A New Lu (26 page)

I smell shrimp, lovely broiled shrimp! I can't drink, but I can certainly eat.

Unfortunately, Ellen Jenkins, the spreader of last year's “clap trouble with hubby,” meets me at the buffet table. “Just between us girls. Who are you seeing?” She says this with the avid expectation she usually reserves for news of a new stylist at a Manhattan salon.

Thelma, hovering nearby, joins us. “God, yes! Tell us. Is he here?”

I shake my head and take a large bite of the shrimp on a skewer. Food in mouth will possibly keep me from having to say more.

“Your news frightened him off.” Ellen doesn't sound at all saddened by the idea.

“Men can be such bastards about these little accidents,” adds Thelma.

Ellen nods. “It doesn't matter how many tricks you know. Men just won't stick around if you're past forty and not rich.”

“Get a boob job,” Thelma suggests, for abundant reasons. “Men don't care about wrinkles if you keep a good rack.”

Ellen swings around on her. “Is the clinic in Jersey?”

I munch my shrimp and wonder, why do I know these people?

* * *

The rehearsal itself is predictably awful. While lining up, two groomsmen get into a heated discussion—work issues. The flower girl gets sick and barfs into her basket. Then the ring bearer, Stephen's sister's timid son, can't be persuaded to take even two steps down the makeshift aisle. I keep reminding Dallas that a lousy dress rehearsal is the harbinger of a great opening night or wedding day. It doesn't help matters that through it all, I remain a constant source of speculation.

“But if they're divorced, who's the father?” I overhear Stephen's grandmother ask Aunt Marvelle.

“A fine young man,” she answers, and moves quickly away.

A little later, Grandma Pascal buttonholes Cy. “Who's the father?”

“I am,” he offers.

She gives him a look of consternation. “I'm not impressed.”

When it's time to walk down the aisle Jacob can't be found. Dallas is frosted. “Why can't I have friggin' normal parents like other people?”

I make no comment about the fact that Stephen's father is piss-faced in the corner. Instead I join the volunteers to locate her father.

We find Jacob with Sandra behind the barn having an argument over “that pregnant cow,” his ex-wife. Nice to know I made that good of an impression.

“You're needed for Daddy duty,” I say, startling them both. “Not new-daddy, old-daddy duty.”

But Dallas has had it. She won't walk down the aisle with Jacob, she won't even make a show of it. She screams at him something like “Hate you” and “Grow up!”

Then Davin, feeling protective after all these months, lights into his father for bringing Sandra. “What were you thinking? In front of Mom!”

In the midst of this impressive family moment, Stephen and Dallas slip away, not to be seen again for the rest of the evening. It's too much to hope they have decided to elope. No, we'll all have to gather together again tomorrow and do this all over again.

When we can reasonably head for our car without seeming to bolt, Aunt Marvelle wobbles up and grips my arm for support. “Tell me. How the dickens did I get so drunk?”

“I know I wish I were.”

She nods, her feather bobbing over one eye. “It was too much to take in sober.”

39

Dallas returns home at 6:15 a.m. as I am making tea for Aunt Marvelle and me. She has on sweats, a baseball cap and the biggest smile I've seen since she slipped on Stephen's engagement ring. She hands me Grandmother's beaded dress, carefully rolled up in a shopping bag, kisses my cheek and says, “The only thing in the dark!”

“I suspect S-E-X,” Marvelle says when Dallas has floated off to bed.

“You think?” I answer, and then we both break out in a fit of giggles.

There are some things I'd rather shave my head than do. Right now facing wedding guests is one of them. But at least I'm visually prepared thanks, again, to Andrea.

“It's a loan from a client,” Andrea said the day she brought it for me to try on. “His third wife was pregnant when his son from his first marriage married in Honolulu in April. She was a cow by then. Not that I think you are, okay? She was this petite thing before the
pregnancy. You are taller and big-boned.” What are friends for?

Mother-of-the-bride is wearing a three-piece suit of deep rose silk. The jacket has a swing-away cut, the skirt pencil-slim to mid-calf. The bodice is strapless, fitted over the bosom, then flares like an umbrella over Sweet Tum. I hate to admit it, but we are just too cute!

I'm even wearing heels, open-toed, in case my feet swell like yeast buns before the end of the day.

The wedding is what all weddings are, lovely. The fans and cascades and trelliswork, the drape of greenery, bows, swags and sprays all mesh to give the impression one has stepped into a hothouse love chapel.

And the bride is radiant.

Dallas is still smiling, even when laced into a gown with a waist size I'm sure I haven't seen since I was ten. She's a glorious bride, and her happiness makes all the mess and the fuss and the bother and the expense—okay, most of the expense—worthwhile.

As we line up to be escorted into the church I start to chuckle.

“What?” Cy is keeping me company because William has yet to make an appearance.

“Marj is wearing beige.” And so, by the way, is Preston. At least that skinless baked-chicken complexion of his is a comparable shade. The chuckle becomes giggles.

“What?” Cy's expression is now serious.

“Stephen's dad is—is a chicken-bone pastel,” I sputter. “Pastel, not Pascal. Get it?”

“Nerves.”

Cy's brows lift in warning, as in I better quit before I get started.

I sniff hard to sober up, and look away as the mother and father of the groom start down the aisle.

On the bride's side of the church, Aunt Marvelle, Mom and Dad—who had the sense to avoid the rehearsal—and
Davin and his ladyfriend of the moment are all seated near the front pew. I notice that Jacob is alone today, but then he gets to walk Dallas down the aisle.

“This is like, so cool!” Curran murmurs repeatedly as he clicks away at everything and everyone for a change.

He looks super-good in a tux. I've often thought every man in the world should be photographed in a tux. It makes the short tall, the skinny brawny, the broad robust and even the ugly passably cute.

I try not to think about William, who called earlier because he's stuck in traffic somewhere on I80 East. I've decided that I have to tell him that some things, like the rest of this pregnancy, are better done alone. So I suppose I should get used to his not being there for me.

As the music swells to signal the beginning of the procession, Cy offers me his arm at the same moment Curran comes up and does the same.

For a second I'm tempted to say, “I can do this on my own,” but the truth is, I'm not alone. I'm surrounded by love and friendship and loyalty. I take one arm each, smile at Dallas, and head down the aisle.

We make a good-looking trio. How do I know? The groom's side of the aisle is twittering. And it's not just over Aunt Marvelle's diamond birthday gift winking wickedly at my throat. Sweet Tum looks good in rose silk.

Halfway down the aisle, I hear a door slam behind me and then voices and then the sharp click of heels. When I look back over my shoulder I see a very handsome man in a tux rushing up the aisle. It's William. He smiles as he nears, picks up the back edge of my jacket as if it were a train and nods for us to continue.

“Now, that must be the father!” I hear Stephen's grandmother say in that carrying voice peculiar to the hard of hearing.

I should be so lucky!

* * *

I dance until I can dance no more. I dance with Stephen and Jacob and Cy and Davin—even Curran. But when I'm at last in William's arms, I realize that if I don't sit down soon, I'm going to drop like a rock.

“I guess that answers the question of my appeal,” William says as he begrudgingly pulls out a chair for me.

I smile and cup his cheek when he's sitting beside me. “I prefer you horizontal to vertical. But just for the record, you do dance well, don't you?”

He grins. “Turn horizontal to vertical. Now, what do you think?”

Ooh,
baby, baby!

And then I remember my decision, and that I'm really rather hot and sweaty already. I slip off my jacket, revealing the pregnancy-enhanced proportions of the strapless bodice. William just stares at me in a way that makes me wonder who I was before I met him.

Of all the times I should have been embarrassed when I've been with him, I suddenly feel a deep flush creeping up my neck. “I could use a cup of punch.”

He sees right through me. “Hold that thought. I'll be back.”

But he's gone awhile. And I notice Cy and Aunt Marvelle on the floor, and Mom and Dad, and Andrea and…that's Dr. Yummy!

Then I remember something that I forgot to tell Dallas.

I rise quickly and start across the floor. Only I don't go in any direction but down. A leg that suddenly has no feeling in it folds under my weight, and I slip toward the floor.

I hear cries of alarm but, really, all I've done is sit rather hard on my bum. Suddenly Cy and Curran are bending over me. William appears and then Jacob.

“Lu! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” they all ask at the same time.

“No!” I'm only horribly embarrassed that I've drawn even another eye-flicker of attention my way.

William bends down to bring his face on a level with mine. “What's hurt?”

“My pride.” I lean forward and whisper, “Please, get me off this floor!”

That requires me being lifted front, both sides and rear by four men. If that doesn't make a girl's day I don't know what will.

“Drinking.” I hear someone whisper.

I whip my head in that direction and bark, “No, pregnant!”

When I'm rather inelegantly seated again the hovering continues, joined by Dallas, Stephen and Davin. “Mom, what's wrong?”

I give them a thumbs-up. “The baby's just getting heavy,” I say, dimly recalling a similar incident with Davin that revoked my driving privileges during the last two months. “Leg went numb. Sweet Tum must be sitting on a major nerve or blood vessel.”

“Maybe we should call an ambulance,” Cy suggests.

“Absolutely not! One thrill ride per pregnancy, that's my limit.”

William is watching me like a doctor. “You're sure?”

“Where's my punch?” I scowl at Curran because he seems the easiest of the group to intimidate. “I—
wow!”

I grab my middle in amazement. Instinctively, other hands mimic my reach for the tum.

“What's the matter, Lu?” William says anxiously.

“Nothing.” I look up with a big smile into camera flashes that leaves me blind. “Sweet Tum just did a Rockette high kick.”

40

It must be a really slow news week. The picture of me with “hands on” Curran, Cy, Jacob and William was picked up by wire services nationwide. That has been enough to keep my phone buzzing since the first paper hit the first porch eastern daylight time Monday morning.

I had to wait for nearly an hour to see the source of the controversy. The kid who delivers the paper must be down with something because his grandfather, a careful (as in slow) man, always picks up his route. Ever since I received a belated copy, I've been saying a prayer of thanksgiving that Dallas is on her honeymoon, and Davin doesn't read anything but the front page unless it's assigned in class.

There in the Lifestyles section of my paper is a photo of me sprawled in a chair, looking about eleven months gone, while four very upset men in tuxes reach out to pat, catch or—depending on your point of view—generally feel me up. That they were only trying to help me is completely overlooked. Below this undignified photo op is the caption “Who's Your Daddy?”

Who knew the wedding photographer freelances as a paparazzo?

At first I thought it was amusing. I can take a joke. After three days of calls from minor talk shows, wanting “the guys” and me to come on and tell all about our unusual relationship, it's gotten to be annoying.

Tai doesn't like me passing up these opportunities to “pitch future issues of
Five-O.”
Easy for her. She doesn't have to face questions like, “How many men have you slept with since you learned you were pregnant?” Or try to explain to her dentist or her beautician, or her son's high school English teacher, a Cue Lu! fan, why I won't talk about “him” when I seem to be willing to expose every other aspect of my pregnancy.

So, I'm avoiding Tai as I slurp a decaf latte in the deli below
Five-O
and try to concentrate on the three-day-old
New York Times
Sunday crossword puzzle.

I look up as the waitress serves me a toasted bagel with a smear. “What's a six-letter word for ‘unanticipated affair”?”

“Crisis?”

Of course.

I don't even bother to check caller ID as I answer my cell. “Who's the Daddy? Yes, that is the question, isn't it?”

“Lu?”

“William? You sound funny.” I sigh. “Don't tell me. You've had enough. I'm sorry. I warned you. Next time pick a woman without her own laugh track.”

There's a short pause. “Obviously something's going on. Can it wait?”

“Sorry. What's wrong?”

“Jolie.” He sighs. “She went into false labor last night, and then, after Jon took her home from the hospital, she bolted.”

“As in ran away?” He's got my attention.

“Yes. We found her, thank God, at the municipal airport.”

“Where was she going?”

“She said something about going to find her mother.”

“Oh, William.”

“She was absolutely hysterical. The doctor says it could just be hormonal but, Lu, she's claiming now she won't deliver her baby. She says she's changed her mind about having it. For the first time in my life, Lu, I don't have a clue as to what to do.”

“I'm on my way.”

I don't know what I think I can do for Jolie. I'm not exactly a model of decorum and right thinking. I gave what I'm sure was a critical piece of my mind to the guy who tried to take the last seat on this Long Island railway car. He claimed he beat me to it but—excuse me!—who makes the pregnant lady stand? The conductor intervened and I imagine he's still cooling off while standing in another compartment.

Hmm.
Maybe I will have something to say to a young woman who thinks she can escape giving birth by skipping out on the delivery room.

Once he picks me up William tells me Jolie's begun to dilate and under the circumstances, he pulled some professional strings to get her admitted into the hospital where he practices even though, technically, she's not in true labor yet. He says she's been given a very mild sedative, that she's not to be upset, nor made to talk about what's bothering her, and especially not anything about Jon, who left the hospital after she threw a pitcher of water at him and hit him in the head.

I completely block out William's advice. Who's going to take seriously a man who looks like he slept in his clothes? There are wrinkle lines in his face from his corduroy jacket, which he must have used as a pillow in the hospital waiting room.

“She'll be fine,” I repeat anytime he seems to come to
the end of a distracted paragraph on our drive to the hospital. “She'll be fine.”

I repeat this one more time as I push open the door to Jolie's room.

Sitting in the middle of the hospital bed playing cards with herself, she seems even younger than the woman I remember. Her black hair is loose, flowing down her back like Snow White's did in books before Disney gave her a thirties coif. Then I notice her belly. Her striped hospital gown covers a globe the size of a Volkswagen. She looks up and sees me about the time I'm thinking, she looks so peaceful I should not be here.

“Are you the shrink?” Her voice is curiously calm but her gaze is alert.

“No, but feel free to call someone to scoot me out if you'd like.” I take a few steps toward her. “I'm Lu Nichols.”

“I remember you.” She smiles, but it's automatic politeness. “You're Dad's ladyfriend.”

I'm completely surprised by how happy her words make me. “Your dad talks about me?”

“Only constantly.” She's so pretty it makes me a little jealous, shallow creature that I am, for surely this is how stunning her mother must have been at this age.

I touch my bouncing baby, who seems to be practicing the cha-cha at the moment. “I'm surprised your father's been so open, considering.”

Her gaze shifts to my bump and her smile dissolves. “Dad thinks you're brave and honorable.”
Unlike me,
is the unspoken codicil. She goes back to playing solitaire. “Are you in the hospital for a checkup?”

“No, I came just to see you.”

I watch it dawn on her that maybe I'm not a benign visitor. “Dad sent for you?”

“No. I volunteered. Since we share a condition I thought maybe you could use an ally.”

She stops playing. “What kind of ally?”

“Do you mind if I sit?” I indicate a chair by the bed.

“Of course. I should have offered. Are you in pain?”

“Only the backache kind.” I ease my rear into a high-backed chair. The train may be posh, but in my state it felt like one step up from schoolbus. “If I could just put Sweet Tum down for a couple of hours a day, I could happily stay pregnant another six months. Know what I mean?”

She cocks her head to one side. “You're trying to handle me.” Smart, like her dad. I should have known.

“As long as I'm here…” I point to the cards on her food tray. “Do you play Hearts?” She shakes her head. “It's easy to learn.”

I pick up the deck and begin shuffling. “Here are the fine points. It's a game of matching suits and winning tricks with the highest card. Hearts are trumps. But you don't want to take a trick that leaves you in possession of the queen of spades. Okay?”

She shrugs.

I quickly deal a hand and then hold my breath until she picks up hers.

I want to say things, such as we don't have to talk about pregnancy, or the baby, or her marriage, but I know if I bring up any of those things I could be asked to leave. So I talk about anything that comes to mind, mostly Dallas's wedding. I feel like a Talking Head who's been told to fill airtime for a no-show guest. My audience is mostly silent.

“I don't want a baby.” Jolie says this after we've played two hands. She crosses her arms over her enormous belly. “I should have had an abortion. I'd have one now, if I could.” She sends me a hard glance. “Does that shock you?”

“A bit.” I keep shuffling cards. “Mostly because you've done all the hard work.”

“It's going to be defective.” She shakes her head as I start to deal. “Did Dad tell you that his grandchild is going to be a gimp or a cripple, or something worse?”

“No. I had heard you had tests.” I pile up cards between us, anyway. “After the amnio I thought the doctors discounted the possibility of serious problems.”

“What do they know?” She turns her head away. “First they said it was spina bifida, which is a horrible thing to tell an expectant mother. Awful! And then they change their minds after some tests? But I know it's going to be defective.”

I'm amazed that she's talking so much. I expected to find a partially catatonic young woman in the fetal position sucking her thumb. Yet, this is not exactly the state of mind one wants for an impending mother-to-be. “So screw them.”

She looks back at me in surprise. I pick up my hand, pretending I'm interested in arranging the cards. “Screw the doctors! Doctors are people and, if you want my opinion, overrated when it comes to having all the answers. I like your dad but he can be a perfect prat at times.”

She says nothing, but I notice her fist tightening on the tabletop. A contraction?

“Having this baby is the wildest thing I've ever done in my life. Fifty and no husband? I'll tell you the secret I'm not making public. I'm having my ex-husband's child, and even he didn't want me to have it. But I said, my child, my business. What kind of crazy is that? And then along comes your father, a supposedly smart man, and he hits on me.” I look up with a smile. “Your dad did tell you all this?”

She shakes her head. “He said you had a situation that the two of you were handling discreetly.”

“He said discreetly?” I play a card. “So, you don't know about the fistfight?”

She blinks. “What fight?”

“My ex-husband was being a royal pain a couple of months ago when your father walked in on our discussion. I suppose he thought he was doing the honorable thing by coming to my rescue. I didn't need rescuing, but then it wasn't really about me. They started with accusations but it quickly degenerated into fists.”

She snorts. “I knew Dad was lying about running into a door! He's never clumsy. I just thought he was too proud to say he'd been mugged.”

“Both came out of it pretty evenly banged up. Men!”

She nods. “Men.” And quite unexpectedly she bursts into tears. “I hate them! Hate everyone!”

“Especially Jon.” My hands tremble as I pull a few tissues and hand them to her, but one of us has to keep a grip. “You're still furious with Jon.”

She takes a moment to mop up. “You know about Jon and me?”

“I know he made a huge, unforgivable mistake, which only a woman who really loves and knows him well enough to believe that he really means it when he says he'll never do it again would forgive—one time.”

She sniffs herself back into control. “Was your husband ever unfaithful to you?”

I put my cards down and look her in the eye. “I don't know.”

Her expression droops. “You mean no.”

“No, I mean I don't know. I never had a reason not to trust him. But I will never know if that trust was ever broken. It's like a not-positive test.”

“Mine was. Positive.”

“Right!” I say with genuine anger for her. “Jon's a bastard. The bastard!”

Jolie jumps at my tone.

I lean forward, my heart brimming for this lonely
frightened young woman. “I don't know Jon. Maybe he's a generally good guy who got his head stuck in a crack because he was drinking and being an ass, as only a man can. Or maybe he's a coward who thinks bagging women is a male sport alternative. You know him. Only you know whether he'll be a good father and husband, or only drag you down if you let him. Give yourself credit for that, whatever you decide. Know that your instincts are right.”

She looks infinitely sad. “I wish someone would fight for me. Jon says he loves me, but he isn't even here.” The tears start to flow again.

Right about now I want five minutes alone with Jon so I can box his ears and pull his nose, and yell until he's cowering on the floor!
You asinine human being! This is as good as it gets! This is your moment to be more than you ever thought possible, and you're blowing it! Grow up!

Since I can't do that, I decide that I, no,
we
need a change of environment.

I stand up. “Are you under bed arrest or can we go downstairs and get a snack?”

The nurse says we can go to the cafeteria but only if Jolie's in a wheelchair, and eats only liquid things. The arrangements are made. Fifteen minutes later we're tooling down the hall when we meet a stunned grandfather-to-be.

“Where are you going?” William stops us just outside the door of the maternity ward, looking like he's interrupting a jailbreak.

“To the best place for girl talk, anywhere that serves food and drink.” I push him gently aside. “Go home, or go take care of someone else. We have this covered.”

“Yes, Dad.” Jolie sounds annoyed to be interrupted. “We're fine.”

The look of gratitude he gives me weakens my knees.

Above Jolie's head, I pantomime “Call Jon.”

His eyebrows rise. I nod in the affirmative.

* * *

Once she warms up, Jolie is very much like her dad: interesting, funny and quite smart. I notice her wince once in a while, and surreptitiously watch the clock, but neither of us says a word about what's going on.

We have eaten bowls of red Jell-O and shared a vanilla yogurt, chased by mini cartons of milk, when Jolie suddenly gasps and looks down. We hear a soft
splash
as liquid spills from her wheelchair onto the floor.

I pop up with a big smile. “Congratulations, Jolie! You're going to have a baby.”

Her eyes widen with panic. “But I don't want a baby!”

“Sure you do. You want a nice, healthy, happy baby.” I stop a passing nurse, point to the wet spot. “Please tell Maternity Jolie Katz is on her way.”