I shook my head. “Peg’s at the matinee.”
She frowned. “All right, then. I’ll do it.”
“It’s not heavy. I can help. I’ll just be a little slow.”
“Grace!” she said. “I forbid it!”
I turned toward the stoop and there was Ty. Beautiful, as usual, in jeans, Converse, and an untucked plaid cowboy shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Expressionless and enigmatic in his Ray-Bans. Chewing gum.
“Oh, hey!” I said.
He took the side of the crib out of my hands.
“Mom?” She was digging around in the backseat for the bag of hardware. She backed out and turned around.
“This is Ty. Ty, this is my mom, Julia Barnum.” She started to smile and then stifled it. I could see she was experiencing reflexive fan-fluster mixed, probably, with an urge to get out her shotgun and drive us down to the justice of the peace.
Ty pushed his glasses to the top of his head, offered his hand, and gave her the smile.
It was freakish to watch my steely mom become discombobulated, but I certainly understood. It was the first time I’d seen him genuinely smile since he’d been back. It made my knees weak, too. It made me want to cry.
“Well, Tyler,” Julia said. “What a situation! Congratulations.”
I knew she actually meant it in a nice way. But it sounded like Way to go, Sir Fucks-a-lot.
The smile faded. “Thanks.”
I tried to subtly communicate with my piercing gaze that she should stop talking now, but she misunderstood my expression.
“Grace!” She squeezed my shoulders. “Don’t cry, baby.”
I shrugged her arm off. “I’m not!”
“Everything will be all right now, won’t it?” She looked at Ty. I wished I could let him know somehow that she sounded vaguely threatening even when ordering a vanilla shake at the Burger King drive-thru.
A corner of his lip turned up, but it was a far cry from the genuine sweetness he’d offered a moment earlier. “Sure it will,” he said dryly, hefting most of the pieces of the crib.
In the time it took me to haul myself up the stairs once, they carried up all the bed pieces and leaned them against the wall in my bedroom.
There was also a large box of baby items that Ty carried up that included a bathtub and a big, firm, crescent-shaped pillow. Julia called it a Boppy. She said it was good for support under my arms when nursing the baby, or to prop the baby up against, to help him learn to sit up. I glanced at Ty. He was looking at the Boppy and at me. I wondered if he was feeling the bizarre reality of all of this as much as I was.
We sat together for a few cringe-inducing minutes of informative conversation in the living room. Julia asked Ty how his career was going, and I learned that he was about to start recording a new album. She asked about his family, what they thought about the baby. He described them, in a perfectly neutral voice, as “very excited.” Then he stood up, shook Julia’s hand again, and excused himself to go to a meeting.
We listened to his footsteps fade down the stairs.
I looked at Julia. “You knew he was staying here, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes.” She looked uncomfortable. Shifty-eyed. “Peg told me.”
“You and Peg have been talking?”
“We’ve been in touch a time or two, yes.”
“So, how are the paint fumes?” I asked.
“Hm? Oh! Better. Still kind of strong, though.”
the father
I left work after lunch for my now semi-monthly checkup with Dr. Goldstein. I got off the elevator on her floor and came upon two women whom I recognized from the doctor’s office, a young nurse and the woman who took my copay and scheduled my appointments. They were whispering furiously, but beat it down the hall when they saw me coming.
I checked in with the receptionist. “Hello, Miss Barnum!” Her greeting was extra energetic. “You have someone waiting for you,” she twinkled.
I followed her pointing finger. Ty was slouched in a chair in the far corner, boot on knee, absorbed in a copy of Fit Pregnancy.
“How did you know I would be here today?”
He barely looked up. “You wrote it on the calendar on the fridge.”
I took a peek at what he was reading: “You’re Not Eating for Two! Healthy Nutrition for You and Your Baby.”
I studied him discreetly. Why was he reading that? Why not something about how to find a maternity bra that fits? Why not a comparison of the best nipple creams? Or what to do about hemorrhoids? Did he want me to see him reading that? What was he saying? I’m fat?
He looked at me. “What.”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
I sat on the chair in the examination room. Ty leaned against the exam table, still reading the magazine. My God, look at him. Beat-up cowboy boots. Low-slung jeans. Tight black tee. Bomber jacket. Baseball cap. Chewing gum.
Ignoring me, for the rest of our lives.
Dr. Goldstein came in and he rolled up the magazine and shoved it in his back pocket.
“Hello, Grace.” She smiled at me and looked at Ty expectantly, with that extra underlying buzz. Either she too was a fan, or the office staff had filled her in.
“Hello, Dr. Goldstein.” I gestured, openhanded, to Ty. “This is . . .”
What should I call him? I had no idea. “This is my . . . um, my friend. Tyler.”
Dr. Goldstein smiled politely and shook Ty’s hand.
“I’m the father,” he said.
“Yes, I assumed so,” Dr. Goldstein said. Wow, they were doing really well at this. Didn’t need me at all.
I got on the table and we carried on with the examination. He had only seen my bare belly from the bedroom doorway when he walked in on me the other night. Now he was getting the fluorescent-lit close-up, stretch marks and veins and all. He was typically unreadable. Perhaps shuddering internally.
The doctor found the heartbeat with her little microphone and he stepped closer to the table, listening with an absorbed expression. He smiled. At the doctor.
She asked us to meet her in her office. He helped me sit up and step down from the table. We went down the hall and sat in chairs across from her desk.
“Are you planning to attend the birth?” she asked Ty.
I didn’t want him put on the spot about that. “My mother and roommate will be with me,” I reminded her, to take off some of the pressure.
“I will be there,” Ty said.
“Well, then, you two might like to do a childbirth class. They have them at the hospital.” She handed Ty the schedule.
I reached over to take it from him. I tugged. He wouldn’t let go. He folded up the sheet and tucked it into his pocket.
When we got outside I asked him for the class schedule.
“I’ll give it to you after I look at it,” he said.
“You don’t need to look at it. It’s taken care of. I’ve already read a book on Lamaze and watched a video. I know how to do the breathing.”
A hot-dog vendor came toward us, pushing his cart. Ty pulled me over to a nearby stoop.
“I want us to do the class,” he said forcefully. “This is my child’s birth. I’m going to be there. I need to know what to do.”
“Well. All right,” I said, extra reasonably. “You’re right. I . . . well, why don’t you tell me when the class is, and I’ll check my calendar.”
He laughed. Unpleasantly. “You are so full of shit, Grace.”
“Oh, am I?” My ever-flickering flame of hormonal temper flared and roared. “Am I? Who asked you to come today, anyway? Who asked you to come back at all? Don’t you have a celebrity obligation somewhere? Groupies to do?” I marched toward the corner. “You just push yourself in wherever and don’t think about what other people want.”
He grabbed my arm and stepped in front of me. “Why should I think about what you want? You do that enough for both of us. It’s all you think about. I totally get it, Grace. I have for a long time. You are better than me, a
nd I am not what you want.”
I was stunned. “I don’t—that’s not—”
“I think that you probably love me,” he said. “But I know that I’ve never been good enough for you.”
I tried to pull away. His hand tightened.
“But this”—a sharp glance at my belly—“changes everything. And no matter how crazy and irrational you get, I am here.”
“You’re hurting me!”
He let go of me and stepped back. My bag had fallen to the ground. He picked it up.
I headed for Lexington, rubbing my arm.
He caught up. “I’m sorry.”
I was crying, hard. I couldn’t help it.
“I’m sorry. Gracie. I was too rough.”
It was unbearable, to think that he believed that about me. What an awful snob I must have seemed. I stopped and turned to him. “It’s not true, Ty! I swear it’s not. I do love you. I’m not better than you.”
We were at the corner. The hot-dog vendor tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a pile of napkins for me.
“Okay,” Ty said soothingly. “Okay.”
I blew my nose. He smoothed the backs of his fingers over the red marks on my arm. I knew he didn’t believe me. He was probably just worried I’d miscarry if I didn’t calm down.
There was a guy across the street, staring at us. Holding a black thing at his waist. He saw me see him and started up the street.
“Ty,” I said, “I think that man just took our picture.”
Ty turned sharply and watched the man retreat.
“Great,” he muttered.
He got me a cab.
Ty wasn’t there when I got home from work. I ate supper by myself, took a bath, and watched a double Andy and Opie. Then double features of Sanford and Son, M*A*S*H, and Designing Women. Then I turned off the TV and sat quietly contemplating Ty’s neat pile of belongings over in the corner by the armchair. Sometimes, when I was the only one home, I looked at his things. I didn’t touch. Except one time, I picked up the shirt he had just worn, to smell it. I saw that he was reading a book, one that I haven’t read. Cormac McCarthy. I got wet.
I told myself I was sleepy and went to bed. I heard Peg come in and do her post-show thing. Tea. Lighting lavender incense. A few minutes of puttering. A quiet phone conversation with Jim. Around one fifteen she went into her room and closed the door.
The Bump had hiccups. Sometimes if I changed my position he settled down. I turned onto my other side, which necessitated a precise repositioning of my support pillows, under the belly, between the knees.
Today, at the doctor, Ty had seemed so grimly determined to be responsible. So now, maybe he was with Roberta, trying to make up for lost time. He’d been here pretty much constantly the past couple of weeks. What a bummer it must be. Your twenty-four-seven sex party with the Amazon lady mud wrestler is all messed up because you feel obligated to take care of your short, round, pain-in-the-ass former friend whom you accidentally impregnated. What a great big bucket of cold water!
It made total sense. Roberta was so much more his type, exciting and beautiful. Why would Ty want an interspecies relationship with me? He was still a lion and I was still a duck.
I imagined Dan asking me for five words right about now. Pregnant. Pregnant. Fat. Alone. Pregnant.
I couldn’t stop the negative loop I was in. I felt trapped. In this body. In this life. In this unchanging love for him. In how badly I wanted him . . . needed him.
Ty came home around one thirty. He took a shower. Brushed his teeth. Turned off the bathroom light.
Quiet.
I listened to the muffled traffic on Seventh Avenue for half an hour. Then I got out of bed and padded to the bedroom door. I skipped my robe and slippers. It was dark out there and he was, by now, asleep.
I went slowly, silently, stepping around the squeaky floorboard in the hall.
He was on the couch. Still. Peaceful. Lying on his stomach, one arm bent under his head. His beautiful, strong, naked back. I knew how smooth and warm it felt.
Was that a tattoo? I didn’t remember it. A spiky, dark smudge, across his shoulder blade. Maybe a bruise? I crept closer. Hard to tell in the dim illumination from the street.
I wanted him so badly it was making my skin itch. Or maybe I was just developing a fresh patch of stretch marks. Whatever. I retreated carefully to the hallway and looked at him again. Just looked at him. Lying there. Breathing quietly. I was trembling. Why did he have this insane power over me?
“You. Are. Evil.” I said it in the barest of whispers.
“So are you.”
I jumped sharply and whacked my funny bone on the wall.
He rose up from the couch like a shadowy incubus in boxer briefs and came to me. I was cradling my throbbing elbow.
“Did you hit it?” he asked quietly. He was standing very close. I couldn’t see his face. The light from the window behind him limned the edges of his hair like glowing filament.
“Uh-huh.”
He lifted my arm and leaned down and kissed the back of it. While he was down there he tugged down the spaghetti strap of my stretchy nightgown and sucked my nipple and half of my breast into his mouth.
“Oh my God.” My knees buckled. “Oh!”
He slid a steadying arm around me and drew me down the hall to my room. He shut the door firmly behind us and pulled my nightgown off over my head.
“Do you know what I’m going to do to you?” He ran a hot, liquid hand over my breasts and belly and cupped me between my legs.
I made some sort of unintelligible sound and sat on the bed.
He leaned down and told me, in my ear. Using appalling language. Pussy, and lick, and suck, and other rhyming, juicy, onomatopoeic words.
I came, the first time, before I ever lay down.
He was gentle, patient, and helpful when I needed to rearrange pillows or adjust my position, but also unremitting in moving us toward the objective. Clearly, not fucking was not going to be an option. I was so grateful.
Afterward he turned on the bedside lamp and uncovered me and stared at my body. I tried not to look away.
“Damn!” he said. “I had no idea.”
“About what?”
“That the sight of you pregnant could make me so fucking hard. I’ve had blue balls for two weeks now.”
It was apparently true. He was more than ready to go again. I was thrilled, having buried early-on any hope that he might still find me desirable.
I touched him, slid my hand underneath and cradled him in my palm. “Roberta would probably not be okay with me doing this.”
He looked genuinely perplexed. “Huh?”
I tried to smile, to sound light and casual. “Well, she is your fiancée. I’m just the mother of your child.”
He sat up. “Where do you get this shit? I don’t have a fiancée!”
“She was with you all through the Midwest! I read about it and saw a picture!”
“She just showed up at some of those gigs. One time she said she drove eleven hours and brought a carload of people. What am I gonna do, tell her to fuck off? I bought her a drink.”
“The article said you were engaged. And in the picture, you were all over each other.”
“The article was bullshit. And she was all over me.”
The photo was seared in my memory, so I quickly reexamined it. It was true. His arm wasn’t even around her.
“Couldn’t you tell her to stop?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t out of hand. Why embarrass her in front of her friends?”
Jeez, why did he have to be so freaking nice? “Well, I’m sure there were others,” I said sullenly.
“No. There weren’t.”
“Are we talking about the same thing?”
“I wasn’t with anyone. But myself. A lot.”
“When?”
“On the tour.”
I stared at him. “The whole time?”
He nodded.
This just di
d not compute. “Wha? Were you sick?”
He gave me a very, very dry look.
“Well, then,” I said slowly, lying back down. Trying to grasp the implications. “Well.”
He was still looking at me.
“Then I guess you probably don’t have any other babies gestating out there.”
He lay down beside me and slid an arm around my belly. “As it happens, only this one.”
The Bump did a flip. Ty raised his head.
“Did you feel that?” I held his hand in the right place and watched it rise over the shoving pressure of a little knee or elbow.
He laughed. “Damn, he’s strong!”
“Tell me about it!”
His hand and eyes moved over me and his face changed. “I’m going to go down on you again.”
“Okay!” Anything to be agreeable.
I piled up the pillows and shifted slightly to one hip to ease the pressure on my spine. And so I could breathe more easily. And so I could watch what he did to me. He was an artist at this, too.
By the way, it was a tattoo, on his shoulder blade. He got it in New Mexico. A little Kokopelli, playing his magical flute. In the middle of an orgasm I surged forward and touched it. I swear, I heard music.
family matters
Ty moved into my bedroom. We didn’t talk about it.
My sleep improved drastically. I got tired early and went to bed knowing that Ty would eventually join me. Less than thirty seconds after my head hit the pillow I was out. Until he got in bed later and put his hands on me. Not that we had wild sex, or even all the time, and when we did it was very slow and easy. A strong, post-orgasm Braxton Hicks contraction had freaked us both out sufficiently to put heavy brakes on our lust.
He invited me to come with him to a movie premiere and a performance he was doing at a charity benefit. I declined, just too presently pregnant and historically camera-shy, but they were fun to hear about.
I got an e-mail at work from Boris with the title You Are Outed! He included a link to Eye on the Apple, a prominent New York celebrity gossip blog. I clicked on it and there we were, the top story, including that photographer’s stealth photo of us. Me in my unglamorous sweater and sundress and leggings, the April wind flattening the yellow dotted-Swiss fabric tight over my big, round belly. Blowing my nose. Ty leaning over me urgently, saying something.
Grace Grows Page 25
