Expecting: A Novel (9 page)

Laurie holds the phone close to her head as if it will help the words she’s hearing make more sense. Her other hand presses lightly, protectively across her stomach.

“We are completely available to you and your husband, Mrs. Gaines. We’d be happy to refer you to a counselor.”

Laurie grips the phone tighter. “You’re sure? About the results.”

Dr. Julian hesitates. “Yes, there’s no chance of an error.”

Laurie looks around her kitchen—at the ceiling, at a chip in the plaster she’s never noticed before.

“I know this is unpleasant news. I’m very sorry. We’ll speak again soon. My best to your husband.”

Laurie allows the phone to slip from her hand.
You
bet
we’ll speak again, buster. You and me and a roomful of attorneys—hoo-
ray
. We’ll get enough money to replaster the kitchen ceiling, remodel the master bath, buy the house next door, knock it down, and build a fucking compound.

I
need
a
glass
of
wine
, Laurie thinks.
No, something stronger than wine. A Long Island Iced Tea. Forget all that crap about taking care of You and The Baby. Unless this isn’t happening, Dr. Julian didn’t call, it’s some pregnancy-induced hallucination
. She pinches the skin between her thumb and index finger—
nope, that hurts
. She’s awake.

When she yanks open the cabinet door beside the refrigerator, it opens an inch and smashes against her fingernail. Childproof locks on anything that could potentially harm the baby. Laurie pulls the door harder, snapping off the babyproof lock (so much for
that
guarantee), and looks at the liquor inside. Vodka, rum, a thirty-two-ounce bottle of Kahlua bought on a trip to Tijuana years ago. What’s in a Long Island Iced Tea anyway? Bourbon and gin? No, vodka, rum, gin…something else Laurie can’t remember. She lines up the liquor bottles on the counter. And Coke.
Is
there
any
Coke
in
the
fridge?
One Diet Coke.
That’ll do
.

Laurie grabs an old Taco Bell plastic cup, fills it with ice, adds a little vodka, a little rum, a little gin. The smell nearly knocks her off her feet. She adds a healthy amount of Diet Coke. No diet drinks either, the doctors advise. Could be dangerous, why take a chance? Laurie laughs out loud.
Take
a
chance
my
ass
.

She watches the Diet Coke fizz in the cup. What will this do to the baby? Alcohol and diet soda. Maybe Laurie should run out and score some crack, really give the baby something to think about.

She is raising the cup to her lips when Alan walks in. He takes in the liquor bottles, the Taco Bell cup. Laurie smiles at him.

“Guess what? You’re not the father of our child.”

***

Alan didn’t allow her to drink the pseudo-Long Island Iced Tea. Instead, he finished it off quickly and moved on to more vodka and Diet Coke.

“But Dr. Julian told us it was safe. Mistakes never happen with IUI.” Alan’s green eyes look lighter than usual today, pale beneath his almost invisible blond eyebrows. She’d hoped the baby wouldn’t inherit Alan’s eyebrows. Ha, the joke’s on Laurie.

“One of the techs in Dr. Julian’s clinic switched around specimens,” Laurie says. “She’d asked for two extra vacation days and the clinic said no. When she complained, they gave her notice. And apparently that made her unhappy.”

“What about my specimen?” Alan asks. “Where did I go?”

Laurie sighs. “They haven’t found you yet.”

Alan taps the Diet Coke can against the rim of the Taco Bell cup.

“Dr. Julian wants to sit down with us,” Laurie says.

“Because he knows we’ll take legal action.” Alan splashes more vodka into the cup.

Laurie’s brain is filled with noises and voices and thoughts she can’t sort out. Like letters in a Scrabble game bag, she could reach in and pull out anything—a Look on the Bright Side tile. After the disappointments and false hopes, at least she’s having a baby. But whose? Did they ever let Charles Manson donate sperm?

There’s another tile in the bag. A terrible choice she could consider—she’s twelve weeks into the pregnancy, only twelve weeks…but no, she can’t think about that. She touches her belly, feels the small rise of flesh.

“Alan? What should we do?”

Alan sips his drink. “Let’s hear our options.”

***

“I’m sure you have questions,” Dr. Julian says. He’s seated behind his desk, as if he’d like to be as far away as possible from Laurie and Alan. “The good news, the technician has been arrested.” His jazz patch dances on his chin, Laurie wants to reach over and pull it out by the roots.

“Actually good news would be me having my
husband’s
baby. Since that was the plan,” Laurie says. “Have you been able to figure out who the father is?”

A long pause. “A sperm donor.”

“I want to know everything about him,” says Laurie.

“Our attorneys have advised us not to release any information.” Dr. Julian looks down at his hands.

“What happened to my sperm?” Alan asks.

“The missing specimens haven’t been located yet. As you might imagine, it’s a huge conundrum.”

“Conundrum isn’t the word I’d use,” Alan says. “Clusterfuck seems more accurate.”

Dr. Julian takes a deep breath. “It’s a terrible situation. But we have to think about our clinic. And our other clients.”

“We could tell them,” Alan says. “Go out in the waiting room, let everybody know what’s happened. Unless that would be bad for your practice.” His voice sounds polite, but Laurie can detect quiet rage underneath.

“We need to protect the donor’s anonymity.”

“What about
us
? Don’t we count?” Alan stands up. “My wife is having a
baby
. It’s supposed to be
my
baby and now you’re telling us it’s
not
?”

Dr. Julian pushes a brass letter opener back and forth, trying to line it up with edge of his desk. “You could choose termination,” he says to Laurie and Alan.

***

“So. Now what?” Laurie asks Alan at breakfast. They’re both thinking about it. They’ve
been
thinking about it; what else is there to think about? Laurie didn’t sleep last night and she’s sure Alan didn’t either.

“I’ll know more after I talk with the attorney,” Alan says. He has a morning appointment with an attorney, but Laurie isn’t going with him because she’s promised Grace she’ll finish a piece on the best tiki bar in the San Fernando Valley (Tonga Hut) and she has to visit Lake Balboa to check out the “fishing scene.” Besides, she doesn’t see how meeting with an attorney will accomplish anything.

“He’ll only explain what we can do
legally
. What about the rest of it?” Laurie asks.

“We’ll figure it out.” Alan gives Laurie a kiss. As if the kiss will solve all their problems.

When Alan is gone, Laurie sits out on the patio with her laptop. Is the most popular drink at Tonga Hut the Voodoo Juice or Squirrel of Paradise? Perhaps the “I’m Coco Loco for Tonga Hut’s Big Brown Nut!”

She closes her laptop. She’ll start with the trip to Lake Balboa. It will clear her head. Hopefully. And if not, there’s always Voodoo Juice.

***

Grace raves about Laurie’s Tonga Hut piece; it could be the perfect spot for Laurie’s baby shower (nonalcoholic tropical drinks for Laurie, of course). “Great,” Laurie says, wondering what Grace would say if she knew the goofy details of Laurie’s pregnancy. She tells Grace she’ll be in the office later, after her doctor’s appointment.

A week has passed since Dr. Julian’s bombshell. A week of Alan meeting with Dave, the attorney, a week of Laurie trying to pretend everything is exactly the same, even though she knows nothing will be the same again. She’s lied to Grace; she doesn’t have an appointment with Dr. Julian, but she walks into his office, sweeping past the receptionist who gets up from her chair only to retreat when Laurie waves her off. She opens his door without knocking. Dr. Julian is on the phone and frowns at Laurie.

“I want to see the donor paperwork,” she says.

He doesn’t answer right away but mumbles into the phone, “I have to call back,” and clicks off.

The first time she met Dr. Julian she thought he was handsome. Now he looks weak and pathetic with his tiny hands, uneven nails, and shaggy cuticles.
I’d bite my nails too, if I were you
, she thinks.
Bite
them
down
to
bloody
stumps
.

“Mrs. Gaines, on the advice of our attorneys—”

“I don’t care. I want the information
now
.”

Dr. Julian puts his index finger in his mouth.
That
won’t help those cuticles, Doc
. Maybe he’ll have to put cream on his hands and sleep wearing white cotton gloves. The thought of that makes Laurie smile.

“Your husband isn’t with you today.”

“He’s at work. He’s been meeting with an attorney. Discussing the lawsuit.”

The index finger is back in Dr. Julian’s mouth. “I see. Well. If it’s only a question of the report…”

“I’d like to take a copy home. To look over. And show Alan, of course.”

Dr. Julian nods. “I’ll have Sandra make a Xerox for you. Mrs. Gaines, I’m sure this is difficult, but have you given consideration to how you’ll continue with your pregnancy? I only bring this up because…decisions have to be made.”

“I’ll let you know,” Laurie says. She imagines Dr. Julian wearing puffy white gloves, like Mickey Mouse.

***

Laurie sits on the carpet in the yellow room and curls her bare feet under her legs. She looks up at the alphabet border, closes her eyes and says a quick prayer.
Please
don’t let him be a madman
. She pulls the donor profile out of the manila envelope very slowly, as if the information inside has a life of its own. Which in a way, it does.

At the top of the page she sees “Donor number 296. Limited supply.” What does that mean? They’re running out of number 296? Is he popular? So many women read his profile they’re
clamoring
for number 296?

“Ethnicity. Asian Indian.” That’s the first surprise. Indian food pops into her head. Tandoori chicken, paratha, saag aloo.

***

Alan has never been a fan of Indian food. He likes Mexican and sushi, and he’ll try anything—fried crickets or haggis—but not Indian. Last night Laurie made American cuisine, meat loaf and mashed potatoes. She’d watched him push the potatoes back and forth on his plate.

“Dave is convinced the case is a slam dunk,” Alan says.

Put
the
potatoes
in
your
mouth
, thinks Laurie. But no, the potatoes glide away from the turkey meat loaf, to the side of the plate.

“Dave’s talking serious damages,” Alan says.

“It’s not about money. Did you explain that to him?”

Alan has the potatoes on the fork; they’re almost to his mouth.

“Honey, I want to do the right thing,” he says.

Laurie wants to scream or laugh, or both. Or rip the fork from Alan’s hand and feed him, like a baby, like the stranger alien baby she’s carrying.

***

She’s not sure she can keep reading the profile. Asian Indian is enough to know for now. She touches the pages, imagines the donor typing in his information. Who are you? she wants to ask him. Genetic material that should never be allowed to reproduce? Kim Jong-il? The guy who thought up all those TV reality shows? Or are you polite? Do you hold doors open for people, say thank you and please? Do you read books, watch NASCAR? Both? At the same time? Are you a raging syphilitic? Do you drink Everclear for breakfast, is your body is covered with hair, front and back, are you Sasquatch?

And she laughs out loud at the thought of Sasquatch filling out a sperm donation form and going into a clinic to leave a specimen. Why is she thinking like Grace? This is Grace behavior.

Laurie pats her tummy. “You’re not Sasquatch,” she says. “You’re mine. Mine and Alan’s. And I promise we’ll love you. Even if you like NASCAR, although I hope you like books better. Did you hear me? We love you.”

***

She’ll finish reading the profile after running errands and a quick trip to the Hidden Valley office. As she’s sliding the file into the envelope, she notices a photo stapled to the back page, a baseball card with a picture of a young boy. Small and skinny, with medium dark skin, wearing a red uniform that says “Cardinals.” He’s missing his front teeth, but the new ones have started to come in so his mouth looks snaggly.

Laurie wonders if you can hear the sound of your own heart breaking. She flips the photo over and sees something written on the back.

Jack Mulani.

He’s never liked Indian food. People go on and on about how tender chicken is when it’s been cooked in a tandoori oven and he thinks that’s ridiculous. It tastes like dry chicken. Or sometimes a dish has spices he can’t identify and when he asks the waiter what they are, the waiter will smile and say, “Family secret.”

Oh
yeah. Let me tell you about family secrets. Somebody stole my
sperm
. How’s that for a family secret? One minute it was safe in some kind of secure cryobank refrigerated tank and the next thing you know it’s being inserted into Mrs. Somebody or Other’s vagina. We don’t know who yet. Maybe we’ll never know.

***

He’s grouchy at the Sunday afternoon Palmer-Boone softball game and makes so many errors at third base Peter sends him out to right field. He looks over at the bleachers, at the Palmer-Boone spouses and their children. Peter’s wife is bouncing their baby on her lap.
That
could
be
Laurie
in
a
year
, he thinks. But whose baby will she be holding?

What’s his biggest fear? The baby will look Indian, nothing like Alan. No, worse than that would be the baby never bonding with him. Naturally the baby will bond with Laurie because they share a genetic connection. But the baby will see Alan, burst into tears, and reach for his mother. His
real
mother.

He tells himself he’s being ridiculous. Adopted parents don’t feel like that. They bond with their children. The baby will bond with him. Things haven’t changed that much.

No, now he
is
being ridiculous.

He sees Laurie appear beside the bleachers and he watches as she bends over to admire Peter’s baby. For two months he has put his hand on Laurie’s stomach and imagined the life developing beneath his fingers.
His
life.

“Do you think the baby knows we’re here?” he asked Laurie.

“I bet the baby’s aware of everything—music, sounds. The positive energy we’re sending.”

And now—he feels like a schmuck. Like when Laurie was pregnant the first time with Troppo, talking to him, thinking Troppo was aware of her. And then Troppo ended up not existing. This baby, naturally
this
will be the baby to thrive and grow and emerge healthy and strong, only it’s half Laurie and not
any
part of Alan.

What happens to the family tree? Will his mother put an asterisk by his child’s name, like Barry Bonds’s 762nd home run in the Hall of Fame Museum?

“Hey, Gaines, get your head out of your ass,” Peter yells, and Alan realizes someone on the other team has hit a ball that’s gone over his head and he has to retrieve it, but the ball rolls to the fence and before he can throw to Peter, the other team has scored an inside the park home run.

***

When the inning is finally over, Alan walks over to Laurie and gives her a kiss.

“I brought Gatorade and chips,” Laurie says. “You guys kind of stink today.”

“We stink most of the time,” Alan says. Peter is holding his son, who is wearing a spit bib that says, “Daddy’s Little Tax Deduction.” Alan goes to the bench and waits for his turn at bat.

Alan looks at Peter. Peter is lifting his Little Tax Deduction up in the air. Then down. Then up again. Shit. Alan finally has a chance to create something that’s his. No sharing involved. Just his and Laurie’s. And now that’s been taken away. He’s entitled to feel a little sorry for himself, isn’t he?

***

On the way home from the game (Palmer-Boone almost came back, but lost when Alan misjudged a fly ball), Alan asks Laurie how much they really know about number 296.

“You could read the file,” Laurie says.

“I will. Eventually.” He’s flipped through a couple pages, but it was too overwhelming—Asian Indian, kickball.
Kickball?

“We could meet him,” Laurie says.

Alan doesn’t answer. He’ll wait on that one too.

***

Laurie is in bed, watching the end of a true crime show where the husband killed his wife and the cops found info on the man’s computer that showed he’d looked up, “How to kill your wife. How to kill your wife with poison. How to kill your wife and make it look like an accident.”

“Sometimes people are stupid,” Laurie says.

Alan gets into bed, and she slides her feet under his legs. On TV, the husband/murderer is explaining how it’s a mistake—he loved his wife; he’d never hurt her.

“Dr. Julian talked about termination,” Alan says.

Laurie is silent; she clicks the remote to a local news channel. A fire in an L.A. county canyon; the flames are orange and yellow in the black sky. She doesn’t look at Alan, keeps her eyes on the TV.

“Is that what you want to do?” she asks.

“No. Of course I don’t. But we should think about our options.”

Laurie pulls her feet away, pushes the mute button.

Alan hesitates, dives in. “So we keep it and go on. Like we’re doing.”

Laurie nods. She still isn’t looking at him. He realizes he said “it.”

“Keep the
baby
, that’s what I meant to say.”

“Okay.” Laurie nods again. “What else?”

“We could arrange for the baby to be adopted after the birth. But that sounds awful.”

“As awful as termination?”

Alan pauses. “You want me to be honest. I don’t know how comfortable I am. With not being the father.”

“It’s okay to say you’re mad, you’re pissed off.” Laurie gives Alan a tiny smile.

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes. What are you worried about most?”

“You want me to pick
one
thing? A
million
things. Two weeks ago, I was the birth father. Now I’m not. You’re my wife; this is supposed to be our baby. Not your baby and somebody else’s. And I’m sorry if I sound selfish—”

“You don’t.”

Alan turns to the TV. The flames are mesmerizing; they look as if they go on forever. Maybe that’s the best solution of all; the flames will spread from the far away canyon, get closer and closer to Sherman Oaks, wipe out their neighborhood, their house, their baby. Laurie’s baby. His baby. Somebody’s baby.

Couldn’t we get a do-over?
That’s what he’d like to say to her.
The
next
baby
will
belong
to
both
of
us. Instead of this, this—freak show baby.

He doesn’t mean freak show. He would never say “freak show” to Laurie. She’s watching him, guessing he’s thinking freak show.

“It’s not like it was,” he says.

“I know.”

“At least the baby is
part
you; you’re not the one who’s the outsider.”

“Is that what you feel like?”

Alan feels like he’s five years old when on Christmas morning he saw a new bike under the tree with his name on it and he was thrilled until he realized it was his brother Patrick’s old bike that had been repainted. Wasn’t Santa supposed to bring you
new
things, he asked Patrick and Patrick said Alan was a moron and by the way, Santa’s not even real.

“This isn’t what Dr. Julian promised,” Alan says.

“He promised us a baby. He got that part right. Suppose we’d done in vitro and they messed up the sperm and the eggs,” Laurie says.

“But we
didn’t
do in vitro and some psycho tech
didn’t
switch the sperm and the eggs. It was just me, my sperm. My half.”

Laurie looks back at the TV. “You think we should end this pregnancy?”

Admit
it, Laurie. You want a do-over too.

“I want a child,” he finally says.

“Good. Because termination was never an option. Not ever.” She reaches for Alan’s hand.

On TV the flames are burning dangerously close to a house on a hillside. Alan hopes the TV cameras don’t cut away so he can watch it burn to the ground.

***

He gets out of bed and tells Laurie he needs to check on some work emails. He does some work, plays a game of Spades, goes on Facebook to see if anyone has posted something funny. Nancy Futterman has added new photos of Trevor and Ava. They’re eating cotton candy at some sort of county fair. He clicks on Nancy’s profile page and sees pictures of Trevor’s preschool carnival where someone has come and twisted balloons into funny animal shapes. “Guess what this one is?” Nancy has written under a photo of Trevor holding a giant lump of misshapen balloons. Nancy’s answered her own question. “An armadillo!!!”

Alan smiles. Texas, armadillo.
Good
joke, Nancy
. He wonders again if she remembers him. If the memories are good or bad. He wonders what she would think about his situation, his situation he can’t tell anyone about. Maybe an outside observer would know what to do, offer sensible advice. Not that he’d ever ask Nancy. Not that he’d ever make contact with her again.

He glances up at the friend request box at the top of the page. Probably a bad idea. She won’t have any interest in connecting with an old boyfriend. And he would never tell her about the baby and the switched sperm, so there is no logical reason to make contact with Nancy again.

He clicks on friend request. Thinks about going back to bed, but instead plays one more game of Spades. He tells himself if he wins this game, everything will work out. The specimens didn’t go missing after all! It was just a misunderstanding! When he loses the first game, he decides to play a second one. He wasn’t concentrating hard enough. The second game,
this
will be the one to prove that everything will work out exactly the way it’s meant to.

He loses the second game. He should go to bed. Or check on the fires. Rub Laurie’s back. Tell her not to worry.

A ping on his computer announces he has a message. His friend request has been accepted. Well, that’s some kind of good news. He’s ready to shut down the computer when a small box pops open at the bottom of his screen. It’s Nancy Futterman.

“Hello, stranger,” the message says. “What a nice surprise. I was thinking about you the other day. Time FLIES.”

Time flies. He looks around his office, wonders if he should reply, what he should say. Finally writes, “Good to hear from you. I like your Christmas cards. Your children sure are growing up.”

And
they
look
like
you
and
Bob. Lucky you.

“What r u up 2?” Nancy types.

Why isn’t Nancy using real words? Alan has never been comfortable with texting slang. It makes him nervous, like a fraud, like he’s trying to sound cool.

“Not much,” he types. Wondering what the slang would be for “not much” and will Nancy think he’s unhip? “I don’t use the chat feature on Facebook very often.”

He sounds like an old man. Nancy is probably sitting in her 30,000-square-foot McMansion in her tony Dallas suburb laughing at him.

And isn’t it late? If it’s eleven in Los Angeles what time is it in Dallas? Why is Nancy awake? Almost as if she’s reading his mind, her message appears: “Our AC’s out, can you BELIEVE it? It must be 200 degrees in the house. I might have to sleep in the pool. Ha-HA.”

***

Nancy Futterman had incredible breasts. At college when the frosh books came out and everybody in Alan’s dorm went through them and circled pictures of the girls they’d like to go after, Nancy’s breasts won in a landslide. Who would be the lucky guy to see/touch Nancy Futterman’s breasts? Alan didn’t think he had a chance; it took him three weeks to get the courage to talk to her and another three weeks before he asked her out, and amazingly enough, she agreed.

Laurie’s breasts are great. Smallish, but a solid A if he had to rate them. It’s not Laurie’s fault Nancy Futterman’s were better. A-plus. Just a little on the too big size, firm and round with standing-at-attention perky nipples. What do they look like now? Will Nancy put on a bathing suit to go outside and sleep on a float in the pool? Why isn’t she saying anything about her husband? Maybe she’s pissed because he’s a real estate agent and don’t they have contracts with electricians and AC guys? What is Bob waiting for? Nancy is hot; she’s sweating; she can’t sleep. It’s an emergency, for God’s sake.

What’s she wearing right now? If it’s so hot, maybe she’s not wearing anything.

“Can’t you get a fan?” Alan types.

She’s naked. She’s sitting in a dark room, she’s kicked her husband to the curb, and she’s IMing Alan on Facebook.

“Bob’s moving fans around, he has the windows open. He talks about ‘fan technology.’ BULLSHIT, I say.” She adds a smiley face.

“Sorry you’re hot,” he types. Reconsiders. Is that too much of a double entendre? Wait, it’s not a double entendre—his former college girlfriend is sitting in a hot house with a broken air conditioner. She sent him a message that said, “Hi.” And what is his reaction? To imagine her naked.

He should be in bed with Laurie. Is there anything you need, honey? We’ll make this crazy baby thing work out. Whatever you decide, I’ll go along with it. If you like this guy’s sperm, we’ll use him again. Have a whole
family
of number 296. I’ll learn to love Indian food; we’ll have lamb rogan josh twice a week, go to Bollywood movies.

Nancy has sent him another IM. “What’s new in ur neck of the woods?”

Don’t get me started, Nancy. Laurie and I have bigger issues than air-conditioning. We’re a mess.

“Not much,” he types. “Got 2 go.”

***

When he gets back to the bedroom, Laurie is asleep. The TV is still on, the fire continues to burn. He slips in bed beside Laurie and rubs her back. She makes soft purring noises even though she’s asleep. On the TV, flames creep slowly up a hillside, growing closer and closer to a gated community.