The Bright Side of Disaster

by Katherine Center

  Herman came out to check out the commotion, and the clean woman led me to the porch swing to sit down.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Gardner and Maxie. He was like an animal trainer hypnotizing a wild beast.

  “Hey there,” I said. “Whatcha doin’ there?” He had started humming a little song, and was hopping from one foot to another.

  “I kind of have a way with babies,” he said.

  Maxie was in a trance.

  “That,” I said, “is a hell of an understatement.”

  Maybe it was the fall that did it, or maybe Maxie’s cries, but in any case, my shirt was spotted with milk. In any other context, I’d be nursing her. But this nonlactating neighbor, this man, had it under control. I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “You’ve got a rare talent there,” I said. “Usually only people with working nipples can have that effect on her.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m being studied by a team of scientists.”

  He went on with his humming a minute, and then his new girlfriend put her hand on my shoulder. “How are you?” she said.

  “Oh.” I waved my hand. “I’m fine.” I wasn’t sure I was fine, but it seemed like a good answer. And I wasn’t bleeding, so there was no real evidence to the contrary. I looked her in the eye. “You’re very kind,” I said. And she probably was.

  “I’m going to get you some ice,” she said, and she went inside.

  Maxie was starting to doze off now. It was the most amazing sight I had ever seen.

  “You are a genius,” I said to Gardner.

  “I just have a rumbly voice,” he said. “Babies like it.”

  “But you weren’t talking when you first took her,” I said, “and she just went limp.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

  I watched him with her for a few more minutes. To be honest, I so rarely got to hand her over to anyone that, even though my knee was throbbing, I was very happy to just sit on the swing.

  “Did you need something?” Gardner then asked.

  I didn’t know what he meant.

  “You knocked? At my door?”

  “Oh!” I said. “Yes. I was coming to you with a proposition.”

  “Hit me,” he said.

  “Well, you’re handy, right?”

  “I am,” he said. “I am handy.”

  “I was wondering if you might be willing to help me with my garage.”

  “Help you how?”

  I said it quickly, to make the request sound smaller than it was: “A new coat of paint and some new light fixtures and maybe a few other things.”

  He just looked at me.

  “I’d pay you, of course,” I said.

  And then the girlfriend appeared on the porch with a plastic bag full of ice. She pressed it up against my knee. These people were too perfect. Kind, nurturing, stable, not-sadistic people who would get married and raise cheerful, high-scoring, polite children who would grow up to have jobs as urban planners or famous chefs. They were going to live in the best-looking house on the block and have the best lives.

  “She’s out,” Gardner said to me, of Maxie. “Why don’t I walk you home and pop her in the crib?”

  “Can you do that?” I asked, but I was just making conversation. After that performance on the porch, I was convinced he could do anything he wanted.

  He waved to the girlfriend. She said, “Feel better,” to me, and then we were off, me limping just a little, Gardner in his blue bath towel, Maxie like a kitten against his chest, and Herman following behind.

  On the walk to my house, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I led him inside and felt embarrassed by all the unfolded laundry and teething toys and half-eaten apples everywhere. He followed me to Maxie’s room, rolled her off his shoulder and into the crib, and the two of us crept out. After I shut the door, I gave him a high five.

  “Nice work!” I whispered.

  “Just good luck.”

  Then I said, “What is a pediatric nephrologist, anyway?”

  He tilted his head like he thought I should know that.

  “Okay, pediatric is kids,” I offered.

  He nodded.

  “And nephrologist?”

  He frowned like he still really thought I ought to know.

  I said, “You want me to come up with the Latin root neph?”

  “Kidneys,” he finally said. “Kidney problems.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Of course.”

  He looked at me for a minute, then said, “I’ll probably go back to it. Sometime.”

  He started back toward the front door and paused at the handle. It was a strange scene, for us to be standing so close, me in my milk-drenched pajamas, him in nothing but a towel. In another world this could have been our house, our baby, our blue towel around his waist. He was looking at me, and I knew I looked pale and bloodshot and tangled. I didn’t like the picture of me I imagined he was getting. I wished again I had at least paused for some lip gloss. At that thought, I sucked on my bottom lip to wet it. He looked down at my mouth.

  “I should take a look at your knee,” he said, still staring at my mouth.

  “Oh,” I said, waving my hand. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

  He didn’t argue, though he could have.

  “Go put some clothes on,” I said, by way of a good-bye.

  And he nodded, still staring at me, lingering there in a way that any girlfriend would not have liked. He had me under a spell, too, I think. Maybe it really was his rumbly voice. Maybe it was how calm he was. Maybe it was how good he was with Maxie. But I felt relaxed. I felt rocked in a gentle sea. I felt like we were friends. And then suddenly I heard myself saying, “So is that woman your new girlfriend?”

  And as soon as I said it, I was out of the trance. My eyes must have popped wide open when I heard myself. Don’t ask him that! What kind of question is that? None of your business!

  Before he could answer, I was covering. “Because I thought you were single. And I have a friend who is also single I’d been thinking about setting you up with. But if you’re seeing somebody, I won’t. Set you up with my friend.”

  He paused. He was studying me like he was trying to read me in some other language. “That girl is not my girlfriend,” he said. “She’s my…” And he waited for me to guess.

  “Sister?” I asked.

  As he nodded, he touched a finger to his nose.

  Of course, of course. They looked alike in a way, now that I thought about it.

  “So, sure. You can give me your friend’s number,” he said.

  And then, before we had finished talking about anything, he waved and headed off, back up the street in his blue sarong, looking every bit as good as he had in his pajamas.

  22

  So that woman was not Gardner’s girlfriend. I had the information I wanted, but I’d had to pay big to get it. Now I had to come up with a “friend”—and her phone number. I considered just “forgetting” to give him the phone number, but then I thought better of it. He probably suspected I was covering, anyway. I had to go on the offensive and prove to him that I was earnest and trustworthy—even, apparently, if it meant catapulting him into a relationship with someone other than me. Given the situation, Claudia seemed like my only option.

  The problem with setting up Gardner with Claudia was twofold. One, she would really like him. What was not to like? And, two, he might like her, too. Claudia was definitely better-looking than me. I had my good qualities, sure. Excellent, perfectly proportioned toes that, in my former life, used to have shiny red pedicured nails. A pretty good smattering of freckles. Perfectly straight teeth—perhaps even too perfect. Sometimes I thought about trying to create a gap between the two front ones just to give myself a bit more of an edge.

  But Claudia bore some resemblance to a movie star. She had shoulder-length red hair that she sometimes wore up in a loose bun. She wore cutoffs and clogs and had a kind of tranquil, California-girl quality. She also had lost all of he
r baby weight long before I saw her again for our first mommy group. And—I could certainly vouch, after all those afternoons nursing with the ladies—she had great tits.

  We had taken to meeting frequently. She was back at work on weekdays, but on weekends, we were both husbandless and looking for companionship. Almost every Saturday, and sometimes Sunday, too, we’d meet at the zoo to stroll around with the babies. We started with the zoo because it seemed kid-friendly. The babies, of course, could have just as easily been at the opera. As long as they could doze and nurse, they were good. But Claudia and I found that we liked the pace of strolling, and the mild distraction of seeing the animals. And with driving all the way down there, parking, getting in, walking around, and then doing it all in reverse to go home, it was a great way to kill an afternoon.

  Both of us, I think, were waiting for our babies to get older. I for one had never expected that Maxie would be so noninteractive. When I thought about babies before she was born, I imagined the things on TV that crawl around and coo and smile at you. But those babies are much older than the cantaloupes that had come out of our bodies. When they first arrived, they were red and cranky and toothless. Sometimes they’d stare pleasantly into space while we held them, and then we could marvel at the little people that we’d made with our very own bodies. But mostly, it was a hustle to keep them happy.

  Claudia had admitted to feeling a little off-center about this stage, too. Though we loved our infants, we couldn’t wait to see our two-year-olds and then our six-year-olds. And then, as much as we wanted to see what would come next, when our toddlers came, we’d be sad to see our infants go. I read that somewhere about motherhood: that it’s bittersweet, because each new stage means letting go of the one before it.

  Claudia and I got along very well. She had lots of opinions, and it was lucky for me that I agreed with them. I decided early on that if I ever stumbled upon a subject we disagreed on, I’d keep my mouth shut. Claudia was not a person I wanted to cross. Even still, I liked her more and more. She was someone I would have been friends with even before Maxie. She was no Meredith, but she was someone I would have gone to coffee with a couple of times a month. Instead, now, as single moms, we talked on the phone every day.

  “I have something to tell you,” I said to her the next time we saw each other.

  We were in the monkey jungle. “Let’s hear it,” she said. She was pushing an empty stroller for little Nikki, who, like Maxie, had refused to ride in it and was now nestled, fast asleep, in Claudia’s sling. Claudia had mastered the sling.

  “I accidentally set you up on a date with my neighbor.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Is he a person I’d want to date?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, treading carefully. “I don’t really know your taste in men.”

  “Well.” She looked up, as if reading off a mental list. “Not insane. Not a Republican. Not a lawyer. At least as tall as I am. And, preferred but not required: funny.”

  “Those are some tough restrictions,” I said.

  “You know,” she said. “When I was in college, my list was like a mile long. I rejected perfectly decent boys for reasons like ‘bad facial hair.’ Now look at me. I’ll take anybody.”

  I felt strange as we walked around, talking about Gardner. On the one hand, it made me happy to be able to offer my friend this decent, cute, handy guy. On the other, I couldn’t believe I was doing it.

  “Why’d you give him my number, anyway?”

  “It just kind of happened,” I said. Normally, I was pretty honest with Claudia. With most people. But I didn’t know how to talk about Gardner. She’d insist that I liked him, I’d insist that I didn’t. She’d refuse to go out with him on principle, and I’d feel guilty, months later, when some girl as sweet as his sister but not, obviously, his actual sister, came along and nabbed him. Then neither of us would have him, and that seemed just plain wrong.

  “You take him,” I said aloud.

  “What?”

  “He’s there for the taking,” I said.

  I hadn’t, actually, given Gardner Claudia’s number yet. Part of the reason I told her that day was that I feared I’d never do it unless I knew she was going to ask me about him. Driving home from the zoo, I resolved to take her number straight over to him at the next opportunity. After all, Claudia was a good woman. She deserved some happiness. And I wasn’t even sure what I’d do with him if I had him. Who was I to put a good man on the shelf in case I wanted him later?

  A few hours later, feeling like a good friend, I headed over to his house with Maxie on my belly. We’d eaten and then had a blowout-poopy diaper that got all over me, the sofa, Maxie, the changing table, and everything in between. It took about a box of baby wipes, but I managed to take care of it. I was getting better at multitasking. I could sing “Farmer in the Dell” to a screaming Maxie while wiping down every surface in arm’s reach, stripping the changing-table cover, tossing poop-covered items in the laundry, and choosing a fresh outfit for my little one and then myself. All without getting flustered.

  It was a quality that many mothers I knew had—the ability to seem calm when the shit was literally hitting the fan. I was getting the hang of it. And as crazy as it made me to hear Maxie cry, I’d learned to pause from my little song to give her life lessons: “Just a poopy diaper. Part of life!”

  Gardner wasn’t home. I left the number, written on stationery my mother had given me that said MAXIE’S MOM at the top, in his mailbox. We walked home. All cleaned up and no one to talk to.

  And then, rounding the driveway, I saw Gardner come out of my garage. He waved.

  “You want me to paint the whole thing?” he called out.

  I suddenly felt embarrassed that I’d even asked him. He wasn’t a handyman. He was a doctor! Or some kind of an ex-doctor. He had friends, a life, and a sister who visited him. He didn’t want to paint my garage!

  “You don’t want to paint my garage,” I said.

  “I don’t?”

  “I’m sorry I even asked you. I was just excited about an idea.”

  “I do want to paint your garage,” he said. “And I will let you pay me. In food.”

  “In food?”

  “I thought of this plan,” he said. “I’ll come over on Sunday afternoons and paint—which I find relaxing—and you’ll be inside cooking me a delicious meal to suck down when I’m done for the day.”

  “I like that plan,” I said. “Except I don’t cook anymore.”

  “You don’t cook?”

  I pointed down at Maxie, now holding a strand of my hair in her fist.

  He nodded. “Okay. How about I finish up a little early on those Sundays and take this one for a walk so you can cook?”

  “I think you’re getting the short end of the stick, buddy.”

  “Can you cook?” he asked.

  “I’m actually a very good cook.”

  “Then everybody wins,” he said. “Because I can’t cook. I subsist on canned beans and takeout. I’d give a lot for a home-cooked meal.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re going to be giving up your Sundays,” I said.

  And so he talked me into it—or I talked him into it—and that next Sunday he was out in my garage in his overalls, painting and, I was charmed to hear, whistling as he worked.

  I myself had gone to the market with Maxie that morning and had gotten the fixings for spinach risotto. I had not cooked one thing since Maxie had come along, and as I pawed through the basil bunches in the produce area, Maxie asleep against my chest, I felt an emotion that couldn’t have been anything other than happiness.

  That afternoon, after four solid hours of painting, Gardner went home, showered, and appeared back at my front door in under ten minutes. Maxie was wide-awake, cooing like she was onstage. And as we got the stroller ready, I suddenly felt nervous. “She doesn’t always like the stroller, so you can put her in this carrier if she fusses. Or sometimes I just hold her and push the stroller with the other han
d. I wouldn’t go too far, if I were you, in case she really starts to cry and you need to get her back to me. Maybe just laps that stay close to the house. And she likes ‘Old MacDonald,’ if you need a song. Don’t forget to look both ways before crossing the street. And, seriously, if she starts to cry, just bring her back. We can always order pizza.”

  Gardner watched me with a kind of awe. “Did you just tell me to look both ways before crossing the street?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “It’s possible.”

  He popped Maxie in the stroller, quite expertly, I thought, and before I knew it they were off.

  I paused for a moment to wonder if Gardner was actually a baby thief who would disappear with her as soon as they turned the corner and then sell her to the highest bidder. Although, of course, as he rounded the corner, it was too late. Unwilling to chase him down, I had to hope for the best.

  Alone in the kitchen, I put on a CD and boogied around a little while I washed and chopped. Here I was! It was like being the old me. I was awake, and cooking, and listening to music. I was alone in the house for the first time in months, and the smell of melting butter and sautéing onions filled the kitchen and I found myself feeling homesick for my old life. And so when Gardner made it back, and I heard the key in the lock and then the door slam shut, I thought—for just a minute, before I remembered where I was in time—that he was Dean.

  Dinner involved some baby juggling. Gardner claimed that Maxie had been perfect on the walk, but here at home she decided to fuss. I held her and bounced around while Gardner ate his meal, then he did the same for me. I was a little relieved to see that she fussed even with him. That day on the porch he had made it all look way too easy.

  We didn’t talk much, over Maxie. I’d imagined somehow, when he’d suggested dinner, that cooking dinner for him would feel almost like a date. But I’d forgotten about Maxie and her feelings about early evening. It was hard to keep her happy then, and I don’t know where my head had been when I’d imagined her resting in the bouncy seat and letting me talk to anyone at all.