Lullaby and Goodnight

by Staub, Wendy Corsi

  Who would ever have expected that to happen so quickly after Derry responded to the initial e-mail? She’s heard nightmarish stories about all the red tape, high costs, delays, and false starts that go along with the adoption process, but this was easy.

  Almost too easy.

  And, remarkably, affordable. The fee is much lower than the tens of thousands she anticipated. Even better, it can be paid in small monthly installments that will commence only when the adoption is complete.

  At this rate, Derry could be a mother in just a few months.

  “. . . and then we realized we can’t afford infertility treatments,” Linden is saying, having conveniently forgotten that Derry’s case was so futile Dr. Lombardo didn’t even present that option, “so we sort of knew that we probably aren’t going to be parents.”

  Sort of knew?

  There was a time when Derry was charmed by his poor grammar. She used to be drawn to that rough-around-the-edges quality of his.

  Not anymore. She has to get him to shut up, or he’s going to ruin this. No adoption agency wants to give a child to a father who says ain’t. Of that, she’s certain.

  “But then, just when we figured it wasn’t gonna happen, Derry got that e-mail,” Linden goes on, oblivious of her disgust, “and she was so happy when she heard back from you. You should have seen her face. I don’t think she’s stopped smiling since that day.”

  Derry melts a little, touched by the glance her husband sends in her direction. His grammar stinks, but anyone can see that he loves her. Surely two happily married parents meet the most important adoption criteria.

  “I’m happy to hear that, because your future as parents looks very bright.” Rose includes them both in her pleasant smile, revealing a row of perfect, ultrawhite teeth. Still, there’s a slight air of detachment about her expression. The smile doesn’t quite reach her brown eyes.

  That’s because she’s the epitome of professional decorum, Derry tells herself, relaxing a bit despite her anxiety. This isn’t as scary as she expected. Everything is more casual than she expected, almost as though the slim blonde on the couch is a new neighbor from down the hall, dropping by to introduce herself.

  Not that she can quite picture Rose living here in Co-op City. There’s a vaguely upscale air about her. Her hair is styled in a country club pageboy, and she’s wearing a trim black suit and a pair of leather pumps that look as expensive as her perfume smells. And if that square-cut diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand is real, it’s worth almost as much as this apartment.

  Derry always pictured adoption agency employees as nuns, or social worker types. In a way, that might be easier. She wouldn’t feel as self-consciously inferior.

  Shifting her gaze away from the woman’s huge ring, she notices that at least her nails aren’t long and perfectly polished, as one might expect in a city where weekly manicures are requisite. Derry unclenches her own ravaged fingertips a little, no longer quite as desperate to hide them in the folds of her sweater.

  There’s nothing critical in Rose’s mascara-fringed eyes as she says, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Why don’t you go ahead and ask them?”

  Linden, who has been skeptical about this process from the start, promptly opens his mouth.

  Before he can throw a wrench—or a dangling participle—into the precarious proceedings, Derry blurts, “Tell us about the mother in Iowa.”

  A shadow crosses Rose’s attractive face.

  Uh-oh. Clearly, Derry said the wrong thing. She should have let Linden do the talking after all.

  Rose seems to be choosing her words with care.

  Finally, she says, “At Cradle to Cradle, we prefer to call expectant clients ‘donors.’ If everything works out the way we expect it to, Mrs. Cordell, you will be the mother. Not her.”

  Derry grins, the last of her reservations melting away like ugly late-winter slush.

  Rita’s cell phone rings just as it’s her turn to be waited on.

  “Can I help you?” the deli counterman is asking impatiently.

  She holds up a finger, motioning him to stand by while she answers her phone. “Hello?”

  “Rita. I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. Where have you been?”

  “Delivering twins,” she tells Nancy wearily. “And I worked up one hell of an appetite, so hang on a second.”

  To the impatient counterman, she says, “I’ll have a turkey sandwich on whole grain bread with lettuce and mustard.”

  “Cheese?”

  “ No.”

  “Tomatoes?”

  “No. Just lettuce and mustard,” she repeats with forced politeness, wondering why New York deli men always seem bent on making things more complicated. She orders the same exact sandwich every time she comes in here. Which is at least once or twice a week.

  Rita isn’t crazy about complications these days. Or ever. No, sirree.

  Into the phone, she says, “The second twin was breech. What a nightmare for the mother.”

  “And for you.”

  “She did all the work.”

  “Not all the work. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  Rita smiles, shaking her head.

  Leave it to Nancy to turn her into the hero. The woman’s specialty, aside from gossip and perpetually feeling sorry for herself, is definitely stroking egos. No wonder Bill Lombardo hired her years ago. Nancy always knows just what to say to flatter him.

  It’s a God-given gift, as far as Rita’s concerned.

  “You know how I feel about my work, Nancy. It isn’t brain surgery. I just make sure I’m there, and I let nature take its course.”

  “Most midwives would beg to differ.”

  “Listen, sugar pie, you and I both know that women have been giving birth for quite some time and anyone is capable of doing what I do,” says Rita, who frequently points out that it wasn’t so long ago that most women acted as midwives for their daughters and sisters and friends.

  “You’d better not say that in front of your patients, or they won’t be willing to pay you,” Nancy warns her. “Anyway, listen, I was wondering if we could set up another home-birth seminar here in the office for sometime next month.”

  “You don’t think I’m busy enough?” Rita asks with a laugh, plucking a bottle of sweetened iced tea from the refrigerated case adjacent to the counter. “I’ve already got my hands full with patients and support groups—which reminds me, I’ve got to reschedule that Pregnant and Single meeting. I’ve had to cancel on them twice at the last minute.”

  “Nature of the business,” Nancy says lightly. “And they’ve been meeting anyway. I think they just like bonding with other women who are in the same boat. So can we set something up for the office?”

  “I’ll call you later, from home,” Rita promises. “I don’t have my appointment book with me.”

  “Turkey on whole grain with lettuce, onion, and mustard,” the counterman bellows, thrusting a wrapped sandwich in her direction.

  Rita sighs. “I’ve got to go, Nancy. I’ve got to take care of a problem here.”

  “Patient complications?”

  “No,” Rita says with a smile, shaking her head. “Sandwich complications. Talk to you later.”

  “You were right. This is a great restaurant, Peyton,” Allison announces around a mouthful of Tequila Moon’s famous refried beans. “Do you come here a lot?”

  “Pretty much every day lately, the way I’ve been craving cilantro.” Peyton dips another tortilla chip into the restaurant’s addictive salsa. “Good thing it’s only a block from my apartment. Then again, I’d be more than willing to take two subways and a bus to get here if I had to.”

  “That’s pretty much what I have to do to get my Indian food fix. Only it’s one subway and two buses.”

  As they share a laugh, Peyton marvels at how quickly she and Allison have bonded over cravings and nausea, layettes and maternity catalogs, even a mutual hobby of collecting classic children’s books.
r />   It’s only been a few weeks since that first Pregnant and Single meeting, but Allison feels like an old friend, more so than the other members of the support group.

  Kate has already delivered a baby boy and advanced to the foreign land of breast pumps and colic. Julie is a bit too militant in her views on home birth and neonatal care, and Wanda is caught up in the ongoing drama of her affair with the married father of her child.

  Still, Peyton has more in common with all of them than she does lately with coworkers she’s known for a few years. Those at the office who have children are married; those who don’t seem to be determined nonbreeders. In fact, Peyton wonders how she never noticed until now how often her boss, Tara, seems to make disparaging remarks about children and motherhood. It’s almost as though she might suspect Peyton’s pregnancy and is hinting that she’s about to derail her career.

  “Do you think I should talk to Tara on Monday?” she asks Allison, who is a longtime secretary at a midtown law firm and a self-proclaimed expert on corporate politics.

  “I thought you were going to wait until you’re really showing.”

  “I was going to, but . . . I mean, why wait? What’s she going to do, fire me?”

  “Maybe.”

  Peyton sticks out her tongue. “Let her try. I want that promotion when Alain leaves in a few weeks, and I’ve worked hard for it. Nobody deserves it more than I do.”

  “Then don’t tell your boss you’re pregnant until after she’s promoted you. Tell her now and she’ll have you flying down the mommy track so fast you’ll need Dramamine. Trust me. I see it happen all the time at the firm.”

  “So why doesn’t anybody sue? They’re lawyers.”

  “Who knows? Maybe because once they become mothers, they aren’t as passionate about their jobs. You’ll see.”

  “I doubt it. I know I’ll love the baby, but I also love my career.” Less at the moment than ever before, but she’s worked hard to build it, and she’s certain she’ll regain the passion. “And anyway,” she goes on, heaping her fork with spicy yellow rice, “I’ve got to support the two of us somehow.”

  “Maybe you’ll find a nice rich husband. Like Dr. Lombardo.”

  I never should have told her about those dreams.

  Peyton knows her cheeks must be redder than the habanera chiles on her plate.

  “I don’t want a nice rich husband,” she assures Allison. “And anyway, Dr. Lombardo is already somebody else’s nice rich husband.”

  “Okay, then how about a great-looking husband with a good sense of humor? Because I was thinking that one of the lawyers at the firm would be perfect for—”

  “I don’t want any husband, Allison. Trust me. I don’t want to answer to anyone.”

  “Hmm, let me guess: your fiancé was a total son of a bitch. Am I right?”

  Peyton shrugs, not in the mood to ask which fiancé? She must have mentioned one of her broken engagements to Allison in the flurry of confidences they’ve exchanged these past few weeks—not that she recalls doing so. She’s pretty forgetful these days, though. And she must have brought up Scott or Jeff at one point, because Allison is now regarding her with a knowing look, obviously convinced that one of them turned her into a man-hater.

  Again, Peyton regrets blabbing her personal business. It isn’t like her. There’s just something about candid, easygoing Allison that tempts Peyton to open up more than she usually would. And something about being pregnant that has her reaching out to other women in a way she never has.

  Oh well. No harm done, she assures herself.

  She just isn’t eager to discuss Scott or Jeff or the reasons neither of them became her husband.

  She says simply, “I’m going to do this on my own.”

  Allison’s expression isn’t exactly disapproving, yet she shrugs and asks with a touch less warmth than usual, “What are you going to do with the baby once your maternity leave is over?”

  “Hire a nanny,” she says, hating that it comes out sounding like a confession and wondering what the heck Allison thinks she’s going to do. “Or maybe I’ll use day care. I don’t know.”

  “Have you started looking?”

  “Not yet. There’s plenty of—”

  “You’d better start looking now,” Allison cuts in. “This is New York. People put fetuses on waiting lists for private high schools.”

  Peyton laughs.

  Allison shakes her head soberly. “I’m not kidding.”

  Her smile fading, Peyton wants to tell her friend to stop trying to spook her. It’s not as though she’s assuming this will be a cakewalk. But neither is she willing to focus on the challenges ahead without mustering every shred of optimism she possesses.

  Don’t let her scare you off. You’ll make it. You’ll be a terrific mother, and you’ll raise a terrific kid.

  “Look,” Allison says earnestly, “I’m not trying to be the prophet of doom. But I feel like you think you know what to expect and you’re positive you can handle it on your own, when in reality, parenthood is full of surprises. I don’t want to see you with your hands full, wishing you had waited until you were married.”

  “You’re not married.”

  “Not this time, no. But I have a support system under my roof. You’re all alone.”

  “Which is my choice,” Peyton insists. “And it’s a good one, for me. This didn’t happen by accident, remember? I chose this. I want this. More than anything.” Her voice breaks, and she looks down, needing to steel her wayward emotions.

  “Just don’t rule anything out, okay? You might change your mind.”

  “About getting married?”

  “That, and working so many hours in such a demanding field.”

  Peyton laughs. “You don’t know me very well, Allison. I rarely change my mind about anything.”

  “All right, Ms. Obstinado. We’ll just see about that.”

  “Hey, don’t call me that!” Peyton protests, though it isn’t the first time somebody has done so.

  “What?”

  “Bullheaded.”

  “I didn’t realize you spoke Spanish.”

  “Only what I learned in high school.”

  “Well, if the zapato fits . . .” Allison smiles. “Listen, all I mean is that becoming a mother is going to change everything. You can’t know in advance how much, so keep your options open. You might wake up a year from now and decide you want a husband or a three-day workweek or a nice cushy job share like I have.”

  A job share. Even if that kind of thing weren’t frowned upon at the agency, it’s out of the realm of possibility for Peyton. She couldn’t afford the salary cut now, let alone with another mouth to feed.

  Allison has the luxury of living with her parents.

  Luxury, or misfortune, depending on how you look at it.

  Peyton would never want her mother judging her every move the way Allison’s reportedly does.

  Then again, she can’t help secretly thinking it might be nice to have a built-in babysitter. Or a few of them. Allison’s parents helped to care for her children when her husband left her. Now her teenagers are old enough to take care of themselves, and to pitch in with their new sibling.

  Allison will have plenty of willing hands standing by when the baby comes along. Peyton will have none. Nobody to help . . .

  But nobody to interfere, either, she reminds herself, and decides to change the sore subject.

  “I keep wondering what the baby looks like,” she tells Allison. “It’s hard, you know? Never having seen the father.”

  “I know, but just think. Maybe his genes won’t matter anyway. Maybe it’ll look just like you did as a baby.”

  “God, I hope not. I was totally bald until I was about a year old.”

  Allison laughs. “Well, I had so much hair when I was born that my uncle Norberto nicknamed me Peludo.”

  “Peludo?”

  “You don’t know that word? It means shaggy. He still calls me that. I hate nicknames. When my kids
came out looking just like me, with piles of shiny black hair, Uncle Norberto tried to pull it again. But as soon as I told him I’d teach them to call him Pelado in return, he cut it out.”

  “What does Pelado mean?”

  “Baldy,” Allison says with an evil grin, and turns her attention to the menu in her hand. “So what should I order for dessert? What’s good? The margarita ice cream?”

  “No liquor, young lady,” Peyton says with mock disapproval. “Not for another two months.”

  “Yeah, well, the second I deliver, I’m breaking out the tequila.”

  “Want me to bring you a bottle of Cuervo in the hospital?”

  “Make it Patron and you’ve got a deal.” Allison grins, her old sunny self once again.

  Watching her friend scanning the dessert list, Peyton decides that she’ll definitely ask Allison to be her labor coach. It’s something she’s been mulling over all week.

  For one thing, she can’t think of anybody else to ask. For another, Allison’s irreverent sense of humor will be welcome in the delivery room. Yes, and she’ll certainly be well acquainted with the rigors of childbirth by that time.

  Before Peyton can pop the question, though, Allison poses one of her own. “How’s the flan here?”

  “As good as you’d expect.”

  “Does it have a lot of caramel sauce?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is it good caramel sauce?”

  “Delicious.”

  “Then that’s what I’m having.” Allison snaps the menu closed. “Oh, and speaking of delicious, that hottie over by the bar has been watching you for the last ten minutes. If you weren’t so opposed to husband hunting, I’d tell you to turn around and wink.”

  “Wink?” Peyton laughs, shaking her head, trying to imagine herself winking at a strange man. “Who am I, Betty Boop?”

  “Oops, too late, Betty. It looks like he’s leaving. Anyway, men are off-limits to you, unless you’ve changed your mind already?”

  Peyton assures Allison that men are as off-limits in her immediate future as margarita ice cream is.

  Still, curiosity gets the best of her, and she turns around.