I suspected Ed was relieved that I wasn’t home, offering him a handy excuse for visiting Karin. “It doesn’t matter why you’re here,” I told him truthfully. “I’m glad to see you.”
It was true: I was glad. I liked Ed. On the other hand, even with Mr. Testosterone standing close enough for me to rub his bulging blue jeans like a genie’s lamp, I felt nothing more than a vague affection for him. The chemistry just wasn’t there.
As I watched Ed find a vase on Karin’s cluttered bookshelf, fill it with water, and fuss over arranging the flowers, I was aware that dancing with him, being in his apartment, and sitting next to him on our one movie date already seemed like distant memories.
Karin emerged just as Ed took a seat on the couch. She was dressed in tight black jeans and a black t-shirt, a shadow of Ed’s outfit. In my khakis and stained white sweatshirt, and with Paris on my shoulder, I felt like a mother chaperoning a first date as Ed scrambled to his feet again and embraced Karin.
She exclaimed over the flowers and waltzed over to the table to open the box of chocolates before turning to me. “I called Ed, like, ten times this morning to cry over Wally,” she said, popping a chocolate into her mouth. “He always knows how to comfort me.”
“I’m kind of like Karin’s relationship hot line.” Ed added.
“I don’t know why I’m still moping over Wally, that hairy dog,” Karin said. “I guess I should have waited.”
“Until what?” I asked. “That relationship was a flat line.”
“Until I had someone else in my sights! Then this process wouldn’t be so painfully tedious.”
Ed shook his head. “You’ve always been one foot out the door with Wally anyway. Now we’re going to carry you over the threshold for good.”
I didn’t comment on the obvious marriage metaphor, or on the foreign concept to Karin that it was possible to live without a man.
“I don’t know, Ed,” Karin sighed. “I botch every relationship.” She sank down onto the couch and buried her face in her hands, crying softly.
Ed and I exchanged a look and then, as if on cue, settled down on either side of her.
“Maybe you subconsciously pick men who can never match your ideals, so you won’t have to worry about getting married,” I suggested.
Karin peered at me from between her fingers. “God, how pitifully self-indulgent. But maybe so. Remember Mexico, that last vacation we took together?”
I patted her with my free hand. Paris was snoring slightly in my ear. “Of course. I’ve never been so sick in my life!”
Karin shuddered. “I blocked out the sick part. But remember that guy, the waiter in Puerto Vallarta with the spaniel eyes?”
I thought hard. There had been so many men. In the United States, Karin and I were over the hill, nothing to turn heads. But, on vacation in Mexico three years ago, just before I met Peter, we caused stares and whistles everywhere we went, simply for being women without husbands who had money to spend and wore bikinis on the beach. Which waiter could she be talking about?
Then I remembered. “You mean Ernesto? The head waiter who took you to his village by boat while I went to the museum?”
“Right! What was he, maybe twenty years old?” Karin smiled. “Ernesto took me to his village, and we ate armadillo soup at his mother’s house and took a walk out on the fishing docks. And then, I don’t know what came over me, but the moon rose over the water and I had to have him. So I did, right there on the docks.”
“On wooden docks? Ouch.” Ed made a face.
Karin dropped her hands. “Well, on ropes, to be exact. These thick damp fishing nets. I felt like I was making love to all of Mexico in a single moment.” She turned to me, her eyes suddenly anxious. “I never saw Ernesto again. I never even saw Mexico again. Do you think I’m horrible, Jordan?”
I smiled at her. “No. Why would I? Think about it. There I was, moldering away in a museum, while you were making love to Mexico. Who has more to remember?”
“And more to forget,” Karin said, making a face. “But I guess that was the point. To make love with the moment.”
“You’ll have more moments,” Ed said, then turned to me. “So how long are you babysitting, Jordan? Can you go up to the beach? We can hike at Point Reyes, maybe grab some barbequed oysters and a couple of beers. You come too, Karin,” he added hastily. “We’ve got plenty of daylight left. Sound good?”
“Sounds impossible,” I replied.
Ed looked startled. “Why?”
“For one thing, I don’t know how long I’ll be babysitting,” I hedged, giving Karin a warning look so that she wouldn’t intervene or explain my situation. “Besides, I don’t have a car seat or anything to carry the baby in if we go hiking.”
Ed considered this, chewing on the end of his mustache. “Some other time, then?” he said at last. “It would be a shame to go all the way up there and not hike.”
Karin and Ed were both watching me closely; I didn’t need a psychic hot line to read their minds. “Why don’t you two go without me?” I suggested obediently. “Karin, you definitely need to think about something besides Wally.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Karin glanced at Ed, whose face had brightened.
Aha, I thought. So he had brought those flowers to the right address after all. Well, Karin wasn’t the only one who could play matchmaker. “Come on,” I said. “It would do you good.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help with the baby?” Karin’s dark eyes searched mine. I knew what she was asking, and it wasn’t permission to go to the beach.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “Go!”
Shortly after that, we left Karin’s apartment together. Karin set off with Ed in his rattling orange car, blowing kisses, and I walked towards the Mission to shop at the thrift stores with Paris on my hip, trying Cam’s cell phone again.
There was still no message from Cam by the time I returned late that afternoon by taxi, with a car seat, a portable crib, a high chair, a stroller, and two plastic bags of baby clothes. Once inside, I made up the crib, fed Paris and settled her in the crib for nap. Then I stripped off my jeans and fell into bed without bothering to shower.
My cell phone sounded just as I was drifting off to sleep. I snatched it up and carried it into the bathroom, grateful that Paris was now in a crib and couldn’t fall off the bed. It was Karin, asking innumerable questions about the baby until I realized that she was stalling.
“So,” I interrupted. “How was the beach?”
Karin waxed poetic about surf and fog, seals and barbequed oysters. Then, unexpectedly, she began to cry. “I feel sick,” she said.
“Why? Bad oysters?”
“No! I hardly ate or drank anything!”
I frowned, studying my bare feet against the tiled bathroom floor, then said, “You’re probably just feeling guilty because you and Ed slept together and you don’t know how to tell me.” I opened the medicine chest and rummaged for my moisturizer. When I found it, I began rubbing it into my face.
“Would you hate me if I did?”
Bingo. I wiped the excess face cream off my eyelids so that I wouldn’t look so much like I’d contracted a terrible, oozing eye infection. “There’s nothing you could do that would make me hate you, Karin.”
“Well, Ed and I didn’t have sex,” she said.
“You didn’t?” I squinted disbelievingly at the rust stain on the sink, which was shaped like Italy. “Why not? Was it the sand in your suit or high tide?” I teased.
“I suppose it was the tide. The tides of time, the way people come and go in my life. Except you.” She caught her breath. “I didn’t want to hurt you, so I didn’t have sex with him.”
“How would you being with Ed hurt me?” I was truly puzzled.
“Don’t you like him? Even a little?”
I considered this. “Well, I like him better than Wally,” I said. “But, honey, I like Ed for you, not for me. What does Ed want?”
Karin blew her nose
, honking on the other end of the phone like a bus in traffic. “Oh, he’s Mr. Romance, says we should give love a chance. But he doesn’t want to do anything that might screw up my friendship with you, or take the risk that I’ll bust him up with a hammer again.”
“Is there that risk?”
“Of course. I’m completely unreliable as a lover,” Karin pointed out. “Look at my track record!”
“Maybe you should think of Ed as a friend,” I suggested. “You might be unreliable as a lover, but as a friend, you’re a Hall-of-Famer.”
“Oh, Jordan.” Karin honked again. “Thanks for that. I owe you.”
“I owe you back. Go for it.”
Chapter eight
Paris hated the car. More precisely, she hated the baby seat in the car. When I tried strapping her into the seat to drive to the grocery store the next morning, she fought and hissed like a cornered wolverine. I had to pin her into the seat with my forearm while I pulled the strap over her head.
We suffered a repeat performance of this as we left the market’s parking lot, with the added challenge of Paris’s glass-shattering shrieks of fury. I’d been to rock concerts quieter than this. To make matters worse, a dozen onlookers gathered, probably ready to demand that I hand Paris over to someone more competent, like that woman in the minivan next to us whose three children remained placidly strapped into place while Mommy, not a hair out of place, packed the van with enough groceries for Armageddon.
Paris’s howls escalated as I pulled out of the parking lot, white-knuckled and sweating. I spotted a pet shop across the street and toyed with the idea of stopping there to buy an animal crate. I could put the baby in that instead of the car seat and give her a few toys to maul.
Later, I decided that a dog crate might come in handy at home, too. While I unloaded groceries, Paris pulled the maple syrup out of the cupboard and poured herself a sticky skating rink. As I mopped that up, she hauled herself to a standing position on a counter stool, then wailed in horror when the stool toppled onto its side. Moments later, I discovered my niece ingesting half a tube of lipstick she’d managed to fish out of my purse.
“She probably ate $7 worth of my favorite lipstick,” I complained when Karin telephoned. “This kid is a cross between Houdini and a chimpanzee.”
“Don’t look to me for sympathy. Caretakers like you keep us nurses employed,” Karin reminded me. “Are you going to Berkeley today to see Cam? I can come over and help you wrestle Paris into the car. We’ll just throw a towel over her head, the way my mom used to do to our cat when we took her to the vet’s.”
I declined, since I still hadn’t heard from Cam. “I’d rather invite him to come over here, anyway.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re thinking turf wars. Like, if Cam’s on this side of the bridge, he’s more likely to own up to the fact that it takes two to make a baby?”
“He might.”
“Dream on.”
Things went better once I got the baby outside. Paris loved riding in her stroller and giving everyone the Queen’s wave. We hung out in Dolores Park, watching the druggies, the other children, the ants on the sidewalk, the martial artists, and the wind through the leaves. I’d even thought to bring along a juice box and crackers.
When the afternoon sun began to lick the tops of the palm trees, Paris fell asleep and I walked back to the apartment.
Still no message or text from Cam. I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d have to drive over to Berkeley the next morning with Paris.
I imagined surprising Cam at the falafel cart, the two of us embracing with the baby between us in one of those happy cinematic endings where onlookers applaud. But, no, Cam would be more likely to flee the scene as we approached, his Falafel Man apron flapping around his legs as I chased him down with the baby stroller.
The sky darkened and a late fog drenched the clothes I’d hand washed and hung on a line I’d strung from the back of the house to the garden fence. Why wasn’t Cam returning my calls? He couldn’t possibly be making falafel 24 hours a day. I had telephoned him before dinner, and again every hour after that, but nobody answered. I left more messages, brief but urgent. “Call me now. I need you.” “Don’t wait. Call me.”
Finally, I bathed Paris in the sink, sparing us both the ordeal of the bathtub, and sang her to sleep. I tried Cam once more at 9 o’clock, gazing down at the baby as I left yet another cryptic message for my brother. The baby lay on her back across my lap, her mouth slightly open, a single blonde wisp over her forehead. I could drive to Cam’s place right now, I decided; I could probably transfer the baby to her car seat without waking her.
I rose and reached for my purse, but Paris immediately squirmed into the tight crook of my arm and grabbed a handful of my hair, whimpering. Get her into the car without a struggle? Ha. Fat chance. And I was too tired to cope with anything more tonight. I’d let her sleep and track Cam down in the morning.
I was awakened later that night by the sound of a terrifying bark. The sound turned out to be the baby wheezing for breath.
I sat up and snapped on the bedside lamp, my heart pounding, remembering what Nadine had said about Paris’s strange cough. Surely this was it. The baby was sitting up in her crib, gasping for air, her narrow chest concave with the effort of sucking in oxygen.
Paris saw me and struggled to stand, but the effort made her hiccup and bark and gasp until her lips turned blue. She didn’t have enough breath in her to cry.
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I murmured, but it wasn’t. Paris managed a faint, raspy howl, broken by that inhuman seal’s cough at the back of her throat.
I was terrified to pick up the baby, afraid she’d turn even bluer and die in my arms. Had I fed her something wrong? I rapidly catalogued what she’d eaten. Could she be allergic to milk, apples, cheese?
But I hadn’t given her anything new to eat today. And this wasn’t an allergic reaction; it was some sort of respiratory failure. I’d seen enough of those as a teacher to recognize them. But from what? Cystic fibrosis? That might explain why she was so skinny. Pneumonia? Had I kept Paris outside too long in the fog?
Did she have some horrible side effect from her mother taking drugs during pregnancy? No, no. I would have seen signs before. What, then, could cause her such distress in the middle of the damn night? I could go online and look up symptoms, but that would be even more terrifying. I couldn’t do any of this alone.
I scooped Paris up and dialed Karin’s number. “Pick up, pick up,” I muttered, but there was no answer. Of course there was no answer. It was 3 o’clock in the morning, and Karin turned the phone off at night. Or maybe Ed had come around with another bouquet.
I couldn’t risk taking Paris over there. I’d be better off driving to the ER, which was the same distance as Karin’s house—except that I was afraid Paris would carry on about the car seat like she did before and somehow choke in panic. Or I’d have a car accident listening to Paris in the back seat while I drove.
By now, Paris had gone limp against my shoulder, except when her tiny body was in the throes of a coughing spasm. Then she flopped about like a rag doll. I pressed my ear against her ribcage and heard bubbling through her lungs. When I lifted my head again, I spotted David’s business card, the one Karin had given me, on the counter where I’d left it. I had meant to make an appointment at his clinic for the baby’s checkup, but I’d forgotten.
I flipped the card over, found the cell phone number Karin had scribbled there for me, and punched in the numbers. He was a doctor. He was Karin’s friend and a pediatrician; he must be used to dealing with emergencies and panicked parents.
David answered on the second ring. He seemed not the least surprised to hear from me. Karin must have seen him at work and told him about the baby. David asked me to describe the baby’s symptoms in detail, then told me to sit in the bathroom with her.
“Run the shower,” he said. “Crank up the hot water. Hot as you can get it. Keep the shower curtain open and the bathroom
door shut. You want steam, lots of steam. Wait! Tell me how to get to your house. Leave your apartment door unlocked and give me fifteen minutes.”
He was with me in ten, carrying a comforting looking black medical bag. David slipped into the bathroom so quietly that Paris didn’t startle, and perched on the tub. I was sitting on the toilet seat with Paris on my lap, the shower going full force. David’s flannel shirt gaped open over his red t-shirt and his curly hair was matted flat on one side. I’d definitely gotten him out of bed, yet he seemed fully alert. So was I, high on adrenaline.
“Her lips are blue,” I said desperately.
“What’s her name?” he asked softly, taking a stethoscope out of his bag.
“Paris.”
“Hi there, Paris,” he greeted her solemnly. “I’m Dr. David.” Then, to me, “Can you turn her on your lap, please, so that her left side is to me?”
I did as he asked. David’s fingers were gentle as he listened to the baby’s heart and lungs, took her temperature, checked her pulse, and peered into her throat and ears. I relaxed slightly as David took charge. He talked not to me, but to Paris, who watched him warily and, for one split second, smiled when David said, “You’ve got a birdie in your ear, I think, Miss Paris. No, wait, it’s only a kitty!”
Her breathing eased gradually, and Paris pressed her head against my shoulder, moving her head slightly as she tracked David’s movements. When he was finished examining her, David pulled a final magic trick out of his bag: an orange Popsicle. It had already started to melt, but he pushed the frozen end between the baby’s lips and coaxed her to taste it.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked finally, as Paris tentatively tongued the frozen orange.
“Croup,” he said. “Fairly common in infants, but scary as hell, isn’t it?”
I burst into tears and blubbered something about how I’d been certain she was dying.
Sleeping Tigers Page 12
