A New Lu (13 page)

17

“Maybe it's a hysterical thing.”

Dallas swings around on Davin. “What are you talking about?”

“You never heard of hysterical pregnancy?” He's looking smug to be the bearer of knowledge his sister does not have. “It happens to stressed-out women. Happened to a friend last week.”

“What friend?” Dallas and I chorus in identical suspicion.

Davin's expression slips into vague mode, the kind he adopts when his father asks what he's been doing with his time, or his money. “A friend of a friend, okay? This guy's girl thought she was pregnant, having all these symptoms, you know? Only it turned out she was major stressed over finals. The infirmary said that kind of thing happens every semester. Women get emotional, right? It affects things. Female things. I'm just saying with Mom going through the divorce and all…” He shrugs. “Hysterical stuff happens.”

Dallas looks back at me in disgust. “Do you hear the kind of chauvinist you've reared?”

“I'm not responsible for your brother's warped understanding of female biology.”

I reach for one of the bowls of ice cream Davin has filled and plop a still-warm brownie on top. “This is not stress. I have four pregnancy tests and a doctor's examination to back me up.”

Two exclamation points appear between Dallas's brows to punctuate her surprise. “You've seen a doctor about this?”

“Two physicians, actually.” I drop a thin curl of vanilla ice cream onto my brownie. The truth has given me a powerful new appetite.

“Jeez, Mom!” The same look of utter bewilderment is on Davin's face as when he was four years old and his ice cream fell off his cone onto the grass.

Dallas, as always, takes command. “Is there something we don't know, Mom?”

About half of my life. A mental image flares through my mind of me flat on my back at a beach house, draped with nothing but the doctor-on-call. But this is not the time to inform my children about how much I can deviate from the person they think I am. “Your father and I made an error in judgment a few months back—”

“The Caribbean trip!” Davin chimes in at last, grinning. “I hear the tropical beach scene is a real turn-on.”

“The point is, we didn't mean for this to happen.”

“Didn't mean…?” Dallas looks stunned. “After all those books you made me read in junior high about safe sex and birth control, and then write reports about…”

“Yeah, and those dumb lectures at the YMCA,” Davin chimes in.

“Mom, what were you thinking?”

“Obviously she wasn't thinking ‘no glove, no love.'” Davin snickers. “So Dad's still got it in him. Awesome!”

I hereby promise myself to never
ever
have another discussion about my sex life with my children.

“Does Dad know?” The tone of Dallas's question could be termed insulting. I remind myself that she's trying to absorb a shock, and choose to accept it at face value.

“Certainly. He wanted me to wait—”

Dallas launches herself across the room to embrace me, cutting off my prepared speech. “But this is great! So great! Isn't it, Davin? Dad and Mom are getting back together!” She's hugging me so tight I can't get in a word. “Oh, but, Mom, at your age, you'll need to look after yourself.” She releases me and turns to her brother. “Davin, get Mom a stool for her feet.”

“I'm fine, Dallas, really. Look.” I plop down on a kitchen chair. “I'm sitting.”

“Are you sure? Because if you need anything,
anything
—” She pauses to inhale an incredible breath. “This is just soooo great!”

My daughter is too happy. It's the kind of instant euphoria that's so over the top you just know the person is going to crash and burn. I should have waited. Should have had her father here to catch her as she falls.

But for the moment her hyperactivity has kicked even her brother out of energy-conservation mode. Davin snatches up the footstool I use to reach the high shelf in the pantry, and puts it before me. Then he lifts each of my feet with the care I wish he'd use when he handles my Waterford crystal, and places them on it.

Dallas actually puts another curl of ice cream on my brownie before she hands me my bowl. All the while she's babbling about new starts, the joys of life with renewed purpose, and how glad she is that her parents have come to their senses.

Finally she pauses and stares at me with such concern that I suspect she's about to drape a tea towel around my shoulders to ward off the possibility of an ice-cream chill. I decide a bracing dose of the creamy cold stuff is just what I need. As I bring a mouthful of brownie and ice
cream to my mouth, she reaches out with a napkin to catch a drip.

It's too much.

“Stop! Sit!” The tone of voice, accompanied by the hand command I learned at obedience school when we had a cocker spaniel, works perfectly with children—certainly better than it did with that dog. They resume their chairs at once.

I put my bowl aside and stand up. The general always stands to charge her troops. “First, I'm touched by your enthusiastic response to my news. However, the situation is not that simple. To begin with, your father isn't at all happy about it. In fact, he's very clear that he doesn't think I should have this child.”

“Dad's just in shock. Who wouldn't be? At your time of life?” Dallas is nothing if not tenacious. “But he will come around, won't he, Davin?”

Davin shrugs, still clearly out of his depth. At a later time I must ponder his ease with the notion of hysterically pregnant women but not truly pregnant ones.

“Listen to me. This is very important. When your dad returns from his business trip, I don't want either of you to pressure him. He is a free man, after all. All decisions and responsibilities concerning this child are mine.”

Exclamation marks reappear between Dallas's brows. “You mean to have it even if Dad disapproves?”

The word “it” is beginning to bug me. “My
child,
Dallas. And yes, I have every intention of seeing this pregnancy through. Alone.”

“Oh, my God!” The hysterical edge is back in Dallas's voice, minus this time the euphoria. “What do I tell Stephen? What will he say to his parents?”

At last, Davin finds his footing in the conversation. “Tell them the truth. Dad knocked up Mom after their divorce.” Dallas turns on her brother. “That's—disgusting!”

Davin cackles with laughter. “Better get used to it. Remember the belly on Stephen's sister Lucy last Christmas?”

Dallas's gaze lowers to what is still my fairly flat middle section and her eyes buck wide. “Oh, Mom! He's right. You'll be a blimp by my wedding!”

And the blessings just keep coming. I never liked the mother-of-the-bride ensemble she chose for me. She calls it goldenrod. Looks Teletubby yellow to me. “You can tether me to the church's front pew like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon.”

Dallas backs away from me as if I've grown Buffy-the-Vampire-style fangs. “I know you don't take my wedding plans seriously, Mom. But I don't understand how you can laugh at me when it's
you
who seems to have lost all sense of decency.” She pronounces these words as if they were a judicial pronouncement. “My family has turned into one big joke and embarrassment!”

“I'm not embarrassed,” Davin volunteers.

“That's because you don't have a grasp of the situation,” Dallas shoots back. “I do.”

“It's not about you,” I interject before she can begin the barrage sure to follow this martyrdom preamble. “This conversation is about me. Okay? I shared my condition with you out of love and respect. You do not get a vote on how I handle the matter.”

“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!