Until the Real Thing Comes Along

by Elizabeth Berg

  “Do you speak English?” he asks my belly. Then, so softly I can barely hear him, “I love you.”

  He rolls onto his back, closes his eyes, and I close mine.

  “Patty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about ‘David’?”

  “Oh, God, Ethan, go to sleep.”

  “Is he still moving?”

  “He went back to sleep. He heard you starting up with the names again.”

  “Listen, would you mind if we got a cat in Minneapolis?”

  “Not a Himalayan,” I say quickly.

  “Why not?” he asks, wounded.

  “Well … too many memories, I would think.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “We’ll go to the animal shelter. We’ll get a Minneapolis orphan kitty.”

  “How about ‘Kitty’? It’s good. Retro. Don’t you think?”

  “Good night, Ethan.”

  19

  “Call me when the baby’s born; I’ll fly out there and give it its first manicure,” Amber says. “We’ll use ‘Newborn Pink’; it’s a real color.” She leans back to admire her work thus far. “Awesome. There’s nothing like pregnancy to fire up your fingernails.”

  “And hair,” I say, patting my newly done coiffure.

  “Right, hair, too. You look good, Patty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So. You all packed?”

  “Yeah. It feels so strange.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Something about her tone seems ominous. “What?” I say.

  She looks up. “Huh?”

  “What do you mean? You sound like … I don’t know, what do you mean?”

  “Well. You have to admit …”

  “What?”

  She screws on the top of the nail polish, turns the light of her nail dryer on. I put my hands in, lean back, look at her.

  She sighs. “I just mean … how much faith do you have that this can really work?”

  “Well … It was his idea. I guess I have a lot of faith that it can work.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s not saying he’s going to immediately become heterosexual or anything. We’re just going to live together as … Well, I don’t know what as. He just wants to live … without some things for a while.”

  “Yeah.” She leans in. “That’s the part I have a little trouble with.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What does he mean? I think … Well. You tell me if I’m out of line, here, Patty, okay?”

  “Okay.” You’re out of line, I’m thinking.

  “I think this is a smoke screen for something else going on with Ethan. He’s running away into you, you know what I mean? Into you and the baby. He’s running away from something.”

  “I don’t think he’s running away from something. He just wants a quieter life. He wants the baby to know him. He wants to live together so he’ll be more involved, more present. And he can’t do it here. He wants someplace new, a clean start.” I take my nails out of the warmer.

  “You’re not done,” Amber says.

  “I’m done,” I say. And then, “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. But I think … maybe we shouldn’t talk about it. I’m happy about it. I don’t want to ruin it.”

  “Patty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want to tell you something. A couple of things. One, I’m your friend.”

  “I know, Amber.”

  “No. I mean it, I really feel like I’m your friend. And if, when you have the baby, you can use some help, you call me. I’ll come. I mean it. I’m good at that stuff—making meals, cleaning, staying out of the way when the people need time…. Really.”

  “Well … God, Amber. Thank you.” My eyes fill and I dab at them. “Sorry. I’m a crying fool.”

  “It’s the hormones,” she says.

  “I know.”

  “Watch the polish.”

  “I am.”

  “The other thing I want to tell you, Patty, is this.” She hesitates, then says, “Are you listening?”

  “Yes.” I nod, finish wiping tears away.

  “Be careful with your heart, kid. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes. I know what you’re saying. But I don’t know how you ever do that, really. Do you?”

  She smiles. “I guess not.”

  I stand, pick up my purse, my new jacket. It’s a sage green maternity jacket Ethan got at some designer store, and he probably paid at least four hundred dollars for it. He says if he doesn’t shop for me I’ll end up wearing stuff like T-shirts with arrows pointing to the stomach that say, “Baby.” “What’s so bad about those T-shirts?” I asked when he told me, and he said, “Do me a favor. Let me buy your clothes. And … if you don’t mind, I’ll put together the baby’s wardrobe, too.”

  “Fine,” I said, miffed, until I realized what a good deal it was.

  “I’ll really miss you, Amber,” I say now.

  “Hey,” she says, shrugging.

  “I’ll call you.”

  “The second it’s born, okay?”

  “Before that. I’ll need a color consult, I’m sure.”

  “Tip from the trade: whatever you see in the magazines is passé.”

  I hug her, put a twenty-dollar bill down on her table.

  She picks it up, hands it back to me. “Get out of here. What do you want to insult me for? This was on the house, your good-bye present, a farewell manicure. Don’t fucking chip it, either.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I tell her.

  “Oh, this is creepy,” Elaine says, eyeing the stacks of packed boxes.

  “I know. That’s what Sophia said. Only the word she used was ‘feely.’ ”

  “Well … that too, I guess.”

  Sophia helped me pack almost everything. When we got to the dishes, she said, “I like this. Now I am feel like china shop woman in fancy place.” When we finished packing, she hugged me so hard I felt breathless. “I wish I never see you again,” she said quietly into my ear. I stepped back, laughing. “What do you mean?”

  “I hope you find there some happiness that you do not come back.”

  “But I’ll come back to visit,” I said. “And you wanted to babysit.”

  “Yes. Okay. That was when was a different story. Now, to live here, you by yourself, this is over.”

  “Well, not yet. I’m keeping the place for a few months. This is an experiment, really.”

  “An experiment.”

  “Yes, you know, to just try something.”

  “I don’t think is so experiment for you,” she said.

  Now Elaine asks, “Is the furniture all you’re leaving?”

  “Well, no. Most of my clothes are still here. Borrow them if you want.”

  “Yeah. No thanks.”

  “You and Ethan. Textile snobs.” I sit down on a box, look around.

  “Are you leaving your books?” Elaine asks.

  “All of them except for the ones about pregnancy.”

  “I might borrow some books.”

  “Okay.”

  This comforts me, somehow, the notion of Elaine over here, her head bowed over my bookshelf. Keeping my place, so to speak.

  “I’ll have to visit right away,” she says. “Call me when you’re all unpacked so I don’t have to do any work.”

  “I will.”

  She bites at her lip, then says, “Let’s go eat; I hate looking at this.”

  I turn out the lights, let Elaine go out first. Then, before I close the door, I turn back and look at the boxes and remember something I heard recently on a voice-activated telephone. “Ready,” it kept saying. “Ready.”

  20

  Thirty miles outside of the Twin Cities, it hits me that I’m really moving. I have never lived anywhere but Crystal Cove, with the exception of the time I spent in Boston going to school. And even then I came home for at least half of the weekends. I was ashamed of this; I used to lie and say I was going other places, but I
wanted to be home. I liked where I came from. I still do. I’m resigned to myself by now: if I find a cheese I like, I never feel compelled to try another. Same with restaurants. When I saw Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born, I related to him because the only movie he ever went to was Gone With the Wind—because he knew it was good.

  Now, everywhere I look is something I don’t recognize. I feel a mild sense of panic, relieved by the sight of Ethan’s hands on the steering wheel. I suppose Ethan is another kind of cheese, if you know what I mean.

  “What are we going to do when we get there?” I ask him.

  “Look at a few places to live, I guess, don’t you think?” He looks over at me. “Is that what you meant?” He has circles under his eyes; he’s been waking up a lot at night. As have I. Last night I lay awake a good forty-five minutes watching headlights sweep across the motel wall. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt as though I were still moving. There was an occasional drip from the bathroom faucet that I silenced around three-thirty by putting a towel in the sink. The rug smelled like Fritos; something we found amusing at first, then irritating. “I hate that smell, it’s too close to feet,” Ethan said, and I said maybe it was feet and he said great, thanks for saying so, that helped a lot.

  “You know,” I tell him now, “Amber said something interesting about you.”

  “I never met her.”

  “I know, but we’ve talked about you. And she has an interesting take on why you’re doing this, why you’re moving here with me.”

  “Is that right.” His voice is cool, neutral.

  “Yeah, she thinks you’re just running away from something. That you’re less interested in getting involved with the baby than getting uninvolved with something else.”

  “Do you remember where we’re supposed to exit?”

  I pick up the map. “I don’t think we ever said.”

  “Well, we need to decide, Patty.” There is a sudden and unpleasant edge to his voice.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  He looks at me. “I’m lost, okay? I’m driving. I need to pay attention to where we’re going, here. Let’s analyze my motives later. For now, let’s just get to where we’re going. Is that all right with you? With you and Amber?”

  I hate when you’ve made a commitment to do something with someone, when you’ve maybe even burned some bridges to do it, and then they start getting weird on you. I especially hate it when you’re pregnant and that happens. I start to get a little sad. A lot sad, actually.

  Thank God I kept my apartment.

  “I need a bathroom,” I say, though I don’t. I just want to stop. I just want to get out of the car and walk away from him and our stupid U-Haul and go into a bathroom and look at my face and say, “What in the world were you thinking?”

  Ethan pulls into a Mobil station/restaurant, parks next to the bathrooms. When I open the door, he says, “Wait.” And then, “I’m sorry. I’m … scared.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Well, you are too.”

  “I’m not scared, I’m disappointed.”

  “At what?”

  “At … this. I thought it would be fun! It’s exciting, going to a new place. This could be a very good thing for both of us. It was your idea! And now you’re just sitting there getting more and more uptight, Ethan, I can feel it. We started out really talking, making plans…. Now that we’re getting close, you’re getting quieter and quieter. Listen, I’ll go back. I don’t care. Just turn the car around. Take me back. You don’t need to be involved in this at all. I’ll do it myself. I think I’d like that better, anyway.”

  Someone knocks on my window, startling me: a huge man, a trucker, dressed in a grease-stained shirt, saggy blue jeans, and a black leather jacket festooned with chains. “You want to get this car the fuck out of the way so that I can get my rig past?” he says.

  “You want to watch your language?” Ethan asks.

  “Ethan,” I say. I don’t think he can quite see this guy. But he will in a minute because the guy’s going over to his side of the car.

  The trucker leans down, looks in at Ethan. He has a balding head, a reddish-colored beard going a few different directions, the small, mean eyes of a pig. “You got a fucking problem with my fucking language, fuckhead?”

  Ethan turns the engine off. “Go ahead, Patty,” he says. “I’ll be waiting here with Mr.—” he squints at the man’s name, embroidered on his shirt—“Ah. Sandy. Nice name. Effeminate, but nice.”

  “I don’t have to go anymore,” I tell Ethan quickly. I slam the car door, put my seat belt back on.

  “Well, did you want a snack?” Ethan asks me. “I might want some … oh, I don’t know, what do you recommend, Sandy? Beef jerky?”

  “Here’s what I recommend. I recommend you get this car out of the way before I mess up your face a little. Why don’t you do that?”

  “Why don’t I?” Ethan says. “Well, let’s see. Because you offended my wife?”

  Sandy straightens, starts pounding his fists down on top of the car. The warm-up act, I presume.

  I cover my ears, find myself midpoint between laughing and screaming. “Let’s go!”

  And thank God, Ethan starts the car, drives away.

  “What was that?” I say, when we are safely back on the freeway. “What were you doing?”

  “I don’t know. Did you like it?”

  I start to laugh. “Yes. John Wayne!”

  “Yeah.” He turns on the radio. The unfamiliar voice of the DJ starts talking about the Vikings. Ethan and I look at each other and he takes my hand. I stop breathing, stare out the window, start taking in this new place as though it were homework. My wife! the back of my brain is thinking. I might send Amber a postcard with a brief message: You were wrong. No offense.

  The duplex, located in a small suburb west of Minneapolis, is furnished with a sofa, two chairs, a dinette set, and a bed. Enough to get started. Right across the street is Lake Minnetonka, which looks to me nearly as vast as the ocean I’ve left behind. There is a small balcony, accessible through sliding-glass doors that go across the length of the living room, and Ethan and I stand on it now to discuss things. Inside, the realtor uses his cellular phone to persuade some home owner that the best offers come right away, they shouldn’t hold out much longer than a few weeks for a better offer. Not always true, of course, but as I am temporarily Queen-of-Sheba retired it is no concern of mine.

  “Do you want to look at any other places?” Ethan asks. “I really like this one. It’s peaceful. It’ll only take me twenty minutes to get to work.”

  I nod. It is peaceful. And beautiful. I imagine myself reading on the balcony in the early afternoons, making dinner in the evening in the small kitchen while I watch the motion of the water. It seems ironic to me that I needed to come to Minnesota to finally have water views.

  “I think I could live here,” I say. “Yes. Let’s try it.”

  Ethan opens the slider and steps inside, and I feel as though I am in a movie where, with that motion, everything starts.

  Just before I follow him inside, a bird lands on the railing. I turn slowly to look at it. It is black, smudges of deep red on its wings.

  I softly call Ethan back out, point, whisper, “What kind of bird is that?”

  “It’s a red-winged blackbird.”

  I laugh. “No, it is.”

  “Oh,” I say. “It seemed too obvious.”

  “Well,” he says, “that happens.”

  21

  Two months later, I am making bagels. I bought a book on bread, and I am trying what I believe to be the hardest thing. This is what happens when you have difficulty finding a job.

  I thought I might enjoy not working. It happens not to be true. And unless I want a position manning a deep fryer, there is no work for me out here. The high point of my day thus far is that I have discovered sesame seeds in the bottle look just like sesame seeds on the bun.

  After the badly formed bagels have been boiled and
are in the oven, I lie on the sofa, close my eyes, think, What’s so bad about this? You can listen to music, read a book, learn to sew—you can make a quilt! You get to walk for as long as you want every day; you see the animals that live in the woods, the little children who live in your neighborhood. You’re living with Ethan, he comes back here every night, he sees you every day, he is sharing this pregnancy, isn’t this what you dreamed of?

  And then I answer myself. What’s wrong with this is that I don’t know what to do with myself. I haven’t been able to make friends—no one is home during the day. The novelty of having time to write letters has worn off. I have called everyone, including the Berkenheimers, too often; there is not enough to say. I have paced in the living room at two in the afternoon for what I thought was an endless amount of time; then looked at my watch and found that it was two in the afternoon. I thought that there might be measurable joy in the billowing up of sheets you put on a bed that you share with someone you love. I forgot he needed to love you back in the same way.

  I’m not really living with Ethan. He is living with his baby-to-be and its incubator, that’s how it feels. When we were best friends I at least had some part of him that was only mine. Now I’m taking a backseat to my stomach, feeling, in some ways, more alone than ever. I lie beside him in bed at night, feeling warmth coming from his body but not touching him. It’s torture, actually.

  I don’t know what I imagined. Did I think that the Midwestern climate would effect in him some deep change of heart and mind? That, free of a lifestyle that made certain demands on him, he would accept another possibility, enter into it fully?

  Well, as it happens, yes. One night after we first moved in, remembering that he had called me his wife, I reached for him, gently rubbed his back. I felt him stiffen, and I stopped, pulled away, decided to wait for him to take the initiative. And waited. And waited. For what I know now will never come again. And yet I wait still. “Dear Patty,” an advice columnist who lives in my head writes me daily, “You live with a gay man. Hellllooooo!” Ethan kisses my forehead, full of the only kind of love he can give, and my heart folds in on itself, dies.