What Came First (10 page)

Our first year together was really sweet, probably our best, now that I look back on it. Eric really talked to me then. About his family, his music, and his dreams. When he told me how much he wanted to quit his job and travel through Asia, I told him, “Go. If you don’t do it now, you’ll always regret it.”

Sure, I was afraid I’d lose him, but I kept thinking about that old saying. You know, if you love something set it free, and if it’s yours it’ll come back. So when Eric came back a year later, I thought it meant that he was mine. Three years have passed since then. I’m twenty-nine years old and starting to think that I shouldn’t base my life decisions on stuff I read on a poster.

Everyone’s at Eric’s mom’s house tonight, Eric’s brothers A.J. and J.J., along with their wives and kids. Eric has a sister, too, but she lives in Florida. I’ve only met her twice. Both times, she pretty much ignored me, but Eric said that it had nothing to do with me, she’s just like that.

The house is a ranch, built in like the sixties, but Eric’s parents renovated it in the nineties, so it’s got high ceilings and granite countertops and stuff. The backyard is huge and has a pool and a built-in barbecue that doesn’t work very well but looks nice. There’s lots of trees and grass everywhere. My family never had much money, and I think it would have been amazing to grow up in the kind of house that Eric did, but he acts like it’s no big deal, just like he thinks it’s no big deal that his parents paid for college and he didn’t even have to work or take out loans.

We’re the last ones to arrive and most people are in the kitchen, drinking beer and wine, fussing with dinner, and eating chips and salsa and veggies and dip. Everyone’s talking loudly because the huge-screen TV is blasting cartoons in the attached family room. On the floor, the kids play with plastic dolls, superheroes, and blocks.

Everyone says hi, and then Angie, who’s married to A.J., tosses her flat-ironed hair and goes, “Wow, it’s getting late. We thought maybe you weren’t coming.” She smirks, like she thinks she’s so superior. Or maybe she’s just trying to hide her braces. Or both. She runs a stalk of celery through some sour cream dip and nibbles carefully so she doesn’t break a bracket.

Every time I get really sad about me and Eric maybe not getting married, I think about how at least then I wouldn’t have to see Angie anymore.

“Traffic bad?” Eric’s mom asks. She’s a tiny thing but she talks too loud even when the TV isn’t on because her hearing’s not so great.

Eric shrugs. “No worse than usual.”

“It was bad,” I say, trying to be casual but coming off like I’m talking back to Angie. Which I am. She lives three miles away. She could practically walk here.

“We have Costco stores here too, you know,” Eric’s mom says. “If that’s where you’re going to work.”

Eric’s mouth tightens, just a little bit. “Yeah, but you don’t have the ocean.”

I don’t care that much about the ocean and wouldn’t mind living in Glendale, which is prettier and cheaper than Redondo. Except then I’d be spending more than one day a week with Angie, so it’s probably not worth it.

Angie and A.J. have three boys, all totally cute and sweet even though their mother is a witch. When the oldest, Ty, sees us, he makes this buzzing noise and runs right into Eric, head-butting his stomach. Ty’s six and weighs nothing, but Eric goes, “Ugh!” and falls over. Ty’s little brothers, Ryan and Hayden, think it’s hysterical and jump all over Eric on the floor. Eric makes more “Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!” noises, for real this time because Hayden is bouncing on his stomach. The scene is so sweet it makes me want to cry.

Angie and I don’t really look alike (God, I hope not), but since she’s Colombian and I’m half Mexican, we have similar coloring. So I figure if Eric and I had children, they’d look kind of like Ty, Ryan, and Hayden. All three boys have skin that looks tanned instead of just brown, gold eyes, and streaky light brown hair that looks like Angie highlights it. I wouldn’t put it past her, but I’ve checked their roots a whole bunch of times, and it’s natural.

If Eric and I had kids together, would they get that golden skin with the streaky hair? What if I used a sperm donor with Eric’s hair color? What would my kids look like then?

Eric, A.J., and J.J. look like brothers, but Eric’s the most handsome because A.J. has really big nostrils and J.J. doesn’t have much of a chin. Also, since Eric’s the only one without a desk job, he’s in better shape and usually kind of tan. Kara, J.J.’s wife, is blond and skinny, and so are their kids, Emma and Christopher.

As always, the kids eat first. Kara and Angie always make entirely separate meals. Kara (who’s really nice, don’t get me wrong) is all about organic this and antioxidant that and how little boys will grow breasts if you let them drink milk from cows that took hormones. Today her kids eat whole-wheat spaghetti with turkey Bolognese sauce, steamed broccoli, and nonfat milk.

Angie’s kids get pizza rolls, french fries, and some orange drink that supposedly contains vitamin C and calcium. Angie says, “If you deprive kids, they’ll end up craving stuff
.
” Which makes her sound better than “I am too lazy to cook real food.”

The kids take a long time to eat, and then Emma, who’s three, has a major meltdown because Kara won’t let her eat chocolate chip cookies that Angie just baked. Well—heated. They were the frozen dough kind that you just stick on a sheet. It’s so late and I’m so hungry, I’m ready to cry for one of the cookies too. The chips and celery sticks are just not cutting it.

Finally, we plant the kids in front of a Monster Truck DVD and go into the dining room. There’s a fresh lace cloth on the table, and Eric’s mom has put out her china even though we’re eating meat loaf. The first time I ate dinner here, I felt really scared. What fork do I use? Am I holding my water glass correctly?

Okay, I still feel that way.

Things are so different in the cramped Riverside house that my mother shares with my sister and her three kids. There are elbows on the table and Cheetos on the floor. Everyone eats when and wherever they want to. My mother yells about all the dirty dishes lying around, but everyone ignores her.

Aurora got pregnant for the first time when she was sixteen and I was fifteen. I couldn’t believe she was so stupid. It was even stupider for her to get pregnant two more times, at eighteen and twenty-one. The last guy was the only one she married, and he only married her because of the baby, who was two months old at the time of the wedding. Shock of shocks, the marriage didn’t last, but at least he gives her child support, at least when he’s got a job.

I was never going to be stupid like that. Oh, no, I’d get an education, find a nice guy, get married, buy a house. I had everything figured out.

Now, at the lace-covered table in Glendale, I sit next to Eric, and Kara sits next to me. She’s known Angie a lot longer, but I’m pretty sure she likes me better, and not just because I’ve never tried to feed her kids nonorganic cookies.

“You been doing anything for fun lately?” I ask her. Over celery sticks, we’d already talked about Emma’s allergies and how Christopher was adjusting to first grade. Kara’s a little crazy on the food front, but she’s a really good mom.

“I’ve been too busy with the kids to do much,” she said. “But I joined a book club,” she says. “We just read
Eat, Pray, Love
.”

“Did you like it?” I think Pammy read that book. Or maybe she saw the movie.

Kara wrinkles her nose. “I couldn’t get beyond the
Eat
part. The author clearly suffers from an eating disorder. Otherwise, yeah, I’ve just been doing stuff with the kids, karate and whatnot. Plus I’ve been working on my family tree, going to surprise my parents at Christmas. I’m all the way back to the 1500s on my mother’s side.”

“In the United States?” I ask.

She blinks funny. Next to me, Eric clears his throat.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

Eric looks at me. Then at Kara. Then back to me. And finally at his plate. “Europeans didn’t settle in America until the 1600s.”

I adjust the cloth napkin in my lap. “Oh. Right. I knew that.” Sort of.

“I planted tomatoes today,” Eric’s mother says (kinda loud). She is not trying to take attention away from my ignorance. With her bad hearing, she just has trouble following the conversation. Good news for me.

I dig into the meat loaf and keep my mouth shut for the rest of the meal.

Traffic moves quicker on the way home, but there are still lots of cars. The lines of taillights make me think of Christmas decorations. Which makes me think of how I didn’t get a ring for Christmas. Which makes me think of how I didn’t get a ring for my birthday either. The way things are going, I probably never will.

“I’m thinking about using a sperm bank,” I announce. When Eric doesn’t say anything, I make myself clearer. “To get pregnant.”

He nods, just a little bit, eyes on the road.

“How would you feel about that?” I ask.

He takes a long time to answer. When he does, his voice is quiet. “If that’s what you want, I think you should do it.”

“What do you want?” I press.

“I want you to be happy.”

“You know what would make me really happy?”

I wait for him to say “What?” So I can say, “Having your baby
.
” But he knows where I’m going with this, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I guess I didn’t think you’d like the idea so much. You know, me having some other guy’s kid.”

“If it’s what you want, you should go for it. I’d support you. Always.”

“You would?” My heart lifts for like half a second.

Then he explains. “As a friend. A good friend. But you’ve got to understand, this would be your baby, not mine. The way things are between us now, our relationship—it would be over.”

“But you went out with Paige!” I blurt. “How come it was okay that she had a kid?”

He sighs, like,
Oh God, why do we always have to talk about Paige?

He says, “She had a daughter before I came in the picture, and we both understood that Ophelia was just hers. I thought Ophelia understood it too, but . . .”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “After Ophelia . . . I’ll never again go out with anyone who has a kid. I can’t do that to another child. Be there one day, and then gone, out of her life. First her father left her, then me.”

“But it was Paige’s fault. She cheated on you.”

“I knew that and Paige knew that. But Ophelia didn’t.”

“Do you still love her?”

“I’ll always love Ophelia.”

I meant Paige. For some reason, this stings even more.

Marissa is texting and giggling as I approach her desk, and I wish, for the millionth time, that my last secretary, Carlene, hadn’t left. When she sees me, Marissa chucks her phone into her bag. I half want to say,
Just finish the damn text,
and am half glad that I can still command something resembling respect.

“Kim Rueben’s secretary,” I say. “What’s her name?”

Kim Rueben, the only female partner at Sullivan, Zurheide and Poole, is a fierce, fearless, and unforgiving divorce attorney with a reputation for digging up mountains of dirt. No one messes with Kim. She scares me, and I’m not even married.

“Paulina?” Marissa’s penciled eyebrows shoot up.

“I don’t know. Is that her secretary?”

“Maybe? I mean, I know Paulina’s name is Paulina, but I’m not sure who she works for. She’s blond? Kind of pretty but with crooked teeth? Gets body odor when it’s hot out?”

What does Marissa say about me when I’m not listening? Never mind; I don’t want to know. (Why did you leave me, Carlene?
Why, why, why?)

I say, “That’s who, uh. That’s her. I need you to check with Paulina, see if Kim’s got five free minutes today.”

“To meet with you?”

“No, to get her
toenails
done.
Yes,
to meet with me.”

Marissa stares at me, not with horror, exactly . . . more with the concentration necessary to memorize every sarcastic word I’ve said so she can provide an accurate report to whomever she was texting.