Between You and Me (24 page)

I wasn’t the only one whose holiday was hijacked. Travis’s movie spiraled on Rotten Tomatoes, so to shield himself from “the bad juju,” he transferred to an unfinished Tribeca condo, for which he asked Finn to purchase—wait for it—pup tents for the arriving families. Finn warded his parents off at the pass. “Not telling Nana this is carry-in carry-out,” was his best text of the week.

On my end, Christmas had the foretold effect on Andy—from his tinsel to his Turducken, he was uncharacteristically jovial, reviving memories of childhood holiday antics. Michelle basked in his mood and parked herself in front of the fireplace to fantasize about next year’s candy-cane-themed capsule collection for Kelsey Kids.

Aaron marginalized by Andy’s holiday spirit announced Christmas Eve that he’s going to record a solo album. As I plated the bird(s), I overheard Michelle whisper, “Well, we don’t really understand why her stuff sells—maybe he’ll be huge.” To which Andy conceded, “It could help him grow a pair.

Finn got a pass from Camp Moynihan and we met for a New Year’s weekend of low-lit drinks, museum kisses, and our very own penthouse suite, complete with plumbing. When I returned, Kelsey informed me that I’d just missed Aaron at LAX because he’s decided that the best producers for him to work with are based in London.

“Here, let me hold your
water,” I say, reaching for the bottle as Kelsey walks backward up the stairs, holding her laptop. In the two months since Aaron’s departure Kelsey’s been subsisting on Skype dates.

“Those cool egg chairs you liked haven’t arrived yet, but Logan calls the store every day to follow up, and, see, I got your painting—”

“Baby, are you sure this is safe?” Aaron’s voice comes out of the speaker as Kelsey gives him a tour.

“Logan’s got me, right, Lo?”

Lifting the hem of her low-slung skirt, I wave. “Hey, Aaron. How’s London?”

“Cold. And damp. Shit, is it damp. My socks won’t dry.”

“It’s seventy-six here today,” Kelsey can’t help letting him know. She tilts the laptop to the sun streaming through the skylights.

“How’s the recording coming?” I ask.

“Off the hook. This producer’s really letting me steer the ship. I’m writing lyrics, using my voice in a whole new way. Damn, you look sexy.” He interrupts himself as she steps fully into frame.

“No.” I register my daily protest. “Do not encourage her.”

“She does! Every time I run out for some smokes and see a picture of her with her belly busting out—full wood, I swear.”

“Aaron!” she squeals.

“You’re biased,” I tell him. “She looks like a pregnant prostitute, and that is arguably the saddest kind of prostitute.”

“One-legged,” Kelsey challenges. “So much sadder. Aaron?”

“No hands.”

“You two deserve each other.”

We step into the chamber beside the master suite.
“Candy kisses on a sunny day,”
Madonna’s lyrics to “Dear Jessie” are painted over the door. “And this is Jessie’s room!” Kelsey slowly leads the Macbook past every surface like a Geiger counter. “These are her books, this is her
Sleep Sheep,
isn’t it cute? This is her crib with a view of the pool, see, this is her view—”

“Baby, I remember her view. I gotta get back.” We can hear a drum track start up.

“This is the swing. It has lamb ears. Logan helped me put it together.” Between Lamaze classes.

“Kel,” Aaron says testily, “I told you I’d do it my next trip back. It’s only two weeks before the single drops.”

“But what if I’m early?”

“I was having a manly moment,” I say to restore a playful mood.

“Come on, baby, you’ve hit every target you’ve ever been given.
You think our little girl’s gonna be any different? I’ll be pulling my half, and that boo of ours will come into this world on schedule with two stars looking out for her.”

“I know.” Kelsey’s gaze softens at this vision.

“Well, hold me up to her, won’t you?” he requests, and Kelsey lowers the screen to the bump bared below her knit bra top. “I love you, little girl. Daddy misses you and can’t wait to come home and give that belly some proper lovin’.”

“Friday?”

“Kel, we’re so close. I don’t want to break everyone’s flow.”

“I miss you. I need you.”

“Baby?” he asks, his voice low. “I’m one of the guys here. I cannot just jet off to see my famous wife. It wouldn’t be good for morale.”

“So if you had a pregnant wife no one had heard of, you could go visit her and rub her back and help her put the crib together.”

“It’s together!” he says. “I just saw it!”

“That’s not the point.”

“I have to go. I’ll really try, okay?”

“Okay. And there’s too much treble on that bass,” she tosses off without even thinking. The screen turns black.

I hold up the tissues from where I sit wedged between two stuffed elephants.

“Ew.” She dabs her eyes. “I’m so hormonal.”

“You’re allowed to be sad that he’s missing this, Kel,” I say as a tiny foot visibly pushes at its confines.

“But he really isn’t.” She smiles and rubs over it. “I’m right in his face every time he goes to the corner,” she says, pleased. Neither of us mentions that
his
movements are chronicled with equal attention stateside—including nightly forays into London’s club scene. I strain my neck to see that she’s typing her name into Google UK.

“
What
are you doing?”

“Just want to see what they like over there so I can plan my wardrobe for the week.” She lowers herself down beside me on the thick carpeting. “And he’s just trying to be a good dad, so we can be a normal family. I get that. It’s all for us.” She looks to the molding, where a chain of elephants lead each other by the tail. “Just have to be strong a little longer.”

The page fills with nine images of her pole dancer maternity wear and the assorted snarky commentary, but the banner headline is, “Sad Kelsey All Alone While Hubby Enjoys Our Shores.”

“Kel, what? Is it the baby? Are you okay?”

She shuts the lid. “They’ve never been right before.”

I’m standing in Spago with
Andy as we wait on a trio of very unathletic-looking athletic-apparel executives. Respectfully steering clear of the house now that Aaron’s returned home to promote his single, I’m surprised when he calls. “Hello?”

Andy follows the maître d’.

“Is that Logan? Did you get Logan?” I hear Kelsey beseech in the background.

“Aaron?”

“Yeah. She wanted me to call you.”

“What’s wrong?” I turn to the wall.

“It’s happening. She’s early. We’re going in.”

“Oh, my God. Andy!” I wave him back.

“
Don’t
tell them.”

I drop my hand, then hear her moan my name, and he clicks off.

“What?” Andy asks, doubling back. “Kel okay?”

“The, um, the pool house had a flood, and Finn is away, so, I’m so sorry—would you mind if I—?”

I blow out the door, valet ticket in hand.

I’m informed by a nurse
that Aaron’s restricted me to stay in the waiting area. By the time Finn arrives, my fingers are pressed to my ears to drown out the sound of her calling my name from across the hall.

“Finn, go ask them, ask them what’s taking so long.”

“I think that’s just having a baby,” he tries to hold me.

Sometime around two
AM
Aaron sticks his head in to hoarsely inform us that the baby is stuck. I want to tell him she has pressure points and breath patterns and rankles at the phrase “You can do it.”

Finn eventually pushes a few chairs together and tries to get some
rest. I can only pace the linoleum, remembering when I was a patient, the headache when I came to, the bruise in my arm from the IV, lying in that private, public place with the enormous sense of Kelsey—the physical separation from her—and yet the engine of my will to bridge the divide, the bottomless ache to wrap protectively around her. But all my mother would tell me was that it was over.

Even then, I couldn’t connect Mom’s summation to the car accident that my father informed me I’d been in. We’d been in. I still can’t.

“Bullshit!” The sound of Michelle screeching above the slap of her sandals brings me to a halt. “Making us wait down there like we were paparazzi! As if she wouldn’t want her own momma by her side.”

“Logan, what in the hell?” Andy storms at me. Finn jerks up as I back into the chairs. “For fuck’s sake!”

“We have to find out about this on the damn news ticker?” Coming in behind him, Michelle jerks open the blinds, revealing throngs of reporters hungrily standing vigil in the parking lot as if waiting for smoke to come out of the Vatican. “I was so flustered I didn’t even have my wallet. That security thug made me go all the way home. All the way! Where is she?”

“Good, you’re here.” We turn to see Aaron beaming in the doorway. “Come meet our daughter.”

I recount Kelsey’s bags while
Aaron hands out roses to the blushing nurses, going on about how great they’ve been to his family. Andy idles the car, not trusting Jessie Logan Watts’s first drive to Peter—or Aaron. We wait for Michelle, who has insisted on helping get Kelsey camera-ready for her mandatory wheelchair-assisted departure.

“That’s you!” One of the nurses squeals, and I look up to see Aaron on the TV over the snack machines.

“Shit!” He blushes as one of the nurses scrapes a chair over to adjust the volume.

“—an unprecedented amount of cover videos on YouTube in the last forty-eight hours making fun of what can definitely be called Poppa Wade’s failed attempt—”

I hear the double doors behind us as the screen goes to footage of Aaron recording in the studio. “It made E! Oh, Aaron, I’m so psyched!” Kelsey cheers as she and Jessie are wheeled in to watch low-grade footage of people parodying Aaron.

“And the blogger commentary can best be summed up by Kelfan4eveah: ‘I hope for its sake the baby’s deaf.’ Aaron, stick to what you do best, selling drugs to kids. Now on to which star’s going to be the voice of the next animated—”

“What are you all standing around for?” A harried Michelle pushes through the doors, the massive stuffed elephant Aaron brought in her arms. “Shake a leg! Aaron, Andy’s waiting. We’re going to have to send a car back for this thing. It’s never going to fit with the rest of us. What? Why’s everyone—”

“Nothing.” Kelsey cuts her off.

“I can—I’ll get the elephant home,” I say to Michelle.

The nurses return to their stations.

The next day I ferry
Kelsey’s coconut water to the couch in the narrow aisle I’ve created between gift boxes.

“No more. I can’t,” she protests as she adjusts the muslin nursing cover.

“It’ll make you feel better.”

“I have stitches in my vag, I pee every time I move, and my nipples are bleeding, but no, coconut water—sure.” She winces, her pallor anemically white.

“Should I get the lactation consultant back?”

“No, just when Jessie tugs on a scab with her gums—”

“Ay!” I raise my shoulder to my ear. “That feels wrong.”

“You don’t have to nurse, Kelsey,” Michelle says. “If you switch to formula, Daddy and I can feed her.”

“Anyone want some chips?” Andy calls over from the kitchen, digging his hand into a bag. “Kel, at least put a TV over here next to the fridge. I can’t be running to the den every time I need to check the news.”

“No TV,” she says firmly. Especially now that Letterman, Leno,
Chelsea, Kathy, the guy at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, everyone is making cruel jokes at Aaron’s expense. “Baby, you okay?” she asks him carefully. He doesn’t answer.

“Ooh, Kel, this one next.” Michelle tries to pass her yet another Tiffany’s box.

“Momma, why don’t we wait till later?”

“Don’t you want to know what—” Michelle opens the card for her. “Elton John sent?” I kind of want to know.

“Ooh, maybe it’s a tiny dancer,” Michelle guesses. “Andy, Elton John sent the baby a gift!”

He grunts at his BlackBerry.

“Or you do it?” Kelsey offers, and Michelle unties the white ribbon while I add the robin’s-egg bag to the mountain Michelle is saving for—what, I have no idea. “Ooh.” She pops open the navy velvet box to a pair of huge diamond earrings. Elizabeth Taylor–size.

“Wow,” Kelsey says.

“What?” Aaron looks up.

Michelle models the earrings. “I may have to borrow these.”

“Fucking unbelievable,” Aaron scoffs.

Kelsey hastily takes the earrings from her mom with her free hand and puts them on the pile with the rest of the jewelry.

“What, hon?” Michelle asks him.

“I just, you know.” Aaron scowls. “Thought it’d be a level playing field for at least a few years. She has every fucking thing a girl could ever ask for right through her fucking wedding tiara, and she’s only four days old. I’m useless.”

“You’re her daddy,” Andy says simply.

“Yes!” Kelsey rushes to agree, and Andy looks surprised. “No one’s more important than her daddy.”

Aaron kicks the pyramid of jewelry boxes, and they tinkle as they scatter. “Fuck ever happened to sending a blanket?”

I spot a small striped bag with fur sticking out and hand it off to him. “Look, here!”

He pulls a stuffed rabbit by its floppy ears.

“It’s a Frankenbunny.” Andy laughs in response to the exaggerated stitching from its forehead to its nose.

“Who’s it from?” Michelle asks.

Aaron opens the card, then flings it at Kelsey before striding to the stairs he takes two at a time.

“Aaron!” Michelle calls him back.

“Aaron, for Christ’s sake,” Andy adds as their bedroom door slams and Jessie starts crying.

Kelsey scrambles to get the card open.

“What, what is it?” Michelle asks.

“It’s from Eric,” she says. “Here’s what you can’t do when you’re nursing—chase your husband.” Jessie lets out a piercing wail. Kelsey fumbles under the blanket, wincing and cooing.

“I don’t get it. So Eric sent Jessie a stuffed animal—so what?” Michelle dismisses the drama. “Now who’s being a baby?”

I pick it off the floor. The tag dangling from its ear flips over and I realize it’s the Velveteen Rabbit.