“June is the month for weddings,” Mrs. Kent said, not quite answering my question. “I see that you are engaged.”
I glanced down at my left hand. Was my ring too big, too ostentatious? I looked back to the massive diamond brooch on my employer’s shoulder and felt reassured. Even if my ring was too flashy for some, it was probably just fine for Mrs. Kent.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m not getting married until September, though.”
“Ah.” Mrs. Kent sank in her seat; suddenly, she seemed tired. “About these questions, my dear,” she said. “Why don’t you write them down for me and let me think about them for a day or two. I’ll have Ms. Butterfield call you when I’ve finished.”
I left soon after, ushered out the front door by the peerless Ms. Butterfield. Once on the tree-lined, shaded sidewalk, I took a deep breath. I’d survived the first meeting with Mrs. Kent, and if her unexceptionable assistant was professionally intimidating, at least the lady of the house was surprisingly down-to-earth.
The sun was shining, the breeze was light, and forsythia bushes were in bloom. There was a bounce in my step as I walked back toward the South End. I might just enjoy this job, I thought happily. I think it’s going to be fun.
18
The Last Vestiges
“Anna,” Ross said, “would you like something to drink?” “No,” I snapped, “thanks, I’m fine.”
It had been a trying day. The printer had delivered the right invitations on the wrong paper; proving they were the ones who’d screwed up the order took half the morning. And dear, eccentric Mrs. Kent, through Ms. Butterfield, of course, had further compounded my problems by twice misplacing the list of questions I’d faxed to her. (Although Mrs. Kent wasn’t one for any device more complicated than the telephone, her matchless assistant was fond of communications technology.)
All I wanted to do that evening was watch a mildly amusing sitcom and drift off to sleep. But I still had some bills to review; my accountant was expecting a variety of papers the following day. Ross, probably thinking I wanted his company, had stopped by after what seemed to have been a stress-free day at his family’s successful construction business.
Why, I wondered with some impatience, as Ross nibbled a small piece of Manchego cheese, didn’t he ever bring work home with him? True, he often worked late, but I’d come to learn that “working late” meant drinks and dinner with clients, potential clients, and his father’s cronies.
Suddenly, every little noise my beloved fiancé made shredded my nerves. Ross cleared his throat, and I wanted to scratch his eyes out. He slit open an envelope, and I wanted to scream. He poured himself a glass of wine, and the sound of the liquid filling the glass was enough to force an “EEErrrgghhh!” from my lips.
Ross looked up, startled.
“What’s wrong, Anna?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I snapped. “I’m just trying to work.”
Ross raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry I asked.”
I thought, He’s thinking, “Uh, oh, here come the mood swings.” And I needed to set him right. I tossed aside the account book and got up from the couch. “Okay,” I said, “do you want to know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you. It’s just that there’s so much to do. There’s always a phone call to make or an order to pick up or a client to appease. It never ends, Ross. And I’m so on top of things, it’s not like I’m negligent. I just ... I just don’t know how I’m going to handle running the business and caring for a baby. I just don’t know.”
Ross was calmness personified. Calmness and neatness. He’d been home from the office for two hours and was still wearing suit pants, a white shirt, and a tie. He was barely wrinkled.
“Well,” he said easily, as he sat in an armchair and folded his legs, “you can always close the business for a while. It would be like a sabbatical.”
I swear I thought I would pass out. I sank back onto the couch heavily. Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe. And then, try to explain that what Ross has just suggested is impossible.
“That would be career suicide, Ross,” I said, more forcefully than I’d intended. “Once I’m off the scene, I’m off. Do you have any idea how hard it would be to win back my former clients, let alone woo new ones? I’m in a business that’s all about relationships and relationships have to be maintained. If I shut down Anna’s Occasions, my regular clients will see it as abandonment and find someone else to take care of them. And then, when I’m ready to start up again, it will be that much harder to—”
“Calm down, Anna. I’m not—”
“—make new connections. I’d have to relearn the social scene, who’s hot, what’s not. Besides,” I said, looking at Ross pleadingly, wanting so badly for him to understand, “I like my business. I like working.”
Ross chuckled. Since when had he taken to chuckling? Since I’d told him we were going to have a baby, that’s when. Next thing I know, I thought, he’s going to be wearing argyle cardigans and loudly sucking hard candies.
“You’ll be working with the baby, believe me,” Ross said all-knowingly. “My mother and my aunts tell stories. You know, why don’t you talk to my mother, and to your friend Kristen, the one with all the kids.”
“Three kids,” I said. He hadn’t understood.
“Okay, so talk to her. And talk to your sister-in-law, too. What’s her name again? She must have her share of stories. Anna, I think you’ll see that you’re in for a huge amount of work right here at home. And honestly, if we can afford to live on one salary, and we can, why kill yourself keeping Anna’s Occasions alive?”
Because it’s my creation, I answered silently. In a way, it’s my first child.
Ross abandoned the armchair and joined me on the couch. I fought the impulse to scoot away.
“Come on, Anna, promise me you’ll at least think about giving up your business. Hey, I could help you negotiate a sale of your client list. Well, my lawyer could. Just think about it, okay? You don’t have to make a decision right away. You still have some time.”
I didn’t reply. Ross seemed to take my silence for acquiescence.
“Besides,” he went on, “everyone says the minute the baby is born you’re not going to want to spend one minute away from him. Ross, Junior. Think of how much easier it will be to have sold off the business before the baby’s born so you can concentrate on what really matters.”
“What really matters,” I repeated dully.
Not me, not Ross, not our marriage, not my career.
Ross squeezed my shoulders in a fatherly way. “Good girl,” he said. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”
April, I thought, truly is the cruelest month.
19
Of the Flesh
An entire morning without nausea and vomiting. This bodes well for the entire day, I thought, as I locked the front door behind me and headed out for the office. Maybe the morning sickness phase is over. Maybe for the rest of the pregnancy I’ll feel just great, rested and strong. Maybe this gloriously sunny day is the start of a brand new phase of my life!
I made it an entire two blocks before it hit. My mouth filled with saliva, and before I could make it all the way to the fence surrounding the community garden, I vomited. Trembling, I tried to take a deep, slow breath, but the torment wasn’t over. I continued to gag for what seemed an eternity; mercifully, my stomach was now empty.
This is what my life had become. Puking on a public street. I desperately hoped no one watching me thought I was drunk. I desperately hoped no one watching me thought I was a drug addict going through withdrawal.
“Disgusting.” The voice came from behind me. Automatically, I turned and saw the retreating back of a young man with a shaved head.
“You could at least have tried to find a toilet.” This voice belonged to a woman pushing a high-end stroller that looked more like a vehicle for three armed soldiers than transportation for a sleeping baby.
I was too mortified to p
rotest. What next came out of my mouth was perhaps the most humiliating thing of all. “I’m sorry,” I croaked.
Not something sarcastic like, “Gee, thanks for the help”; not something angry like, “You bitch”; not something explanatory like, “I’m pregnant.”
I found a tissue in my purse and used it to wipe my mouth. If the concrete sidewalk could have split just then and allowed me to slip into the rat-infested depths of Shawmut Avenue, I would have been pleased. Rodents be damned. I was mortified.
As soon as possible I turned around and headed home. I wanted to run, to bolt, but I felt too woozy to risk more than a slow and careful pace. And while I walked I thought about The Body.
The Body, I had come to understand by the age of twelve, betrays you. You’re going along just fine, largely oblivious to the internal working of The Body, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, once every month or so you bloat, cramp, and bleed for five or six days. Your face breaks out, your mood swings wildly, and the craving for sugar reaches outrageous proportions.
Discovering I was pregnant at the age of thirty-seven was like revisiting that adolescent awakening. Pregnancy was serious, incontrovertible proof that The Body could rise up and surprise you at any time. The Body was unreliable.
The Body was life.
I don’t remember how old I was—I must have been quite young, maybe four—when I first saw an image of an angel that was basically a pretty, blonde head with pretty, pale blue wings. I think it was a painting; maybe it was on display in a museum. Maybe I saw this odd image in an art history book at a relative’s house. Or in a bible at the home of a Catholic neighbor, I don’t know.
But I do know that I was fascinated by that image. And years later, at eight or nine, I remembered that curly blonde head and pale blue wings and thought, That’s what I want to be. The brain is in the head and that’s where my thoughts come from, so I want to be all thoughts—all thought and feelings and spirit—and a pair of filmy wings. Because The Body, I thought, is not really you. You are what’s inside The Body—your thoughts, feelings, and spirit. Your soul is you.
Or something like that. I was, after all, only eight, not exactly at the age for serious philosophical thought.
Of course, I soon grew up to learn that heads got colds and aches; there was hair to maintain and style. Worse, there were diseases that were attributable to chemical imbalances in the brain—depression, both manic and chronic; schizophrenia; multiple personality disorder; obsessive compulsive disorder; attention deficit disorder. The list went on. Eventually I just had to face the fact that when you’re human there’s just no way around The Body. Without it, we’re nothing. Spirit needs a residence, at least here on planet earth.
When I finally reached the safety of home that awful day, the first thing I did was scrub my teeth. Work could wait a few hours. The office would be fine sitting there all on its own. My cell phone rang. It was Ross; I didn’t answer. He, too, would be fine all on his own. Propped up in bed, I reached for one of the books stacked on the nightstand and opened it randomly.
“Pregnancy,” the author of The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy writes, “is a great time to learn the life lesson of surrender.”
20
Panic in Babyland
Sometimes too much information is a very bad thing. Here’s how I learned that lesson for the second time in a matter of weeks.
My mother called me at the office one afternoon.
“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why, are you too busy to talk?”
I shook my head, confused. How had she made that leap? Anyway, my mother never calls me at work. She rarely calls me at home. Why wouldn’t I think something was wrong?
“No,” I said. “I can talk.”
“Well, I only have a minute. Anna,” she said, “you’ll want to take a subscription to a parenting magazine. Let me know which one you want, and your father and I will pay for it. It was his idea.”
Gee, thanks, Mom, I thought. I don’t know if I could afford the twelve dollars a year.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “But you don’t have to do that. I—”
“You already took a subscription? I told your father as much. Okay, then. I’ll talk to you next week.”
My mother’s half-hearted offer—I was sure my father knew nothing about it—annoyed me but it also got me thinking. I supposed I should find a parenting magazine I could rely on, something that was both enjoyable and informative.
I took a break around one o’clock and walked to the Barnes and Noble in the Prudential Mall. And I stared stupidly at the colorful selection spread out before me. Three rows of glossies. Approximately thirty titles. How to decide which magazine to buy?
In the end I bought them all: Parent; Parenting; Parents. Good Parent; Better Parent; Best Parent. Traditional Baby; Modern Baby; Today’s Baby. Infant Infatuation; Totally Toddler; Cherished Child. Family; Families; EveryFamily; Your Family. Family Funtime; Family Mealtime; Family Learningtime. Mommy’s Little Helper ...
Okay. That last one is a joke. But really, who expects mothers to have the time or energy to implement every fantastic craft and “easy” fifteen-step recipe without a little help from her friends?
“Doing some research?” the clerk at the checkout counter asked pleasantly. Her hair was worn in two long braids; her face was flat and smooth like a slice of potato. She looked about eleven. “Are you a writer?”
“Research, yes,” I said shortly. “Writer, no.”
“Oh. So, like, you just want to know about stuff.”
“That’s it exactly,” I replied, handing her my frequent buyer card.
“So—” she began, handing me the bulky plastic bag filled with information.
“I’m sorry,” I said, cutting the poor girl off. “I’m in a hurry.” And I dashed off as fast as my burden would let me.
That night I spent almost two solid hours reading articles from the various publications. Here are some of the fascinating facts I gleaned:
Approximately eight thousand children each year are born with some form of autism, from Asperger’s disorder to Rett’s disorder. (My brother and his family are not alone in their pain.)
Thousands of children are killed each year by childhood cancers and other deadly diseases.
Pedophilia is on the rise; at least, it’s being reported more often than it ever has been, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good if you consider that victims are speaking out. Bad if you consider that there are so many victims in the first place. Teachers, neighbors, clergy, family members—everyone was suspect.
Every year in the United States alone, 700,000 children are reported missing. Three to five thousand of those children are snatched by strangers from the sidewalks just outside their home, from their schoolyards, from the mall. Most of them never come home. Some people advocate the implantation of microchips in children at birth so that if the child goes missing he or she can be tracked. Kiddie LoJack. Pretty much everyone agrees that you’d be crazy to let a child walk to school on his own. Pretty much everyone agrees that children needed to be chaperoned 24/7.
A seventh-month-old baby could roll right off her changing table, even a changing table with a lip. A two-year-old could get his hands on a peanut and suffer a severe allergic reaction and maybe even die. An infant in his crib could be alive one minute and dead the next, a victim of SIDS. While his negligent nanny’s back was turned, a three-year-old could fall from the top of a jungle gym—where he shouldn’t have been in the first place—and land on his head.
There were, I realized in a state of growing panic, no end to the disasters that could befall an innocent baby in arms. A toddler could grab a fork from the dinner table and poke his own eye out. He could swallow a penny or stick his finger in an electric socket or break away from his father’s grip, dash out into a busy street, and be hit by a passing bus. The other kids in his daycare center could infect him with all sorts of nasty bugs—including li
ce!—and there was not much even the most careful and concerned parent could do about it. Nobody could baby-proof the world!
I looked at the tumble of glossy pages on the dining table and shuddered. Helping? The parenting magazines weren’t helping one bit. Instead they were causing acute anxiety that couldn’t even be appeased by the photos of chubby-cheeked Asian-American babies in ladybug Halloween costumes; or curly-haired, blonde toddlers in pink velvet dresses; or roly-poly African-American infants in the latest Ralph Lauren styles.
I addressed myself sternly: Face it, Anna. You are going to give birth to a child and subsequently drop her on her head. You are going to nurture her inside your own body for nine long months only to roll over on her in your sleep when she is no more than a week old.
Disaster, it seemed, was inevitable.
I picked up one of the many postcards I’d ripped from the glossies. “Would you like to place a subscription?” the postcard asked.
“No!” I said to the room, tearing the postcard in two. “I most certainly would not!”
And I reached for Vogue.
21
Arrevederci, Anna
Alexandra and I were at the bar at Suede. She looked impeccable, as always, in her simple white blouse and black slacks. I wore a vintage Diane von Furstenberg wraparound dress with knee high Kenneth Cole boots. Since I’d discovered I was pregnant and learned that my body was about to undergo several alarming changes, I was mad to wear every piece in my extensive wardrobe.
For the last time? I wondered if after the baby I’d ever fit into the fabulous Missoni skirt I’d scored at Filene’s, or the silk halter-top Prada dress I found at a high-end resale shop on Newbury Street, or the slinky dove-gray Armani evening dress I’d bought—on sale—to wear to a gala event at which Ross’s father was receiving some kind of award from the Chamber of Commerce.
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