Grand Avenue (8 page)

“Is everything all right with Tony?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you two getting along okay?” Barbara asked.

“Of course. We’re fine. I mean, it’s been a little tense lately because Tony’s not very happy with his job, and I think he lost a lot of money in the stock market.”

“You think?” Susan asked. “You don’t know?”

Chris shook her head. “You know how hopeless I am about money.”

“Since when?”

“You have your own bank account, don’t you?” Vicki asked.

“We have a joint account. Why would I have my own account?”

“Every woman should have her own account. Just in case. And at the first sign of trouble, she should start socking money away.”

“But that’s so dishonest,” Chris protested.

“No,” Vicki told her. “It’s self-preservation. Besides, you don’t want to have to go to Tony for every little thing. You don’t, do you? Go to Tony for every little thing?”

“Of course not.” Chris felt her cheeks flush angry red. What business was it of Vicki’s how she and Tony handled their finances? Vicki was married to a wealthy man. She had no understanding of what it meant for a man to work at a job he hated in order to keep food on the table. Money was tight right now. Tony was right to have her on a strict allowance, to make her account for every dime.

“First thing Monday morning,” Vicki was saying, “I want you to go to the bank and open your own account. You hear me, Chris?”

“I hear you,” Chris said, deciding it was easier to agree than argue.

“I’ll go with you,” Barbara volunteered, patting Chris’s hand. “I’m embarrassed to say I don’t have my own account either.”

“God, I don’t believe you two,” Vicki said. “What century are you living in anyway?”

“Why don’t we pull over,” Susan suggested as they turned right onto Sunshine Lane. “Walk for a bit.”

Immediately, Vicki pulled her car to the side of the road. Four doors opened. The women stepped into the warmth of the September afternoon.

“It’s so peaceful here,” Barbara said, grabbing on to Chris’s hand, swinging it back and forth, as if they were schoolgirls. Vicki walked several paces ahead, Susan several paces behind.

“Can we slow down just a little,” Susan asked.

Even twenty pounds overweight, Susan was lovely, Chris thought, with her fine brown hair curving toward her strong jaw, the roundness of her cheeks erasing any telltale signs of age, making her look even younger than she had at their first encounter.

“Come on, ladies, I can’t walk this slow,” Vicki groaned. Typical, Chris thought. Vicki’s patience was limited. Hadn’t she gotten tired of waiting for her perm to grow out and impatiently hacked her hair off to within an inch of its life? Luckily, the pixie do suited her. Chris smiled. Vicki had a way of spinning even the dirtiest straw into gold.

They walked along the side of the road till they reached Cayuga Drive.

“That’s it for me, ladies,” Chris said, stopping abruptly, feeling suddenly sick to her stomach. “The heat’s getting to me.” She felt her knees buckle, give way, watched the ground rushing up to meet her as she fell to the pavement.

Comforting arms immediately surrounded her.

“My God, Chris, what happened?”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Take deep breaths.”

Chris tried to push away their concern with a wave of her hand, bursting into tears instead.

“What is it, Chris? What’s wrong?”

“I think you need to see a doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Chris said.

“How long have you been falling down like this?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Chris, you fell down the stairs. Montana said you
fall down all the time. Now you collapse in the middle of the street.”

“It’s hot.”

“Not that hot.”

Chris took a deep breath, pushed the seemingly unstoppable flow of tears roughly toward her ears, burying her hands beneath the ponytail at the back of her neck. “Oh God,” she wailed.

“What is it?”

“Please, Chris. You can tell us.”

Chris searched the worried eyes of her friends. Could she tell them the truth? Could she? Dear God, what would they think of her? “I think I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

“You’re pregnant?” Barbara repeated. “That’s wonderful.” She paused. “Isn’t it?”

Chris lowered her head to her chest, her shoulders shaking as she cried.

“Is it wonderful?” Susan asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Chris heard herself wail, hating the sound. It sounded weak and desperate and ungrateful. “It’s not that I don’t love my children.”

“Of course not.”

“I love my children more than anything in the world.”

“We know that.”

“And it’s not that I don’t ever want more kids. Maybe in another year or two, when things have settled down a bit. It’s just that the timing seems so wrong.” Chris raised her arms in defeat, then dropped them to her sides. “We had to take out a second mortgage on the house last month, and Tony hates his new job, he’s already talking about quitting, going off on
his own, starting up his own agency, working from home. And it all just seems like too much sometimes, you know. Like I’ll never have a minute to myself. And I know how bad that sounds, because I know how much Tony loves me, I appreciate all the things he does for me, what good care he takes of me and the kids, I really do, but sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe. And another baby right now …”

“You don’t have to have this baby,” Vicki said simply.

There was silence.

“I can’t have an abortion.” Chris began shaking her head as Montana had earlier, her ponytail whipping back and forth across her cheeks. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“You should talk this over with Tony,” Barbara suggested gently.

“I can’t talk to him about this. He’d never understand. He’d never forgive me for even considering …”

There was another moment’s silence, then, “He wouldn’t have to know.”

Chris stared at Vicki in disbelief. She broke free of her friends’ comforting arms and pushed herself to her feet, pacing back and forth along the side of the road. “No. I can’t. You don’t understand. Tony would know. He’d know.”

“How would he know?” Barbara asked.

“He’d know,” Chris said, her head bobbing violently up and down. “He keeps track.”

“What do you mean, he keeps track?” Susan asked. “Are you saying he keeps track of your periods?”

“He’s been wanting another baby ever since Wyatt was born.”

“What about what
you
want?”

“I don’t know what I want.” That’s why she was so lucky to have Tony, Chris almost screamed. He knew what was best for her.

“He keeps track of your periods,” Susan repeated wondrously, as if trying to make sense of the words.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. Look, I’ve blown this whole thing way out of proportion. I do that all the time.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Who says you do?” Barbara asked. “Tony?”

“You don’t blow things out of proportion, Chris,” Susan said. “Chris, are you listening to me?”

“I have to go home,” Chris said, spinning on her heels, walking back toward the car. “If you won’t drive me, I’ll hitch a ride.” She looked up and down the road, saw no one.

“Of course we’ll drive you,” Vicki said, chasing after her.

“Chris, wait up!” Chris heard them call from somewhere behind her.

“Chris, please, we’re on your side.”

Were they?

“We didn’t mean to upset you,” Barbara said as they climbed back inside the car.

Chris kept her head down on the drive back to Mariemont, her eyes in her lap. “I really want this baby.”

“Of course you do.”

“We want whatever you want.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Chris said as Vicki pulled
her car onto Grand Avenue. Chris saw Tony’s shadow watching from behind the living room window as she pushed open the rear door and climbed out of the car. Had he been standing there all this time?

“We love you,” Barbara called after her. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I know that.” Chris wrapped the words around her like a shawl. “I love you too.”

Her front door opened. “Hey, baby,” Tony said. “You’re home early.”

“I missed you,” Chris told him, stepping across the threshold, closing the door behind her without looking back.

M
ommy! Mommy!”

Susan flipped over onto her right side, strained to look through the darkness toward the clock radio by her husband’s side of the bed. Not even 4 A.M. “Oh, God,” she moaned, knowing less than two hours had passed since she’d finally drifted off to sleep, a sleep plagued by worried thoughts and restless dreams. Guess I’m not the only one, she thought, listening to Ariel’s repeated cries, about to toss off her blankets and see what was bothering the child when her husband’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“I’ll go,” Owen said, sounding as tired as she felt.

“You’re sure?”

“Get some sleep.” His lips brushed against Susan’s forehead as he climbed out of bed.

Susan heard her husband wrestling with his bathrobe at the foot of the four-poster bed, felt the vibrations of his bare feet on the carpet as he walked briskly from the room. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
she heard him ask as he pushed open the door to Ariel’s room.

“I had a nightmare,” she heard Ariel sob.

Susan knew all about nightmares. One nightmare in particular, she thought, closing her eyes, immediately seeing herself hunched over her desk in her Medieval Drama class, frantically trying to tame an unwieldy assortment of papers, to pummel them into some sort of coherent order, failing miserably, and then hearing her name shouted out loud, as if over a PA system: “Susan. Susan Norman. We’ll hear your presentation now,” as Professor Currier’s bald head bobbed up and down and Susan gathered her errant papers together and squeezed herself out of her seat, making her way to the front of the classroom.

It was always at this moment in the dream that Susan realized she was naked. Alarmed, she’d try to preserve some modesty by hiding behind her papers, scrunching her shoulders forward, her pendulous breasts crushing against the small but bothersome roll of flesh at her stomach. But this new posture only emphasized the abundance of her exposed backside, and she’d hear the laughter of the other students, see their mocking fingers pointing toward her. Quickly she’d bring one hand around behind her, the sudden action sending her papers scattering, as she was forced to her hands and knees in a vain effort to retrieve them, the cruel laughter around her building to an almost deafening crescendo.

That was usually the moment when she woke up, Susan thought gratefully, watching Owen tiptoe back across the carpet toward the bed. He threw his
bathrobe across the nearby chair and climbed under the covers, snuggling against her. “What was the problem?” she asked.

“She wet the bed,” her husband said matter-of-factly.

Susan’s entire body tensed. She had a class first thing in the morning, and she couldn’t just hand her mother a load of soiled linen as soon as the poor woman walked in the door. Could she?
Hi there. Ariel wet the bed again. I know you baby-sit every day and this wasn’t exactly part of our deal, but could you maybe do a few loads of wash and change the sheets since I have an important class and you’re just sitting around doing nothing but taking care of my children?

“It’s okay,” Owen said, as if she’d been speaking out loud. “I changed the sheets and put the wet ones in the washing machine.”

Susan sat up in bed, stared down at her husband of eleven years. “You did all that?”

“Piece of cake,” he mumbled, eyes closed.

“How’d I get so lucky?”

“Get some sleep.” A satisfied smile settled into the lines around Owen’s eyes and mouth.

“I love you,” Susan whispered, curling into the crook of his arm. Owen Norman might not be considered especially good-looking—he was of medium height and build and his features were too ordinary to be considered either distinguished or interesting—but he was a kind and decent man, not to mention a wonderful doctor, and everyone who knew him, patients and friends alike, trusted and admired him.

Susan turned onto her left side, felt Owen turn with
her, his hand falling across her generous expanse of hip. She was restless. The incident with Chris this afternoon had unsettled and upset her. Clearly, something was very wrong, something more than Chris was letting on, something more than the prospect of another baby, however ill-timed its conception. The women had discussed it over coffee at Vicki’s house, tried to devise strategies for drawing Chris out, ultimately decided they had no choice but to wait until Chris was ready to come to them. Whatever problems she was having, whatever Chris wasn’t telling them, was her business. They had to be patient, understanding, and above all quiet. Or they risked losing her altogether.

Susan flipped onto her back, tried to determine the precise moment Chris had begun her withdrawal. Had there been one defining moment, or had the changes in Chris’s relationship with the others changed gradually over time? Had their friendship soured as slowly and imperceptibly as a long-standing marriage in the final stages of decay?

Was that the problem? Susan wondered, rolling onto her other side. Were there cracks in Chris and Tony’s marriage? Chris had denied it, but if Tony was seriously considering starting his own agency, that would be very expensive, and money was obviously tight. A third baby …

He keeps track of her periods! Susan thought, kicking the blanket from around her feet.

“Susan,” Owen was saying, “what’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Susan returned to her back, saw Owen’s concerned face looming above hers.

“You haven’t stopped twitching since I got back into bed.”

“I’m sorry.” Susan recalled the fear in Chris’s eyes when she confided she might be pregnant. What exactly was she so afraid of?
He keeps track of her periods!
Susan thought again. “I just can’t seem to get comfortable,” she said.

“Still worrying about Chris?”

“No.” After a pause, Susan admitted, “Well, trying not to.” What was the point in pretending otherwise? She’d never been able to fool Owen. Never really wanted to, she realized, thinking again how lucky she was.