The Elegant Out

by Elizabeth Bartasius

  “I never should have married Tom,” I thought out loud.

  She laughed. “You know I wanted to slap you when you told me you two got engaged.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “You wouldn’t have listened to me.”

  She was probably right. I’d had to learn my own lessons then, just as I had to learn them now.

  “Can you come to the baby shower? I really want you there,” she begged.

  “Yes, of course, I’ll come,” I replied. Our differences didn’t matter. What mattered was our commitment as friends. And, Maureen is a real friend, the kind that embodies the entire world of the word and all the letters and spaces inside it. And this was exactly the kind of friend I needed as I spent those days leafing through six huge binders of happy-making solutions I’d learned from years of self-help seminars, searching for the magic formula to keep me sane in the tug-of-war between babies and writing. I was told once to be sweet on myself, but I didn’t trust myself to be sweet then. I’d gotten so used to running from the hands around my neck, running from myself, running from writing, running and afraid. I still puffed. I felt frantic and hysterical; I looked to Maureen, a bangle of sweetness.

  “I still can’t believe you are actually pregnant.” I glanced around my little nook of an office, taking in the contour of the brick floor and a sprinkle of Mississippi rat poop. A faint tick-tock hummed in my brain like the motor of a refrigerator where I could keep eggs chilled, waiting for the right time, waiting for the day Gabe said yes.

  “I’m so sorry,” she continued; I heard the regret in her voice.

  I trusted that regret. I trusted her to love me even when I screwed up.

  I could count on Maureen like I could count on stone.

  “It’s okay. I’m over it.” Then I added, “You know, I don’t love you because we are the same. I love you because it’s you. We’ve come this far, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  We both sat for a moment in the saccharine pause of relief.

  “So, is it a boy or a girl?” I asked.

  Meanwhile, the monkey muse whispered in my ear: What if you had the conviction of Stephen King to write at least a thousand words, no matter what? Night after night? Year after year? Doubt after doubt? My muse tilled the tale about that ten-year-old with blonde ringlets who could only speak a thousand words before she dies. When Maureen hung up, I quickly opened a blank word document to capture the scenes and bits of dialogue. A novel began. And I felt happy.

  Chapter 21

  No Vacancy

  Two weeks after Maureen and I made up, I could not remember the sex of her unborn child. Just like I forgot whether or not she drank coffee.

  Gabe was no help. “Why don’t you just call and ask her?”

  “I can’t. She’s told me several times. I’d look like an idiot. And a very bad friend.”

  I worried I would make the wrong move with Maureen, with Gabe, with Jack, with my life. I worried I wouldn’t have a baby ever again. I worried I would regret not having a baby again. I worried so much about what to do that I’d bitten my nails down to short, stubby, jagged, frayed quicks.

  I’d tried all the nail-biting tricks before: oil cuticle massages, once-a-week manicures, and moisturizing my hands at night and wrapping them in socks. But when worry set in, when I struggled with decisions, when I didn’t know where to turn, when babies occupied my mind, no aid could save my helpless phalanges.

  I chewed through Essie’s Devil’s Advocate.

  I chewed through Bitter Nails, no matter how awful tasting.

  I chewed on the bold extremes.

  Nails. No nails.

  Baby. No baby.

  Write. No write.

  Gabe. No Gabe.

  Want. No want. Want again.

  These contradictions swelled inside me, leaving no room to grow anything else. Which was why Gabe and I escaped for the day from our little bayside town to New Orleans. Sans Jack, we remembered what we’d talked about before we talked about babies: traveling to Mallorca, modern architecture, German movies, fine wines. We remembered walking hand in hand, a simple couple with nowhere to go, no school lunch to pack, no budget to balance, no “shoulds” to manage, no battles to win. Just windows luring us with objects to glide our hands over, colored trinkets to fuel our imaginations, rich fabrics woven into sundresses, suits, camisoles, jeans, and lingerie to distract me from the ruckus in my head, the unease in my throat.

  The New Orleans heat rose from the asphalt, unwelcome. Despite the sweat, my arms felt at home wrapped around Gabe’s. I didn’t want to take my hand away ever. Even as I questioned our opposing desires and whether Gabe and I should continue on, I loved him. If I did move on for a man who wanted a baby, maybe I’d end up somewhere truly dreadful, with only a Wal-Mart, where we would never touch interesting objects or window shop. Maybe I would never find my way out.

  Despite my doubts, that day in New Orleans altered something in me, and I felt a bud of hope sprouting in my heart.

  “Let’s go in there.” I steered us into the Bath and Body Works on Magazine Street; maybe they sold a new nail product I could try.

  Inside, round barrels dotted the showroom and overflowed with pretty pink soaps, loofahs, moisturizers, and scented candles. Gabe and I unlinked ourselves and slalomed through the shop. I squirted a glob of peppermint lotion from a tester bottle into my hand, feeling refreshed from the tingling. Then I covered the scent with a glob from another tester. Tangerine this time. Yum. After the third tester, I could no longer distinguish the smells. Lavender, lilac, grapefruit, rose, coffee, dandelion—all bounced off each other, creating confusion and chaos like the boiling molecules of choices that had left me feeling disoriented and lost, no vacancy for tracking a plot line or even the sex of my best friend’s baby.

  Whether from the scent of competing perfumes or the drudgery of tangled choices, my head began to hurt. But I wasn’t ready to leave the store. I spotted nailbrushes that I could use to scrub my jagged cuticles. And, where there were pumice stones, a foot massage must be in my future. I could use a foot massage.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk asked, her eye lashes clumped from thick mascara. I was tempted to reach over to her and smooth them out with my fingertips.

  “No, thank you. I’m just looking.”

  Gabriel whistled to me from across the room, holding up a jar of foot scrub. I could tell he was having the same dreamy thoughts of massage. Maybe we could go home, have a footbath, and apply a mud mask while our feet soaked. Seemed easy enough, and my therapy had taught me to make simple things the cornerstones of my day. I really was working hard to create anchors that I could cling to among the writer’s negative self talk: “This sucks,” “What’s the point?” and “No one really cares.”

  The self-loathing seemed to come naturally like the mole on my chest. But I didn’t believe I was simply stranded atoms of self-doubt, impossible to shape-shift, left to rot. Surely, somewhere inside of me, I had a well of strength, power, confidence, clarity, and self-love. The trouble was, I hadn’t yet learned how to access it, so I picked up ten-dollar knick-knacks, nail brushes, and lavender lotions for a quick hit of self-Sweet’n Low.

  Gabe, as usual, answered his ringing cell phone.

  “Hallo. Wie geht’s?”

  I eavesdropped while I contemplated whether to buy the mint or tangerine body lotion. Though I didn’t understand the words he spoke, I could tell by the tenderness in his voice and the goofy laugh that he was talking to his best friend, Ferdie, probably telling dirty jokes. Gabe walked to the other side of the store seemingly in another world.

  Ferdie and Gabe had grown up together in Dortmund, Germany, where they’d placed in bubble gum blowing contests, tipped cows, and unhitched railroad cars in the cover of night. They were never far from skinny-dipping or trespassing (or whatever “trouble”). Gabe is the worrywart, the judge, and the lookout. Ferdie is the instigator, which is why his landing in Arizona had surprised me, as Phoenix was not
a place to instigate anything. It’s a place to survive, a treeless gladiator arena of rattlesnakes, maniac drivers, shriveled skin, and vegetation as grating as the sun. I had been there a few weeks earlier on a work trip, and had stuck closely to the air-conditioning, misting machines, and mall. I hadn’t whined a bit when Ferdie and his girlfriend, Josie, took me to a generic Starbucks to relax between shopping and sightseeing.

  It was in that chain cafe, sipping tea, months before I found out Maureen was pregnant, that Ferdie gave me advice I couldn’t get out of my mind:

  “I know Gabe,” he had said. “I know how he works. The more you push him, the more you bring up the subject, the more he’ll turn away. If you want a baby, you should have one. But you won’t change his mind by asking him all the time. If you want it that badly then you will probably have to break up with him. Maybe he would decide that it’s not worth it and come back. But maybe not.”

  “So your advice is to break up with him?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “If you really want a baby.”

  His words hardened like concrete in my gut. I thought of them day and night. I thought of them while showering, frying onions, biting my nails, and sitting on the john. And I thought of them in the Bath and Body Works on Magazine Street, while Gabe rattled off something in German and the clerk watched me from under her umbrella of mascara.

  I suddenly wondered what the point was of being in this store, sneezing lilac and vanilla. The future seemed so predictable. Clearly, I wasn’t going to buy anything for myself. We were not going to make that footbath. We would not be mixing mud masks. Something always got in the way. Phone calls. Time. Inertia. Apathy. History would repeat itself; I could see the future as clearly as I could see my toes, all the way down past my flat, embryo-less belly.

  Oblivious, Gabe gabbed away in a corner surrounded by pastel loofahs, and I walked over to the rack of greeting cards wishing that just once in my life I could act like a character in a movie, say something obnoxious, and stomp out of the store. If I could just move beyond the hurdle to speak and write freely. If I could say something new, anything I hadn’t said before, it would be a start. A good start.

  As I racked my brain for a movie character and stomp-out exit line, I picked up a white greeting card with the simple image of a yellow rubber duck and got an idea. My eyes darted around the store until . . . bingo! I found what I was looking for in the barrel right under my nose.

  “Gabe!” I waved to him, indicating he had to come to me right now.

  He said what sounded like a cheery goodbye to the German on the other end and did my bidding.

  “Yes, darling?” He kissed me. I would miss those kisses if I left, but I couldn’t think of that now. I was saved from the humiliation of admitting to Maureen I’d been thinking of something else entirely when she’d revealed the sex of her baby.

  “I’ve found it. A present for Maureen’s baby.” I pointed to the big pile of little rubber duckies. Ducks with Santa hats. Ducks on surfboards. Hawaiian ducks. Ducks wearing tuxes. They were darling, would fit in a carry-on, and the best part? Non-gender-specific.

  “I remember she got Jack some little fish bath toys that squirted water. So this is perfect,” I said, so darn excited, so darn proud that I had found a way out of the embarrassment of forgetting her baby’s sex.

  “Oh and look! Here is a little bathrobe.” In yellow. “We’re buying these.”

  “Are you sure you want to get her that?” Gabe asked.

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter if she’s having a boy or a girl. These work no matter what. Plus, they’re cute. I’m totally off the hook.”

  “I still think you should just ask Maureen.”

  Humph! What did he know? Maybe he wasn’t the one for me? Maybe we had run our course? What if I did change direction? What if, instead of waking in my own Groundhog Day effect, I did something off-the-wall?

  I considered Ferdie’s advice against the five possible responses to conflict:

  1. Solve the problem.

  2. Change how you feel about it.

  3. Accept it.

  4. Stay miserable.

  5. Make it worse.

  Five and four were definitely out; I might have dabbled in misery here and there, but I certainly wasn’t committed to a life of suffering. To me, option three was a choiceless choice; another version of mediocrity, like Subarus in Colorado. That left me with option two: stay and be happy with what we have. Or option one: Leave, for something unknown on the horizon: maybe a baby, maybe another loving life partner, but maybe not.

  Was I willing to give up the love I had for a maybe?

  Sometimes, I thought the answer might be yes.

  Chapter 22

  Birthing

  Fresh starts, like birth, are the mint tea of life. I like mint tea. I also like the idea of birthing things: ideas, books, shopping sprees, a new home. I loved giving birth to my son. When I was pregnant, I felt special. Pregnancy was exciting. Everyone was happy with me and for me. A new hope was growing in my belly. I didn’t know what to expect; the mystery endeared me to the process, like crafting a story where characters react in surprising ways.

  I hadn’t yet been able to answer Gabe’s constant question of “Why did I want to have a baby?” I had, however, begun to notice that my urge to have a baby was stronger than ever when I felt otherwise worthless. I hadn’t told Gabriel this. He might use this confession as ammunition in our ongoing pregnancy/baby debates. Nor had I told him that deep, deep, deep down, I suspected one of the reasons I wanted to have a baby was to excuse myself from publishing a novel.

  Babies are the perfect out, after all. Don’t have time or energy to be a published author? Of course not: have a baby! As a matter of fact, becoming a mother to a newborn was the be-all and end-all reason to not accomplish anything, ever (besides raising a human being, which is arguably, an enormous accomplishment). No one, and I mean no one was going to question why I would choose my child over being a novelist. Sure, some moms were superhuman and could accomplish all sorts of amazing stunts, all with their child dangling from their tit. I, though, wasn’t one of those energetic multitaskers. For me, it was a choice between being the best mother I knew how to be, or something else. If I had a baby, I could hide behind an elegant mask. I could keep on nursing and pretending that not being a good enough writer didn’t matter, ’cause hell, I’m a mother. Isn’t that enough?

  Besides, I’d dreamed of being an author for so long that becoming one, doing the work, seemed almost pathetic to want anymore. It seemed as if a timeline existed for dreams, and if a dreamer didn’t achieve greatness or success within a “reasonable timeframe” the dreamer would be sent out to creative pasture.

  Of course, I questioned my own timetable excuses, as I could always hear someone plugging Thomas Edison: “You know, he invented 786 light bulbs before he made the one that worked?” Yes, yes. Good for ol’ Tommy. But I wasn’t Thomas Fuckin’ Edison. Such inspiration from others had little effect when my own gut felt like 500 gallons of water and electric wires connected to outlets with someone at the ready to flip the switch and burst my innards like fireworks. No matter what I did, I remained paralyzed with the kind of anxiety that led me to believe I was no good at the one thing I really wanted to do.

  I didn’t yet understand the lesson that talent was subjective. Worse still, I had not yet realized that the only reason for me to write was for pure joy. I didn’t yet know that I could do art for art’s sake. I thought I had to “be practical”, “study business,” and “make good money” as I’d heard over and over again since I was twelve.

  Years later, I would recognize those runaway trains of inherited conversations. But back then, when Maureen was pregnant and I longed to give birth, I didn’t know how to stop the assumed truths that I’d picked up from Mom, Dad, TV, embittered elementary school teachers, or even my own little five-year-old interpretations of adult-speak. The clichés ruled me. I fought against the unfairness of creating within the perc
eived starved, dry landscape of “ordinary, everyday American life.” Then, I fought against my bad attitude toward the unfairness. I fought against lack of energy. I fought against time. I fought against responsibilities of work and motherhood. I fought against the proverbial hands around my neck.

  No matter the fight, “I gotta get published” became a warrior cry that let me off the hook from ever writing. I continued the dialogue that looped me in the roundabout of creating, and the biochemistry that reinforced my lethargy, anxiety, and depression. I didn’t yet have a name for what I experienced. I only knew that I woke up fighting each day for happiness, self-expression, and the courage to tackle small tasks, like checking the P.O. Box. Some days, I gave a good fight; I took a walk despite not wanting to. Some days words were typed onto the page. Some days I even liked what I wrote. Some days, I just called Maureen.

  Together, over the phone, wishing we could be face to face, she and I went through the list of usual pregnancy call-and-responses.

  How have you been feeling; do you have morning sickness? Yes, some. I was really tired, but am better now. It’s been pretty easy. I’m doing a lot of yoga.

  Can you feel the baby kicking? Yes, it’s so weird.

  Is James excited? He’s looking forward to being a dad.

  Are you ready for this? I hope so. I never thought I would feel this way, but I’m in love with this child already.

  Then as Maureen asked me, “Are you all right? You seem so vulnerable?” I instantly felt bored with myself and wondered if she felt that way too. Maybe Maureen would get awfully tired of picking me up over and over again, maybe even throw me away in the garbage, or to the dog, as a chew toy.

  Still, I told her that sometimes I woke up crying. I told her how some days I didn’t even have the energy to do a load of laundry. How Gabe cooked for me, and cleaned, and we watched a lot of movies. This talking to Maureen helped, so I told her more. I told her I couldn’t count on myself. One minute I would be laughing, the next, beating my fist against a pillow. I told her I had to sleep a lot. Some days I didn’t even want to wake up. I told her I felt angry. So angry. I loved Gabe. I hated that he didn’t want to get married or have babies. I told her I wanted to have a baby. I told her I also thought it was crazy to want a baby. I had a child; he’s wonderful, I told her. I think I should put all the baby-energy into mothering Jack. But, I told her, if I do, then I might suffocate him. I told her I’m writing some days and have ideas for a novel, but I wish I were writing more. I’ve been trying to shove it in between mothering and working and crying, I said. She told me again that she loved reading my blog and wanted more, please, more. I felt held: the warmth of a womb.