Expecting: A Novel (19 page)

Alan explained. Or tried to explain. “It’s a mistake. Nothing happened with Nancy Futterman.”

“But you wanted it to?”

“No, of course I didn’t. It was—I don’t even know what it was. It was nothing.”

“It was something.”

Alan sighs. “There’s no good answer here.”

“The good answer would be that you shouldn’t have started a Facebook flirtation with your old girlfriend in the first place.”

“It wasn’t a flirtation.”

“Really? Because it looked like a pretty excellent imitation of flirtation to me.” She can tell Alan is trying to think of the right thing to say. Something,
anything
to make things better. Good luck with that, Alan.

“I’m sorry,” Alan says.

Laurie shakes her head. “That’s not enough.”

***

Alan sleeps in the guest room/office that night. He takes a bottle of Advil with him and says he wishes he hadn’t had so much beer. Laurie is unsympathetic. At least she’ll have the bed to herself and she can enjoy that. But when she tries to go to sleep, she can’t. The bed is empty without Alan in it. And Buddy decides to practice his soccer kicks, so Laurie lies in bed sleepless and angry and exhausted. She can hear Alan snoring from the other room, deep and beer-y. She should go in and wake him up. If she can’t sleep, why should he? Guilt alone should keep him awake for weeks.

Life is always full of surprises. But hit me in the head with a waffle iron, hasn’t Laurie filled up her surprise quota by now? Miscarriages, mixed-up sperm, her husband is having an affair.

Only he didn’t have an affair. Not exactly. It was an online flirtation. He was trying to reconnect with his past,
recherche
du
temps
perdu
or whatever it’s called. Nothing serious.

Wait a minute. Why should Laurie cut him slack?
She’s
the pregnant one; she didn’t sit down and go on Facebook to hook up with old boyfriends.

She is never going to fall asleep tonight. There’s a good chance she’ll never fall asleep again. Alan’s snores grow louder. “Shut up,” she yells at him, but he doesn’t hear her.

***

She could forgive him. People make mistakes; marriage isn’t always easy. The switched sperm has been a nightmare, especially for Alan. Has she been selfish? Not given enough consideration to his feelings about the pregnancy?

And yet she thinks back to Alan not getting in bed at night because he had “work” to do. Work, aka chatting with Nancy. He lied. He betrayed her.

Laurie could post something on Alan’s Facebook wall. She knows his password; he used the same one for years:
password
, because he thought that was so clever until she pointed out that it was on the list of one of the most frequently used passwords. Like
123456
or
696969
. Alan promised Laurie he’d change it to something tricky and complex. He chose
password6969
. So Laurie is able to get into his computer any time she wants. Right now she could go to his Facebook page and post a heartfelt apology to Laurie. Attach a photo of a cute puppy and Alan’s wall post will say, “Uh-oh! Somebody goofed up BIG time. Thought about cheating on my devoted wife with a skanky hose bag named Nancy Futterman.”

She looks at the clock and realizes it’s almost two in the morning and she hasn’t been able to go to sleep yet and this is no fun at all, imagining fake Facebook posts when your husband is thinking about cheating on you and you’re pregnant and he’s sleeping in a different room and you have no idea what will happen next.

Except tomorrow night is Lamaze. She can’t bear the idea of going to class with Alan, sitting on the floor between his legs, practicing relaxation exercises, and listening to Kathy’s soft voice, “Depend on your partner. It’s about trust. You trust him ultimately.” No, she has a tiny problem with that now. She doesn’t trust her husband. Not ultimately. Not at all. Will she ever be able to trust him again?

She checks the clock. Will it hurt the baby if she stays awake? “Oh, Buddy. What a mess,” she says to him. “Buddy, and I promise to
never
call you Buddy once you’re born, I do not regret you. Please believe me. In spite of your what-the-hell genetics, I adore you. And you’re the only good thing in my life right now.”

What will happen with Jack after the baby is born? Is Laurie expecting too much from him? That’s her biggest mistake—making contact with sperm donor number 296. She should have read his information and stopped there. But she got too greedy, needed to know more.

Will Jack be around to see baby Buddy? Shouldn’t Buddy be able to meet his birth father? Know what it feels like to be held in Jack’s arms? Or should Jack fade into the background? Laurie will keep in touch with him by email, by Facebook (ha), send him occasional Buddy photos. And when Buddy is old enough, they can meet in person. By then Jack will be married and have children. He’s told his wife about Buddy, and Jack’s wife, unlike obstinate intolerant Alan, will understand and want Buddy to be part of her family—not take him away from Laurie, of course, but make sure Buddy always feels included.

Laurie is crying now, her face pressed into the pillow because she doesn’t want Alan to hear her. Not that he could hear anything over the sound of his snoring. It’s too late. She can’t do anything to stop him. She should let him run off with Nancy Futterman; they’ll be happy together, make a wonderful couple.

And Jack will graduate from college, take the next steps in his life, go to graduate school, get a job, get married. He will have his own life, his own children.

Laurie will be alone. Raising Buddy by herself.

***

In the morning, Alan asks if taking five Advil is too many and Laurie suggests twenty-five and he doesn’t laugh.

They don’t talk about last night. The breakfast table seems crowded with people who aren’t there—like Jack and Nancy Futterman.

“I have to work late,” Alan says.

“Lamaze class.”

“I forgot.”

Laurie doesn’t say anything. Does he really have to work late? Was he planning another Internet rendezvous with Nancy Futterman? She’s too tired to ask him any of these questions.

“The Choc-O project, I told you about it,” Alan says.

Alan forgets Lamaze and Jack coming for dinner. Laurie remembers everything about Alan’s work. “I know. Chocolate water,” she says. “It sounds sort of odd.”

“The Belgians are anticipating big Choc-O sales in North America, so the repackaging for the North American market is a big deal.”

Labels for chocolate water, more important than having a baby. “I can go to Lamaze by myself,” Laurie says.

“Once Choc-O is out of the way—we need to hit a home run on this one. There are more downsizing rumors going around.”

“Maybe you could live at your office. Would that be easier for you?”

Alan looks at her. She realizes she’s crossed some kind of Rubicon. And because she knows him so well, she realizes he’s not going to back down.

“Sure, I could live at my office. It wouldn’t be very comfortable. No shower, no bed.”

This is her chance, the exact moment where she could apologize. Yes, she’s entitled to be angry but being bitchy won’t help anything. She stays silent.

He looks at her for a long time. “The company has the apartment at Oakwood Toluca Hills. I could stay there for a couple days. Until Choc-O is done.”

When did Alan get this idea? When did he look into moving out? Was this part of his plan with Nancy Futterman?
We’ll rendezvous at the Oakwood Apartments, Nancy. My company keeps a place there for clients visiting from out of town.

Laurie can tell Alan wants her to protest. Beg him—no, don’t go. You can’t move out. I want you to stay here. I need you. It’s crazy for you to leave. We’re having a baby; we shouldn’t be living apart. Don’t be ridiculous.

“I think you’re right,” Laurie says. “It’ll be easier for both of us.”

Alan looks surprised. But he nods. “Okay. If that’s what you want. I’ll figure it out with the office, let you know the details.” He gets up from the table, checks his watch. “Late already.” For a moment Laurie thinks he’s going to kiss her; instead, he puts his hand on her shoulder and gives her a small squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know I keep saying that, but it’s true. I am. The Nancy Futterman thing was stupid. I don’t blame you if you can’t forgive me.” He waits for her to say something. “You have Buddy. And Jack,” he says. “And me? What do I have? I don’t know what I have. Nancy just offered some kind of escape.” He hesitates. “I wish I could fix this. Make it better.”

***

After Alan is gone, Laurie cleans the kitchen. Alan ran the dishwasher last night, but he forgot to put in detergent, so she has to run it again. It might be a good idea to clean out the refrigerator, so she does that too. While she’s feeling super productive, she changes the shelf liners in the cupboards, sharpens the knives, decides the kitchen curtains look dirty, and throws them in the wash. Calls Grace and says she’ll be in the office after lunch. She goes into her bedroom and cries for half an hour. Turns on the TV and watches a young couple win a trip to Bali on
Let’s Make a Deal
and that makes her cry all over again.

When she’s finally stopped crying, she heads into the baby’s room and begins to put the crib together. Alan has left copious notes, but at least one page has gone missing, so instead of an easy job like the first time they did it, this time it’s impossible.

How long will Alan be gone? A few days? Until the Choc-O project is finished? Until Nancy Futterman’s divorce is final? No, he won’t be gone long. Just long enough for them both to cool off. They are smart, logical people who love each other very much. They are having a
baby
. A grown-up time-out might be exactly what they need. Years from now they’ll laugh at this; they’ll tell Buddy about it. “Wow, pregnancy is hard, much harder than we thought. We even had a
time-out
, Buddy, isn’t that funny? A time-out like we used to give you.” And grown-up Buddy will laugh and this will be at Laurie and Alan’s thirty-year wedding anniversary and Buddy will raise a glass and announce to the crowd, “To my parents. Who have the greatest marriage ever.”

***

Still feeling industrious, Laurie begins to assemble her birthing bag. She needs to make a labor playlist for her iPod, pack a charger, and an
extra
charger—Grace warned her about that. A favorite nightgown, a toothbrush—one of her pregnancy books suggests “a reassuring photo.” What kind of photo would she find reassuring these days? A photo of her holding Buddy in her arms after he’s born? She can’t very well take a photo of that, can she? A photo of someone you love. Would that be Alan? Any photo with Alan in it would depress her right now. She’ll cut a photo of Daniel Craig from a magazine and bring that with her. A photo where he’s not wearing a shirt.

What else to bring? Your labor partner/birth coach. Oops, another problem. Has Alan abdicated that duty? Oh, well. Maybe Daniel Craig is available.

She’s thinking about calling her mother to tell her about Alan. Except her mother will want to drop everything and come to L.A. and that’s the last thing Laurie needs right now. It’s only going to be a couple of days, she tells herself again. She’ll finish the birthing kit, make a pan of brownies, and eat the whole thing.

As she’s cracking eggs for the brownies, she drops one on the floor. When she squats down to clean it up, the phone rings. Damn, she left the phone in the bedroom. It’s not as easy to move around as it used to be. Suppose she falls over? She grips the counter for support and almost slips on the egg. Oh, great. Now she’ll be on one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials. Right now they’re about elderly people, but they’ll add alerts for pregnant women living on their own. She could be their poster child. The phone keeps ringing. Alan? He’s already realized what a stupid move he’s made and he’s ready to come home. “I forgive you. You forgive me, let’s start over,” that’s what she’ll say to him. She runs to the bedroom with the grace of a hippo from
Fantasia
and picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

It’s Jack. “Hey. I just wanted to know if you were okay.”

“Oh,” Laurie says, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice. “I’m fine.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m too—like in your face or anything.”

“No, not at all. I was just doing some baby things. The birthing kit for the hospital, trying to put the crib together.”

“I thought Alan was going to do it.”

Uh-oh. Should she tell Jack about Alan moving out?

“He’s hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Lazy bones.”

“He’ll do it soon. I could tell, he’s really excited about the baby. As much as you are.”

Laurie doesn’t answer.

“Laurie? Are you there?”

I
can
do
this
by
myself
, she thinks.
I
don’t need anybody
. Somewhere in her head she can hear her mother ready to offer advice.

“Are you busy later today, Jack?” she asks him.

He has Facebook messages from Nancy Futterman, but he ignores them. If he were less cowardly, he’d email her and say they can’t communicate anymore. “Sorry, Nancy, I was using you to avoid dealing with the absurdity of my life. I’m IMing you from the Palmer-Boone corporate apartment. Does that give you any idea of how well it went over when Laurie saw the messages we’d been sending each other on Facebook? Yeah, exactly. Lead fucking balloon.”

He thought when he mentioned the apartment to Laurie she’d laugh and talk him out of it. But she didn’t. Instead, she helped him pack his suitcase—he assumed he’d use his favorite Ed Hardy carry-on bag she’d given him as a joke birthday present (“An Ed Hardy suitcase? Really?” she said), but she told him she was using it for her birthing bag.

Even when he was standing at the front door, he was ready for her to grab the suitcase from his hand and say, “Enough already. We both know you’re not going anywhere.” But she was silent.

The first night he was sure she’d call. He kept his phone close by, just in case. But the only time his BlackBerry buzzed is when it announced a new email—from someone in Nigeria telling him he’d won $1.6 million. Nothing from Laurie.

***

He decided to allow for one night. One night for both of them to sulk, for him to beat himself up over his rotten behavior, one night for Laurie to hate him—not that he blames her. Who made this stupid bed?
He
did and now he’s got to lie in it—and it isn’t even his bed. It’s the queen-sized bed at the Oakwood Apartments, fully furnished, with linens and housewares. Convenient for Palmer-Boone employees coming in from out of town, cheaper than a hotel. And also available to Palmer-Boone employees in case of emergencies—like the time Alan and Laurie had a power outage during a heat wave.

“I feel like I’m in somebody’s fuck pad,” Laurie said when they walked in. “It reminds me of that movie with Jack Lemmon where he pimps out his place to people at work.”

“This isn’t like that,” Alan told her.

“
The
Apartment
, that’s the name of the movie.”

“I’ve never heard about anybody using it for affairs,” Alan said. Not true. Grayson, a VP in Specialty Materials, used it to meet his secretary here for years.

“I guess they don’t have a problem with theft because everything is so ugly. And
brown
,” Laurie said as she examined the brown carpet, brown cabinets, and brown plates. “And—gross, the people who’ve used the glasses and the silverware, do they really clean them?”

“That’s part of the agreement, you have to.” Alan pointed out a small dishwasher. When Laurie opened it, the door creaked and something black and oily dripped on the floor. “Lovely,” she said. “It’s haunted.”

Laurie insisted they put the comforter cover on the other side of the room—“They
never
clean comforter covers. In hotels or in places like this.” And when Alan tried to pull up the blanket, Laurie shook her head. “Just imagine Indians. And smallpox.”

***

Alan is thinking of Laurie and the smallpox blanket and the haunted dishwasher. He wishes Laurie was here with him. They could laugh about the brown plates and the microwave that looks as if it’s one of the first ever invented. Laurie appreciates things like that; it’s one of the reasons he loves her. One of the many reasons. Her wicked sense of humor. Her crooked smile. Her legs, her breasts, her body. He realizes he is writing out a list in his head. He closes his eyes, and Laurie is in the apartment making haunted
whoo
whoo
dishwasher sounds. Who knows how Nancy Futterman would react to a room like this? She probably wouldn’t make a joke. She would
never
make
whoo
whoo
sounds. “Alan, why aren’t we staying at the Four Seasons?” Nancy would say. “I need room service.”

It’s much better that things didn’t progress with Nancy. For a million reasons. Although poor Bob was probably thrilled at the thought of Nancy running off to L.A. with another man. And now Bob’s looking at Nancy, her face splotchy and red from crying—she’s hunched over her computer and typing frantically, “Why won’t Alan answer me?” And Bob will tell her encouragingly, “Keep trying, Nancy. He’ll write back.”

Alan will email her soon. Apologize. Tell her he and Laurie have worked out their issues. And by the way, Laurie’s pregnant. Thanks, Nancy, for your support. Can’t wait until your next Christmas letter.

***

Laurie doesn’t call in the morning. Alan thinks about trying her before he goes to work, decides texting might be better. “Miss U.” But the minute he sends the message he regrets it. It sounds too casual; he should have spelled out
you
. He could send her another message, but he has to get to the office to work on Choc-O.

Maybe Laurie’s called him at Palmer-Boone. When he gets in, he asks Wendy, his secretary, but she says no. “I’ll track her down,” Alan says with a smile he hopes comes off as casual. And then he begins to worry. Laurie is eight months pregnant. Of course he should track her down. Suppose something’s happened, a medical emergency and she can’t get to a phone? He calls again. When she doesn’t pick up, he leaves a message. “Just want to make sure you’re okay. Let me know.”

He’ll drive by the house at lunch.

Only Charlie, his fellow Choc-O VP, wants to work through lunch so Alan doesn’t get a chance. Laurie hasn’t emailed or phoned or sent a text; he thinks about calling one of the neighbors and having them check on her. Except then he’ll have to explain the fight and why he’s staying at the Oakwood Apartments—too complicated.

Will Laurie go to Lamaze without him? He could show up and surprise her. With flowers. Unless she decides to skip class. And that nosy woman who always wants to sit beside them at Lamaze, Victoria Martinez, she’ll ask him why he has flowers and by the way, where is Laurie?

At lunch in the conference room Charlie asks how Laurie’s pregnancy is going. Pretty typical, Alan says. The first one’s the hardest, Charlie says. Because you don’t know. You don’t know
anything
.

Charlie has three kids. My life was incomplete without them, he tells Alan. Although sometimes…how many are you and Laurie going to have? That’s a trick question, Alan wants to say. Because even though it seems like we’re having one, we’re not really. We’re sort of having half of one. Or one and a half if you count Jack. Impossible to explain. “We’ll have as many as we can,” that’s what Alan says.

***

After lunch, Wendy tells him Laurie called. “She said everything’s fine.”

What does that mean? How can everything be fine when Alan isn’t living at home?

He works until eight since there’s no reason to hurry home. On the way back to the apartment, he goes to the drive-through at In-N-Out. It was a Friday night ritual when Alan and Laurie were dating. Stop by In-N-Out, eat french fries on the way home. Alan likes extra salt, hates ketchup; Laurie likes ketchup, hates salt. So Laurie had the responsibility of seasoning the fries in the takeout box. Half with salt and no ketchup for Alan, half with no salt and ketchup for Laurie. And as Alan would drive, Laurie would put fries in his mouth. “Perfect,” he’d say when she’d hand him fries, sharp and salty. Occasionally she’d touch one of her ketchup-y fries by mistake—“
Ah
,” Alan would yell. “I’m tasting
ketchup
.” By the time they’d get home, there were never any fries left.

Tonight it’s just Alan and it’s hard to salt the fries while he’s driving, and he decides to eat them anyway, but they don’t taste the same. He might as well be eating the box.

He walks through the parking lot to his apartment, past a group of kids playing touch football. One of the disadvantages to this complex is because it’s so close to movie and TV studios, it’s crowded with parents who’ve brought their children here to audition for TV pilots and movies and commercials. Once when Alan was staying at the apartment to work on a project, he was sitting by the pool and a five-year-old girl mistook him for a producer and handed him her headshot.

“I’m not—” Alan started to say, but the child gave him a rehearsed grin and pointed to her résumé.

“I take horseback riding lessons. And gymnastics and I can do a full split,” which she demonstrated on the pool deck.

***

Back in his apartment, he sits on the brown sofa eating his cold burger and fries and watches a documentary about
Hitler’s Other Family Members
on the History Channel. He checks his phone for messages—nothing from Laurie. No emails either, but his mother has sent a link to her Ancestry.com account. “You’ll find this interesting!” she’s typed.

She’s already come up with a huge list of potential baby names, all based on past family members she’s tracked down through the web. “Lawrence is nice, it’s an old Gaines family name, I’ve traced it back to Cornwall in 1618!!” She emailed him a few weeks ago to explain how she’d found a family connection to William Henry Harrison—their family is related to a U.S. president! Days later, another email with more exclamation points—this connection linked up to the Churchill family, yes,
that
Churchill family. And if they were linked to Winston Churchill, that meant they were also linked to Princess Diana and her family. Princess Diana! A U.S. president
and
royalty.

Several days later, another email. She’d made a mistake. No connection to Churchills or Spencers or William Henry Harrison. But a hint that
might
link to Abraham Lincoln. Which would be a thousand times better, since William Henry Harrison only served thirty-two days in office.

He hasn’t told his mother about Jack. Genealogy means so much to her—if she finds out that the baby isn’t Alan’s, will she see it as the end of Alan’s line?

Where is Laurie? Shouldn’t she be calling so he knows how she’s doing? Unless she’s at Lamaze. He checks his watch. No, she should be home from Lamaze by now. He could call her. But she’ll think he’s being a pest. A little room, that’s what they both need.

***

He knows it’s a bad idea to drive by the house, but he wants to reassure himself that Laurie is okay. Suppose he sees her through the window and she’s crying? That would be an excuse to go inside. “I’m sorry, honey. Let me stay here with you,” that’s what he’ll tell her. And she’ll forgive him and say she knows the only way they can get through this is if they have each other.

The lights are on in the house, that’s a good sign. Laurie didn’t come home from Lamaze tired and depressed and crawl into bed. He’s guessing she’s curled up on the sofa in the den watching TV. He parks in front and wonders if he should go inside. Or drive around the block again.

Is this a terrible idea? He thinks about heading back to his apartment—no, he’s come all this way. He gets out of his car and starts up the walk, notices a car in the driveway behind Laurie’s. An old Honda Civic. It looks familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it—remembers it belongs to Jack.

Oh. Jack is at his house. Why? Alan looks in Jack’s car—it’s packed with boxes and suitcases. T-shirts and tennis shoes on the floor. Jack’s living out of his car? Great, that bodes well for baby Buddy. Homeless dad. Super.

Alan walks up to the front door. He has his key and he doubts Laurie has changed the locks. He
hopes
she hasn’t changed the locks. Should he ring the bell? But if Laurie and Jack are in the middle of something, he shouldn’t disturb them.

In the middle of
what
? He peeks in the living room window—the curtains are drawn, but they’re sheer enough so you can see people if they’re in the room. There’s no one there.

He’ll just look in the kitchen window. They could be at the kitchen table drinking hot chocolate. As he makes his way to the side of the house, he stumbles against the recycling bin. Damn, is it garbage day tomorrow? That must be why Jack is here. Laurie called him to help take out the trash. He has to stand on his tiptoes to look in the kitchen window.

The lights are on, no sign of anybody. He sees a saucepan on the stove and a bottle of Hershey’s syrup on the counter. He was right about the hot chocolate. They could be in the den—but to check he’d have to go in the backyard and the gate is hard to open and probably locked.

On the other side of the house, he has to move past bushes that slap at his face and he wishes he’d gotten the gardeners to trim them back the last time they were here. He’ll make a note. Assuming he sees the gardeners again. The front bedroom light is off, but the lights in the middle bedroom, the baby’s room, are on.

He pushes his way through more bushes—when did his yard turn into a fucking forest? He hopes the next-door neighbors don’t see him and think he’s someone trying to break into the house. A dog begins barking and Alan
really
hopes the next-door neighbors don’t have a gun and a shoot-first mentality. He crouches below the window and raises his head slowly to look in the baby’s room.

Laurie and Jack are sitting on the floor, the pieces of the crib around them. Most of the frame has been assembled. Laurie holds up two long screws and makes a face like, “Uh-oh, did we forget these?” Jack takes them and shakes his head. Points to another spot on the crib where they should go.

Laurie picks up a baby mobile. Alan hasn’t seen it before. Where did it come from? Marine animals dangle from a blue plastic circle. Whales and jellyfish and sea horses. Jack nods at Laurie; he seems to approve.

Alan notices two mugs on the floor beside Laurie and Jack. And a plate of cookies. Did Laurie make Jack cookies?

He could still go inside. Ring the bell, not use his key. Laurie would make him a mug of hot chocolate, offer him a cookie.

Unless she’s happier putting the crib together with Jack. He watches her as she takes a sip of her hot chocolate. Jack holds the mobile in his hand and pushes a button. It begins to spin slowly and Alan can hear the faint sound of music.