Babyland

by Holly Chamberlin

  So I said yes to Ross’s proposal of marriage. I put that three-carat emerald-cut diamond ring on my finger—rather, I let him slide it on for me—and I set my face in the direction of a bright and shiny future as Mrs. Anna Traulsen-Davis.

  A bright and shiny future that was not supposed to include a baby.

  4

  Goodbye to All That

  I got home that evening at seven. There was a message on voice mail from Ross, saying that he was sorry he’d missed me. “Knowing you,” he said, “you’re working late, again. Well, I suppose that’s what makes Anna’s Occasions the success it is. I’ll try you on your cell.”

  I pulled my cell phone from my purse; I’d turned it off just before meeting Alexandra. There were no messages, but there was one other message on voice mail. It was from Mrs. Beatrice Kent’s personal assistant; in a somewhat pained voice, Ms. Butterfield informed me that Mrs. Kent had chosen my “little company” to put together a small party at Mrs. Kent’s home for the surviving members of her high school drama club.

  I should have been thrilled. Mrs. Kent is well known, well connected, and well heeled. Landing the job was quite a professional coup. But my excitement was tempered by the disconcerting fact that I was unexpectedly pregnant just six months before my wedding to a man who didn’t want children.

  I walked into the kitchen and took a bottle of water from the fridge. Rarely has anything gotten in the way of the enjoyment I derive from work. Alexandra calls me a workaholic, but I don’t like that term. Besides, I cherish downtime; I know how to relax. It’s just that work is for me what tennis is for professional tennis players. It’s what I do; it’s who I am.

  I got my first job the summer I was fourteen; it was at the local branch of the public library. The salary was abysmally low, but I loved having a job; it appealed to my sense of structure and routine.

  After that there were stints as an office assistant, receptionist, and checkout girl; for a few summers I was a waitress, then hostess, at a local Friendly’s. My parents were thrilled at my industriousness. They stopped giving me an allowance when I turned fifteen; any spending money I needed from that time on, even through college, I earned.

  After college I took a job with a mid-sized event-planning company where I worked hard and learned the ropes. And after ten years, I left that company to start Anna’s Occasions. When I think back to those first arduous months of planning and financing, I can hardly believe I had the nerve to take such a risk, albeit a calculated one. Walking away from the safety net of a steady paycheck and a corporate-sponsored insurance plan took a lot of courage; I’m not bragging, just being honest. The only arena in which I’ve ever been bold is my career. Well, maybe I am bragging.

  In the early days of Anna’s Occasions, I worked from home to keep overhead low. But before long I found that it was virtually impossible to maintain any sense of private life when my office was down the hall from my bedroom. So I rented office space in a small commercial building on Tremont Street. The rent was high, but in the end my sanity was worth it.

  Still, anyone who runs her own business—whether she be a freelance editor or a personal financial advisor, whether she has a staff of one or twenty, whether she works from home or an outside office—will tell you that her business is her life, her life is her business. It has to be that way if the business is to survive; the business never would have been born if she hadn’t been super-dedicated in the first place.

  Remember: It’s Anna for Every Occasion.

  I know. But one line hooks like this work, sometimes too well. It’s hard to manage a long weekend, let alone a real vacation, when your business is thriving. But over time I learned how to better structure and, most important, how to say no. A girl needs her downtime. I don’t need worry lines and crow’s feet before I’m forty.

  One more point: From the start of my solo career I declined to venture into the wedding-planning business. Twice I was made enticing offers: the first, by a bride-to-be whose imagination was as blank as her budget was limitless—imagine the possibilities!—and a year after that by a bride-to-be who had always dreamed of a Moulin Rouge–style wedding; but I stuck to my original plan and gave the hopeful brides a referral instead of my signature on a contract.

  Here’s why: Familiarity breeds contempt. I didn’t want to become so jaded by the arduous process of arranging weddings that by the time my own wedding came along I opted for a quick civil ceremony at the courthouse, no big dress, no lavish reception, and no champagne toasts. I wanted my own wedding to be special, unsullied by an insider’s view of the industry. It’s reported that weddings are something like a sixty billion dollar industry in the United States. With that kind of money changing hands, it can be difficult for someone in the business to preserve any sense of romance about her own wedding.

  The decision paid off. Now it was time for my wedding, and I was happy and excited; it all felt fresh. And things were going swimmingly. The vendors to whom I gave lots of business were coming through for me without a hitch. The florist, the caterer, the agency that booked bands (no DJ; Ross and I were in agreement on that). One of my regular clients recommended a makeup artist and a hairstylist she hired for all the charity galas she attended in Boston and New York. Another hooked me up with a private masseuse who would be available for a stress-reducing massage the morning of the wedding.

  Anna’s big wedding. The wedding that might not be happening. Because once I told Ross that I was pregnant ...

  Well, I told myself with false cheer, look on the positive side, Anna. With no wedding to plan you’ll have plenty of time to spend on Mrs. Beatrice Kent’s project. That is, until you have to start converting part of your bedroom into a nursery, interviewing daycare agencies, and figuring out how you’re going to support yourself and a child for the next eighteen years.

  I put the empty water bottle in the sink and went into the living room. Although no one piece was spectacular, the room was pleasing. Good taste can take you far, especially when your decorating budget is modest. Now, I tried to imagine a Pack-n-Play in place of the coffee table, a baby swing where the ficus tree stood, a heap of brightly colored toys strewn across the couch. I tried to imagine those things, but I just couldn’t.

  I looked then to the fireplace. (Were you allowed to make a fire with a baby in the house?) Several framed photographs were displayed on the white marble mantel. I reached for the one of Ross and me on the beach in Puerto Rico earlier that year. One of the resort’s employees had taken it for us, after he’d delivered two tall, frosty glasses of rum punch. With no false modesty I noted that Ross and I looked good together, both of us trim, healthy, and stylish. I didn’t want to lose Ross. I didn’t want to lose future opportunities to laze in the sun on foreign beaches with my handsome, well-behaved fiancé.

  With a shaky hand I replaced the framed photo, and in spite of Alexandra’s suggestion that I put it off, I decided to tell Ross about the pregnancy that very night. Why prolong the agony of not knowing how Ross would respond to my big news? Why put off the agony of being abandoned?

  Because I just knew that Ross would dump me like the proverbial hot potato. Ross isn’t an irrational hothead. On the contrary, his basic rationality would be the cause of our split. He’d say that we had a deal and that I’d broken it. I’d argue that it had taken two to break the deal and besides, I—we—hadn’t broken it on purpose.

  But my arguments would fall on deaf ears.

  I picked up my purse and headed out again. At the corner, someone was just getting out of a cab, and I slid in—amazing luck in Boston. The loft was only about a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment, but I’m not comfortable on certain fairly isolated South End streets after dark. The driver took off, and I continued to anticipate the scene to come.

  It was an accident, Ross, I’d plead. All just a horrible accident. It’s nobody’s fault. Neither of us is to blame.

  But Ross wouldn’t listen. He’d shake his head, tell me how keenly disappointed
he was in me, and suggest I remove my belongings from his place of residence.

  Being pregnant brought out my hitherto undetected penchant for drama.

  The driver sped up to make a light, and I gripped the edge of the seat. I’ll be a single mother, I thought wildly, if I don’t die first in this cab. I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. Me and little Trevor or Emily, traveling the country in a beat-up old Ford, waiting tables at Denny’s for loose change, stealing day-old loaves of bread, turning tricks in exchange for a warm, dry place to sleep.

  Face it, Anna, I told myself. You’ll never be able to run the business with the demands of motherhood. The cost of child care is astronomical, and you can just forget about asking your parents for help. They’re far more interested in their time-share in Florida than in babysitting their grandchildren. So you’ll have no help from that quarter. Within a year all of your clients will have abandoned you for someone who can actually meet a deadline and show up for a meeting without spit-up stains all over her blouse.

  “Lady? Lady?”

  The driver was scowling at me over his shoulder. The cab was not moving. I mumbled an apology and stuffed a few bills into his hand.

  “Don’t you want change?” the driver called as I scooted from the back seat.

  “Keep it,” I replied, wondering just how big of a tip I had given him. Budget-conscious Anna Traulsen tossing away her hard-earned money?

  Such was my state of mind when I arrived at the condo where Ross and I were to begin the rest of our lives.

  5

  And Baby Makes Three

  Ross wasn’t home. While I waited for him I surveyed the two-thousand square foot space and yearned in vain for the worries of the day before, the worries that only twenty-four hours before I’d found so monumental.

  The contractor was two months behind schedule. (I later learned that this is par for the course.) The tile supplier had sent the wrong tile for the bathroom floor. The Ralph Lauren paint technique we’d chosen for the front hall was a disaster, impossible to achieve. Someone or something had dinged the hood of Ross’s Jaguar (I’d told him not to drive it in the city), which required that it be in the shop for several days. The dry cleaners had failed to get out a stain in my favorite silk blouse, a stain they’d assured me they’d remove, and they’d charged me for the so-called service anyway.

  Such were the tragedies Ross and I faced as two well-paid thirty-somethings with little or no responsibility to anyone but ourselves. I wonder if we knew just how good we had it.

  Ross arrived at about eight-thirty. I greeted him with the traditional kiss on the cheek. I waited with false patience for him to take off his jacket and empty his pockets of change.

  “Ross,” I said, as he began to unpack a bag marked New Wine and Spirits. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Okay. Hey, do you want a glass of wine? I found a fabulous bottle of Australian Shiraz this afternoon.”

  I was increasingly a nervous wreck. Ross didn’t seem at all aware of that. Maybe that was a good thing. “Um, no, thanks,” I said. “Let’s sit down, okay?”

  I perched on the edge of the couch. Ross followed with a glass of the Shiraz and settled comfortably next to me. He sighed, smiled pleasantly, and sipped the expensive, jewel-toned wine.

  “It’s nice to come home to you after a long day at the office,” he said. “It’s very relaxing.”

  Well, I thought, it won’t be very relaxing for much longer.

  And I told him. The expression on his face was impossible to read. He turned from me, reached for a coaster, and carefully set his wineglass on the temporary coffee table. He didn’t turn back.

  “Ross?” Gently, I touched his shoulder. He continued to stare straight ahead, at the wall against which we’d decided to place Ross’s seventy-inch flat-screen television.

  “Ross?” I repeated, ready for the worst.

  And then he completely surprised me.

  Ross leapt from the couch, lifted me up after him, and hugged me like he’d never hugged me before.

  “This is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me!” he cried, and I heard his voice break. “Anna, I can’t believe this!”

  Ross let go of me—thankfully, as I was beginning to gasp for air—and held my hands up to his chest.

  “This is unbelievable,” he said, eyes glistening with tears. It was the first and last time I saw Ross cry. “Just wait until my mother finds out she’s going to be a grandmother! She’s been dreaming of this day ever since I graduated from college and got a job. Ever since I established myself. Ever since Rob broke his engagement to that horribly boring woman from Florida and she thought she’d never have a grandchild. Anyway, she’s going to be thrilled.”

  I resisted pointing out that Rob’s horribly boring fiancée had been, in fact, a brilliant chemical engineer. Instead, I focused on the positive. Two people were thrilled about my pregnancy, Ross and his mother. It was a start.

  “So, you’re not upset?” I asked, daring to believe Ross’s joy. “I mean, we talked about children and, well, we said we didn’t want to have any.”

  Ross laughed. Yes, I heard joy in that laugh.

  “Am I upset? Anna, I’m kind of in shock, but it’s going to be great. I can’t believe this! How did it happen, anyway? Did you forget to take the pill?”

  “No!” I cried.

  Here it comes, I thought. His seemingly enthusiastic reaction is just a cover for his fury. Maybe he’s having a fit of some sort. Maybe this unbridled joy is a kind of psychological breakdown.

  “No,” I went on, my voice calm and, I hoped, soothing. “I’m very careful about taking the pill. I guess I’m just that one-in-a-million woman ...”

  Ross grinned. There was still no sign of fury.

  “Or maybe,” he said, putting his hands around my waist and pulling me in, “maybe I’m just that one-in-a-million man who’s so virile your girls don’t stand a chance against my boys.”

  I smiled. There it was, the ego. Ross was just a man like every other man. Cleaner, maybe; neater; and more stylish than the majority of men, but a man all the same. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you,” I said teasingly.

  Ross kissed me. “I’ve got the proof.”

  6

  The Other Road Traveled

  Decaffeinated tea isn’t so bad, I lied to myself heartily. And in only eight months or so you’ll be able to have a normal cup of tea or coffee.

  It was no use. The absence of caffeine in my diet was taking a toll in the form of a nasty, dull headache. Everyone said it would go away in a few days, but it was four days and counting. What constituted a “few” in the general opinion?

  I dumped the cup of so-called tea into the sink and reached for my address book. I opened it to the section marked T. Under the number for my parents’ home and the one for their time-share, under my brother’s number and the number of his ex-wife, was the one I was seeking.

  I met my friend Kristen Tremaine when we were sophomores in college, back when her name was Kristen Rivers. We were both enrolled in a course on the great mistresses of European history. The class’s raging debates—such as, were these mistresses truly powerful players or merely victims of an abusive paternal regime—inspired us in more ways than one. For Halloween that year I dressed as Madame du Pompadour and Kristen dressed as Nell Gwyn. We were the hit of every party and fast friends from that night forth.

  Still, in the second half of our twenties, our lives took very different paths. The last thing on my mind was marriage. But for Kristen, it suddenly was the first. When she was twenty-six she met and fell in love with a guy named Brian Tremaine, an Arlington local who’d gone to only one semester of college before realizing he could make a pretty decent living working for his uncle’s mid-sized construction company.

  Brian is friendly and hardworking, an all-around stand-up guy. There’s nothing odd about him except for his being so very different from all the other guys Kristen had ever dated—highl
y educated professional men who wore dark suits to work, drove Mercedes, and took ten-day vacations to Cancun every February. Men you were supposed to date when you came from a home in which both parents were professionals, when you had gone to Harvard Law, when you were well on your way to partnership in a small but prestigious law firm. Men like, well, men like Ross.

  “But what do you guys talk about?” I’d asked Kristen when she and Brian had been together for about six months.

  “Plenty of stuff,” she replied easily.

  “Like what?”

  “Like camping,” she told me. “We both love to camp. I bet you didn’t know that about me.”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “And we both love Dave Matthews. Do you know that between the two of us we’ve been to nine concerts? And we talk about the family we’re going to have some day.”

  Kristen had made up her mind. Her decision to marry Brian came as a shock to me and our other friends from college. An even bigger shock was Kristen’s decision after the birth of her first son, Robbie, to quit her promising position at the small law firm to be a stay-at-home mom.

  Eleven years into their marriage, Brian is owner of his retired uncle’s construction firm and Kristen the mother of three children ranging in age from nine to two. They live in a big, yellow, Victorian-style house in Wakefield, a house they bought as a fixer-upper and will probably still be restoring on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It’s obvious Kristen and Brian have little money to spend on luxuries like European vacations and jewelry and fancy cars. Each year they rent a cottage on the Cape and take along a grandmother or two; Kristen wears a simple gold wedding band without diamonds; Brian drives a Honda Accord; Kristen chauffeurs the kids in an old Jeep. And from what I can tell, they’re really happy. Things could be far worse for the woman who saw her future in an unexpected place and had the courage to reach for it.

  Anyway, after her wedding I continued to keep up with Kristen, but until recently our very different lifestyles precluded the possibility of spending a whole lot of time together. We exchanged cards at the holidays and e-mails every few weeks, and whenever Kristen could sneak away we’d meet for lunch, an event that Kristen says is “better than a day at a spa.” I think Kristen has forgotten just how good a day at a spa can be; she hasn’t been to one since the day before her wedding eleven years ago. (Note to self: For Kristen’s next birthday, a gift certificate to Belle Sante on Newbury Street.)