A Bump in the Road

by Maureen Lipinski

  During my hand-wringing, I remembered a Web site I used when planning my wedding: Bride Talk. There was a special message board for women having marital problems. Out of morbid curiosity, I read post after post about cheating spouses, abusive husbands, and overbearing mothers-in-law. (Man, was I tempted to post about that one.) After an hour, I became so depressed I stopped and almost clicked off, but the Baby Chat message board caught my eye. I clicked on it and saw posts titled “Lost my mucus plug! Yippee!” and “Just miscarried at sixteen weeks.” I quickly closed the Web site.

  Which lasted fifteen minutes before I went back on Baby Chat and furiously opened every post, soaking up information, fascinated and horrified at the same time. I was so transfixed I didn’t see Mule Face come in.

  “The florist from the Flynn wedding just called and their biggest grower is having problems securing enough cream flowers for the wedding. They want to know if they can use pale pink as a filler,” she said.

  I jumped and quickly closed my Internet browser, flustered as hell.

  “Oh, um, yeah. I mean, no. That’s not OK.”

  She stared at me and examined her nails. “I figured. Good luck with that one. God. My nails have gone to shit. I need a manicure.” She looked up. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here.” She thrust an envelope in my direction and clicked off, teetering in her inappropriate-for-work purple suede wedges.

  I looked down. Yes! Mule Face’s wedding invitation! I tore open the envelope and squealed with delight as I saw the iridescent gold lettering on red velvet backing and the enclosed card outlining where the couple is registered. Ahhhhh, the world might be going to shit and Reese’s husband cheating on her, but at least I could still count on Mule Face to take tacky to a whole new level.

  With a smile on my face, I cheerfully checked yes on the reply card and got back to reading stories about women who were permanently paralyzed from pain medication during labor.

  Wednesday, August 22

  “When are we going on a babymoon?” I asked Jake as he was opening a carton of moo shoo pork.

  He paused, holding the container in the air. “What?”

  “A babymoon. When and where are we going?” I tapped my finger on the counter.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said as he spooned food onto his plate.

  “You’ve never heard of it?”

  He shook his head. Truth was, I hadn’t heard of it either until yesterday, on Baby Chat.

  “It’s a trip we’re supposed to take before the baby’s born. You know, since we won’t be able to leave the house ever again, let alone take a vacation.”

  “Babymoon? That doesn’t even make sense,” he said, handing me a plate of Chinese food.

  “Why not?” I asked. I looked at the food and my stomach turned at the sight of wormlike lo mein noodles. I set the plate down on the counter.

  “It’s supposed to sound like ‘honeymoon,’ right?”

  “I guess.”

  “A honeymoon is what you take after the wedding. So wouldn’t a babymoon mean after the baby?” His mouth twitched as he looked at me.

  “I don’t know. I just know that we’re supposed to.”

  “Supposed to?”

  “It’s not fair. Other people get to.” Clearly, I am very mature and not at all like a whiny child.

  “Fine. Let’s see how much it would cost.” He picked up his plate and walked into the living room and flipped on the television.

  I followed him. “Oh. I don’t really care if we go away. I just wanted to see what you thought.”

  “I know,” he said, laughing, his eyes never leaving the TV.

  Thursday, August 23

  With all this Reese drama, I completely forgot about this dinner tonight. Jake’s old friend from high school, Grant, is in town with his girlfriend. I’m kinda tired and not really feeling well. I feel a little nauseous from eating a spicy taco for lunch. I was looking forward to watching television tonight. I don’t know Grant well, but I think he’s kind of boring.

  What else?

  Oh, his girlfriend is a disgusting ho.

  No really, she is.

  I met her a couple of years ago at a wedding. Jake introduced me and then was dragged away to do tequila shots so I was stuck talking to Grant for forty minutes. It wasn’t so much us talking as me occasionally nodding while he droned on and on about his new kitchen remodel. For forty minutes. It was one of those conversations where I almost started to panic because I didn’t know how I was going to get out of it alive and intact without having to do the verbal equivalent of chewing off my arm to escape captivity. I think I even blacked out for a while while he was describing his backsplash. I kept trying to desperately point to the bathroom and feign a full bladder but he ignored all of my cries. So, I was thankful when I saw a rather overweight woman resembling Anna Nicole Smith wearing a teal sequined dress approaching us. That is, until she walked over, licked Grant’s face, and patted him on the crotch.

  I swear, I almost puked up my five vodka tonics right there. (But I waited until later to do that.) I had to be polite and shake her hand when he introduced her as his new girlfriend. She shook my hand with the same one she used for grabbing Grant’s package. Ew.

  Later, we all enjoyed watching them bump crotches on the dance floor and I’m pretty sure I saw her stick her hand down his pants a few times.

  Is that not the definition of a disgusting ho?

  Since Jake possesses an inability to say no or blow anyone off, we are stuck breaking bread with these freaks tonight.

  11:00 P.M.

  I’ve taken five showers and I still don’t feel like I’m clean enough. I wonder if overexposure to cK One causes permanent brain damage to an unborn child? If so, we are royally screwed. I think she wore enough perfume to kill every carbon-based life-form in a four-block radius. I got stuck sitting across from her so I watched the half-chewed food rolling around in her mouth as she told stories about her last boyfriend, “Tank.” Grant entertained us all with an exhilarating lecture on “The Time My Laptop Crashed and I Almost Lost a PowerPoint Presentation.” I got through it by singing the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in my head and texting Julie about Mule Face’s honeymoon plans in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

  Julie sent me a text back that said, You would die. Vince Vaughn is two feet away eating dinner. Call tomorrow for details.

  Julie was off having fabulous cocktails at a fabulous restaurant seeing fabulous movie stars and I was stuck listening to a story that involved the words “I mean, what was I supposed to do? So I told the guy, forget it, man, I’m going to Kinko’s.”

  I also learned there is a kind of metallic paint magnets stick to. It makes me very curious—do other metal objects stick to the wall, like pots and pans? It could make for a very interesting art-deco theme.

  I can’t help but wonder if tonight was just a smaller microcosm of what’s happening in our lives. Take the bore and the ho out of the equation and you have me and Jake at dinner, going home early, and Julie out at a hip restaurant, living a city-girl life that not too long ago, I lived, too.

  When Jake and I got engaged and moved out of the city, we were ready to settle down a little, ready for a bigger place and an actual parking space. I knew I’d see Julie less and lose touch with the trendy clubs and restaurants but I didn’t mind. But now, forget not only the hot new clubs and restaurants, forget any nightlife. At least for a while. I just don’t want everything in my life to change. I know some things will and that’s OK, but I still want to be me a year from now. And that “me” does not include the new back fat I’ve developed. The big, beautiful boobs can stay.

  I don’t know, maybe I’m just in a rotten mood because we have to babysit Sam this weekend. I can’t mentally or physically deal with drunken teenagers right now. I have enough of that in my future when Mr. Skeletor is in high school and we have to start marking our liquor bottles.

  Saturday, August 25

  “Oh my God! You
look just like Sam! Like, I could’ve sworn you guys were like twin sisters! Except that you’re pregnant!” The sixteen-year-old girl looked at me with manic excitement, as though I just told her Sephora started offering free shopping sprees.

  “Really? Because . . .” I tried to think of a way to respond since Sam and I look nothing alike.

  “Oh my gawd! You guys even have the same effing voice! Kelly, come over here!” The girl waved over some other girl who was standing in the kitchen.

  “Wha-at? What the hell do you want, Diane?”

  “Totally listen to Clare speak!” They both stared at me, waiting for me to say something.

  I stared back at them, amazed at how similar they looked. They were each dressed in long, tunic-style silky lingerie camisoles with lace trim and wide belts slung around their hips. Shimmery eye shadow, M.A.C. Lipglass, and hair flat-ironed so straight it swished when they walked.

  “Um, I guess—,” I began.

  “OH MY GOD!” they screamed in unison.

  It was all I could take.

  “I have to find my husband,” I said. I darted away before they could stop me.

  I wandered around the house, past teenagers making out, looking for my departed husband. I finally located him in the basement, playing PS2 with three high school boys.

  “Having fun?” I asked him sarcastically.

  He didn’t even look away from Grand Theft Auto. “Yep. Hey, can you get me another beer?”

  I ignored his request and attempted to engage him in conversation, but it became pretty clear he was way more interested in socializing with his video game partners than me. The scary part is if I were a blind person, and if all of their voices were the same level and baritone, I would’ve put money on the fact they were all the same age.

  Hmmm . . . will have to do Google research re: when the male brain stops developing.

  I headed back upstairs to find Sam. I located her in the living room, whispering to her best friend Kristen.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked.

  “Nothing. This guy we know totally has the clap, but whatever,” Kristen answered.

  I sank down into one of my parents’ overstuffed armchairs.

  “You’re not expecting any more people, right?” I asked.

  Sam and Kristen exchanged glances.

  “Right?” I repeated.

  “Totally. There may be like, one or two more guys coming but they’re totally cool. You’ll heart them,” Sam said, avoiding my gaze.

  “You know the rules, Sam. The second this gets out of hand or I get annoyed, I’m kicking everybody out. I’m pregnant, for chrissakes. This party is a gift,” I said.

  No sooner did the words leave my mouth than the doorbell rang and five more guys stood on the front step. Kristen jumped up and let them in as I turned to give Sam a Look, but she was already bounding across the room. She energetically hugged each of the guys.

  Two hours later, three of Sam’s friends cornered me again.

  “OH MY GOD! WE’VE TOTALLY BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU! Diane, look at her ring. It is so beautiful!” The blond girl screamed—Diane, I assumed.

  “Totally Tiffany, isn’t it?” Diane asked and held up my left hand for the other two girls to see. They collectively sighed.

  “Your husband is hot!” brunette number one said.

  “Totally tight,” brunette number two said.

  I wasn’t completely aware of the meaning of “tight” but I assumed it was good, so I said, “Thanks.”

  “Sam is so lucky to have you as a sister. My sister would never let me have a party,” brunette number one said as she rolled her eyes and flicked her hair over her shoulder.

  “Sam says you have a totally awesome apartment. Do you love it?” Diane asked.

  I thought, Sam? Sam who? She can’t mean my sister Sam—the girl who’d rather show up for school without wearing any makeup than say anything nice to me.

  “Um, yeah. I totally love it. Sam said that?”

  “Duh! She said you have like the coolest place ever and you guys are always going to parties and bars and stuff and you guys have a ton of friends and you’re going to have the coolest baby,” brunette number two said.

  My sister? Said that? No, those girls must’ve inhaled too much nail polish remover and eyelash glue. There’s no way Sam would admit to another human being there’s something about me she actually admires.

  “Sam told me that she hates my apartment. She thinks it’s too small.”

  The girls looked stunned and then started giggling.

  “Whatever! You’re so funny!” Diane said.

  “Oh my God, she said your wedding was the funnest wedding she’d ever been to and that your dress was amazing!”

  Sam’s review of my wedding: “It was fine.”

  I never thought she told her friends something different.

  And she thought my dress was amazing? The first time we went dress shopping, she talked on her cell phone the whole time. The second time she told me the dress I liked was hideous and the third time we left before trying on any dresses because she kept whining about her hunger pains and how much she wanted to go home.

  I’m sure at seventeen I would’ve felt the same way, but it still made me feel like crap.

  “So, what do you do?” Diane asked.

  “I’m an event planner and I also have a Web site on the side,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Event planning! How AMAZING! And a WEB SITE? That is so freaking cool! What’s the address?”

  “It’s just clarefinnegan-dot-com.”

  “Is it popular?”

  “Yep, it was featured in a story in The Daily Tribune a few months ago.”

  “OH MY GOD! So you’re like, FAMOUS!”

  Before I could respond, I heard the sound of someone throwing up. I pushed past a bunch of people and found Kristen getting sick in the kitchen sink. Sam was standing next to her, flirting with some guy.

  I grabbed her arm. “Aren’t you going to help her?”

  She jerked her arm away. “NO! It’s totally gross and she’ll be fine.”

  “Nice friend. It’s your responsibility to clean this up.”

  She rolled her eyes at me and turned back to the guy.

  So much for any warm fuzzy sister-to-sister moments.

  An hour later nearly everyone left except for the people spending the night. Sam helped Kristen to bed and cleaned out the sink and Jake was still playing video games in the basement. I’m still thinking about what Sam’s friends told me. If she really thought those things about me, why wouldn’t she just tell me? Why was it so hard for her to just say something nice to me? I figured these were questions I’d never fully figure out the answers to, like why men feel it’s appropriate to adjust their balls in public. Or, I may get an answer, but it wouldn’t be a good one. If nothing else, at least now I have a little hope my sister and I can have a normal relationship. Like when people say friends are “close enough to be sisters” or “she’s like a sister to me.” Because right now, the word “sister” in my family stands for “Person Who Annoys the Living Shit out of You.”

  Friday, August 31

  We survived. An entire week with Sam and no one murdered each other, nor did they kill themselves.

  Yesterday, I casually said to Sam, “Your friends told me some nice things you said about me.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and opened the fridge without making eye contact. She grabbed a water bottle and took a big swig. Noticing me still watching her, she threw up her hands in exasperation as she slammed the water bottle down on the counter.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It was just nice to hear you said those things.”

  “whatever.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen.

  I almost followed her and pushed the issue, but her cell phone rang and she bounded upstairs, chattering in staccato about someone named Jane Jankowski and her bad highlights.

  Score: Sam 1, sis
terhood bonding 0.

  Friday, September 7

  After our week spent as babysitters, Jake and I decided it was time to figure out arrangements for our own child. We got about two feet into the discussion before we realized we’d stepped into a minefield.

  Day care. Nanny. Never once had I realized the intense debate/emotion/discomfort these words cause some people. Until this past week.

  This week Jake and I began the dreaded search for acceptable child care for Mr. Skeletor. After I busted out the smelling salts and revived Jake from a dead faint when I told him the approximate cost, we began furiously researching options as to the best choice, a.k.a. the place least likely to kill our child.

  We were able to quickly rule out one option: nanny. This would have been the most convenient option, but also the most expensive, like several hundred dollars a month more expensive. And while I don’t mind giving up my InStyle magazine subscription for child care costs, I’m thinking having no heat, electricity, or running water would put a damper on our lifestyle. So, we moved on.

  The next option: a yuppie day care center. I saw an article about this place in the newspaper and read about how they teach your kid a foreign language and how there’s like a whole waterpark inside and everything. Of course, Mr. Skeletor won’t be able to speak in English yet, let alone Latin, and he probably won’t be going through a lazy river on an inner tube anytime soon, but I figure if they constructed stuff for older kids, they probably would be pretty good about changing the newborns’ diapers and feeding them and shit, right?

  We toured the center and liked what we saw. It was pretty cool—an outdoor play area with swing set, basketball court, volleyball net, and some pretty awesome toys I think Jake would’ve played with if the center’s director wasn’t with us. The infants have their own room full of cribs to nap in and a separate room where they could play or run around or stare at the walls or do complex geometric algorithms in their heads or whatever infants do when they’re not sleeping.