Girls In White Dresses (22 page)

She laughed a little, thrilled that he’d said just what she was thinking. Isabella had flipped back and forth on Harrison so many times this weekend that she’d lost track of where she was. What did that mean, exactly? She thought it couldn’t be good.

She took his hand and kissed it, then held it in her lap. “It was great,” she said. “Really fun.” He smiled and looked back out at the road.

“That baby’s pretty cute, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and took back his hand to turn the wheel.

As they pulled up to the campus, Isabella felt the same way she had when she’d returned each fall. Her stomach dropped with excitement and her throat tingled. She started looking around as though she was going to see someone she knew. Groups of girls were walking to the dining hall in pajama pants and messy ponytails. They were laughing and screaming, and Isabella wanted to join them and eat bacon and eggs while they talked about the night before. What happened? Isabella wanted to know. Who made out? Were there any boys there you liked?

Isabella and Harrison walked around holding hands, and Isabella pointed out the dorms she’d lived in and different buildings to Harrison. He was bored, she knew, and she didn’t care.

“Isn’t it pretty here?” she asked. “Isn’t it prettier than Tufts? It’s really the prettiest campus I’ve ever seen.”

Finally he laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. “You might be a little biased, don’t you think?” he asked. He was talking to her in his
aren’t you cute
voice, which he used to use a lot more at the beginning of their relationship. He hadn’t used it much recently and Isabella wasn’t sure if this was normal or not.

Isabella had realized a couple of weeks ago that this was the longest relationship she had ever had. She was now twenty-nine. She could no longer compare this to crazy Will from college or Ben the Stoner. Now this had turned into her “real relationship,” the one she would have to compare every other relationship to. Or not compare it to, if it was the one that would last.

In college, twenty-nine had seemed impossibly old. By now, she’d thought, she’d be married and have kids. But as each year went by, she didn’t feel much different than she had before. Time kept going by and she was just here, the same.

It seemed like it all happened easier for everyone else. Look at Harrison’s friends. They just got married and had kids and didn’t seem to think about it too much. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she was thinking about it too much. Or maybe the fact that she was thinking about it meant it wasn’t right.

There was one morning recently when they were lounging in bed, which was unusual for Harrison. Sundays were his day to go running, and he was usually up and out the door before she woke up. But this Sunday he didn’t go anywhere. They ordered breakfast in from the Bagelry and watched
Meet the Press
with the
New York Times
spread all over the bed.

It bothered her that he was such a go-getter on the weekend. It made her feel lazy to stay in bed when he was out running. That morning she was ready to pick a fight with him over leaving the apartment. And then, like he knew what she was thinking, he didn’t go anywhere.

“No run today?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t really feel like it,” he said.

Isabella had two tiny stuffed pigs that she kept on her night-stand, named Buster and Stinky. Harrison had always thought it was odd, the way she loved stuffed animals, the way she was drawn to little figurines and fuzzy things. “You’re so weird,” he said, laughing, when she made a stuffed frog ribbit at him. And she knew he meant it.

Boyfriends in her past had found this trait cute and charming. They had indulged her with little fuzzy animals as presents. Ben had even gone so far as to give them little voices (usually when he was stoned) and march them across the bed to make her laugh.

Harrison had largely ignored Buster and Stinky, except once when he had used Buster as a Hacky Sack during a long phone call. But that morning, Isabella came back from the bathroom to find the two pigs in the middle of the bed in a compromising pose. She stared at them for a minute before it registered that they were in the 69 position.

She stood at the end of the bed until Harrison finally looked up.

“Good Lord,” he said. “Bunch of dirty pigs around here. They must have learned it from watching you.”

“You know,” she said, “that they are both boys, right?”

“Are you saying that two male pigs can’t be in love? Did you learn nothing from the penguins at the zoo?”

Isabella laughed and climbed back into bed with him. For the rest of the day, anytime she left the room Harrison arranged the pigs in another dirty pose. Yes, she thought at the end of the day. Okay, I could be with him forever.

She worried that maybe they’d been dating too long to end up together. It was like when you tried to jump off the high dive and if you did it right away, you were fine. But if you stood there looking down, thinking of all the bad things that could happen, you were doomed. You would just climb back down the ladder to the safety of the ground.

Harrison was standing next to a dorm building, checking his BlackBerry. She watched him from behind. How was she supposed to be okay just hating him and then loving him on alternate days? What if that never stopped?

She went up behind him and stood on her toes until her nose was right next to his ear, and then she snorted softly and slowly. He tilted his head like she was tickling him, and he lowered his BlackBerry. She kept snorting until she heard him laugh and then she stopped and kissed the back of his neck.

“Hey, dirty pig,” he said, turning around. “There you are.”

“There you are,” she said. She put her face next to his and snorted again until he smiled and kissed her.

E
veryone was talking about babies. It all started when someone suggested that Shannon was getting married because she was pregnant. “She just met the guy six months ago,” their friend Annie said. “And here we are at their wedding. It’s a little suspicious.”

“You think there’s a bun in that oven?” Lauren asked. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe she just wanted to get married,” Isabella said. Then, to change the subject, she asked their friend Katie how her pregnancy was going, and Katie launched into a speech about how hard it had been for her to get pregnant the second time. “You just always think it will be so easy,” she said. “I already had Charles, and I just figured I’d be able to get pregnant whenever I wanted.” Katie paused here to take a sip of her water, and Lauren looked hopeful that the conversation was over, but then Katie continued. “Anyway, I bought a book called
Taking Charge of Your Fertility
, and it really changed my life,” she said.

Annie squealed, “I bought that book too! It’s amazing.” The two of them began discussing how they tested their cervical fluid to find out when they were ovulating.

“Cervical fluid?” Lauren whispered to Isabella.

“Discharge,” Isabella whispered back. Lauren put down her cake and picked up her drink.

“That’s really gross,” she said.

“No kidding,” Isabella answered.

When the two girls started comparing the difference between fluid that was like “egg whites” and fluid that was “fluffy,” Lauren got up to get them new drinks. When she came back, they were talking about placenta. Isabella grabbed the drink from her and smiled.

“Remember when Michael Jackson said he grabbed the baby with the placenta still on it?” Lauren asked. Isabella laughed and shook her head.

“What?” Lauren asked. “That’s really my only placenta story. I’m just trying to participate.” The two of them snorted with laughter.

Everyone kept bringing up Michael Jackson. He had died earlier in the week, and every time Isabella turned on the TV, he was looking right back at her. It was impossible to forget about him. Even the band at the wedding was playing a lot of Michael Jackson. Shannon’s wedding was turning into a Michael Jackson memorial concert. It was weird.

“You know what song has been in my head for like a week?” Lauren asked. “ ‘Billie Jean.’ It just keeps playing, and I don’t know what to do about it. Do you think it will make me go insane? It’s just always there in the background of my brain, ‘Billie Jean is not my lover …’ ”

“You have the worst voice,” Isabella said.

“It’s really sad about Michael Jackson,” Katie said.

“I don’t think it is,” Lauren said. “I don’t know why, but I wasn’t sad at all.”

“Do you know what you’re going to name the baby?” Isabella asked.

“Well, I like Jason but I’m not sure.”

“Maybe you should name him Blanket,” Lauren said.

Isabella wanted everyone to stop talking about babies before Mary came over to the table. Mary was pregnant two weeks ago, but no one knew that. She’d confessed to Isabella and Lauren one night when they were at her apartment. Lauren had brought champagne over to celebrate her new real estate job. “Come on,” Lauren said when Mary said she didn’t want any. “I’m finally gainfully employed. If you can’t celebrate that, what can you celebrate?” She’d poured the glass anyway, and held it in front of Mary, right under her nose, until Mary turned her face away and said, “I’m pregnant.” Just like that.

“Oh, fuck,” Lauren said, lowering the glass. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“I can’t believe it,” Mary kept saying. “I just can’t believe it.”

“Well, it’s pretty good timing,” Isabella said. “I mean, you’ll be married soon.”

“Yeah,” Mary said slowly. “I just didn’t plan it. I didn’t think it was going to happen like this.”

Then she called Isabella a week later to tell her that she wasn’t pregnant anymore. “I’m not sure what happened,” she said. “The doctor said it’s normal.”

“Well then, I’m sure it is,” Isabella said.

“I feel so stupid,” Mary said. “I know I didn’t plan it, but then I wanted it. Now I feel like I wished it away.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Isabella said.

“I guess not.” Mary didn’t sound convinced.

Now they were at Shannon’s wedding, and still all anyone could talk about was babies. “Do you know why Kristi said she couldn’t come to the wedding?” Katie asked. “Because they only travel when her mother-in-law can come with and she was busy. They can’t leave the baby even for a night, because Kristi
only
breast-feeds. She never even pumps. That is weird.”

“Isn’t the baby almost a year old?” Isabella asked. They both nodded.

“Gross,” Lauren said.

Ken was worried about Mary. He told Isabella after the wedding. “I’m worried about her,” he said. Isabella hugged him. He was a nice guy.

“I think she’ll be okay,” she told him. He nodded. Whenever he stood next to Mary, he had his hand on her arm.

Katie was talking about her birth plan for the second baby. Lauren looked at her with disgust and fear. This was nothing, Isabella thought. Harrison and Isabella had seen the actual video of Charles’s birth. It happened quite by accident. Katie and Tim invited them over for dinner one night, and as they were drinking wine, admiring the baby, and eating mini quiches, Katie asked, “Do you want to see the birthing video?” Isabella was sure that neither she nor Harrison said yes, but they didn’t say no either, and so they found themselves watching Katie writhing on the TV while a slimy Charles made his way into the world. When they walked out of the apartment that night, Harrison hit the elevator button and simply said, “Holy shit.” Isabella loved him for that.

“They aren’t that good of friends,” she felt compelled to tell him. He just shook his head and put his eyes to the ceiling. “Holy shit,” he said again. “Hooooly shit.”

Lauren had pulled the first layer of her bridesmaid dress over her head and was dancing around to “Beat It.” “I think maybe no more cocktails for Lauren,” Isabella said to no one in particular.

“That’s just really inappropriate,” Katie said. Isabella made a mental note to tell Harrison this later. “Do you believe she thinks that’s inappropriate?” she’ll say. “How about showing your friends a video starring your vagina?” And he’d laugh.

Isabella hadn’t seen Harrison in a while. He was probably avoiding being anywhere near Katie. Isabella was sure that he was afraid of Katie after the video. She didn’t blame him.

She walked outside and saw Mary and Ken on the other side of the stone patio that overlooked the ocean. Mary leaned her head in the nook of Ken’s arm and he kissed the top of her head. Isabella felt like she was spying, but she stood and watched them.

Harrison walked up behind Isabella and smiled when he saw that she was crying. “Are you crying?” he asked. She shook her head no. “You are the worst liar,” he said. Isabella always cried at weddings. (Although normally she cried at the ceremony and not the reception.)

“Everything okay?” Harrison asked.

Isabella nodded. “I’m just happy.”

“Clearly,” he said. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her so that she could blow her nose. Harrison always brought handkerchiefs to weddings so that he could hand them to Isabella. He was the only person she knew besides her grandfather who carried actual handkerchiefs.

The first time he’d handed one to her, it was like finding a twenty-dollar bill in her winter jacket: unexpected and incredibly lucky. It thrilled her, the happiness that came with that gesture—and it never went away, it never even faded. Every time he gave her his handkerchief, she was dizzy with fortune.

“You missed a great conversation in there about childbirth,” Isabella told him.

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Harrison said. “Did Katie pull out some photos of Charles in the birth canal?”

“Not this time. There was just a lot of talk about placenta.”

“ ‘Placenta’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘flat cake,’ ” Harrison said.

“How do you know that? Why is that something that you know in your head?”

Harrison shrugged. “I heard it somewhere.” He smiled.

“I think you watch too much Discovery Channel,” Isabella said.

When Harrison gave her a dog for her thirtieth birthday, she was overwhelmed at the responsibility. “I think I’m going to kill it,” she kept saying. He assured her that she would not. Isabella had wanted a dog for a long time, but once she had him she was sure she wasn’t ready. She could step on him, forget to feed him, or leave something poisonous out for him to eat. The possibilities were endless.