“So, let’s see. Mmmm-hmmm, looks like you’ve lost some weight, Cara,” he said to her in an accusatory and not-so-friendly tone, peering over the top of his rimmed glasses. “Nearly twenty-five pounds, that’s quite a bit.” He eyed her again and she pulled the gown around her neatly, covering herself.
“Not on purpose, exactly.”
“No?” he asked, barely looking up from the scribbles on her chart. “Everything okay?”
“Separation.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Recently?”
“Been about six months.”
“Divorce?”
Cara swallowed hard at the sound of the word, so final and complete, so empty and hollow. She pushed back the lump in her throat, thinking about Barbie, about losing Jack to the woman teetering on three-inch heels in the waiting room, the size 2 who had taken her husband away. “Looking that way.”
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked, looking up at her for the first time now, piercing brown eyes focused on hers.
She shrank under his question, uneasy. “Um, no, not yet. I, um, I really don’t think I’m ready for that.”
“No, no.” He smiled. “I meant, are you seeing someone to talk about what you’re going through? A therapist, maybe? Someone who could hear you out?”
“Oh. Um, no, I hadn’t really considered it.”
“You’ve got to go in and see someone, Cara, get this shit out. Go talk to someone. Trust me; it’ll do you a world of good.” Mel’s voice again. She’d be smug with credit.
“You might.”
“Okay.”
“How’re the cycles? Still having all the irregularities?”
He began to pull out the stirrups, the shiny metal covered in fuzzy socks so that they almost look inviting, and guided her back, positioning a pillow under her head and instructing her to scoot as far toward the end of the table as she could. Cara stared at the dotted ceiling tiles and listened to him rummage around on the table of gynecological utensils, tongs and pokers that reminded her of something you’d use to crack crab.
“No big changes there,” she said, ready for the battery of questions she knew would follow.
“Heavy bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“Long cycles?”
“Yes.”
“Heavy cramping? Clotting?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Cara clasped her hands, laced her fingers and laid them over her stomach, cringing as he started to dig around.
When he was done, he pushed the paper that covered her waist down between her legs and told her to sit up and push back toward the middle of the table, which she did in one swift move. He peeled off the latex gloves from his hands, one, then the other, dropped them into the stainless waste pail in the corner and let the lid slam closed. Cara waited, her legs hanging off the end of the table.
“Here,” he said, ripping off the top sheet on his prescription pad. Cara studied his slanted, illegible writing. “I know it’s probably the last thing you’re thinking of right now, but stay on the pill, okay? You never know what might happen. And I’d hate for you to find yourself unprepared.” He raised his eyebrows and winked at her before he clicked off the pen, stowing it in the front pocket of his white lab coat.
She was beyond humiliated.
“Besides, I still think it’s helping with your cycles, at least a little bit. And I doubt you’re ready to talk about a hysterectomy at this point in your life.”
Cara swallowed hard and shook her head. “No, not yet,” she answered him, and blushed even deeper, wrapping her arms around her waist and pulling the paper gown closer to her body. Her legs swung wildly from the table.
He closed the chart and tucked it under his right arm, ready to leave the room. “Look, Cara,” he said to her, placing a hand on her knee. “I see this kind of thing all the time. It’ll get better. You’re young, well, look at you, you’ve practically got a whole new life ahead of you.”
When he opened the door to go, Cara cleared her throat and clenched her butt cheeks together tight and figured she had nothing to lose. She wanted to grill him about Barbie; she wanted to know everything about her, anything that he was willing to share. “Dr. Bremmer?” she asked, her voice hovering.
He turned and looked at her squarely, waiting on her question.
“The woman who was in before me? Your last patient? Has she been coming here long?” Cara steadied her voice, trying instead for confidence.
“I, I’m sorry, but . . .” he trailed off and confusion clouded his eyes. A deep crease formed in his forehead as if he was trying to remember the last woman who had come through. He ran his forefinger and his thumb over the bridge of his nose, pinching it slightly.
“The blonde woman, late twenties? I, I think she may have been pregnant, but very early on. She was leaving as I was coming in.”
“I’m sorry, Cara, but I can’t discuss another patient with you. You know that. Each patient’s history is highly confidential.” He frowned at her, disappointed, before saying, “I’m sure you can understand.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” Cara recovered. She was prickly from the embarrassment that rushed over her. “I . . . just thought I knew her from somewhere, that’s all.” She shrank back against the table, her shoulders sagging under the weight of his admonishment.
He smiled weakly at her before leaving the examining room, and when he closed the door he did so firmly, indicating he meant business.
Was it possible that Jack had sent Barbie to Cara’s doctor? No, that was giving Jack far too much credit. Jack would never have remembered the name of Cara’s gynecologist, the man who had delivered all four of their children. Surely, it wasn’t Jack, but what possible other explanation could it have been? Coincidence? Imagine the odds; too great.
Cara fiddled with the keys in the ignition and turned the engine over just as there was a tapping on the passenger window, which scared her nearly senseless. Barbie peered at her through the tinted glass, sunglasses perched on top of her head. There was mascara smudged under her eyes and in the corners, and her face was blotchy; she’d been crying.
“Can I come in?” she mouthed through the cracked window, as if she was buying movie tickets at a booth. She pointed to the empty passenger seat next to Cara. “Just for a minute.”
Go away, go away. Cara stared at her, dazed.
“Pleeeease, Cara. This isn’t easy.”
She mispronounced Cara’s name, saying it ‘Caaara,’ and to Cara the sound was worse than nails on a chalkboard. She wondered if Barbie had never heard her name before. Was she simply “Jack’s wife” to her? Had Jack never used her first name when referring to the woman he had been married to for so many years, the woman who had given him four children and years of clean clothes, cooked meals? For Christ sake, she couldn’t count on Jack for anything. Would it have been too much for him to make sure his lover knew how to pronounce his wife’s name?
“It’s Car-a,” Cara said to her, plainly, definitively, pronouncing her name slowly.
“Hmmm?” Barbie put an ear to the window opened only a fraction. “I’m sorry; it’s hard to hear you out here with all the noise.” She waved her hands at the expressway just outside of the parking lot where the midafternoon traffic had picked up. A slow line of cars crept by, shuffling through the timed lights. Cara imagined the men and women on their way home to celebrate Valentine’s Day together, dinner reservations in hand.
Reluctantly Cara pressed the electronic lock on the armrest. The lock released and Barbie took the opportunity, quick as she could, to pull open the door. She was careful not to bump it against the white pickup parked in the next spot and shimmied into the seat, pulling the door closed behind her, bringing all of her perfumey self with her. Cara recognized the scent; she’d picked it up on Jack’s shirts many times before. It was strong and overpowering and caused Cara to crack open the window on her side of the car.
“Hi, Caaara,” she said again, her voice an annoying and uncontrollable high pi
tch, squeaky.
“It’s Car-a,” Cara repeated, this time with emphasis, though Barbie stared at her, clueless. “My name. It’s pronounced Car-a. Like an automobile. Car, then a. Car-a.”
“Oh.”
“I guess I thought you’d have known that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is there something you wanted?” Cara asked, looking at her watch. “Because if not, I really should be . . .”
“Oh, oh right.” Barbie came alive. “Yes, yes, actually there is.” She paused and smiled; teeth and gums that gleamed and positively glowed, they were so white.
Her lips rolled back and her mouth was big, not horsey, exactly, but big. Cara thought she must give an awesome blow job; Jack would love that.
“Imagine the coincidence of ending up in the same doctor’s office, Car-a,” Barbie said awkwardly, carefully, slowly working to ensure she got Cara’s name correct this time. “I just can’t believe it.” She raised a hand to her throat and played with an oversized aquamarine that sat at her collarbone. She was fidgety and nervous.
“Completely ironic,” Cara said to her, deadpan, and watched Barbie’s face cloud up before she realized Barbie didn’t understand what she meant. She found it implausible, almost, that Jack would have migrated to this woman, gone willingly and anxiously to her side, to her bed. It confirmed her suspicion almost immediately of a radical midlife crisis.
“Well, I was wondering if, well . . .” Barbie shifted in her seat, visibly uncomfortable, and then stopped. She bit on her bottom lip, drawing the slightest bit of blood, then subconsciously dabbing at it with her pinkie finger before she went on. “Well—”
“I’m sorry, Barbie,” Cara interrupted her suddenly, a little more loudly than she intended to be, “but I really need to get going. Is there something that we needed to talk about?” Cara waited; calm spread across her face. Much as she wanted Barbie to leave, she was enjoying watching her squirm.
“Yes, well, Cara, I was just wondering if, I mean, I’m sure that you must have heard the receptionist in the waiting room. I didn’t realize you were there, you see. You have to understand that, I never even saw you sitting there until that nurse called your name and then I was just so taken aback . . .” The words poured out of her in a purr, a confession of sorts.
Before Cara could get a word in, Barbie continued. “I mean, I was really, really surprised to see you there, you know? You just can’t imagine how uncomfortable that was for me.” Barbie paused and Cara guessed she was waiting for an apology.
“Actually, I suppose I have some sort of understanding of how that must have been for you,” Cara said and let the slightest snarl unfurl itself from her upper lip. Barbie didn’t seem to notice because she carried on.
“Well,” she said with a harrumph, “I suppose you must have heard what that receptionist said to me, about the ul-tra-sound and all.” She looked perplexed, annoyed, as if it had been Cara’s fault for eavesdropping in the first place.
Cara didn’t want to admit what she’d heard; she would have given anything to avoid the conversation altogether. There was little space in the front of Cara’s van, precious little distance to look away and concentrate on something, anything, else. But Barbie was persistent, her eyes studying Cara’s face so intently that Cara couldn’t break away to stare down at the cuticle she’d found a way to start picking. She shook her head slowly, her mouth gaping just slightly and a light, “Mmm-hmmm . . .” escaped and ran free within the confines of the van.
“Well, that’s great,” Barbie whined, as if she believed Cara had gone searching, snooping, for this particular bit of knowledge. “Just great.” She sighed long.
“I’m sorry,” Cara muttered, because for the first time, she was. She really didn’t want to know any of this. She would have given anything to have disappeared, to drive off and never speak of this again.
“Well,” Barbie started again. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do about that now. But, Car-a”—she broke up Cara’s name into two purposeful syllables, each with their own equal emphasis—“I guess I need to ask you a favor. And I don’t suppose you have any reason to do M-E a favor, but I’ll ask you anyway, because I suppose maybe, just maybe, well, you being a woman and all, just maybe you’ll understand what it is that I need you to do, what is so very important and all . . .”
Jesus Christ, Cara thought, Claire speaks the English language more proficiently than this woman. She stared openly at Barbie, gaping, waiting.
“It’s just that, well, Jack doesn’t exactly know that I’m pregnant. I haven’t told him yet. And so you can imagine how embarrassing it would be if, well, if he heard it from his ex-wife and all. So, again, I’m just wondering if you could do me this itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny little favor and not mention this if you happen to be talking to him. It’d be best, actually, if you just didn’t mention that we ran into each other at all, if you know what I mean.”
“Wife.”
“Excuse me?” Barbie asked in her perfect high pitch, and cleared her throat with a twitter that sounded like something that might have escaped from a small bird.
“Wife,” Cara said again, more clearly and pronounced this time. “You said, ‘ex-wife.’ I’m still Jack’s wife,” she corrected Barbie, her arms clasped tightly over her chest. Cara sat up a little straighter, a little taller in her seat, and faced her body toward Barbie head-on. “We aren’t divorced yet.”
A nervous gasp escaped Barbie’s mouth in a quick little huff, a sigh of sorts. “Oh, of course, um, ‘WIFE,’ ” she said slowly, correcting herself. “Just a formality, of course.”
“No. Just a fact, actually.”
Barbie’s face grew scarlet, hot and flushed with hives that started at the base of her neck and spread in giant blotches as if she had swallowed something she was desperately allergic to. “Of course,” she said, because she had no choice but to admit the truth. Jack and Cara were not yet divorced.
“Don’t worry, Barbie.” Cara reset her body parallel to the wheel and fiddled again with the keys. She turned the engine over and the van came to life, idling in place for a minute. “Your secret’s safe with me.” She gripped the wheel tightly, ready to back out of the space, and turned her head to dismiss the woman, but Barbie was immovable, simply wouldn’t budge. She caught her reflection in the vanity mirror on the back of the visor, fiddling with her hair so that it was just so.
“Oh, I just knew you would understand, Cara.” She mispronounced Cara’s name again. “I just knew the minute I walked out of that doctor’s office and back down the hall. I said to myself, ‘Oh, no, she wouldn’t be that kind of woman. Certainly she’ll understand what I need her to do. I’ll just have a little talk with her.’ I knew it was a good idea to wait here for you so we could have this little chat.”
Cara wasn’t sure who that kind of woman was. She laid her head down on the steering wheel, melted her chest right into the oversized rim and sighed, watching Barbie as if she were a caricature. She smiled weakly at Barbie and willed her to vacate the front seat of her car. Please, oh, please, oh, please . . . Leave this car N-O-W.
“Okay.” Barbie’s breasts heaved a long sigh and relief flooded her face. She looked for a minute as if she might settle in. “Whew, well I just feel so much better about all of this.” Her gummy, toothy smile was wide. Cara studied the fillings that lined Barbie’s back teeth; deep silver crosses that cut through her back molars.
Barbie clasped her hands together in a cheerleading clap, a deep, full echo that hung in the air. “Okay, well, I suppose I should go now, then. Yes, that’s probably a good idea.” As careful as she was in getting in the car, she was equally haphazard in getting out, and banged the door wide against the truck still parked next to Cara’s car. Cara leaned over to inspect the damage and spied a black crease in the valley of a small dent that Barbie had left in the door of the truck.
“Oh, sorry about that.”
Cara nodded her head, dismissing it immediately. She wa
s done with the small talk, not interested in spending another minute with her. She put the car in REVERSE before Barbie could get the door closed.
Barbie squinted her eyes, leaning back into the front of her van. “Oh, and Cara?” she asked, a high pitch rising again in her voice.
“Huh?”
“Have you lost some weight? You look really fabulous. Almost skinny.” She smiled at her then while Cara put the car in DRIVE and sped away.
3
It was too good to keep, of course.
“Okay, so who do you think is pregnant?” Cara asked her friends.
Leah and Paige turned to stare, full gape, at Mel, accusingly.
“Good God, no. You have got to be kidding. I’ve already made that mistake. Holy Christ, you two, don’t curse me.” Mel looked positively ill.
This made Cara laugh; giddy. She swung her legs back and forth on the bar stool and ran her finger over the salt on the rim of her margarita glass. She had drained two already and the tequila and Grand Marnier hummed softly in her head, keeping time with the music playing on the bar’s speakers. She hadn’t had this much fun getting drunk in a long time.
“Who?” they asked in unison, their eyes dancing. They had settled in, each on her own bar stool. Around them the bar buzzed, men in suits done for the weekend.
Cara looked into the face of each of her friends, savoring the anticipation. She almost didn’t want to tell them, longing to keep such a luscious secret to herself as she had the entire week. It had taken her a day and a night to get used to the idea, but when she did, she relished it, amused by the fact that Jack would be saddled with a baby—clearly not in his plan when he packed his bags and headed off to silicone island.
“Barbara Jean.”
Paige looked positively pained; Leah stunned, her mouth hanging open in mock horror. Only Mel whooped it up, rubbing her hands together and throwing her head back. Clearly the news had made her day.
“You have got to be kidding?” Mel laughed openly, clenching her fists together in victory. “Perfect. Just absolutely perfect. God is a woman; this is proof.” Mel’s emerald eyes twinkled, the long lashes blinking rapidly in succession as if she was flirting with someone.
When I'm Not Myself Page 4
