Feminine hygiene. She slowed the cart down in that aisle, grabbed a box of tampons, and was just about at the end of the aisle when she stopped to look right at what she now had to admit to herself was what she had really come into the drugstore to buy. An EPT. Early pregnancy test. My God, what if what she was fearing was true? Her period was only a little late, and at her age, as Howie Kramer had reminded her more than once, she was premenopausal, so the irregularity was to be expected. But maybe she should buy it as a catalyst. Surely buying one of those tests, wasting the seventeen dollars, would be exactly what she had to do to bring her period on. But she knew she was playing games with herself, because there was no doubt in her mind that she was absolutely, unequivocally, one-thousand-percent pregnant. At age forty-two.
She remembered the feeling from the early stages of both her pregnancies, which now seemed as if they were a million years ago. That bloated, weary, swollen-breasted, full-of-tears, moody feeling, and she didn't need an EPT to tell her it was so. Stan, she imagined herself saying, I'm pregnant. What in the world would
he say to that? Hooray? After all, he had suggested the idea of their having another baby not very long ago. But he was kidding when he said it, she reminded herself. He was thinking about buying second homes and traveling and running through the house naked.
How about, Guess what, Heidi, I'm pregnant! That would be the hardest of all. After her own failed engagement and her childhood friend having a new baby girl. A few months ago she was the one who was looking at apartments with room for a nursery. Heidi would look at her, her mouth hanging open in shock, and say, "No way!" She'd be mortified.
Yes, she thought. Maybe if she bought the test she'd get her period. She threw the EPT into her shopping cart and made her way toward the cashier. But before she got there she stopped back at the feminine hygiene aisle, took the big blue box of tampons out of her cart, and put it back on the shelf.
That night at home, she looked at her swollen naked breasts in the full-length mirror on the back of her bathroom door, and then looked down at the body that had carried and brought forth Heidi twenty-four years earlier and Jeff seventeen years earlier. Her body, which was undeniably a little too round in the belly, too wide in the waist, too meaty around the hips, and had no tone whatsoever anywhere else, and she wondered what would become of it after a mid-life pregnancy.
Dear God, she thought, I don't think I can do this. When this child is seven years old, I'll be a fifty-year-old woman. Babies cry all night. Babies feed on demand. Babies require constant care every minute. Am I ready to give up the travel I postponed, first to have kids, then to go to school, and then because I was too busy at work?
Just as I was getting to the point in my life where I could take a big deep breath. Her breasts pulsed with a
hot ache from deep inside. So soon into the pregnancy. A baby who will come forcing its way into the world past gray pubic hairs. No! The pubic hairs would be shaved. Oh please. She'd forgotten
that
indignity and the enema that went with it, and the awful itch when the hair started to grow in. And that was the least of the physical discomfort.
Years of no sleep, potty training, the terrible twos. Maybe this is PMS, she thought. Maybe my forty-two-year-old hormones are so out of whack they're causing me to lose my mind. Maybe they're making me imagine that I could actually still be fertile. She took the early pregnancy test out of the bag and looked at the box, opened it, and took out the directions. She had picked this particular test because it didn't require her to use her first morning urine, the way some of them did. This was one she could do at any time. Like right now.
She removed the funny dipstick from the box, watching herself in the mirror as if it were someone else performing this bizarre act. Then she locked the bathroom door so Stan wouldn't pop in on her, and then found that she didn't remotely have any urge to urinate. In fact she was certain she couldn't have squeezed out even a drop. For a long time she stood leaning against the tile counter, staring at herself, wondering what to do.
Pregnant. Mother, I'm pregnant. Gracie would probably laugh at her, then tell her about all the other cultures where older women had babies. No, she wouldn't tell Gracie, or Heidi or Jeff yet. When she found out if she was pregnant, which she knew she was, she would tell Stan and discuss the truth, which was that having a baby at this stage of their lives was probably a big mistake.
Dr. Gwen Phillips was in her late thirties. When Barbara was being escorted from the reception area to an examin
ing room, after a wait that was only as long as it took to fill out a few forms, she passed the young female gynecologist's office and saw the doctor at her desk holding a baby boy.
"That's the doctor's son," the nurse told Barbara.
Maybe I'm lulling myself into a false sense of security here, Barbara thought, feeling defiant and proud of herself for finally breaking the Howie Kramer cycle, but I like this doctor already and I haven't even met her yet. When she'd undressed and was seated on the table, the first thing she noticed was the little knitted bootielike casings around each of the stirrups. Obviously they were put there to make the damn things feel a little softer and warmer. When Gwen Phillips entered, she was carrying a pillow which she gently placed behind Barbara's back.
"Mrs. Singer," she said. "I just checked your urine, and I hope this is good news. You're pregnant."
"I know," Barbara said. "I knew before I did the early pregnancy test. I've been trying to figure out how I got so careless. And frankly I'm not so sure if it's good news or not."
"Tell me your concerns and maybe I can help," the doctor said.
Howie Kramer, Barbara thought, you will never see me again. At least not without my pants on. "My concerns. Well, let's see, where do I start? My daughter is twenty-four and my son is seventeen. When I tell them, they'll probably disown me. I have a full-time career, and clients who really need me. I was recently entertaining the thought of retirement so I could do nothing for a few years. I will probably have to wear glasses to see my own baby. I dye my hair to get rid of the gray and I know for a fact that's unhealthy for pregnancies, and most of all, I don't want to interrupt my sleep on Saturday mornings to watch 'Smurfs.' "
The pretty young doctor was serious. "Are you saying you want to terminate the pregnancy?''
Barbara felt a distant wave of nausea heading in her direction. "I don't know what I'm saying. I mean, I thought I was on my way to being a grandmother. Granted, an early grandmother, but not this. A mommy, again. I mean . . . listen, I wanted to come in just to be sure that I was, but now that I know that I truly am . . . I have to think this through."
"If it helps, I can assure you that I've delivered many healthy babies to women your age and much older too, and with proper prenatal care and testing, the pregnancies and the deliveries have been problem-free."
"Oh, it's not the pregnancy or the delivery, though I'll admit they worry me a little," Barbara said. "It's really the time after the pregnancy and delivery that worries me. The part where they look at you one day and say, 'Mom, get off my case.' "
The doctor smiled. "I understand," she said. "Listen, why don't I give you a prescription for some prenatal vitamins and you can call me in a few days and we can talk about it some more." After she wrote the prescription, the doctor shook Barbara's hand, said to call her at any time day or night if she just needed a sounding board about the pregnancy, and left the room.
"You have great hair," Barbara said to her, but the doctor didn't hear that because she was already out the door and on to put a pillow behind the back of her next patient.
44
R
UTHIE WAS ALONE in the Zimmerman and Milton cubbyhole of an office at the network trying to make the script come together, but it wasn't happening. Her face throbbed with exhaustion, and she was wondering if the fluorescent lights were really dimming or if her eyes were going bad from too many hours of close work when she heard someone walking down the hall. Probably it was the night-shift guard checking to see who was left in the building. Maybe she would knock off now, gather her things together and ask the guard to walk her out to her car. It was late and she'd been so engrossed, she'd forgotten to check in at home. Both Shelly and Sid would be asleep by now.
The footsteps stopped and she looked up, sure it was a mirage when she saw Louie Kweller.
"I was already in the parking lot when I spotted your light on up here so I came to say hello," he said. "I guess we're the only two fanatics who work this late."
"Hi," she said, surprised at how happy she was to see him, and worried about how bad she must look, since she'd been sitting in that same spot for the last six hours, and her hair was probably frizzed out to the moon.
"So what's happening?" he asked as if they'd just bumped into each other on a street corner instead of in the back-hall offices at CBS, at what Ruthie, without looking at a clock, knew had to be at least two in the morning.
"What's happening is that I can't figure out how to end the second act," she said.
"Well, let's see," Louie said, and she could tell by his expression that he was searching for something cute to say. "How about if she runs into a guy she knew a long time ago, and she can't believe that she never noticed before what a sexy hunk he is? He's crazy about her, always has been, so she starts dating him and the next thing you know, they get married, and have a few kids together. She already has one kid, and he's so happy to have siblings that he thrives. Then they all live happily ever after, because their life is made into a movie of the week."
"I'll use it," she said. "Have your agent call me to negotiate the fee."
Louie wandered over and sat in Shelly's chair across from her, right under the needlepoint sampler that said
DYING IS EASY, COMEDY IS HARD.
The night was very black outside and Ruthie looked at the window's reflection of her messy office and Louie leaning back in the chair as he gazed at her. The fluorescent lights hummed like crickets.
"Listen," he said after a while, "I don't want to do something bad to Shelly. He's a terrific man. Talented and smart and a good person. I also think your loyalty to him is awesome. But as far as we know, we each
only get one life, and maybe you ought to think about having some romance in yours. Maybe even another baby. I'll make a baby with you, or two or three."
"Louie," she said, looking at his serious face and wishing she didn't feel like crying. "You don't even know me. I'm overwhelming, I'm needy, I crack dumb jokes at all the wrong times. I look ugly in the morning, not just sleepy but like a beast. I go on strange diets that make me cranky, or should I say crankier because I can be a complete bitch, and I may need some expensive dental work coming up in the near future."
"I understand that you feel that way, and I just want to go on record as telling you you're my favorite person in Hollywood. I think you're funnier than Joan Rivers, deeper than Anjelica Huston, sweeter than Melanie Griffith, and—"
"Taller than Danny DeVito," Ruthie said.
"Yeah. That too."
"See, I told you I make dumb jokes."
"Unfortunately for you I happen to like that in a woman. In fact I like it a lot. In the old days at the Comedy Store, I used to have the wildest crush on you. Remember the night a zillion years ago when Frankie Levy did your run about supermarkets?"
Did she remember? "It was the night Shelly and I got our first prime-time television job," she said.
"Well, I wanted to come over to you right after Frankie walked offstage, grab you, and take you away to an island somewhere and jump on you, but Eddie Shindler was doing my stuff next so I had to watch him."
"You mean you put
your
career before
my
sex life?" she teased.
"You and Shelly must have left early that night, because I looked for you, and when you were gone I
felt like a jerk and just figured maybe I ought to leave you alone, so here I am, how many years later? Don't answer that, and I'm making another try for you and that island. So what do you say?"
"I say it's a pretty thought, Louie, but I don't think I can accept."
"I'll tell you what. Why don't you ask Shelly about it? Talk to him. I know for a fact that he loves you. So maybe you should ask him if you shouldn't spend some time with me to see if you like me, and I guarantee you he'll say you should go for it. And, Ruthie, I promise you, if it works out with us, when the time comes and Shelly needs you to take care of him, I'll never resent one minute of your doing that. I'll help you do it. I'll support your doing it. Only I'm asking you to not give up your own life now in anticipation of that time."
"Louie, I've trusted too many people who disappointed me. Your speech about the Comedy Store and the island is great. And I mean it as a compliment when I tell you it sounds just like something one of the characters from your show would say. I wish with my soul that you meant it, and maybe you do. But in my repertoire of feelings, the ability to be swept away by romantic love doesn't exist anymore."
"I understand," Louie said softly. "I understand. So why don't I walk you to your car?"
Shelly was having the time of his life with the computer. The woman Ruthie hired from the Writers' Computer Store spent three afternoons with him, and by the time she left after their third session, he was up and running on what had a week earlier been "the dreaded machine." Ruthie could hear him in his room, now and then emitting a "this is incredible," dazzled by his own prowess. Sometimes he would come and get her and
make her stand behind him to observe the magic tricks of moving and editing text, telling her that this gift made up for all the toys he never had as a kid.
She no longer went to work fearing she was leaving him at home to watch daytime television. In fact when she called him from the office, he would talk to her in a kind of mindless answering-the-questions-without-listening style that she knew meant he was being distracted by the computer.