by Judy Baer
I could have kissed him on the top of his strange little combed-over head.
Tuesday, October 27
Betty has started having packages delivered to the office, and I don’t mean just a few. The UPS man has become her best friend and the FedEx guy salivates at the sight of her. She’s gone over the edge ordering baby items for the three of us—whether we want them or not. For Betty, the thrill of the chase motivates her—finding the ideal item online for the cheapest price imaginable. For her, it’s all about the hunt. Then she presents us with the bills.
We are considering an intervention.
Monday, November 1
Mitzi has found something new to worry about.
She came to work this morning looking very much like a large fall pumpkin with legs, in an orange sweater decorated with falling leaves. Cheery as her outfit might have been, she was not.
“This is terrible!” She plopped into her chair so heavily I expected the earth to tremble. Mitzi is no lightweight anymore. “I hadn’t even considered it until I saw it happen on a television show.”
“What’s that?” Kim twiddled her fingers as she gazed at Mitzi.
We’ve abandoned Harry’s strange hairdo and we’re watching Mitzi grow instead. I received an amaryllis plant for Christmas once, and it grew so quickly as it sat in the sunlight, I actually saw it jerk, tremble and stretch upward. Mitzi’s like that. If I watch her long enough, she swells before my eyes.
“This woman had twins and…Oh, what a mess it would be…She had one before midnight and one after, so they didn’t have the same birthday! Isn’t that awful?”
“What’s the problem?” Kim sounded puzzled. “If they are healthy, that’s what counts.”
Mitzi sent her a withering glance. “Of course it counts. But what about birthday parties?”
“What about them?”
“We’d have to have them on consecutive days. If little Jennifer is born on Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. and Jodi and Jessica are born at 12:01 a.m., they have separate birthdays!” She put her hand to her head theatrically. “This could be a social nightmare!”
To me, a social nightmare is like the time the arm of my one-piece jumpsuit fell into the toilet and I spent the evening in the restaurant bathroom drying it off under the hand dryer. Another social nightmare is coming out of the bathroom at a dinner party with the hem of my slip caught in the waistband of my panty hose. Compared to that, double birthdays aren’t even a blip on the social-suicide radar screen.
“Can’t they share a party?” I asked. “They would have to if they were all born on the same day.”
“It wouldn’t be the same. It’s not like they are a big lump of children. They’ll have their own distinct personalities.”
“Let’s just hope none of them get yours,” Kim muttered under her breath.
“I heard that,” Mitzi retorted, and kept on talking. “The logistics are going to be terrible. I can see it now. Three separate playdates, three wardrobes, three—”
“They can all play at my house,” Kim offered, “with the other new babies and Wesley. And buy them the same outfits. If you can’t tell them apart, write their names on their heads, like Bryan does on the shells of his hard-boiled eggs.”
Bad idea. For one thing, we don’t want Wesley teaching any of the new little ones his tricks. He’s potty trained, but Wesley has the aim of a nearsighted mole on a windy night. Desperate, Kim has painted a big red X inside the toilet bowl for target practice. There are a lot of things we don’t want Wes to teach these new little ones. He doesn’t have the nickname Destructo Baby for nothing.
For a moment, Mitzi looked as if she might actually consider Kim’s offer, but then she shook her head. “If I go into labor late in the evening, I’ll just have to refuse to push until after midnight,” she concluded. “That will do it.”
“I don’t know, Mitzi. It’s pretty easy to keep out one person pushing on a door, but three’s a crowd. I’m not sure you’ll have any choice about keeping those babies under wraps until it’s convenient for you.”
“Well,” she said her in most impressive Scarlett O’Hara impression to date, “I’ll just have to think about it tomorrow.”
Saturday, November 20
“Whit? It’s Kurt.”
“I’m surprised to hear you on the phone so early on a Saturday morning. Don’t you usually spend Saturday morning in a toons-and-cold-cereal extravaganza so that Kim can get something done around the house?”
He chuckled a little. “I’m calling from my cell phone. We’re doing fast food and Playland today. Kim didn’t just want us out of the way, she wanted us out of the house entirely.”
“Trouble?”
“Mitzi’s babies and yours are less than three months from being born, and we haven’t heard anything from the adoption agency.”
I rubbed my growing belly. I’ve quit teasing Mitzi about her size. The Goodyear blimp has no business pointing a finger at an orca. Chase thinks my new walk is cute. Of course, he likes ducks.
“Maybe we could do something tonight, to get her out of the house. She likes to go bowling.”
“Ah…sure. Why not?” My heart sank.
Bowling? Could he think of a more ungainly thing for a blossoming pregnant woman to do? But Kim needs us, and that, I suppose, is cause enough to make a fool of myself. I’ve certainly done it for less.
Chapter Thirty
Bowling has never been one of my favorite sports.
Perhaps it’s because I was emotionally damaged by a bowling ball on my eighth birthday. I forgot to let go of the ball as I threw it down the lane and sent myself sprawling along behind it, landing both myself and the ball in the gutter. I did not outgrow the nickname “Gutter Girl” until my parents moved and I was fortunate enough to end up in another school district.
Then again, it might have been because of a ninth-grade Sunday-school class outing. I was just beginning to notice that boys were not of my species and was rather interested in ensnaring one—for scientific purposes only, of course. Unfortunately, the one I snared was knocked unconscious by the ball when it flew out of my hand on the backswing. Not only did he never want to date me, he flinched every time he saw me in the school hallway for the next three years.
I tried it again as an adult, without much better luck. Fortunately, I did not injure anyone else, but I did lose my toenail some weeks after I dropped my ball on my foot.
Needless to say, I didn’t anticipate the evening with great enthusiasm, even though Kim, who bowls a two hundred seven on a regular basis, was quite cheered by the prospect. Chase, too. He wants to see if my backswing and release are enhanced or exacerbated by having to get around my growing backside and belly.
My husband has taken great satisfaction in observing me through all the stages, peccadilloes and delights of my blossoming pregnancy. Sometimes he gets way too much enjoyment watching me trying to squeeze my puffy feet into my shoes or my growing middle into one of the clothing samples Mitzi sends my way.
She and her cleaning lady are designing up a storm. Mitzi has models made and tries them out on me. She likes to “see how it flows.”
Unfortunately, not everything she designs is meant to flow. Chase had way too much fun over a spandex and cotton pullover I got caught in with the shirt half on and half off, my hands and arms trapped in the air as if I was a bank teller in the middle of a robbery. I had to stand in the middle of the bedroom and yell for help until he rescued me, and he took his sweet time doing so, too. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Chase laugh until he had tears in his eyes.
I’m so glad I could share such a special moment with him—not.
“Thanks, Whitney,” Kim said to me as we picked out shoes, hoping to find a pair that wasn’t harboring athlete’s foot or plantar warts. Chase assures me that the disinfectant and deodorizer they use make all my worrying pointless, but I don’t like sharing my shoes with anyone, and especially not with a woman named Gladys, who was using her shoe as an ashtr
ay when we came in.
“Thanks for what?”
“I know bowling isn’t your idea of a good time, but you came for me. I appreciate it.”
“What are friends for?”
“You’re the best.”
“Boys against the girls?” Chase asked cheerily.
“No,” Kim blurted, much too quickly. “You take her.”
“Me? Why do I have to take her? Kurt, you can be her partner.”
“Why me? I came with Kim, can’t I have her?”
Even my husband doesn’t want me on his team when it comes to bowling.
I, however, had the last laugh. Pregnancy did what humiliation, lessons and countless hours of jeering had not. It made me into a bowler.
Looking back, I’m speculating that my posture had something to do with it. Being required to be erect and sure-footed, so as not to lose my center of balance, forced me to bend my knees and acquire heretofore nonexistent arm and wrist action. Frankly, I blew them all out of the water—she said modestly!
I even won coupons for free games and a twenty-five-pound turkey that, because of the imminent arrival of Thanksgiving, was tonight’s high prize. Meat as a bowling prize is something new to me, but apparently it’s very popular at Stardust Lanes.
“I haven’t laughed so much in ages,” Kim chortled later at a greasy spoon near the bowling alley. She slurped on her shake and dragged a French fry through the ketchup on her plate. “Lately, all I’ve felt is helpless.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“The nursery is ready. We’ve been reading Chinese history and trying to learn some words to help us once we get there. We’ve purchased a compact camcorder and a new camera for the trip. I’ve put my luggage together. I purchased a backpack to use as a diaper bag and filled it with diaper rash cream, sunblock, insect repellent, rice cereal, diapers, wipes, toilet paper, a baby book, formula powder…”
“You’re more ready than I am then.” Suddenly I felt like a real slacker. While I’d been watching my navel disappear, Kim had been figuring out what she actually needed to do when her baby arrived.
Chapter Thirty-One
Thursday, November 25, Thanksgiving Day
Lord, You are awesome! Forgive me for forgetting to say “Thank You” as often as I should. I usually come to You with a litany of “I want” or “I need” or “Please help,” when praise should be the first thing from my lips. Thank You for being the net beneath my high-wire act, my soft place to fall. Thank You for loving me.
“Hey, darling, anything I can do to help?” Chase came up from behind me, put his arms around my round, ample midsection and laid his cheek on my hair. “You smell great.”
“New shower gel. Lavender.”
“I was thinking sage, thyme and a hint of onion.”
“Has the smell of turkey stuffing always had this effect on you?”
“Not until today.” He turned me around, kissed me and licked his lips. “Umm. And butter.”
“How’s the table situation?” In our most daring entertaining event to date, not only were my parents coming for dinner, but also the entire office staff and their spouses.
I hadn’t planned for that to happen, but when Harry came out of his office with a long face and told me that his daughter had had to cancel her trip home and that he and his wife would be alone on Turkey Day, an invitation to our house had just slipped out. Harry and my father get along famously. They both tell dreadfully corny jokes, worry about their hairlines and think I’m the best thing since sliced bread. Harry’s wife and my mom are pals, too. Having to live with Harry and my dad provides them with enough war stories to commiserate for hours on end.
It was only then, when the invitation was out of my mouth, that I noticed Betty and Bryan looking longingly in my direction. “What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?” I asked, hoping they’d had their family plans arranged months in advance.
“My grandmother is flying to Indiana to see my aunt and her family,” Bryan said sadly. “Everyone is going their separate ways this year.”
“My husband’s mother in Nebraska is ill, so he’s going to spend a week with her and help her around the house,” Betty added. “It made sense that he go the week of Thanksgiving, so he wouldn’t have to take off so many days of work.”
“So you’ll both be alone?”
“At least I’ll have Jennilee,” Bryan said.
Never one to leave someone out at a party, I blurted, “Then come to my house!”
I have got to get a muzzle—and use it.
Next thing I know, Mitzi is telling me that their Thanksgiving guests’ travel plans have fallen through and Kim is hinting that my turkey gravy is the smoothest and tastiest in three states and I’ve invited the whole crew.
Even now, as I peel my millionth potato, I can’t believe I did it. I’m a glutton for punishment. Five days a week obviously isn’t enough for me with these people. I’ve become addicted to the unhinged madness and folly they provide in my life.
Fortunately, Chase loves them, too, or it would have been much harder convincing him he had to find seating for twelve at our dining room table.
“I set the table,” he said, “and I will accept a reward later for actually ironing the tablecloth before I put the plates down.”
“You are a gem, darling.” I lifted my hand to caress his cheek and pulled it away, startled. “You’re all clammy. Don’t you feel well?”
“Fine. Aren’t you the one who asked me to…” and he listed all the things that had kept him occupied since 7:00 a.m.
“Then go take a shower. I’ll pop this into the oven and be in to get ready, too.” I love listening to Chase sing in the shower while I put on my makeup. It’s just one of those married things of which I’ll never tire.
Mr. Tibble and Scram, having smelled the scent of turkey while it was still frozen solid in the bag, have been making royal nuisances of themselves. Mr. Tibble has sat motionless since daybreak, watching me wash and truss the big bird and send it into the oven. His tail flickers, right, left, right, left, like a metronome as he waits for an opportunity to pounce on the biggest catch of his life.
Scram, ever vocal, has meowed off and on for hours. He sounds like a suffering infant when he cries. If our baby goes on and on like this, Chase and I will both be walking around with tufts of toilet paper sprouting from our ears like explosions of excessive ear hair. Oh, yes, motherhood is going to be a glamorous thing, I can see it all now.
In my closet, I pawed unhappily through my maternity clothes. I’ve come to depend on Mitzi and her housekeeper to provide me with their experiments, but they have been in a green-brown-and khaki camouflage fabric stage recently, so my newest maternity garb from them makes me look like an army tank. Maybe there will be younger mothers for whom this will work, but after thirty, one should not try to present oneself as a Humvee out for a ride on the open road.
Then, feeling guilty for my lack of gratitude, I tried to think of something for which I am profoundly thankful. It came to me right away.
In the shape I am in, I am deeply grateful that I can still see my feet.
I was tempted to simply cut a hole in the center of a bedsheet and wear it as a dress, but cheered considerably when I remembered that no matter how ungainly and large and pregnant I look, I am a mere sylph compared to Mitzi.
Mitzi hasn’t seen her feet in weeks. Her kneecaps are a pure mystery to her, as well. I know this for a fact, because she admitted as much the day she called me in a panic, asking me how she was supposed to shave her legs when she could no longer reach them.
“My arms aren’t long enough!” she wailed. “I can’t reach over my stomach to shave my legs unless I attach the razor to the end of a yardstick!”
None of my suggestions helped. When she put her leg on the edge of the tub, all she could see was her ankle. When she held her leg out to one side, she saw it, but the three babies convened a quick committee meeting and decided that their mother was
no longer going to be allowed to turn at the waist. Fastidious Mitzi of the high heels and the perfectly turned ankles has now resorted to Birkenstock sandals and jeans to cover her hairy legs. She’s turning into a regular granola lover and will next be marching to save the tufted three-toed albino needle-nosed wood mouse.
I decided on a peachy blouse with high ruffles at the neck and a hemline with the circumference of a parachute, and a pair of brown slacks. Even though I know I look like a large poisonous mushroom, Chase always tells me I’m beautiful, and I choose to believe him. Living in a delusional fantasy has its merits.
The guests all came at once, and they were bearing gifts. Harry carried a cornucopia full of fresh fruit. Betty bore a lemon meringue pie, and Bryan and his girlfriend presented me with a huge bouquet of fall flowers. Kim and Kurt came with a sound-asleep Wesley—a gift in itself—and a huge tray of freshly baked buns. Mom and Dad brought up the rear with even more pies—pumpkin, mincemeat and cherry.
Mitzi and Arch pulled into the driveway, and I surreptitiously watched as Arch pried Mitzi out of the passenger seat. Arch got red in the face as he held Mitzi’s hands and pulled. They rocked back and forth together, Mitzi perched on the edge of the car seat, her feet dangling toward the ground, until she had enough momentum to launch herself upright. Arch staggered back as he caught her, but managed to keep his footing.
Once he had Mitzi balanced on her feet, he reached back into the car and pulled out the largest box of Godiva chocolates I have ever seen. Mitzi’s craving for chocolate has grown right along with the rest of her, and if she doesn’t watch it, each of those babies will emerge with a Snickers bar in one hand and a Milky Way in the other.
“We’re here!” she chirruped proudly as she teetered toward the door.
We did air kisses from about four feet apart—as close as we can get together, given the size of our stomachs—and toddled into the house to a friendly chorus of “Sixteen Tons.”
Rather than have Mitzi sit down in the living room and risk not being able to get her up again, I called everyone to the table. Mitzi immediately rearranged my seating chart, demanding that Arch sit on her right—to do her bidding more quickly—Kim on her left—to take up the slack while Arch was off doing said bidding—and Chase, because he’s the best-looking guy in the house, across from her, where she could look at him.
