Baby Love

by Joyce Maynard

  He turns on the radio, hoping for some really heavy rock. All he can get is a French-Canadian station and country. He tries the dial. “Hey, turn it back,” she says. “That’s perfect. I feel like I’m in an episode of Happy Days. Time Warp City.”

  Mark doesn’t know what she’s talking about but he thinks she may be making fun of him. He wishes he still had that bag of New York dope.

  “So what do people do around here for thrills?” she says. “Go to Clint Eastwood film festivals? Have a contest to see who has the most Kenny Rogers albums?” The song that’s playing is “Lucille.” You picked a fine time to leave me.

  “Get high, listen to the Dead. You know,” he says. He’s not about to mention trout fishing.

  “I bet all the girls marry their high school sweetheart and have ten kids by the time they’re eighteen and live happily ever after, right?”

  “I guess some do.”

  “ ‘Bingo Every Thursday Night,’ ” she says. They have just passed a Moose lodge. “Bowling. I bet that’s big.”

  “Where I live,” says Mark, “we have this miniature golf course. That’s where everyone goes parking Saturday nights. There and the dump.” He feels proud when she laughs at that.

  “A girl I know got laid by this gas station attendant in Vermont who lived near her parents’ summer place,” says Val. “Actually, it was a real hot and heavy romance. He wanted to get married. The whole bit. Of course she was going to Vassar in the fall.”

  “What happened?” says Mark.

  “Gee, I don’t know. She majored in women’s studies, I think.”

  Some guy on the country station is singing “Would you lay with me in a field of stone?” If I could just get some decent music, Mark is thinking, I might get somewhere with this girl.

  “I bet you have a boyfriend,” he says. “Cute kid like you.”

  “Commitment to one person is a drag,” she says. “Ricky Nelson-type stuff. I see different guys.”

  “Older, probably.”

  “All ages. One time this twelve-year-old brother of a friend of mine tried to lay me. Got a hard-on and everything, if you can picture it. But I’m not into corrupting the young.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “Twenty-four, twenty-five?”

  Mark is pleased about that. He lights up one of his Tiparillos.

  “Do you have any boyfriends like me?”

  “Not exactly,” she says. She has picked up the tune of the song now and is singing along. Would you bathe with me in the stream of life?

  “Hey,” she says. “Any lakes or stuff around here?”

  “Sure,” he says. “Why?”

  “We could go skinny dipping.”

  “We’d freeze,” he says.

  “What are you, scared?”

  Mark Junior can always sense when something is wrong. It’s one of the reasons why Sandy knows he must be exceptionally intelligent. The night Mark came home with a stereo cassette player for the Valiant, for instance, and that money was meant for Sandy’s washing machine fund. Sandy didn’t even raise her voice at Mark that time—just made him promise to return it—but Mark Junior knew something was wrong. He got diarrhea and he wouldn’t go to sleep until eleven-thirty. There was another time when Sandy mentioned to Mark how she was thinking maybe they should have their second child soon, so their kids could be friends, and before Mark Junior gets so old that a new baby would be traumatic for him. Sandy knew Mark was going to argue—was even prepared for him to yell. But what he did was, he went into their bedroom and came out with the blue tie he got for their wedding looped around his neck, holding one end up in the air, with his head drooped to one side. “You want to put me in a noose, don’t you,” he said. Not loud. Mark Junior began to scream that time too. Also when Mark and Sandy make love, even if they do it in the other room, with the door closed. Mark Junior never cries when they’re doing it. But when it’s over, and the two of them are lying there, he almost always wakes up. He makes this odd noise like someone just stabbed him and then he fusses for a minute and finally he goes back to sleep. “They have a name for that,” Mark said once. “Some type of complex where little boys wish their father would drop dead so they could make it with their mother. You’d like that too, wouldn’t you?”

  Of course that was crazy. Sometimes when she’s kissing Mark Junior though, it’s true that Sandy forgets just for a second that he’s her baby and not her husband. One time she put her tongue in his mouth and he started sucking it, just like his bottle. She couldn’t believe how strong his mouth was. And sometimes she lies on the water bed, naked, after her shower, with Mark Junior lying on her stomach. She will look at him and think: You came out of me. She will rest her chin on the top of his head, just where the soft spot is, where—when he was smaller—she could see the skin rise and fall with his pulse. One of the books she has says there’s a special gland there, on the top of the baby’s head, that gives off a particular smell that makes the mother want to cuddle it. It’s true, Mark Junior’s head smells wonderful even without shampoo.

  That’s the spot she’s kissing right now. Mark Junior has been crying off and on all night, ever since Mark left, and Sandy’s sure Mark’s leaving is the reason. It didn’t even help, having Wanda’s baby over. Normally he loves having other babies around, but tonight he didn’t even seem to notice. Just kept screaming. He’d stop for a few minutes, gulping, catching his breath. Then he’d start up again. He did that for five hours nearly.

  It’s midnight now, and he has finally quieted down. Sandy has put on the Heart Like a Wheel album and Mark Junior is in her arms and they’re dancing. Sandy’s singing along, pretending she’s Linda Ronstadt. Or just some singer in a band. She never does this when Mark’s around—he says she has a terrible voice. But with the record turned up you can’t tell, she just blends in. At the dark end of the street. Just you and me. Those are the words.

  When Sandy and Mark slow dance (they haven’t done this in a long time now), Sandy’s always tense, worried that she will step on his feet. Their movements are choppy. Mostly they just go back and forth in the same spot. Mark’s hands make a sweat mark on her dress. Sandy looks at the floor. Even though they’re only dancing in the first place because Sandy has begged Mark, she’s usually glad when the song’s over and they can go sit down.

  The nice thing about dancing with Mark Junior in her arms is, Sandy’s never out of step. She feels the way Ginger Rogers must have felt in those old Fed Astaire movies. Or the girl in Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta’s partner. So totally in tune with Mark Junior it’s like they’re one person. She has one arm around his back and one arm outstretched, holding his hand. She leads, of course. The two of them are spinning, twirling, sweeping all around the room, and they never bump into anything. When Sandy dips, Mark Junior makes a contented little sighing sound. They don’t stop for one whole side of a record, and even then, only long enough to change sides. She sings into his ear, and he must like it because when she stops he begins to cry again. My love for you is like a sinking ship and my heart is on that ship out in midocean.

  They park the Valiant just below the falls and walk up to the swimming hole, because Mark doesn’t want the people in the cottage—the artist with the fancy stereo—to see them. The lights aren’t on in the house, but he can hear music playing. The water is really crashing down on the rocks tonight too, from yesterday’s rain.

  “Too much,” says Val, when they get close enough to see the water. She’s still wearing her high-heeled sandals, so it takes her a long time to climb down the rocks. Some kind of phosphorescent moss is glowing underneath one of the rocks.

  “I don’t know about this,” says Mark. “The water’s still pretty cold.”

  “One time when I was in Norway,” she says, “I met this guy who had his own personal sauna. We lay in it until we couldn’t stand the heat anymore and then we ran outside naked and jumped in the snow. Then we screwed, right there in the snow. It’s supposed to
be great for your skin.”

  She’s unbuckling her sandal strap now. Mark is trying to remember some of the pictures in More Joy of Sex.

  “This is unreal,” says Val. “Somebody’s playing one of my favorite albums.” Van Morrison is saying meet me down by the pylons. I’ve got something I want to give you.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be here,” says Mark. The moon is nearly full. That’s all he needs, for the artist to look out the window and paint the two of them into his picture. Recognize him from there, fishing with Virgil. Say, “You wouldn’t know about those three ounces of dope, would you? And my two vintage Beatles albums and Jackson Browne, Running on Empty?” They are probably still lying under the pine needles, maybe ten feet away.

  Val is not paying attention. She has already taken off her clothes. (Mark wonders how she managed to get a tan even on her rear end.) She is standing naked on one of the higher rocks. “Van Morrison is so good I can’t believe it,” she says. Then she dives in.

  Mark does not feel much like taking his clothes off. He’s thinking about Sandy, wondering what she did after he left. Call her mother? Complain about him to her friend? Probably not. She wants everyone to think their life is perfect.

  Sunrise in a couple of hours. The girl will be hungry. He will have to drive her through town. Someone—one of those girlfriends of Sandy’s that’s always hanging around downtown—will see him with her.

  How is he supposed to get an erection when the water is so cold? His cock will just shrivel up.

  The girl swims like Mark Spitz, naturally. Mark has never really learned how to do any stroke other than dog-paddle.

  For dinner tonight Carla made stuffed grape leaves and lemon soup—one of Greg’s favorite meals—and they had fresh strawberries with whipped cream for dessert. Greg went to get some grass for a joint and then he remembered that of course those kids who broke in took it. Carla has already decided to stay away from all drugs anyway until after the baby’s born. And then she will be breast-feeding anyway. She may never touch the stuff again. She doesn’t plan to be one of those mothers who gets high with their children sitting right there in the room. In fact, she doesn’t want Greg to do that either. She has begun to understand—though she’s still nine months away from being a parent—why it is that people with children are often so conservative.

  So he’s drinking wine instead, and she has made herself a glass of Perrier with a lime. Greg is sitting at his worktable, sketching out a plan for when to plant his vegetables. A copy of Crockett’s Victory Garden is open beside him. Carla flips through cookbooks, looking up recipes that call for rhubarb because they have some growing in the yard. She has put the newest Van Morrison album on.

  “Are you going to do a painting of that girl?” she says.

  “I have a whole scene in mind,” he says. “A tableau, sort of. She and her baby are part of it.”

  “What’s the rest?”

  “Some boys fishing below the falls,” he says. “This house.” He’s not sure. He and Carla might be part of it too.

  Carla asks why it is after all this time working with wire and nails and acrylic compound and coffee grounds, that he would want to paint a realistic scene again.

  “There’s something powerful about this spot,” he says. “I feel as if a lot converges here. It’s the kind of place where things happen.”

  Carla does not want anything else to happen. She would like to be safe at home in New York again, shopping for a well-designed crib. “I’ll tell you one thing you don’t know about this spot,” says Carla. She hadn’t intended to say this now. She was saving it.

  “We conceived a baby here.”

  Mrs. Ramsay is hunched over the steering wheel of her dead husband’s 1964 Eldorado. One reason she drives like this is that she’s nearsighted and doesn’t believe in wearing glasses, so it’s hard for her to read the road signs. Another reason is that she hasn’t driven in three years, and she’s a little rusty. The car hasn’t been registered either, so it’s just as well that they’re driving at night.

  Tara sits beside her. Sunshine is in Tara’s lap. (She knows this isn’t safe, especially the way Mrs. Ramsay drives. The first city they get to, Tara is going to ask Mrs. Ramsay to stop so she can buy a car seat. She has forty-three dollars with her, from the till in the Just-like-nu Shop. She will worry later about what to do when that’s gone.)

  Melissa-Susan lies in the back. Mrs. Ramsay took the top drawer out of her oak buffet, and that’s what Melissa-Susan is lying in. She’s wrapped up in a hand-crocheted lace tablecloth that Mrs. Ramsay got for a wedding present. Tara was thinking, when Mrs. Ramsay wrapped her up in that, what a shame it would be if the baby got the tablecloth dirty. Mrs. Ramsay doesn’t seem to be worried about that.

  The car is so full you can’t see out the rearview mirror. There is an eight-piece place setting of the Harvest Gold china they were giving away with purchases over five dollars at the Grand Union a couple of years back, and the dishes are not very well protected, so they’re clattering quite a bit. There are Mrs. Ramsay’s TV and a twelve-volume set of the Golden How and Why Encyclopedia. There are two African violet plants and a pressure cooker, a plaster cast of the Praying Hands, a beach umbrella, Mrs. Ramsay’s Barbie Doll collection (one is the 1962 version, with a bubble cut and the Dinner at Eight evening gown). There is a framed photograph of Mrs. Ramsay’s son Dwight in his Cub Scout uniform, an autographed copy of Lawrence Welk’s autobiography, Wunnerful, Wunnerful, four boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax. The reason for that is they don’t make Borax the way they used to anymore, back when Ronald Reagan was the host of Death Valley Days. Mrs. Ramsay happens to know they mix in chalk dust now. She found out just before they started doing it, so she bought enough of the old kind to last her.

  Those are just a few of the things Mrs. Ramsay is taking with her to Disney World. Tara is not taking much: just a few outfits for her and Sunshine, the rainbow quilt she’s making, Sunshine’s stuffed panda bear and the plastic clip they put on her umbilical cord at the hospital. Tara keeps that because she has no pictures of Sunshine as a newborn. It is her only keepsake from that time.

  They will stay overnight at a motel in Concord. Tara has never been to a motel before. Mrs. Ramsay says she has one thing to do there in the morning and then they will head south. She also mentioned something about stopping to talk to a breast-feeding consultant in New York City. Tara isn’t clear what that was all about. Also, Tara doesn’t understand why Mrs. Ramsay keeps calling Melissa “Susan.” It must be her middle name.

  Tara has begun to understand that Mrs. Ramsay is a little odd. But it’s hard for her to gauge, because her own mother is odd, and people have always said that Tara is odd too. Most people would say Denver and Kalima were odd, and Tara thought they were wonderful. People probably called Pablo Picasso odd when he started doing those cubist paintings. On the other hand, nobody calls Sterling Lewis odd, and he has a five-month-old baby daughter who lives just down the street from him—or did—that he never even wanted to see.

  “Now, there’s a sensible person,” says Mrs. Ramsay. They have just passed a man walking along the highway, heading in the direction they’re coming from. Tara doesn’t know what Mrs. Ramsay means.

  “His feet, for goodness’ sake. He wasn’t wearing any shoes on his feet. He knows his feet have to breathe.”

  Though it is a good distance from Concord to Ashford, Wayne does not intend to hitchhike. This is not because there will be a police report out on him soon. Wayne knows the police here are fools. They will put up roadblocks and stake out bus stations, but they would never think to look for him walking along the highway, barefoot. The reason Wayne prefers to walk is, he doesn’t want to make small talk just now. He has to store his energy, keep his concentration. The girl is waiting for him, lying on her couch. Like him, she has been waiting a very long time. She understands that he isn’t crazy. She knows that there are worse things than dying. Like living, when total devotion has died. When the pass
ion is all withered up. That is what Wayne has had to do. He spared Loretta that.

  They kept it going longer than he ever thought possible. For three years almost, it was as if they lived on top of a mountain—right at the brink of the precipice. Most people don’t have ten minutes like that. The unluckiest ones have about ten minutes and then they lose it, and they have to spend the next fifty years trying to figure out what happened, get it back, finally knowing they never will. Reading the newspaper, going to McDonald’s, watching TV shows. Breathing, shitting, fucking. Like some zoo gorilla with one thin memory somewhere inside his skull of life in the jungle.

  Wayne has not forgotten his real life, his days with Loretta.

  Those days are the reason he can do two hundred pushups without feeling any pain, the reason why he knows he could put his hand in molten iron; his whole body, for that matter. Because he has already survived those three years, and nothing else he can think of would require any more of a person, their body or their mind.

  The most obvious thing to do with Loretta was fuck. For the first six months he didn’t let himself do it. There she was, lying naked on that mattress with her legs spread open, her cunt dripping, crying, after a few weeks of it, “Come into me, I can’t stand it anymore.” He was hard all the time—even in his sleep. It was like having a migraine in his groin. He would pound himself against the wall for relief, but there wasn’t any.

  He wouldn’t let her touch him those months. Her arms kept reaching up, falling back when she remembered she wasn’t supposed to, her hands flopping around like fish on a riverbank. “I’ve got to just feel your skin against my hand,” she said. Finally he had to tie her arms down.

  He touched her, though. Every inch. He spent one whole night massaging her feet. He shaved her head so he could know her skull, just the way he knew her stomach and her breasts and her ears and her teeth, her tongue, the lines on her palms, the veins in her wrists. It got so he could just graze her eyelid and she’d come, if he left her waiting long enough for it. He knew all her places. Even today, five years since they buried her, Wayne could draw a map of her body. An atlas.