Until the Real Thing Comes Along

by Elizabeth Berg

  “Yes. It is right.”

  “You want now some tea?”

  “No. Thank you, no.”

  “Later, you can help me with some few letters?”

  “Sure.”

  “I have lately winned some microware.”

  “You did?”

  She shrugs. “You help me fill out on some paper, I send it, and—pah!”

  “You won some microwave dishes?”

  “I show you.” She shuffles out to her kitchen, opens her cupboard, and shows me neatly arranged white containers with glass lids.

  “Wow. How did you do that?”

  “You help me! I fill out form, is all.”

  “Huh!”

  “You want, I can share.”

  “No, I don’t need it. You keep it.”

  “Okay. I thank you some more.” She bows her head, curtsies a little.

  “You’re very welcome. Thank you. For the … test.”

  “So, you knew anyway. You did. A woman can know, if she does want.”

  “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

  “Today I make cabbage soup. And I save some for you. For you and you-know-who. Sweet and sour, is good to introduce on life.”

  11

  Back in my house, I start a pot of coffee, dial Elaine’s number. “What?” she says, on the second ring.

  “Can you come over?”

  “Patty. Jesus. Do you know what time it is?”

  “No.”

  “Eight o’clock. Do you know what day it is?”

  Do I ever.

  “Saturday. Listen, I was up around six. I waited two hours to call you. Pretend it’s a workday. If it were a workday, you’d be up already.”

  “The purpose of a Saturday is to have it not be a workday. And the purpose of it not being a workday is to have eight o’clock not matter. I think this makes sense. I’ll hang up now and you think about it and in a few hours call back and tell me if I’m right.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Silence.

  “Elaine?”

  “By whom?”

  “Well, actually, Ethan.”

  Another silence. A bigger one. Then, “My God, Patty, are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yes. Perhaps yes. I could actually be pregnant.”

  “Well, are you or aren’t you?”

  “Okay, I haven’t done the test. But that’s just a technicality. I’ve done everything else.”

  “With Ethan?”

  “Yeah. Ethan.”

  “I’m coming over. Wait right there. Don’t go anywhere. Goddamn it. Make some coffee.”

  “It’s made.”

  “And don’t you DRINK any, either, if you’re pregnant!” This last is yelled into the phone from somewhere across the room. She’s getting dressed, I know. She flings her pajamas into the farthest corner of the room. Then she puts her socks on first. “You can’t have coffee ANYMORE!”

  “I had milk,” I shout.

  I hear her pick up the phone again, say impatiently, “What?”

  “I had milk.”

  “That’s disgusting. Here I come.”

  I was wrong; Elaine has no socks on when she comes in. Snow is caked along the edges of her sneakers. She is clutching her coat closed, shivering.

  “Jesus, Elaine. It wasn’t an emergency.”

  I take off my slippers, slide them across the room toward her. She steps out of her shoes and little clumps of snow fall out like frosting. She puts on the slippers, pulls her coat tight around her, starts picking up the snow.

  “Leave it,” I say. Later, I’ll scrub the floor. Happily. This happens when you get pregnant, you get very domestic. “Take off your coat.”

  “It won’t be easy. I think it’s frozen onto me.”

  “Why didn’t you wear your boots?”

  “I couldn’t find them. Anyway, who cares about boots, tell me everything.” She hangs her coat up, goes to the kitchen table to sit down. I give her a mug of coffee, then sit opposite her.

  “Well?” she says, her blue eyes wide and beautiful, which, for the first time, does not get on my nerves in the slightest.

  “Well,” I say. “I just think we both realized—”

  “No, no, no,” she says. “Not in the abstract. Do it like, ‘He came over and he was wearing yak yak yak and I hung up his coat and I was thinking yak yak yak and he walked up to me and carried me to the bed’ … Like that.”

  “Well, he hardly carried me to the bed.”

  She shrugs unhappily. “I know. They never do.”

  “Well, why do we want them to?”

  “I don’t know. But we do. Don’t we? I do.”

  “Why? It would just be embarrassing when they needed to buy a hernia belt later.”

  “Some time today, Patty, you’ll probably tell me what happened.”

  “I know. I am. Okay, I called him last night because I couldn’t sleep, I was all anxious and upset.”

  Elaine sits motionless for the whole story, and when I’m done she gets up and comes over and hugs me. Then, suddenly, she lets go. “Did I hurt you?”

  “I’m fine” I say. “It’s just me, Elaine.”

  “No. You’re different now.”

  “I’m not any different.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I know.”

  “Does it feel different?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe … in my belly, low down in my belly. It feels softer. Like there’s this liquid spot of … happening.”

  “Wow. Really?” She puts her hand to me, gently.

  I start laughing. “I don’t know. I think so. There’s just something, I feel something.”

  Elaine puts her cup in the sink. “Get dressed. We have to go shopping.”

  “For what?”

  “Maternity clothes. And those little baby OshKosh jeans. And … you know, a giraffe or something.”

  “Not yet!”

  “Okay then, how about a pregnancy test?”

  “Yeah. Okay. But I am, I just know it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Fifty bucks,” I say.

  “Five.”

  We shake. And I am aware, as I never was before, that her hand used to be a baby’s.

  • • •

  Late that evening, the phone rang.

  “I told,” Ethan says. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ethan!”

  “I know, but I … it just slipped out. To Ed McCracken. He won’t tell anyone, though. I don’t know, it’s like I had to say it to someone else.”

  “Well …”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I told, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Elaine.”

  “Oh, I knew you’d tell her. It’s all right.”

  “And … Well, kind of Sophia, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, the same thing as you, Ethan, it just slipped out! But she did this test? And I’m pregnant, she said. Plus Elaine and I bought a test from CVS, I’m going to wait ten days and then I’m going to do it.”

  “I’m coming for that.”

  “Yes, I thought so.”

  “Those you can believe.”

  “Yeah. Although … I believe Sophia.” My voice is small saying this.

  “Me, too.” His voice is reverent.

  “We bought some other things, too.”

  “What?”

  “Oh … clothes. For … you know, both of us. Me and it. Him or her. And a few toys. And … just … a mobile.” Actually, “we” did not buy all that. Elaine did. It’s going to be pretty wonderful to have her live vicariously through me. Certainly it’s going to save me some money. I’m glad she makes so much writing ad copy. “Oh, and one stuffed animal,” I say, “one of those big chimps in the window at Kids And.”

  “Holding the banana?”

  “Yeah! Have you seen it?”
>
  “I bought it.”

  “Ethan!”

  “Well, you did too!”

  “I think we need to slow down.”

  “Listen, all I got is one chimp. You’re acting like the buyer for Bloomingdale’s.”

  “I’m going to do the test on Friday the third,” I say.

  “Friiiday the thirrrd,” I hear him say under his breath and I know he is writing me down in his calendar. I feel a sudden sense of security, of pride, knowing I will be appearing on those calendar pages often, now.

  “Do it at seven o’clock,” Ethan says.

  “Well, you’re supposed to do it in the morning.”

  “I know, that’s what I meant. Seven in the morning, then I can be there before I go to work. Don’t forget, we need to get your first voided specimen.”

  “What?”

  “The first pee of the day. That’s when you have the most concentration of the hormone it looks for—hCG, it’s called. Human chorionic gonadotrophs.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I asked. Did you get the test where there’s two in one?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “We’re all set.” Did I get the test? That one? I go into the bathroom, look at the pregnancy tests all lined up. Four different kinds. I look at my face. Then I lift my shirt, unzip my jeans, and look at my belly. “Hey,” I whisper. And then I cover my mouth hard, holding something in.

  12

  On Friday the third, I wake up at 6:57. Then I head for the bathroom. There is a chair in the way. Right. I move it, wash my hands and face, look at my watch. Ethan needs to get here. I have to go.

  It’s going to be positive, I know it is. I get my favorite test out of the medicine chest, bring it into the kitchen. Then back to the bathroom. Then back to the kitchen. I’ll read the instructions—again—while I wait for Ethan.

  After I’ve read the instructions twice more, I start a pot of coffee. Ethan will like that.

  Seven-fifteen. What is the matter with him? What kind of a father is he?

  But there, there is a knock at the door. I yank it open and Ethan says, “You didn’t do it yet, did you? I’m late.”

  “I know.”

  “I couldn’t help it, there was an accident.”

  Oh, God. A bad omen.

  “Nobody got hurt.”

  A good omen.

  “Want some coffee?” I ask.

  “You can’t drink coffee. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I didn’t—it’s for you.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  He fills a cup, and I take the pregnancy test off the kitchen table. “Okay, so … I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait, do you know what to do?”

  “Yes, Ethan, it’s not that difficult.”

  “But … should I come with you?”

  “No, I think this part I can handle unsupported.”

  “Okay.” He sits at the kitchen table. He’s a nervous wreck.

  “Ethan?”

  He stands up. “Yeah?”

  “Take your coat off. Sit down. Relax.”

  “Okay.” He does none of these.

  I go into the bathroom, read the instructions again, sit on the toilet. All I have to do is aim, hold the stick in the “flow” for two seconds. But what if I miss? You can also catch some pee in a cup. Maybe that’s safer. That’s what I’ll do.

  I go back into the kitchen. Ethan, who has managed at least to sit down, stands back up. “Are we?”

  “What?”

  “Are we pregnant?”

  “Ethan, I just want to say one thing, okay? I hate that ‘we are pregnant’ stuff. I’m the one that will be pregnant. Just me, okay? You don’t have a uterus. So let’s just get that clear right off the bat.”

  “But are we? You?”

  “I didn’t do the test.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I’m going to, but I thought maybe I’d use a cup, you know, instead of aiming. Because what if I miss?”

  “That’s a good idea. Then you just dip it in.”

  “I know that, Ethan.” I open the cupboard, survey the cups to see which one I should sacrifice. I need to hurry up and decide—I really do have to pee. I pull out a pink cup with a flower on it. But my mother gave me that one. I put it back, pull out my Dunkin’ Donuts cup. But it’s just the right size.

  “Patty?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you have any paper cups?”

  “No.”

  “There’s good planning.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to use a cup! I just now decided to, at the spur of the moment.”

  “But you don’t want to … ruin a cup, do you?”

  “What else should I do? I need to catch it in something! What do you suggest?”

  “Boy, are you crabby!”

  “I’m not crabby! I’m nervous! Aren’t you nervous? I’m nervous, and I have to pee!”

  “Well just take a cup, stop looking at them all!”

  “But some of these are important!”

  Ethan comes over to the cupboard, takes down a solid green mug. “Here. There’s nothing special about this one.”

  “That’s my Christmas cup. Every Christmas morning, I have eggnog out of it.”

  “I’ll get you another one, okay?”

  I stare at it. “Ethan?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think I can pee into one of my coffee cups. It’s disgusting.”

  “Well then, pee on the stick, Patty!”

  “What if I miss?”

  “There are two tests in the kit, right?”

  “Right.” And three other tests, of course. But it seemed important that this first one be done and done right. It seemed important to just save the other tests. I have no idea why. Maybe for the baby book.

  “Okay,” I say. “So, I’ll just go do it. I won’t miss. How could I miss?”

  “Exactly.”

  I go into the bathroom, and in a minute come back to the kitchen, silently go to the cupboard, and get the Christmas mug. And in a few minutes more, come back to the kitchen table and sit down with Ethan. “Want to see the stick?” I ask. He nods. I hold it up. “It’s a pretty pink, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a girl?” Ethan’s voice is barely audible.

  “No, no, this just means I’m pregnant.”

  The word fills my mouth, my neck, my chest. And, as it happens, my life.

  “You are?” And then he nods, answering himself.

  I start to cry a little, wipe my eyes.

  “What,” he says.

  “Well, you are, too.”

  “What, pregnant?”

  “No, crying.”

  “I am not,” he says. But he is.

  It occurs to me that this is so private, this moment. I can’t wait to tell Elaine.

  13

  “How about ‘Philip’?” Ethan says.

  He is spending the night. Because it is the first day of knowing for sure and we are so excited and we have so much to talk about and we want to do it in person. Spending the night means only that; I’m not sure he’ll even stay in the same bed with me. In a way, I regret our instant success. I never thought a miracle could be irritating.

  Still, for the time being he is lying beside me, his shoes off, his shirt untucked, his coat hung in my closet. We ordered out for pizza and I did not get pepperoni, which is my favorite, and I did get a salad, which is not my favorite. I don’t care what people say about the beauty and the taste and the virtues of vegetables, I like starch. My idea of a good meal is an egg-noodle sandwich. But I ate the damn salad. Plus I ate a carrot, at Ethan’s insistence, because he found the salad “skimpy.” “There’s eighteen pounds of lettuce here,” I told him, but he said, “No carrots. No peppers. And that cucumber looks anemic, don’t eat it.” He offered to eat a carrot too, to keep me company. But I declined. It felt good to be doing the right thing. Suddenly, everything I do feels like it must be passed by someone for its
approval. Implantation hasn’t even occurred and already I’m calling for internal conferences. And getting them. Carrot? Why, yes, a carrot; excellent.

  “How about ‘Philip’?” Ethan says again. “Huh? What do you think?”

  “What did I tell you?” I say.

  “Come on, we need names.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh, you’re just mad because I don’t like ‘Eric.’ ”

  I say nothing.

  “Eric is a stupid name,” he says. “Meaningless.”

  “Meaningless?”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly is the meaning of Philip?”

  “The meaning of Philip is that it’s a classy name.”

  “Oh, please. It’s uptight. He’ll wear those black Clark Kent glasses with no sense of irony.” I sit up on the side of the bed. “Do you want to watch TV or something?”

  “No. I won’t suggest any more names right now, okay?”

  I lie back down.

  “Jesus was once an embryo,” Ethan says.

  I look at him, laugh.

  He turns to me. “What?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Jesus was once an embryo’?”

  “Well, He was.”

  I consider this, then say, “I saw Jesus the other day.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, He was in somebody’s garden, a big statue of Him. He had His nice white dress on, and His rope belt; and He was holding His hands out a little bit at His sides, you know how He does, palm side up? And one leg was bent a little. He looked sort of effeminate, actually.”

  “Really?” Ethan asks hopefully.

  “Effeminate and apologetic.”

  “Yeah,” Ethan sighs. “We should have known better.”

  The phone rings, and I go to answer it. As I pick up the receiver, I think, Wow, it’s true. Jesus was an embryo. Mozart was a ball of cells just like what is in me now. Einstein, too. Of course, Hitler, too.

  “What’s wrong?” my father asks, when I say hello.

  “Dad! Nothing!”

  “Why do you sound so glum?”

  “I’m not. I was … doing a comp sheet. I was preoccupied. How are you?”

  “Listen, honey, I want you to come over tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Right. For dinner.”

  “Okay. Any particular reason?”

  “I need a reason?”