I'm So Happy for You (18 page)

At the same time, Wendy could neither understand nor justify her longing for the particular luxury that Daphne’s house promised
to deliver. Once, Wendy had prided herself on living simply. When had the basics ceased to be enough? And when had refrigerators
and toilets, utilitarian by definition, become shiny objects to covet and pine for? (And was “using the facilities” really
that much more pleasurable on a tankless, sensor-activated TOTO Neorest with an integrated Washlet seat featuring warm-water
washing, automatic air dryer, and deodorizer—versus a plain old American Standard?)

“Are you sure you don’t want these?”

Wendy had become so lost in her own thoughts that the sound of Daphne’s voice startled her. Daphne was dangling a pair of
woolen socks in her face. “That’s okay,” said Wendy, preferring in that moment to be a martyr to the cause of her own middle-classdom.

“Are you sure?” asked Daphne.

“I’m fine, really.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, any time you ever want to stay here, please just let me know,” Daphne went on. “I mean, it’s embarrassing
how much space we have! Right now we have two guest rooms on the third floor. I mean, at some point in the future, one of
those might turn into a kid’s room.” Wendy could feel her blood pressure rising. “But for now, I swear, we could literally
house a whole family up there!”

Why don’t you?
Wendy thought, knowing full well that were she to own a brownstone, she’d be unlikely to invite a homeless family to live
in the top floor of it, either. That didn’t mean she was above guilting others for failing to do so. And wasn’t it Wendy’s
right under the circumstances to make Daphne feel just the tiniest bit bad about her good fortune? “Wow, you’re lucky,” she
said faux-wistfully. “We can’t even afford an apartment with a real second bedroom anymore.”

“You should go work at a glossy magazine or something!” Daphne blurted out, her eyes flashing as if she’d just had a brainstorm.
“Like at Condé Nast or Hearst or something. I’m sure they’d hire you in a minute. And they pay really well.”

Maybe there was nothing offensive about Daphne’s words in and of themselves. Yet in the context of her “mansion tour,” Wendy
found the suggestion inexcusable. She thought of the time when she and Daphne were in their twenties and trying on clothes
in the dressing room of a Lower Broadway boutique. Wendy had been complaining about how she hated her knees. “Well, what about
trying a skirt that falls
below
the knee?” Daphne had suggested. As if the idea had never occurred to Wendy. (As if that were the advice she’d been seeking.)
What Daphne never seemed to understand was that Wendy liked to complain. Just as she wanted Daphne to listen and, where possible,
commiserate, then refute her contentions with generic words of praise. So often, Daphne’s advice sounded patronizing or, worse,
downright insulting. “I could,” Wendy finally answered in the most righteous tone of voice she could summon. “It’s just that—I
guess I care more about what’s happening in the world than about the shopping habits of rich people. Which is basically what
all those magazines are about. You know?”

If Daphne experienced the line as a personal dig, she didn’t let on. “Well, that’s your right,” she said, shrugging. “Meanwhile,
what’s happening with Adam? Is he planning on going back to work soon?”

Wendy could feel her face growing warm. “He’s still working on his screenplay,” she answered quickly.

“Oh—that’s cool!” said Daphne, nodding. But Wendy could tell that she didn’t think it was cool at all.

Wendy didn’t think it was cool, either. But in that moment, her frustration with Adam’s employment situation seemed like her
own private business. It hadn’t always been that way. Once, Wendy had told Daphne everything. Ever since she and Jonathan
had become an item, however, Wendy had found herself increasingly protective of both her husband and their marriage.

Wendy treated herself to a car service home. As she entered her apartment, the shabbiness of the living room was suddenly
explained to her both by its lack of crown molding and by its low ceiling—so low that it seemed in danger of caving in. Or
maybe it was Adam, seated in the middle of it, wearing an old Mets cap and watching the Cartoon Network, who seemed to be
bringing the walls down around him. “How was Daphne’s manse?” he asked. “Appropriately luxurious?”

No doubt he’d spent the afternoon smoking pot, Wendy thought. She sniffed twice in rapid succession. “It smells funny in here,”
she said, even though it didn’t.

“What are you talking about?” Adam snapped back, clearly offended.

“Nothing. Sorry,” said Wendy, guilty. It was Saturday, the “day of rest,” she reminded herself. He wasn’t hurting anyone by
sitting there. She hadn’t wanted to marry a corporate lawyer. Nor was it Adam’s fault that Daphne had been insensitive to
their real estate situation.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

“Oh, right. Daphne’s house. It was like Versailles in there,” Wendy told him.

“I can’t believe you bothered going all the way there in this snow.”

“It’s just snow.”

“Maura called.”

“Thanks.”

Wendy went into the bedroom to call her back. But even with the door closed, she couldn’t overcome the sensation that the
place wasn’t big enough to accommodate the two of them. “Will you meet me for lunch?” she asked Maura. “Please?”

“Wendy—there are four feet of snow out there!” Maura protested.

“I’ll come to you.”

“I don’t eat lunch.”

“You can have water.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“I’m begging you. Please?! I really need to vent.”

“It’s not my fault you quit therapy.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“That’s different. Gloria told me I was finished.”

Wendy paused before venturing, “I have to admit, I’ve never believed you.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Finally, Maura spoke: “Okay, so I lied.”

“I knew it!” cried Wendy.

“She always wanted to talk about why I hadn’t finished my dissertation. It got annoying after a while.”

“Now you have to come meet me. It’s your punishment.”

“I’m working on my dissertation.”

“Another
bald
lie.”

After much sighing, Maura agreed to meet Wendy at a diner on Fourth Avenue that was near her rental studio. Maura hadn’t won
the real estate lottery, either. Nor was she particularly close to Daphne. All of which made Wendy think that Maura would
be the ideal listener to her griping.

“So, I went to see Daphne’s house this morning,” Wendy began over scrambled eggs. “And it was totally insane. Seriously, it
looked like a museum in there. But no, she was all upset because the cabinets hadn’t arrived yet from Italy.” She rolled her
eyes. “Then she started bragging about how they have so much space upstairs they could house two extra families. I had to
fight off the impulse to tell her she should. And then, when I said, ‘You’re lucky you can afford eleven extra bedrooms; we
can’t even afford two,’ she suggested I leave my job and go to work at
Lucky
or something, writing captions about pants.” Wendy tutted. “Like it’s NEVER occurred to me that I might get paid better at
a glossy magazine! So I said, ‘Sorry, I’m not interested,’ and she said, ‘Well, what about Adam? Is he going back to work?’
Like it’s any of her damn business!” Wendy shook her head. “I’m sorry. I love Daphne. I always will. But her narcissism has
really gotten out of control—basically, ever since she hooked up with Jonathan. It’s like she can’t see that other people
don’t all have the same financial profile as her.” No sooner had Wendy concluded her monologue, however, than she felt mean
and petty for having spoken so critically about her best friend.

Nor did Maura’s response, surprising to Wendy in its temperateness, make her feel any better about the vitriol she’d just
spewed. “That sounds aggravating, I agree,” Maura said, sucking on the slice of lemon that had come with her tea.

“But, you know, the guy’s rich. And the Uberoffs aren’t exactly hurting for cash, either. I’m sure they helped, too. And,
I mean—come on—it was never like Daphne pretended she was some big bohemian or something. I guess my point is, if I had dough
like that, I’d probably buy a town house in Cobble fucking Hill, too. I’d probably order my kitchen cabinets from Italy, too.
I mean, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess,” Wendy was forced to admit.

On Monday, Wendy left work early to go see Dr. Kung in her York Avenue office. She might as well have shown up an hour late.
To fill the time as she waited for her name to be called, she read a brochure about pelvic floor disorder. (And did the pelvis
have a ceiling, too? Wendy wondered. And, if so, how high was it? And was the floor parquet?) Finally, a nurse called her
name and escorted her into Dr. Kung’s inner chambers. It was another twenty minutes before Dr. Kung herself appeared—in four-inch-high
red pumps and a white lab coat unbuttoned to reveal steep cleavage. “Nice to see you—Wendy,” she said, reading off her clipboard.
“You know, we have the same name.”

“I know, it’s funny,” said Wendy, who didn’t actually find it all that funny.

“Is your name short for anything?”

“Well, technically, Wendell. But no one calls me that. Just my mother.”

“My name is short for Wenhui,” offered Dr. Kung.

“Really,” said Wendy, anxious to get on with it. In the past few years, all of her doctors had gotten strangely chatty. Wendy
suspected they’d all attended the same workshop that stressed the importance of “people skills” in winning the trust of their
patients.

“So, I understand you feel something hard in your pelvis?” asked Dr. Kung.

“Well, not exactly,” conceded a now cringing Wendy. (Who knew that receptionists wrote down patients’ complaints?) “I mean,
I think it went away. But I can’t get pregnant. And it’s been twelve months. To be honest, that’s kind of why I’m here.”

Dr. Kung’s scowl was unmistakable. It was clear she thought Wendy was wasting her time. “How often do you and your partner
have sex?” she asked.

“Well, during the week I’m ovulating, at least three times every month,” Wendy told her. It was a slight exaggeration, but
still.

“What about the rest of the month?”

“What does it matter if I’m not ovulating then?”

“How do you know you’re not ovulating?”

“Well, I take my temperature every morning. And I use those ovulation-predictor kits from the pharmacy.”

“You think you know when you’re ovulating,” said Dr. Kung, in what struck Wendy as an unnecessarily superior voice. “But nobody
knows for sure unless she comes in here every day of the month and gets an ultrasound.”

“Well, I’m not saying I know the exact hour,” said Wendy.

“And you’re thirty-four?”

“I turned thirty-five at the end of last year.”

“And how long is your cycle?”

“Usually around twenty-six days. Sometimes a few days shorter.”

Dr. Kung scribbled something on her clipboard. Then she cleared her throat and said, “You have your period, what? Four, five
days?”

“Something like that,” said Wendy.

“As soon as your period is over, have sex every day until the fifteenth day of your cycle. Maybe even the sixteenth day, just
to be sure. You’ll be pregnant in three months.”

“But I’ve been trying for twelve cycles!” cried Wendy, on the verge of tears again. She hadn’t lied about having a hard mass
in her pelvis only to be told that she wasn’t having enough sex with her husband! She felt as if Dr. Kung wasn’t taking her
problem seriously. At the same time, she suspected that Dr. Kung was right. Only, Wendy didn’t see what she could do to rectify
the situation. She and Adam were too many years into marriage for the orgiastic marathon that Dr. Kung seemed to be advocating.
Or was that just an excuse for the waning of passion between them (and Adam’s obvious ambivalence about having kids)? “But
what if there’s something wrong with me?” she asked. “Or even with my husband?”

Dr. Kung sighed wearily. “You want his sperm tested?”

“Yes, please,” said Wendy.

“Fine. You want your tubes tested also? It’s a painful procedure.”

“Yes, please,” Wendy said again. She was already in agony, she figured; what was a little more of the same?

Dr. Kung was writing the second of two referrals, when she paused, glanced up at Wendy, and said, “Do you want some more advice?”

“Sure,” said Wendy.

“Buy some nice underwear.”

Had Dr. Kung spied Wendy’s decomposing Hanes Her Ways on the companion chair in the corner? The thought was so excruciating
that as Wendy exited the woman’s office, she knew she’d be changing gynecologists yet again.

That evening, over carrots Vichy (James Beard, p. 207) and broiled ham steaks (Ibid., p. 121), Wendy told Adam about her visit
to Dr. Kung’s office, albeit in a slightly revisionist form. “So I saw Dr. Kung this morning,” she began in a faux-breezy
tone, “and she said there was probably nothing wrong and we probably just weren’t having enough sex during the second week
of my cycle. But just to be sure, as a first step, she said you should get your sperm tested.”

“You want me to jerk off into a test tube?” Adam narrowed his eyes in amusement and—it seemed to Wendy—irritation, all in
one.

“Paper cup,” she said, wincing. “I mean, since it’s easy to check—”

“Easy for you to say!”

“I just mean, it’s not like it’s painful or something—unlike the tube test that she wants me to get, which is supposed to
be really unpleasant.”

Adam laid down his fork. “Do we have to talk about this while I’m eating? Or, at least, attempting to eat.” He reached for
his water glass. Wendy didn’t answer. For a few moments, they sat in silence. “I got my college girlfriend pregnant, you know,”
he announced, while inspecting a carrot in the overhead light.

“I know,” said Wendy, “but it’s possible that something happened since then—like during that operation you had ten years ago.”
For months, she’d been itching to bring up the subject of Adam’s hernia operation.