HAPPILY EVER BEFORE (5 page)

Big decisions are hard. Big decisions that involve your uterus are even harder. To make such a decision you must be armed with a few things: your best friend, a never ending flow of
alcohol, a pen or number two pencil
, some paper, fried calamari, spinach and artichoke heart dip, and a booth in Piazza Bella, a fabulous Italian restaurant deep in the heart of
Chicago
’s
Roscoe
Village
. At this moment, Grace was in such a booth. To her right sat George with an almost empty bottle of red wine; to her left was her own almost empty bottle of white wine and with all of these tools available big decisions should be as easy as one, two, three. Unless one, two, three referred to how many bottles of wine you drank and how quickly you tossed them back. Grace leaned into the table and poured herself another glass of wine. “Ooh, I should put down being the mother of my own niece or nephew as a pro.
No, no as a con.”

George picked up a breadstick and pretended to smoke it.  “Face it. There are no pros to being artificially
impreganated
, damn that’s hard to say.”

“Yes
thherre
are!” Grace picked up the smudged cocktail napkin, “There’s
helwping
Clair be an aunt, a
grandmamama
, a daddy, oops, not
Clairrrr
, but you know people, and there’s something about a perm, I’d have a perm. I looked good in a perm, didn’t I?”

“Not perm, it’s
sssperm
, you wrote it on the wrong side.”

Grace put her head down on the table. “I’d have
sppperm
in my hair. I don’t want
sppperm
in my hair, but, I looked good in a perm right?”

George bit her breadstick. “You looked
awwwful
. You were on the
sweam
team-- your hair was fried like a
wooonton
.
Woonton
,
woonton
,
wontonwontonwontonwonton
.
That’s fun, you try it.”

Grace pushed herself off the table. “
Wontonwontonwonton
-- I don’t get it.” She tried to sit up straight. “I looked good in a perm, I did.”

“
Okawy
, you looked good in a perm. No, I can’t. You looked like a dead French poodle.”

“Least I didn’t put Sun-
Innnnn
in my hair and turned it orange!”

George laughed. “We were quite the pair, the dead poodle and the orange haired Amazonian.” They shared a look, giggled, and then fell into uncontrollable laughter.

Grace munched happily away on a handful of fried calamari. “We should get tattoos. I could get a stork for the other side of my ass.”

“What other side?” asked
George.
  Grace got up, looked around the bar, and dropped trough to reveal her dolphin. “Oh, that other side, but what if you say no? You’d have a stork on your ass forever.”

Grace pulled her pants back up. “You could get one too.”

“Why? I’m never having somebody else’s kid; fuck!” George spilled her wine.

“Kid fuck? Is that slang for dating a bachelor boy who doesn’t want to get married or is that for dating a single married man?”

They got quiet for a few seconds. Not because they wanted to share some sort of deep thought moment, but because they’d lost track of the conversation. It took a second, but George picked up the missing thread. “I’m
nevereverever
having my
owwwn
kid,
I can’t even find a nice guy to date.” George decided to lie down.

Grace could only see the top of her friends’ bent knees. “
Georgie
if we wanted to be in a good solid relationship we’d be in it. It has nothing to do with getting a stork on your ass.”

George hit her head on the table. “
Oww
, you’ve got a point.”

Grace struggled to sit up. “So, are you in?”

George pulled her drunken ass out of the booth. “You’ve
gotta
be in it, to win it! But, first I’ve
gotta
pee!”

“There’s got to be a morning after…” and like the
lyrics written and sung by Maureen McGovern for the movie, “The Poseidon Adventure,” the morning after wasn’t
very good. Grace woke up on the living room floor in George’s sleek penthouse. After a night out with her friend and champion drinker she was used to having her whole body ache, but this time there was an unmistakable throbbing in her ass. She rolled over and tried to get a handle on the time. She couldn’t tell if the Tiffany clock on the mantle was saying it was
eight o’clock
in the morning or maybe twenty to one in the afternoon or twenty to one in the morning or maybe
eight o’clock
at night? All she could gather right now was that her tongue was fuzzy, her ass killed, and George was snoring like a bulldog on her Shabby Chic sectional. Grace picked herself off the floor, stumbled past the couch to the kitchen, opened the fridge and poured a glass of orange juice, and became fascinated at how George was laying on the couch. She was on her stomach, Grace knew George hated sleeping on her stomach, she was
bare
assed, George only did one thing bare assed, no, wait, that’s a thong! Grace was relieved, but the thing that really caught her eye was that her lower body was propped with a pillow.

Grace tiptoed to get a better look and gasped as it hit her. She stared at the stork tattoo on her friend’s bare butt when Grace’s glass of orange juice slipped out of her hand and splashed down on George’s ass. George ricocheted off the couch and landed the most obscene, yet oddly menacing, “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” pose anyone who has watched porn has ever scene. Apparently, Grace was wrong--George wasn’t wearing a thong.

“You have a stork on your ass!”

George struggled to keep her balance. “Why is my ass burning?”

Grace ran into the kitchen to grab a paper towel. “I spilled O.J. on your ass.”

“How in the fuck?
Did you? What the hell?” George started jumping around the apartment while Grace chased her with a paper towel. “It hurts, it hurts,
it
hurts!”

“Stand still!”

George allowed Grace to do something she never expected anyone to do for her until she was at least eight-five years old--wipe her ass. “It hurts.”

“Okay, okay,
oooh
, lay back down,
oooh
.” Grace led George back to the couch. “It’s a little red. Okay, a lot of red.” George could still feel the burn as Grace tried not to panic. “Maybe we should call 911?”

George freaked out. “You are 911!”

Grace had dealt with burn victims before, but this really wasn’t a burn. She had dealt with skin irritations and allergic reactions before, so maybe if she combined the two protocols… “Are you allergic to oranges?” she asked as she rushed to the bathroom.

“I’m allergic to assholes
who
dump orange juice on my ass five hours after I’ve gotten a tattoo!” George buried her head into the couch cushions and screamed.

Grace came back with an armful of supplies, got a glass of water, had George take some Motrin, and then she set about dressing the wounds. As she washed the red inflamed area with the cool wet washcloth, she noticed the craftsmanship that had gone into the creation of the stork tattoo and was impressed. She hoped hers looked just as good. While she wrapped her friend’s left buttock in a sterile bandage and harnessed it with adhesive tape, George had an epiphany. “This has got to stop. I’m too old for this shit!”

 Grace patted down the last bit of tape.
“For tattoos and OJ on your ass?”

“Well, for starters yeah.” George closed her eyes. “I drink too much when I’m with you, when I’m alone, when I have a shitty day, when I’ve have a great day, when I’m happy, when I’m sad. I drink too much! And, it’s not fun anymore. I have the inflamed stork on my ass to prove it.”

Grace knew there was some truth in that, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Yeah, but you know we’re just having fun.”

George let the reality of her life sink in. “I need to do something about this.”

Grace watched as George accepted a harsh truth. “You mean like AA?”

George winced.
“Ugh, AA meetings.
Grace, they’re in church basements and YMCA’s and people wear bad shoes and drink shitty coffee. I’m going to have to start smoking again ‘cause they all smoke and then I’m going to have to get the nicotine patch.” Grace made room next to George on the Shabby Chic sectional and stared up at the ceiling with her. George sighed. “Will you go with me?” 

“Yeah, I have lots of shitty shoes.” Grace affectionately tugged George’s hair. “And, you know what I’ll do better than that I’ll quit drinking with you.”

“Really?
You’d do that for me?”

“Of course, that’s what friends do.”

George was certain most friends didn’t do that only exceptional friends like Grace. “Thanks. Uh, but even though you’re quitting drinking with me if you decide to have Clair’s baby, I’m not getting knocked up too, but, I’ll take you to a fat farm after if you want.”

Grace laughed. “If we’re not drinking or smoking and I’m getting knocked up we may need more than the promise of a fat farm to get us through this.”

“Well, what if it’s a fat farm in
Bali
with half nude male models waiting on us hand and foot?”

Grace grinned. “You’re getting warmer.”
           

Clair nursed a cup of coffee as she waited for her mother and Grace to arrive. She hated the color orange and yet here she sat in a restaurant named
Orange
, whose décor was completely
orange
based. She didn’t know anyone or anything other than a pumpkin or an orange that looked good in orange. Yet, here she sat debating the color orange because she was too nervous to allow herself to wonder why Grace wanted to have brunch on a Thursday. Who had brunch on a Thursday?

Grace entered the restaurant a few steps behind her mom. Even though she was branded with a stork a whole four days ago, her ass still ached. She had forgotten the pros and cons of getting a tattoo on your ass. Pro: very fleshy and cushiony, so less pain than say your leg. Con: very fleshly and cushiony, hence, why the big guy upstairs made it the place you sat on, so more pain than say your leg. Ever since her session with Dr.
Yael
, the Nubian Goddess, Grace has been into the pros and cons list. She was astonished that you could use such a list in every area of your life--from laundry to sex and back again. She found it fascinating. Grace spied Clair sitting under a portrait of an orange. She knew it wasn’t a still life because her mother made her memorize the difference between a still life and a portrait when she was sixteen. A still life gave the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition. Portraits are often simple headshots and are not very elaborate. Grace found it disturbing that she had enormous amounts of useless information in her head. As she cautiously sat down, she wondered how her mother would classify the stork on her ass; was it a still life or a portrait?

Clair read the menu. Grace read the menu. Diane tried to read her daughter’s mind, but couldn’t tell if Grace had made a decision yet. However, she kept shifting uncomfortably in her seat, so that had to account for something. She didn’t care what decision Grace made, she just wanted to be ready once the decision had been made. The waitress came over and as the girls placed their orders, Diane thought that maybe Grace’s choice of breakfast food would clue them in to which way she was leaning. She smiled to herself.  She wasn’t sure what she expected--that pancakes meant yes, I’ll be your surrogate and, perhaps, an
omelette
meant no? Diane decided she had had enough. “What the hell is going on?”

Grace and Clair were both startled. The waitress sensing some sort of mother-daughter confrontation hurried to place their order. Grace laughed. “Well, you sure scared the shit out of her!”

“Oh, well I didn’t mean too. Grace what’s going on?”

“Yeah,” chimed in Clair, “what’s the deal?”

Grace took a sip of her water and carefully chose her words. “I had another session with NG.” Diane had no idea who her daughter was talking about and looked to Clair for help.

“Grace calls the psychologist that the surrogacy program referred to her to as the Nubian Goddess, NG for short.”

Diane clucked her tongue, “to her face?”

“Why, is it offensive? Should I just call her the goddess?”

Clair snapped, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Grace, just tell us why we’re here.”

“Hmm, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“Grace,” implored Diane in her frustrated mother tone, “stop torturing us.”

“Okay, okay, the NG had me create a pros and cons list, you know, on the whole being a surrogate for Clair and Henry thing., which wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be, but, well, I have no idea what you expect out of this.”

Clair wasn’t sure what she meant. “You mean besides a baby?”

Grace rattled off her concerns. “How is it going to work? Do you expect complete control over my body if the procedure is successful? Obviously, you’ll be paying the medical expenses, but what about maternity clothes? My feet are going to swell, so I’ll need new shoes. What if it doesn’t take the first time; how many times are you willing to try and really, how many times am I willing to try? Do you expect me to pump breast milk, so you can feed the baby or will we let my breasts dry up? What happens if I have to go on bed rest? I am thirty-five, so it could happen and if it does who will live with me, how will I pay my bills,
who
will do my grocery shopping? And, what if I don’t like your OBGYN, will you find one that I like?”

Clair looked at her Mother and then grabbed a waiter as he walked by. “I need a Bloody Mary, now!” The waiter hesitated, saw the desperation in Clair’s eyes, and took off.

Diane called after him, “Make that three. And make them strong.”

After six Bloody
Marys
and one round of surrogacy roulette, the Higgins’ trio was still figuring out the logistics to baby-gate. Clair was exhausted. “I think the best thing would be for us to let your breasts dry up.”

Grace tucked into her French toast. “But, breast milk is the best thing for a newborn.”

“I know, but it would be too hard on you. You’d be pumping milk for a baby that isn’t yours. And, really, the kid is going to be my kid, so I should feed him or her.”

“Yeah, but breast feeding is not only the best thing for the child, but it’s also the best weight loss remedy there is. So, I could pump and then you could use what I pump. It’s a shame they don’t have wet nurses anymore.”

Clair poured herself another Bloody Mary. “That is gross! We’ll send you to a health spa.”

“George says she’ll go to a fat farm with me.” Grace suddenly felt guilty. “Don’t tell her I drank, okay? I promised her I’d go on the wagon with her, but since I’m not taking her to an AA meeting until Saturday…”

Diane was happy George was finally going to clean up her act.
“The wagon?
That’s great. I hope it sticks.”

“You’re not the only one,” said Grace. “Okay, so breast feeding is officially off the table. If you don’t want your baby to have the benefits of breast milk, fine by me. What do you think Mom?”

Diane contemplated the oddness of their conversation.  “I never expected to be here. You know, with my daughters discussing the boundaries of carrying one another’s child, its uncharted territory.”

Clair smiled. “We’re nothing if not borderline original. I’m sure there’s a Lifetime original movie about this very subject that we missed.”

“I’m so Mary Louise Parker.”

“Mary Louise Parker?” Clair made a face.

“She’s the new Melissa Gilbert,” said Grace.

Clair thought about it. “I could live with that.” She turned to her Mom and was about to say something when she noticed her staring at someone across the restaurant. She kicked Grace under the table. Grace followed her gaze. That someone, was a man-- tall, well built, in his late sixties, early seventies, handsome, but didn’t know it, and extremely comfortable in his own skin. Now, if this were one of those Lifetime original movies, he would be a long lost relative like a rich uncle, a deadbeat brother, or Patricia’s first husband and he would start a torrid love affair with Diane and cause strife in the family.  But, because this isn’t one of those stories, the truth was he was just a man. A man who ignited a much extinguished longing in the heart of the beautiful, independent, and always charming Diane Higgins.

“He’s cute,” whispered Grace.

“Totally,” said Clair.

“Really?
You think so? I guess he’s okay,” a red-faced Diane said.

Grace studied the man as he sat with friends.  “He doesn’t look like he’s romantically involved with any of them. Do you know him?”

Diane was immediately flustered. “He’s just a guy who comes into the museum occasionally.”

Clair grinned.
“How occasionally?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I look for him.”

“Fridays, she’s always dressed up on Fridays.  You’ve noticed that, right?” a knowing Clair declared.

Grace laughed.
“Or Wednesdays.
She made a point to reapply her lipstick after we had lunch last week. I bet that’s when he comes in.” Grace egged her sister on. “I bet his name is something regal like Pendleton, yeah, Foster Pendleton.”

Clair cracked up. “No, he’s a guys’ guy. He’s wearing jeans with a jacket. His name is Chuck. Oh, no wait,
it’s
Anthony Daniels, but his friends call him Tony.”

“It’s Salvatore
Piceno
, but he goes by Sal,” blurted Diane. “I looked up his membership status. He’s single, a widow, a retired lawyer, and he volunteers with the ACLU, as well at The Sisters of Mercy Mission downtown where he counsels homeless families and helps rehabilitate them.”

“
Geez
, how much information do you have to give to become a member of the Museum?” giggled Clair, “
are
you an undercover FBI profiler?”

“Faye in membership knows him. Now, can we please drop the subject?” implored their Mother.

“So, you haven’t spoken to him? Are you going to?” queried Grace.

Diane sighed. “Just leave it alone, okay? It’s a harmless flirtation.”

“Really?
Do you bat your eyelashes at him?”

“Grace Heloise Higgins,” threatened Diane, “drop the subject or else!”

 “You’re going to send me to my room? Or, will you punish me and make me go to bed every night without watching TV?”

Diane sighed. “If we can change our history, so you can say you went on tour with Death Parade and Clair suffered from exhaustion, can’t we just call this a harmless crush and let it go?”

“That could be arranged.” said Clair, “but only if you talk to him.”

“Yeah,” replied Grace.

“Fine, when you make a decision about your womb, I’ll talk to him. Okay?”

“Deal,” said Grace.

“Deal,” said Clair.

Diane sighed. “Can we get back to more important things like what happens if Grace has to go on bed rest? For the record, she’s not moving in with me. She is the most difficult sick person I’ve ever met--well, next to your father.” They took a moment to pause on the memory of their beloved Popsicle.

“I’m not difficult,” retorted Grace.

“No, you’re a bitch. There’s a difference,” laughed Clair.

“I don’t like burnt toast, who likes burnt toast?” Grace scowled at her sister. “I’d be a little nicer if I were you; this womb is no way near to being yours yet.”

Diane rolled her eyes, then turned to get their waitress and noticed that Sal was looking at her. She got nervous and immediately spilled a glass of water. Her daughters jumped, “oh, shit Mom,” and swung into action to clean up her mess as Diane turned bright red and hung her head in embarrassment.