“You ok?” Aimee asked Margot as they got into the cab.
“Fine, fine,” Margot said.
“You’re shaking,” Aimee laughed. “I’m having the baby and you’re shaking.”
“I’m excited,” Margot said. “And a little nervous. Oh my god! It’s finally happening!”
Lux squeezed Margot’s hand to try to calm her down. The thought that Aimee was fine but Margot needed to calm down made Lux giggle. It was contagious and suddenly the whole back seat was rocking with excited, nervous laughter. When the car arrived at the hospital emergency room, three of the four women rolled out of the sedan like drunken broads in front of a night club. Aimee rolled out like a beached whale on Coney Island. The florescent lights and quiet of the hospital quickly sobered them up. They gathered their wits and helped Aimee into the ER.
After a quick pelvic exam, Aimee was admitted to the hospital. When the attending physician announced that Aimee was dilated three centimeters and he was moving Aimee to Maternity, Margot switched from shaking to talking. As the women caught up with Aimee’s wheelchair in the delivery room, Margot gave a detailed account of the room’s décor and amenities to Brooke, Lux, and Aimee.
“Oh my gosh, my golly, look Aims, it’s a Jacuzzi tub. Just like in your story. Isn’t that useful although I don’t know when you’re gonna have time to get into it. And the wallpaper is surprisingly tasteful for a hospital. How interesting! It’s like a lovely hotel room.”
“Is there a mini bar?” Brooke asked.
As the nurse helped her into bed, Aimee started to feel some pulling deep inside her pelvis.
“It feels like I’m about to get my period. That’s not so bad, right?” Aimee asked. “Right?”
Brooke and Margot looked at each other, then back at Aimee before declaring in one supportive voice, “Right!” Lux, who had been through this before with Jonella, offered more practical advice.
“You know,” Lux said, “when you’re at home if you wanna say ‘shit’ or ‘cunt’ or ‘mother of freaking hellfire’ or anything else you can scream it as loud as you want but once you get to the hospital they come and tell you you’re disturbing the other mothers if you get too loud or crazy.”
“Good to know,” Aimee said and, even though she could not imagine she would ever want to scream or curse so loudly she added, “Thanks, Lux.”
And then the first deep contraction came.
“Fuck me!” Aimee suddenly shouted in full-voiced terror. As the contraction subsided, a frowning nurse peeked her head into the room. She scowled at Aimee. The grumpy nurse closed the door to Aimee’s delivery room in an attempt to shield the other women on the floor from Aimee’s potty mouth.
“See what I mean,” said Lux.
“I, I, I think I need that epidural,” Aimee said in a slightly panicked voice. “And if I could get it as quickly as possible that would be really, really good.”
Lux sprinted into the hallway to find the anesthesiologist. Aimee howled louder, but cursed less, through several large contractions. She squeezed Brooke’s hand hard and practiced the breathing exercises they had learned in Lamaze class. The exercises didn’t make the pain any less intense, but it did distract her, particularly when Margot, breathing along with Aimee and Brooke, hyperventilated and had to sit down. They were still laughing about it when the anesthesiologist arrived and the epidural took effect.
“Oh thank God!” Aimee said as her legs went numb.
“What do we do now?” Brooke asked.
“We wait,” Lux said.
For six hours Margot, Brooke, and Lux sat with Aimee watching her contractions chart on the monitor.
“Woah! That was a monster one!” Brooke said as the contraction pushed almost to the top of the monitor.
“Did it hurt?” Lux asked.
“Didn’t feel it at all,” Aimee said. “Can’t feel anything below my chest.”
“So what are we naming this baby?” Brooke asked.
“I like the name ‘Grace,’” Lux said. “That’s the name I always called myself when I played that I was someone else.”
“What about ‘Tuesday?’” Brooke suggested.
“Nah, nah, nah,” Lux warned. “A name is not a joke.”
“For a while I really liked ‘Lily,’” Aimee said, “or maybe ‘Dahlia.’”
“Flower names are nice,” Margot said as she zipped off a quick list of flower names. “How about Lilia. There’s also Rose, or Petunia. Oh no, not Petunia. There’s Violet, Poppy, Viola, Willow, Posy, Lilac, Primrose, Pansy, Veronica, Angelica, Iris, Holly, Heather, Hyacinth, Tiger Lily, well, that’s from Peter Pan. There’s Lavender, Fern, Flora, Rosemary, Saffron.”
“Stop!” Aimee called out. “I’m naming the baby ‘Alexandra.’ I decided last night.”
“Alexandra is very nice,” Brooke said warmly.
“What do you guys think of the name ‘Alexandra Grace’?” Aimee asked the people who really mattered to her.
“I like it,” Lux said, and everyone agreed.
“How are we doing here?” the nurse asked crisply as she entered the room. She walked to the bed and checked Aimee’s progress.
“I feel good,” Aimee said. “Actually, I don’t feel anything at all. Totally numb from my chest to my toes.”
“Oh my!” said the nurse. “You’re at six. You’re ready to push. Now, I’m going to get the doctor and then we’re going to push, push, push like we’re having a bowel movement.”
“Great, except I have no idea where my anus is currently located,” said Aimee, pointing to the epidural drip.
“Oh!” said the nurse and she scurried off to find the anesthesiologist.
When Aimee’s doctor strode into the room, she still had the pillow marks on her face.
“What time is it?” Brooke asked.
“Three in the morning,” the doctor said, followed by, “Who are you?”
“These are my best friends,” Aimee said, gesturing to Margot, Brooke, and Lux.
“Ah,” said the doctor, “a tribe of women. That’s good. You’ll need the support. So the epidural has been turned off. Tell me, can you feel your butt yet?”
Aimee nodded. She could feel her butt and a whole lot more. The pain was washing back into her body in big ocean waves.
“You,” the doctor said as she pointed to Margot. “I need you to rub her legs. They’re a little cold and stiff from the epidural.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Margot as she sprung into action.
“Who’s the Lamaze coach here?” the nurse demanded.
“I am,” said Brooke.
“Good, you’re at momma’s right. And you,” the nurse said pointing at Lux, “you’re at her left. We’re gonna move the bed so she’s sitting up. Then we’re gonna push.”
“How are you feeling, Aimee?” called Aimee’s doctor above the whirr of the moving bed. A mirror on the ceiling came down so Aimee could see her baby as it was born. The doctor snapped a glove over her manicured hands and took her position between Aimee’s legs.
“If you’re ready,” the doctor said, “we’re going to push for a count of ten. If you can do fifteen that’s better but I want you to push at least till ten.”
“Come on Aimee, give us a good fifteen,” Margot cheered from her position at the foot.
When they reached eleven, Lux, Brooke and Margot joined in a chorus of counting. Buoyed, Aimee bore down hard.
“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one,” her friends sang out and with her cheerleaders whooping, Aimee found the strength to push for a count of thirty. The baby was small and Aimee’s body had been rehearsing her exit for several months. Still, with what seemed to Aimee an unimaginable amount of pain and time, Alexandra Grace came into the world.
She was pink and wet with heavy lips and a full head of Aimee’s curls. When Aimee cut the cord that physically bound her to her baby, she felt a deep surge of love and passion for this creature who was finally a separate person. Margot held Alexandra while t
hey stitched up the damage to Aimee’s body. Although, per her own wellthought-out lists, it was Margot’s job to make the phone calls, Margot did not want to put the baby down. Brooke called Aimee’s family to give them the good news. She called Tokyo and left a polite, if breathless, message on his answering machine.
Finally, the doctor took Alexandra Grace from Margot and handed her to Aimee. Aimee held her breath as six pounds of baby and blanket settled into her arms. As if she knew she had come home, Alexandra turned to Aimee, opened her dark eyes and regarded her mother with a deep, thoughtful stare. Love gripped Aimee in the chest like an asthma attack and swelled through her, changing so many things about her that Aimee was almost a new person herself. Aimee started to breathe again, and with the first breath, made a silent promise to lay down her life to protect this little girl.
Hours later, resting quietly in her room with a soft pink mound of baby sleeping on her chest, Aimee was surprised at the amount of damage and bruising to her pelvis and vagina, inside and out. The birth by all standards had been easy, and yet when Aimee got up to go to the bathroom, she needed Lux to help her across the floor.
“I’m a battlefield,” Aimee sighed when Brooke sat down next to the bed and asked how she was feeling.
“Yes, baby, but the war is over now,” Brooke told her.
“You think?” Aimee asked.
“Of course,” Brooke said, “now you just have to be a parent.”
“I think I should marry your friend Bill,” Aimee said.
“Why?” Brooke asked.
“I never want to have sex again either,” Aimee laughed. While they were laughing a harried nurse rushed in with her nose in a chart.
“Do you need a consultation on the circumcision?” the nurse asked.
“I have a girl,” Aimee said.
“Oh, sorry. Not a decision you have to make today,” the nurse said as she scurried off to find the boys.
Aimee suddenly reflected on all the decisions she would have to make for her fatherless little girl. In their urban life, that first visceral promise would probably never be pushed to its extreme. She would never be asked to lay down her life, but how many times would she have to put aside her own life and desires to fulfill the baby’s needs. The constancy of those needs could prove as hard to fill as any one-time heroic sacrifice. I’m so selfish, Aimee thought. I’m too critical and I’m so alone. How am I going to balance this? How am I going to pay for this?
Alexandra’s little hands, with their ghostly white fingernails formed in the exact shape of Aimee’s grandmother’s, were curled around Aimee’s pinky. Compared to Aimee, Alexandra’s new hand looked very olive, even a bit yellow. Was yellow the right color? What happened to the perfect pink of a few hours ago? Would she hate her curly hair? Would she want to pierce her ears? Would she fall in love with a bad boy and get her heart stomped? Aimee’s eyes filled up with tears as she reflected that Lux’s mangled little pinky was once as perfect and new as Alexandra’s.
“Here comes the doctor,” Brooke said. “I guess it’s discharge time.”
“So soon,” Aimee murmured, worried about how she was going to manage it all alone. What if something happened? What if she wanted to take a shower? In a snap, the doctors were upon her.
Her doctor strode up to the bed, flanked by the Alexandra’s assigned pediatrician.
“We have to take the baby. Right now,” Aimee’s doctor said.
“W-w-w-where?” Aimee asked, shocked at their quiet seriousness.
“ICU,” said the pediatrician as he reached into Aimee’s arms and lifted a sleeping Alexandra Grace. Holding Alexandra close to his body, the pediatrician sprinted for the door. Aimee’s doctor was close behind him.
“Halfway down the hall take a right then a left. Get dressed and meet us there,” Aimee’s doctor said as she quickly grabbed the baby’s chart and followed the pediatrician to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Aimee gasped like a fish out of water. A second ago she was worrying about how she was going to get into the shower.
“Lux,” ordered Margot, “run down the hall and follow those doctors. It’s a big hospital. Make sure we know exactly where they’ve taken our baby. Brooke, get Aimee’s clothes out. If you can’t find them there’s a bathrobe in the washroom. Aimee, I’m going to pull your IV unit around to the side of the bed and help you stand up.”
The women leapt into action and within three minutes Aimee was wobbling into ICU. At the end of the ward, Alexandra Grace was lying in a glass bassinette under what looked like a cross between a tanning lamp and a french fry warmer. She was stripped to the waist and even had tiny sunglasses taped across her eyes.
“Jaundice,” the pediatrician said. “We caught it on the second blood test. We can treat it. I’m sorry if we frightened you, but it moves fast, so we had to move fast.”
The explanation continued, but Aimee couldn’t understand a word of it. Eighteen hours old and already there was trouble. Brooke listened closely as the doctors explained that the lamps would draw out the blood toxins that Alexandra’s little liver could not yet process. They’d caught it early and there was little to no chance of permanent damage. In thirty-six hours Alexandra Grace would be pink and perfect and ready to go home.
“And what should we do until then?” Brooke asked.
For a moment the pediatrician looked at her blankly, not understanding which “we” Brooke meant. Then he got it; these four women were the family.
“You should make sure the momma gets as much rest and nutrition as possible,” the pediatrician said.
“Yeah, we could do that,” Lux said.
Aimee was silent as they settled her back into bed. As if roused from a trance, she turned to her friends and said, “She’s gonna be ok.”
“Of course she is,” Brooke said warmly, and then Aimee started to cry.
The first tears were a sudden cloud burst, accompanied by an exhalation of Aimee’s pent-up fear. Those light showers were followed by the heavy artillery of Aimee’s great thanksgiving that she had such good friends. When Aimee blew her nose straight through the chintzy hospital tissue she really meant it as an offer of gratitude that these exciting women, who each had their own desires and needs, had called her little daughter “our baby.”
And when her friends responded by grabbing handfuls of toilet paper to wipe the snot off her face, they were really saying we’ll be there for you and for her, even when she spits up on our good wool suits, even when she turns thirteen and runs up our cell phone bills with inane blather about some boy she has a crush on. We’ll be there to help change diapers, to talk her out of piercing her nose. We’ll be there to explain to her that mommy really loves her and that’s why she has to be home by nine, even though the other girls can stay out until eleven. And when they gathered up the ruined tissues and toilet paper and tossed them in the trash without being grossed out by the mess, they were really making the most serious promise of all: we’ll babysit for free.
“It’s gonna be alright, Aimee,” Lux said and by that she meant we’ll be there when she’s an infant, when she’s a little girl. We’ll be there to help her become a woman.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be fine,” Aimee agreed and she believed it to the bottom of her heart.
Hospital food was out of the question. Margot took a poll of everyone’s favorite restaurants and then phoned up the one she liked best and added a bottle of champagne to the order. Within the hour the members of The Tuesday Erotica Club raised their plastic glass in the air.
“I wanna make a toast,” Brooke said. “To Aimee’s woo-woo. May it heal quickly and well.”
“Here, here,” agreed Margot sounding like a grand English barrister. “To Alexandra Grace,” Aimee said, “and to us.”
YEARS LATER
“He traced his hands up the side of my body. One hand shifted and went into the small of my back and the other settled on my breast. I sighed and found the buttons on his pants, pushing them off as we kissed.�
�
Lux suddenly stopped reading as the door swung open.
“Mom!” said Alexandra Grace. “When Rosie cleans she hides all my stuff. I can’t find any of my fun socks.”
“What are fun socks?” Brooke asked.
“Socks with fun stuff on them,” Margot informed her. “She likes the ones that have lipstick and fancy handbags detailed into them.
“And Rosie hides them when she cleans!” Alexandra complained to her Aunties through the closed door.
“When we’re done,” Lux promised, “we’ll all help you find your fun socks, ok?”
“Mmm,” Alexandra thought about it, “ok.”
Alexandra hunkered down to wait for her favorite women to finish whatever it was they were doing. “Go play,” her mother ordered her.
“But I want to see what you guys do in here,” Alexandra said.
“We’ll tell you all about it,” Auntie Margot said.
“When you’re older,” Auntie Brooke said.
“When you’re ready,” Auntie Lux promised, “you can join our club.”
Tuesday Erotica Club Page 26
