The Stork Club

by Iris Rainer Dart

  "You were perfect."

  "And it wasn't so bad for you. Was it?" he asked her earnestly. "I mean, that it happened that way. I mean, that we ended up at the hospital last night, instead of just showing up the next day at visiting hours?"

  "Honey," Lainie said, "we have our baby. That's what counts. Did the doctor say when she can come home?"

  "We'll find out today," Mitch told her.

  Jackie's hospital room was filled with the scent of flowers from the huge bouquet that displayed a card from the lawyer's offices. She was in the bathroom when they arrived. Mitch thought they should stop into the hospital room and invite Jackie to walk down to the nursery with them, "just as a final nice gesture."

  Lainie looked at the bedside table where some of Jackie's cosmetics sat. Lipstick, blusher, and the big round bottle of Shalimar. When the bathroom door opened and Jackie came out, Lainie was surprised at how well she looked. Jackie let out a little yelp when she saw them.

  "That baby is so beautiful. Have you seen her today?" she asked.

  "No, we'll go together," Mitch told her. Linking arms, the three of them walked down the hall, Jackie scuffling in her slide-on slippers.

  "There," she said, pointing to a crib in the back that bore a sign saying O'MALLEY: GIRL. The baby, that beautiful baby, was surely the most beautiful in the nursery.

  "Jesus," Mitch said, "she's something special. None of those funny little marks they usually have. God in heaven. This is truly a miracle."

  Lainie's heart felt full of hope. It had worked. Mitch's plan had worked. Despite her fears and pain and doubt, at last she would be taking home a baby. She was lost in her own thoughts about the baby's homecoming when she heard Jackie say, "Well, we did it, kiddo. We goddamned went and did it."

  "That's the truth," Mitch said with a triumphant voice. "We sure as hell did." When Lainie turned and saw the look that passed between them, Jackie's so fulfilled and Mitch's so potent, it felt as if someone had kicked her in the chest. The three of them were celebrating the birth of their baby. The father; the mother; and the surrogate, the substitute. But, Lainie thought, there's no doubt that the substitute mother is me.

  23

  CLINT EASTWOOD was now interested in the part for which Rick had lost Robert Redford, and Rick was flying to Carmel to meet with him several times a week. But he always tried to get back in time to be with David, even if it was for just a short while every evening. The beautiful fair-skinned little boy brought a lightness to Rick's world that shifted the way he looked at every other aspect of his life. He was sitting at the kitchen table eating a late supper one night and making some notes on a script at the same time when Annie, the baby nurse, came in.

  "Mr. Reisman, he's asleep. It's ten o'clock and I just talked on the phone to my sister. She's feeling kind of poorly, and I was wondering if I could drive over to her place down by Western Avenue and take care of her? I'll come back here real early in the morning. Little David just finished a full bottle and he'll probably stay down until I get back in the morning. But if he doesn't, I left you some sterilized nipples, in case he wakes up and is hungry; all you've got to do is unscrew the top of one of the Similac bottles, put the nipple on, and give it to him. You know how to do that."

  "You bet I do, Annie. You go to your sister's. David and his old man will be just fine."

  "Oh, and his passy. He's chewing on his little pacifier now. He loves that thing, only sometimes he loses it and starts in to cry. All you have to do usually is put it right back in his mouth and he goes right back to sleep. If he's really crying hard, sometimes it takes two or three tries before he takes it back in . . . so be patient now. Okay?"

  "Okay," Rick said. He was proud of himself for finding this terrific woman to take care of his son. He heard her bustling around, getting ready to go and spend the night with her sister, and before she left she asked, "You want me to leave my sister's telephone number?"

  "Not necessary," Rick told her and waved a little good-bye just before she closed the front door behind her.

  At eleven-thirty he had just turned on "Nightline" when the front doorbell rang. Jesus, it might wake the baby. He hurried out to see who it could be. A vision. The young secretary from the production office next to his at Universal. Long dark hair down to her waist, huge eyes, off-the-shoulder black dress.

  "I was at a dinner party in the neighborhood," she told him before he could say a word. "And I got your address from this copy of Vanity Fair I borrowed from your office one day. It has this address on it. So when I realized this was where you lived, I figured I'd come by and hope you were alone."

  "I'm alone," he said.

  "So . . . can I come in?"

  He opened the door all the way. Just because he had a kid now didn't mean he was going to give up getting laid.

  "Boy, this place is gorgeous," she said, handing him his copy of Vanity Fair and circling the living room.

  "So are you," Rick said.

  She giggled. "You are so cute," she told him, and then stopped to look at him. "And I've seen every one of your movies."

  "And which one was your favorite?" he asked, moving closer. Very close. In a moment she was against him, wiggling out of the top of her dress, and then her hands were on his belt, and then they moved to undo his trousers, and just as her dress hit the floor, David let out a shriek.

  "What was that?" the astonished girl asked.

  "My son."

  "You have a son? A baby? Do you have a wife? Oh, geez, I thought you were single."

  "I am," Rick said, and he flew into the baby's room, zipping the zipper the girl had—Christ, he didn't even know her name, but the girl had unzipped his pants. Now he grabbed the fallen pacifier from next to David's little squealing face and gently placed it into the baby's mouth, hoping the touch of it next to the little tiny tongue would quiet him. But David wouldn't take the pacifier in, and continued to scream.

  "Take the passy, baby. Here's your nice passy, Davey, Daddy's giving you your wonderful pacifier and

  "Nyaahhhhh." David spit it out again.

  "Maybe you should dip it in some honey," he heard the girl say. She was standing naked, naked and perfect in the doorway of the baby's room. "That's what my parents used to do for me," she told him. "Why don't I go and see if I can find some for you?"

  You know you're about to make it with a very young girl when she still remembers what her parents put on her pacifier, Rick thought as he stood by the crib patting the wailing baby's back. She returned in a minute with the honey jar. Rick opened it, dipped the pacifier into the honey, then leaned over the crib and placed the pacifier in the baby's mouth.

  "Mmmmm-mmmm-mmm," David said, sucking away. "Mmmm," and within minutes he was asleep.

  The naked girl was against Rick now. "Let's dip this in some honey too," she said, and slowly moved down onto the floor of the baby's room, taking Rick along with her.

  "I'm worried about his little BMs," Annie told Rick one morning at breakfast.

  "His what?" He was gulping down some coffee, rushing to catch an early flight to Monterey to meet with Clint in Carmel.

  "Little David. He's not having any."

  "Not having any what, Annie?"

  "Bowel movements."

  "Not any?"

  "Nope."

  "Since when?"

  "A few days."

  "The pediatrician. Let's call Dr. Weil right now," he said, looking at his watch. It was seven-thirty in the morning. No doctors were in at seven-thirty in the morning, but surely the answering service would track the doctor down, call him at home.

  "He's out of town," the answering-service operator said, "but Dr. Solway's on call."

  "Then get him on the line for me," Rick ordered.

  "I'll have to call you back, sir," the operator told him. He gave her the number. David, who usually waved his arms and made gurgling noises, lay listless in Annie's arms.

  "The first couple of days, I figured he was just constipated like we all get so
metimes, only now, he's not right in himself, and I started to think there's more to it than that." She looked worried.

  "Ever seen this kind of thing before?" Rick asked her.

  "Not that I can remember right off," Annie answered. "Constipation, yes. But not this bad." The phone rang.

  "Mr. Reisman." Must be the woman from the answering service.

  "Don't tell me you can't reach the doctor," he snapped.

  "This is the doctor, Mr. Reisman," the woman's voice said. "I'm Dr. Solway, Dr. Weil's associate. How can I help you?"

  A woman. "My son, he's nine months old. He's been constipated for . . . how long?" he asked Annie.

  "At least five days," she said.

  "Five days," he told the doctor. "And he seems to have no energy. Very quiet. Weak."

  "Bring him right in," the doctor said. "I'll meet you at our offices as soon as you can get there."

  Good-bye, eight-fifteen flight. Good-bye, Clint Eastwood.

  "We're on our way," Rick told her.

  Annie sat in the backseat, holding David's tiny hand in hers. From the car phone Rick called Andrea at home and told her to call Clint Eastwood and cancel the meeting.

  "You'll be okay, little honey. You'll be all right," Annie crooned to the silent baby.

  In the elevator in the doctor's building, Rick looked at the limp baby dozing on Annie's shoulder, and panic filled him. What was this? What if it was serious, crippling, a terrible disease that would last forever? A lifetime of taking him to doctors and specialists, and him not being okay? No. It was nothing.

  The tall, black-haired, blue-eyed woman, Lee Solway, took the baby in her arms and carefully undressed him. She had quickly sized up Rick and Annie, and knew right away it was Annie she should ask all the questions about the baby's habits and schedule and food intake. Annie answered the questions carefully and thoughtfully. Rick sat nervously, watching the doctor examine and probe the baby, who now lay passively and all too quietly.

  "Have you noticed any decrease in the strength with which he's been sucking on the bottle?"

  "Come to think of it, I have," Annie said. "But I just put it down to his not being hungry."

  "Are you giving him solids?"

  "Yes. Dr. Weil started him on rice cereal last month."

  "Does he have the rice cereal plain?"

  "I mix in some formula."

  "Do you only introduce the foods Dr. Weil tells you he's permitted to eat?"

  "That's all I give him. And Cora, too. She's the woman who takes over on the day and a half when I take off."

  "So there would have been no reason for you to have ever given this baby honey?" The doctor held on to David's tiny body with her right hand, and turned to look at Annie.

  "No, ma'am."

  Rick stood. He'd been only half listening to the questions because he knew he didn't know the answers to them, but the word honey caught him by surprise, and he froze.

  "What's wrong with honey? I gave him honey last week. A little on the pacifier to get him to take it."

  The doctor looked at Rick. "Well, I'm afraid that what's going on with him now may have to do with the honey. I want to put him right into Children's Hospital this morning to be certain, and hope that he's not so constipated that I can't get some stool samples. I think he has infant botulism. The constipation and the decreased muscle strength all make it look like that to me."

  "From honey?"

  "The Clostridium botulinum organism has been isolated in honey specimens that have been fed to infants and make them sick. Babies under a year are susceptible. I don't want to scare you, but there are theories now that undetected cases of infant botulism may be behind sudden infant death syndrome. His breathing is very shallow too. I'm going to call an ambulance."

  Rick had a ringing in his ears. This couldn't be happening. The doctor went into her office while Annie dressed David, who cried a faint bleating cry, and Rick could hear the doctor making arrangements for an ambulance to come to the medical building.

  "We're off," she said when she emerged, and brushed past them. "They'll meet us downstairs in the parking lot."

  Honey. The crushing reason Rick had given the baby honey suddenly slammed him in the face. To get fucked. To shut my son up so I could do it on the floor of his room with that girl who showed up at my door and dropped her dress. Christ, God is killing my son to punish me for being the lowest, most despicable human on the face of the earth. Please don't make this baby suffer for my vanity and excess and weakness.

  Blindly, guilt-ridden, aching with the horror that tore at him, he got into the ambulance with Annie and the baby and the doctor, and as it lurched out into the street, he put his face in his hands and felt deep shame and despair.

  24

  FOR A WHILE Lainie's negative feelings slipped away. Just waking up and knowing there was a new baby in the next room gave every morning the excitement of Christmas. The sweet powdery smell that filled the nursery, the silky feel of baby Rose's fine hair, the luxurious softness of little crevices under that teeny chin elated Lainie. She would lift the warm little cherub out of her bassinet and place her tenderly in the middle of the big bed next to Mitch, who in his sleep would reach over and fondle the baby's foot. And Lainie would overflow with happiness.

  Her family. At last. She wouldn't let her insecurities mar her joy. Not even the first several months of walking the floor all night with her scrunch-faced colicky daughter. And when Mitch held the tiny girl in his arms, he was transformed. All the pressures of the business day, the constant worried look he had in his eyes when he was in the store disappeared at home. He became so relaxed and unwound when he held the baby that more than once when he sat in the rocker to feed her, after she fell asleep he did too.

  The joy, the bliss of watching each new developmental step occur seemed to bring Lainie and Mitch even closer every day. Lainie called the store every afternoon to report in about the success of every feeding, every ounce of weight gain, and Mitch listened with rapt attention.

  "Hold on, baby," Mitch said to her one afternoon. She heard him click off. He was probably going to pick up the phone in the back office so he could talk to her more freely than he could from the front counter.

  "Listen," he said when he picked up again. "I invited my sisters and their families over for dinner next week."

  Lainie was silent. She knew there was an estrangement between Mitch and his sisters. That once she came into his life they stopped being as close as they were when he was single. Sometimes she felt as if the reason the breach existed was that she and Mitch didn't have children.

  "Maybe now that we have a kid too, things will get better with all of us," Mitch said, expressing Lainie's thoughts out loud.

  "Maybe."

  "Hey, you know what my mother used to say when I fought with one of them?"

  "You told me," Lainie answered. "She always said, 'Blood is thicker than water.' "

  "They're dumb sometimes, and so are their husbands, but the truth is that besides you and my little honeybunch of a girl, they're all I've got. I need to make the effort. So I want to make sure you don't mind if they all come for dinner with their kids this Saturday."

  "Sure, honey. You know I'm crazy about the kids. And they'll get such a kick out of seeing their new cousin."

  "I love you, Lainie," Mitch said. "There'll never be anybody like you." And he hung up.

  Lainie put the phone down in its cradle and was reaching for a pencil and paper to start making a grocery list for next Saturday when something made her feel oddly chilled. Maybe it was the sentiment Mitch had just expressed. The way he'd said it sounded awkward, as if someone had walked into the office as he was saying it. His voice sounded strained and forced.

  Crazy. Her exhaustion because of the baby's sleeping problems was affecting her moods and making her too sensitive. Just the other day she had snapped at Carin. Dear Carin, who was so gentle that when she came upon a spider in the ladies' room at Panache, she ushered it into a pape
r cup and set it free outside rather than kill it.

  "I'm sure happy you haven't heard from that woman again," she said to Lainie, "because I always had this fear she'd show up one day and want the baby back."

  Lainie glared at her. "That was never an issue or a question for Mitch or me, so worry about your own problems, will you?" Carin had apologized repeatedly for the rest of that day.

  Lainie would try hard to get herself together for Saturday's dinner and do her best to be good with Mitch's family. She would have to. Aside from her mother, the three De Nardo sisters and their husbands and children were baby Rose's only family. And like Lainie, Rose would be an only child, so whatever the price of giving her a relationship with her cousins, it was worth it.

  Mitch loved wearing his Bar-B-Q apron and standing over the hamburgers, turning them gently again and again until they were perfect. The children chased one another around the tiny garden outside the sliding doors, and Lainie thought about how nice it would be when she and Mitch found a house in the Valley with a big yard. Then the children could play running games outside, and by then Rose Margaret would join them.

  "You know what?" Betsy's husband, Hank, asked, looking closely at his new niece. "The weird thing is, she doesn't look one bit like Mitch, and she does look like Lainie. Isn't that funny? That's really funny."

  Except for the times when they had to get up in order to separate fighting kids, Kitty and Mary Catherine stayed close together, each of them nursing a glass of white wine Lainie had served them. They didn't include her in their conversation until finally she moved over to where they sat, holding baby Rose over her shoulder.

  "Is she sleeping any better? Mitch mentioned that she was having some problems," Kitty said.

  Infant small talk. Lainie realized that that's what it was, but appreciated that at least something was being addressed to her.

  "Not yet," she answered. "She still wakes up once or twice a night. How old were yours before they really were on a schedule?" She hoped that by asking advice from them, she could bridge the gap and warm them up a little bit.