With Friends Like These: A Novel (30 page)

It had been years since a man had given me even bad jewelry. This ring was hideous and insignificant, but it was an invitation. I sat back and stared at my almost-full glass of champagne. Who did I think I was?

“The thing is, Artie, we’re more than a twosome,” I said softly, staring into his dark brown eyes. “We’re a threesome.”

He looked puzzled, then unaccountably pleased. “You want a threesome?”

“Do I have to spell it out? I’m pregnant.”

“You’re
what
?”

“You heard me.”

“Not funny, Jules.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Shock and confusion contorted his face as he leaned away from the table, away from me. “You can still get pregnant?”

“Yes, you fuckwit, and it’s yours.”

Carmine was there to revive Arthur when he passed out.

  
Quincy

I opened one eye and watched Jake survey the corpses of four dozen balloons. It looked as if a school of salmon had washed up into our apartment to die. “Q, was there a terrorist attack?”

I pulled my grandmother’s afghan, yellow faded to beige, over my head and stroked Fanny’s back. “There was,” I mumbled, “I’m the terrorist.”

He walked to the couch and curled next to me. Jake is a furnace, and I could feel his warmth through the nubby wool. “I wish I could have been here to see you murder the balloons.”

“You don’t,” I said. After I hung up with Horton, after I screamed and cursed and cried, I attacked each balloon until it surrendered. As I poked and stabbed, I imagined them as members of the committee that had rebuffed us without explanation. But the last two balloons weren’t members of that jury. They were Jules and Arthur, who got it with a razor blade. I sliced my thumb in the process.

“Want to talk about plan B?” Jake asked when a few minutes had passed. He smoothed my hair.

“No.” The word slipped out as a groan. I had no energy to snap.

“Would that be no as in later or no as in not ever?” I didn’t respond. I needed a good, long sulk before I decided the answer, and Jake knew better than to cajole. “Got it,” he said as he pulled away. I heard him go into the bedroom, but soon he emerged and gently closed the front door behind him. My arms were wrapped around my midsection, my mind trying to wish away disappointment, my eyes pressed shut.

When I opened my eyes, the room was dark. I’d fallen into a black hole of a nap. I lay in the stillness, chilled, yet devoid of desire to rouse myself. Regardless, my bladder had a clearer idea. I pushed up slowly on one elbow. That’s when I felt it.

The sensation was neither sharp nor throbbing, clouded by déjà vu. As I shifted position, a warm stickiness dampened my thighs. I didn’t even glance downward. I didn’t want to bear witness. A woman who couldn’t have been me walked to the bathroom, pausing efficiently to grab her cell phone. After she dialed, she pulled down her jeans and pale yellow cotton briefs and squatted on the toilet.

“It’s Quincy Blue,” she said. “For the doctor.” The nurse-receptionist put her on hold and the ghost-woman didn’t protest. She was frozen, with all the time in the world. When the nurse-receptionist returned the woman found the words. “I might be having a miscarriage,” she said with utter calm;
again
, with even higher stakes.

“Dr. Frumkes will call you back,” the nurse said, her voice now buttered with concern. “Please try to stay calm, Mrs. Blue.”

I knew that whether Dr. Frumkes called in five minutes or five hours, what was meant to happen could not be stopped. I hung up and looped between the couch and the bathroom, all the while trying to reconnect with the memory of my mom in the hope that she’d offer consolation and sapient wisdom. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she used to say—that is, before she lost the ability to speak at all—whenever I complained of restlessness. The phrase refused to calm me. “Don’t assume you always know what will happen next,” Mom said, as she often had. But that insight felt tired. I was certain I did.

What would Alice Peterson do? I leaned back on the couch and saw her across from me in the easy chair, her bare feet crossed at her slender ankles. She was about the age I am now, with long blond hair streaming down her back. My mother put down a Dorothy Sayers mystery, marking her place with a grosgrain ribbon, walked to the kitchen, and put water up for tea. When she returned to the living room, she bent low to flip through her albums and pulled one out. Sweet baby James filled the room. Even as a young girl, I instinctively knew that James Taylor reminded her of my father, another James I’d never met but whom I’m told I resemble, the same craggy cheekbones and rangy limbs. Certainly I didn’t inherit my mother’s curvy but slender softness.

I, little orphan Quincy, wanted my mother. I wanted a child—children—so I could become my mother, raising her from the dead with every caress, every loving gesture, and every firm but tender reprimand. When I was pregnant the first time, I’d decided that if one of my daughters was a girl, she’d be Alice Jane, after Mom. I hadn’t changed my mind.

Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon
was playing when Jake returned. “Missing Mommy, huh?” he said.

I nodded, though Mom was never Mother or Ma, Mama or Mommy.

“Takeout okay?” he asked, a large plastic bag swinging in his left hand. Let other people keep their lumpy mashed potatoes, their chicken soup. I have lived in New York a long time. Comfort food means shrimp pad thai turbocharged with tamarind and chili pepper. “Feeling better?” he asked.

Before I could answer, my phone rang. “Quincy, what is it?” Dr. Frumkes asked.

I gave her my report, ending with, “I’m pretty sure, well, not entirely, but worried I’m losing these babies, though nothing much has happened in the last hour.” Bitter experience had taught me this wasn’t necessarily good news.

Jake was waving his arms for attention, his face disconsolate.

“I need to see you,” she said.

“But everything’s quieted down. Honestly. What difference is it going to make?”

There was a long pause. “Then you absolutely must check in with me every hour and, if it comes to that, anytime during the night—if it’s eventful—and of course, first thing in the morning,” she clucked. I love my ob-gyn despite this tic. “You have my cell and home number, correct?”

I told her I did. Both were committed to memory. Jake’s hands flapped with the time-out sign as I spoke. “Shouldn’t we go to the ER?” he mouthed.

“Jake’s wondering if I should go to the emergency room,” I, the obedient wife, asked. “You don’t think it’s necessary, yet?” I repeated for his benefit. “Yes, I can be patient.” Jake looked anything but. “Of course I’ll lie low.”

“When did this start, Q?” he asked as I hung up.

What did it matter? “Maybe an hour ago, or a little before.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go right now to see the doctor?”

“I know the drill. I’ll see her the instant I really have to, I promise.”

There was nothing more to say. I settled back on the couch. Jake brought me dinner on a tray. We ate in silence. I made another short but dramatic trip to the bathroom, and then the action stopped. I read, choosing
The Murder at the Vicarage
, and eventually Miss Marple and I went to bed, fingering the delicate necklace—three tiny diamonds on a thread of gold chain—that Jake had given me the week before. One stone for each baby, Peanut, Speck, and Jubilee.

To my surprise, I slept through the night and woke to the whir of a coffee grinder. Towels beneath me were dry. I moved at a glacial pace, sitting, standing. Jake heard me and rushed to my side, clasping my elbow as if I were ninety-five.

“Honey,” I said. I tried to smile but failed. His solicitude, well-intentioned as it might be, rankled. “I’m not going to break,” I said, perhaps because I already had in every way that counted. Jake left the room.

I washed my face and stared in the mirror. Dark circles, a pallor. I ran a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth, and wrapped myself in a ratty navy velour robe. When I came out, the table had been set. Raspberry jam glistened in a small white crock. Jake had scrambled eggs. Tucked into a
linen napkin, monogrammed
AP
, were pieces of golden toast nestled like babies in a bunting.

He poured my coffee. Decaf, of course, but surprisingly good. “Do you want to call the doctor before you eat?” he asked.

It was not quite seven. “I’ll wait a few minutes,” I said, and we ate leisurely, exchanging sections of
The New York Times
and
Wall Street Journal
. Jake looked up twice as if to say,
Now—call now
.

I dragged out the meal so long that Dr. Frumkes called me. “What’s happening?” she asked.

I described my unexceptional night, listened, and hung up the phone. “She wants to see me before her regular patients,” I said. Jake started to speak, but I interrupted. “You don’t have to come along,” I said. “I know you have depositions today.”

“An associate can handle it.” He sagged with disappointment. “I want to be with you.”

Having Jake by my side would make it harder. Without him, I’d be more able to impersonate a woman possessing the brute force of courage. “I won’t disintegrate. I can do it alone.”

Jake is a proud man, a strong man, a tender man. “Those are my babies, too,” he almost whispered.

“You’re not going to change my mind.” I tried to speak with love. I believe I succeeded.

“I want to come.”

“Not this time.”

A half hour later I was sitting, alone, in one of my doctor’s examination rooms. As soon as she walked into the room, my determination washed away. “Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked in a gush of tears. “It’s not as if I’m sniffing formaldehyde.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s have a look. Feet in the stirrups.” The internal exam was brief, followed by the usual.

“Pain?”

“No.”

“Bleeding?”

“Off and on. But it stopped.”

“Dizziness?”

“No.”

“Fever?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t take my temperature.” I should have.

“Weakness?” Dr. Frumkes asked. I nodded. “I feel all wobbly.”

“Excuse me,” she said. She walked out of the room, leaving me to flip through a two-month-old copy of a magazine featuring shots of unbearably adorable infants and toddlers of every race held by their diverse and frequently famous parents. Every family had a dog as photogenic as they were. I was debating checking out the “Picky Eater Tool Kit” when Dr. Frumkes returned.

She stuck an instant-read thermometer into my mouth. “Normal,” she said. “That’s good. Now here’s the deal.” She clucked as she placed her hand on my shoulder. I took stock of her gel nail tips and tried not to hold them against her. “I’ll be straight. I don’t like what I’m seeing here, Quincy.” I held my breath. “But until we do a sono, I won’t have a definitive answer.”

She’d strayed off script. Past speeches had always pivoted around
miscarriage
. Her face was calm as a cake. Then again, it had been aided and abetted by every wrinkle filler that’s known a hypodermic needle. I thought about how Jules and I used to laugh about this at Dr. Frumkes’ expense, and it infuriated me that even now, Jules had barged into the examining room, though it was I who’d invited her. Damn Jules—why had she given me reason to despise her? Jules is made of tough stuff. If she’d been here, it might have been better. I shut down that thought in one blink.

“I know this is very worrisome and painful,” Dr. F. went on to say, “but it is what it is. I’ve arranged for your test.” She handed me a piece of paper with the address. “Right away.”

When I reached the reception room, there was Jake.

  
Talia