by Judy Baer
Who knows? By the time Mitzi is done, maybe Mabrinina, Zigfroid, Spade and Raine will be the only names left to choose.
“Want to go out for dinner?” I waved a hand in front of Chase’s face as he sat on the couch staring at a mind-numbing reality program on television.
“I’m not very hungry.”
“You’re never hungry anymore.” I moved toward him and slipped my arms around him. Thinner, much thinner.
“I had a late lunch at the hospital.”
“Cafeteria food?”
“Tortilla chips and salsa and a couple sodas.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I sat down beside him, and he pulled me close to tuck me into the curve of his arm.
“Would I kid you, the mother of my child? I also had a bag of peanuts and some salt-and-vinegar potato chips.”
“That doesn’t sound like you, Mr. Eat-Your-Vegetables-and-Keep-Your-Cholesterol-Down.”
“I didn’t have much time today, and frankly, all that junk sounded kind of good. Craving salt, I guess.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. Junk food sounding good to the man who thinks Brussels sprouts are as delicious as gumdrops?
“Chase, you sound like the pregnant one instead of me.”
“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.” He pulled me closer. “I like it.”
I was about to say something but Chase started nibbling kisses along the curve of my neck.
Conversation could wait.
Saturday, July 3
Chase, Kurt and Arch were off visiting one of the homes they’d repaired today.
“I’m stopping by Mitzi’s today,” I told Kim. “She ordered some Belgian chocolates that she says are ‘to die for’ and wants me to come over and try them. Do you want to come along?”
“You’re going to see Mitzi on a Saturday? Five days a week isn’t sufficient? Haven’t you suffered enough?” Kim sounded appalled.
“Weren’t you listening to me? Belgian chocolate!”
“I thought you were eating for two, a healthy diet for a healthy baby and all that. You said you didn’t want to end up looking like a beached beluga.”
“The Swiss eat twenty-two pounds of chocolate a year and have a very low obesity rate.”
“Any other ways you’d like to justify this chocolate binge you’re about to go on?”
“Chocolate has fewer milligrams of caffeine than coffee, and I skipped coffee this morning.” I glared at her. “You know how I am without my coffee.”
“Okay, I’ll go,” she said hurriedly. “There’s always something weird happening at Mitzi’s. It will be more interesting than sitting at home in Wesley’s homemade tent, which has, by the way, now engulfed our entire living room.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up.” I hung up before she could change her mind.
We rang the doorbell at Mitzi’s home. “Somewhere My Love” chimed through the cavernous house several times before anyone answered. As the last notes died away, Mitzi flung open the door.
“Come in,” she mumbled from beneath a face mask. She wore rubber gloves, a large white coat—obviously one of Arch’s from the clinic—and a pair of rain boots. I’ve always thought the image of Dr. Frankenstein is scary, but this was much, much worse.
“What on earth are you doing? Inventing a cure for the common cold or taking out someone’s gall bladder?”
“I’m petting the cats.”
She led us into the family room, a spacious high-beamed area. Although Tiger Woods had dibs on the walls in a series of posters of impressive golf swings, Mitzi had managed to put her touch on everything, even this masculine space. The cabinets holding video tapes were stocked with things that were pure Mitzi—buns, abs and pecs of steel, Jane Fonda during her feel-the-burn years, 30 Minutes to Thinner Everything, Shirley Temple movies and Disney stuff starring Kurt Russell in his pre-Goldie Hawn days. She also had a bank of plants to rival Sherwood Forest in the corner of the room where the light was best.
Mitzi’s cats, two squash-faced, pompous Persians named Fiona and Pauline—actually, its name is PawLeen, which Mitzi thinks is hysterically clever—were seated like reigning monarchs in the middle of a large beige leather couch. Fiona had draped herself across an oversize pink pillow to best show off her rhinestone collar, while PawLeen was cleaning the spaces between her toes with a delicate pink tongue.
Mitzi has managed to create duplicates of herself in the animal kingdom. Amazing. The idea gives me pause…paws? Are Mr. Tibble and Scram like me? If so, I’m arrogant, finicky, standoffish—Mr. Tibble—and overly enthusiastic about idiotic things and not too bright—Scram. I don’t think I want to go there.
Kim put Wesley, who’d slept on the way over to recharge his batteries, onto the floor. Naturally, he went directly for the cats. Mitzi, moving faster than I knew she could, scooped him into her arms.
“My cook is here this morning, and she’s making cookies. Petit fours, actually, but you won’t know the difference. Want one?”
“Cookies,” Wesley gargled in a perfect imitation of Cookie Monster. “Cookies!”
Mitzi plodded to the kitchen, her rain boots making sticky rubber sounds on the floor, and came back momentarily.
“Cook says she loves children,” Mitzi said doubtfully. “We’ll see.”
“Now will you tell us what you’re doing in that ridiculous outfit?”
“I told you, I’m petting the cats.”
“Then how do you dress to feed the fish? Scuba gear and cowboy boots?”
“It’s your fault. If you hadn’t told me about toxoplasmosis, I wouldn’t have to be so careful.”
“I thought Arch had the animals checked and they’re fine.”
“He did.”
“You aren’t cleaning their litter box, are you?”
Mitzi looked at me, horrified, as if the thought had never even occurred to her.
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about. You can pet your cats without putting on a fire-retardant suit and galoshes.”
“One just can’t be too careful with new life,” Mitzi said importantly, and for once, I agreed with her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Why didn’t you tell me how good chocolate is?” Mitzi asked accusingly as she handed us large boxes of imported candy. “I might have started eating it years ago.”
There’s no use pointing out to Mitzi that she never listens to us and, even if she had, she wouldn’t have believed us, anyway.
She took off her hazmat suit, and we joined Wesley in the kitchen for snacks. Wesley had attached himself to the cook’s leg, afraid to let go, for fear he might miss a crumb of something delicious falling to the floor.
Mitzi is the only person I know who actually owns a copper espresso machine like those in gourmet coffee shops. And she knows how to work it.
“You aren’t wearing maternity clothes today,” I pointed out. “What gives?”
“Arch said if I started wearing them now, I’d be sick of them by February. He’s right, of course, but it’s rather exciting to have an excuse to buy a brand-new wardrobe. I got carried away.” She frowned. “My waistband is tight already, and I keep telling him so, but he says it’s too early. Of course, he is a podiatrist….”
“Mitzi, you buy a new wardrobe every season. You don’t need an excuse.”
She frowned. “Whitney, you aren’t going to wear ugly maternity clothes, are you?”
“Not intentionally.” Not with you on duty as my own personal fashion police.
“We need to shop for you. There are some atrocious things out there, and I don’t want you to get involved with them. We’ll have to set a date soon.”
Ever since Mitzi decided to be my friend, I’ve had to put up with her good intentions. The road to my insanity is paved with Mitzi’s good intentions.
We were lulled into a dangerous sense of complacency by the chocolate, the whir of the espresso machine and the sun shining through the windows. We were no better than Fio
na and PawLeen, who lay on their little window shelves with their eyes closed, ignoring a bevy of birds pecking at the bird feeder outside. Not even a canary could entice them—or us—to move.
“I’m ready for this baby. I just wish I didn’t have to wait seven months to have a child in my life.”
Kim and I bobbed our heads in lazy agreement. Three perfect mothers-in-waiting…
“Kim?”
“Hmm?” She licked a daub of milk chocolate on her fingertip.
“Where’s Wesley?”
We all turned to the cook, who was standing over the kitchen sink, humming. Wesley was no longer attached to her calf.
“Carla, where’s the little boy?” Since the day Mitzi babysat for Kim, she’s been taking Wesley’s prodigious power for creating chaos more seriously.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think I had to watch him once the three of you came in. Was I supposed to?”
How long had we been sitting here, engaged in idle chatter, leaving the creative and destructive Wesley to his own devices?
“My child!” Kim squawked.
“My house!” Mitzi groaned.
We bolted to our feet and ran into the other room to fan out in a search, but there was no need. Wesley had not wandered far. He was still in the family room, only feet from the kitchen, entertaining himself quietly with Mitzi’s indoor garden.
He, in a systematic botanical undertaking, was checking the roots of all Mitzi’s houseplants. He was doing so with a scientist’s care. Each of the plants lay uprooted on the floor in a line on Mitzi’s hand-tied Turkish rug. Violets, dwarf citrus trees, coleus, jade, even a prayer plant—none had been spared. He’d meticulously knocked all the dirt off the roots to investigate them more fully. He had also dumped the dirt in a tidy pile—as tidy as dirt can get—and was currently playing a game with two of Mitzi’s Lalique figurines, running them up and down the side of the mound of soil, making humming sounds as if the collectibles were on dirt bikes.
“Are any of these plants poisonous?” Kim bleated. She turned to Wes. “Did you take a bite out of any of these?”
He looked at her with disdain, as if to say, “Are you serious? What kind of a fool do you think I am?”
She grabbed my arm. “Do we need to take him to a doctor?”
I kneeled over the dead and dying bodies. “I don’t see anything that looks like it’s been chewed on. Should we open Wesley’s mouth and look for signs of plant life?”
Mitzi, frozen into a statuelike position, stared at the mayhem. “My plants…my figurines…my…” And then she fainted dead away.
However, she fainted conveniently onto a large overstuffed chair and ottoman, which broke her fall. Mitzi even faints well. She looked like a beautiful broken doll draped delicately across the butter-colored, button-tufted chair.
“Does anyone use smelling salts anymore?” I asked as we stared down at Mitzi.
“I have no idea.”
“If not, how do we revive her?”
I ran to the kitchen to see what the cook might suggest and found a bottle of vinegar on the counter. It would have to do. I splashed a large amount on a dish towel and returned to wave it under Mitzi’s nose.
Good choice. She was immediately awake and furious.
Fortunately, Kim is accustomed to picking up after her son, and she already had the pots refilled and was frantically sticking plants back into the soil.
“Get that out of my face!” Mitzi cried, and brushed me out of her way. “My figurines, my rug, my hardwood floor…”
“Have you got a vacuum cleaner? Give us a few minutes, and you won’t even know what happened.”
“How would I know where the vacuum cleaner is? I don’t clean!”
Welcome once again to Mitzi’s world.
Wesley, still clinging to a graceful signed statue of a crystal polar bear, finally noticed the agitated adults around him. He looked from his mother to me, and then at Mitzi, who was now sitting upright on the ottoman, tears on her cheeks. Unexpectedly, he bolted toward Mitzi and scrambled into her lap.
“Don’t cry,” he crooned, putting the polar bear beside her and taking her cheeks in his filthy little hands. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.”
Which, of course, made Mitzi wrap her arms around his sturdy little body and cry all the harder.
Mitzi is definitely ready for children. She forgave Wesley for the havoc he’d created, called a cleaning service and served us all more chocolate to fortify our nerves.
That was all, of course, after a loud and lengthy rant to Kim about how she, Mitzi, would never let her children misbehave. Ever. Under any circumstances. Because her child will be perfect. Flawless. Obedient. Discerning. Brilliant. Angelic.
Famous last words. As far as I can tell, every time a mother says, “My child will never do that,” the child will commit the act under discussion as soon as is humanly possible. If Mitzi doesn’t quit yapping about her faultless offspring, she is likely to doom herself to raising a mob of unruly hooligans who will make Wesley look downright boring.
Sunday, July 4
The Fourth of July will go down in history as the day Mitzi discovered that pregnant women shouldn’t eat sushi.
I didn’t intend to go to a party today. Chase, the cats and I were planning an Elvis movie retrospective with homemade caramel corn and lemonade, to be followed by traditional July Fourth fare—burgers, corn on the cob, watermelon and brownies.
We were already through with Roustabout and Love Me Tender and deep into Blue Hawaii when the phone rang.
“Should I answer it?” I inquired lazily from my part of the tangle of bodies on the couch. Arms, legs, paws and tails, we made a cozy little family knot propped up by pillows and fortified with disgustingly unhealthy and delicious snacks.
“Are you curious?”
Chase knows me too well. I talk big about letting the answering machine pick up, but, truth be told, I’m too snoopy to carry through. I unwrapped his arm from around my waist and reached for the receiver.
“Whitney, what are you doing?”
“Hello, Mom. Nice to hear your voice, too.”
“When are you leaving?”
“For what?”
“Kim’s party, of course.”
Kim, as apology for the flower demolition derby we’d attended yesterday at Mitzi’s, had invited us, my parents and who knows who else to a picnic at her house where Mitzi and Arch would be guests of honor.
I looked longingly at the pile of tapes I’d scoured video stores to find—Girls, Girls, Girls, Jailhouse Rock and that old classic Wild in the Country. “We’ve made other plans.”
“You two aren’t watching old movies again, are you? Who was it last time? Audrey Hepburn?”
“You’ve got to admit, we’ve got taste. Food, old movies and cats are the best antidote Chase and I have found for a crazy-making week at work.”
“I was at Fong, Fong and Wong today. I’m bringing goodies.”
Fong, Fong and Wong is a little deli/sushi bar/tea shop near my parents’ home. My parents are good friends of the Fongs and the Wongs, so they get the best of everything. Even I have been known to abandon Elvis for one of Mr. Wong’s egg rolls.
Chase dozed off while I was talking, the remote on Pause.
“I think I’ve seen enough of Kim and Mitzi already this weekend. You go in my place.”
“I’m going in my own place, dear. I’ll tell them you’ll be late. Chase looked tired the last time we saw you two. Take a nap before you come.” And then her cell phone went dead.
We arrived at the party just in time to hear Mitzi demand, “What do you mean I can’t eat sushi?” We walked onto the deck in time to see her hand trembling over a colorful tray. “It’s a staple in every diet!”
“Not mine,” Kurt muttered.
“Don’t eat it, Mitzi.” My mother, just as she had with my cats, freaked out as she saw Mitzi going for a bit of raw tuna. “It’s bad for pregnant women.”
Mitzi turned to Cha
se. “Tell your mother-in-law she’s wrong. Fish is healthy.”
“Not the raw stuff, I’m afraid. There may be parasites in uncooked fish. You don’t want a tapeworm sharing your body with your baby.”
“Tapeworm? As in…?” She made little pinching motions with her fingers.
“Victorian women used to swallow them in order to be thin,” Chase said bluntly, “Bad idea even when you aren’t pregnant.”
Green is not Mitzi’s best color. Especially when it’s her face. But she didn’t touch the sushi platter for the rest of the day.
“How’s Chase doing?” Kim asked as we sat by the pool with our feet in the water. “Kurt said he’s been down over a patient of his.”
I nodded gloomily. Earlier I’d overheard Chase and the other men on the patio outside the kitchen door. They were discussing heart attacks.
“No kidding? Just like that?”
“Who’d have thought…at that age…”
“Two kids, and one on the way? That’s terrible.”
“It just goes to show that you can’t take any day for granted.”
The death of that young man was still weighing heavy on Chase’s mind.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wednesday, July 21
Harry came storming out of his office, looking as frustrated as he had when the electricity had gone off in the building. Harry without electricity is like a day without sunshine, Bert without Ernie, yin without yang and, most aptly, dark without light. He doesn’t know what to do with himself without electricity pumping through the veins of this complex. He does everything online—reads the newspaper, downloads the crossword puzzle, makes overseas calls, orders groceries, does his shopping for clothing, gifts and furniture. He plays chess and even bought his dog over the Internet.
Harry hasn’t used paper for anything in years, except to train the new Yorkie. Needless to say, he was upset then, and he was just as upset today.
“You have to do something about Bryan.”
