Makin' Whoopee

by Billie Green

  She walked out of the room and down the hall to the back door. Pulling It open, she caught her breath. "No wonder it's getting colder," she said to herself. "It's snowing. Wow, it's really coming down." She turned and called, "Come and see, Charlie. It's gorgeous." She took a step out the door. "I love—"

  She broke off abruptly, barely aware that Charlie had joined her and was speaking. "You love what?"

  "Charlie," she said, her voice strained and cracked, "it's not a cat. It's—it's a baby."

  Chapter 8

  "That's a baby all right." Charlie's voice came from directly behind Sara. "Why are you keeping a baby out on the back porch?"

  Leaning against the doorframe, she stared down at the blanket-wrapped bundle, not blinking even when a gust of wind blew snow in through the door. "Sweet heaven, Charlie," she whispered. "It's really a baby."

  He pushed her aside and scooped the baby up. "It's going to be a Popsicle if we don't get it in by the fire." He walked back into the house, saying over his shoulder, "Come on, Sara Love, snap out of it."

  "A baby," she said again, her expression blank as she closed the door. "Who would leave a baby on the doorstep . . . and why my doorstep?"

  Dazed, she watched Charlie stride down the hall toward the living room; then, pulling herself together, hurried to catch up with him. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Charlie, what are you going to do?"

  He didn't even glance back at her. In the living room he sat on the rug and carefully laid the baby down in front of the fire Mr. Hubbert had built earlier. First he waved his hand between the baby and the fire in some weird rite; then he unwrapped the blanket.

  "Charlie, answer me. What are you doing?" she asked in exasperation.

  "I'm simply checking," he said, running his hands over the small, pink human. When the baby made gurgling noises, he laughed out loud.

  She stooped down beside him. "Checking what, for heaven's sake? It's a baby. I could have told you that without unwrapping the blanket."

  "I was checking to make sure this spot wasn't too warm for her," he said patiently. "Then I was checking to see if she's all right. She's been through a lot, after all. Her face is cold, but the rest seems to be warm enough." He chucked the baby under the chin with one finger. "I don't think you came to any harm, did you, darling?"

  "She? How do you know—"

  She broke off when he glanced at her. "Something was missing when I checked her out," he said. "She's a girl, all right. A gorgeous, healthy little girl."

  "I should have known," she muttered. "She's grinning at you with the same idiotic expression that all females get when they look at you."

  He chuckled. "This time there's a difference. Not all females who grin at me are in her damp condition. She needs changing."

  "Changing?"

  "Diapers, Sara Love, diapers." He bundled the baby back in the blanket and stood up with it. "I don't suppose you have any spare diapers."

  "Of course," she snapped as she ran a shaky hand through her hair. "I keep them in my hope chest, right next to the lace doilies. Why on earth would I have diapers?"

  He pushed the baby into her arms. "Then I guess well have to improvise. Aren't we lucky that's my specialty?"

  "No, Charlie," she said urgently, automatically reaching to give the baby back to him. But he was already walking out the door. "Charlie," she said, her voice panicky, "I don't know anything about babies. Take it back."

  "It's not an it; it's a her." His voice drifted back to her from the hallway. "Relax, Sara. You're making a big deal out of nothing. Babies are natural. Don't mess the whole thing up with nerves."

  "Babies may be natural everywhere else, but not in this house," she called out belligerently. "Come back here, dammit. We've got to call the police so they can come and get it out of here."

  "Not until she's dry."

  Sara stood perfectly still for a moment, then glanced furtively at the thing in her arms. A baby, she thought in desperation. Good Lord, it was so little, so vulnerable. She shouldn't even be holding it. What if she dropped it? What if it started choking?

  Her arms were rigid around the baby as she held :t awkwardly against her. She was afraid to move, afraid to think. Why couldn't Charlie have left it on the floor? Sara dropped her gaze again to the baby. Its tiny face suddenly puckered up, turning bright red as the baby let out an angry yell.

  "No," Sara whispered, the word almost a moan. "No . . . don't do that. Charlie! You come back here right now!"

  "You two sure are noisy," he said, shaking his head as he walked back into the living room. He was carrying several linen tea towels and what looked remarkably like a box of baking soda.

  As soon as he had laid the paraphernalia on the floor beside the fire, Sara shoved the baby at him. He took the infant, chucking it under the chin in a way that made Sara want to strangle him. From a safe distance she watched as he unpinned the baby's diaper. He talked softly to the child as he worked, making what sounded to Sara like idiotic noises.

  "Why are you using baking soda?" she said. Her voice was stiff. "I have bath powder in the bathroom."

  "Bath powder is perfumed," he explained. "It might irritate her cute little butt."

  Sara bit her lip. Why did he have to be so damned confident about everything? It made her feel inadequate. "How do you know so much about babies?" she asked grumpily. "You act as though you've raised a dozen or so."

  "There, now, we're all warm and dry," he said, pulling the blanket back around the baby. At last he glanced up at Sara to answer her question. "I have friends with children, and I'm observant. Besides, I like the little critters. I may have a dozen of my own someday."

  One with each of his women, Sara thought, undisturbed for once by her own bitchiness. Turning away, she walked to the telephone. "I'm not waiting any longer," she said firmly. "The police need to come and get it."

  "Her."

  Sara's lips tightened as she heard the laughter in his voice. "Her, it, what does it matter? Just as long as she leaves."

  Picking up the phone, she checked the emergency numbers, then began to punch in the one for the police station. Suddenly she stopped and listened. Her features froze as she heard nothing but silence on the line.

  "Damn, damn, damn," she said tightly. "It's dead. Why did I have to move out in the middle of nowhere? Every time there's a little storm, the telephone goes—" She paused when the lights went out. "And the electricity. That's great. That's just great."

  The only light in the room came from the fireplace. It cast a flickering illumination on the floor and furniture nearest it, making long, dancing shadows, but left the rest of the room in darkness. Sara gripped the table, glancing around the room for Charlie. Then she heard his voice.

  "I'm afraid it's more than a little storm." This time there was not a trace of amusement in his voice as it drifted across the room to her. "Look."

  Swinging around, she groped her way through the darkness toward the sound of his voice. When she reached him, he was standing at a window holding the baby in one arm. She stopped beside him and gazed out at the blinding whiteness. For the first time she heard the howling wind.

  "That's a blizzard, Sara Love," he said.

  "No," she whispered, clutching the curtain. "It can't be. Charlie, we've got a baby to take care of. We can't have a blizzard."

  "You'd better take that up with God," he said, shrugging. "Because whether we want it or not, that's definitely a blizzard."

  "But what are we going to do with the baby?"

  "I don't know. ... We could give her a peanut-butter sandwich and send her on her way." He glanced down at the pink bundle in his arms. "What about that, kid? Are you ready to shuffle off to Buffalo?"

  "Food!" Sara gasped.

  "You get hungry at the strangest times," he said, shaking his head.

  "No . . . Charlie, what you said about a peanut-butter sandwich—what are we going to feed it?" she asked urgently. "I don't know anything about taking care of a baby. Oh, why
couldn't they have left it on the doorstep of a motherly person? Mrs. Keoghan or Mrs. Evans. Mrs. Evans has grandchildren coming out of her ears, and she's only a mile away. Why couldn't they have left it with her?"

  "Sara?" he asked calmly.

  "What?" she snapped.

  "Are you panicking?"

  Her first impulse was to scream at him. Then, catching herself, she laughed weakly. "I've gone a long way past panic. What you're seeing now is pure, old-fashioned terror."

  When she felt his free arm slide around her waist, she sagged, leaning against his strong shoulder. "Oh, Charlie, what are we going to do? Even if I didn't ask to have a baby on my doorstep, and even if I don't want so much as a minimal amount of responsibility for it, we can't let it go without food. But what do we feed it?"

  "Her," he corrected again. "We'll feed her food. There was a bottle wrapped up in her blanket, but she's old enough for solid foods."

  Right on cue the baby began to suck noisily on her chubby fist. Charlie chuckled. "Look, Sara. She's talking to us. She's saying, 'For heaven's sake, somebody throw me a pork chop.' "

  Sara shot him a look of pure venom. Damn his eyes, he was enjoying this. How could he take it so lightly? This was a baby. But then, Charlie didn't understand how she felt. He couldn't possibly.

  "All right," she said, forcing calmness into her voice. "All right, it's old enough for solids. You're the expert—what kind of solids? Do I grill her a steak?"

  "The first thing you do is track down your emergency candles. Then well try to find the kitchen and see what we can do."

  He sounded as though he were talking to an imbecile, Sara thought moodily. Even though she admitted that at the moment she felt more than a little imbecilic, she still resented being treated as one.

  Fifteen minutes later the kitchen was illuminated by half a dozen fat candles, and Sara was holding one of them in front of the open refrigerator.

  "This is the weirdest thing of all," she grumbled. "Even weirder than a baby on my doorstep. A dark refrigerator interior is—is unnatural. It's un-American. The light coming on automatically is something basic, an unchangeable given, like the sun rising in the morning."

  "What are you muttering about?" Charlie asked from directly behind her.

  "You wouldn't understand." She turned around to look at him. "What am I looking for, Charlie?"

  "Have we got any bananas?"

  "I don't know. I never eat them."

  "I do. And Irma always buys them for me," he said smugly. "Where's the fruit bowl?"

  "It's here on the counter somewhere." She ran her hands along the shadowy counter. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

  "Trust me."

  She snorted inelegantly. "The last time you said that to me your car broke down."

  "No," he said. His voice had deepened, becoming slightly husky. "The last time I said that to you was the first time we made love."

  "Oh," she said softly. A comforting warmth spread through her with the memory. "So what do I do with the banana?"

  "Mash it up."

  Minutes later she brought a bowl of brownish mush to the table and sat down beside him. "Okay, expert, now what?"

  "You've got a choice." His blue eyes sparkled darkly in the candlelight. He was laughing at her again. "You can hold her and keep her little hands out of the way while I shovel it in, or else you can do the shoveling."

  "I'll do the shoveling," she said firmly, picking up the spoon.

  At first Sara was nervous and awkward, but after a while she relaxed a bit. It seemed to be going all right. Even though she had no idea what she was doing, the baby didn't seem to care. She only cared about getting food into her mouth as quickly as possible.

  When Sara leaned close to spoon more banana in, the baby made a sputtering noise, and mashed banana splattered all over Sara's face. She lifted her gaze slowly to Charlie. "You knew about this, didn't you?"

  He laughed. "I knew it was a possibility. Remember you chose to do the feeding." He cocked his head sideways to consider her. "Besides, you look beautiful with banana on your face. I would have just looked silly."

  She picked up a towel and wiped her face. "My mother always told me never to trust a man with an easy tongue."

  As soon as the banana mush was gone, Charlie wiped the baby's mouth and stood up. "That wasn't too painful, was it?" he asked cheerfully. "Now it's rime for her bath."

  Sara stared at him in wary fascination. "You're crazy," she said.

  "No, but I'm teasing," he said, laughing outright now. "It's getting colder, so I guess she'll have to skip her bath tonight."

  "That's a relief."

  "Chicken," was his only mocking comment.

  As they walked back into the living room, he said, "I guess I'd better light fires in the bedrooms."

  She nodded. "Yes, but you'll have to get more wood from the—" She broke off and groaned. "The shed. You'd never even find it in this storm. Oh, wonderful. What else can happen? Not only are we stuck with Little Orphan Annie in the middle of a blizzard; now we'll all freeze to death."

  "Don't get all worked up," he said, his voice bracing. "It's only a small blizzard. We've weathered them before. We'll just all sleep in front of the living room fire. Mr. Hubbert couldn't have known this was coming or he would have laid in more wood."

  As soon as he reached the fireplace Charlie turned to look warily at Sara. "I'm afraid you'll have to hold her this time, Sara Lovelight." He smiled apologetically. "I've got to get stuff together for our beds."

  After a moment Sara nodded reluctantly and held out her arms for the infant. She accepted it stiffly. She might have to hold it, but she didn't have to like it.

  "Take her bottle," he said, "and if she starts yelling, just stick it in her mouth." He paused, his face sober. "The mouth is the little rosebud thing on the front of her face."

  "Get out of here, Charlie," Sara said sweetly, "before I slug the big rosebud thing on the front of your face."

  After he had left, Sara looked everywhere in the room except at the baby. All those years she had avoided being around children, all the years she had avoided even thinking about them. She certainly couldn't avoid it anymore, not with a baby in her arms.

  She glanced down warily. The baby didn't seem to know she was inadequate. She didn't know that the woman holding her had no motherly instincts at all.

  "Dumb kid," she muttered, and the baby laughed.

  Sara's mind buzzed with all the thoughts she had managed to hold at bay for most of her adult life. She began to pace restlessly back and forth. Everything had been going along fine, she told herself in agitation. She had finally come to grips with the emptiness of the future. Almost, she amended silently. But now something so small, so helpless was forcing her to face what she was missing.

  And Charlie's response to this baby ... He was so easy about the situation, she thought grimly. Did he really know what being actively involved with this child was doing to her? But he couldn't know, she told herself. He couldn't realize how painful it was tar her even to look at a baby.

  She sighed with relief when she heard him in the hall. He came back into the living room carrying an empty bureau drawer, a blanket thrown over his shoulder.

  He set the drawer in front of the fire and nodded. "This will do just fine. After all, Jesus only had a wooden box and a bunch of hay."

  "I think you're exaggerating her importance just a lithe.'' Sara said. "But I'll tell you one thing," she added dryly, "if any wise men come to the door, you ran deal with them. I'm a little off men tonight."

  His soft laughter drifted through the room, adding warmth as he arranged the blanket in the drawer. When he was through he took the baby from her and laid it down.

  "It's a perfect bed," he said, sounding pleased with himself.

  While Charlie searched the storage room for a sleeping bag, Sara sat on the floor beside the drawer, not looking at the baby although her hand rested on the blanket. What would she have done if he hadn't
been with her? she wondered. Somehow Charlie could make boiling in oil sound like a fun adventure. He always knew just what to do and just how to do it. She had never seen him at a loss for action. And that was only part of why she loved him so much.

  She closed her eyes tightly as a sharp pain shot through her. Weil, she thought as she tried to steady her breathing, so I'm finally going to admit it.

  The admission hurt dreadfully. It caused an immediate pain and a lingering ache. She could never let him find out, she told herself in desperation. He was so damn kind. He would hurt for her, and she couldn't stand the thought of seeing pity in his eyes.

  She pulled herself up sharply when she heard him come back into the room. He had changed into his two-toned, moth-eaten sweat suit and was carrying two pillows as he dragged the sleeping bag behind him.

  "Our royal bed, m'lady Love," he said as he spread the bag in front of the fire, beside the baby's bed. "Fit for a surly princess and a prince among men."

  "You're an imposter, remember?" she said, knowing full well that she was the fraud in the room.

  She sat down beside him. He was staring at the baby. "I think I'll call her Trudy Lee," he said, "because I found her on the back stoop."

  "I don't even want to know what that means," Sara said, smoothing back her hair as she pretended to ignore him.

  He smiled broadly. "Come here, Sara Lovely," he said. His voice was filled with gentle warmth as he folded her into his arms. "Trudy Lee isn't the only one who needs taking care of." He kissed her forehead. "You've had a bad day, haven't you, Love?"

  "The understatement of the year," she murmured, snuggling closer. She needed Charlie's arms around her; she needed them desperately.

  He must have sensed the tension in her, for he pushed her down on the sleeping bag and found her lips hungrily with his own. His power was complete; his demanding mouth banished ghosts and vanquished fears.

  Beneath his sweat shirt, her hands clutched frantically at the hard muscles of his back and shoulders as she tried to absorb him and the exquisite feeling. There was no end in sight, she thought. Never was when she would get enough of him. Forever was how long she would need him.