by Judy Baer
“How do you feel, Chase? This isn’t something you can agree to, just to make me happy. When we make this decision, we both have to be ready.”
Chase is far too indulgent with me. He lets me eat saltines and drink hot chocolate in bed and wear his new T-shirts as pajamas. He shares his toothbrush with me when we’re traveling and I’ve forgotten my own—the definitive sign of true love. The only thing he really holds the line on with me is football. I can snuggle with him, blow in his ear, rub his back or sleep on his shoulder. But I cannot turn the television off during an interception thingy, walk in front of him during a touchdown or keep asking him why they have “downs” instead of “ups.” It’s a small sacrifice on my part, I think, since I really love taking naps in his football jersey on Sunday afternoons.
“I can’t imagine anything I’d love more than having a beautiful little mini-Whitney around the house.”
“It could turn out to be a mini-Chase.”
“As long as you’re involved, he or she will be perfect.”
“Besides, there’s no way we can duplicate me. Dad says I’m one of a kind.”
“He’s correct there.”
“He also says I wasn’t spoiled as a child but that I just smelled that way.” I learned humility from Dad.
“Life will imitate art.” Chase pulled me close and cradled me in his arms. “And you, my dear, are the highest art form I know.”
As I closed my eyes and let him kiss me again, I reminded myself never to let Mitzi know that those baby magazines she left on my desk had had any effect on me whatsoever.
Tuesday, March 2
The idealistic baby fantasy lasted almost twenty-four hours. Then Kim asked us if we’d watch Wesley while they went out for dinner and discussed the “you-know-what” issue.
I know why they didn’t want Wesley along while they were trying to decide if they should have another child. Wesley—precocious, beautiful, intelligent, gifted, spoiled Wesley—is the finest form of birth control ever invented.
He marched into our house on chubby BabyGap jean-clad legs, pulling a little wheeled suitcase. He shrugged off his denim jean jacket, ruffled his pale blond curls, opened his big baby blues in an expression of vast innocence and said authoritatively, “Disney-dot-com.”
“Wes, you know Aunt Whitney doesn’t let you play on her computer,” Kim chided.
“Sorry, buddy. The dot-com era bit the dust. Didn’t you hear? According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s still in recovery mode.”
He stared at me, his lower lip wobbling tremulously, a single perfect tear forming on the center of each of his lower eyelids, giving me an opportunity to relent and stop the floodgates of misery and mayhem about to erupt.
I, like a fool, didn’t bite.
In slow motion, Wesley’s world, and even Wesley himself, crumbled. He fell to the ground, opened his mouth and let out a wail that shattered all my crystal in the dining-room buffet, scared Scram and Mr. Tibble off the couch and into the bedroom and put a slight crack in the picture tube of my television.
Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. The television was not damaged.
“What’s this about?” I yelled to Kim over the din.
“He’s in a phase. Just ignore him.”
“It would be quieter in here if my house were sitting in the middle of an airport landing strip.”
“He’s had separation anxiety lately. His supper is in his little suitcase. You know what a fussy eater he is.” Kim smiled weakly. “If we do have another baby, I don’t think we’ll indulge him or her quite so much.”
“Good idea.” I picked Wesley up by the armpits and made a wet, noisy raspberry sound on his bare belly. He quit crying out of sheer surprise, waved goodbye to his mother and demanded ice cream. So much for separation issues.
Chase walked upstairs from the basement. “Who’s being murdered up here?”
“Say hi to our houseguest.”
“Hey, buddy.” He and Wesley high-fived. “How about some smoked oysters and a little football?”
Wesley chortled and lunged out of my arms toward Chase.
And so much for the fussy-eater thing.
Tonight was different from the other times Wes has stayed with us. I kept imagining him as my own little boy, with us not for a few hours, but for a lifetime.
As the evening progressed, I tallied in my head all the wonderful—and not-so-wonderful—aspects of being a parent. Clearly there are glorious things about having a child.
1) The way a baby smells after a bath—soap, lotion, powder and that natural fragrance of sweet breath and fresh skin.
2) Baby toes.
3) Baby kisses.
4) Watching him suck his thumb as he soothes himself to sleep.
5) The kittenlike snore that reminds me of a purr and signals he’s no longer messing with my mind and is really, truly, asleep.
6) Pink, full lips relaxed in an innocent smile.
7) The comical way Wesley holds my face in his and turns it toward his own when he wants my attention.
8) Long, fine eyelashes that delicately fringe sleepy eyes.
There are, however, some not-so-blissful things about having a little one around, too.
1) The way a baby smells after depositing a large treasure in his training pants.
2) Baby toes—when they are uncovered because said baby has flushed his shoes down the toilet.
3) Baby kisses—when they are open-mouthed and that same mouth has recently been eating smoked oysters and crackers.
4) Watching him suck his thumb, biding his time, waiting for me to turn my back on him so he can wreak more havoc in my household.
5) The strange sounds children make in their sleep—the snuffles and grunts that make me leap to my feet to check on said child every few minutes.
6) Full, rosy lips screwed up into a pout.
7) The way a child can manage a vise grip on your face so tight that it feels like he might screw your head off to get your attention.
8) Long, fine lashes through which he can turn a glare into a full-scale emotional assault. With a look, Wesley can make me feel guilty for everything I’ve ever done to him, including administering vitamins, combing his hair, stopping him from putting his finger in a light socket and preventing him from pulling off my cat’s tail without anesthetic.
9) Potty training—and little boys with very bad aim.
10) Stubborn refusal to wear “big boy” pull-ups to bed. Changing bedding. Twice. In three hours…
Sometimes it’s best not to record everything in one’s journal. It makes reality too clear and, well, too much of a reality.
Chase, of course, loved every minute of the evening—me getting soaked when Wesley splashed in the bathtub; me standing on my head trying to get him to eat green peas; me setting off a crying jag by suggesting that Wesley might sleep better if his pajamas weren’t on backward.
It appears that as long as I serve smoked oysters with crackers to them as they sit on the couch watching men in ridiculous outfits try to injure each other over a bit of pigskin and a pumpful of air, everything will be fine. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but Chase came down on Wesley’s side of every issue.
About toilet training: “Little boys need the practice. Don’t worry, the floor can be washed.” By who, I wonder?
About flushing: “I’m sure Kim and Kurt have lots of other shoes he can wear.”
About pet care: “Don’t worry, Scram will grow another tail.”
“Chase, are you going to be one of those indulgent fathers who thinks everything his son does is cute?”
“It will be, won’t it?”
“What if your daughter decides it’s okay to pee on the floor, flush her shoes down the toilet, eat oysters and burp?”
He thought about it for a moment before answering. Then he glanced at me hopefully. “Then I won’t have to worry about guys flocking to our door asking her out on dates before she’s ready.”
Before she’s thirty, you me
an.
Chapter Three
Wednesday, March 3
To whom it may concern:
To the owner of the leaking Ziploc bag that at one time may have contained a sandwich and some baby carrots that now houses fuzzy mold and oozing liquid, please remove your biological warfare project from our refrigerator. There are some in this office who want to keep their lunches cold and do not want vomitous yellow gunk dripping onto our yogurt cups. If this is not done immediately, fingerprints will be lifted from the plastic bag and the guilty party will be fined large amounts of money and forced to eat the contents of the baggie.
The Management
War has broken out in the Innova lunchroom, and it isn’t pretty. We’ve been eyeing each other with suspicion, covertly watching our once-trusted friends and coworkers stash their lunches in the break-room refrigerator to identify consistent patterns of behavior. Betty is my top suspect, for leaving a Tupperware container of cottage cheese and pineapple on the counter until the cheese aged into a yellowed slime the texture of yak milk.
Harry usually picks up something at the deli, so I assume the half-eaten pastrami on rye that’s fossilizing on the bottom shelf is his. Bryan is hard to pin down because he brings his lunch in everything from old bread bags to cast-off foam containers. Mitzi carries her meal in a tidy Gucci purse she’s turned into a lunch box. I suspect that beneath that designer exterior lurks a plebian plastic bag carrying the hard-boiled eggs that she intentionally leaves in the fridge for weeks at a time to torment the rest of us. Old eggs give off a distinctive rotten, sulfurous smell that is easily recognized but requires a full-scale refrigerator cleaning to eradicate.
And that’s part of the problem. Nobody wants to be in charge of cleanup, so we’ve allowed a zoo of microscopic bacteria, fuzz, mold and moss to build and flourish. Our lunchroom is not called the Bacteria Buffet for nothing.
I’ve ordered Mitzi to do the dirty deed, but she says it isn’t in her job description, that removing toxic waste is the task of a professional. Her only concession to helping out with this office problem was to send her cleaning lady in one day to do the job—and then submitting her bill to me for payment.
Mitzi breezed into the break room on strappy sandals that matched her pink designer suit, put her Gucci lunch box on the table, opened it and took out a delicate tray of sushi. She batted her fake eyelashes at me and put the sushi in the refrigerator. Then she took a bottle of designer water out of the bag and tripped off to her desk to file her nails, read the paper and make sure she and her husband had secured tickets for the symphony—all of which, she insists, are somewhere in the “unwritten” agreement concerning her job description.
Mitzi missed her calling. I could see her as an executive for a company run by Barbie and her stiff-legged dolly friends. Barbie has a Dream House. If she ever develops a Dream Office, Mitzi is the one for her. Work would involve picking out professional-looking suits in all shades of pink, refurnishing rooms with expensive furniture and groaning over long days at the office when one should really be at the beach.
“There you are, Whitney. I’ve been looking for you. Where have you been?” Harry had a stack of contracts in his arm and a frazzled look on his face.
“Standing here. You’ve gone by the door three times and looked in.”
“Nonsense. You must have been hiding.”
I didn’t bother to point out that hiding from the boss during office hours is frowned upon, even here at Innova where the expression “running a loose ship” was probably invented. Besides, I know from experience that around here, you can run but you can’t hide.
“Take a look at these, decide what we should do about them, report back to me and we’ll determine our next step.” He thrust the papers at me as if they were the proverbial hot potato. All Harry really wants to do is design software. Things written on paper bore him, even contracts that bring in paying customers.
He spun on his heel to leave, then paused and turned back. He’s very graceful for a short man who’s carrying more weight that he should around his middle.
“Whitney, I don’t say it much, but I really do appreciate what you do around here. Bringing you into the Innova family was the smartest thing I ever did.”
I blinked, dumbfounded. “Why, Harry, thank you…”
“And get those things back to me ASAP and tell Mitzi to get the lipstick off her teeth on her own time.” The touchy-feely moment was over, and he was gone.
The Innova family. I like the sound of that. Dysfunctional as it is, I’m glad I’m part of it, too. Then the word family brought me back to the conversation Chase and I had had last night, the one about starting our own little family.
How much, really, had the idea of having a child right now been sparked by the thought of sharing those special months with Kim? We shop together, we eat together, we pray together. Maybe being queasy and nauseous together would be fun, too.
After work I stopped at Norah’s Ark, my favorite pet shop, to get food for Mr. Tibble and Scram. Norah was behind the counter, having a deep conversation with a turtle. Her dark, curly hair was fastened into a ponytail that erupted from the top of her head. She has remarkable gray-green eyes, full of humor and compassion and a ready grin.
“Hi, Whitney, how’s Mr. Tibble? What’s Scram up to? Oh, yes, and Chase?” Norah always asks about the pets first.
After leaving the pet store, I picked up a pizza and arrived at home by six-fifteen. Chase was already there. Odd. He usually doesn’t arrive until seven or after.
At least I thought he was home. His car was in the garage, but the house was dark. I found him in the darkened living room, lying on the couch with a pillow over his eyes. Mr. Tibble was sleeping on his chest, his head nuzzled beneath my husband’s chin. Scram, who’s learned his place in Mr. Tibble’s pecking order—below the bottom—was sleeping across one of Chase’s ankles.
When Mr. Tibble heard me come in, he turned his head and sleepily kneaded his claws into Chase’s chest. That started a chain reaction. Chase jumped at the needle-sharp nail pricks, Mr. Tibble yowled and hung on by his claws to Chase’s shirt. Scram, jettisoned off Chase’s leg and sure he must be somehow the cause of all this commotion, headed for the hills, or, in this case, the back of my favorite chair.
“I usually don’t see this much excitement when I walk into a room,” I commented, first prying Mr. Tibble off Chase and then rubbing the broad part of Chase’s chest where the cat had been hanging.
“So much for a nap. I think I may be going into cardiac arrest. Could you do CPR on me, please?” Smile lines crinkled around his beautiful blue eyes, and I felt my own heart do a little lurch.
“Oh, I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” I put my arms around him and kissed his lips. “What are you doing home? I didn’t expect you until seven.”
“Tired, that’s all. I got done early today and decided to sneak out.” He brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. “Maybe I’m getting old and can’t keep up the pace.”
I searched his face, unable to tell if he was joking or serious, but he smiled at me and, as usual, banished every sensible thought from my brain.
After dinner, as we sat together on the sofa, Mr. Tibble and Scram once again snoozing next to us, Chase asked. “What’s Mitzi been up to today?”
The Mitzi saga is Chase’s idea of a soap opera, and I’m his verbal TiVo. I replay my day with Mitzi every evening so he can have a few laughs.
“That podiatrist husband of hers is clamping down on shoes with pointed toes. She says he’s seen a rash of bunions lately and wants her to wear flats. As you can imagine, Mitzi is fit to be tied. She’s been wearing sensible shoes out of the house and hiding high-heeled shoes in a briefcase and bringing them to work but has begun to feel that’s being ‘unfaithful’ to her husband. Recently she forced Betty Noble to stay late and teach her how to sell her shoes on eBay.”
“At least she didn’t waste work hours on it,” Chase commented.
“Sh
e didn’t have time. She was too busy researching cellulite cures during the day.”
“How is Kim?”
I waved my hand. “Up and down. Chase, do you think Kurt is right to be so worried about her having another child?”
“Kurt’s cautious. The man is going to be a certified public accountant. Those types don’t make their money taking risks. It’s in his nature to be cautious. There was a time that it was assumed that the hormone surges of pregnancy fueled breast cancer. That’s not so black-and-white today, especially in women like Kim whose cancers were caught early. Kurt and Kim need to get all the facts from their specialist and then make the decision.
“It can go either way,” Chase added matter-of-factly.
“For women whose cancers are caught early, a subsequent pregnancy may not be nearly as dangerous as was once assumed. Still, Kurt can find information out there that says a woman’s survival is affected negatively, as well. They need to be talking to their doctors, not scaring themselves on the Internet.”
“It’s so hard for them.”
“They’ll be okay, Whitney. They’re a praying pair.”
Of course. I felt my mood lighten. “You’re right. They have the God factor on their side.”
Chase pulled me close. “Did you think anymore about our conversation last night?”
“I didn’t think about much else. Poor Harry didn’t get much bang for his buck from any of his employees today. I prayed about it, too.”
“I know. I did—”
The phone rang, interrupting what Chase was about to say.
“Whitney, this is Kim. What are you doing?”
“Having a romantic tête-à-tête with my husband.”
“Oh, good, I didn’t interrupt anything important, then.”
Chase overheard her comment, rolled his eyes and went to make coffee, leaving me alone with the conversation.
“Very funny.”
“What are you guys doing tonight?”
“Nothing. Especially since you interrupted our romantic talk.”
Kim didn’t take the hint.
