A Bump in the Road (11 page)

“What?” Jake asked as he saw me pause.

“Nothing. I mean, I’m not sure,” I said.

We sat silently for a few moments.

“I guess it was nothing,” I said, and picked up my water glass. “Who knows what my body is doing these days.”

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Yep,” I said cheerfully. As we finished our appetizer, I stood up
and went into the bathroom. I came out about fifteen seconds later, white-faced. “Jake, we need to leave. I think something’s wrong.”

“What?” His hand froze as it reached for his wine glass.

“I’m bleeding pretty heavily. I’m not sure what’s going on.” My hands began to shake, matching my voice.

As we walked to the car, Jake started freaking out. “What should we do? Should we call the doctor? Do you want to call your mom?”

“I don’t know. My mom doesn’t even know I’m pregnant, remember? And I haven’t even seen Dr. Clarke yet—I just made my first appointment yesterday—but I guess I’ll try to give her a call. I’m sure it’s nothing.” My voice belied my confident words.

I called information and was connected to Dr. Clarke’s office. An answering service picked up and said they would page the physician on call, who would call me back. Jake and I sat in the car in the parking lot, unsure of what to do.

“Should we go home?” he asked.

“I don’t know. They might want to see me. Let’s just stay here for a minute.”

“But aren’t you, um, bleeding?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be fine for a few moments.”

We sat silently in the car, watching the minutes tick on by. I wondered if this was it. If the pregnancy was over. I wondered if Jake would be relieved. I wondered if I would be relieved. But mostly, I wondered why I felt so terrified if this pregnancy wasn’t something we planned.

My phone beeped and we both jumped. I answered it and Dr. Gwam, Dr. Clarke’s partner, told me to go to the ER to get checked out. He said most likely I was fine, but I should still get checked out just in case since it is still so early.

On the way to the hospital, I twisted my hands in my lap and watched my knuckles turn white. In the ER, a very sweet-faced nurse led us into a room and let me know a doctor would be with us shortly.

“Are you OK?” Jake asked as he gripped my hand while I sat on the exam table.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. I tried to focus on the lettering on a blood-pressure monitor.

Dr. Hoffsteder, the attending ER physician, came in and asked for my history. His face told me he thought I was miscarrying. He started most of his sentences the same way: “I’m sorry, how many weeks are you?” and “I’m sorry, who is your regular OB/GYN?” Jake flinched each time he spoke a pseudoapology.

Since the baby is still so tiny, Dr. Hoffsteder explained the only way to see what was going on was through an internal ultrasound. It didn’t sound pleasant and certainly didn’t appear pleasant when they whipped out what looked like a dildo attached to an imaging machine. I laughed in spite of the situation as they applied what looked like a condom to the dildo-camera.

Immediately, an image appeared on the screen. A grainy, black-and-white, snuff-film image of this little circle with a flickering inside.

“Is that it?” I said, and tried to sit up. Dr. Hoffsteder motioned for me to lie back. I looked over at Jake and whispered, “Do you see it?”

“I do,” he said, his mouth open.

“It is OK?” I asked Dr. Hoffsteder. Suddenly, I felt as though my insides liquefied and in the two seconds it took for him to answer, I realized I’d never wanted anyone to say yes more than in that moment.

“Looks pretty good. Yes. It was probably just some ancillary bleeding. Baby looks healthy.” Dr. Hoffsteder said, smiling at us.

“Is that its heart?” I pointed to the flickering on the screen.

“Yes, it is. And this mass next to it is the egg sac.”

“I can’t believe I made a heart and an egg sac!” I shouted.

Dr. Hoffsteder and Jake laughed. Jake audibly sighed.

“So, we’re good, right?” Jake said.

“Looks that way.” He switched off the machine and turned to us. “The risk of miscarriage is highest in the first trimester, so keep an
eye on things and don’t hesitate to call your doctor if this happens again.”

We nodded at him and he gave me some prenatal vitamins and discharged us.

As we walked back to the car, Jake grabbed my hand.

“Relieved?” I said to him.

“Very,” he said.

“Are you surprised?” I said softly.

“That I’m so relieved?” We stopped next to our car and faced each other.

“Yes.”

“Is it OK if I say yes?” He studied my face.

“Yeah. It doesn’t make you a bad person,” I said to him.

“Are you?”

“I’m relieved, but mostly totally surprised because for a moment, I really thought it was all over. A very small part of me said well, OK, that’s fine, but most of me couldn’t imagine losing the baby. Weird, huh?”

He leaned forward and hugged me. “This whole situation is weird to us. We’ll just take it one step at a time and try to figure it out.”

“Jake,” I said into his rugby shirt, “I’m really glad everything’s OK.”

“Me too,” he whispered. “Me, too.”

Last night and this morning, I’ve felt something new since I found out I’m pregnant: gratitude. I’m grateful for Jake, for being such a great husband. I’m grateful for the doctors, who took care of me last night. I’m grateful that everything’s OK with the Dragon. I’m still somewhat surprised at that last one. Not that I wanted something to happen, but I just didn’t realize I’d already become attached to the
baby. Or at least, the idea of having a baby. I don’t know. I don’t have anyone to bounce these strange ideas off other than Jake or Julie. And I won’t for a while because we’ve decided to wait until after the first trimester to tell our families. Last night was just too scary to start announcing the news right now.

I desperately wanted to remain in bed this morning in a vegetative state and let my body rest, but dragged myself to the office since the Trio of Torture came in today to discuss the RSVPs for the Gala.

I was already in the conference room when they all arrived. I could hear their six-hundred-dollar heels click-clack against the floor; each knock filled me with more anxiety. I straightened my cardigan and smoothed my wool pants quickly. Finally, they arrived at the door.

“Clare, hello. So nice to see you.” Carolyn’s tone betrayed her smile. She was dressed perfectly in a black Chanel knit suit. Betsy and Jessica were behind her, scurrying around in her wake. They both waved casually and smiled, turning to Carolyn to take the lead like two puppies following the alpha dog.

“Clare, as you know, we are here to discuss our invitation list.” She stopped and stared at me for a minute until I realized that I was supposed to say something.

“Absolutely.” My old standby.

“Now, what we need you to do is to keep meticulous records in a certain format,” she looked in Jessica’s direction, silently giving her a signal, and Jessica slid an Excel spreadsheet across the table, “and coordinate the requests for table seating. They should be tracked in this specific way . . .” She looked over to Betsy, who slid another Excel spreadsheet across the table. I couldn’t believe how well trained they were. “Is this something that you can handle?”

“Of course.” I was back into robotic prostitute mode.

“Well, good. I need to run now. Felicity is home from Europe and there are things that need attending to.”

Having no clue who the hell Felicity was or why she was in Europe, I simply said, “Good luck.”

With that, Carolyn left the room and I could swear the temperature increased at least six degrees. I looked at Jessica and Betsy and asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to go over at this time?”

They looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. After a long pause, Jessica leaned forward and asked, “Is she driving you nuts?”

“I’m happy to help you guys out however you need it.” I smiled angelically at them.

“Well, she’s driving us crazy!” Jessica said.

Wanting to hear more but not wanting them to stop for fear they’d gone too far, I tried to be casual. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, she’s insane! She won’t let us make any decisions without her. We’re the cochairs but we have to run everything by her first. We are not allowed to meet with you without her present. She insists on leading every committee meeting and shoots down all of our ideas. We originally planned on a Brazilian Carnival theme for this event and she turned it down and said we were using this ridiculous Asian theme!” Jessica’s usually porcelain face began to turn pink.

I shook my head, shocked, still trying to look even-keeled so she’d continue.

“She treats Betsy and me like we’re her slaves, not to mention how she treats you!” Betsy nodded. “I’m sorry, but we’ve just about had it with her.”

There were a few moments of silence.

Still trying to be professional, I said, “Well, she certainly is a woman with strong opinions. I know this event is very important to your organization and I’m sure she’s just trying to ensure its success.”

I really wanted to say, “She’s a big fat bitch and I hate her, too! Let’s draw mean pictures of her and prank call her cell phone! I bet she sleeps in a coffin at night!”

“I know you have to say that since you’re the professional, but you know she’s completely impossible!” Jessica said.

“She is!” Betsy chimed in.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure that this is the last thing that you want to hear. You have enough on your plate right now,” Jessica said.

“Don’t worry about it, being in charge of something as enormous as this event has got to be incredibly stressful,” I said, even though I was thinking:
Stressful—what do they know about stressful? I spent last night in the ER and didn’t even take the day off. They can leave here and get manicures and massages all day long if they want while this pregnant working schlub is going to be chained to her desk for the next six hours
.

“This event is going to be a huge success and you guys are both doing such an awesome job,” I said.

“Thanks so much for saying that, Clare. We appreciate everything you’re doing, really. We honestly couldn’t do it without you.” Jessica smiled warmly.

“We really couldn’t!” Betsy said.

“Well, thank you, and don’t worry, I’ll be sure to get this invitation piece out the door ASAP.”

Jessica and Betsy stood up and turned to each other.

“Lunch?” Jessica said.

Betsy nodded.

Jessica turned to me. “Clare, would you like to join us for lunch? Our treat!”

It sounded wonderful, but I didn’t think I could sneak out for three hours, so I turned them down.

As I walked them to the door, Mule Face called out, her voice garbled by the omelet sandwich she shoved into her mouth, “Good-bye, ladies! It was lovely to see both of you!”

Jessica looked at me for a split second and rolled her eyes slightly before leaving.

I think I’m starting to like Jessica Greene. Even though I sort of hate her for owning fifty pairs of Manolo Blahniks.

10:00
A.M.

Today’s my first anniversary. Harumph. Most couples I know spent their first anniversary in Hawaii or somewhere exotic. Jake and I are spending ours at home with Blockbuster’s latest. My life is so exciting I can barely stand it.

1:00
P.M.

So, OK, our anniversary might not be so terrible. Jake just surprised me with a reservation at the Four Seasons tonight as a present. He said we both need to get away, which I find funny since the last time we got away was the Conception Vegas Trip. I laughed when I said this. Jake did not.

Anyway, I cannot wait to lie around on million-thread-count sheets and order room service. If I can’t have a glass of champagne, I’m going to stuff as much food as possible into my body.

My life has become so romantic. On our honeymoon, Jake and I barely wore clothes at all, alternating between lying in bed, rubbing aloe vera on our sunburned shoulders while surrounded by international newspapers, and making out and having delicious middle-of-the-afternoon sex and then falling asleep until dinner. A year later, I am looking forward to lounging on two-thousand-dollar sheets, wrapped up in the comforter like a burrito, and gorging on room-service cheeseburgers. In one short year, I’ve gone from tanned sex goddess to Jabba the Pregnant Hut.