... and Baby Makes Two Page 22
“Why did you have to tell her that we're not married?”
“What's wrong with telling the truth?”
“Okay then.” Jane could be logical too. “Why aren't we married? With a baby coming in about four weeks, don't you think you should think about it?”
They got each other. They had from the beginning. He set his jaw as if he were a bad TMJ patient and gripped the wheel. She had won the argument in some stupid, unfair way. He got it.
“You don't sound like you, Jane. You sound like one of your black-and-white movies.”
“You sound like a guy who's not answering my question.”
She knew perfectly well that he didn't have an answer. That didn't stop her from wanting one. They drove along in more silence.
Until Jane said, “Sometimes you're such a jerk. You should know that about yourself.”
“Sometimes you're really childish.” He mimicked her saying, “ Why aren't we married?’ ” and then added “Come on, Jane.”
She used her best bratty voice to mimic him right back. “Come on, Jane.”
“Don't do that.”
“Don't do that.” She had grown up with brothers, remember. She had learned how to be annoying.
They arrived at her building and he said, “Fine. You win. You're the baby, so enjoy all your baby stuff. I'm going home. Hey! Maybe I'll write a list.”
He wasn't going to help her lug the seven thousand pounds of baby crap up the four flights of stairs. Ouch. Winning arguments comes with a price. He sat in the car and stared straight ahead. He drove away.
She could barely lift the giant bags of baby crap. She dragged them as if she were a wayward Santa. She had to take three breathers up the stairs. After one flight, she had forgotten about Peter and their stupid argument. By the time she pulled it all into her apartment, she was completely done in.
The biggest bag spilled open. Clothes, sheets, bumper pads, bottles, nipples, diapers, diaper creams, wipes, more clothes, formula, a lamp, two diaper bags, baby shampoo, baby bath, baby-sized towel, pajamas, What to Expect the First Year and What to Expect the Toddler Years, some teething rings, baby sunscreen, socks, a bath seat, adorable soft onesies, and a huge array of baby-proofing items. And there was some other stuff too.
The apartment already looked so crowded.
“We're going to need a bigger boat,” she said in full voice. She wanted to feel bad for Peter. She wanted to find a way to put all these things away. She stretched out on the floor and planned to stay there for a long time. She wanted to slap Peter and then apologize. She wanted a c-c-c-commitment.
Someone or something bumped against her door, trying to open it.
“Who's there?” Jane shouted. “Peter?” But she heard only a grunt in response, and, hey, Peter drove away. It couldn't be him. Her New York survival instincts kicked in. She needed a good blunt object, so she grabbed a pewter candlestick. Oh, but Sam gave her that. So she traded it for What to Expect the Toddler Years, which was a huge tome and could easily do some damage.
“You have the wrong apartment!” she shouted. The grunting intruder might believe her if she sounded forceful enough.
The lock clicked. The door opened. It was Ray, unable to speak through the mouthful of bagel he was chewing. She sat down again, ten years older than when the day began.
“Don't let China know that I'm this unstable, okay?” She sighed.
“Mmm-hmmm.” And then he was out of sight. She found him in the storage room/Beth's room-to-be. The room was emptied and cleaned, with a fresh coat of paint on the walls. So much hidden space was suddenly revealed. He must have spent the whole day on this.
Ray finally spoke. “See? I told you I could turn it into a real room.”
“Beth's room” was all she managed to say around the catch in her throat.
“I took the liberty of throwing away the very broken chair and the box of scary, mildewed fabric. The other stuff is in the basement. This room is bigger than I thought it was.”
Jane nodded. “It's like a dream.”
“What's in the bags?”
“Baby crap.”
“It's a lot.”
“Yeah.”
…
Peter stayed away all afternoon. Jane had no idea he was such a brooder. There was a knock at the door, and Jane rushed to open it, thinking that Peter was making a contrite entrance. But it wasn't Peter. It was someone looking for the open house in the apartment downstairs. Still not sold. Still open housing. But there was Peter, climbing the stairs and carrying a large gift.
“Here. This was the travel stroller that you liked. The woman said it was wonderful, and lightweight and wonderful. I just carried it up four flights of stairs and it felt like nothing. So. Here.”
She wanted to refuse it and warn him that he couldn't buy his way out of bad behavior. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry for being so childish. But the stroller was actually wonderful. It was a stroller for a city baby in a walk-up.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “You don't like being stuck in limbo, huh?”
“So crowded in there, with all those unbaptized babies. And I'm a baby too. But a baptized one, so it's really unfair. Anyway. I'm really sorry about today. I guess you're kind of in limbo too. In a way”
They hugged for a long time. Peter finally spoke.
“I thought I won the suburbs argument. I made a better case than you. Didn't I?” he asked. “And that should count for something. See, with Bianca, I never won an argument. Never got my way. But we're partners, aren't we, Janie? Equals? And I'm getting tired of apartment life. I want to live in a house.”
Jane allowed herself no sarcasm and no walking away. Hang in there and work this out with Peter. Now.
“Peter, please. My life is unrecognizable from where it was a year ago. I can't leave my island. Not right now. Here's a compromise. Can we talk about it again, after we get settled with the baby? Can I keep this down to one big change at a time? That's all I can handle.”
This was mostly true. But there was one more change Jane wanted in her life. She wanted Peter to put both feet down and stay. Was he reading her mind when he said, “Bianca isn't ready for a divorce just yet. She's changing publishers, and her aunt who raised her died a few months ago, and she's really having a hard time.”
Jane stared at his shoes for a minute and said, “I'm sorry about her aunt.”
“Yeah. Look. Just give her some time.”
“I don't have time. I'm sorry, but I don't. I'm going to China soon.”
Jane's face was twisted with worry. Had she learned nothing from all those old movies? This man was never going to divorce his wife, was he? She lowered her face to hide the bad movie scenario, and Peter ducked down to see her face.
“Hey. We're going to be together. You believe that, don't you?”
“Yes.” She was an awful liar, so she said, “No.” She wanted to make a Reasons to Believe Peter list, but she was busy trying not to cry. When she finally looked up, she said, “Why are you still living in your wife's apartment?”
Peter's mouth fell open for a second, then he began to nod slowly.
“Good point.”
No, he couldn't marry her, at least not yet. But why couldn't he move in with her? Why was he still just her neighbor when he should be so much more? He should be her family. Peter wandered around her apartment like a tourist, sizing up the place.
“Look, Peter, I don't have time for stupid games, and I really don't have time for you to figure things out. Be with me or be with her. Make a choice. And, okay, no pressure, but you have to decide fast.” Jane made a note in her head: She needed to brag to Sheila about how strong she sounded right now, even though she felt ready to dissolve.
“Don't you have more closet space than this?” he called from the bedroom.
“Really?” Jane needed to sit down. Peter was moving in? Did she just make that happen? She floated into a chair and noticed that the tight feeling behind her eyes was gone.
But she had room for Peter. Now the cloud of what's-happening-between-us lifted. This was a commitment, wasn't it? This was together. This was Us.
…
Since babies need so much crap, it is important to have people throw parties for you. Let people give you presents whenever you can. Jane had forgotten that. It was her first baby after all. Karen feared that a baby shower would be bad luck. Don't buy a gift for the child until she's home. She told her family to give her a welcome home party/shower. Jane's coworkers threw her a small shower at work.
The party fell on her birthday. She had loomed into thirty-eight and had barely noticed it coming. She felt like a kid. She felt like a geriatric. She wondered what her mother would say.
Her coworkers told her repeatedly how brave she was. Nothing scared her more than being told that she was brave. She didn't feel brave, and if she was doing something that required bravery, then she should really be scared. She nodded and smiled a lot.
Teresa didn't want to cope with party preparations so close to Travel Time. She hired a party planner to throw an elegant shower in the Puck Building. Jane and Karen arrived at the party and stuck together. Clearly, their silly little gifts were too silly and too little next to the various Tiffany boxes in the room.
“Teresa really has money, doesn't she?” Karen said.
Oh, yes. Teresa really had money. And so did her friends. The party was swelegantelegant, and Jane recognized three cast members from Law & Order. Eventually they found Arlene, who was not intimidated by all the fame and wealth in the room.
“Have you two been reading the lists? No, of course not, how would you have time? Well, there's a big scandal going on. It's really awful.”
It was nice that she had become a talker.
“What happened?” asked Jane.
“Well. This couple get their referral and they stare at the picture a lot, and then they finally get to travel, but they get to China and they get the baby and it's not her.”
“What?”
“It wasn't her. It wasn't the same baby”
By now, Teresa had caught up with the Chinamoms and was locked in to this story.
“They both started freaking out and saying, ‘Look, this isn't the baby that was referred to us and blah-blah-blah’ and getting really upset. And at first, the orphanage director kept saying, ‘Yes, it is,’ but then she said, ‘Okay, no, it isn't.’ ”
“And?” Teresa needed to know.
“Well, it was a different baby all right. And they never found out for sure, but it sounds like their baby died.”
Jane clapped a hand to her mouth so that she could stop horrible sounds from emerging. Arlene had more to say.
“So they gave the baby back to the orphanage. The mother said that she wanted the baby that was referred to her, and no other baby would do. And they came home and had a funeral.”
“Not one word of that is true.” Teresa needed to believe.
“It's all over the listserv. You haven't been reading it, huh?”
Arlene didn't mean to devastate her friends, but that's what happens when you talk about dead babies at a baby shower. No one should ever do that.
Karen, Teresa, and Jane were united in their desire to escape that story. They promised one another that they'd never bring it up again.
“But I'll say one thing,” Karen said. “I am not coming home from China without a baby. If they pull a switch, I'll deal with it.”
They nodded a silent amen and put the story away forever.
Chapter Fourteen
It was a beautiful, warm Saturday when Jane and Ray went to collect the baby furniture that Kendra had promised her. But Jane forgot the part where she promised to retrieve a crib for Karen. The crib was the last one in stock at Baby-O-Rama, and they were holding it for Karen until Saturday night. That task never landed on her list, and so it fell out of her head.
Kendra's seven-year-old son had the same fine features that his mother had. When he answered the door, he turned and bellowed for his mother.
“The lady is here for the baby stuff!”
The baby stuff was in the basement. A crib, a bureau that turned into a changing table (bureau! Jane had forgotten about getting one of those), a diaper genie, a collection of blankets, a few toys, and a diaper bag.
“Do you want this stroller? This is a three-hundred-dollar stroller. It's the top of the line, really great. Scott rode in this thing until he was, what, five years old?”
“Mom!”
“Actually, I've got a stroller. Really lightweight. Wonderful.”
“You'll need a second one,” Kendra insisted.
Jane tried to lift the stroller and knew that she'd be leaving it behind.
“I live in a walk-up,” she explained. And Kendra looked at her as if she had just announced that she ate bugs.
Kendra's husband was clearly out of the picture, but Jane was shy about asking why. After lunch and her son's departure to his friend's swimming pool, Kendra volunteered the tale of her ex-husband's abuse.
“He never laid a finger on me. If he had, I wouldn't have had a child with him. No, he hit Scott. It was bad.” She stopped herself. She must have remembered the working relationship she would have to maintain with Jane. She didn't switch to Corporate Speak, but she did talk cheerfully about potty training.
They packed up Ray's car. It sagged under all that weight, but it rolled toward the city.
“Peter says he's not going to hire movers. He doesn't have enough stuff to justify it. The super's going to loan him a dolly or something next weekend. He'll just roll his stuff up the street. Remind me to have my camera ready”
Ray nodded and kept his eyes on the road as he said, “So, when you and Peter go to China—”
“Whoa. Correction: When all three of us go to China.”
“Oh, come on, Jane. How much longer can I play third wheel/fifth wheel/extra wheel?”
“Forever. You're coming to China.”
“I really don't think I should go. And besides, do you realize how tough my schedule is these days at the paper? What am I going to get—a week's notice to drop everything and go to China? I'll undo all the hard work I've done there.”
“You're coming to China.”
“We'll look strange. Mom, Dad, Baby and Gay Uncle.”
“You're coming to China.”
“I don't have enough frequent flyer miles to get all the way there.”
“You're coming to China.”
“Did you see my piece on the Beckett Festival? I thought of you.” “You're coming to China.”
“Do you like my spray-on tan? I never get outside, but now I look like I do.”
“You're coming to China.”
“Bitch.”
“You're coming to China.”
…
“Jane. I lost my crib, thanks to you. Now I have to pay almost twice as much plus delivery plus I don't get the one I wanted.”
“I'm sorry. I forgot. There was so much to do.”
Teresa should never have stepped in. She should have let Jane grovel until Karen ran out of steam.
“It's not Jane's fault. She's not your delivery service.”
“She promised.”
Jane was still groveling. “I did. And I'm sorry. I screwed up.”
“So buy another crib, get it delivered, and it's over. There are thousands of cribs, right here in New York City” Teresa liked tidy endings.
“You don't get it. I'm really scared here, and I needed that crib. That one. You let me down, Jane. You two have all this money, so you don't know what it's like to face motherhood on a really tight budget. It's scary as hell. I can't believe you did this to me.”
Jane stopped groveling. She didn't have all this money and she did know what it was like to face it all on a real
ly tight budget. Her budget was a cinch-waist, size-four, tight-tight budget.
“Not as tight as mine,” Karen replied. “And you've got a husband. Hell, you've got two!”
“Money is not the point here.” Yes, Teresa had money, but she was still scared. Was Karen implying that she wasn't entitled to her fear because she had Calvin Klein crib sheets?
“Look. I forgot your crib. I forgot. And I really am sorry, but if you keep yelling at me, I'm gonna run out of sorry. Understand?”
Karen walked away first. She radiated heat as she stormed down the street.
Teresa wanted to form an alliance with Jane, but she went about it like this: “Just because I have money doesn't mean I'm not scared.”
Jane shook her head. She couldn't take care of anyone right now, least of all an adult. She mumbled a good-bye and left for home. Teresa went shopping.
That night, Jane kept Peter awake with her complaints. Poor tired Peter sided with her completely. Smart man.
…
Jane dreamed about rickety ladders that hooked together but led her nowhere. She was fighting to get out of the dream when the phone rang and woke her.
“Wake up, you lazy slug. You're a mother. You don't get to sleep in anymore. Besides, we have muffins.” It was Teresa.
“This sounds like girlfriend time,” said Peter. “Wake me when it's over.” This time it was Jane who was bouncing through the morning. She kissed Peter on the cheek and buzzed in her friends.
Teresa and Karen appeared at her door with a large basket of muffins, a bottle of champagne, and a carton of orange juice. What problem would stand up against all that? Jane invited them in. They promised not to be quite so stupid with one another again. They moaned about the stress, stress, stress of wondering when they would travel and managing to get enough time to do everything.
She showed off Beth's room-in-progress.
“I want to do a fancy-schmancy stencil on this wall, but I need a big chunk of time to do it. And I want to do a red border thingy.”
“Good luck,” said Karen. They were happy. They had stepped out of their manic preparations to be happy.
That's when the phone rang, and it was Barbara with their travel dates. Really. The earth stopped spinning on its axis as Jane repeated all the information to the Chinamoms. The travel permission was completed, the consulate appointments obtained. They were set to travel in seventeen days.