Come Pour the Wine (27 page)

“Okay. Is there anything we forgot?” he said, glancing nervously around the room.

“Yes, call my mother and
yours.
”

“No … not my mother—”

“I promised. She wants to be at the hospital when the baby’s—”

“I’ll call her later.”

“No, Bill. I want you to let her know now. I promised.”

“Okay, when I get to the hospital.”

Janet’s cheerfulness did nothing to set aside his fears, and not even Janet’s mother was able to calm him when she joined him at the hospital. Mrs. Stevens had been staying at the Plaza Hotel for the last two weeks, coming to their apartment every day to relieve Janet of cooking and household chores. Now she kept reassuring him that Janet was just fine. She’d gone through her pregnancy with a minimum of discomfort and that was the best sign of all.

It still didn’t help and he kept right on pacing the corridor.

Violet made her entrance at ten, with Harriet and Gordon. Bill found his mother’s presence was only an irritation. Hardly a relief.

“Now, son, you’ve
got
to calm down. Having a baby is the most natural thing in the world. I went through four births. Of course, yours was the most—”

Bill was walking away down the hall before she could finish. He didn’t want to be reminded now of all times how much she’d suffered bringing him into the world. Not, for God’s sake,
this
morning.

He went into Janet’s room for the umpteenth time and held her hand. “You all right, darling?”

Although the pains were coming more frequently, she managed a thin smile.

“Fine, dear … fine …”

The nurse spared him the ordeal of seeing Janet during the worst of her contractions by asking him to leave.

At eleven o’clock the doctor came out of Janet’s room and told Bill she was ready to be taken to delivery.

“Is everything all right?”

“Everything is going along smoothly. A first baby for someone as small as your wife can be difficult, but she doesn’t appear to be having any problems at all.”

He walked alongside Janet as she was wheeled down the hall, and when they reached the wide surgery doors he bent down and kissed her. With the doors swinging closed behind her, he stood praying everything would go all right. He couldn’t manage a smile when Martha Stevens took his hand and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.

Violet sat twisting her handkerchief and remembering how she had suffered at Bill’s birth. Six hours for a first child was
nothing
compared to the twenty it had taken to bring Bill into the world … Well, Janet was a young girl … midwestern stock … and today’s methods were different….

At twelve-thirty the doctor came out, looked at Bill, then broke into a smile. “Congratulations. You’re the father of a seven-pound baby girl.”

“A girl?” But the disappointment was short-lived in the excitement of the moment.

“And Janet?”

“Like a pro … about the best patient I ever had.”

When he was finally allowed to see Janet, he stood at the side of her bed, holding her hand and looking at her as though she were somehow sainted.

She looked at him, realizing he had gone through an ordeal almost as great as hers.

“It really wasn’t all
that
bad, darling. Look what we’ve got for our few labor pains. Did you
see
her? Isn’t she adorable?”

That adorable little baby actually looked like a red lobster. “She’s just … beautiful.”

Janet smiled, knowing he had never seen a newborn baby before and that he was disappointed at not having a son. But he’d feel differently in a few days.

“Darling, will you call Kit?”

He didn’t think he was up to doing
anything
right now, but he reached for the phone by her bed and dialed.

Kit let out a war whoop. “Janet got her little girl.” He glanced at Janet as he answered Kit’s barrage of questions. Odd, he thought. Janet had never said anything to him about wanting a girl. They were so sure it would be … oh, well.

When he went out into the corridor to give Mrs. Stevens a moment with Janet, his mother pulled him aside and spoke to him in a confidential tone. “Bill, I’ve given this a lot of thought. Since you’re my only son I think it’s appropriate that family names be handed down to your children. If you’d had a boy it would have been Jason, but since it’s a girl, why not Violet? I’d be
so
proud …”

Bill flinched, annoyed at her intrusion and yet also realizing that
she
thought she’d just offered him some sort of honor … But one thing was for sure. If there was one name he could not stand it was “Violet.” “Mother, we never discussed girls’ names … and besides, I’m afraid it would probably hurt Janet’s mother’s feelings. I’ll talk to Janet about this.” And that he did immediately.

As soon as Mrs. Stevens had left Janet’s room he went in and sat at her bedside. “Sweetheart, since we never considered having anything but a boy … don’t misunderstand, I couldn’t be more pleased, but we never thought about a girl’s name.”

“You’re right, dear, but I did, just in case.”

“Oh? Well … ?”

“If it’s okay with you, I’d love to name her after my grandmother.”

“That’s who
you
were named after. You suggesting Janet Junior?”

She laughed. “No, Bill. My grandmother had more than one name. Janet seemed more appropriate for Wichita, Kansas. But her real name was Nicole Jeanette Antoinette Buchart.”

“You mean you’re going to put all that on one little helpless baby?”

“No, of course not. Just Nicole. Would you like that?”

Nicole … Would they call her Nikki … or Nicky … or Nick? No, he’d insist on Nicole. No nicknames. Nicole McNeil, Nicole McNeil … “I think it’s beautiful, honey.”

“You’re not just saying that—?”

“No, I love it. And you too, mother of Nicole McNeil.”

Four days later, when he drove his wife and daughter home from the hospital, the baby had changed so much he couldn’t quite believe it. She
was
adorable, Nicole McNeil, and any disappointment had long since evaporated.

When they arrived at the apartment the nurse was waiting and took charge immediately, but Janet was so eager to take over that the woman was paid for her two weeks and let go after a few days.

Motherhood, as the song said, was what came naturally to Janet, but fatherhood kept Bill in a state of high anxiety. When the bassinet was brought into the bedroom it was put on his side of the king-sized bed. He’d insisted. He slept hardly at all, listening to the baby’s breathing, and he often woke with a start and got out of bed to check that the baby’s covers were in place.

He became convinced that Dr. Spock was a sadist. Whoever heard of feeding a child on schedule—two, four and six? It hurt him to hear those hungry cries. His sisters had breast-fed their children on demand, but Janet was firm about following the pediatrician’s instructions. She believed with Spock that even babies had to begin to learn that the world wasn’t altogether their oyster. They had to learn to begin to take some frustrations to grow up into healthy human beings. You could coddle and smother to death in the name of love but out of self-indulgence. Like Violet with Bill …

One night Bill was so upset he held Nicole consolingly, pacing the floor with her in his arms and rocking her.

“To hell with the rules, this is cruelty.” Holding her close, very close. With the baby in his arms, he went to the kitchen and heated the bottle. He was getting really good at this, he thought. Had his own father had a chance to do this? No, probably not, everything considered.

As the baby sucked contentedly, he brought her back to the bedroom and sat in the chair with her as she drained the two ounces. He burped her, then watched as she fell asleep in the crook of his arm. He put her down carefully, then got into bed.

Janet watched him closely. This was the man who had once rejected the idea of having a child? He’d certainly reversed his tracks. He phoned two or three times a day to see if everything was “going all right,” came home early from the office in time to see the baby have her six-o’clock feeding. He chickened out on bathing her, afraid she would be too slippery with soap suds to handle, but stood by and watched as Janet took over. Watched, or supervised?

B
Y THE TIME NICOLE
was six weeks old, Bill was a more relaxed father. But what worried him now was the way they were living. Janet’s days were full from early morning to evening and she was doing the best she could in their cramped quarters, but there was no denying that the apartment was beginning to look like a Chinese laundry. The bathroom was cluttered with diapers, and the bathinette left almost no room to turn around in. Clothing was strewn over the bathroom towel bars and over the three collapsible wooden racks that stood in the dining room in front of the sliding doors. He was happy that Janet wasn’t complaining, of course. But even so, this couldn’t go on much longer, and going to his mother’s for the summer was no solution. It wasn’t even a reprieve, except for Harriet and Gordon.

Maybe they should think of going into a larger apartment … but that was a hell of a way to raise a child, he thought, recalling the freedom—he’d blanked out for the time being the distinct
lack
of freedom—of being raised in a large house. Well, there had to be something in this big city for them. Maybe Janet was right, if they bought the townhouse and remodeled it, it might not be too bad. True, it was narrow, dark, squeezed in between two big apartment houses. But they might be able to do something with it, and it had a little garden in the back …

He called the agent and, to his dismay, was told the house had just been sold.

A few days later Janet received a phone call from Kit.

After comparing notes on motherhood, Kit said, “I saw a house that I think you’d love, Janet.”

“Where?”

“Not far from me.”

“Oh, God, Kit, that would be terrific, except Bill would never move out of the city—”

“Tough. He has more to think about now than just himself.”

“But I don’t want him to be unhappy. He has to be considered too.”

“I know, you’re still so grateful because he indulged you
once.
Remember, dear, that baby is his too, you know.”

Janet laughed. “If only you knew. Sometimes I wonder if he remembers I’m the mother. You should see him with Nicole.”

“Well, talk to him anyway. The house is fabulous.”

Knowing how he felt about moving to suburbia, Janet decided not to make an issue of it. She brought it up casually, without reference to Kit. The answer, as predicted, was an unequivocal
no.

When Kit called back a few days later, she asked Janet if she’d spoken to Bill. Not wanting Kit to make him the villain again, she answered, “We’ve both decided to wait. Something’s bound to come on the market … besides, lots of well-adjusted children grow up in Manhattan—”

“Okay, good luck. Hope you find the house of your dreams … or should I say, Bill’s.”

Bill was going over a problem with his chief engineer when his office intercom buzzed.

He picked up the phone. “Yes, Bonnie?”

“Mrs. Weiss is on the phone,” his secretary reported.

That’s all he needed … “Okay, put her on.” Kit rarely phoned him at the office unless it was to bawl him out. And he was right.

“Bill, I’m mixing in where angels ought to fear to tread, but I think you’re a selfish twerp.”

“Now wait a minute, Kit—”

“No, you wait. Your apartment needs a sign saying ‘gypsy fortune telling.’”

“That’s not my fault. You know I’ve been looking. Can I help it if we can’t find a place—?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head angrily. “There’s a housing shortage, in case you hadn’t heard. Besides, Janet’s not complaining.”

“Of course not. Which is her problem. She doesn’t have the heart to ask you to move to the country because you’re so mad about the Rockettes and Rockefeller Center, and you might have to miss going to your club to play squash on Thursday nights—”

“I haven’t played squash for—”

Gotcha, she thought when he broke off. “Well, there’s a place not far from us. Be a sport, sport, and buy it. Not only for Janet but for your Nicole, who you adore so much,
and
for yourself—”

“You know, Kit? I agree, this isn’t any of your business.”

“Yes and no. Let me remind you, there were many times
you
made your business mine. So I figure if
I
don’t tell you, no one will.”

“Thanks a lot. You’re a real pal. But don’t worry, we’ll find a place
here.
”

She slammed down the phone so hard he jerked the receiver away from his ear.

As he turned to his engineering problems his mind kept running over the conversation with Kit. Maybe she was right. When you had a family you were supposed to give up things … the family came first … a child should be raised in the country … He found himself calling Kit back.

“… Where did you say that house was?”

“About a mile from us. It’s really lovely.”

When he arrived home that night and saw the condition of the apartment he became even more determined to get them into a decent-sized house. He sat in the kitchen, watching Janet prepare dinner. “Darling … ?”

“Yes,” Janet said, turning over the steak in the broiler.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided we should buy in the country after all.”

Janet wasn’t sure she’d heard right, but when she looked at his face she threw her arms around him. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Now I can tell you … Kit said there was a house not far from them—”

“Really? Kit told you that? So it must be in Westchester?”

“Yes. Would you like to see it?”

“Okay, why not?”

“Oh, Bill, thank you.”

She called Kit immediately. “… I didn’t say a word, I swear. It was all
his
idea.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. That’s one thing about our Bill. When he comes to a decision, he takes action. Yes, sir, Bill’s a man of action …” Providing the nudge was hard enough and in the right place, she added silently.

“Can you believe it? We’ll be neighbors!”