This Glittering World (12 page)

O
n Saturday, Ben and Sara drove down to Phoenix to get a crib. It seemed to Ben a little early to be buying furniture, but she was determined. She had been shopping for smaller items for weeks. Every day it seemed there was more stuff piling up in their room: pacifiers, tiny diapers, baby wipes and powder and stuffed animals.

They could have ordered the crib online, but Sara insisted on going to the Babies “R” Us in Scottsdale and picking one out there. Besides, this way they could have lunch with her mom, and she could come along to help them pick it out. They might even get a little bit of Christmas shopping done.

As far as Ben was concerned, the only bearable time to be in Phoenix is in the winter. But Phoenix at Christmastime was one of the strangest things Ben had ever experienced. Growing up in Maryland, they didn’t always get snow for Christmas, but they always got cold weather. In Phoenix, it was like some Disneyland version of the holiday, twinkling lights on cacti, fake pine garlands strung around lampposts, Santas in sunglasses, sweating inside their suits on every street corner.

They pulled up at Sara’s parents’ house at noon, and Jeanine came running to the front door. She hadn’t seen Sara since Thanksgiving, and she immediately went for the belly. “Let me see, let me see!”

There really wasn’t much of a difference in Sara’s stomach.

She’d rounded out all over, but the actual belly remained pretty much the same.

Sara put her hands on her hips, jutted her stomach out, and let her mother touch it.

“Oh my goodness!” Jeanine said. “We should pick up some maternity clothes while we’re out today too. It won’t be long before you won’t be able to fit into your jeans anymore. How are you feeling? Still sick?”

“Better. It kind of comes and goes. Some days are fine, and other days I’m throwing up all day.”

“Well, come in. I’ll make some iced tea and we can sit out by the pool for a bit.”

And then, as if just now remembering that Ben was also there, she stopped and said, “And how are
you,
Ben?” before she hugged him.

Before Sara, Ben had not seen this kind of wealth. His own family had been middle class, living in a neighborhood of modest brick Cape Cods, all built in the same year, identical except for the color of the trim around the windows. He’d had some friends at Georgetown with money, but the ones who were rich didn’t talk about it much, and their families didn’t live in DC, so he never saw their houses.

The house Sara grew up in could have held two or three of the houses in Ben’s neighborhood. It was on the country club where Frank golfed, and looked liked something in a Southwestern version of
The Great Gatsby.
The front doors were enormous, with leaded glass windows, flanked on either side by thick-trunked palm trees and giant stone pots filled with flowers. Inside was the great room with vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and a double stairwell. Six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a library, and a billiards room. There were fireplaces in most rooms, despite the fact that they were almost never used.

It was a ridiculously beautiful home; he knew it embarrassed Sara a little. Ben would never have guessed that she had grown up in a house with a gourmet kitchen and a garage that could hold five cars. She was driving the same Camry she drove when he met her.

Ben’s favorite part of the house, the only part where he felt truly at ease, was on the back patio. It was a huge open area, both indoors and outdoors at the same time. With comfortable chairs, an outdoor fireplace, a glistening pool, and an outdoor kitchen fully equipped with a gas grill and refrigerator, Ben thought he could probably live happily on this back patio.

Jeanine busied herself with the iced tea in the kitchen while Sara and Ben made their way to the back. Sara plopped down in a wooden deck chair and slipped off her flip-flops. “It is so beautiful today,” she said, smiling. “God, I forgot how much I miss the weather down here.”

Ben sat next to her and stretched. It
was
a beautiful day. Maybe he could convince Jeanine and Sara to go shopping without him, leave him there to drink Coronas by the pool all day.

“What’s your dad up to?” he asked her.

“Golf tournament,” she said. “He’ll be back by dinner.”

“Are we staying for dinner tonight?”

“I told you that,” she said, exasperated. “Dad’s grilling salmon.”

Ben shrugged. Now that school was finally over, he had little on his plate. He had worked at the bar every day this week and gave his Saturday night shift to Ned. “It’s fine,” he said. “I just forgot.”

Jeanine came out with the iced tea on a silver serving tray with a little white bowl of lemon slices.

“Well, where do you need to go to today?” she asked.

“I want to pick out our crib. Daddy said he’d buy the crib and changing table for us. I also want to start looking at strollers and car seats. If we have time after, I thought I might get started on some of my Christmas shopping.”

Ben sighed. Sara hadn’t mentioned that Frank would be footing the bill for the furniture. He didn’t know whether he should be pissed or relieved. “Maybe I can wait here for your dad,” he said.

Sara laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Come with us, Ben,” Jeanine said. “It’ll be fun.”

Four hours later, Ben sat in a glider in the furniture department of Babies “R” Us, listening to the Muzak wafting down through the speakers. He racked his brain, trying to figure out what it was. Prince. That’s it. “When Doves Cry.” Christ. At least it wasn’t Christmas carols.

Jeanine and Sara, who had not lost an ounce of steam, were discussing the various types of mattresses available: pillow-top, vibrating, ones that sang the baby lullabies. Finally, when she had decided on the cherry sleigh crib that would later convert into a toddler bed, Sara pulled Ben out of the chair. They went to the service desk to arrange for delivery, and she gave the salesman her parents’ address.

“Why are you having it shipped there?” he asked.

Sara waved her hand dismissively. “It’s just easier. We don’t need it right away. We can come down and pick it up when we’re ready.”

Ben shrugged and said to Jeanine, “Thank you. For this. It’s very generous.”

Jeanine made an identical gesture of dismissal. “This is my
grandchild.
I’d give him the moon. What’s a place to sleep?”

“It might not be a boy, Mom,” Sara said.

“But it
might
be,” she said.

Back at the house, Frank was already outside at the grill, sporting flip-flops and his golfer’s tan.

“Dr. Bailey,”
he said. “These ladies managed to drag you along today, huh?”

Ben smiled and eyed the fish, which was marinating in something that smelled really good. He patted Frank on the back. “You need some help?”

“You can help me drink this beer,” he said, gesturing to a silver bucket full of ice and Coronas. “The limes are in the fridge,” Frank said.

Jeanine and her mother disappeared into the house to go through the loot from the day. Ben had anxiously watched as Sara loaded up the cart with little clothes, a hundred-dollar ear thermometer, and zillion-thread-count crib sheets. He’d cringed a little when Jeanine got out her wallet to pay, but he also knew exactly how much was (and wasn’t) in their checking account.

Ben opened up a beer, squeezed a lime in, and watched the foam rise to the top of the bottle. He stared through the pale-colored liquid. It made everything look golden.

“So has Sara talked to you about New Year’s at all?” Frank asked.

“Not really,” he said. “We’ll probably be coming down here for Christmas again, I expect. But I don’t think we have plans for New Year’s yet.”

The last few years, they’d spent Christmas Eve in Kachina with Melanie and then driven down to Phoenix the next day. Ben would have preferred to stay at home, but Sara had never been away from her family for a Christmas before. New Year’s Eve was sacred, though. They went downtown and watched the giant pinecone drop off the balcony at the Weatherford Hotel and spent the next day watching football.

Frank nodded. “So she hasn’t dropped the bomb yet?” he asked.

“What bomb?” Ben asked.

“Well, here comes the little missile right now,” Frank said and winked as Sara and her mother came outside, each carrying a salad.

They sat at the table by the pool. The fish was incredible, and the beer tasted good as the heat of the afternoon fell around their shoulders. Ben waited.

“So Sara tells me you aren’t going to be at the university next spring,” Jeanine said, offering Ben some more potato salad.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I’m really burned out. You can really only be an adjunct for so long before you start to lose your mind.”

“Overworked and underpaid,” Frank said.

“Well, I don’t know about overworked, but you got the underpaid part right.”

“Do you have any plans yet?” Jeanine asked, and Ben felt suddenly like a tennis ball, bouncing from one side of the table to the next.

“Well, I still have the job at Jack’s. Business really picks up in the winter with all the traffic going through town from the mountain,” he said. He didn’t mention the job opening at the museum.

“Do you like working at the bar, Ben?” Jeanine served.

“Jesus H. Christ, why don’t you stop pussyfooting around here?” Frank volleyed.

“Daddy,”
Sara said, her face clearly anxious about something.

“What’s going on?” Ben asked.

“Sara?” Jeanine said. “I think you better tell him.”

Sara stared at the gray skin of her salmon, at the wilted lemon rinds.

Frank clapped his hands together. “Sara’s applied for a position at Children’s. And if she gets it, I’d like you to come down here and work for me.” There was the drop shot.

Ben looked at Sara, who would not look up.

“Sara?” he said. “What is he talking about?”

“It’s a great job, and after the baby comes, I can transition to part-time. And Daddy’s opening a new dealership right near the hospital. A specialty shop dealing in imports and antiques. Isn’t that great? And the best part is, you would be in charge. It would be
your
shop. It’s opening right after New Year’s.”

Ben put his face in his hands and rubbed hard at his temples. “What the hell, Sara? I’m sorry,” he said to Jeanine. “But Jesus, Sara. You wait until we’re sitting here to spring this on me? Don’t you think that we should be discussing this at home? Alone?”

“I thought you’d be happy,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity.

“I have a PhD, Sara. In
history.
I don’t know the first thing about selling cars.”

“You work at a
bar,”
she said angrily. Her voice was rising into that angry octave above her normal speaking voice. “Good thing you have that PhD. You’d never be able to mix a screwdriver without that.”

“Sara,” Jeanine reprimanded.

“If you haven’t noticed,” Sara said, standing up, “we’re having a baby. It’s time to grow the fuck up, Ben. Sorry, Mom.” And then she stormed into the house, leaving Ben alone with Frank and Jeanine.

“Well,” Frank said, sitting back in his chair and stretching.

“How about some sorbet?” Jeanine asked.

T
he drive up to Flagstaff that night was silent. Sara pretended to sleep, using her jacket as a pillow against the window, and Ben fumed. Sara was a lot of things lately: bitter, sarcastic, moody. But he’d never seen her be dishonest or underhanded before. He thought about her covertly submitting her résumé to Children’s, making plans with her dad. For all he knew, they’d picked out a house for them. Probably right next door. That’s why she didn’t bother having the crib shipped to Flagstaff. And then, as the landscape began to change—saguaros replaced by Ponderosa pines, desert assenting to snow-covered ground—he was hit with a horrific realization. Maybe she’d planned
all
of this. Maybe the pregnancy hadn’t been an accident at all. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought about this before: the possibility that
this
was her way of getting what she wanted. That maybe it wasn’t dumb luck or a blessed life at all. Maybe she was just a manipulative liar.

He looked at her, curled into herself and leaning against the passenger door of the truck. He turned the radio on, to a station she hated, and waited to see if she’d stir. Nothing. He thought about slamming on the brakes, jarring her out of her pretend dreams. He thought, though briefly, of smashing the truck into a tree.

Finally, as if reading his mind, she sat up and turned to him. She said softly, “You know, I might not even get the job.”

“What?”

“I didn’t tell you yet because I don’t even know if I’ll get the job. It’s pointless to get all worked up when I don’t even know if they’re going to want me.”

She sat up straighter and pulled her coat on. Ben could feel the air growing colder, but he didn’t turn on the heat.

“What on earth makes you think I would agree to move to Phoenix and work for your father?”

“That’s the good thing, Ben. You wouldn’t be. You’d be running the place. It would be your shop. And you love antique cars. You could keep the truck. We’d be close to my folks, so my mom could watch the baby while I work.”

She had clearly been formulating this argument for a while now.

“I think a better question is why you
wouldn’t
want to do this,” she said.

“What the hell does that mean? I hate Phoenix. I hate the heat. I spent five years getting a degree I might never use again if we do this. There are a zillion reasons why I wouldn’t want to do this.”

Sara rolled her eyes.

“What?” he asked, staring at her.

“Keep your eyes on the road.” She gasped, gripping the dash.

He had drifted over into the next lane and had to yank the wheel to correct.

“I’m just wondering if maybe there’s something else keeping you in Flagstaff,” she said quietly.

“Like what?”

Sara looked at Ben, her face angry, but her eyes wet. “I don’t know, Ben. I don’t know. But ever since Halloween, you’ve been so weird. At first I thought it was just finding that guy, you know? How awful that was. But it’s different. It’s like when you’re with me, you’re not really with me. It’s like your body is walking around doing stuff, and you’re saying stuff, but your mind is on something else.” She paused and looked down at her lap, touched her stomach with her hand. “Or someone else.”

“Christ,” Ben said, gripping the wheel tighter. They were pulling into town. “What are you accusing me of? Exactly?”

“Nothing,” Sara said. She stared at her hands.

Ben felt a sharp pain in his temples.

She reached and touched his leg. “I just … I just miss you. I miss us. And it’s even worse now because of the baby. I just want everything to be normal and okay. I just want for you to be happy. For us both to be happy. Why is that so hard?”

Ben thought about waking up in Shadi’s trailer, about the softness of her blankets against his naked skin. About the sunlight filtered through the dark veil of her hair. He thought about the smell of coffee lingering from the night before. He thought about the geometry of her collarbones, her hips.
Hap
piness. That was the last time he’d felt happy, felt the promise of a life about to begin.

Sara lifted her hand from his leg and turned to face the window. They didn’t speak the rest of the way.

At home, Sara ran straight to the bathroom and slammed the door. He could hear her vomiting, the awful sound of her gagging and then spilling and splashing into the toilet. He knocked gently on the door when it was over.

“Go away, Ben,” she said.

“Sara.”

“Just let me be.”