The Misconception (27 page)

She could hear them now: Who’s your baby’s father? What role will he play in your lives? How does he feel about you advocating that fathers have no part in raising their children?

She should be euphoric that a show as respected as
All Things Considered
wanted her as a guest. Instead, she felt as though a vacuum had sucked the happiness out of her.

Deep in thought, Marietta bit her lip as she slowly made her way down the hall to her office. Maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to talk about
Motherhood Without Males
on
All Things Considered
.

She had a half-dozen other provocative topics. Sex Without Love. Breaking Up Is Easy To Do. Animal Adultery. Surely, she could convince the programmers that a fresh topic was more interesting than a rehashed one.

In doing so, she’d buy herself more time to figure out what to do about Jax.

She glanced down at her stomach, which was getting rounder by the day. She was starting her fourth month, which meant she couldn’t hide her pregnancy much longer. But even a little time was precious.

By the time Marietta returned home that night, flush with the success of getting
All Things Considered
to agree to a topic switch, she’d convinced herself it wouldn’t hurt to tell Jax about the baby’s heartbeat boom-boom-booming inside her.

She wouldn’t seek him out, of course. All she’d need do is wait until he decided to pester her. Two hours after walking through the door, Marietta was still waiting. She’d started toward his place a half-dozen times, but always stopped herself. No need to appear too eager. Jax would come to her. That was the pattern with them. He always came to her.

A rustling outside the door brought a smug smile to her lips. She put down the magazine on motherhood she hadn’t been able to concentrate on and edged forward on the chair, prepared to answer the doorbell whenever he rang it.

Instead, the door opened and Tracy came through it, dressed from head to toe in a color Marietta hadn’t known existed in her wardrobe. Black. She hadn’t even brightened the outfit with one of her crazy scarves. Instead, her stylish jeans, low-heeled boots and short-sleeved shirt were unremittingly black. She’d even had her curly auburn locks artificially darkened. She looked like she was advocating a new style — Grim Reaper Chic.

“Hey, Marietta,” Tracy said. She sounded tired, another thing previously alien to her nature.

“Hi, Tracy. Long day?”

“Um, hmm.” Tracy crossed the room and plopped down onto the sofa across from Marietta, letting her head fall back against the cushions. “I’ve been running since I took Jax to the airport this morning. He fixed your car, by the way. Just popped the hood, took a look inside, did a couple of things and, presto, it ran. Isn’t it amazing how men can do that?”

Only the first part of Tracy’s answer registered on Marietta. She felt her face sag. “You took Jax to the airport? You mean he’s not home?”

“Nope. He won’t be for two weeks. He has business, then he’s going to Drew’s high school graduation.”

“Drew?”

“His brother.”

“Jax has a brother?”

“He has two brothers.” Tracy lifted her head and peered at her. “Geez, don’t you guys ever talk?”

“Not about his family.” Marietta was suddenly curious about the people who had spawned him, but she couldn’t ask Tracy to fill her in. If she did, Tracy would assume she was interested, which she was, but not for the reasons her sister would dream up.

“Drew, the one graduating from high school, just turned eighteen. His passion is wrestling, and he should be hearing any day now whether he got into MIT for the fall semester. Billy’s a year older and just finished his freshman year at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He’s interested in a career having to do with the outdoors. They live outside Chicago with their mother, whose name is Sheila. She’s fifty. The father isn’t in the picture.” Tracy lifted a brow. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“I didn’t ask you to tell me about them.”

“Yeah, right.” Tracy dropped her head back on the sofa and closed her eyes. “You wanted to know so badly you were injuring your lips by keeping them pressed so tightly together.”

“Don’t make this into something it’s not, Tracy. Curiosity is an evolutionary adaptation. Early primates dwelled in trees and resembled squirrels in their habits. Curiosity, like grasping hands, is an arboreal adaptation.”

“Spare me the biology lesson, Marietta,” Tracy said without opening her eyes. “I may only be a hairdresser, but I’m smart enough to know you wouldn’t be curious about just anybody.”

“That’s not tr. . .” Marietta paused in the middle of her denial. “What did you mean by ‘only a hairdresser’?”

“Just what I said.” Tracy sat up straight and looked at her with sad eyes. “I know you don’t have a very high opinion of hairdressing as a career.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Oh, let’s see.” Tracy tapped her lip, pretending to think. The truth was that Tracy didn’t need to think about it anymore. That’s all she’d been doing since Ryan pointed out there was nothing wrong with who she was: a hairdresser who loved her job. “The way you keep pushing me to become an anthropologist.”

“I thought you wanted to become an anthropologist.”

“No,” Tracy said, surprised at the passion behind the denial. She wouldn’t be saying any of this if she weren’t in such a foul mood, but it was past time it came out. “I want to be exactly what I am: a hairdresser. I
like
cutting hair, Marietta. I like helping people feel better about themselves by making them look good. It makes me feel needed.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

Tracy sighed, emotionally drained by her tirade. “I didn’t tell you, because you’re such an intellectual. I didn’t tell you, because I thought you’d be disappointed in me.”

“Disappointed?” Marietta’s voice cracked on the word. Through the tears gathering in her eyes, Tracy could see her approaching the sofa. Then her sister’s arms were around her, the way they hadn’t been in too long. “I could never be disappointed in you, Tracy. I only want you to be happy.”

The tears streamed in thick rivulets down Tracy’s cheeks as she clung to her sister. The closeness they’d always shared wrapped around her like a warm blanket, and in that instant she felt she could tell Marietta anything.

“How can I be happy,” Tracy ask on a sob, “without Ryan?”

“Oh, honey. You still think you love him, don’t you?”

“I do love him. I know you don’t believe in love, Mari, but a part of me is missing without him. It’s a constant physical ache. It’s like half the cells in my body were cut away, but I’m expected to function. I can still laugh and smile, but it takes so much more effort than it used to.”

“If you’re thinking about taking him back, you have to ask yourself some hard questions.” Marietta’s voice was gentle. “Such as if you could ever trust him again.”

“I know. I know.” Confusion descended on Tracy like rain from a stormy sky. She no longer knew what she thought about the scene she’d witnessed in the hotel lobby. It seemed surreal. She knew the woman had been in Ryan’s arms, but things had been so ideal between herself and Ryan, and Ryan so loving, that she could barely believe it had happened. “But I don’t think I’ll get to make that decision.”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“I don’t think he wants to get back together.” Tracy choked out her fears. “I wore the red dress, and he didn’t even notice. He doesn’t touch me. He says. . . he says he wants us to be friends.”

Tracy could no longer hold back the downpour of tears. She wept in her sister’s arms, grateful that Marietta didn’t say anything, but just held her and stroked her hair.

THREE HOURS BEFORE show time and a full sixty minutes before the gates opened to the public, the arena was empty except for the two wrestlers in the ring and the crews of workers setting up the sound and light systems.

Jax was in sweats, but Drilling Drake was already decked out in his dentist finery. A white lab coat worn so it gaped open to reveal a massive chest shorn of hair topped skin-tight white shorts. Considering Drake was several inches shorter but at least seventy-five pounds heavier than Jax, the wrestler didn’t resemble any dentist Jax had ever seen.

Drake clenched teeth that had been professionally whitened until they glistened, held up a household drill and took a few tentative steps forward.“Okay, here goes.” He sounded nervous, as though he were the patient instead of the dentist. “Open your mouth and hold still. Very, very still.”

Feigning fear, Jax retreated until his back was against the ropes. Then he scowled and put out a hand, stopping the other wrestler’s glacier-like progress. “Wait a minute. Why isn’t the drill turned on?”

“Aww, Jax,” Drake wailed. “I told you. We haven’t practiced it enough yet. I don’t want to turn on the drill until I’m sure I won’t knock out your teeth.”

Jax crossed his arms over his chest. “Stop worrying about my teeth and start thinking about the act. If we don’t rehearse this, we’re not going to get it right tonight.”

Drake made a face and rubbed a hand over his lower jaw. “I don’t know about this, pal. I appreciate you giving me the idea and all, but are you sure I need to add a drill to my act?”

“Are you kidding? You’re a demented dentist. The audience is supposed to hate you. Can you think of a better way to get them going than taking a drill to their hero’s mouth?”

“Considering you’re their hero, I woulda thought you’d think of a better way. You’re a sick man, Jax. Did you know that?”

Jax laughed, crossed to Drake and switched on the drill. The overhead lights shone on Drake’s perfectly bald, irregularly shaped head, making it gleam like a newly polished Easter egg. In that moment, he did look demented. Jax thought he looked perfect.

“Relax, Drake.” Jax shouted to be heard above the drill. “If we do it right, the drill won’t even touch me. Just get me into a headlock and I’ll open up. Bring the drill close enough so it only looks like you’re drilling. The audience will eat it up.”

Drake shut off the drill. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“What are you going to do after I take it out?” Drake asked, and Jax understood he was stalling. Didn’t he see the potential in the act? Didn’t he realize this kind of theater was what made pro wrestling so perfect?

“I’m going to moan like a hero with aching teeth, of course.” Jax said. “I might even juice myself.”

In pro-wrestler speak, juicing meant causing yourself to bleed. The way it was usually done, the referee handed off a sliver of a razor blade to the “injured” wrestler. Being careful not to hurt himself, the wrestler made a small incision in the crease of his brow, causing blood to flow.

“Won’t work,” Drake said. “You should be bleeding from the mouth, not the brow. Besides, isn’t the ref gonna be looking the other way when I bring out the drill?”

That was another standard of pro wrestling. Whenever the villain did something truly dastardly, the referee was never in

position to see it. That way, the crowd had more reason to boo.

“I didn’t think about that. I guess screaming in pain will have to be enough.”

The demented dentist shuddered, as though imagining Jax would be screaming in real pain if he didn’t keep the drill steady. Jax figured it was time to lighten him up. “Hey, Drake. Why did the wrestlers have to compete in the dark?”

Drake gave him the blank stare most wrestlers affected before the punch lines to his jokes. Jax figured they thought themselves too macho to react. “Because their match wouldn’t light,” he finished.

Jax laughed. Drake, predictably, fought off his hilarity.

“If I don’t turn on the drill, you’ll tell another joke, won’t you?” Drake asked.

“You need ‘em, buddy. Why did the—”

Drake switched on the drill. It made a whirring sound that ran through Jax like the thrill kids got from the dips on a roller-coaster ride. This was going to be great.

Jax smiled, then opened his mouth wide.