Be My Baby Tonight (36 page)

“It’s... It’s not
rushing
out, Tim.
I’m... I think I’m
leaking.
It’s the strangest
feeling...”

“Oh, babe,” Tim said, rushing to her, taking
her in his arms. “Let’s get you sitting down, okay?”

“And get some towels for me to sit on,
please,” she told Bruno, who was draining boiled potatoes in the
sink. He dropped the pot. “I don’t want to make a mess. Joey? Dr.
Phillips is number four on the speed dial. Will you call her,
please?”

Tim knelt down on the floor in front of
Suzanna, taking her hands in his. “Are you having contractions? Do
you need to breathe?”

“Tim, I
always
need to breathe,” she
told him, touching his cheek. “But, yes, I guess these are
contractions. I just thought my backache was getting worse.”

“How long?” he asked, squeezing her fingers.
“How long have you had this backache?”

She looked up at the clock. He looked, too.
It was almost six-thirty. “I woke up with it.”

“And you didn’t tell me!” He closed his eyes,
swallowed. “Okay, okay. No big deal. Remember what Mrs. B. said?
First babies take a long time. We’re good, we’re good. We just get
your bag and get you to the hospital. Joey? Did you get Dr.
Phillips yet?”

Joey remained silent.

“Joey?”

“Um... I got her service. She’s, um, she’s
outta town. Her associate is somewhere; they just have to find
him.”

“Find him? How the hell did they lose
him?”

“The service said he’s in Easton, somewhere
like that.”

“Easton? That’s a half hour away—more, in
this damn rain!”

“Tim, you’re shouting.”

“Sorry, Suze,” Tim said, getting to his feet.
He looked at Joey; dripping wet Joey. “Oh, cripes. Joey, we have to
get that damn monster truck of yours off the bridge. It’s our only
way out of here.”

“Naw,” Joey said with a wave of his hand. “My
vehicle goes anywhere. We can go over the lawn, over the snow,
through the trees. You name it. Of course, you got a lot a trees,
Tim, and a lot of creek. But we can do it.”

“But you said you were stuck on the bridge,”
Tim said, rubbing at his aching back.

“Oh, yeah,” Joey said, raising his eyebrows.
“Wow.”

“Tim?” Suzanna said, tugging at his arm.
“What’s going on?”

“Nothing, babe, nothing. Are you all right
here with Bruno? Joey and I have to go do something with his truck.
No, wait. Bruno, you come. Joey, stay. Sit. Wait for the phone
call. Oh, and call Jack. Wait, don’t call Jack, he’s not home, he’s
in Baltimore. Damn!”

“We could call Keely,” Suzanna suggested,
looking at the three men.

“No!” they all said in unison.

“Oh, okay, right. She’d want to know why
Joey’s truck is stuck on the bridge. Men,” she said, rolling her
eyes.

“You never want to look bad, do you? Ohhh...”
she ended, slowly sitting up very straight, “there’s another one.
They hurt now, Tim. And I can feel more water coming out every time
I move even a little bit. Could you please move Joey’s truck?”

“Bruno—now!”

“This isn’t happening; this isn’t happening,”
Tim repeated as a sort of mantra, as he and Bruno ran down the
hill, toward the truck. The headlights were still visible, but they
seemed to be a little yellow now. “Shit! Joey turned off the engine
and left the damn lights on. His battery’s going,” he called to
Bruno as they ran. “We’ve got to get that piece of junk the hell
out of there.”

Which was, once Tim shined the flashlight on
the driver’s side rear wheel, or what could be seen of it, going to
be a neat trick if he could do it.

It had been all that snow, and then all this
rain. And Joey banging the snowplow into the bridge, probably more
than the single time Suzanna saw him do it.

“This thing isn’t going anywhere,” Tim called
through the sound of the rain slamming onto the bridge, the
four-by-four. The bridge, narrow anyway, was totally blocked. He
reached into the driver’s side and turned off the headlights,
throwing the whole area into full dark. “Come on, we have to call a
tow truck.”

“Are we going to have to do it?” Bruno asked,
trotting up the hill beside Tim, toward the lights of the
house.

“Call the tow truck? Sure.”

“No, I mean, deliver the babies.”

Tim stopped, bent over, and lost the
chili.

* * *

Suzanna looked at the baseball trophy Tim had
given her so long ago. Just a little thing, and the bat had long
ago broken off the plastic batter poised on top of the small block
of wood. But she loved it. The trophy had traveled with her to
college, and she’d kept it on her bedside table all these years.
Like some dumb groupie.

But that was okay, because it was a great
focal point.

“Anything else?” Joey asked, sort of bouncing
on the balls of his feet as he stood in front of her, rubbing his
hands together. “I’ve got your suitcase, your pillows, that focus
thing. Come on, Suzanna. Help me here. Anything else?”

“You can call Dr. Phillips’s service again,”
Suzanna said, doing her best to remember not to hold her breath
when the pain gripped her again.

She wasn’t having cramps, at least not the
way she’d read about contractions in the books. She felt very
little pain in her belly, except very, very low. It was her back.
Her back was killing her. She felt as if she were being bent like
an archery bow being pulled on, could bend backward until her head
touched the kitchen table. “I... I think I’d like to lie down.”

She stood up, which may have been a mistake,
because suddenly it was Niagara Falls, right there in her kitchen.
Lucky, who had been lying on the floor beside her, yelped, and ran
for the den.

“Good for you,” Suzanna groused as she
watched the cat. “See? Do bad things, and God always gets you back,
sooner or later.”

“Damn,” Joey said, also jumping back. “This
isn’t good, is it?”

She motioned for him to let her alone as she
sat back down again. “Just call, Joey.”

“Give me the cell phone, then get me the
phone book,” Tim called out, running into the kitchen, skidding to
a stop. “Suze? What’s the name of that place down the road? You
remember? Don Hunsinger’s dad owns it?”

“Hunsinger’s Towing?” she offered, worrying
because Tim’s face looked so pale, and he’d asked such a silly
question.

“Okay, that’s it,” Tim said, paging through
the thick book. “Got it.”

“What’s he doing, Bruno?”

“Calling a tow truck, Suzanna. Joey’s truck
is really stuck on the bridge.”

“Oh,” Suzanna said, but then didn’t say
anything else, because another contraction had her locked in its
grip. She managed to look up at the wall clock. Less than three
minutes since the last one, and they seemed to be holding on for
about forty-five seconds. “Tim? I think you should call the police
instead. And, and an ambulance? And Keely? Oh, Tim, this
hurts.”

Joey took out his own cell phone and punched
in 9-1-1 even as Bruno hit Keely’s number on the kitchen phone’s
speed dial.

“Wasn’t Alexander Graham Bell a wonderful
man?” Suzanna said, sighing.

“Nobody answers at Don’s dad’s. Bruno, Joey,
get that damn monster of Joey’s off that damn bridge! I can make it
past the hole with my car,” Tim yelled, racing to Suzanna’s
side.

“Hey, that thing cost a bundle, Tim,” Joey
protested. “He’ll rip the undercarriage or something.”

“I’ll buy you a new one. Come on, babe, my
car’s right out front. We’ll get you in the backseat, and Bruno
will get the truck free.” He grabbed the trophy, stuck it in the
pocket of his rain slicker, and helped her down the hallway.

“I... I need a raincoat. Or an umbrella?”

“Right, right,” he said, leaving her for a
moment as he stripped off his slicker. “Here you go. Wait. I want
the cell phone.”

He raced back into the kitchen, slid on the
mess she’d left there, and cannoned into the side of the table.

“Damn!”

Suzanna giggled. She knew she shouldn’t, knew
it was pretty much a giggle bordering on hysteria. Still, she
couldn’t help herself. She felt as if they were in an episode of
I Love Lucy.

* * *

“Comfortable?”

Suzanna raised her head from the slightly
soggy pillows Bruno had shoved beneath her head as she lay in the
backseat, and glared at her husband. “Don’t ask dumb questions. Can
we go now?”

“Little problem,” Joey said from behind Tim.
“The rest of the bridge? It, ya know, sorta
broke?
We were
rocking the truck, and it was doing pretty good, and then—”

Tim dropped his head into his hands. “All
right, all right, I get the picture. What about the police, Joey?
The ambulance?”

“How they gonna get up here, Tim?” Joey
asked. “My truck’s in the middle of the bridge, there’s about five
feet of it missing now in one spot, behind the truck, and the creek
is pretty deep. Nice creek, running all around your property, ya
know. But right now it’s one of them knight things.”

Tim shook his head, and Suzanna said, from
inside the car, “A moat, Tim. Joey means a moat. Ooh! Here I go
again.”

Brakes squealed down at the bottom of the
hill, and a car door slammed, quickly followed by Keely, running up
the hill, waving a huge flashlight.

“Where is she? I got Aunt Sadie to watch the
kids, and—oh, brother,” she said, shining the light into the
backseat of the car. “What’s she doing out here? You can’t go
anywhere.” She pushed Tim away and leaned into the car. “Suzanna?
How often are the pains?”

“All... all the time. I think I want to
push.”

“No!” Tim slammed Keely out of the way and
all but jumped into the car. “No pushing, Suze. No damn
pushing.”

“Let’s get her inside,” Keely said, but now
it was Suzanna’s turn to say
no.
She wasn’t moving. She
couldn’t. Really, she couldn’t. She just wanted to push.

“Can’t she, ya know, cross her legs?” Joey
asked, and Keely gave him a punch in the arm. “Hey, don’t hit me. I
could help, ya know, except we didn’t get to the delivering a baby
part of my course. Cops do it all the time. Except we’re not there
yet. Now, if she were, ya know, choking? Then I could—”

“Shut up, Joey,” Tim and Keely said at the
same time.

“Honey?” Tim asked, looking at Suzanna. “You
really need to push?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, and reached for him. A
new pain gripped her, and she grabbed at Tim’s shirt, nearly
ripping it off him as she twisted the material in her fist. Man,
she was strong...

Keely opened the front door and climbed into
the bucket seat. “Let go, honey, let go. Where’s your focal point,
Suzanna?”

Tim reached into the pocket of the slicker
that was on the floor of the car now and pulled out the trophy.
Keely grabbed it and held it balanced on the back of the front
seat. “Okay, Tim, now help her get her slacks off. No, wait. Bruno?
Run inside and get the afghan from the couch in the den. Tim, I’m
assuming you’ve called for an ambulance? And why don’t we drive
down to the bridge. That way we’re closer, when help comes.”

Tim agreed, just waiting for Bruno to return
with the afghan. He arranged it over Suzanna’s hips, then helped
her remove her sopping wet slacks and underwear. “Wait. I read
about this. I mean, I read it all, cover to cover. We need a
shoelace.”

Suzanna groaned.

“No, really, we do. To tie off the cord. And
newspapers, to wrap the babies in. Oh, God, I can’t do this.”

“How about string?” Keely asked. “I’m sure
there’s some in the kitchen.”

“Tim-bo?” Joey said as Bruno went running
back into the house once more. “Phone’s for you.”

Tim looked at the cell phone. “Are you
nuts?”

“No, I mean it. Phone’s for you. Dispatcher.
They traced my call.”

Bruno slammed out the front door with a
plastic bag holding newspapers and ball of twine and ran to the
driver’s side door, climbing in as Joey landed half on Keely’s lap.
“Ready?” The boxer turned chef turned chauffeur asked, and then
gunned the engine, moving the car all the way down to the
bridge.

In the meantime, Tim, half falling on
Suzanna, was yelling into the cell phone. “Hello? Hello? Who is
this? Where’s the ambulance? And we need a tow truck.”

“Hey, Tim, that you?”

Tim looked at the cell phone for a moment,
then pressed it to his ear once more. “Who is this?”

“It’s Don. Don Hunsinger. I’m working
Dispatch tonight. I understand you’ve got a little emergency?
Something about a baby?”

“Two babies, Don, two. And where’s the tow
truck?”

“Dad’s on his way, don’t worry. So’s an
ambulance, and a couple of cops who won the bet and got the job.
So, how’s the little mother?”

Tim looked at Suzanna, who was staring
fixedly at the baseball trophy visible in the interior lights Bruno
had turned on. She was also panting. Panting real, real fast.

“About to give birth. How soon can you be
here?”

“Soon as we can, Tim. Hell of a crackup at
MacArthur and 329, what with the rain and all. That’s where Dad is
now. We’re sending for another ambulance. In the meantime, how
about we play ball?”

Tim’s head was going to explode. He just knew
it. He was nauseous, his back ached, and Suzanna needed him. “Play
ball? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Here,” Joey interrupted, holding out a
headpiece attached to a plastic-coated wire. “Headphone, just for
cell phones. So you don’t get all that radio stuff from the
battery. I love stuff like this.”

“Radiation,” Keely said, grabbing the wire.
“Good going, Joey. Here, Tim, give me the phone for a second.”

Within seconds, Tim had the headphone snapped
over his head, the cell phone clipped to the belt on his slacks.
“Don? You still there?”

“Still here, Timmy,” his high school friend
said, his tone unbelievably calming, which was nuts, because Donnie
was the same guy who had, for a joke, glued his own finger to his
nose in fifth period study hall. “Ready to play catcher? Are you
behind the plate? Ready to go?”