“What do you mean? I thought that was your whole reason for going over there.”
I shook my head, still unable to look my friend in the eye. “I never got around to it; he told me he’s seeing someone: Daphne.” The name itself was offensive. Daphne. Dave and Daphne. Daphne and Dave Blumenfeld. Ugh, I was going to puke.
“What a slut. Is she a patient?” Zoë was nothing if not the epitome of a supportive friend. It didn’t matter if Daphne was as wholesome as Mother Theresa, she would always be a whore in her books.
I shrugged. “Never thought to ask.”
Ever pragmatic, Zoë restated the obvious. “Okay, so it sounds like whatever you were trying to do failed miserably…”
“No kidding. But thanks.” Like I needed a reminder.
Zoë soldiered on, unshaken by my sarcasm. “You’re welcome. But what I want to know is what are you going to do now?” She searched for my eyes. “Vicky?”
I looked up at her.
“Your appointment at the clinic is this week. What are you going to do? You’re going to keep the appointment, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. What else can I do? Dave doesn’t want me or the baby.”
Zoë looked at me as though I had just confessed to having contracted leprosy. “Did you ever think that was a good plan, really?”
I shrugged.
It wasn’t enough to deter her from continuing her assault on my lack of judgment. “No, really…Did you think that using a baby that you obviously don’t want, just to get Dave back would be a good long-term plan?”
Of course, I didn’t. It sounded so stupid now. But I had been desperate, terrified of the thought of being alone. And the worst part was the idea of someone else living the life I wanted for myself.
“I guess not,” was all I could articulate.
“So are you going to keep your appointment?”
She was testing my resolve.
“I’m not loving the whole idea, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”
“You could give up the baby for adoption,” Zoë suggested nonchalantly, as though I had asked her what I should do with the last bite of my croissant.
“I couldn’t do that,” I sighed.
“Why not?”
I shrugged, stalling so I could come up with something reasonable sounding.
Not that it worked. “I don’t think I could, that’s all. It’s my choice, you know. That’s why they call it pro-choice.”
Zoë blinked at me several times before looking over at the front door. “Oh hey, there’s Jen.”
Glad for a change in subject, I glanced over to where my other friend was walking up to the counter to get a coffee. She smiled and waved at us.
Zoë turned back to me. “She looks happy.”
I brought my coffee cup to my lips. “Why wouldn’t she? She’s getting laid.”
The widening of Zoë’s eyes was a satisfying payoff for having told her something she obviously didn’t know.
She glanced back at Jen and then leaned in close, trying to pry the gossip out of me. “Tell me Seth’s not back in the picture.”
I shook my head and grinned. Holding out on gossip was cruel but delicious.
“Then who?”
“Her brother,” Jen quipped as she joined us at the table, armed with a huge steaming cup. “I’m fucking her brother, that’s who.” She sat down between Zoë and me and turned to face me and my quickly-dissolving smug grin. “Oh and whatever about you holding out, you would have caved and told her eventually.”
There was no point arguing.
“You’re sleeping with Steve?” Zoë’s head ping-ponged from Jen to me and then back again. “When? How did this happen?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think we need any sordid details, but let’s just say, my furnace has been stripped of its innocence.”
Zoë’s head snapped towards Jen. “No, you didn’t. Ugh, Jen. At least let Vicky get laid in her own house first. How tasteless.”
Jen shrugged. “What can I say, the time was right. It was so hot, though. Vicky your brother is…”
I couldn’t stand it. “If you finish that sentence, I swear I will vomit.”
“What? I wasn’t going to tell you about what a great fuck he is.” She turned to Zoë and nodded conspiratorially before turning back to me. “I was just going to say that I really think I could fall for him. He’s a really good guy.”
“Steve?” Zoë and I said together.
“Yes, STEVE.” She clucked at us. “Maybe you’ve never seen him as anything besides your brother, Vic, but he’s romantic and sweet and has a great sense of humor…”
I stared at my friend, wondering what the aliens had done with my brother. Sense of humor, yes. That part of my brother I could see Jen being into since they were probably a lot alike in what they found funny. But romantic and sweet? Not the brother I knew. Although, I had to admit to myself, I never would have pegged him as a doing-it-standing-up-in-a-furnace-room kinda guy, either.
“You two could be sisters-in-law,” Zoë pointed out helpfully. “Vicky, you could be the matron…er maid of honor at the wedding.” She stumbled on her joke, obviously not having thought it through before delivery.
“Yes, I would be the old single maid,” I said, pouting a little.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You know, I handed you a piece of Angus steak and you turned it down like it was rotted chuck.”
It was Jen’s turn to dig for dish. “Oh, please. You’ve gotta tell me about this.”
Zoë opened her mouth to spill the story about my having blown off Dr. Lewis and I could feel a good scolding was on its way.
I pushed my chair back. “I have to pee.”
Jen waved me off. “Go, Zoë will fill me in. And she won’t miss the important parts.”
Happy to miss the gossip in which I was the subject, I headed toward the back of the café, wondering just how I was going to escape the inevitable criticism of my friends. They were probably right; I probably did need to get myself out on a date to try to start moving my life forward. But I hardly felt like I was anything close to date material; I was very recently separated and pregnant. I had more baggage than American Airlines.
What guy in his right mind would want that? Okay, so I wasn’t going to be pregnant for very long, but the whole separation thing was definitely a hurdle. There was a good chance I’d be a basket case on a date: either comparing the guy to Dave or crying over my linguine. No, I wasn’t ready to date. My stupid attempt at reconciling with Dave was clearly a manifestation of my terror over being ‘out there.’ I couldn’t in good conscience inflict myself on a poor, unsuspecting guy who was just hoping for a nice meal and some pleasant company.
And I was convinced Dr. Lewis was out of my league anyway. He seemed way too together to want to have to deal with the likes of me.
As I washed my hands, I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to be objective. I gave myself a smile; everyone looked better if they were smiling. Not half bad. No, the looks I could get by on (other than the beginnings of crow’s feet: time for a trip to the Clinique counter), it was what was inside I had to work on. Maybe I could use a shrink.
I took a deep breath and left the sanctity of the bathroom to go rejoin my friends. They were going to be relentless. There was nothing worse than relationship-happy friends who would do whatever it took to shove their bliss down your throat.
“You so need to go out with Dr. Lewis,” Jen insisted before I was even settled back into my chair.
“I’m a huge loser right now. Why would you want to inflict me on any guy?” I asked my friends, wondering if they just wanted some new gossip material: like a good juicy story about how I blew a huge date with the hottest bachelor in town.
“Oh come on, you already know he’s into pussy,” Jen roared at her own lame joke.
“Yeah, har har,” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not ready to date.”
“Why not? What are you waiting for?” Zoë was
always the one to ask the hard questions.
But I didn’t have an answer. I shrugged.
“Well unless you can come up with a good reason, like that you and Dr. Lewis are related somehow, I’m not taking no for an answer. You need this Vic.”
I looked down at the cold remnants in my cup. “I’m just not ready.”
“Listen,” Jen said, gearing up to deliver a piece of her infamous dating advice, “If you’re not ready for a relationship, just use him for sex. Get it out of your system and then you’ll have some perspective.”
“Are you kidding me? Use him for sex to get perspective? Jen, I’m not twenty.”
Zoë took over the lecture. “Although I don’t agree entirely with what Jen is saying,” she shot Jen a withering look before turning back to me. “You’re not looking to get married or anything, so what’s the harm in sharing a meal with a guy? You don’t have to get engaged or even have sex with him if you don’t want to. Just have dinner and get out of the house.”
“I don’t know.”
“Just one date. If you go, we’ll stop bothering you. If you don’t, we’re going to sick Kendra on you. You don’t want that, do you?” Zoë smirked, and I swear I saw two little horns sprouting out of her forehead.
What else could I do? I nodded, painfully aware that I was being completely manipulated by my best friends.
“Fine, I’ll go,” I sighed.
What the hell was I getting into?
Chapter 31
It was cold in the clinic’s waiting room, but maybe the chill I felt wasn’t due to the temperature. Although I was there with Jen and Zoë, who were trying desperately to make small talk to keep my mind off what was to come, I felt very alone.
There was only one person I really wanted to come with me and hold my hand, comforting me the way no girlfriend ever could. But Dave didn’t know about my pregnancy nor my impending procedure. And I could never ask him to come with me to eradicate the one thing he so desired. And anyway, he was with Daphne now. He was done with me.
So there I was, fighting off tears and incessant shivers while I waited for my name to be called.
I had filled out the standard medical information sheet and now sat with the clipboard and pen resting on my lap. Too restless to read the old Cosmo and Fit Pregnancy (yes, I know, how ironic) magazines, I fidgeted my fingers and looked around the room to surreptitiously look at who else was in the waiting room.
It was an obstetrics ward waiting room so there were several women well advanced into their pregnancies along with several like me who didn’t look pregnant at all. I wondered if they were also there for ‘procedures.’ There was a good chance some of them were; although it was likely some were also there for prenatal checkups. But as I looked around at the myriad women sitting in uncomfortable chairs around the perimeter of the room, I noticed none looked like crack whores or prostitutes. Most of them looked a lot like me.
“But what if this doesn’t work?” the young woman on my right said to the man beside her. “What then?”
Trying not to seem nosy, but curious all the same, I tilted my head to glance at her belly; she didn’t look pregnant. What was she worried wouldn’t work? The procedure wasn’t rocket science; they’d pretty much perfected it.
“I guess we can put our names on a waiting list.” The man said, his voice thick with sadness.
The girl’s fingers entwined across her abdomen. “It has to work this time, Mark. It just has to; I need a baby.”
Oh God: this couple was there for the opposite reason.
All the saliva in my mouth suddenly dried up as I turned away, desperate for the couple not to know why I was there. God help me if they asked. What could I possibly say? My world was filling with people like Kendra, desperate for babies. And there I was, getting ready to...
“Vicky Blumenfeld?” a nurse appeared in the doorway with a clipboard in the crook of her arm.
“That’s me,” I said jumping out of my chair, too eager, but thankful it was my turn.
Jen and Zoë also got up. “Can we come?” Zoë asked.
The nurse frowned. “I’m sorry, patients only.”
I turned back towards my friends. “I’m okay, really.” I held Zoë’s concerned gaze just long enough to convince her that I was not going to lose it. Then I turned to Jen. “Take her for a coffee or something, she needs some caffeine.” I laughed, my nervousness making it sound fake.
“We’ll be here when you come out,” Jen assured me. I nodded, took a deep breath and turned back towards the nurse to follow her into the business end of the clinic.
* * *
I was first taken down the hallway where the nurse stopped outside a bathroom. “You’ll find a gown in there to change into, you can put your belongings into one of the lockers and put the key around your wrist.” She smiled as she reached for the door handle. The bathroom turned out to be more of a locker room, well stocked as promised with those horrible tie-at-the-back hospital gowns. I removed my clothes except my socks, figuring the doctor wouldn’t need access to my feet, and folded them neatly before sliding them onto the shelf in the second locker from the left. I snapped the padlock shut and as instructed put the spiral keychain around my wrist.
Thinking it prudent, I used the bathroom and as I washed my hands after, I stared at my face in the mirror.
You can do this, Vicky, I told myself. You are not a bad person. My reaffirmation wasn’t sticking, but knowing that there was little else I could do, I took a deep breath and left the locker room.
I was alone in the empty hall for only long enough to wonder if I should proceed down the corridor before the nurse returned, the clipboard still in her hand.
She led me back into an open room lined with big chairs, machines, and IV stands. All the chairs were occupied but one. The one for me.
“Have a seat,” the nurse said, scribbling something on her clipboard. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to start your IV, okay? How’re you doing?”
I swallowed and nodded, the knot in my throat preventing me from speaking, had there been anything worth saying. I stole glances at the other women in the room, but dared not make any eye contact; I respected the anonymity of the other patients as I would hope they would respect mine.
As promised, the nurse returned a few moments later. “How’re you feeling?” she asked, taking me by surprise when she waited for my answer.
How am I feeling? Terrified, anxious, guilty, nauseated. “I’m okay,” I answered out loud.
The nurse, whose name tag read Tracy, reached behind me to grab an individually-wrapped needle. She proceeded to pull the wrapper apart as she did a running commentary of what was going to happen to me. “So I’m just going to start this IV and then you’ll have to wait a bit since you’re the last one to go in.”
I looked around the room. One of the patients was reading a magazine, looking calm, while another sat, her nervousness palpable as she fidgeted her fingers.
“Vicky?” Tracy the nurse said, bringing be back.
“Huh?”
“I asked if you were ready,” she said as she held the needle a few inches over the top of my right hand.
I nodded, turning away, noticing another nurse tending to the woman who had been reading the magazine. Seemed it was her turn as she rose from the chair, pushing her IV stand along beside her, following the nurse down the hallway.
“There we go,” Tracy said as she slid the needle into the vein in my hand. “Feel okay?”
I didn’t, but it had nothing to do with the needle so I just nodded.
“Just try to relax, there are some magazines next to you.” She got up after securing the IV needle to my arm with a piece of medical tape.
My head began to swim with Kendra’s words, but not her admonishing words telling me I was being selfish, but when she had told me that with any baby she would be blessed. How she would love an adopted baby as much as if it contained hers and Paul’s DNA. I had no concept of what that must feel
like due to my total lack of any maternal instinct (which ironically had gotten me into this mess). How badly did Kendra ache for a baby? How dreadful it must be to want something so terribly and be denied month after month, feeling, as Kendra had put it, as though her body was betraying her.
And what about the other couple, the one in the waiting room? They too were desperate for a baby. How many couples were out there, wishing for a child to love?
“Okay, we’re ready for you now,” Nurse Tracy said, having suddenly materialized in front of me.
Drawn out of my contemplation, I forced a smile on my face as I rose to follow her, forcing the bile back down into my stomach.
Nurse Tracy put a comforting hand on my forearm as she led me down the long hallway
Chapter 32
As Nurse Tracy led me back out into the obstetrics waiting room, my caring and attentive friends both launched to their feet and came over, each taking an arm. It felt awkward for them to be treating me like I was as fragile and as in need of protection as one of my mother’s cherished Royal Doulton figurines.
“I’m okay,” I said, embarrassed, wriggling out of Zoë’s grasp.
“Are you sure?” Jen asked, skeptical, keeping her grip on my arm.
Still an emotional basket case on the verge of what I knew would be racking and ceaseless sobs once I allowed them to finally erupt, I didn’t have it in me to explain to my friends that I hadn’t gone through with the abortion (how easy it was to say now that it was off the table).
Something had happened to me as I was lying on the bed, my feet in stirrups surrounded by a few (not sure how many) nurses and a doctor. Nurse Tracy rolled over towards me on a squeaky stool clacking over the floor tiles and asked me if I was okay.
I wasn’t okay. I was far from okay. I was torn, haunted by the words of a hopeful mother. I just couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.
I didn’t chicken out; it wasn’t that I was afraid of what I was going to do, I just realized in that very moment, that I had made a terrible mistake. I suddenly wanted this baby to have a life.
And so in my sudden moment of clarity, I told the roomful of medical professionals that like Madonna, I had made up my mind and I was keeping my baby, at least for now.
Life, Sideways Page 19
