Life After Yes

by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

  And so the seminar continues.

  “Have you thought of names?” I ask.

  “Not yet,” she says. “I have plenty of time for that.”

  Kayla’s name is called and she stands, tells me to follow. So I do.

  They weigh her. “Up two pounds,” the nurse mumbles.

  “What happened to those ten pounds you said you gained?”

  Kayla shrugs. “Well, I never have been able to gain weight.”

  We wait in the small, sterile room for the doctor to come in. There’s a framed photograph of condoms artfully arranged.

  “I hope I get another sonogram,” she says. “Did you know Sub-Zero fridges aren’t magnetic?”

  The doctor walks in and, instinctively, I sit up straighter. She’s perky. Her pixie cut is endearingly mussed, and she is impeccably dressed in a smart camel suit and tasteful gold jewelry.

  “So, how are you feeling? Last time you were here you were feeling pretty rotten, I recall,” the doctor says.

  “Yeah, I was. I am actually feeling a lot better. I have been for the last couple of weeks. I think it has something to do with that new prenatal vitamin you prescribed.”

  “Well, you’re entering your second trimester. We like to call it the safety zone because from this point on, the chance of miscarriage is pretty much nil.”

  Kayla smiles, looks at me.

  “That’s great,” I say.

  I’m following along just fine, but then I’m somewhere else. Kayla and her doctor banter in a language I’ll one day speak fluently. About platelet levels and blood types, rubella and gestational diabetes, fundal height and spilling protein.

  “The next thing we must discuss is testing for abnormalities. We have the nuchal, CVS, and the amnio,” she says as if she’s reading from a menu.

  “I think I want the most information I can get,” Kayla says, nodding, looking at me for approval. I nod. “The more information the better, right?”

  The doctor nods. “That’s how most of my patients feel,” she says, making a small notation in her chart.

  “Time for the fun part,” the doctor says, stands up, and walks toward Kayla, handing her a thin paper sheet. Kayla stands and shimmies out of her pants and underwear and hands them to me. She hops back up on the table and spreads her legs under the sheet, placing each heel in the appropriate metal brace.

  “Now slide down,” the doctor says, and Kayla does. She slides an instrument inside my friend.

  And there it is. As the doctor moves around inside her, the picture on the small screen changes rapidly. Finally, a shape appears. Kayla sees it and smiles. And I see it. The big head, the smaller body, curled like a comma.

  Her baby.

  “Oh, look at that,” Kayla squeals.

  The doctor stops moving.

  “Hold on,” the doctor says, squinting, still staring at the screen, not looking at Kayla.

  I grip Kayla’s thigh, tearing the thin protective paper.

  “I can’t find a heartbeat,” the doctor says, stripping plastic gloves from her hands.

  Kayla giggles, looks at me and then the doctor. “Well then look a little harder.”

  In that moment, the silence is unrelenting and cruel.

  I look at my friend, who still clutches that list of questions. She begins to shake and her face goes white.

  But suddenly, there it is. The thud of life. The baby’s heartbeat. Loud and proud and strong.

  I wipe a tear from under Kayla’s eye. The doctor smiles. “Sometimes it’s hard to get the heartbeat right away. But there it is. Everything looks perfect.”

  The doctor slips out and I stay with Kayla as she dresses again. She bends down to pull her heels on and starts to cry. I crouch down on the floor next to her. “Are you okay?”

  “I thought I lost it,” she says. “The first good thing that’s happened to me. The first pure thing. And I thought it was suddenly gone.”

  “It’s not gone,” I say. “It’s inside you. Growing. With a strong and perfect heartbeat.”

  She nods, wipes away her tears. “I feel like it’s a girl. I kind of hope it is.”

  “A little you,” I say.

  “I hope not,” she giggles.

  On the sidewalk, she grabs my shoulders and looks me in the eyes. “You’re getting married in two days. I’m having a baby. What is happening to us?”

  “We’re growing up,” I say.

  And she grabs my hand, yanks me down the street. Back at her lobby, I ask her doorman for my suitcases.

  “Leave them there for a bit and come upstairs. I know you have a flight to catch, but you have time for one glass of champagne.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  As we walk toward her apartment, her cell phone rings and she looks at it.

  “It’s him,” she says. “Calling to see how the appointment went.”

  “Well then, answer, but I’m not getting on that plane unless you identify this mystery man.”

  She picks up the phone and as she whispers, the tears come again. “The doctor says things look perfect.”

  She hangs up. And her smile is different.

  “You’re in love,” I say.

  She smiles. “Remember the Winter Party? That gorgeous bartender Jake? Well, he called.”

  “It seems he did a little bit more than call,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. Because I was embarrassed. He’s no i-banker. I am a lawyer. He is a bartender.”

  “Who cares? Plus, no one in Manhattan is just a bartender,” I say.

  “Exactly,” she says. “Turns out he plays the trumpet in a jazz band. He is away for a gig in L.A. this weekend. They just signed a record deal.”

  For a moment, she disappears into the kitchen, and returns holding a glass of champagne in one hand and clutching something in her other hand.

  “This is my baby quilt,” she says, clutching a faded pink and green blanket. “My grandmother made it when my mom was pregnant. I’m going to give it to her.”

  At this display of uncharacteristic joy, I smile. At the fact that she is so determined it is a girl simply because that is what she hopes for, I smile. “So, let me get this straight. A few months ago, you were a cynical and pin-striped powerhouse and poof!—you’re going to have a gorgeous little girl and a man who plays her jazz lullabies and then fixes you perfect cocktails? Not bad.”

  “I will still be a pin-striped powerhouse,” she insists. “But a pin-striped powerhouse-plus. I will have it all. The job, the man, the baby. I’m allowed to believe that’s possible for now at least.”

  I nod. “Of course, you are allowed to believe,” I say. And she is. “K?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard you swear once today.”

  She pauses. “Maybe when you’re happy, fucking happy, there’s no reason to swear.”

  We laugh. Hard.

  Together, we sit on her floral couch. She plays back an episode of Oprah. The woman herself stands at the center of the flat-screen TV, her body stretched, vast diamond earrings flashing in the camera. Her lips move, but we don’t hear what she says.

  “Her teeth are illegally white,” Kayla says.

  “Totally,” I say, and smile.

  I look around her apartment, the complementary floral patterns and gingham pillows. The botanicals hung in perfect lines, the well-chosen antiques scattered about. Kayla swears her mother decorated it.

  Oprah talks about alcohol abuse. That forty-three percent of Americans misuse alcohol, and it’s for a variety of reasons—to suppress emotional pain, to self-medicate, to cope with loss, to quell anxiety, to make life more euphoric.

  I nod and sip my champagne. “Cheers!”

  On tomorrow’s Oprah: women and bra size. Some eighty-two percent of American women wear the wrong size bra. I wonder if I’m one of them.

  Outside, the sky grays, preparing for night, and windows on the tall buildings turn on
and off, a crossword puzzle of light.

  “K, I should go,” I say. “I have a plane to catch.”

  I stop off in her bathroom. And I see them there on the counter. A tall stack of wedding magazines. I pick them up and carry them out to her. “Is there something you have to tell me?”

  “Not yet,” she says. “But hopefully soon.”

  I smile. It’s good to hope. It’s good to believe.

  “Q, I want to thank you,” Kayla says as I gather my things.

  “For what?”

  “For coming with me today. For putting up with me. For being a good person. For being a good friend,” she says. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course you do,” I say.

  “No, I don’t,” she insists, taking a small sip of my champagne. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you saying that?”

  “Because I mean it,” she says.

  “What do you have to be sorry for?” I ask.

  “Sage. I always had this crush. I think I was envious of you, how much you have. It only happened once, I promise.”

  “It?”

  “It was just a kiss. And it happened a long time ago.”

  “When?” I ask.

  “At my birthday party last year,” she says.

  Kayla’s birthday is on September fifteenth. When the Towers came down, she canceled her table at a nightclub and opted for a “quiet gathering” at her apartment. And while I was with my mother and brother uptown, Sage “stopped by on our behalf” to drop off a bottle of champagne.

  “Let…me…get…this…straight…” I say, my voice eerily calm like those September minutes before everything happened. “While I was uptown comforting my insta-widow mom, processing the fact that my dad was buried under a pair of buildings, you were staking your claim?”

  And then my friend, my exceptionally clever friend, says two exceptionally unclever words, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” I say, and stand. Chug the rest of the champagne and slam the glass down. “Cheers.”

  I turn to leave.

  “It was one kiss,” she says. “One meaningless kiss. Don’t go.”

  “That one kiss means something to me,” I say. “And, yes, I have to go. There’s a wedding this weekend in case you don’t remember? One to which you are no longer invited.”

  “Q, you don’t mean that,” she says.

  And maybe she’s right. Maybe I don’t mean it. But I say it. And leave her there clutching her belly and her baby blanket. Before I walk out the door, I turn and look at her. And for the second time in one day, I see her cry.

  Chapter 30

  Toward my future, the cabbie drives fast—honking, swerving, cursing. A gold cross dances dangerously on the windshield.

  I look at his license. His name is Bob.

  It’s rush hour and the traffic’s a bitch. “I’m not sure you’re going to make it,” Bob says from the front seat.

  “Me neither,” I mumble. “Me neither.”

  It only happened once.

  And suddenly I’m hungry for details. Did he run his fingers through her hair? Tug her earlobe when he kissed her? Cup her chin as he pulled away? Was it just a kiss?

  The more information the better.

  Maybe not. Maybe a little mystery will save us.

  Words convene mercilessly.

  Phelps: No harm in a midnight snack.

  Victor: This is what we do.

  Sage: Good people fuck up. Forgiveness is underrated.

  Mom: Men never know what to do.

  Me: Good people can lie about most anything.

  Bob pulls up to the terminal. “That was faster than I thought it would be,” he says. “You have plenty of time.”

  But all I can think is: Do I?

  And Sage stands there waiting for me, flanked by our matching suitcases, an early wedding gift from his aunt, hugging a white garment bag.

  My wedding dress.

  The man behind the desk looks at our photo IDs. “No license?” he asks, scrutinizing my tattered passport.

  “No,” I say. “Maybe someday.”

  Sage smiles. “One of these days, she’ll grow up,” Sage says to the man.

  The man prints boarding passes and Sage reaches for them.

  “I’ll hold mine,” I say.

  It’s a start.

  On the security line, I clutch my dress and look around. At the babies and old people, the bald heads and ponytails.

  “Statistically, forty-three percent of these people drink away their demons and eighty-two percent of the women wear the wrong size bra,” I say.

  And this is the beauty of trivia. We talk about things that don’t matter when avoiding the things that do.

  “Fascinating,” Sage says.

  We take off our shoes. Arrange electronic devices in soiled gray bins. I lay my dress down on the rolling black rubber and watch as it appears on the other side.

  At the sports bar, we find three bar stools. One for each of us, one for my dress.

  “We had this magical afternoon,” I say. “I sat there with her as she saw her baby. And she’s so happy. She’s in love. I think she’s looking for a fresh start.”

  “That’s good, right?” he says.

  “In theory, yes,” I say. “But in practice, for some people having a fresh start sometimes entails admitting things. She told me about her birthday.”

  He looks down.

  “Nice birthday present, but I think the Veuve would have sufficed,” I say.

  “You know something about fishing when you’ve already snagged one,” he says.

  The bartender sees my dress and smiles. “Good luck,” he says, and hands us menus.

  Thanks. I think we’ll need it.

  Sage sits there, sad and defeated, sipping Guinness, the black beer Dad used to love. Fear overtakes those blue eyes.

  And just as I am about to wind up and let him have it, really let him have it, I have a flash of Phelps. Naked. On top of me in a cheap and generic hotel room. And then I say words that perhaps surprise us both. Words that Sage once said to me. “Life will go on. If we let it.”

  Sage’s eyes widen. Those pupils dilate. “Huh? You deem my mother the devil for giving us her mother’s china. I kiss your friend and I’m off the hook?”

  I nod, slowly but surely. “Enjoy this moment of temporary insanity while it lasts,” I say. But what I think of is those books I loved as a child, full of stories simple and profound. Despite the decisions and mistakes we’ve both made, we are both here, on the very same page. Maybe, just maybe, this is the way it was supposed to happen.

  I shred a cocktail napkin into tiny pieces. And think of that night we first met. When everything was new and untarnished. When I wore those wings. “Sage, I’m sure you know this by now, but I’m no angel.”

  A captive audience. A pseudo-confession.

  He nods. “Neither am I.”

  Our silence is filled with sudden and imperfect understanding, the conversation of others, a blaring basketball game, a weatherman predicting unseasonable snow.

  It’s then that my future husband orders two more pints of Guinness and finally asks me: “Are you happy, Quinn?”

  I pause. Think about this. “I want to be,” I say.

  He smiles.

  “Me too. Do you think it’s possible?” he asks. “To be really happy?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Maybe happiness is a herd ideal,” he says.

  And just when we are getting somewhere, finally getting somewhere, really getting somewhere, he quotes another philosopher.

  “Borrowing from Nietzsche?” I ask.

  “From him and from you,” he says, reaching into his bag for something.

  He pulls paper from his bag.

  “You gave this to me when we first met. When you were in law school,” he says, waving those sheets of paper. “You said it was proof you wouldn’t become one of them.”

&
nbsp; And then he reads some words from it.

  “Nietzsche said, It is not the satisfaction of the will that causes pleasure, but rather the will’s forward thrust and again and again becoming master over that which stands in its way. The feeling of pleasure lies precisely in the dissatisfaction of the will, in the fact that the will is never satisfied unless it has opponents and resistance. ‘The happy man’: a herd ideal.

  “Then you wrote this which I love,” Sage said. “The good struggle had become a way of life and it wouldn’t end at graduation. The JD would bring a new herd to abandon one day. Moving on would usher in a new cast of opponents and a fresh stock of resistance. Nietzsche’s ‘forward thrust’ would continue and they hoped, they knew, that they could manage. Stronger, rookie masters of the struggle that is life, they knew deep down that somehow, someday, they would just do it. Even when the real ‘it’ still eluded them all.”

  I smile. I wrote that. Even then, I knew. “The good struggle,” I said. “Then it was theoretical. Now it’s life. Our life.”

  He nods, clutches those papers. “I’ve held on to this because it makes sense to me. The best things in life are never easy.”

  Buzzed, we board our plane.

  “When did you know about me?” I ask him.

  “The night we met,” he says. “The freckles, the playful irreverence. I just knew. You asked me the next morning if I had any bacon and I didn’t. I kept bacon in my fridge from that day on. You were different. You weren’t like the others.”

  And I can’t help but notice that he speaks in the past tense. You were different. You weren’t like the others.

  “The night you proposed, I had a dream,” I say.

  I pull that crumpled stationery from the Ritz out of my bag and hand it to him. And I watch as he reads my words, scribbled down the morning after he asked me that all-important question. I watch as he reads about the trinity of grooms, and the jury, and his mother, and the blurry-faced judge. I watch as he reads about the disappearing father and the screaming little girl.

  He finishes reading, and maybe he sees the worry in my eyes because he smiles and says, “Bug, it was just a dream.”