She, Myself & I (14 page)

“It would probably be warmer if we got in,” he said. He smiled, but his eyes were shuttered, so I couldn’t tell if he was still feeling hostile toward me. Or if he just wasn’t feeling anything at all.

I climbed up into the cab of the pickup, and watched through the window as Zack walked around to the driver’s-side door, and tried to figure out what in the hell I was going to say to him. I could always fall back on the eighties pop song lyrics of my youth:
I want you to want me,
or
If you leave, don’t leave now,
or
I’ll stop the world and melt with you
.

Oh no, it’s happened, I’ve actually lost my mind, I thought. I balled up my hand and rested it against my forehead.

Zack opened the driver’s-side door, letting in another blast of wind, and then slid in next to me and started the engine. He smelled wonderful, a combination of aftershave and freshly cut wood. And he looked distressingly handsome in his faded Levi’s and a dark blue T-shirt underneath a heavier plaid shirt.

“So. What did you want to talk about?” Zack asked, glancing in my direction. He fiddled with his car keys, jingling them in his right hand.

He’s nervous,
I suddenly realized. He wouldn’t be nervous if he didn’t care about me at all . . . unless of course it stemmed from a fear that I was going to start screaming at him or turn into an obsessed stalker.

“Just that I again wanted to say that I’m sorry. About everything. I don’t know why I didn’t return your phone calls earlier . . . wait, no, that’s not true,” I said, deciding that since I knew I didn’t have much of a chance with Zack anyway, I might as well be honest.

“The reason I didn’t call you back is that I had intended for that night that we slept together to be a one-time thing. I was trying to prove something to myself, and I didn’t stop to consider your feelings. Or my own,” I continued.

“Which were?”

I took a deep breath and then forged on.

“I was trying to convince myself that I could have a relationship with a man that was purely physical, with no emotional attachments, because . . . well, you know that I’m divorced. But I didn’t tell you why. My husband left me because he was—he is—gay. And since then I’ve been wary of getting involved with anyone,” I said, and squirmed a little at this last part.

“Actually, I already knew that, about your husband and how it had messed you up,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it messed me up. I was just a little . . . sideways. Anyway, who told you? Sophie, I assume? Right. After we finish here, I’m going to go inside and kill her.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. She was trying to help. But that’s not what I mean, anyway. You said you didn’t stop to consider your feelings, and I wanted to know what those feelings are,” he said.

I looked down, examining my hands. They were dry and needed moisturizing lotion. And the sensible beige polish had chipped away at the edge of the ring finger of my left hand.

“Does it matter?” I asked quietly.

“It matters to me,” Zack said, and he reached out and took my hand and cradled it between both of his. He didn’t seem to notice the dry skin or the chipped polish.

“Well. I . . . I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” I admitted.

I looked up at him, and he leaned forward and caught my lips on his. His mouth was warm and sweet, and then he was cradling his hand against my neck, pressing me closer to him. It rated as one of the all-time greatest kisses of my life.

“I really hope that wasn’t a good-bye kiss,” I said when we came up for air.

“Nah. I have to give you another chance to beat me at Scrabble,” Zack said, and he kissed me again.

“No time like the present,” I said, grinning at him until the skin at the corners of my mouth was sore.

“Don’t you have to go back in there and do family stuff?” he asked.

“Well, no, but I should probably tell them I’m leaving. I don’t want them to think you’ve abducted me,” I said.

I climbed out of the truck and let myself back into Sophie’s house through the garage. I passed through the laundry room and opened the door into the kitchen . . . and walked right in on my mother and father. Mom was leaning back against Sophie’s new granite-topped island, and Dad had his arms around her, and—oh God—he was sticking his tongue down her throat.

“Ack!” I said.

They jumped apart like teenagers caught necking when they’re supposed to be studying for midterms. My mother turned around, and when she saw me standing there, my mouth wide open, she blushed.

“Uh . . . Paige,” she said delicately.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” my father said. My mother’s cherry red lipstick was smeared all around his mouth, and his glasses were askew.

“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,” I said, raising both hands in front of me.

“But honey—” Mom said.

“Nope, nuh-uh, not interested.”

“Um, guys, I think you’d better get in here,” Mickey yelled from the living room. “I think Sophie’s going into labor.”

I dashed to the living room, my parents right behind me. Sophie was standing up, looking behind her at the couch.

“Shit. My water broke on my brand-new couch. Mom, do you think that’s going to stain?” she wailed.

“Sophie, sit down. Mick, go get Aidan, I think he’s upstairs. Dad, you’d better drive Sophie’s car, Aidan will probably be too nervous. Mom, Mickey and I will meet you at the hospital,” I said.

“Stop being so bossy,” Sophie grumbled, but she sat down heavily, her hands resting on her giant bump, and Mickey went flying out of the room. I could hear the thump-thump-thump as she ran up the stairs.

“Are you having contractions, honey?” Mom asked, sitting down next to Sophie and putting an arm around her.

“No, I’m not feeling anything yet. Other than hunger. I’m going to go get a piece of pizz—Yow! Oh . . . dear . . . God, what the hell was
that
?”

“It’s probably a contraction. Stephen, are you wearing a watch? Start timing how long until her next contraction,” Mom said.

“Are you okay, Soph?” I asked.

“No, I’m not okay! That fucking hurt! I . . . I don’t think I can do this,” Sophie said, shaking her head from side to side and rubbing her hands over her swollen belly.

“I think it’s a little too late for that now,” I said wryly.

“What the . . . Now? Is it . . . Oh my God,” Aidan said, running into the room, Mickey behind him. “Car. We need a car. Where? I should drive. Keys. I need my keys.”

Aidan just stood there, raising and then dropping his hands helplessly, his eyes unfocused. Clearly he would not be any help.

“Do you have a bag you’d like me to bring?” I asked Sophie.

“No, it’s already in the back of my SUV. Aidan, the keys are in my purse, but Dad’s going to drive,” Sophie said calmly. “Mom, help me up. And Paige, will you help Aidan, he seems a little . . . out of it.”

I gently held my brother-in-law’s arm. “Why don’t we go out to the car,” I said to him.

“I have to prepare. Shouldn’t I be boiling some water or something?” Aidan said. “Or ripping sheets?”

“Don’t even think about it. The sheets have a six hundred thread count, and they cost a fortune,” Sophie said.

“I know! I’ll call an ambulance,” Aidan said.

“We’ll just drive you guys to the hospital,” I said.

“I should change,” Sophie said, turning on her heel and marching out of the room. “And I need to paint my toenails.”

“What? Sophie, you look fine,” I said, running after her. She moved fast for a woman in labor, and I didn’t catch up to her until she was already in her walk-in closet, pulling clothes off hangers.

“I’m not going to go to the hospital wearing sweats. Where’s my Mimi Maternity dress? The black one with the flowers on it?” Sophie asked.

“Here, just wear this,” I said, holding up flax linen overalls.

“No way. I look like a clown in that,” Sophie sniffed. “Here’s the dress.”

She pulled off her purple T-shirt and stepped out of the gray cotton maternity sweatpants, and then pulled the sundress on over her head, exposing her enormous, round stomach. Standing in front of the mirror, she pulled her blonde curls forward into two low pigtails and fastened them with elastics. I had to admit, she did look better.

“Okay, now I need to do my toenails,” she said, walking past me out of the closet and then turning left toward the en suite bathroom.

I scrambled after her. “Have you lost your mind? Your water broke, we have to get you to the hospital,” I said.

“No, we have loads of time. I’ve only had one contraction, we don’t even have to go in until they start getting closer together,” Sophie said.

“And what if we get stuck in traffic? Or if it all starts to happen quickly?”

“Well then, help me. The faster we do this, the faster we’ll get out of here,” Soph said. She handed me a bottle of bright red nail polish and then sat down on the rim of the bathtub.

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. If you weren’t in labor . . . ,” I muttered, but I kneeled down in front of her and unscrewed the top of the nail polish bottle. I dabbed the brush in. “This is a pretty color.”

“Isn’t it? I just bought it the other day. I was saving it for when I went into labor,” Sophie said, beaming.

I knelt down and dabbed the brush over her shell-shaped nails.

“Okay, nutty girl, that should do it. I think I did a pretty good job. I guess if I ever tire of practicing law, I can always get a job giving pedicures,” I said, sitting back to admire my handiwork.

“Oh shit!”
Sophie exclaimed. She went pale and bent over, clutching her stomach.

“Mom! Sophie just had another contraction,” I yelled. “How long was that?”

“Eight minutes,” my mother called back. “Come on, we’d better get her to the hospital.”

“Can you walk? Here, let me help you get up,” I said, and heaved Sophie up onto her feet. “Do you want to lean on me?”

“No, I can walk, but wait . . . Paige? I’m scared,” Sophie said, her voice wavering. Her face was small and pale, and I was reminded of when we were little and Sophie broke her leg skiing. She’d been determinedly cheerful right up to the point when she was wheeled into the hospital.

“I know, sweetie. I know. But just think, when it’s all over, you’ll look down and see your daughter’s face for the first time, and it will all be over,” I said.

Sophie looked at me sideways. “How do you know the baby will be a girl?”

“I’m just getting a strong female vibe,” I said.

“Do you promise me that you won’t leave me?” she asked, grabbing my hand as we started to walk out of the bedroom.

I suddenly remembered Zack was outside in his truck, waiting for me to sneak off with him. The promise of sinking into his arms—he was a world-class hugger, pulling me close to him until our hearts lined up and his arms were wrapped all the way around me—was snatched away.

For now, I reminded myself. Just for now.

“I won’t leave you, no matter what,” I promised.

Mom, Dad, Mickey, and Aidan were all standing by the front door, looking excited and worried, with the exception of Aidan, who seemed a little woozy. But to his credit, he came forward and put his arm around his wife.

“Are you okay?” he asked her softly, and she just rested her head against his shoulder for a minute.

“We’re ready to go,” Sophie said brightly, rallying back, just as her eight-year-old self had done when it was time to set the broken leg.

“Baby, I’m going to drive you and Aidan. Mickey and Paige will go with your mother,” Dad said.

“Actually, I have a ride. I’ll meet you there,” I said, and although Mickey shot me a curious look, everyone else was too busy scrambling out the front door and into the assortment of cars to pay much attention.

I watched while Aidan carefully helped Sophie into the backseat of her Tahoe and then crossed himself before climbing in after her (I hadn’t known he was religious, but perhaps the birth of a child was atheist-free in the same way that foxholes were said to be). And then I turned and walked over to Zack’s truck.

“Is everything okay? I got worried, you were gone so long,” Zack said.

I leaned over and kissed him firmly on the lips. Zack smiled, even as our lips were touching, and threaded his hands through my hair.

“I thought you might have been running away again,” he said.

“No. Definitely not. But there’s been a slight change in plans,” I said. And then I sat back in the seat and turned to pull on my seatbelt. “I’ll tell you about it on the way to the hospital.”

Sophie

Chapter Sixteen

I knew the moms’ group wasn’t going to work out the moment Lucille’s eight-year-old daughter Olivia yanked open her mother’s denim shirt, unfastened her bra, and proceeded to nurse while leaning over her mother’s breast like it was a drinking fountain.

I really didn’t need to see that.

I also didn’t need to know that Lucille had nipples that were roughly the size of coasters.

Why was a child who was old enough to fix herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich still breastfeeding? Will she expect her mother—or, more specifically, her mother’s breasts—to accompany her to college? I wondered, and was suddenly gripped with insecurity. The pediatrician had recommended that I nurse Ben for one full year, and while I struggled with a bout of mastitis, blocked milk ducts, and sore nipples, the remaining eight months were yawning ahead of me, a seemingly insurmountable task. Wasn’t one year good enough anymore? Was I supposed to play the part of a human cow until my children were in grade school?

“I thought Olivia had weaned, love,” Velvet said. She was dressed in all black and had henna tattoos covering her hands, and even though she was American, peppered her speech with British colloquialisms. Velvet was studiously ignoring her twin eighteen-month-old boys, Atticus and Macaulay, while they tore apart the den.

“She did. But after Griffon was born, Olivia was so jealous of her brother when he nursed, she asked if she could start up again. I had to teach her how to do it, but she picked it up again quickly,” Lucille said, beaming down at her daughter.

Olivia finished gulping, smacked her lips, and ran off. Lucille didn’t bother to button up, and instead took the opportunity to lift her baby son up to the exposed gargantuan nipple.

The mothers’ group was meeting at Lucille’s house. Also in attendance were Missy and her two-year-old daughter, Jade. Missy wore hemp overalls and insisted that the Wiggles were right-wing extremists trying to brainwash tots into embracing the evils of capitalism. Then there was Sonya—who never smiled—and her equally serious son, Quentin, whom Sonya claimed liked to meditate with her in the mornings. Rounding out the group were Velvet and Lucille and their kids.

And then there was me, perched on a sagging orange corduroy couch that had tufts of batting poking through the holey upholstery, cradling four-month-old Ben in my arms. Ben was a roly-poly Gerber baby with a dimple in his right cheek and round blueberry eyes. In fact, he was a composite of circles—the round cheeks, snub nose, tiny paw hands, fat little feet.

“How’s he sleeping?” Missy barked at me, and I winced. The woman’s voice was like sandpaper.

“So-so. He’s slept through the night a few times, but most nights he still gets up once or twice,” I said, and I leaned down and kissed Ben on the cheek.

I found that I kissed him constantly. One afternoon, while Ben napped, I absentmindedly leaned down and kissed the armful of laundry I was carrying.

I was guarding Ben on my lap largely because the thin, anemic-looking twins were playing a game that involved screaming at the top of their lungs, rushing each other like jousting knights, and then crashing to the ground with an audible cracking of bones. Every once in a while they’d miss each other and take down a sour-faced Quentin instead, who would promptly burst into tears and scream until his mother picked him up. In the middle of this chaos, Jade was running around giggling hysterically and clad in only a bulky cloth diaper that sagged at the bottom, a look that reminded me of a baby version of those wife-beater tank tops that the people being arrested on
Cops
were always wearing.

“You’re co-sleeping,” Missy pressed on. It wasn’t a question, it was a declaration.

“No, he sleeps in his crib,” I said, smiling pleasantly.

All of the mothers stared at me as though I’d just admitted to regularly holding Ben upside down out of a window, dangling him by his toes.

“Bloody hell. You put your baby in a cage?” Velvet asked, her blackened lips forming a surprised O. I wondered how a mother of twins had the time to also put on black eyeliner, mascara, white pancake makeup, and the glittery beauty mark in the shape of a star pasted to her cheek. Since Ben’s arrival, I hardly had time to comb my hair, and my highlights hadn’t been touched up in months.

“Crib, not cage. Crib,” I said. I over-annunciated the words.

“That’s what a crib is. A baby cage. I’ve never understood how any mother could do that, just leave her baby all alone. In a cage. In a dark room,” Missy boomed. The word “mother” was a curled lip sneer. She glared at me, furrowing her small dark eyes over a pugnacious nose.

My skin felt tight over my face, and white flashes of light began to cloud my eyes. I struggled to swallow my anger, not wanting to launch into a rage right in the middle of my very first moms’ group meeting.

“I don’t think a crib is a cage,” I said.

“Hi, everyone, sorry I’m late,” a very tall, very thin woman said, walking into the den.

The newcomer was a pretty woman, with small sharp features and a skinny, pipe-cleaner body. She was wearing tight cropped denim capris and an orange tube top, and had an enormous pair of lightly tinted Chanel sunglasses pushing back her teased inky black hair. A baby who looked to be about the same age as Ben was nestled in her arms. I hoped to God that the child was adopted, because otherwise I was going to spin into a shame spiral. My postpartum body was still lumpy and swollen, a jiggling mass of angry red stretch marks and loose drooping skin, while this woman looked like she was ready to model for a
Sports Illustrated
spread.

Immediately, instinctively, I didn’t like her. If the perfect body hadn’t done it, the tube top would have. My boobs were so stretched out and deflated from nursing that if I tried to wear one, it would have slithered off my breasts and settled around my hips.

“Hi, Cora,” Velvet said.

“This is Sophie, she’s our newest member,” Lucille said.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said, smiling my nicest, fakest smile perfected after three years of college sorority rushes.

Cora smiled at me and shifted her sleeping infant in her arms.

“This is Beatrice. Your son is gorgeous. What’s his name?” Cora asked kindly.

“Ben, short for Benjamin,” I said, and my smile relaxed into its more natural state. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.

“We were just telling Sophie about co-sleeping, and how beneficial it is. It facilitates bonding for the entire family. Our kids have never slept apart from us, and we just love it,” Lucille said, smiling beatifically.

She’d finally buttoned up her voluminous shirt, which I was glad for. I want to be supportive of other women nursing in public, but I was having a hard time getting used to all of the spontaneous nudity. I hadn’t yet gotten up the courage to nurse Ben in front of my mother-in-law—who was as anti-breastfeeding as these women were for it, and had widened her pale eyes with shock when I’d told her at my baby shower that I was planning on nursing Ben—much less whipping out my nipples in front of a roomful of strangers.

“You co-sleep with both of your children?” I asked, eyeing Olivia, who was walking around on her tiptoes, wielding a Popsicle and loudly bossing the other children. She was topless and a red smear ringed her mouth. Olivia had already tried to steal Ben’s stuffed Manhattan Whoozit toy, and I’d had to wrestle it out of her sticky hands when her mother wasn’t looking.

“All three of them. We have another daughter, Jordan, who’s in the fourth grade,” Lucille said.

“You must have a really big bed,” I joked, and laughed nervously.

All of the women just stared at me humorlessly, with the exception of Cora, who snorted.

“The thing I’ve never understood about co-sleeping is how do you have sex? Do you just do it with your kids right there next to you?” Cora asked.

“Well, not while they’re awake, of course,” Lucille said, emitting a tinkling little laugh.

Literally every word the woman said made my skin itch. She was so goddamn patronizing. I felt like stomping her on the foot and marching out of her house. But I was pretty sure that wasn’t acceptable playgroup etiquette.

“There are other places in the house to have sex,” Missy said.

“We never have sex in the bedroom,” Velvet interjected. “After the boys go to sleep in our bed—we have to lie down with them and sing until they drift off—we do it in the kitchen, or the loo, and every once in a while on the staircase.”

I stared at her. Freaky Fake British Goth chick had sex on the staircase? Even Missy the Troll was doing it? Was I the only one whose sex drive had withered up and blown into dust following Ben’s birth? Between my nipples, battered from the constant nursing, to the fat deposits padding my stomach, ass, and thighs, to the exhaustion that seeped through me, the last thing I wanted to do was have sex. Ever again.

“We never had Beatrice in our bed with us. When we brought her home, she spent a few weeks in a bassinet in our room, but she’s a really loud sleeper, and all of her snorting and heavy breathing was keeping Jason awake,” Cora said.

I nodded along while she spoke. “Same here. And I wouldn’t have felt comfortable having Ben in bed with us. I was on pretty strong pain medication after my C-section, and it really knocked me out. I would have been too worried that I’d roll over and smother him,” I said.

“You had a C-section?” Sonya gasped.

“How terrible. I would have been devastated if I hadn’t been able to deliver using the Bradley method,” Lucille tutted.

“I didn’t have a choice. Ben was failing to progress,” I said, feeling ridiculous that I felt I had to explain it. Why was it any of their business anyway? Who were they, the Labor and Delivery Police? And the memory of that otherworldly day—the loud shouts of the nurses as they rushed me to the OR, the frightened look on Aidan’s face, the cold sterility of the bleached white operating room, the plastic mask covering my face while the anesthesiologist instructed me to count to ten—caused the surgical scar that cut horizontally under my pubic hair to twinge. I shoved the recollection aside, before an acid-laced panic attack could start roiling in my stomach, squeezing my chest and filling my lungs until my breath could only escape in short, desperate puffs.

“That’s because you delivered in a hospital,” Velvet said. “Hospitals are so litigation adverse that they’ll cut you open at the slightest provocation. That’s why I had a home birth. It was important to me to have the right birth experience.”

“Birth experience?” I repeated.

“Oh, I agree. And I read somewhere that children born by C-section have problems bonding. It’s really a travesty,” Lucille continued. “Do you know that something like ninety percent of all C-sections are preventable?”

“At least! And then there’s the too-posh-to-push women,” Sonya said. “You know, the ones who actually request to have a C-section because they don’t want to go through labor.”

“You should have insisted on having a vaginal delivery,” Missy barked, glaring at me. “You put your son at unnecessary risk. What if they had cut him while they were operating? That happened to someone I know, the scalpel went right through the uterus and nicked the baby’s ear.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I bleated.

Labor had been progressing normally. Then, all of a sudden, Ben stopped moving. I’d pushed and pushed and pushed, until I thought I’d literally melt away into the rough, hospital-issue white sheets. When my doctor finally arrived—silly me, I’d had the strange idea that the doctor would just stay there the entire time I was in labor, not swan in and out like a socialite making the rounds at a charity event—he stuck his hand up my crotch, rooted around for a moment, and then shouted a curt “Prepare her for surgery” to the nurse. And then all of a sudden nurses were rushing around, shaving me, making me drink a nasty-tasting salty liquid out of a plastic cup, wheeling me down the hallways into the too-bright, freezing-cold operating room.

“I don’t think it’s anyone’s business how Sophie had her baby,” Cora interrupted me, before I could explain.

“Too many women follow their doctor’s advice blindly instead of doing what’s right for their baby,” Missy continued.