Stretch Marks

by Kimberly Stuart

  Their laughter was soft and tentative but it reminded them of all the time they’d shared. Emboldened, Mia said, “I thought green would be pretty but still gender neutral. I’m not finding out the sex before the baby’s born. I mean,” she stopped herself, “that’s open for negotiation. Maybe we could still find out, if you felt strongly about it.”

  Lars said nothing and Mia shoveled a healthy bite of zucchini into her mouth. Too much, too soon, she lamented internally. But he nodded slowly and said, “I think you’re right to wait. More suspense. Life has so few surprises. Why rob yourself of this one?”

  Mia sipped a glass of iced water and willed herself not to think of Lars’s last reaction to one of life’s surprises. “Tell me about Seattle.”

  Lars tore into a slice of bread and immersed it in a saucer of olive oil until a stream ran down the crust and back into the dish. He took his time answering Mia, crunching on the bread and leaving his lips slightly parted so she could watch the progress of each bite. She pulled her eyes away and focused on her side salad, wondering if this was a new habit acquired in the Pacific Northwest or if she’d merely been immune to it before he’d left.

  “I love it there,” Lars said at last. “The geography is amazing. I can be at the beach and in the mountains within the same day. And the vibe is cool. Very laid-back, and much more earth-conscious than the Midwest.” He took a bite of salad. Mia wanted to reach over and hold his jaw shut. How had the smacking not driven her to the brink all those years? Perhaps she was just overly sensitive in her current condition.

  She cleared her throat. “And you’ve found some friends?”

  “Friends?” he asked quickly. “Why do you say that?”

  “Um, because when you called last week, you were out with them. You told someone you’d catch up with the group after we talked.” Mia raised her eyebrows. “Certainly it’s not too personal to ask if you have friends.”

  “Too personal? No, of course not.” Lars laughed and waved the thought away with his hand. “I hadn’t remembered telling you anything about them, is all. That night I was out with some people from my apartment building. Lots of young professional types, an architect, a nurse, a medical resident. Kate, this girl who lives next door, is a lawyer. She does lots of work with the legislature on behalf of environmental causes.” He pushed his empty plate away and smiled at Mia. “Great dinner. I’m impressed.”

  “It’s really very simple.”

  “That’s good,” he said, looking long into her face. “Sometimes I think we do ourselves an injustice by making things too difficult.”

  He reached over to take her hand and she felt warmth spread from his fingers and through her entire body. Mia closed her eyes slowly and willed them open once again. Her breathing became shallow, her chest rising and falling with each breath. “You’re right,” she said, keeping his gaze. “We make things too complicated.”

  “Mia?” he asked.

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  They stood and he approached her. She gave into the kiss, her brain and body firing on all cylinders. The intensity of her desire for him took her off guard. So much time had passed since she’d thought of herself as anything other than a glorified stroller, her knees were shaking at the mere idea of being with Lars again.

  “Mmm,” he said into her hair, and then he giggled. “I’ve never made out with a pregnant chick.”

  She smiled into his neck. “You never should have gotten me knocked up if it bothers you.”

  “Bother me?” He shifted slightly to the side to get better access to her lips. The belly was creating a detour. “Do I seem bothered?”

  Mia closed her eyes and leaned into him the best she could around her expanding midriff. She was so relieved, somewhere in the deep, obscured recesses of her heart, that he still found her attractive. He still wanted to kiss her and hold her. The thought made a lump form in her throat and she felt herself wanting to weep.

  “Yoo-hoo!” A call came from the front door. “I’m home!”

  Lars snapped back from their embrace. “Who’s that?” he whispered, startled, eyes darting toward the entrance to the apartment.

  Mia rubbed her temples with fingers that still tingled with adrenaline. “It’s my mother.”

  “Hello, hello, you two!” Babs came for Lars with arms wide open. She wore a new velour jumpsuit in hot pink. Mia had seen her eyeing many versions of it when they passed street vendors offering knockoffs of brand names. Since becoming a regular attendee of Silas’s church, Babs had expressed a strong preference for black urban culture. Never mind that Silas and many of Ebenezer’s aging parishioners weren’t exactly experts on what was current among trendsetters in fashion. Babs embraced her newfound appreciation for what she believed was African-American with gusto, starting with an exploration into velour. “Congratulations, Daddy-to-be!”

  Lars cleared his throat while Babs clung to him in an enthusiastic embrace. “Thanks, uh, Barbara. We haven’t seen each other for a while.…” He trailed off, searching Mia for clues on how to handle the woman.

  “Oh, it’s been at least two years, don’t you think? The last two times I visited Mia, you were absolutely swamped with work, as I recall. Something about tribes in Africa that just couldn’t get along … and another time there was a flood somewhere down South?”

  “Right. Sudan and Hurricane Katrina.” Lars smirked, appearing to remember the way the woman had confounded him and driven him from his own apartment when she took time off from her current-events-ignorant gallivanting across the Caribbean. “Plus,” he added with a thoughtful expression Mia knew was trouble, “you never were too fond of me, as I recall, Barbara. Didn’t you once refer to me as a—what was it?—tree-loving, bark-eating mooch?” He winked at Babs. “Mia and I got a real kick out of that one.”

  If Babs was flustered, she didn’t show it. Instead she laughed with all the good nature that comes with floating on a ship in perfect weather for ten months of every year. “Oh, Lars, you’re such a jokester. I’m sure we’ve all done or said things we didn’t mean. I’ll make you a deal: I’ll apologize for my saucy comment and you apologize for getting Mia pregnant and then abandoning her.” Babs smiled up at Lars, turning it on full wattage.

  Lars laughed conspiratorially and mock-punched Babs in the shoulder. Mia watched the two of them and wished she were one for hard liquor. What had she done, merging the genetic pools of the two insane people standing before her?

  “Well, as long as you two are reacquainted, we should show Lars to his sleeping arrangements. Right, Mother?” Mia cleared her throat and waited for Babs’s announcement.

  “True dat,” she said and clapped her hands excitedly. “Lars, my apartment is ready for you. I cleaned all day, so I hope you appreciate it. New sheets on the bed, fridge is stocked with snacks, though I don’t believe in all that organic nonsense you and Mia love to preach. There’s a vase of fresh flowers in the living room and clean and fluffy towels in the bathroom.” She shrugged her shoulders in joy. “My crib is your crib!”

  Lars couldn’t tear his eyes from Babs—the velour, the lipstick-ed middle-aged mouth that had just said the words true dat and crib.

  Mia touched his arm and spoke slowly to avoid having to say it twice. “Lars, I thought it would be better for you to sleep at Mother’s place while she stayed with me.”

  “Why?” Lars’s eyes remained on Babs, but a note of irritation had crept into his voice.

  “You’re not married, Mister Man,” Babs said. She wagged one hot-pink fingernail in his face. “I know it might seem a little late for modesty, but until there’s a ring on Mia’s finger, you’ll be perfectly fine in 1B.”

  Mia had to hold back a smile as Lars stood gaping like a linen-clad gorilla. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with the sleeping arrangements, especially after the interruption to their romantic reunion, han
d and head tingling included. But after all he’d put her through, Mia had to admit the idea of Lars pining and restless in a foreign apartment brought a certain amount of satisfaction. Not revenge, exactly, she thought. Just a teachable moment.

  Babs led the way out of the kitchen and Lars put an arm around Mia to hold her back several paces.

  “I thought you two couldn’t stand each other,” he enunciated into her ear.

  “We couldn’t,” Mia said.

  Lars tightened his grip on her shoulder. “Then why are we deferring to her?”

  Mia shook her shoulder slightly to loosen his hold. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. She looked into his face as they stepped into the corridor. “She’s been here. You haven’t. And she’s my mother. That’s worth something, I’d say.”

  Lars shook his head in disgust and rolled his suitcase back out into the hall.

  20

  Baby Steps

  By the next evening both Mia and Lars were eager for an escape. They’d eaten breakfast with Babs and Silas at a soul-food restaurant Babs insisted they try. With stomachs full of grits and molasses ham, and ears bleeding from the number of words Babs had managed to work into such a small space of time, they returned to the apartment. Lars had been elected laborer with Babs and Mia as joint forewomen, ordering him around with a list of heavy lifting and nursery furniture assembly they’d earmarked for his visit. Lars, though able to debate the themes of class war and the savior complex in Dostoyevsky’s early works, hovered just above failure status as a handyman. He tarried over jobs that should have taken a quarter the time, shouting expletives and filling entire rooms with the CO2 expelled from dramatic sighing. After a while Babs was unable to hide her disdain and resorted to sarcasm, a tool Mia had seen her mother employ only in dire circumstances. By the end of the afternoon, Mia had to pull Babs aside and let her know she and Lars were headed out for the evening.

  “That sounds like da bomb,” Babs said. “You kids have fun.” She strode with purpose toward the back bedroom. “I’ll be happy to have the place to myself.”

  Lars and Mia exchanged glances and were out the door within five minutes.

  “Seriously, Mia, I don’t know how you’re doing it,” Lars said when they turned a corner at the end of the block. “You are way more patient than I would have given you credit for.”

  Mia swung a light sweater in one hand as she walked. The sidewalk still radiated heat from a day’s worth of summer sun, but she’d brought an extra layer to protect her shoulders from the air-conditioning at Earth and Water. “I know. I wouldn’t have thought in a million years that living with my mother in the same apartment complex would be anything but torture. But I don’t know.” She walked in silence for a moment, deep in thought. “It hasn’t been that horrible.”

  “Doesn’t she idolize Ronald Reagan?”

  “No, it’s Nancy.”

  “Same thing. And didn’t she cry when you told her you were a vegetarian?”

  Mia giggled. “Yes. Meat is very important to her.”

  “And isn’t this the woman who thought the recycling movement was a government conspiracy spearheaded by Bill Clinton to distract from the Monica Lewinsky scandal?”

  “I know,” Mia said, shrugging in surrender. “And none of her crazy ideas have changed. But no one has killed anyone yet, so that has to be a good sign, right?”

  Lars held the door to the restaurant for her to pass through. “I’d still lock up my valuables and consider taking a self-defense class.”

  Mia laughed and he rewarded her with a grin that set her back to the first time they met. Dangerous combo, hormonal imbalance and loneliness, she thought as the host showed them to a table by the window.

  They shared a quiet meal, lingering over Mia’s tofu burger and Lars’s pad thai. Lars’s open-mouthed chewing abated with the challenge of noodle slurping, which made Mia’s tofu burger all the more appetizing. She also savored the slow pace of their conversation, relieved they’d reclaimed some of the naturalness of their relationship. Mia laughed as Lars told her of the editor at a Seattle activist newspaper where he’d landed a few articles. Despite being the self-proclaimed voice of anticapitalism in the Pacific Northwest, the man had a fetish for Krispy Kreme doughnuts, a vice that caused him endless ribbing from his fellow journalists. Lars had once dropped in unannounced and found the editor hiding under his desk, mouth framed in frosting and eyes bugging out with the effects of sugar and simple-carbohydrate overload.

  Mia talked a bit about her work and started to discuss her relationship with Flor, but the girl’s name reminded Lars of a story he’d written involving a woman who’d created a life-sized sculpture of Che Guevara with her orchid collection. When the check came, Lars offered to pay instead of their usual split down the middle, and Mia showed him her gratitude with a kiss across the table.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, their faces still touching.

  “If a tofu burger can get me that kind of gratitude, maybe we should order a few more to go.” Lars leaned in for another kiss.

  When they finished, she smiled. “I mean, thank you for coming to visit. I’m glad you’re here.”

  They were a few blocks from her building when Lars stopped abruptly.

  “Ice cream. Are you up for ice cream? That store—what’s it called?—on the corner, where we used to shop sometimes?”

  “Gerry’s?” Mia said, her heart beginning to pound.

  “Right. Gerry’s. Don’t they have nondairy double chocolate by Stella Mae’s Creamery? You know, that’s a Seattle company. I’ve been gorging on all their stuff since I moved.” He pulled her by the hand and started in the direction of Gerry’s. “I’m sure they had it at this store. Remember that neurotic old guy who owns the place?”

  “Vaguely,” Mia said. Her voice had gotten small, but Lars rambled on.

  “I always thought he didn’t like me, though I’m not sure what I did to offend him. His organic selection is abysmal.”

  “Abysmal. Right.” Mia scanned the storefronts as they passed, hoping for a plausible distraction that would allow her to avoid accompanying Lars to Gerry’s. With the exception of a gun shop, everything was closed for the evening. Her caffeine intake may have changed since Lars had left, but she didn’t think he’d buy a sudden interest in firearms.

  As they neared the store, Mia could see the green and white stripes on the overhang that yawned over the entrance. She squared her shoulders. What have I to be nervous about? she asked herself. A look of defiance crossed her face. It’s not like there’s anything between me and Adam. And what could be more natural than a man taking the pregnant mother of his child for ice cream?

  Lars held her hand as they moved toward the frozen section, Mia scanning the aisles as they walked. It appeared the only workers in the store were high-school students stocking shelves and a plain-looking girl working on a sudoku puzzle at the one open register. Mia made a mental note to accomplish more of her shopping on Saturday evenings as they seemed to be the time when Gerry’s store was cleared of its two owners.

  “Rainbow Delight … Tropicana Dream … here!” Lars emerged with a pink nose from the recesses of the cooler. “Chocoholic Nirvana. Just what I’m craving.”

  Mia padded after him quietly. Tiptoeing, in general, was not always the most effective way to avoid unwanted human interaction, but it had kept her in good stead in elementary school when she was up past her bedtime. Lars held out his hand for change from the plain girl, and Mia had walked several steps to the front entrance when she heard her name. She turned slowly to see Adam wiping his hands on a green-striped apron. A smile spread across his face and remained stubbornly fixed when his gaze shifted to Lars.

  “Adam. Hi,” Mia said. She took a step forward and then stopped. “Have you met Lars?” She offered no label—no “my boyfriend,” “father of m
y child,” “man who went AWOL and was in large part responsible for the weeping I did in your office a month ago.”

  “Hi,” Adam said, stepping to where Lars stood and offering his hand. “Adam Malouf.”

  “Lars Skjørland. Good to meet you, Adam.” Lars looked at Adam’s dirt-caked apron. “Produce section, I hope?” he said with an easy laugh.

  “Yes,” Adam said, nodding. “By the end of a Saturday, we usually need a full restock of vegetables and fruits.”

  Lars nodded. A knowing look crossed his face. “I worked as a produce boy in high school. It was a great way to learn how grocery stores are so much at fault for price gouging, food-born illnesses, and pesticide-drenched ‘nutrition.’” Lars made sarcastic quotation marks with his fingers.

  Mia cleared her throat. “Lars, Adam and his father, Gerry, own the store.”

  Lars blinked once and must have decided he’d said nothing but the obvious. “Then you and your dad know the uphill battle of getting good quality food to the people who need it most. Do you participate in Food For America?”

  Adam shifted on his feet. The plain girl, who’d been watching the volley with wide eyes, turned her attention back to the sudoku to spare her boss extra discomfort.

  “We take part in several local programs to feed the hungry but Food For America is not one of them.”

  Lars nodded slowly. He narrowed his eyes and said, “A lot to be done, my friend. I hope you realize the gravity of our present situation.”

  “Well,” Adam said, keeping Lars’s gaze, “I appreciate your concern. We do our best to help. I’m no expert, but I’d say most real change happens in our families first, with the way we take care of the people closest to us.” He turned with eyes sparkling. “Wouldn’t you say, Mia?”

  She swallowed. “I would,” she said simply.

  “Right on,” Lars said, his face the picture of deep consideration. “I’m glad we talked, Aaron.”

  “Adam.” Mia and Adam spoke at the same time. She blinked away the intensity of his gaze. “Have a good night,” she said and backed toward the door.