Well, it won’t be forever. Rosalee’s getting married, and you’re leaving. Heck, maybe you’ll be in a South American rain forest yourself next year at this time.
The curtains stir softly in a slight breeze at the open window. She can hear sirens in the distance, and the rumble of a subway train over on Thirty-first Street. A passing car in the street sends a shaft of light angling across the ceiling and down the wall.
Nina punches her pillow beneath her cheek, then lifts her head to check the glowing digital clock on the nightstand. Three-thirty A.M. Just beyond, a gently snoring lump that is her sister lies huddled beneath the quilt in the other bed.
Why can Rosalee sleep?
Why can’t Nina?
It’s Joe, darn it.
He’s the reason she can’t sleep.
Joe, with his constant talk about settling down and starting a family.
Tonight, the way he was talking . . . well, Nina almost got the impression that he’s already counting on falling in love with Susannah and marrying her. Why else would he ask Nina to be his best man? Best woman, that is.
She doesn’t want to be his best woman.
Not if he’s going to get married just for the hell of it. Just so he’ll have a woman who can give him the family he always wanted. Just so that he can get hurt again.
How’s Nina going to pick up the pieces next time, from the opposite side of the globe?
Besides, doesn’t Joe realize that women are supposed to be the ones with the ticking biological clocks?
Hell, even Nina has a ticking biological clock. Not that she’s going to do anything about it . . .
But she can’t help being fully conscious of the fact that she’s not getting any younger. That any year now, she’s going to wake up and realize it’s too late to have a baby.
But you don’t even want a baby.
Do you?
Of course you don’t!
She’s had her fill of bottles and diapers. Dominic wasn’t even potty trained yet when Mommy died.
And then there was Ralphie, a needy newborn . . .
And Rosalee, a troubled adolescent, left motherless just at a time when she needed Mommy most . . .
And Peter, who was always Mom’s unofficial favorite, missing her attention desperately, and holding everything in . . .
Nina’s work was cut out for her back then. It was all she could do to take care of herself, what with worrying about her siblings, and Pop.
Quite simply, it’s never been about Nina.
Never been about what Nina wants.
So she can’t possibly even think she might want a baby. Because then it will be about the baby. What the baby wants. What the baby needs.
Nina’s already been there, done that, thank you very much.
And anyway . . .
She doesn’t have a husband. Or a boyfriend.
So a baby is out of the question.
Isn’t it?
Well, isn’t it?
There’s always Joey, a small voice pipes up from some muffled, remote place deep inside of her. You can always have a baby with Joey.
No!
Not with Joey.
For Joey.
You can always have a baby for Joey.
Having a baby with Joey is something else altogether.
But having a baby for Joey . . .
Well, that would certainly take care of the biological clock thing.
It might even . . .
Nina can feel herself trembling.
It might even make her feel closer to her mother.
She has a sudden image of Mommy, looking like a beautiful, serene Madonna in a flowing maternity dress.
Nina swipes a hand at the warm, sticky tears that are spilling down her cheeks.
When did she start crying?
Why is she crying?
It’s about Mommy.
Well, of course it is. It’s always about Mommy, when Nina cries. It’s always about longing for what might have been.
About needing her Mommy, even now, as a grown woman. Needing Mommy’s comfort, and Mommy’s approval, and Mommy’s unconditional love.
Needing to feel close to her, to understand her, to grasp what she was like as a woman—not just as a mother.
Oh, how Nina longs to really know Rosemarie Chickalini, to see her not through a little girl’s eyes but through a woman’s eyes.
If only her mother left something behind. Anything. A diary, an old letter, even a daily calendar filled with notes.
But there was nothing.
Nina checked, countless times.
Back before Aunt Carm emptied out Mommy’s bureau and Uncle Mario and Pop crammed it into Nina and Rosalee’s room, Nina used to hunt through it on a regular basis. She distinctly remembers drawers filled with lingerie that smelled faintly of perfume if you buried your face in it, and fuzzy sweaters that were soft against your cheek.
But there was no diary to provide a peek into her private thoughts; there were no love letters to offer a surprising glimpse of a passionate soul. She often said that Pop was her only romance, and that they were never separated from the moment they met.
“What was the happiest day of your life, Mommy?” Nina loved to ask when she was a little girl.
The reply was always the same. “I’ve had lots of happy days,” Mommy used to say. “My wedding day, and the day that each of you were born.”
The day Ralphie was born, as Mommy was leaving for the hospital, her face wracked with pain, Nina kissed her and said, “It’s going to be another happiest day of your life.”
Mommy managed a wan smile and nodded.
That, of course, hadn’t turned out to be the happiest day of anyone’s life. It had been the worst.
Her body wracked with sobs, Nina rolls toward the night table, reaching for a tissue. Sniffling, she wipes her streaming eyes and nose, careful not to wake Rosalee.
Why would Nina ever want to have a baby when having a baby was what killed her mother?
Once, a few years after Mommy died, Nina said almost the same thing to Pop late one night as they walked home from the restaurant together.
Pop shocked her by saying, “Your mother wouldn’t have done anything differently even if she’d known what was going to happen, Nina.”
“What do you mean?”
“She always said she was meant to have babies. Lots and lots of babies. She said there was nothing better than to feel a tiny life growing inside of her. And she’d have given her life for any one of you. Ralphie, too.”
“She did give her life for him. She never got a chance to know him. She never even got to be his mother.”
“He was a gift. The gift she left behind,” Pop said, his voice thick with emotion. “She’ll live on forever through him.”
The gift she left behind.
Nina rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling.
Tonight, when Joe asked her if she’d have a baby for him, she actually, impulsively, said yes.
Truth be told, what she had said was, “Maybe I will.”
She hadn’t really meant it, of course.
Had she?
Of course not.
She had just said it because . . .
Well, because Joe saved Pop’s life. And he bailed them out financially, and he took over running the restaurant, and he wouldn’t accept anything in return. But Pop has always felt beholden to Joe—the whole family has. And Nina has always thought that someday, she might have a chance to pay him back, somehow. To do him a huge favor.
Like having his baby? That’s huge, all right.
And not quite what Nina had in mind.
But what Joey did for the Chickalinis was huge, too. Thousands of dollars’ worth of huge. Weeks’ worth of his time huge. Life
and death huge.
Which is why, when he asked Nina to have his baby, she found herself saying, “Maybe I will.”
Good thing Joey didn’t hear.
Otherwise, he might want to take her up on it.
Yeah.
Good thing.
You don’t want a baby.
No, but you want to have a baby.
Joey can’t have a baby.
Joey wants a baby so badly he’s actually considering a surrogate.
He saved Pop’s life.
You owe him a favor.
In a little over nine months, it’ll be too late to pay him back, because you’ll be gone.
Meaning, you have nine months left to think of some way to repay him for all he’s done.
Nine months. . .
Chapter Five
“OKAY, WHAT’D YOU want to talk to me about?” At last, Joe plops down beside Nina on the park bench.
She looks at the hot dog he just stopped to buy from a vendor.
“What’s the matter? Now you want one? I asked you,” he reminds her. “You said you weren’t hungry, which I didn’t believe in the first place, since you’re always—”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am. I’m starved.” He balances the hot dog on his sweatpant-clad knee and wedges his bottled water between his thighs, then tries to rip open a plastic packet of mustard. It refuses to tear. He puts it between his teeth and tugs. Still nothing. “I swear these things are made of some kind of impermeable plastic that’s meant to drive a person—”
“Give me that.” Nina snatches the mustard from his hand, looking exasperated. In one simple, deft movement, she opens it and hands it back to him.
“Thanks.” Joe squirts some down the length of his hot dog, then looks up to find her watching him wearing a supremely ticked-off expression. “What’s the matter, Neens?”
“I have to talk to you.” She pushes her dark bangs back from her face, looking impatient. “Remember? That’s why we’re here.”
“I know that’s why we’re here. Otherwise, I’d still be playing basketball with Paulie and Danny. Who, by the way, were pretty pissed off at you for dragging me off the court. And anyway, isn’t this Saturday? How come you’re not at work?”
“I’m going in a few minutes. Listen, Joey, this is important,” Nina shoves her black sunglasses up over her forehead, transforming them into a makeshift headband to keep the hair out of her face.
Now that he can see her eyes, Joe notices that they’re bloodshot and underscored by dark circles.
He instantly feels a twinge of guilt. They didn’t leave McMurphy’s until one in the morning last night. Nina was ready to go after the Yankees won in the thirteenth inning, but a die-hard fan at the other end of the bar bought a round of drinks for everyone in the place. Then Joe got caught up in a debate about whether Jeter’s worth his salary until Nina basically dragged him out the door.
She fell asleep in the cab on the way over the Queensborough Bridge. But she must have been up early this morning to walk her brother’s dog again. No wonder she’s so cranky—although she doesn’t have to take it out on him. Sheesh.
“If what you have to say is so important, Nina, why couldn’t you tell me over by the court? Why did we have to come way over here?”
“What’s wrong with here?” Nina gestures at the relatively secluded section of the park, where there are more trees and fewer people. Their bench is conveniently located next to a trash can—into which Joe pitches the empty mustard packet—and a swing set and jungle gym that are far less crowded than the main playground over by the fountain.
“Nothing’s wrong with it. I just thought you had some kind of emergency—” He pauses to take a bite of his hot dog and continues talking around a mouthful “—and then you make me walk across the whole park in silence. It just doesn’t make sense. If it’s so urgent—”
“Joey, I’ve decided . . . I’m going to have the baby.”
Joe chokes.
Literally.
He chokes on the hunk of hot dog he was chewing. He sputters, gasps, loses his grip on the water bottle, which drops and rolls across the gravel path.
“My God, Joey . . .” Nina whacks him between the shoulder blades.
“I’m okay,” he manages to say.
Nina whacks him again.
“Stop hitting me!”
“I’m trying to save you!”
“Really? It feels like you’re trying to beat me up.”
“Sorry, but . . .” She stoops and reaches to pick up the Poland Spring bottle, twists off the cap, and hands him the water. “Here. Drink.”
He clears his throat, gulps some water.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You scared me.”
“If you were that scared, why didn’t you do the Heimlich maneuver?”
“My instinct was to smack you,” she says with a shrug. “You know I never paid attention in seventh-grade health class.”
“Obviously not. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be pregnant.”
Pregnant. Nina’s pregnant.
His head is spinning.
So are the contents of his stomach.
Throwing his unfinished hot dog toward the garbage can, not caring when he misses and it lands on the ground, Joey demands, “Nina, who is he? I didn’t even realize you’d had sex with anyone since—”
“Joey, calm down. I’m not pregnant!”
Joe blinks.
She’s not pregnant?
A tide of relief washes over him. The thought of Nina sleeping with somebody else, Nina having somebody else’s baby when—
Hey, wait a minute . . .
Somebody else?
The else makes it sound as though she should be sleeping with you, Joey tells himself incredulously, and that’s ridiculous because. . .
Hey, wait another minute . . .
Nina’s not pregnant?
Then what the hell is going on?
He looks at Nina. Her sunglasses are over her eyes again, and she’s toying with the white plastic top of his bottled water.
A flock of pigeons descends on the hot dog he tossed, flapping their wings.
“Nina, didn’t you just say you were—”
“I said I’m going to have your baby.”
“No, you didn’t. You said—”
“Well, what I meant was—”
It hits him.
Hard.
Harder than the previous bombshell.
“You mean . . . you want . . . you’re willing . . .”
Nina just nods.
He reaches out and gently removes her sunglasses.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to see you. I can’t believe you really . . .” He stares into her eyes. To his shock, he finds them filled with raw, unmistakable emotion, glistening with tears.
“Nina,” he says gently, dazed. “You really mean it? You’d be willing to . . . to have a baby for me?”
She nods, catching her lower lip with her top teeth.
“I don’t know what to . . . wow. Wow.”
“If you want to be a daddy that badly, I want to help you, Joey.”
“But . . . I wasn’t even serious when I said that, Nina. I never expected you to—”
“I know. But I want to do it. For you. And for me,” she hastily adds, seeing that he’s about to protest.
“But . . . you hate pain, Nina.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad.” She shrugs. “Oh, who am I kidding? That part terrifies me. But I still . . . I want to know what it’s like, Joey. I want to have that experience. I just don’t want to be—I can’t be—somebody’s mother. I can’t. The baby would be y
ours. Just yours. As long as you swear you’ll really stop working and raise it full time, because I can’t stand the thought of the baby being with a sitter. And as long as you understand that I’m still leaving next summer.”
“Nina—”
“You can send me pictures, and keep me updated, and I’ll write back, of course, but I’ll just be . . . I’ll be . . .”
“The baby’s pen pal?”
“Sort of.” She sniffles. The tears have spilled from her eyes and are trickling down her cheeks.
“You’re crying,” he says, reaching out to gently wipe her tears with his fingers. “Don’t cry, Nina. You don’t have to do this. It’s incredibly sweet that you would even—”
“I really want to, Joey. I love you, and . . .”
She loves him?
She loves him?
Wait a minute. You know she loves you, you dork. As a friend. She loves you as a friend. That’s what she means.
Oh.
“ . . . and I want this to be my goodbye gift to you. You’ll be a great daddy.”
“I will be a great daddy,” he says, pushing aside his own puzzling reaction to what he momentarily thought was an admission of Nina’s deeper feelings for him. “And I do want a baby. But, Nina, a baby as a goodbye gift? I’d be happy with a card, you know? Maybe a . . . a picture frame or something.”
They laugh. Uneasily.
“Stop it, Joey, I’m serious about this.”
“But I wasn’t. Nina, I was only teasing when—”
“Come on, Joey, admit it. You weren’t entirely teasing. And you aren’t going to turn me down.”
“I can’t ask you to do something like that. To give up nine months of your life to—”
“What else have I got to do for the next nine months, Joey? For me, it’s already a waiting game. This will give me something to do.”
He snorts. “Like you need anything more to do.”
“But that’s the beauty of it. I won’t really have to do anything—”
He gives her a look.
“Okay, labor is something, but other than that . . .”
“I didn’t mean labor, Nina.”
“Then what . . . ?”
He gives her another look. This time he raises his eyebrows.
The Nine Month Plan Page 7
