Babycakes (10 page)

Mary Ann set her cup down. “That doesn’t sound dumb at all.”

“I don’t know why it took me so long to do it,” said Connie. “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I kid you not.”

“Are you on maternity leave or what?”

Connie looked puzzled.

“Aren’t you still with United?” asked Mary Ann.

“Oh.” Connie let out a little laugh. “You
are
behind the times, hon. I quit that five or six years ago. The glamor was gone, if you know what I mean.”

Mary Ann nodded.

“In my day, we were
stews,
” Connie continued. “Now they have flight attendants. It’s just not the same thing.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s true.”

“I saved some money, though, so I have my own little house in West Portal. I manage a card shop there. You should come by sometime. I’ll give you a press discount or something.” She smiled wanly at Mary Ann, suspecting that it would never happen. “You must be superbusy, though.”

“I’d love to come,” said Mary Ann.

“There might even be a story in it. It’s a cute place.”

“Mmm.”

Connie reached across the table and took Mary Ann’s hand. It was a sisterly gesture, reminiscent of the days when Mary Ann had camped out on Connie’s sofa in the Marina, crying her eyes out over rotten times at Dance Your Ass Off. Connie had been her only refuge, a benevolent link between Cleveland and her family at Barbary Lane.

“What’s the matter, hon?”

Mary Ann hesitated, then said: “I wish I knew.”

“About what?”

“Well … Brian wants a baby very much.”

Connie nodded. “And you don’t, huh?”

“No. I want one. Maybe not as much as Brian does … but I want one.”

“And?”

“Well … I stopped taking the pill eight months ago.”

Connie’s mouth opened slightly.

“Nothing’s happened, Connie. Zilch.”

Connie cocked her head, showing sympathy. “And Brian is freaked, huh?”

“No. He doesn’t know about it. I haven’t told him.”

Connie screwed up her face in thought, “I don’t get it. You didn’t tell him when you went off the pill?”

“I wanted it to be a
surprise,
Connie. Like in the movies. I wanted to see the look on his face when I told him I was pregnant.”

“Like in the old days,” said Connie. “That’s sweet.”

“Now I have to see the look on his face when I tell him I’m not.”

“Bummer,” said Connie.

“The thing is … it means so
much
to him.” She chose her words carefully. “I think he’s proud of me and my career—I
know
he is—but his self-respect has suffered a lot. He sees himself as the waiter who’s married to the TV star. I mean, he’s warm and kind and loving … and incredibly sexy, and that’s always been enough for me …”

“But not for him,” Connie added.

“Apparently not. This baby is a major obsession. I guess it’s … something
he
could do, you know? A mark he could leave on the world. His own flesh and blood.”

Her confidante nodded.

“Only it
can’t
be, Connie. It can never be.”

“You mean …?”

Mary Ann nodded. “I’ve seen a doctor. It isn’t me.”

“And you’re sure he’s the one who’s …”

“Positive.”

Connie’s brow furrowed. “But if they haven’t tested his sperm yet …”

“Connie … they have.”

“What?”

“They tested it at St. Sebastian’s about a month ago. His sperm count is practically nonexistent. It just won’t cut it.”

“Wait a minute. I thought you said you hadn’t told him.”

She might have known it would come to this. “I did, Connie. But it’s possible to have his sperm tested without … Oh, c’mon, Connie … think about it.”

Connie thought about it, then said: “Jees. That must’ve been a bitch.”

Mary Ann looked at her nails, saying nothing.

“How on earth did you …?”

“Connie, please … don’t ask, O.K.?” The last thing she needed was to rehash the horrors of that trying day: the mad dash to the bathroom, where she’d hidden the jar, the feeble excuse she’d made to get out of the house before breakfast, the Chinese funeral that almost kept her from making it on time …

“He isn’t wearing jockey-style shorts, is he?”

“What?”

“I read that in ‘Dear Abby.’ Sometimes they can cause sterility.”

“No … it isn’t that.” She wondered momentarily if Brian had worn jockey-style shorts when Connie had slept with him.

They both fell silent for a moment. Mary Ann knew what Connie was thinking, so she beat her to the punch. “Time to face the music, huh?”

Connie looked up from her cup with a game little smile. “Seems that way to me, hon.”

Mary Ann suddenly felt silly. “I should have told him weeks ago. I just thought there might be some way I could spare him the … hell, I don’t know. If I tell him what I did … you know … with the sperm and all …”

“Don’t tell him that.”

“But I can’t make him go through it again. He’ll insist on that, I’m sure.”

“You could tell him
you’re
sterile.”

Mary Ann rejected the idea with a frown. That would jeopardize their relationship even more than the current bag of worms. It was better to stick with the whole truth … or wait for a miracle.

When she arrived home that night, she found Brian in the house on the roof, watching
Three’s Company
in his
KAFKA
baseball cap. She had hated that stupid cap ever since Brian had read about it on a matchbook cover and mailed away for it, but tonight was hardly the time to tell him so.

“I brought us some Eye of the Swan.” she said, holding up the bottle.

He peered at her over the back of the sofa. “Oh … hi. Great. What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion.”

“Fair enough.”

She moved to the window. “The rain has stopped. See? There’s even some blue over there. Shit!”

“What?”

“I forgot to bring glasses.”

“No sweat.”

“I’ll run down and …”

“Mary Ann …” He caught her free hand. “Just relax, O.K.? We’re fine. We can pass the bottle.”

“It won’t take a minute …”

“No one’s watching, Mary Ann. This isn’t a segment on
Bay Window.”

Thank Cod for small favors,
she thought.

He tugged her back to the sofa. She set the bottle down and settled in with him, giving him a long kiss. Then she pulled back and looked into his long-lashed hazel eyes. “Do you realize how lucky we are?”

He regarded her for a moment, then said: “I do.”

She picked up the bottle, took a swig from it, and handed it to him. He took a similar swig and gave the bottle back to her. “Why are we counting our blessings?” he asked.

She placed the bottle on the floor beneath their feet. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know … you always talk about how lucky we are right before you drop one of your bombs.”

“No I don’t.”

“O.K., you don’t.” He gave her his I’m-not-looking-for-a-fight smile.

“I just … well, as a matter of fact, I did want to talk to you about something.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Great. Shoot.”

“Well, I thought it would be nice if we hyphenated our names.”

“Huh?”

“You know … if I became Mary Ann Singleton-Hawkins.” Brian studied her. “Is this a gag?”

“No. I told you before I
feel
like Mrs. Hawkins. Keeping my own name was never a big deal.”

“It was to the station,” said Brian.

“O.K. So if I become Mary Ann Singleton-Hawkins, they’ll still have their precious name recognition factor and … you know … it’ll be more like I’m married.”

He sat there slack-mouthed.

“Besides,” she added, “I think the name’s really pretty. It’s distinctive.”

Brian frowned. “Making me … what?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … what do I tell the guys at work? That I’ve just become Brian Singleton-Hawkins?”

That slopped her cold. “Oh … well … yeah, I see what you mean.”

“What in the world are you …?”

“Forget it, Brian. I didn’t think it out. It was a stupid idea.” She smiled sheepishly. “Gimme that bottle, handsome.”

He did so. She took another swig. He reached out and touched the side of her head. “You know the name business doesn’t bother me. I told you that a long time ago.”

“I know.”

He laid his arm across her shoulder. “Christ, I’m a modern sonofabitch.”

The phone rang downstairs.

“I’d better get that,” she said, grateful for the reprieve. She clattered down the narrow wooden stairway and caught the call after the fourth ring, gasping “Hello.”

“Miss Singleton?”

“Yes.”

“Simon Bardili here.”

“Simon! How are you? Is everything going O.K.?”

“By and large. I’m in a bit of a scrape as far as accommodations are concerned.”

“Oh …”

“Do you think I might solicit your advice at some point? At your convenience, of course.”

“Of course! Hold on a sec, O.K.?”

She dashed back upstairs and confronted Brian. “It’s that Englishman from the
Britannia.
I thought I might invite him to dinner tomorrow night … if you’d like to meet him, that is.”

Brian’s hesitation was almost imperceptible. “Fine,” he said.

Simon’s Proposition

H
E HAD ALREADY PICTURED THE ENGLISHMAN AS A
sort of latter-day Laurence Harvey, a spoiled aristocrat with pretentious airs and esoteric tastes. He couldn’t have been more surprised when Simon Bardili ambled over to his record collection and perused the cover of
Denim Gradations.

“A bloody shame,” he said.

Brian was caught off guard. “What? Oh … his death, you mean?”

“Mmm. Free-basing, wasn’t he?”

Brian shook his head. “Smack. According to the coroner.”

“Ah.”

“You … uh … you’re a fan of Bix Cross?”

The lieutenant smiled dimly. “More of a freak than a fan. I played nothing else in my rooms at Cambridge.” He held out the album so Brian could see it. “The lovely breasts belong to his wife, I understand.”

Brian smiled back. “You understand correctly. I met the lady this weekend.”

“Indeed?” If an arching eyebrow was any indication, the lieutenant was clearly impressed. “Katrina, isn’t it? No, Camilla … something exotic.”

“Theresa,” Brian told him.

The lieutenant rolled the name across his tongue. “Theresa … Theresa.” He turned and gave Brian a knowing, man-to-man look. “Is her face as delicious as the rest of her?”

“Better,” said Brian. That was somewhat of an exaggeration, but he enjoyed being an expert on Theresa Cross.

The lieutenant breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God!”

“Why?”

“Well, one doesn’t enjoy seeing one’s fantasies dashed on the rocks.”

“Yeah.” Brian nodded. “I guess that’s true.”

The lieutenant looked down at the album again. “I banged the bishop over
this
one more times than I care to count.”

Brian didn’t get it. “I think you’d better run that by me again.”

The lieutenant chuckled. “You know.” He made a jerking-off gesture with his fist.

Brian grinned.
“Banging the bishop?”

“Right.”

“Where did that come from?”

The lieutenant thought for a moment. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

They shared a brief laugh. The lieutenant returned the album to its place on the shelf. Brian decided to take advantage of the silence. “So,” he said, “why aren’t you in chains by now?”

The lieutenant seemed little disconcerted by his direct approach. “I think you’ve been reading too much Melville. The modern navy isn’t nearly as stringent as you might think.”