by Rumaan Alam
“How’s the wedding coming along?”
Sarah shrugged. “It’s coming.”
“I had the best idea. I’m actually so excited to tell you. I wanted to tell you face-to-face. Are you ready?”
Sarah nodded.
“Here it is: rehearsal dinner. I was thinking we should do something totally different, basically the opposite of the wedding. Like you don’t want a fancy meal, you don’t want place cards and tablecloths and all that, you want fun, light, festive, delicious. You want Mexican!” She paused, triumphant.
“I already called Ventaja,” Lauren went on. “They’ve got a private room, holds up to forty very comfortably, and we’ve already done a menu. Tacos, guacamole, that sort of thing. And I was thinking, because we don’t want to go too crazy the night before, we could do churros for dessert. Anyway.” She reached into the pocket of the coat perched behind her and handed Sarah a piece of paper. “Here’s the menu we did. You can nix anything you don’t like obviously. Or the whole idea. I don’t know. I put down a deposit, but it’s refundable. So be honest, like, if you hate the idea.”
Sarah was surprised. She took the piece of paper, didn’t read it. She looked up at Lauren. She still had a trace of the tan she’d replenished on their trip. “You know, technically, the rehearsal dinner is the groom’s family’s deal. Ruth had some idea, I can’t remember the details. But obviously your plan is going to be a million times cooler than whatever she’s cooking up.”
“Who cares about technicalities?” Lauren shrugged. “Don’t worry about your mother-in-law. I’ll talk to Dan. I’ll take care of everything. If. I mean, if you’re into it.”
Sarah had been so mad. It didn’t disappear, but it no longer seemed fair to be mad at her, or as mad. “Thank you.” She meant it. “Thank you.”
This is Lauren’s way: disappointing, and then far exceeding, expectations. Even now, Sarah still doesn’t get it—why she’d fuck someone, not just someone, a stranger (and, as she’d admit only to herself, as she’d never say out loud: a waiter, it’s worse that he’s a waiter), and turn what was supposed to be a trip about the five of them, together, having stupid, harmless fun, into something about herself.
“Any favorites?” Willa looks down at her, expectantly.
Sarah can’t remember how any of them tasted, particularly. She chooses the vanilla. She likes that pretty little slash of red in it.
She’s taken on more shifts at the store, lately. One of the longtime employees has left and they’ve frozen hiring. Sarah doesn’t mind, in fact enjoys having more demands on her time, since she’s shifted so many of the responsibilities—finding the tent, ordering the cake, checking the response cards against the invitation list, figuring out the outdoor lighting scheme—to Willa.
It’s a dead time for retail, but a boom time for their store: People deaccession once-prized possessions to make room for their holiday loot. Paper bags full of books in particular, but also: vases, unwanted pillows, lamps, picture frames, the occasional painting or sculptural oddity. The pink sale was her brainchild, and it’s proven a success in the two years past: The store transformed into a sea of pinks and reds, a nod to Valentine’s Day. She poured pink foil-wrapped chocolate kisses into a Blenko bowl ($400) and stationed it by the cash register. The first day of the sale, an interior designer came in and swooped up two thousand dollars’ worth of stuff, destined, she told Sarah, for the bedroom of a teenage girl whose parents are renovating their five-bedroom in the Apthorp.
Sarah still needs to find a tuxedo for Dan. She needs to coordinate with her future mother-in-law the details for the postwedding brunch on Sunday afternoon, which she’d like to have in this bistro on Park Avenue South that has a lovely, sky-lit garden room. She’s bought a small weight, ten pounds, and curls it up toward her head, sixty times on each side in the mornings, before her shower, hoping to tame the subtle wiggle of her upper arms. And there’s honeymoon research: She’s trying to figure out the best time of year to go to Botswana. She’s reading Norman Rush in preparation.
Understaffed as they are, she knows they need her, but today something more important has come up. She telephones the store, tells Jacob that she won’t be in that afternoon. Jacob is flustered but she is impatient and thinks, for the first time ever, Oh for Christ’s sake, it’s only a shop. She’s so overwhelmed, she doesn’t pause for more than a second to feel satisfied by the fact that they do need her there, after all.
Then she calls Dan, pacing nervously on a stretch of Thirty-Ninth Street, making a circuit from the free newspaper kiosk to the fire hydrant. A Sikh shopkeeper studies her suspiciously, and she stares him down icily. Dan is in the middle of prepping the big presentation, which is due to go off to The Hague next week. Their conversations when he is at work are never that fulfilling—monosyllables, nodding—so when she hangs up, she calls Lauren.
Years, what, more than a decade ago, a long-ago January night, drunken, because what else was there to do in the dead of the upstate winter, after some party in some person’s house, she and Lauren had been making their way across that well-lit campus, the reassuring blue glow of those security telephones, the pools of light meant to discourage attackers. They walked with too much confidence: The snow had melted, the water had frozen, and ice was everywhere, and they were too drunk to care. It was Lauren who fell, all of a sudden, that’s how these things happen, about to step and then prone, not hurt, because it was the heel of the foot behind her that had foundered, so she landed with a graceless thud on her ass.
“Ouch,” she said, first, then started to laugh, tears mixing in, not from pain, or shame, but from the cold, the preposterousness of the situation.
“Promise me,” Lauren had said later, “if you are my friend, if we are friends, let’s make a deal. From now on, when one of us slips and falls on the ice, the other one will, too.”
“Why?” Sarah had asked.
“We’re in this together” was Lauren’s answer, and it somehow made sense.
“Lolo,” Sarah says, when Lauren picks up, efficiently, after one brief ring, answering with her name—“Lauren Brooks”—so terse, so professional. “Lolo, I fell on the ice.”
The first place Sarah could think of is this strange hotel near Bryant Park. It’s in Midtown, and it seems furtive, the place you’d go for an extramarital martini. She’s forgotten that the old hotel has undergone a modern renovation. It’s a ghost of its former self, a suggestion of columns and grandeur, the patina of slick woods and velvet. It’s a pastiche. It’s ugly, but classy. It’s not yet quitting time and well past lunchtime; the place is deserted. The host has olive skin and beautiful features. His hair has a subtle wave to it, and some kind of product to hold that wave in place. She’s seized by a desire to touch it. He shows her to a booth, delivers a glass of ice water, which she drains, and a menu.
Lauren arrives after only a few minutes; true to her word, she must have left as soon as she received the call. She is there, as Sarah has asked her to be.
“Hey!” A jocular tone, concealing an edge of worry. Confusion.
“Hey yourself,” Sarah says.
Lauren slides into the banquette opposite, pushing off her coat and scarf and bag in one graceless motion, shoving the bulk onto the bench beside her. “What’s going on?” She pauses. “You fell on the ice.”
“Our distress call.” Sarah nods at the menu. “Drink?”
“Drink, why not.” Lauren smiles. “It took me a second there, the ice thing. But I remembered.”
“Of course you remembered, Lolo.”
“So you want to tell me what’s going on? Why we’re drinking?”
“You’re drinking.” Sarah hesitates. She’s grateful. “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh. Oh!” Lauren stares at her. “Congratulations?” She looks down at the closed menu on the table in front of her. “Jesus. Who’s the father?”
“You know, I tried to guess what joke you were going to make.” Sarah smiles, crazily. She feels like laug
hing. “I had Who’s the father? on my list. I also had Again?”
“That’s pretty good, actually.” Lauren laughs. “So I guess wearing white is out?”
“That was on my list, too.”
They order drinks.
“I’ll take two sips,” Sarah explains, defensively, as the waiter disappears in search of their drinks.
Lauren holds her hands up in protest. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I’m fucking pregnant.” She stares at Lauren. She wants something from this exchange but has no idea what. She’s looking to Lauren to tell her how to react.
“That’s amazing.” This time, no joking. Lauren smiles.
“The miracle of life.” Sarah frowns. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I take it this is a surprise?”
She’s only been off the pill a few months, the doctor’s advice. If they were going to start trying, the doctor suggested, it was time. They’d been sure it would take a while. “This is a surprise,” Sarah says. “I mean, it’s good, generally speaking, though the timing is a little . . .”
“Did you know?” Lauren sits up, leans forward a little. “Wait, do you know?”
“Went to the doctor. The usual visit, but like—I’ve been tired. I thought it was just the wedding stuff.” She shrugs.
“Shit.” Lauren is still smiling. This is the right response, Sarah knows: shock, but also joy. “How far along are you?”
“I’m four weeks, she thinks, maybe six. Can’t confirm as yet.”
“Which means that two months from now, you’ll be three or possibly four months pregnant.”
“I’ll be fucking showing.” Sarah feels her shoulders seize up. Her biceps are sore, as they have been for weeks. All those dutiful curls.
“You won’t be.” Lauren takes her hand. “Three months, you’ll be fine.”
“I’ve been fucking starving myself for months, doing those fucking arm exercises.” Sarah can feel she’s about to cry: that terrible heat on her face, that damp in her eyes.
“You’ve been doing arm exercises?” Lauren’s tone is mocking.
“Hired a goddamn trainer. Jake. He’s expensive.” Sarah starts laughing.
The waiter brings their drinks. She picks three ice cubes from her water, drops them into the wineglass, cooling it but also diluting it. She tastes it, and it is wonderful. The very taste of relief. “I was working really hard at this. It’s stupid. I am excited about being a mother. For Christ’s sake, I realize that’s more important than being skinny at my wedding. But I just wanted to be skinny at my wedding. To drink champagne, and do tequila shots with the caterers when everyone had gone home.”
“Tequila shots?” Lauren sips her gin. “Isn’t that kind of racist?”
“I’m sorry I took you away from work.” She’s not crying. She’s not laughing. She just is.
“Please. Work is stupid. This is much more exciting.”
They are quiet for a moment.
“Are you going to find out the sex?” Lauren asks.
“I don’t know.” She hasn’t considered this: it being not an it, but being a he or a she. “I guess I should talk to Dan.”
“Wait, what did Dan say? Is he excited?”
Work Dan isn’t the greatest at having conversations but he knows Sarah well enough to interpret that there was something behind the terseness of her “Hello.” Dan had excused himself from the office, she could hear him, stepped out into the hallway then, finding people there as well, gone into the stairwell, his voice echoing in the emptiness. You’re sure?, Dan had wanted to know. I love you. This is wonderful. I’m so happy. I hope you are, too. This is the greatest. All the right things to say, but Sarah had wanted more, which is why she’d called Lauren. “Well, he’s thrilled of course. I mean, he sees how this isn’t the best timing, but yes, he’s excited.”
“It’s great news, Sarah. It’s magic.” Lauren dips a finger in the trail of condensation her drink has left on the table. “You’re in shock. You’ll feel totally different in about one day.”
“I’m not mad about the wedding, it’s just . . . Why do anything if you’re not going to do it the right way? I was trying to do it the right way.”
“You always do.”
“I’m supposed to be jumping for joy at this news, but it’s supposed to be separate news. My two milestones are blurring into one.” Another sip of the wine. That’s three. She wants a fourth, but not brain damage. She pushes the glass toward Lauren. “Drink this please, so I don’t.”
“Glad to oblige. I’m double fisting it. Because this is cause for celebration. Fuck the wedding. You’ll look beautiful. Who cares?”
“I’ll look beautiful.” Sarah pauses. She is not the kind of person who likes to spend a lot of time talking about what she looks like. It’s like Meredith, talking about being single. It’s a bore.
“I’m going to be Auntie Lauren,” Lauren says, then, “You’re not telling Huck and Lulu.”
“I am not telling Huck and Lulu. This is going to be complicated, though. I’ll need to keep this under wraps for . . . ten weeks? It’s going to be like a British sex farce. Mistaken identities, going in and out of doors.”
“Just say you’re tired from wedding stuff. You’re golden.”
“Huck’s already bought a case of wine he wants at the rehearsal dinner. At your rehearsal dinner. He says the rehearsal dinner is always more fun than the wedding. It’s the A-list. The out-of-towners and the friends you actually like. There’s less dress code and more drinking and better speeches.”
“That’s why your amazing matron of honor is in charge of it. Because he’s right, it’s going to be more fun than the wedding. And if Huck wants a case of wine at this thing, he better call me and we can get that sorted out.”
“Maid of honor, you idiot. But if I don’t drink the special wine it’s going to be . . . suspicious.”
“Oh, come on.” Lauren sips Sarah’s wine, then goes back to her gin. “We used to be very accomplished liars. You’re forgetting.”
“We did lie.” Sarah remembers: missed curfews, forged excuse notes, twenty-dollar bills from Lulu’s purse.
“All little girls lie, it’s what little girls do. So lie. Do teenage Sarah proud. Besides, if Huck loves this wine that much, he’ll be trashed. People never notice if other people are drinking, unless they’re alcoholics, and if there are any alcoholics watching you, they’re going to think you’re an alcoholic, not knocked up.”
“I find this weirdly reassuring.”
“As you’re meant to. A few months from now this will all be a distant memory, and you’ll have a baby and you’ll be a mom and holy shit, I need this second drink all of a sudden.” Lauren pauses, then, almost accusingly, “Wait, what about names?”
There’s a short list. Sarah’s had it for some time. “I wasn’t exactly all excited to have this big wedding. I only recently started to come around and sort of . . . enjoy the thought of it. Thinking about how all these people I like are going to get together one day in April and be in the same place and eat this good food. It sounded nice. Now I feel like an asshole for not feeling excited about the baby and saying fuck all to the wedding, and I mean, sure, fuck all to the wedding and yay babies, but how did this happen?”
Lauren is quiet. “Well, when a sperm meets an egg.”
“I mean, we’re old, Lauren. We’re old now. This is it. Life is happening to us. I called Jill, you know? After you told me you ran into her?”
“You did?”
“I did. I’m not even sure why, I was curious or something. And she was like—the baby this, the baby that, and she said, the thing about having a baby is you’re never alone again, ever, in any meaningful way, ever for the rest of your life.”
“She can’t say that. Her kids are babies. They’ll turn out to be teenagers like us and we had nothing to do with our mothers for a while there. I still have nothing to do with my mother, really.”
Sarah shudders. “Envis
ioning the baby inside me as us as teenagers is not exactly reassuring. All I mean is, suddenly it’s happening to us. Life is happening to us.”
“Life is always happening to us.” Lauren finishes her cocktail, pushes the glass of wine back across the table. “Have another sip, he won’t grow a third leg or anything.”
She takes a small sip. “Okay, now seriously, take this away. Do you want to get dinner?”
“It’s five o’clock.”
“Early bird special?”
“Yeah, let’s get dinner.” Lauren signals for the waiter. “I’ll get this. Celebratory drink on your big day.”
“Do you really think life is always happening to us?”
“I do,” Lauren says.
Lately she feels so stupid. It’s the pregnancy, Sarah tells herself, then remembers she’s pregnant, and gets angry. For days, she vacillates between those two states: idiocy and rage. Joy—about the pregnancy, the wedding—it’s out there somewhere, she tells herself.
At the moment, nothing holds her interest. The fat paperback she’s been picking at is lying splayed open on the coffee table. It’s good, but the television seems more appealing at the moment. Jeopardy! is on, and she’s playing along, talking out loud, unembarrassed. Dan doesn’t care. He sits at the little desk by the window, tapping away, oblivious.
“Who is Vanessa Bell? What is Eminent Victorians?” Dan chimes in with the answer that eludes her: the Abyssinian hoax.
She’s not prone to exaggeration so Sarah wouldn’t say she’s exhausted, but she’s tired. She’s not used to working so many hours in the store: labor that involves much standing, much cheerful chatter. She’s good at Jeopardy!, but she’s not smart. They’re two different things. Younger, she’d have called herself smart, because she was raised to believe she was. She was raised to believe she was perfect. The shock of college wasn’t the usual—discovering radical politics, lesbianism, Kathy Acker. It was discovering her mediocrity. She’d always been adept, before, at seeming smart: asking the right questions, asking questions at all, maintaining an air of propriety, of friendliness, of openness. The ingredients, she thought, of intelligence. Teachers loved her, and so did the students. She was active, which she took for a type of intelligence. Her college professors, though, were not swayed by this activity, this performance of intelligence. They had no context for knowing her. She was one of a few hundred.
