Authors: Ariella Papa
If this was to be it, I had to live the fantasy. I had to for once have a real boyfriend. I put Paul’s T-shirt on and walked out into the kitchen. He had cleaned up and done the dishes and was standing in his pajama bottoms staring out into his garden. Was he contemplating what to say to me?
“Hey,” I said.
He turned and smiled at me. His eyes looked especially green that morning. Man, I was going to miss this. I thought about ceremoniously burning his pack of condoms, offering to give birth to a baseball team if that’s what he wanted. I think
I would have said anything to prevent the end, but instead I asked for coffee and he poured me a cup.
“You know all I have for breakfast is Lucky Charms,” he said apologetically.
So maybe he hadn’t intended for me to spend the night. Tricks were, after all, for kids.
“Or we could have that cannoli from last night.”
“I love Lucky Charms,” I lied. Perhaps if we blew up the bakery he would stay with me. Maybe if we avoided all pastry we could celebrate our silver anniversary.
Things seemed pretty normal as we ate our cereal. Immediately afterward he cleared the table. Keep moving I thought, just keep moving.
I had an idea.
“Sure, you’re acting like the perfect housewife,” I said. “But I know where to find out what you’re keeping in the closet.”
“Voula,” I heard him shouting as I ran through the hall, but I was quick. I pushed the door to his other bedroom open. I was expecting to find a mess, but instead there was one of those little beds shaped like a teepee. There was also a PlayStation, a desk and a child’s dresser. I was confused. He was behind me. I turned to get an explanation.
“Voula, I was trying to tell you last night. I should have told you sooner.” He stepped into the room. “I have a son.” He went to the desk and picked up a picture of a father (him) and son (his) with baseball caps and mitts. “His name is Joseph.”
It all happened so fast. One minute he was my kind-of boyfriend and the next he was someone’s dad.
And then the next I was on the subway back to Manhattan.
A
nger makes me extremely productive. That day was probably one of my most productive days ever. I called Jamie and left her a cryptic message saying that I needed to see her. When she called, I didn’t answer the phone. I wasn’t ready to get into it only to have her interrupt me to take some meeting on how to market lip gloss. I sent her an e-mail saying I would be at her place at seven-thirty.
In a way, I wasn’t surprised that everything had gone bad. This was to be expected when you got involved with someone, right? I don’t know why I didn’t just stick with my Warren Tucker fantasies. They never disappointed. Kids didn’t pop in those.
I decided now was as good a time as any to watch Warren’s audition tape. I felt like I needed to see him, to satisfy a craving. The sight of Warren would be something familiar. My dreams about him something I could count on.
I rewired the TV from the DVD to the VCR and popped the tape in. I fast-forwarded through the color bars until I got to Warren holding a white piece of paper with his name written in thick black ink in front of him.
“Say your name, age and profession,” a voice off-camera said.
“My name is Warren Tucker. I’m thirty-one. I work as a financial advisor for a major Manhattan firm.”
“Okay, uh, Warren, tell us about what you look for in a woman.”
“I like a sense of humor. I guess I like a girl who is adventurous—”
“Sexually?” the interviewer prodded.
Jeez, this show was ridiculous. I was never going to watch it.
“Um.” Warren looked flustered, but then he seemed to realize what they were looking for. He grinned straight at the camera. “Yeah, I guess.”
“What are you looking for physically?”
“I like someone who is in shape, maybe a little shorter than me, blond hair, blue eyes.”
He was describing the farthest thing from me. He was describing Jamie.
“Would you say you are a butt, breast or leg man?”
“I like a nice rack.”
I had never heard him say the word
rack.
I thought about when he saw my rack. Maybe watching this was going to rid me of my feelings for him forever.
“Why do you want to be on this show?”
Good question.
“I’m ready to prove to America that I am Mr. Right, not just Mr. Right…Now.”
I had no idea what that meant, but it was awful. He said his buddies had dared him—what would be worth the dare? Then I heard Raj’s voice.
“What is your idea of romance?”
“Romance?”
Duh! This was great. I needed this.
“Yes, what was the most romantic thing that ever happened to you?”
“Um.” Warren Tucker was stumped.
I wondered if he saw his chance at proving to America who he was slipping away. He rubbed his chin, and my stomach dropped. I was reminded of his mannerisms the summer that I knew him. Suddenly he seemed to think of something.
“I used to work as a bartender in the summers while I was going to school. My senior year I did it on Block Island at this pub. There was this girl I had a crush on. She was a waitress at the pub.”
Oh boy, I couldn’t believe that he was talking about that summer. Now, on top of everything, I was going to find out that he had had a crush on Jamie.
I stopped that tape. I couldn’t do it. My Warren idealization was something dear to me. I wasn’t ready to let go of it. I had been disappointed enough for one day.
At exactly 7:05, I marched over to 8th Avenue and down to Jamie’s apartment.
Since she hadn’t e-mailed me back, I didn’t really expect her to be home when I got there—these days she was lucky if she got home before ten—but I was hoping she would, that she’d heard the urgency in my voice and would come through for me. And she did: when I rang the bell, she buzzed me in. I climbed the stairs as Sparky barked and a pregnant woman held him back.
“Wow!” I shouted. There was a bump, a definite bump. My girl was not only pregnant, she had a baby in there.
“Tell me about it. I just popped. Crazy, huh?”
The last time I had seen her her skin had been full of acne; now she was kind of…glowing.
I kissed her hello. She studied me carefully.
“So what happened?”
I took a deep breath. “You know, I’m starving. I just realized I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“Do you want to go to Two Boots?”
“Yes!” I shouted. Pizza might be just what the doctor ordered.
I filled her in on everything as we walked to the pizzeria at the end of her block. I told her what I knew about Joseph.
What I’d learned from the many messages Paul had left on my voice mail. He’s five years old. Paul had partial custody of him. It seems that some of the times Paul had told me he was working, he wasn’t really working, he was parenting. Now, he wanted me to come with him to take Joseph trick-or-treating.
I stopped my story long enough to order one regular slice and one slice of my favorite pizza, the Night Tripper, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted garlic and jalapeño pesto on a white pie with a spinach crust. If that couldn’t make things better, nothing could.
I tried not to roll my eyes when Jamie got a slice of cheese-less Sicilian and the Earth Mother. Was she drawn to everything mother related? It was just boring old veggies.
“To go?” our favorite bearded counterman asked.
I knew he was going to give us a free slice as usual. That little thing cheered me up immensely. At least some things could be counted on.
“It’s nice out, let’s sit on the stoop. I could use some air,” Jamie said.
I thought it was a little cold, but sitting on her stoop might be more private than this small place and calmer than listening to Sparky bark.
I tried not to cry as I ate my pizza and told her everything about Paul. I explained how wonderful it had been for a little while and how much it sucked that he hadn’t told me about the kid.
“I just can’t believe he lied to me.”
“Well, he didn’t technically lie.”
I shook my head. “Jamie, it’s not something you don’t mention.”
She took a deep breath. “Voul, I’m not saying that he shouldn’t have told you, but I mean, you just started dating him. You don’t really date as much as I used to, but people play games when they date. It doesn’t seem like he played games. He just didn’t show his full hand. And that’s kind of what you have to do when you’re out there. How did he even know you guys were going to wind up together?”
“He should have told me as soon as we did it. As soon as he thought there was something, which I think he thought that night. I have to believe he thought it when I did. I don’t think I made that up. But he didn’t tell me then. I don’t think that was very honorable. It lacks integrity.”
“Voula, he’s not a character in your favorite movie. You’re not going to find Daniel Auteuil,” she said. “And even if you did, he would be nothing like the roles he plays. Those perfect men, they just don’t exist.”
“I know, I know, but part of me was thinking he could just be mine, you know. Now I think I’ll always come second to the kid. This is my fault. I waited too long. I mean, if I was twenty-two I might have found someone free and clear. Now there’s another woman—the mom—in the mix.”
“He didn’t say he was still with her. I mean, it’s just baggage.”
“But why can’t I find someone without baggage?”
“Voul, everyone has baggage.”
“I don’t.”
“Voula,” she practically yelled. Then she paused and shifted her awkward mass to let someone else up the stairs to the building. “Honey, you’ve got more baggage than just about anyone I know.”
“Ugh,” I said. I bounced my wrist against my forehead.
“It’s okay,” she said. She put her arm around me. “It’s who you are. It’s okay.”
I took another deep breath. I felt a big weight on me. I hated the way I was acting. I hated that I’d let this happen. “You know, I just can’t believe I fell so hard. I never do. I mean, you know me. I
never
do. All of a sudden all that mattered was keeping him as my boyfriend. You know, he tried to tell me sooner, well, last night, but I didn’t want to hear it so I distracted him. I just wanted to be someone’s girlfriend.”
“I don’t see it that way at all. I think if you really just wanted to be someone’s girlfriend you could have done it long ago. You’re not a hunchback. You’ve had your chances. It’s just not your thing. But I think you wanted to be
his
girlfriend. That’s not anyone’s, that’s his. There’s nothing wrong with wanting
someone, with wanting love or being vulnerable. There is nothing wrong with trusting. You are so hard on yourself sometimes, Voula. No one expects you to live up to this code. I know you spend a lot of time with yourself and you think about things, maybe too much. Sometimes—” She stopped to let another of her neighbors go up the stairs. “Sometimes you need to reboot. You know, turn it all off and start again. It’s all just a bunch of moments. Sure, you wish you could take the moment when he told you away, but then you might not have all the other, wonderful moments. Does that make any sense?”
“Yes,” I said. I felt my nose filling and my eyes getting teary. “Then there are moments when you sit on a stoop with your oldest friend and realize that you aren’t as alone as you thought.”
I heard her sniffle. I knew then why I loved Jamie. I hadn’t thought about it in a while. And loving
her
didn’t really hurt too much, so maybe I could love Paul, too.
At that moment she stopped being someone’s mom and went back to being my friend. She hadn’t really ever stopped.
That night I slept over at Jamie’s in her bed, like we used to when we had sleepovers in high school. Raj was pulling an all-night edit. In the middle of the night, I felt Jamie fling her leg over me, thinking I was him, and it made me smile in my sleep.
In the morning I woke up to the smell of something delicious. I found Jamie sitting in the kitchen wrapped in her puffy down robe, as Raj made pancakes. Raj was a great cook. It would have been perfect—if their dog hadn’t been jumping all over me.
“Sparky!” Jamie and Raj screamed at once.
Raj smiled and leaned to kiss me. “I’m glad you and my wife were able to get your lesbian on last night.”
“Yeah, I needed my fix,” I said.
“Poor Raj,” Jamie said. “He has his dreams.”
“Are you staying for breakfast?” Raj asked. “I’m making chocolate chip pancakes.”
“Then yes.”
“Hey, did anything ever happen with that fireman?”
I was surprised that Jamie hadn’t briefed him.
“Jesus, Raj, I told you all about it last month. Do you ever listen?” she scolded.
“No, never,” Raj said, smiling. He had heard it all before. “It goes in one ear and out the other. You might as well be talking to the dog.”
Jamie shook her head but she was grinning. Her second trimester seemed to be sitting well with her. This morning, she was once again radiant.
“You look pretty,” I whispered.
Raj heard me and smiled. “I missed spooning with the belly last night,” he said.
“Too much information,” I yelled.
Raj served us our pancakes, then pulled up a stool to the table in their kitchen. “So, can you believe we’re having a baby?”
“Not really,” I said. I loaded my pancakes up with butter and maple syrup and took my first delicious bites. “These are so yummy.”
“You should have invited the man over,” Raj said. “Is this The One?”
“Raj,” Jamie said. “Not now. She’s mad at him.”
“He’s an asshole,” Raj said immediately. He had been trained.
Jamie patted his arm and then tipped her head to the side, studying me. “We’re not sure if he’s any more of an asshole than anyone else. The jury’s still out on that one.”
“Voula’s the hanging judge, isn’t she?” Raj asked. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but—” I stopped myself. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I was softening in my old age. I decided to change the subject. “Have you guys picked out names yet?”
“Voula if it’s a girl,” Raj said, grinning.
“Voulo if it’s a boy,” I countered.
Raj and I high-fived.
“I hope it’s not a boy,” Jamie said.
I thought she was kidding, but she didn’t look like she was. “Why?” I asked. I remembered how one of the mothers at
Alice’s house had gleefully recounted being sprayed in the face with pee every time she changed his diapers for the first three months.
Jamie and Raj looked at each other. “Well, we haven’t exactly agreed on what to do about the foreskin,” Jamie said.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t be happy if it’s a boy,” Raj said. I felt that I was treading on thin ice.
“Of course, we just want a
healthy
baby,” Jamie added.
“Right,” I said cautiously. “What are you disagreeing about?”
“I don’t see why he has to be cut,” Raj said.
“Most American boys are cut, Raj, I don’t want him to feel weird.”
“It’s unnecessary. I’m not cut. You like my penis.”
Even though I already knew from Jamie that Raj had never been circumcised, I was going to remind them that this too was too much information, but they were already knee-deep in their argument. I knew that Jamie preferred circumcised to uncircumcised, but this hardly seemed the place to bring that up. Raj launched into a whole argument about not circumcising the kid. He had worked on some makeover show before this. One of the episodes featured a really expensive cream made of foreskins.
“I don’t want some rich asshole rubbing my baby’s foreskin on his skin to look younger. I think this whole thing is ridiculous.”
“I don’t know that anyone is going to get our baby’s foreskin, Raj,” Jamie said.
I could see she was getting angry. She looked over at me. “I don’t know that we need to discuss this right now, either.”
“Yeah, I prefer not to think about the baby’s penis until I have to. Thanks. Please, Mom and Dad, don’t fight.”
“We’re not fighting,” they said in unison.
We all laughed. The circumcision debate was tabled for the time being. Everyone had seconds on pancakes. I felt like I could have stayed with them in their eat-in kitchen forever.
During the walk home, I checked my cell phone. Paul had left three more messages. All of a sudden I felt silly and I just
wanted to talk to him. His having a son was more than I had bargained for, but who was I to talk? I had a seriously screwed-up family. If we were going to stay together (if that was still an option), Paul might eventually meet my mother, which would be harder to handle than any five-year-old.