’ll help. I’ll ring him from the car.”
Mina’s body lurches. She drops the phone. It splashes.
The receptionist says, “Hello? Hello? Doctor’s office.”
Ringold looks at his watch.
“Only four minutes! What’s Baby doing? The first one’s supposed to take forever.”
Mina is huffing, puffing. She’s draped over the counter.
The receptionist continues. “Are you there? Is this an emergency?”
Ringold gathers the phone from the floor.
“This is Mitchell Ringold, Mina Grant’s husband. Tell Cronin to get his ass to the hospital! Mina’s water broke and she’s having contractions four minutes apart.”
He slams the dripping phone back on the wall.
Mina is beginning to straighten. “That one tore me up.”
“Sit down and rest! I’ll get the stuff.”
Ringold skids across the tile and into the hallway. The water has run almost to the stairs and might not stop until it soaks into the living room carpet.
“Mitch,” Mina yells. “Don’t forget a towel. I’m still dripping.”
Ringold’s Porsche is not family friendly. He lowers Mina into her seat, a white towel stuffed between her legs. He positions her feet in the dark space beneath the dash. Soon, he races down the humped and twisty roads, punching numbers on the car phone, making declarations and requests, all the while negotiating L-turns and sliding through stop signs, his yellow flashers clicking. On the road to the hospital, stark brown trees stir at the tips with green buds. Purple water stands in patches. Gray mottled clouds bulge and tumble. Spring quickens. After one fierce contraction, Mina lies back. Her head settles beneath the sloping rear window; a bulky feather pillow bolsters her lower back. One hand settles on his thigh and the other grips the armrest. As the next contraction surges, her fingers wrench his pants and nails dig into his flesh.
“Breathe,” he whispers, now remembering his lessons, peering forward to get a jump on the curve, his own stomach tumbling as a pickup truck’s left front tire sneaks over the center line. Ringold jerks the wheel to the right.
“Dumb bastard! Fool!” Mina moans. “Watch what you’re doing! You should’ve taken the Volvo.”
Their new family wagon. Ringold hates driving it.
“Breathe through the pain. Put your mind elsewhere. Watch a lily pad floating on a pond.”
“This car is a rotten tin can!” Mina gasps, clawing close to his groin.
“I would’ve taken the Volvo, darling, but we’re in a hurry. This car is made for these roads.”
“You’re a dumb beer-brained bastard!”
“Just breathe,” Ringold mildly replies. And smiles. The book was right. Scapegoat therapy. Vicious. Harmless. Her hand relaxes.
“Whew! That was a bad one.” Ringold glances. She settles farther back, face pale, eyes closed, lips fused, awaiting the next squeeze. “Are you my darling?”
“Yes, I am. Of course. Totally. We’re twelve minutes out. We’re doing fine. They’ll be waiting for us. Try to relax.”
Ringold slows at the red light, looks both ways, and blows through. His mind settles into comfortable lanes. With these definite miles ahead, he has this particular thing to do. His mind drifts not far from the floating lily pad. How would this play on the little screen? Your basic ninety-minute movie of the week. A world premiere. Middle Age Madness. A 51-year-old lawyer and a 38-year-old something. Now what would the female lead be? An executive whatever, a cutthroat careerist. He’d figure it out later. In the first scene, Bart Gunther finds out and is totally surprised. With golf clubs clattering, he’s on the way out the door. Amanda ambushes him with the news. The man would be good looking, without Ringold’s chunky lumpishness, his thinning gray hair, and his fat, hairy legs. Somebody like Richard Gere, but less expensive. It would be the writer’s problem to make morning sickness a hip New Age thing, flip and funny, not like the real McCoy, those awful months of Mina gagging and puking, the terrible tub by the bed. Whenever she missed, Ringold got down on all fours, holding his breath, sopping it up. With Mina prostrate, Ringold had stayed home. For three straight weeks. With the magic of fax, e-mail, and conference calls, he’d had no trouble running his office. He could lay on the pressure almost as well from afar as he could up close and personal. An acidic memo was about as useful as an ambiguous smile. He was even able to help Mina with some of her backlog. He knew her taste, so with her permission, he pruned the unsolicited submissions. With his absolute contempt for agents and his qualified disdain for writers, he applied his script-reading shorthand: you had five minutes to bury the hook. What she might like, he set aside. The slush he piled in the corner for Mina’s assistant to cart away. But none of this would do for his Movie-of-the-Week. Instead, there’d be the baby shower with all her feminist friends. Two or three identity crises. All the trouble with decorating Baby’s room. A Money Pit kind of thing. They wouldn’t do th
e frozen oven stuffer. Too obstetric. Jake Barnes’s dead bird would have to go. Too sinister. The water would break, and they’d do a madcap chase. The cop car in the rear view. Twists and turns. Plenty of near wrecks. Low comedy. Everything but a runaway piano passing the car. The roadblock and explanations. Bart Gunther has connections. He’s friends with all the cops. We see the police escort and then straight cut to a commercial.
Mina moans. He looks at the clock. Three minutes out. Ringold’s chest tightens, but it loosens when he spies the turnpike ramp. In the fast lane, he will open it up and reach the hospital exit in five minutes. Mina’s hand relaxes as Ringold tops eighty-five. The closer he gets, the more his nerves twist. He feels the stab of old worries, none of them easily filmable. Will he be able to take the sleepless nights, the dirty diapers? Ringold tends to despise other people’s children—they never behave, always whining in restaurants or acting up on airplanes—and the parents are boring and ludicrous, taking pride in absurd things. All that jabber about formula or breastfeeding, cloth or disposable diapers, pediatricians and ear infections, gifted children and accelerated learning. Already, Mina is a breastfeeding snob, who hates daycare centers and disposable diapers. Ringold pictures himself kneeling in front of the toilet, shaking baby poop from the folds and wringing brown water. Already, Mina is certain she will be a stay-at-home professional mother—writing her rejection letters and editing her manuscripts between the naps, the crying, and the baths. Mina has vowed never to go anywhere. And what will Ringold have to do? Already, he feels jealous: he doesn’t want to get left out, but he can’t imagine retiring. How will it be to leave the house in the morning or bounce between coasts? Will he do day trips to L.A.? Where will it take them all? He’s been doing arithmetic. When he is sixty-one, Baby will be ten; when he’s seventy-three, Baby will be twenty-two. Not to forget the fact that men his age—and older—drop dead all the time.