Expecting: A Novel (14 page)

He looks at his computer. The green dot is blinking. Nancy Futterman has signed on to Facebook. He could walk away from the computer.

All he wanted was a baby of his own. No complications. Nothing funky. Nothing
Good
Morning
America
would want to feature. Just a quiet, simple, inconspicuous pregnancy. Was that asking too much?

He looks at the computer again. He could say, “Hey.” Just “hey.” Nothing wrong with saying “hey.”

Jack never thought Danny would be such a douche bag. Sure, he’s a rich-boy snob, but they’d always gotten along. Picked up girls together, almost got tattoos at the same time—they wanted something cool. Danny suggested words like “perseverance” or “$ucce$$.” Jack considered getting the St. Pauli girl on his shoulder. They made it all the way to a tattoo place in Hollywood before they chickened out.

So when Danny came into his room and said, “We need to talk,” Jack assumed it was about tattoos or going to the party at a beach house in Malibu on Friday night.

But Danny looks serious, and for a minute Jack thinks Danny is going to tell him one of their SAE brothers crashed his car or fell off the roof, but instead Danny sits on the edge of Jack’s bed and says, “We know about the money. If you leave tomorrow, we won’t say anything about it.”

Just like that. After all the years at the house—and isn’t the fraternity supposed to be about bonding and friendship and loyalty,
perseverance
for fuck’s sake? Sure, Jack borrowed money from the party fund, but he paid it back. The first time. And he was going to pay it back the second time too.

Although he’s not sure saying that is his best defensive move. I did it once; I fixed it. I did it twice; I’ll fix it again.

“I was going to pay back the money,” he says. “But you know…the recession.”

Yeah, blame the recession. That’s what everybody else does.
Well, not Danny. Danny never has to worry about money. He’ll get his degree in economics, then an MBA, clear six figures easy the first year after graduation.

“You could’ve come to me.” Jack realizes there’s a good chance Danny has highlights put in his hair at a salon. That beachy look thing is fake. He probably doesn’t even know how to surf.

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Carter borrowed money.”

“Carter’s situation was different. He confessed. You didn’t. Your case violates the SAE honor code.”

The what? SAE has an honor code? Jack vaguely remembers the first night of initiation years ago and the then-president talking about what it means to be an SAE Gentleman. The pledges nodded and agreed with him. Naturally, since they were naked and about to be covered with peanut butter and jelly and made to roll around the floor with each other as human PB&J sandwiches.

“I talked it over with some of the other guys and we agreed,” Danny says. “You leaving is the best solution.”

Jack’s
friends
know about this? And nobody said anything? “But I’m about to graduate. This is going to fuck up everything.”

Danny nods. “You should have thought about that before you became an embezzler.”

***

Jack imagines at least a dozen revenge fantasies for Danny and the rest of the guys. Burning down the house is too extreme. But how about an anonymous call to the UCLA Greek Council about Carter selling pot out of his bedroom?

What’s the point? His immediate concern is finding a place to live. Megan shares a duplex with a handful of roommates. If he asks to move in with her, suppose Normandie finds out? Normandie lives in a tiny one-room guesthouse in Santa Monica. And what happens if Megan finds out he’s living with Normandie?

He’s a terrible person. An embezzler, like Danny says. He’s dating two women at the same time. He’s about to graduate from UCLA in five years instead of four. His parents have practically disowned him.

Oh, and he’s about to be a father. There’s
that
.

***

A guy in his Zionism class has talked about his basement apartment and how much room he has, so Jack sends him a text and tells him he needs a place to crash for a couple days and the guy, Ringer—Jack doesn’t know his first name, or maybe Ringer
is
his first name—says, “Cool, come on over.” After he’s packed up, he sees Carter in the living room, drinking orange juice out of the carton. “They like guys with pretty mouths in prison,” Carter says. He laughs and takes another chug of orange juice.

“Check the date on that. It expired at least three weeks ago,” Jack says to him.

Carter sprays juice all over himself, the sofa, the carpet. By the time he sees Jack has made up the expiration date story, Jack’ll be long gone.

***

Ringer lives in Mar Vista, south of Westwood. He has dark hair, cut close to his scalp. And one time, Jack thought he was wearing silver nail polish. But that might have been the light. The house is on a quiet street, in the middle of a row of bungalows with well-tended lawns. Quiet, except for the occasional roar of a jet taking off from LAX.

He walks up the driveway toward a pink house. Ringer’s directions say to go around to the back. Three cement stairs lead to a faded blue door. Jack knocks and Ringer appears, holding a beer in one hand. “Welcome,” he says.

Ringer gives Jack a tour. It’s a big space but dark, like being in a cave. “I don’t see any windows,” Jack says.

“Yeah,” Ringer nods. “That’s sort of a drag. But you get used to it after a while.”

Where does the ventilation come from? Jack wonders. Is that why the place smells like urine and dirty socks?

“Your room,” Ringer says, pointing out a dark bedroom. When he clicks on the overhead light, a dim bulb sputters and glows an orangish yellow. “A bug light,” Ringer explains. “Another thing about living in a basement. Sometimes you get critters.”

Critters?

Jack looks around his room. The single bed feels comfortable, but there’s an overwhelming sense of wet all around—the sheets feel moist, the knobs on the dresser, the carpet.
I’m living in a science experiment on condensation
, Jack thinks.

That night he dreams about swamps and beautiful women in one-piece bathing suits being dragged into the water by college students wearing SAE T-shirts.

When he wakes up, Ringer is already gone, but he’s left a note on the kitchen counter. “Eat what you want, just replace stuff, and we’ll square up at the end of the week.” Jack sees a bag of bagels on the counter and takes one out of the package. It feels wet. Naturally.

He wonders about Ringer. There is something vaguely subterranean about him, like he’s some kind of creature of the earth. And a basement apartment? Well, where else would a creature of the earth choose to live?

Ringer has left him a key on a key ring. When Jack picks it up, it slips out of his hand and he hears a
plop
when it hits the carpet. A plop? Of course. Because it’s wet. Because he’s living in a cave with a monster.

When he gets outside, he gulps air. It might be Mar Vista air tainted by jet fuel, but he’s out of the basement.

***

Normandie calls around lunchtime when he’s sitting out on the UCLA quad. There’s something about needing to inhale as much fresh air as possible before going back into the Bat Cave. She’s been calling for a couple days, but Jack is avoiding her. He’s not sure how to explain his expulsion from the SAE house. But this time he picks up.

“Hey,” he says, wondering if living in the Bat Cave is depleting his supply of vitamin D and if he should take supplements or not.

“Where have you been? I was going to call the campus police.” Normandie sounds more annoyed than concerned. “I called your fraternity and they said you moved out. I knew it must be serious if you’d miss our sex date.”

With all the SAE drama, he’d forgotten about the sex date. “Too many people around there,” he says. “I need to concentrate. To study.”

“Did they kick you out? They can’t do that. You should sue them. Want me to look into it?”

“You’re not in law school yet. There’s nothing to sue them for.”

“I can’t believe I have to plan the sex date again—the restaurant, my period schedule. I should just break up with you.”

“Fine,” he says. One less potential crisis in his life. He hears Normandie gasp.

“Oh my God, you’re cheating on me,” she says.

“What are you talking about?”

Normandie’s words come quickly. “
That’s
why you didn’t call me back. You moved in with your girlfriend.”

“I didn’t move in with a girlfriend. I’m staying with a guy.”

Normandie snorts. “How attractive is she?”

“
He
isn’t attractive at all. He’s sort of like a character out of
Twilight
.”

“You’re living with a vampire?”

He’s ashamed to admit it, but the thought crossed his mind. Why is Ringer so comfortable living in a dark, wet, underground bunker?

“Where’s your new place?” Normandie asks.

That’s the last thing he wants, for Normandie to see the Bat Cave. “On the west side,” Jack says, hoping that’s vague enough and yet offers enough information for Normandie to lose interest. He’s wrong.

“Where on the west side? I could come by tonight.”

“I don’t want to start bringing people over. Not yet. We’ll have a party soon and you can see the place.”

See the place. Good luck, bring a flashlight. When Jack goes to sleep at night, he has a feeling he’s not alone. That once the lights go out, hundreds of cave creatures appear and watch him sleep. He hears crackling and faint shuffling noises. They are watching him, getting ready to make their move.

“Are you there, Jack?” Normandie says. “I know you’re lying.”

“Why don’t we have dinner one night? Okay?”

Silence from Normandie. “Okay. Sorry if I sounded bitchy. I was worried about you. You’ll pick up when I call again?”

“Unless I’m in class.” He looks up and sees Megan walking across the quad. She waves at him.

“Good. I miss you tons. Miss me?”

“Tons,” Jack says as Megan puts down her backpack and does a cartwheel. It’s not the best cartwheel in the world, but several students applaud and Megan takes a bow.

“Do I hear people clapping?” Normandie says.

“My phone. AT&T sucks. Got to go.” He clicks off.

Megan comes up and kisses him on the end of his nose. “Was my cartwheel excellent or what?”

“Excellent,” Jack says. Megan sits beside him and brushes grass off her jeans.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “You look sort of…pale.”

***

Jack and Megan walk to class together and he tells her about his new place, how it’s funky and dark and creepy, and naturally she wants to see it. “Maybe we can shoot a movie there, like
Paranormal
Activity
? We could make a zillion dollars.”

“It’s probably too dark to photograph,” Jack says.

He’s told her how he left the fraternity, describing his departure as a mix-up over financial bullshit. Megan thinks it’s fine he’s gone. “Fraternities soften your edges; they take off the most interesting bits, you know?”

Jack doesn’t disagree. He’s never really thought of himself as a nonconformist, but maybe that’s what he is after all. He should tell his parents. There’s a good chance they’ll be impressed. Well…possibly impressed.

He owes them a call. They’re excited about his upcoming graduation, although his mother has managed to get in a dig about “the five-year plan.”

He owes his sister a call too. She texts him about “how the project is coming along,” meaning the baby. They debate about telling Jack’s parents. The debate is more on Subhra’s side—Jack absolutely refuses to tell them. It would just be another example of his incredible ability of disappointing his parents.

“What were you thinking, donating
sperm
?” his mother would say. “Who would do something like that? Homeless people. People who use the money to buy drugs and prostitutes. People sell their sperm and their blood, what will you sell next?

“And why would prospective parents choose
your
sperm? They want smart boys, the ones who graduate in
three
years, who have advanced degrees. Rhodes scholars, MENSA members. Ask them at the sperm bank, how many people have requested your sperm, Jack. I bet it’s none.”

He should call Laurie to check in. They’ve talked a few times; she told him everything was fine, that Alan appreciated the answers to his questions. Jack knows she thought Alan’s questions were stupid. “You don’t have to call back,” she said. But he wants to make sure she’s taking care of herself.

***

Megan is rehearsing a play by Conor McPherson, an Irish playwright, and the director wants the actors to practice Irish accents, but all Megan has done so far is add “boyo” to the end of every sentence.

“That’s kind of annoying,” Jack tells her.

“Aye, it would be, listening to meself talking that way, boyo.”

She finds an online site that teaches Irish accents. “It’s about softening your vowels,” she explains to Jack, “
O
s and
A
s, hardening your consonants, and inflection. You have to be lyrical.”

“What’s so lyrical about saying ‘boyo’ at the end of every sentence?” Jack wants to know, but she ignores him.

“They use these really cool words we don’t, like
bollocks
. They say
cheers
all the time, kind of like aloha. Means hello or good-bye or whatever the hell you want it to mean.”

“How do they say shut up?”

“Be careful, boyo, or I’ll kick you in the bollocks.
Bastard
, only you use it like an adjective, ‘Where’s my bastard backpack?’”

“Do you want to see the Bat Cave or not?”

But Megan is on a roll. “Eejit. For idiot. You probably already know what wanker is because you’re acting like one right now. Chips and crisps and bangers—” And Jack thinks she might talk about this forever, so he takes her by the hand and leads her to his car.

***

“This can’t be good,” Megan says as they pull up to the pink house in Mar Vista. Fire trucks and EMT vehicles line both sides of the street. Blue and white lights flash and Jack can see people silhouetted against smoke. Smoke? The Bat Cave is on fire? That seems impossible.

He parks at the end of the street and walks toward the Bat Cave, Megan right behind him. The firemen are rolling up their hoses. Shouldn’t there be more rushing around? Don’t they need to put out the fire?

Ringer is watching the firemen and there’s a large dog at his side, some kind of shepherd lab mutt. “Hey,” he says to Jack. “No worries, our stuff is fine.”