Babycakes (12 page)

There was nothing he could say.

“But money’s not the reason, is it? Not really.” She sat down on the bench at the end of the courtyard and patted the place next to her. “You haven’t finished settling up with Jon yet.”

Typically, she had lured him onto the appropriate set. He sat down less than ten feet away from the brass plaque that marked the spot where Jon’s ashes had been buried. “I’m not sure I ever will,” he said.

“You must,” she replied. “What more do you want him to know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … if we had him back with us right now … what would be your unfinished business?”

He thought for a while. “I’d ask him what he did with the keys to the tool chest.”

Mrs. Madrigal smiled. “What else?”

“I’d tell him he was a jerk for needing to hang around with pissy queens.”

“Go on.”

“I’d tell him I’m sorry it look me so long to figure out what he meant to me. And I wish we’d taken that trip to Maui when he suggested it.”

“Fine.”

“And … I wore his good blazer while he was in the hospital and somebody burned a hole in the sleeve and I never told him about it … and I love him very much.”

“He knows that already,” said the landlady.

“I’d tell him again, then.”

Mrs. Madrigal slapped her knees jauntily. “Does that about wrap it up?”

“More or less.”

“Good. I’ll take care of it.”

He blinked at her, uncomprehending.

“He’ll get your message, dear. I talk to him at least twice a week.” She patted the bench again. “Right here.” She leaned over and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Go to London, Michael. You’re not going to lose him this time. He’s a part of you forever.”

He clung to her, tears streaming down his face.

“Listen to me, child.” Now she was whispering directly into his ear. “I want you to run along the Thames in the moonlight … take off all your clothes and jump into the fountain at Trafalgar Square. I want you to … have a wild affair with a guard at Buckingham Palace.”

He laughed, still holding tight to her.

“Will you take the old lady’s money?” she asked.

All he could manage was a nod.

“Good.
Good.
Now run upstairs and tell Mary Ann to make all the arrangements.”

He had reached the front door when she shouted her final instruction: “The toolbox keys are on a hook in the basement.”

This Terrific Idea

O
N THE EVE OF MICHAEL’S DEPARTURE, MARY ANN
found herself on a vigil at the San Francisco Zoo, awaiting the birth of a polar bear. She and her crew had camped out for seven hours beside the concrete iceberg which Blubber, the expectant mother, was compelled to call home. As the eighth hour approached, so did a smiling Connie Bradshaw, hunched over from her own pregnancy like some noble beast of burden.

“Hi! They told me at the station I could find you here.”

This was just what she needed. The Ghost of Cleveland Past. “Yeah,” she said dully. “If it keeps up like this, it may be a permanent assignment.”

Connie peered through the bars at Blubber’s lair. “Where is she?”

“Back there.” She pointed. “In her den. She’s not real fond of the cameras.”

“I guess not, poor thing. Who would be?”

Mary Ann shrugged. “Those women on the PBS specials seem to love it.”

“Yuck.” Connie mugged. “Screaming and yelling and sweating … then waving at the baby with that dippy expression on their face. Only people are that dumb.”

“I’m sure Blubber agrees with you, but she hasn’t got much of a choice. There are hearts to be warmed out there in the naked city.”

Connie gazed wistfully at the iceberg, then turned back to Mary Ann, “Can you take a break and have a Diet Coke with me?”

Mary Ann hesitated.

“It won’t take long,” added Connie. “O.K.?”

“Sure,” she replied, her curiosity getting the best of her. “Just for a little while, though. Blubber’s looking close.”

She told her cameraman where she would be, then joined Connie under a Cinzano umbrella near the snack bar. Her old high school chum had rearranged her face into a mask of sisterly concern. “I’ll get right to the point, hon. Have you broken the news to Brian yet?”

Mary Ann was beginning to feel badgered. “No,” she said flatly. “I haven’t.”

“Super.” Connie beamed. “So far so good.”

Mary Ann clenched her teeth. What the hell was so far so good about that?

“I’ve been really thinking about this,” Connie added, “and I’ve got this terrific idea.”

Ever since the time she had taken Mary Ann to singles night at the Marina Safeway, Connie and her terrific ideas had been nothing but trouble. “I don’t know,” said Mary Ann. “If it’s about getting pregnant, I’d just as soon …”

“Don’t you even wanna
hear
it?” Connie was crushed.

“Well … I appreciate your concern …”

“Hear me out, O.K.? Then I’ll shut up. It’s not as weird as you might think.”

Mary Ann doubted that, but she murmured a reluctant O.K. and fortified herself with a sip of Diet Coke.

Connie seemed enormously relieved. “Remember my little brother Wally?”

Why was it that people from home always expected you to recall minutiae from fifteen years ago, things that weren’t even that important at the time? “ ’Fraid not,” she said.

“Yes you do.”

“Connie … Cleveland was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but Wally used to deliver your paper. He delivered most of the papers on that side of Ridgemont.”

The light dawned, however dim. A dorky kid with Dumbo ears and a bad habit of mangling the petunias with his Schwinn. “Yeah,” she said. “Sure. Of course.”

“Well, Wally’s at UC med school now.”

Mary Ann whistled. “Jesus.”

“I know,” Connie agreed. “Does that make you feel old or
what?
He’s kind of a hunk too, if I do say so myself.”

That was almost too much to imagine, but she let it go. She had a creepy feeling she already knew where this conversation was going to lead her. All she could do was pray that the polar bear would go into labor and rescue her from the embarrassment.

“Anyway, Wally and some of his friends make donations from time to time to this sperm bank in Oakland.”

Right on the button.

“They’re not exactly donations,” Connie continued, “since they get paid for it. Not much. Just a little … you know … extra cash.”

“Mad money.”

“Right.”

“Besides,” Mary Ann deadpanned, “they’re lying around the dorm all night with nothing to do …”

Connie’s face fell. “O.K. I’m sorry. Forget it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

She should never have used irony on Connie Bradshaw. “Hey,” she said, as gently as possible, “I appreciate the thought. I really do. It’s just not for me, that’s all. The people at St. Sebastian’s suggested it, but … well …”

“I thought it would be so perfect,” Connie lamented.

“I know.”

“They have these three cold-storage vats at the sperm bank—one for known donors, one for unknowns, and an extra one in case the freezer craps out. Wally’s stuff goes into the ‘unknown’ vat, but I thought maybe we could get his number or something … or get him moved into the ‘known’ vat … so you’d know what you were getting.”

“It was a sweet thought. Really.” Not so sweet was the vision looming hideously in her brain: a turkey baster brimming with the semen of her former paperboy.

“Plus,” added Connie, still plugging away, “it seems like the perfect solution if you want to get pregnant and you don’t want Brian to know that he’s not the father. There wouldn’t be any strings attached as far as Wally is concerned, and … well, everything would work out for everybody.”

And the blessed event would be Connie’s niece or nephew. It was touching to think that Connie might regard this arrangement—consciously or unconsciously—as a means of cementing a friendship that had never quite worked out. It was downright heartbreaking, in fact.

“Connie … I’d go to Wally in a second, if I thought I could handle artificial insemination.”

“It’s not all that complicated, you know. They send you to this fertility awareness class and teach you how to measure your dooflop, and you just
do
it. I mean, sperm is sperm, you know?”

“I know, Connie. It also comes with an attractive applicator.”

“What?”

“Don’t you see? I know it’s easy. I know
lots
of people do it. I can see your point entirely. It’s the artificial part that stops me cold.” She lowered her voice to a vehement whisper. “I can’t help it, Connie. I want to be fucked first.”

Connie’s jaw went slack. “You want Wally to
fuck
you?”

“No!”
She proclaimed it so forcefully that a Chinese woman at the next table looked up from her chili dog. Modulating her voice, she added: “I meant that in a general sense. I want the baby to grow out of an act of love. Or … affection, at least. You can blame my mother for that. That’s what she taught me, and that’s what I’m stuck with.”

“This is amazing,” said Connie.

“What?”

“Well … I’ve seen you on TV. You look so
hip.”

“Connie … it’s
me,
Mary Ann. Remember? Vice-president of the Future Homemakers of America?”

“Yeah, but you’ve changed a lot.”

“Not that much,” said Mary Ann. “Believe me.”

“Mary Ann! She’s doin’ it!”
It was her cameraman, bearer of glad tidings.

She sprang to her feet. “That’s my cue.”

Two minutes later, the wet cub plopped onto the concrete floor without so much as a tiny grunt from his mother.

“Animals have it so easy,” said Connie, watching from the sidelines.

Mary Ann spent the rest of the afternoon editing footage at the station. As she headed home at twilight, the security guard in the lobby handed her a manila envelope. “A lady said to give you this.”

“What kind of a lady?”

“A pregnant lady.”

“Great.”

She didn’t open it until she had reached the Le Car, parked in an alleyway off Van Ness. Inside the envelope were two brochures with a note attached:

Mary Ann—Don’t get mad, O.K.? I’m leaving you these cuz I thought they might explain things better than I did. Just between you and I, Wally was a little ticked when he found out I didn’t give you some literature first. Let’s get together real soon. Luff ya. Connie.

She couldn’t decide what annoyed her more—Connie’s chronic breeziness (a style she had picked up years before from inscribing
dozens
of Central High yearbooks) or the realization that Brian’s sterility was now a topic of major concern to the entire Bradshaw family.

She began to read:

We believe that women have the right to control our own reproduction and in doing so, determine if, when and how to achieve pregnancy. Donor insemination is a process of introducing semen into the vaginal canal or cervix with a device for the purpose of fertilizing an egg and achieving pregnancy. Fresh or thawed-out frozen semen can be used.

Its safety and effectiveness have been well established.

Currently in the U.S., 15–200,000 children a year are conceived by insemination. Since WWII, well over 300,000 children have been born as a result of this method, and since 1776, when the technique of freezing sperm was developed, over a million children have been …

Shuddering, she put down the brochure. Frozen sperm during the Revolutionary War? Where had
that
happened? Valley Forge? Brian had been right about one thing, at least; 1984 was almost here. Something had gone haywire if science had advanced to the point that babies could be made without sexual intimacy.

No. She couldn’t do it.

If this was the future, she wasn’t ready for it.

She would tell Brian the truth. They would go somewhere for the weekend. She would be gentle and loving and he would accept it. Maybe not at first, but eventually. He would
have
to accept it; there was no other way.

It was dark by the time she got home. As she fumbled for her key in the entrance alcove, she spotted yet another manila envelope, propped on the ledge above the buzzers. She was ready to scream when she realized it was addressed to Mouse. Taking it with her, she went upstairs and knocked on Mouse’s door.