Futures and Frosting (23 page)

“Well, it was…I
remember it was a Tuesday because that’s the day my supplies are delivered, and
I was in the middle of signing for the white chocolate when I felt cramps,” I
ramble, trying not to panic.

One, two,
three, four, carry the seven, multiply by eight…FUCK!

I glance over at
the calendar hanging on the wall.  This month shows a black and white cat with
wide eyes and both of its paws covering its mouth as if to say 'Oops!'.

Fuck you, you
stupid cat!  I can’t count with you staring at me like that.  And if cats
really could say “Oops” they’d do it when they shit on the SIDE of the litter
box instead of in it.

I stare at the
squares and the numbers on the calendar until they all start to blur together,
either from eye strain or tears, I'm not sure which.

“First, how
about we just have you scoot down to the end of the table and we’ll check you
out.  You’re due for your yearly exam next month anyway so we might as well get
that taken care of,” Dr. Williams says as he slides his chair closer to me
while the nurse pulls out the extension at the end of the table and adjusts the
stirrups for my feet.

I lie back and
put my legs up in the air while the nurse slides a table over with the pap test
kit already set up on top.

Right now, I
wouldn’t mind a little Drew humor to take my mind off of things.  Something to
the effect of, “How’s that cunt scrape coming along?”

I squeeze my
eyes shut while the doctor goes to work, sticking his hands where only one man
has gone before.

“So, have you
been watching the new Bachelorette?  That chick is a train wreck!” Dr. Williams
says with a laugh.

“Um…”

“Did you see
when she got all trailer park on that one guy?  Wagging her finger and shaking
her head?  You can take the girl out of the trailer park…” Dr. Williams trails
off with another laugh as I hear the metal clink of the speculum.

“My daughter likes
to watch that stupid show just to see the pretty dresses she’s going to wear,”
he tells me as he continues working between my legs.

No really,
it’s perfectly fine to talk about reality television and YOUR KID while your
fingers are all up in my business.  How does this work when he’s at home?  Is
it the exact opposite when he’s sitting around the dinner table?  “So did I
tell you about this woman today?  Her cooch hadn’t been shaved in days. What a
trainwreck!  Can you pass the potatoes?  I only treat her because she’s got a
pretty uterus.  How did you do on your spelling test, Cindy Lou?

Dr. Williams
finishes digging to China, slides back and slips off his rubber gloves while he
stands.

The nurse takes
my arm and helps me sit up.  I try to situate the paper shirt and skirt thing
to cover myself back up but it seems like the fucking thing shrunk.  I give up
and just keep my legs as tightly together as I can.  It doesn’t seem
appropriate to flash the goods to the doctor now that the exam was over.  It would
be like walking up to your dentist in the grocery store and showing him your
teeth.  There is a time and a place for everything.

“So?  Is
everything okay?  What’s next?” I ask, hoping since he hasn’t said much during
the exam, aside from television gossip, that all is good and I'm worrying for
nothing.

“Well, we’ll
order up some blood work, and I’ll see you back here in four weeks,” he said
with a smile as he wrote something else on my chart.  “Congratulations, you’re
pregnant!”

~

Did you know The
Dollar Store sells pregnancy tests?  It’s true.  And even though all these
stupid dollar stores should change their names to “The Dollar Store –
Everything Isn’t Really a Dollar, We Just Like to Fuck With You”, pregnancy
tests are in fact one of the few things there that actually only cost one
dollar.  Which begs me to ask the question why the hell did I get a dirty look
from the cashier when I asked for all thirty-seven tests?  Like that’s never
happened before?  They are pregnancy tests for ONE DOLLAR, people.  Gavin gets
one dollar for doing chores around the house every once in a while.  Even HE
can afford to buy a pregnancy test.  Why a four-and-a-half-year-old would need
to buy a pregnancy test is beyond me, but these are the facts.

Arguing with the
cashier and telling her I hope she slams her ginormous tits into the drawer of
the cash register probably isn’t my finest moment, but it keeps my mind off of
the fact that I might be pregnant.

Yes, I said
might
. 
I have just finished peeing on the twenty-third test and Dr. Williams had told
me I was pregnant when he fondled my uterus, but he could have been wrong. 
Doctors get things wrong all the time.  They remove a kidney when they mean to
remove a gallbladder, and they forget to take clamps and shit out of someone
before they sew them up.  He could definitely be wrong about my uterus.  How
many uteri does he stroke on a daily basis?  Maybe he's just off his game. 
Maybe he hadn't even been touching my uterus but had his hand around my
spleen.  But that would probably mean he was up to his elbows in my vagina.  It
had been uncomfortable, but not elbows-deep uncomfortable.

I stand at the
sink in the bathroom and stare at the pregnancy test in my hand, waiting for
the five minutes to be up so I can gouge out my eyes when I see another
positive result.  When the timer on my cell phone beeps with the new tone
(“SWEET MOTHER FUCKING JESUS IT’S TIME!”) I downloaded just for this purpose, I
glance down and try not to cry.

An hour later,
Carter and Gavin come home from the store and find me curled up in the fetal
position on the floor of the bathroom, surrounded by used pregnancy tests,
instructions, and ripped open boxes.

“Mommy, where
did you get all these magic wands?!” Gavin asks excitedly as he runs into the
bathroom.

He picks up one
of the tests and pretends like he's Harry Potter, aiming the test at random
objects around the small bathroom yelling, “I curse you with my magic wand,
punk toilet paper!”

I don’t even
lift my head from the cold tiles; they feel too good on my tear-stained cheeks
to move.  I watch him with my eyes and wonder briefly if I'm a bad mother for
letting him play with something that I peed on.  That just starts another
crying jag when I realize I will be a bad mother to
two
kids now.  I
have a vision of the future where both of my children are sitting in a tub of
pee while I'm comatose on the floor.

Carter walks to
the doorway and takes one look at me and the litter on the floor and jumps into
action.

“Hey, Gavin, how
about you put down that wand and go get the bubbles we just bought.  I’ll even
let you blow them in your room.”

“Sweet!  This
wand smells funny anyway, and it’s making my hand wet,” Gavin states as he
drops it on the floor and runs from the room.

“You should
probably tell him to wash his hands,” I mumble from the floor.

“Eh, he’s going
to be playing with bubbles, which are like soap, so it will all even out,”
Carter replies as he steps into the room and sits down on the floor next to me.

I sit up,
pushing tests and boxes out of my way so I can cross my legs and sit Indian
style across from him with our knees touching.

“So, how was
your day?” Carter asks gently as he reaches over and brushes my hair out of my
eyes.

I sniffle and
look around at the mess.

“Oh you know,
the usual.  I worked, ran some errands, some guy put his hands up my
chimichanga, complimented my uterus, and I got into a fight with a clerk at The
Dollar Store.”

“Was it because
practically nothing in that store is a dollar?” he asks.

“Oh my God,
right?  What the fuck is up with that?  I don’t go into a store called The
Dollar Store to buy a five dollar toy.  Someone needs to school these people on
proper advertising,” I complain.

A few seconds of
silence lapse, and I knew Carter was waiting for me to mention the huge “I'm pregnant”
elephant in the room.  Fuck that elephant!  He can just sit there in the corner
eating peanuts and shitting on the tile while giving me looks of disgust.

You’re the
one shitting on the floor, elephant, don’t give me that look.

Carter spreads
his legs out on either side of me, reaches over and grabs onto both of my
ankles, unwinds my legs, and pulls me across the floor to him.  He re-hooks my
ankles together behind his back and puts his hands on either side of my face,
forcing me to look him in the eyes.

“Say it,” he
whispers.  “I missed out on this the first time.  I want to hear you say it.”

My throat is so
tight I'm positive I won't even be able to take another breath, and he wants me
to talk?

“Please?” he
pleads softly.

He smiles at me
and I can see his eyes start to fill with tears.  I want to tell him so many
things, but I'm too overcome with emotion and frankly, a little bit of puke.  Two
words are about all I can muster.

“I’m pregnant,”
I whisper back with a sniffle.

“You’re
pregnant?” he asks with a huge smile.

Um, duh? 
What the fuck do you THINK all this is about?  Oh my God, what is wrong with
me?  I’m sorry!  I love you!

“Are you not
happy about being pregnant?” he asks, showing the first sign of worry since he
stepped into the room.

“I figured YOU
wouldn’t be happy.  You’re totally screwed now.  If you decide you don’t like
me, I’ve got you for eighteen years.  I’m your baby mama times two.  That’s
triflin’, yo.”

Carter laughs
and wrapped his arms around my waist so he could pull me up against him.

“Stop trying to
quote Kanye. You’re not a golddigger, and there’s no question whose kids they
are,” he tells me as he cups my cheek with one hand and rubs it softly with his
thumb.

“That’s what you
think.  Sperm from the floor of the sex toy shop might have jumped off of the
carpet and up into my vagina.  No telling who this one belongs to.”

He stares at me
for a few minutes before kissing the tip of my nose.

“I know you’re
freaking out.  It’s okay.  Just talk to me.  Whatever you’re feeling, I want to
know.  And I am perfectly fine with this.  In fact, I am EXTATIC with this. 
There is absolutely nothing that could ruin my good mood about this news,” he
affirms.

There cannot
be a more perfect man in the world than him.  Fact.

“Really? 
Because I’m pretty sure we conceived this child the night I ate that pot
cookie.  I’m eighty-four percent positive our child is going to be born a pot
head.  It’s going to come out with dreadlocks and wearing a Bob Marley onesie. 
Its first word will probably be, ‘Whaaaaaazzzzzzzzuuuuup’.  It’s never, ever
going to sleep through the night because it’s always going to have the
munchies.”

Carter chuckles
and tightens his hold on me.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and rest my
chin on his shoulder.

“If that’s the
case, we’ll just have to make sure we have plenty of Cheetos on hand at all
times and some Grateful Dead music to play in the nursery,” he states.

I sigh and turn
my head so I can rest my cheek on his shoulder and burrow into the side of his
neck.

“It’s going to
be fine.  I promise you.  I love you and I’m not going anywhere.  This is the
best news you could have ever given me.  Nothing could make me happier right
now.”

Gavin suddenly
comes bursting through the doorway.

“Dad, woke up
dis morning, got myself a gun’ is on!” he says excitedly.  “And my wiener feels
funny again.  It won’t stop being tall.”

“Oh my God.  I
take that back.  THIS is the happiest moment of my life.  My son just got a
boner for Sopranos,” Carter whispers.

“Like father
like son,” I deadpan.

Carter pulls me
up from the floor of the bathroom and tells me to leave the mess and that he’d
clean it up later.  He tells me I'm not allowed to do anything else for the
rest of the day but lie on the couch and let him wait on me.  He always knows
exactly what to say to make me feel better, and he takes such good care of me. 
I'm an idiot for being disappointed that he doesn’t immediately ask me to marry
him.  He loves me and he's happy we're going to have a baby.  I can’t help but
wonder though why he hadn’t asked.  He obviously isn’t in shock like I am so
there has to be another reason.  As I curl up on the couch with my head on
Carter’s lap, I try to ignore the pain in my heart at the thought that maybe he
doesn’t think I was marriage material.

Three months
later

“So what you’re
telling me is you wanted him to drop down on one knee and ask you to marry him
in the bathroom?” my mother asks.

I roll my eyes
and reached for another balloon to blow up.  My mother has offered to help me
set everything up for Gavin’s fifth birthday party the next day.  We are having
it at the shop after hours.  I let Gavin invite a few of his friends from
preschool and think having a party in a candy store will be fun for them.  As
soon as my mother walks in the door of the shop she can tell I'm not myself.  I
blame my mood swings and crying jags the last few months on pregnancy hormones,
but she knows better.  The number of times we've talked on the phone, I gloss
over what's wrong.  Now that she can see me in person, I can’t hide anything
from her.

“Don’t roll your
eyes at me, chickadee.  I’m just trying to make sure I understand this
correctly,” she says as she hangs a “Happy Birthday” banner on the wall.  “You
thought it would be romantic and beautiful if, once he found out you were
pregnant, proposed immediately.  So you wanted him to propose out of guilt and
obligation for knocking you up instead of out of love.”

Well when you
say it that way…