Until the Real Thing Comes Along

by Elizabeth Berg

“No.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a reason: I want you to.”

  “Okay. Good. So I’ll bring some huge, gooey dessert for you and me?”

  “Yeah, whatever you want.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was just teasing you.”

  “About what?”

  “About dessert. You know. I know you can’t have anything. No pie. Or, you know, cake. Or chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream.”

  He doesn’t take the bait. “Whatever you want,” he says again.

  “Dad? Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I go back into the bedroom. “What’s up?” Ethan asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Something.”

  I lie down, pull a pillow over my stomach, hold it there. Then I turn to Ethan, smile. “Nothing to worry about, though, I’m sure.” I don’t want him to worry about anything right now. I want him to remember kissing me and think, What the hell, it’s better than Scrabble.

  “Hey, Patty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about ‘Thomas’?”

  I look away from him, sigh. “How about ‘Jessica,’ Ethan? You know? How about ‘Margot’?”

  “Oh, no. ‘Lauren,’ I would think, in that case.”

  “When should we tell people?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. When will we know it’s … safe? You and the baby, I mean.”

  “Safe? Well, let’s see. I think … never.”

  “Right. Well, let’s tell anybody we want to, then.”

  “Want to come when I tell my parents?”

  His face changes ever so slightly.

  “All right,” I say, “I’ll do it alone. But after they know, you’ll have to come over at least once so my dad can tell you how to do everything. He’ll probably want to smack you on the back a lot, give you a cigar.”

  “You mean you think they’ll be glad?”

  “Yeah. I do think they’ll be glad.”

  Ethan closes his eyes. “I’m going to wait a while to tell my mother.”

  I see Ethan’s mother, suddenly, as clearly as though she were sitting on the bed beside us. Though of course she would not sit on the bed beside us. She would sit in a chair across the room, eyes averted. She would suggest by her body language alone that one lay in bed at night, to sleep, unless, of course, one were tending to certain obligations. She would be dressed impeccably. Her gold would be so gold. She would be just the slightest bit weary of us as soon as she saw us.

  “Oh, I know you’ll wait a long time to tell your mother,” I say. “Maybe you can combine a birth announcement with an invitation to his college graduation.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Patty.” He sits up.

  “What?”

  “We have to open a savings account.”

  “Yeah, we probably should.”

  “And apply to … schools!”

  “What schools?”

  “We don’t know what we’re doing.”

  “Well, I don’t think we have to figure everything out tonight.”

  He gets up, crosses the room, stands at the window, looks out.

  “Ethan?”

  He turns to me. He looks stricken.

  “Lots of people have been through this lots of times.”

  “Right. I know.”

  “And you do it … you know, one day at a time.”

  “I guess.”

  “Come here,” I say, and, obediently, he does. When he sits beside me, I take his hand. “I’m your best friend,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.

  “I am all of a sudden scared to death,” he says. “I’m having visions of … I don’t know, inoculation records. Potty chairs. Orthodontists’ bills.”

  “You’re worried about money?”

  “No. No. Pain. To … it.”

  “Oh,” I say. “That.”

  Later that night, while Ethan sleeps chastely beside me, I remember sitting in my fourth-grade classroom while my teacher, the beautiful Miss Duffy, worked at her desk. I’d been excused from recess. Miss Duffy had seen how the other kids made fun of me. “Eraser face,” they were calling me that week. I had no idea what that meant, but I had done some powerful imagining. I sat at my desk in the too-quiet room, drawing a neighborhood: rows of houses with window boxes, identical cars in driveways. A pie cooled on a kitchen windowsill. I didn’t put any people in, their noses were too hard to draw. But evidence of their happy lives was everywhere. And their sense of belonging, that was there, too. I made S-shaped lines of steam rising up from the pie; I made air vents in the crust and drew the edges of cherries beneath them—I had time for such details. When I was finished, I showed Miss Duffy. She looked carefully at my drawing, and I looked carefully at her. I thought she looked exactly like Snow White. “Very nice,” she said, finally, and smiled at me. Then she looked briefly out the window, longing, I knew, for the same thing I desired: for me to be out there like the rest of the girls in the class, playing hopscotch, screaming baby epithets back across the playground at the boys, replaiting Cynthia Burns’s hair between turns—she had wonderful, thick black hair and did not mind people playing with it. I never was treated badly in school again; it only happened in fourth grade, for reasons I have never yet understood. Just that one year. Of course, that was enough.

  14

  At five-thirty, I am sitting in the obstetrician’s office waiting for my four-thirty appointment, reading Business Week, which is not exactly my choice in reading material. But I have finished all the women’s magazines, and even took a look at Highlights, this time concentrating less on nostalgia and more on what these stories might say to a child. For the first time, I like Gallant better than Goofus. I am walking around with a new screen on. A filter. It is a bit exhausting.

  I put down the magazine, go over to the receptionist. “I’m sorry to bother you again.”

  “You’re next,” she says, not looking up.

  “Is it always so long a wait?”

  Now she looks up. “Dr. Carlson is a very popular doctor. One reason is that he takes his time when he needs to. You’ll come to appreciate that, I’m sure. And as I told you when you arrived, he had a delivery right before office hours. That’s babies for you, they operate on their own time schedule.” She smiles, I suppose. To me, it looks like she’s baring her teeth.

  I hate when receptionists do this, when they act like they are the doctors’ wives. I do understand that I am on the low end of the totem pole, not even showing. There is a definite hierarchy here, the women with the biggest bellies at last the most proud.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “It really shouldn’t be much longer,” she says—kindly, this time. “If you’d like, I can put you in a room.”

  “No, thanks. But maybe … I know I’m supposed to get a blood test. Maybe I could just go ahead and do that first.”

  “That’s a possibility.” She’s friendly now; we’re sudden pals, working together to save time for our wonderful husband, Dr. Carlson.

  The receptionist disappears, then comes back out to the waiting room. “We can do it,” she says. “Right this way.”

  I follow her, dry-mouthed. Here we go, I’m thinking. And wish I had taken Ethan or Elaine up on their offers to come with me. I’d told them I didn’t need them this time. The way Ethan is going, he probably knows more than the doctor, anyway.

  The receptionist ushers me into a smallish room with a padded, recliner-type chair, a metal stool beside it. There is also a cot with shiny metal side bars and very white sheets, a pink blanket folded at the bottom. There is a cart up against the wall loaded with supplies. A hand-lettered sign below it reads RELAX! A rather stern-looking woman—brassy blonde hair in a tight ponytail, black eyeliner, drawn-in brows—comes into the room, nods at me, then asks, “You a fainter?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You faint when you get blood taken?”

  “I haven’t yet.” />
  “Okay, we’ll put you in the big-girl chair.” She raises the arm of the semirecliner, and I sit down, lean back. It feels like a ride.

  “First time being pregnant?” the woman asks.

  “Yes.” I feel myself blushing.

  “I’m Sheila,” the woman says. And then, pushing my sweater sleeve up, “Make a nice fist for me, now.”

  I do, and she applies a tourniquet, swabs the inside of my elbow with a cold, brown liquid; snaps on gloves. Then she inserts a long needle very quickly and very nearly painlessly into my vein. “Wow,” I say, watching the tubes fill up with blood. “You’re good. Are you an addict or something?”

  She looks up. “You can open your fist.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I always make bad jokes when I’m nervous.”

  “It’s all right,” she says. “It’s just that … Yes, I was.”

  Oh, God.

  “Just kidding,” she says. Then, looking at me, “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re a little pale. Why don’t you sit here a minute?” She smiles. Badly matched crown, second molar. I really like her.

  Another woman comes in, no belly on her yet, either. “You a fainter?” Sheila asks.

  They see a million pregnant women. I will have to be the one to keep it all special. I crook my arm up, hold myself to myself.

  “You’re just in time to peel some potatoes for me,” my mother says, when I walk in the door.

  “Good, I’m not late, then.” I take off my boots, hang up my coat. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Showering.”

  I look at my watch. “Now?”

  She shrugs. “He likes to shower in the evening lately.”

  I put on an apron, push up my sleeves.

  “It’s in the top drawer,” my mother says. “The … thing.”

  “What?”

  “You know, the … slicer.”

  “Peeler?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. How many potatoes?”

  “I think four, huh?” And then, seeing the Band-Aid on my arm, “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh!” I take the Band-Aid off. “Nothing. Just … blood work.”

  “For what? Just tell me. Oh God, you’re sick, aren’t you? I knew you looked different the last time I saw you. I told your father. I could see it around the eyes.”

  “Mom.” I hadn’t wanted to tell her yet, not so suddenly, certainly, but now … “It’s … I had a pregnancy test.”

  She stands stock-still, her mouth open. And then, “You and Mark …?”

  “No. Me and Ethan.”

  “ ‘Ethan and I,’ ” she says, in a shell-shocked sort of way.

  “Yes. Ethan and I. You know, I’d wanted to be a little more graceful, telling you. I wanted to tell Dad at the same time, too.”

  “Well,” she says. And then, again, “Well. I just don’t know what to say!”

  I turn off the water, walk over to her, look into her face. “Are you a little happy?”

  She sighs, exasperated. “Well, I … For one thing, is it safe? Has he been tested? And how can … isn’t he gay?”

  “It is safe. He’s negative. And yes, he’s gay.”

  “So did you …? Well, of course, it’s none of my business.” She grabs the dishrag, starts cleaning off the counter.

  I say nothing. This moment is huge. I feel like I need to step over it to get back to the sink. I turn the tap on again; start peeling a potato.

  “Patty?”

  “Yeah?” I don’t turn around.

  “I think we need to sit down.”

  I take in a deep breath as I see my father entering the room. “What’s new?” he asks, kissing me. And then, seeing my face, “What?” He turns to my mother. “Did you tell her already?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Nothing,” my mother says. And looking at my father, she tells me, “We’re going on a trip. We wanted to surprise you with it.”

  “You wanted to surprise me?”

  “Yes, we thought it might be fun to have you to dinner and surprise you. Didn’t we, Robert?”

  “Marilyn—”

  “But Patty has an even bigger surprise.”

  My father looks at me.

  “Don’t you?” she says.

  “I … Well, yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Is dinner ready?” my father says. “Are we going to eat while we do this?”

  Nobody around here is ready for anything. That is abundantly clear.

  15

  Sophia comes to my door that evening to borrow tea. She is dressed in her faded blue chenille robe and fuzzy pink slippers. Her black hair net, pulled low on her forehead, anchors the toilet tissue she has wadded up luxuriously over her ears—she calls these soft bundles her “night pillows.”There is little in life more honest than one’s real preference in sleep wear.

  She follows me into the kitchen, and I hand her a box of Sleepytime. She inspects it, then asks, “You have some else?”

  I rummage in the cupboard, hand her a box of Mandarin Orange. She smiles, shakes her head no. I pull out Wild Berry Zinger, Lively Lemon. No and no. “What are you looking for?” I ask. “Do you have something particular in mind?”

  “Red Rose.”

  “Well, you should have said so!”

  “Ah. Good. So you have.”

  “No, I do not. But you should have said that’s what you wanted. It would have saved us both some time.”

  She takes in a breath, nods. “So. I am sorry to be inconvenience. A good night to you.”

  “Sophie,” I say. “Wait. I’m sorry. I’m just in a bad mood.”

  She looks at the literature on pregnancy I have spread out over the kitchen table. “Some worries is start?”

  “No. It’s a little overwhelming, that’s all. But I told my parents tonight, and they … didn’t react the way I’d thought they might.”

  “How are they react?”

  “I don’t know. Reserved. Disappointed.”

  “You tell them Ethan is father, yes?”

  “Well, yes. Of course.”

  “So. They want happy marriage, is all. And Ethan …”

  “My mother has been telling me for a long time to just have a baby—without marriage!”

  “Still, in her heart, is want for more. You will see, Patty. When there is baby, must be perfect. When is daughter, is more so.”

  I look at her carefully. “Do you have a daughter, Sophia?”

  She looks away. “On this, I will not like to talk.”

  I say nothing.

  She looks back at me. “I hope this is not hurting on your mind.”

  “Hurting my feelings?”

  She nods.

  “No. It’s okay.”

  “All right. I tell you. I only want daughter. All in my life, this is what I want and never get. Or son, too.”

  “Oh, Sophia. I’m sorry.”

  “So. What can you do?”

  I don’t know what to say. The notion of someone still feeling the pain of not having children this late in life is amazing to me. And yet, when a want is so strong, why should it be surprising that it never entirely leaves? Sophia says, “You have baby come. And I can be to enjoy, too. Also help. You go out, I sit on baby. With pleasure.”

  “Well, I may take you up on that.”

  “I have honor if you do.”

  After Sophia leaves, I sit at the table and look through some more literature. One photograph, in a pamphlet that talks about bodily changes in pregnancy, shows what is called a linea nigra, a dark line running down from the belly button, which occurs in some women. I stare and stare at it, cover it with my finger, then take my finger away. I hadn’t known about this. I thought the only change in pregnancy would be a gloriously rounded belly—pearlescent, perhaps. A gloriously rounded belly, and pinker cheeks, and an improved disposition. And some wisdom. Now I look at enlarged and darkened nipples, stretch marks. I lift my shirt, look around. Nothin
g yet.

  I go to the phone, call Ethan. Again. Still not home. I had expected him to be there, to want to hear all about my doctor’s visit. I liked Dr. Carlson. He was thorough, and gentle, and fine with the fact that the father was a gay man. He suggested I bring Ethan next time. He wore a beautiful, jewel-toned tie. I saw a bag of M&Ms in the pocket of his lab coat, and he shared some with me. He told me, sympathetically, that the pink vitamins he had to prescribe for me were about the size of Mary Kay Cadillacs.

  I pick up the booklet called “Your Baby, Month by Month.” I flip through the pages, watching the fetus develop, then turn to the very end and read a little about what to pack for the hospital. Lollipops, for a dry mouth. An outfit to bring the baby home in. This part kills me, that you go in without a baby, and come home with one. No matter how long I’m pregnant, I don’t think I’ll ever believe that there is really a baby inside me until I see it. What I need is a little window right below my belly button so that I can witness the completion of an ear, the growth of real fingernails, the coming of the delicate whorl of hair at the back of the head.

  Oh, I want to pack right now, fold up a tiny, soft sleeper decorated with panda bears, a yellow receiving blanket, a knit bonnet. I want to be lying in a hospital bed surrounded by flowers, holding my breathing baby, its eyes closed in sleep, its fists smelling of new flesh. I want to examine and reexamine the lineup of toes on the plump foot, the perfect arrangement of ribs and sternum protecting the working heart, the effortless bend at the very small elbow. I think pregnancy should last about three weeks, not nine months.

  Although then my parents would be in Italy when the baby was born. Italy, they’re going to. Or Italia, as my father has begun energetically calling it. They’re going there because they always wanted to go and because they never had a honeymoon. I never knew that—I always thought surely they went to Niagara Falls, kissed rapturously to the thunder of the water. I was so sure about this I never even asked them about it. Now I picture them in Rome, my father saying my mother’s name on some street Augustus walked on. My father is wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and shiny blue pants and one of his golf hats; his camera bumps rhythmically into his belly. My mother is wearing what she would call a decent pants suit, a sweater draped over her shoulders. She has on her prescription sunglasses and carries a map which neither of them consult.