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Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: Babyland
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78
The Big Day
T
he phone rang at six o'clock that evening. I didn't recognize the phone number, but the call was coming from my parents' area code.
The caller loudly announced herself as Mrs. Brown; she was one of my mother's cronies.
“Oh,” I said. “Hello Mrs. Brown.”
“Your mother gave me your number, I hope you don't mind, dear.”
“No, of course not,” I lied. Did Mrs. Brown want to hire me to organize a party? How would I refuse graciously?
“So, Anna, this is why I called. I was thinking that maybe Howard could get a diet plate at the wedding. Something low-carb and low-salt but not too much fat. But not vegetarian. Howard hates vegetables.”
I felt as if someone had stabbed me in the stomach. “Um, Mrs. Brown,” I said, “you see, the wedding is off. I thought my mother told you.”
Mrs. Brown made a sound like a dog's bark. “She didn't mention a thing about it, and I just talked to her a few days ago! Oh, you poor thing, I'm so sorry. What happened? You can tell me.”
I faked an important business call coming in on my nonexistent second line and got off the phone. I was furious. It figured my mother wouldn't have bothered to tell her friends that the wedding was off. Why should she inconvenience herself? So what if one of her bridge partners called to ask me about her fussy eater of a husband, forcing me to revisit the trauma? Why should my mother start thinking about my feelings at this late date?
And of course, it would never have dawned on my father to make the bitter announcement. Family maintenance was woman's work.
Anyway, let me tell you a bit about the wedding that never happened.
Ross and I had chosen a Unitarian minister to officiate, a friend of one of Ross's colleagues. Neither of us are churchgoers, but our parents attend church on the holidays so choosing this minister seemed like a good compromise.
Ross chose his brother Rob to be his best man. My decision was a bit more difficult to make.
Kristen is the friend I've known the longest and so a clear choice for matron of honor. But being matron of honor involves a hefty expenditure of time and money, expenditures I didn't feel comfortable asking Kristen, with three kids and one income, to make.
At heart I really wanted Alexandra to be the legal witness to my marriage. But Alexandra had made it very clear she thought Ross wasn't the right man for me. If I asked her and she said no, well ...
In the end I asked Tracy to sign my marriage license. She was a dear friend; had the disposable time and money; and though she didn't exactly love Ross, she was very, very subtle in her disapproval.
Both the service and reception were to be held at the Tuxedo Hotel, starting at six o'clock in the evening. After the brief ceremony there was to be a cocktail hour with passed appetizers and, at Mr. Davis's insistence, an open bar. A champagne toast was to precede dinner and dancing. We never got to finalize the menu. We never got to choose a special song.
The wedding was to be an adults-only affair—elegant, sophisticated, and pristine. Not sticky. That was Ross's big concern, sticky fingers on his expensive tuxedo or my one-of-a-kind dress.
Ross and I were to walk down the aisle together.
And that's what it would have been like.
79
Nothing Ventured
B
utter pecan ice cream. Reddi Wip. It would be so easy to reach for that container and that can, curl up on the couch, and vegetate until a sugar coma sent me to dreamland.
Too easy.
Anna, I told myself, you are not going to eat a pint of ice cream for dinner. You are not going to spend another minute in front of the television watching lame sitcoms and lamer local news broadcasts. You are getting out of this apartment. You are going somewhere for dinner, and you are going to eat a healthy, well-balanced meal that will include vegetables.
I dressed with more care than I'd taken for several days and headed for a small neighborhood bistro. The bar was empty but for another woman at the far end, engrossed in a hardcover historical novel and an order of steak frites. We caught each other's eye as I pulled a stool away from the counter and shared a brief smile. I wondered, Would an order of French fries be considered a vegetable?
And then Jack Coltrane walked through the door.
Jack was the last person I wanted to see. And the only person. That was hard to admit.
And then he was standing next to me. “Hi,” he said.
“Oh. Hi.” I could hardly believe my tone was so neutral.
Jack grinned. “Your lack of enthusiasm speaks volumes. I know. I keep turning up, like a bad penny.”
“I don't know what that means,” I admitted, with slightly more animation. “I don't know why we say that when we do.”
“Me, either,” Jack admitted. “I'll pull out my
Bartlett's
when I get home and let you know.”
“You have a
Bartlett's
?”
Jack gave me an odd look. “I have a dictionary and a thesaurus, too. Why does that surprise you? I am literate.”
“I've never seen you read,” I explained. “A book, I mean. I've seen you read memos. I've seen magazines in your studio, but I've never actually seen you reading one.”
“You don't see me taking a shower but I do. Every day. I have a life even when you're not around.”
“I know. Sorry.” I wanted to add, What's that life like, Jack? Would I want to be part of it? Would you want me to be part of it?
Of course, I said none of that. Craziness.
Jack gestured at the stool next to mine. “Mind if I sit here?”
I shook my head. “Of course not.”
“Good. I'm starved.”
“And there's nothing in your fridge but rolls of film and batteries.”
“Pretty much. But you forgot the one beer and a moldy burrito. Really should throw that thing out.”
Jack ordered, but suddenly I didn't feel hungry anymore. Well, I'm sure the hunger was still there; it was just temporarily buried under a layer of adolescent fluttering.
“You're not on a diet, are you?” he asked. “Everyone is on a crazy diet these days.”
“No,” I said, “I'm not on a diet. I'm just not very hungry.”
I wondered if Jack knew that Ross and I had broken up. I figured he probably did. Someone had told him about the miscarriage. Why not about the breakup?
“So,” I said jauntily, once Jack's dinner had arrived, “I suppose you heard the news?”
Jack chewed vigorously then swallowed before he said, “What news? What's happened since I last checked the Internet? How many children have starved this week in Sudan? How many people have been infected with the HIV virus in Africa? How many people have been poisoned in the subway systems of a large European city? What major monument has blown up since lunch? How depressed or enraged should I be?”
Ah, yes. There were more important events than Anna's broken engagement.
“My life,” I said. Nothing major. Not really.
“What?”
“My life has blown up.” I held my left hand in front of my face.
Jack shook his head. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
Mr. I-Notice-Everything didn't notice the lack of iceberg on my finger? Well, I reminded myself, there are other things on Jack's mind than me.
“No ring,” I said. “No fiancé. Ross and I broke up. We're not getting married. In fact, I'm pretty sure we're not even speaking. We're not doing anything together anymore.”
I watched Jack's face. His expression was inscrutable. “That's why you're here alone,” he said finally.
“I do have a life when you're not around.”
“Sorry. For all I know you spend every evening sitting alone at a local watering hole.”
“Apology accepted,” I said. “I kind of thought you already knew. About Ross and me.”
“Are you okay?” he asked after a moment or two. “Life's been giving you a tough time lately, hasn't it.”
“I guess so. It could be worse.” I could be a starving child in Ethiopia. Nothing like a world news report to put one's troubles into perspective. “And no, I'm not okay, but I will be.”
“Regrets?”
I looked Jack right in the eye. “None,” I said. “The relationship just wasn't right. We just weren't right. You know?”
Jack took a sip of his beer and set the bottle back down before answering.
“Do you really want me to reply to that? Because I'm going to have to say, Yes, I do know. I knew all along.”
I wondered, Was I the only one who hadn't known all along?
“At least you haven't said, ‘I told you so.'”
Jack grinned. “I think I just did. Seriously, Anna, I'm sorry.”
I smiled brightly, falsely. “Better now than after the wedding, right?”
“It's still got to hurt.”
I abandoned the smile. It certainly hadn't fooled Jack. “Oh, yes. It hurts. And, well, I'm also a bit embarrassed. How could I have been so wrong?”
“That's a waste of time.” Jack's tone was final. “Being embarrassed about being human just proves how ridiculous human beings really are.”
“That's what Alexandra says.”
“You should listen to Alexandra. Since you don't listen to me.”
I did listen to Alexandra. She found Jack inappropriate. She thought he was good for me.
“I do listen to you,” I said. And for the first time I realized just how true that was.
And then the air around us was filled with sexual tension. At least, I thought it was.
Jack tossed some bills on the bar and got up from the bar stool. “I've got to go.”
“Oh,” I said. “Are you sure? Can't you stay for just a bit?”
“I can't,” he said brusquely. “I still have some work to do before tomorrow. We've got that Gott debacle in a few days.”
“I'll get it all done,” I said, with a touch of annoyance. “You'll have the final seating plan and layout. Don't worry.”
“I never worry.”
“I don't believe you.”
“At least about you doing your job.”
“Thanks,” I said, but I don't think he heard. He was already at the door, then out on the sidewalk.
I watched as Jack loped off into the evening. Always moving, never still. Except when he looked. To really see requires stillness.
I wondered, Had anyone ever pinned down Jack Coltrane, even for a little while? Yes. Leslie Curtin had done something of the kind, I was sure of it. Female intuition. Womanly instinct. Jack's former girlfriend had made some big mistakes.
Maybe Jack couldn't be pinned down. Maybe it would be unfair of anyone to try.
Anyway, that's not really what I wanted, to pin Jack down.
The bartender nodded toward my empty wineglass. “Another?”
“Sure,” I said. “And I'll take a menu, please.”
I glanced once again out the window but Jack was long gone. So, Anna, I asked myself, What is it you do want with Jack?
80
With Friends Like These
“Y
our hair! You got it colored. It looks fabulous.” Kristen was sitting at the table, the first to arrive at Boucle that Friday evening. She beamed. “You really think so? I just felt like I needed a change, something to perk up my look. You know, I've been wearing my hair the same way since B.J. was born.”
I sat across from her and beamed back. “Really, it looks great. What does Brian say?”
“He likes it.”
Confirmation: Every one of my girlfriends was in love.
“This place is nice, isn't it?” I said, apropos of nothing. “The food is very good.”
Kristen glanced around the main dining area. “Well,” she drawled, “it's not The Cheesecake Factory.”
“Alexandra refuses to eat there,” I explained. “Something about it being mobbed with commoners.”
“Alexandra doesn't know what she's missing. How are you, Anna?”
“I'm okay,” I told her. “Some days are worse than others. Some days are better.”
“Have you talked to Ross?”
“Not since last week. We've pretty much finished apportioning everything we owned in common. There's really not much reason to talk, I guess.”
How strange that is, I realized. One minute we're engaged and expecting a baby. The next minute we're apart and have nothing to say to each other.
“I suppose I could call him,” I said, musingly. “Just to see if he's all right.”
“Do you really want to know?” Kristen asked and I wondered, If Ross told me he was unhappy, what would I say? What would I be obliged to do?
“Well, I don't want him to be miserable,” I said. “But the truth is I don't really need to know how he's doing. That sounds so horrible, doesn't it? Ross and I were planning to spend our lives together and now I don't even miss him.”
“It wasn't meant to be,” Kristen said, with that all-too-familiar air of wisdom everyone seemed to have adopted since the breakup. “It's all for the best. You and Ross just weren't in the cards. The relationship was ill-fated. Ross and Rachel, yes; Ross and Anna, no.”
“I guess it wasn't,” I said.
The waiter came by, and I ordered a glass of wine. Kristen, I noticed, was suddenly very interested in her napkin.
“Stop fiddling,” I said, “and tell me what's on your mind.”
Kristen put her napkin on her lap and laughed. “It's nothing, really. Just something I was thinking about. Something concerning you and Ross.”
“Oh. Okay. What?”
Kristen waved her hand dismissively. “Forget I said anything, really.”
I wondered, What could she possibly have to say about Ross and me that hadn't already been said? “Come on, Kristen, tell me.”
“Well ... okay. It's just that it occurred to me last week that maybe Ross is, you know.”
I laughed. Kristen can be so charmingly maddening. “No,” I said, “I don't know. Ross could be what? A spy?”
“No!” And then her eyes widened and she leaned in. “Is he a spy? That might explain some—”
“No, Kristen, Ross is not a spy. And if he were a spy, would I tell you he was a spy? Would I even know he was a spy?”
“Oh. You're right.” Kristen folded her hands on the table. “Okay, Anna. I'll just say it. It occurred to me that maybe Ross is gay.”
It was the very last thing I expected Kristen to say. The very last thing I expected anyone to say.
“What!” I cried. “Why? Because he's thin and well groomed?”
“Well, there is that. But—Oh, I'm sorry, Anna. I shouldn't have said anything. It's stupid.”
Yes, it is stupid, I thought angrily. And you're stupid. But of course I said nothing.
“Anna?” Kristen grabbed my hand across the table. “Are you all right?”
I smiled gamely and withdrew my hand. “Fine. I'm fine.”
But I wasn't fine at all. Kristen was a lawyer. Okay, an out-of-practice lawyer, but someone good at putting evidence together to build a case. Why would she think Ross might be gay unless she had some real clue?
“You didn't hear anything, did you?” My words came out in a hiss. “Any rumors?”
“Oh, God, no! Of course not.”
“Because I assure you that Ross is not gay. I'll admit he doesn't have a huge sexual drive. Pretty much none after I got pregnant. But—”
I stopped. But what? It had occurred to me before: Maybe Ross had met someone else, another woman, someone far sexier than me. Someone far less inhibited. And her lack of inhibition had enticed Ross to shed his own inhibitions ...
“I know about the loss of sex drive,” Kristen reminded me gently. “You told us, right before Michaela made a play for him.”
Which, I remembered with a shock, had repulsed Ross, but maybe not for the reason he had claimed. Maybe Ross was sickened not as much by Michaela's unseemly advance but by Michaela herself. Michaela, the epitome of sultry female sexuality.
Frantically, I tried to remember if Ross had ever exhibited any behavior that could be called gay. But what did that mean, anyway? Did he swish around the apartment in a pink chiffon robe? Of course not. And neither did most gay men! Anna, I scolded, how prejudicial! What horribly stereotyped thinking! You've been watching far too many sitcoms.
“Um, let's order.” Kristen smiled too brightly at me. “Okay?”
I nodded and reached for my menu. The words were meaningless. All I could think about was Ross and his interesting sexuality.
A giant portabella mushroom studded with crabmeat and cheddar. Crab cakes. Scallops wrapped in bacon with a maple glaze. Who cared? I'd lost my appetite. All that mattered at the moment was the answer to the following question: Had Ross ever had sex with a man? Bravely, I reminded myself that in some cultures it wasn't at all unusual for an otherwise heterosexual man to have a youthful affair with another man. Right? So what if Ross had had an affair in college? So what? How did that affect me, his former fiancée, today?
Sexually transmitted disease. HIV. It was all over the news. Bisexual men routinely brought home all sorts of nastiness to their unsuspecting wives and girlfriends.
I gripped the menu more tightly. I felt slightly dizzy. Calm down, Anna, I told myself. Ross is the most cautious person you know. He's obsessively clean. He's ultraconcerned about his health. The last thing Ross would ever do is have dangerous sex.
Unless, of course, he were very young and very drunk and maybe very in love.
“Anna? Anna!”
I dropped the menu to the table. Kristen was staring at me, eyes wide.
“Are you okay? You look terrible!”
“No, I'm not at all okay. Please, Kristen, tell me why you thought Ross might be gay!”
Kristen fiddled with her napkin. She realigned her knife and fork. She took a sip of water. And then, she said, “Well, I was watching Jerry Springer the other afternoon and—”
“A talk show! You're basing your judgment of Ross on something some piece of trash said on Jerry Springer!”
“She wasn't a piece of trash,” Kristen said hastily. “She was a sexologist.”
I groaned. “Oh, that makes it all better!”
“Anyway,” Kristen went on, “she was talking about lack of sex drive in heterosexual men, and one of the other guests told her story, which was that her husband stopped having sex with her, and eventually she found out it was because he realized he was gay.”
“I'm still processing the fact that you, a Phi Beta Kappa, watch Jerry Springer. And that you admit it.”
Kristen politely ignored my scorn. “Anyway, it got me thinking about Ross.”
“Ross and I didn't break up because of a bad sex life,” I reminded her. “He didn't find me repulsive. I didn't find used condoms in his car or receipts from cheap motels in his pants pockets.”
“I know that.” Kristen glanced around for eavesdroppers. “Anyway,” she went on, her voice a bit lower, “I should clarify. I don't mean ‘gay' as in Ross actually, you know, does anything about it. I mean gay as in maybe he's in denial. Like maybe he's never come out of the closet.”
“Oh.” I was stunned. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Ross wasn't actually cheating on me with a man. It's just that every time we made love he imagined he was in bed with, I don't know, some guy with a big black mustache and an even bigger—I can't even say it!”
Kristen's face grew very red, and she reached for her water. As she took gulp after gulp, I wondered, Why hadn't Ross gotten married long ago? With his looks, charm, and money he could have had his pick of the single women in Boston. It wasn't as if he'd been wildly playing the field all those years. Boston is a small town. I knew all there was to know about Ross's romantic past.
At least about his romantic past with women.
Kristen lowered her empty glass and waved. I turned to see Alexandra making her way toward us.
“Oh, look, Alexandra is here!” Kristen said brightly. “Has it only been twelve minutes?”
“You're not off the hook,” I told her.
Alexandra arrived and by way of greeting said, “This day is sucking.”
“Well, mine isn't any better,” I said, before she was fully in her seat. “Get this. Kristen thinks Ross might be gay. In denial, but gay nonetheless.”
Alexandra sat and shrugged. “I can see how she might think that. Ross's affect is oddly sexless. Like maybe he's hiding something.”
“That's it, exactly!” Kristen said excitedly. “I just didn't know how to put what I felt into words. He's so handsome and well dressed and all, and he's in perfect shape, but he's not at all sexy. What I mean,” she added hastily, “is that I don't find Ross sexy. But I'm happily married. So I don't count. Now, Michaela is single and she made a pass at Ross so maybe I'm totally wrong and that sexologist was just crazy and—”
Alexandra put a finger to Kristen's lips. “Haven't you learned that backpeddling just intensifies the insult?”
“I'm going to have a heart attack,” I stated with false brightness. “I'm serious. If I think Ross is sexy, and if Ross really is gay but just can't admit it, what does that say about me? What does that say about me as a woman? Am I an emotional freak? A psychological disaster?”
“We're dropping this subject right now,” Alexandra said sternly. “Come on, Anna, Kristen's right. What does she know about sexual affect? She's been married to the same guy for years.”
“Hey! I—”
But Alexandra cut her off. “And me, well, why would you want to listen to my opinion? I'm just a loud mouth. Now, come on. Let's order. I'm starved.”
One more sharp-edged piece to the miserable puzzle that was my life. Why, I thought, can't people keep their suspicions to themselves? What good does it do me now to wonder if Ross is a gay man lodged in the back of a deep, deep closet? Now, in addition to questioning my ability to sustain a long-term relationship, I could doubt my sexual appeal. I could obsess about my own worth as a woman!
I wondered, What if the only reason I'd found Ross physically attractive was because my own sexuality was so repressed I could only handle being with a closeted gay man. One whose libido—at least the libido he could reveal to me—was lukewarm at best.
And to further complicate everything, there I was, falling in love with Jack—or maybe I'd been in love with him the whole time, how would an idiot like me know?—a man who didn't seem to care a bit for me in the romantic sense.
Life wasn't looking very bright. Numbly I ordered, and while Kristen and Alexandra chatted about something or other, I wondered, Was my romantic life effectively over? Had I become a classic urban single-woman failure, unable to tell gay men from straight, unable to sustain a long-term relationship, unable to have a baby the old-fashioned way?
I wondered, When was the last time a man had shown any romantic interest in me? I thought back to the months before I'd met Ross and came up with nothing. Was it true I'd been experiencing a dating dry spell when Ross came along?
And here I was, almost thirty-eight years old. Almost forty. Would anyone, I wondered, ever find me attractive again? Maybe I'd lost the glow of youth, that was inevitable, but had I also lost the more mature appeal that was supposed to come after?
I was brought back to the moment when our meals arrived. “Fresh ground pepper, ma'am?” asked the smooth-cheeked waiter.
Ma'am. It was official. I was not only a grown-up. I was old. I was an old woman with no fiancé and no baby and no—

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