À la Carte

by Nia Forrester

“But you have friends.”

  “Yes,” I manage, although what I am thinking is, ‘barely.’

  Is Jennifer still a friend? Is Trudie? Can I realistically expect to remain friends with Eric, while engaged and then later married to Rand? Right now, my circle seems pitifully small.

  “Sometimes, in life, we must make our family,” Eva says. “Not just by … making our family …” She looks down at my belly. “But by making our family. You understand?”

  I shake my head.

  “By choosing along the way the people we want to keep close. Picking them off life’s menu. À la carte,” she says smiling.

  I smile back.

  Rand gets into bed next to me and wakes me out of a deep sleep. I was dreaming. I dreamt that I was in a hammock on a tropical beach and my body was toned and perfect. I was in a white bikini and looking up at the blue, blue sky and feeling the warm sun against my skin. And then suddenly a baby fluttered by on wings like a cherub, and then another baby, and another. And I had this uncanny awareness that one of the flying babies was mine and I had to find and catch her, and if I didn’t, she would be gone forever.

  Just as I was about to get up from the hammock, and commence the serious business of baby-catching, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and there was Rand.

  I open my eyes, and he is in bed beside me, fully-clothed. He smells of booze and his face, which he rubs against mine is rough. Its roughness rouses me and eradicates the last bit of sleep from my mind.

  “Rand,” I croak, immediately remembering my anger from earlier in the evening. “Where the hell were you? Why didn’t you call and let me know you weren’t coming home for dinner?”

  “Went out for drinks,” he slurs. “Lots and lots of drinks.”

  “Are you … did you drive?”

  “‘Course not.” He stumbles over the word ‘course’, the Rs rolling a little too long on his tongue.

  I sigh. “Rand,” I say.

  He moves down my body, raises my shirt, and brushes his rough cheek against my belly. Though he is being gentle, the coarseness of his facial hair scores my skin. I put a hand atop his head. The way he loves my belly and the baby in it melts me every time.

  “Where’s your car, then?” I ask, not really caring.

  I am trying to dilute the tide of love I feel, by talking about meaningless, mundane things. I think by asking him where he left his SUV, I’ll distract myself from the fact that I am putty in his hands when I am supposed to be mad.

  “New York,” he says, messing up his Rs once again.

  “You’re drunk,” I say.

  “Yeah. And y’know what?” he says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I know that.”

  “No, I mean I love you. You’re everything. Y’know that? Every-fucking-thing.” He slurs as he speaks, and I know I should be annoyed, but it’s kind of adorable, honestly, all this drunken earnestness.

  His fingers grapple with my underwear. He struggles to find the waistband and when he does, he peels them over my hips and tosses them backward and away from the bed.

  Some parts of this might not be so bad, and I don’t mean the unexpected late-night fooling around. Rand hardly ever says things as sappy as what he just said. I wonder if maybe I should ply him with alcohol at home more often.

  My hand is still on top of his head when his tongue touches me. It is so light, I can almost tell myself I imagined it. But each stroke increases in pressure and intensity, and I feel myself begin to clench and contract. Just as I know I am about to come, he lifts his head, and though I can barely make out his features in the dark I know he is staring at me.

  “You okay?”

  I nod before I realize he probably can’t see me, and then I gasp out the word ‘yes’.

  I hear shuffling, and realize he is undressing. He moves up, so we are face to face and he smells of booze, and of me. With his torso propped up on extended arms so he isn’t resting against the belly, he arches his back and leans in to kiss me. We are still kissing when he parts my knees with one of his, and still when he shifts all his weight to one arm and slides the other beneath me, propping my hips upward at an angle that allows him to enter me.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, though it does hurt, just the tiniest bit.

  But the pleasure overcomes the hurt, and the need to have him close when recently he has felt so far away overcomes everything else. He moves slowly and carefully, finally pulling back a little to hold my hip with one hand and rest the other atop the mound of my belly.

  Just before I come, I feel a Braxton-Hicks contraction that is like the sudden tightening of a fist, so tight it causes me to emit something that is a cross between a scream and a moan. Rand gives a deep, guttural grunt and goes still. I know he came as well, but I didn’t feel it.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asks, between his still labored breaths.

  His hand on my stomach is moving now, smoothing against its surface, back and forth. I know he can feel how rock-hard my abdomen has become.

  “No,” I gasp. “It’s … not that. It’s a … it’s … a …”

  “Contraction?” He pulls back and away from me. I feel him leap from the bed and moments later the light is flipped on, blinding me for a few seconds.

  “Rand!” I say, shielding my eyes.

  “Sorry, but I just … I wanted to make sure …” He is looking at the bed, in the area just between my legs, then he is looking at me over from head to toe, inspecting me as though trying to make sure nothing is broken.

  His chest is heaving slightly, and I can see his nostrils flare a little with each breath. His eyes are full of panic.

  I grab for the sheets to cover myself, aware that I am lying in a position that is spread-eagled, and not particularly flattering especially with my Buddha belly practically resting on my lap. Rand and I look at each other, and he puts his hand on the bump again. It is still a little hard, a little tight, but beginning to relax and soften as the contraction subsides. He exhales.

  For a moment, the realization of how out of our depth we are passes between us. I have never been pregnant before, and Rand has never been as present for a pregnancy as he is for this one. I know it makes him feel powerless that he can’t take away all my discomfort, and the fact that he doesn’t even completely understand the mysteries and secrets of my still-changing body freaks him out even further.

  “Did I do that?” He inclines his head toward my uncomfortably turgid belly. “I mean is it because I … because we …”

  “No,” I shake my head, still recovering from the force of the contraction. “You wish.”

  He laughs at that, and I smile at his laughter. I pull him toward me and he rearranges us both, so that he is on his back, and I am resting on my side, head on his chest just under his chin.

  “Shit,” he says, sounding completely sober now. “That was scary.”

  “I’m fine,” I reassure him. “It’s all just part of the gig.”

  His hand on my stomach is hot. It feels good, soothing. We lie there in silence for a few moments.

  “I can’t wait for sex to be uneventful again,” I say.

  “Hey!”

  “You know what I mean,” I laugh.

  “Should we stop doing it? You’re so close to …”

  “No,” I say right away.

  This time Rand laughs. “Okay. As long as you’re sure it won’t … hurt anything.”

  “I’m sure,” I tell him. “I would tell you if it did.”

  This is a part of our lives together that I won’t sacrifice unless my doctor tells me we must. Because sex isn’t just sex. It’s connection, and closeness. Our lives have gotten so busy that there isn’t always time for the long, discursive conversations we used to have. I miss that. Lovemaking isn’t just for the sensations of it. It can be relationship shorthand as well.

  I love you. I miss you. I see you. I want you. I’m here. I’
m with you.

  But now that he’s at least semi-alert, I do want one question answered.

  “Why’d you go out drinking tonight?” I ask. “You don’t usually do stuff like that, and …”

  “I don’t know,” he says, running a hand over his head. “Just … stupid shit. All this crap going around and around in my head, and …”

  “Stuff like why you don’t want me to legally adopt Rocket?”

  “No. Baby …” He sits up. “Listen to me. I do want that. How could I not want that?”

  “You said you had to think about it,” I remind him.

  “Because. I mean, Eva was here … is here. And it felt … I don’t know. I felt like …”

  “Guilty.”

  He nods.

  “And I felt guilty for asking,” I admit. “But it also felt more urgent or something. Like something was nipping at my heels and about to take away my family. And I …”

  “Hey.” Rand holds my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Nothing can do that. Nothing can take us away. I’m yours. Rocket is yours. Nothing, and no one is taking us away. And with this baby coming …”

  “Ella,” I say.

  “Ella?” He grins at me, his hand falling to my stomach again. “That’s our baby’s name?”

  “Yes. Ella. I tried it out in my head today when I was at my appointment, and …”

  Oops. I stop, realizing too late that I’ve given myself away.

  Rand sits upright, forcing me to sit up too.

  “Your what?” he asks.

  “I had an appointment,” I say speaking slowly. “An OB appointment.”

  “You told me I had that mixed up.”

  “I … lied.”

  ~8~

  “I lied,” she says.

  And for a couple of seconds those words mean nothing. Because Dani doesn’t lie to me. I don’t lie to her. That’s not how we do things in our relationship.

  “Why?” I ask, quietly. The hurt comes before the anger.

  “Because I haven’t been feeling well,” she says. “Lately. I wanted to get checked out before I let you in on it. I wanted to make sure …”

  “Before you let me in on it?”

  She puts a hand on my chest to calm me. I brush it away.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “What the fuck is going on with us?” I ask, under my breath.

  The question isn’t meant just for her. I’m asking myself as well. It’s like suddenly our little ecosystem is breaking down.

  “I want her out of our house,” I say, thinking aloud.

  “Who? Eva?”

  “Yes. I want her out of here.”

  “How do you figure she has anything to do with this, Rand? Having her here has been fine. It’s been good for Rocket. And it might even be good for us …”

  “Good for us how, Dani? And what did the doctor say? Tell me everything. What do you mean you haven’t been feeling well?”

  I know I’m lobbing questions at her a mile a minute, but in just a matter of days, I don’t even know what’s happening in my own house. I come home one day, and fucking Eric is standing in my living room and Eva’s practically moved in.

  And now Dani’s keeping secrets? About my baby? About her health? Nah. I can’t allow things to slip that damn much.

  “My blood pressure is a little low, that’s all. They took some blood, but they’re pretty sure that’s all it is. My blood pressure is a little low.” She shrugs.

  “That’s all?” I demand. “What does that mean?”

  “It explains why I got lightheaded. It happens in pregnancy sometimes, and …”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you’re telling me everything,” I say, cutting her off.

  And she has the nerve to look insulted.

  “Then you can call and ask the doctor yourself,” she says finally.

  “You know I’m leaving for Buffalo tomorrow,” I say.

  “I know that, Rand. They have phones in Buffalo. Call her from there.”

  “You know what I mean. I’m leaving tomorrow, and this is what you pull, the day before I go?”

  “Me? How about you? You went out and got drunk! You didn’t call, and left me sitting there at dinner with Eva looking like an idiot …”

  “I thought you said she didn’t have anything to do with anything.”

  “Yes, but I don’t like having her witness you being so freakin’ … inconsiderate. I mean, your timing sucked on that. Then, you come in here reeking of alcohol and wanting to have sex …”

  “And you didn’t want it?” I ask.

  Dani rolls her eyes. “Of course I did. But I was sleeping, and you …”

  Then abruptly, she stops what feels like the lead-up to an argument. Neither of us is in the mood or has the energy for this, so late at night.

  She exhales and touches my chest again. This time I put my hand over hers.

  “It’s just a weird time,” she says, lowering her voice.

  “Maybe I won’t leave tomorrow,” I say. “The game’s still a few days away. I can wait one more day before heading up there. We need to talk some shit out.”

  “No,” Dani sighs, and her sigh turns into a yawn. “Go, do your work. We can talk about whatever when you get back. Where am I going? Look at me …” She indicates her swollen belly. “I’ll be here when you get back and we’ll work everything out then.”

  I smile a little and do as she says and look at her. She’s beautiful. With her messy hair, swollen nose, eyes rimmed in pink from exhaustion, and enormous belly, she is still beautiful.

  “Turn off the light,” she says over another yawn. “And then c’mere.”

  When the lights are off, I lie down next to her and pull her against me again. Now that I am still, the room feels like it’s spinning, the last of the alcohol wreaking havoc in my system. I will have a headache like a jackhammer tomorrow, and while Dani and I seem to have settled things for the evening, I’ll have to leave for upstate New York knowing that we haven’t resolved much.

  But I close my eyes anyway, and sleep.

  LEaving home when things are one-hundred percent cool with me and Dani is not always easy. But now that she is this close to her due date, and we’re in the middle of some low-level, simmering disagreement, it’s almost nerve-wracking. I don’t even focus on what I’m dropping into my bag as I move around the bedroom in the still-dim early morning light. The headache I was anticipating is here, and in full force.

  Going out drinking with Alexa and the team wasn’t a relationship transgression and I don’t think even Dani would believe it’s worth mentioning. But still, it’s a momentary lapse in priorities that I won’t have happen again.

  Dani is still sleeping. This is late for her. In a little while, she’ll get up to get Rocket ready for school. She’ll pack him a snack and put a note in the bag with it. Never earth-shattering, and often corny. Something like, ‘You’re awesome!’ I teased her when she first started doing that, asking her whether it was something she saw on television, or read in one of the many books she references about how to give positive reinforcement to a kid with the behavioral issues that our son has.

  Our son.

  The thought gives me pause and I glance at Dani again. She is sleeping on her side because she says lying on her back makes her feel like she might suffocate.

  How could I, even for a moment, have doubted that having her adopt him is the right thing to do? Any day now, she’s going to give birth to a baby, her own baby. She is going to push a brand-new person out of her body who will be in her image (and mine) but there is not one scintilla of a change in how she relates to Rocket, who came to her via some other woman. As far as she’s concerned, he’s her baby, too.

  “Hey.” I sit on the edge of the bed and gently shake her by the shoulder.

  Her eyes open sleepily, and she looks at me unseeingly for a moment, then tries to sit upright.

  “No, you still have a little time before you need to get
up,” I tell her. “Just wanted you to know I’m about to head to the airport.”

  “Oh.” She settles back against the pillows again, and her eyes fall to half-mast. “Travel safe, okay? And call me when you get there.”

  It’s what she always says when I leave.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” she murmurs, her eyes completely shut now.

  I lean in and kiss her on the forehead. Dani doesn’t open her eyes at that, but her lips curl at the corners in a perfectly content smile.

  When I head downstairs, I’m surprised to find that Eva is already up, and in the kitchen. I hesitate for a moment before joining her. I only planned to grab a protein shake from the fridge then meet the car that should be waiting outside to transport me to Philadelphia International.

  “G’morning,” I say.

  There is a cup of tea in front of her, which Eva has her hands clasped around.

  “Good morning,” she says. “I didn’t realize you were going away.” She indicates my travel bag.

  “Just a few days,” I say. “Got a game to cover in Buffalo.”

  She nods and takes a sip of her tea. “Oh, good luck then.”

  “I guess I’ll see you when I get back?” I say, hoping that that will not be the case. Maybe while I’m gone, she’ll recover enough to head home, and my house will be restored to its normal equanimity.

  “I expect so,” she says.

  I grab my protein shake and turn to head for the door. Then I pause a moment and look at her again.

  “I wonder if I could ask you a favor,” I begin. “Just because I’m going to be …”

  “I’ll look after her. I’m happy to do it,” Eva says, anticipating my request. “Just as she’s looked after me. And in a moment, I’ll go get Rocket ready for school,” she adds. “I think she can probably use one morning, just to rest.”

  I nod. “Thank you,” I say.

  “Don’t mention it, Randall.”

  “I owe you an apology,” Jennifer says.

  My shoulders sag with relief at her words. Not that I need an apology. I’m just happy I haven’t lost a friend.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you what I did,” she continues. “And I definitely shouldn’t have given you all that attitude when you said you couldn’t tell me.”