Manhattan Lullaby (17 page)

But fortunately, Chester saw him coming and with one petrified squawk he catapulted off the back of the couch, took one daringly dangerous swoop toward the white mass, and then glided up to the top of the bookcase with a triumphant cackle and began to plot his revenge.

“Cut that out, Tony!” cried Steve, taking a swipe at the dog, who ducked under the coffee table just in time. Then he turned to Janie. “Sorry about that. I guess he's just not used to birds.”

“That's O.K. He's only following his instincts. And anyway, I think Chester was taunting him. He's very territorial about his space.” She yawned a little and continued to sit half slumped against the back of the couch, legs stretched out in front of her, a cup of cappuccino balancing warmly on her stomach. She was suspended in a delicious Friday-night, end-of-the-week lethargy and she was glad to have someone to share it with.

“So when did you say Lavinia was coming back?”

“End of next week, I think. This has been a long trip.” He drained the last of the cappuccino from his cup and set it back on the table. “You know, I think that she thinks that if she stays away long enough I'll miss her enough to ask her to marry me.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think she knows me pretty well.” Steve settled back on the couch. He was also feeling pleasantly content and relaxed, not to mention full, after the dinner Janie had cooked for the two of them. This domestic life wasn't bad after all.

“I never knew you were such a good cook.”

“I'm not. It was more luck than anything else.”

“I doubt that. You're not the type of woman who leaves anything to luck.”

Janie decided to acknowledge the compliment. “Well, I've had a lot of time on my hands lately … You know, when Bradley was here I never used to find the time to cook for us, but now that I'm on my own … It's kind of funny, isn't it? I mean, it's supposed to be the other way around.” The look on her face said that she wanted him to say something to absolve her from her domestic guilt. The guilt of not looking after the man while she had him. But being a man and totally unaware of the rise of this recent female dilemma, he interpreted the look in his own way.

“You miss him, don't you?” Steve reached out a comforting hand. Janie took it and nodded. “Why don't you call him?”

“I can't. I told you, I'm not about to raise another woman's child. It may sound cruel but I know how I feel. Believe me, it wouldn't be fair to me—and even worse, it wouldn't be fair to the child.”

But Steve, who couldn't understand how anyone could look a gift baby in the face, persevered. “Maybe it's just that you've never spent any time with kids. They're not that much different from animals, you know.” As he said this he patted the recalcitrant Tony, who had crept up beside him on the couch. “Animals aren't related by blood, and yet we love them, we care for them.”

Janie was a long way from being convinced. “You can say that because you've got kids of your own. How would you feel about raising a child who wasn't yours?”

“I think I could handle it. I guess.”

“All right then, what about this? What if Lavinia had a child by another man? Would you still want to raise it?”

Steve thought for a moment. This was a subject he had never given much consideration to, partly because the possibility of Lavinia having a child by another man was so remote. After all, she wouldn't even consider having one with him. He knew that because he had asked her often enough, but she always said her career came first. All the same, he answered Janie's question in the affirmative.

“You're just saying that because you're trying to get me to see things your way. It's very easy for you to have an opinion when your children were both born in a normal old-fashioned marriage. Bradley didn't even
know
this woman. She could be—” Janie sought for an appropriately awful possibility, couldn't come up with one that struck the right note and so settled for “weird. No, strike the
could
. I know she must be weird. I caught a glimpse of her at the synagogue. She had pink hair! You know what that means?”

Steve shrugged. “She likes pastels?”

Janie refused to be put off. “She named the baby
Rogue
!”

“So she has bad taste in names.”

“You just don't understand, do you? It's like, like … O.K., how about this? If you could have a choice between a dog with a pedigree like Tony or one from the pound, which one would you pick?”

“It's not the same thing,” countered Steve, although he wasn't sure he was a hundred percent right. After all, he
had
gone out of his way to get Tony from a reputable breeder.

“It's exactly the same thing,” argued Janie.

“You mean the reason you don't want to raise this baby is because you don't know its blood lines?”

When he put it that way it sounded kind of silly, but Janie wasn't about to back down. “That's part of it,” she replied defensively.

“So then if Bradley had had an affair and had a child with a woman he knew and cared for, then you might consider …?”

Janie shook her head vehemently. “Oh no. Uh-uh. No way. I don't need a lifetime reminder of misspent passion running around the house.”

“So what you're saying, then, is that you don't want to raise the baby because you don't know who its mother was, but if you
did
know who its mother was, you wouldn't want to raise it either?”

“I told you, you just don't understand.” She folded her arms across her chest and fell silent.

Steve sat quietly for a few moments and then he made a decision. “Look, I'm going to tell you something now that I've never told anyone else. Not even Lavinia. Especially not Lavinia.”

Janie was surprised by the urgency in his voice. She had the distinct impression that their conversation had shifted from the philosophical to the practical.

Steve cleared his throat. “I told you how much I missed my kids after the divorce?”

Janie nodded.

“Well, it got so bad … I wanted to be a father again so much that I decided I would have another baby.”

“What?”

Steve nodded. “I decided I would pay a woman to have my baby for me. I even went so far as to make all the arrangements. I went to a doctor who specializes in this sort of thing and he found me a woman who was willing to do it for $10,000 plus expenses.”

Janie was intrigued. “So what happened?”

“I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“It was during the time that there was all that fuss about surrogate mothers who wanted to keep the babies after they were born. Remember the Baby M case and all the others? So I thought, what if the surrogate who is having my baby decides she wants to keep it? I just couldn't face losing custody of another one of my children, so I called it off.”

Now it was Janie's turn to offer comfort. “I'm sorry.” She paused. “Kind of a crazy situation we have here, isn't it? I mean, there you are wishing you had a baby and here I am wishing Bradley didn't.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, life can be a pretty strange business. I guess that's why it pays not to think about it too much.” He hesitated then, reflecting for a moment on the inequities of existence, found that he was making himself depressed and decided to snap out of it while he still could. “I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe you shouldn't think so much about who the mother was. It's the baby that counts. Some people would give a lot to be in your shoes.”

“Well, I'm not one of them.”

The discussion ground to a halt. But after another few minutes of silence broken only by the soft swishing of feathers as Chester stretched and flexed his wings, Steve broke the silence. “Hey, you want to see some pictures of my kids?”

“Sure,” replied Janie, though she had a distinct feeling that he had something a little more up his sleeve than simply displaying his offspring.

Steve had his wallet out and open on the table in less than two blinks of an eye. He spread several photographs out in front of Janie. “These are recent. This is Bethany.” He pointed to the picture of a pretty little girl whose childish charm was spoiled only by the hard set of her mouth. Fortunately, thought Janie, it was not the sort of thing a father was likely to notice. At least not at this age. Next to that was a picture of a boy of about twelve or thirteen, who Janie knew without a doubt was Jared. He was the spitting image of his father, though in a skinny preadolescent, rather unfinished way.

Janie admired the pictures at length and then Steve presented several others of the children at various ages. She dipped deep into her bag of adjectives to find the appropriate comments, noticing as she commented on each one that all of the photographs were well handled.

“And now I'm saving the best for last. These”—he pulled out two small pictures from another section of the wallet—“are pictures of them when they were babies. The one with the blond hair is Bethany, of course, and the other one is my son.”

Janie carefully took the well-worn photographs. Neither child had changed much between these and the later photos, and Jared even as a baby was undoubtedly his father's child, right down to the thick crop of black hair, though without the gray, of course.

“They're lovely,” she said, handing back the pictures. “I'm sure you must be very proud of them.”

“Yeah,” replied Steve. “And they're not only cute, they're smart as hell.” He paused. “You know something? Tomorrow's my custody visit. Why don't you come along? I'm taking the kids to the zoo. We'll have some fun. I know you'll love them. And maybe,” he shrugged, “who knows, if you can like my kids, enjoy being with them, then you might want to give some more thought to how you feel about Bradley's kid. Whaddaya say?”

“I don't think—”

But before she could get out even half the sentence, Chester took a maniacal kamikaze-like dive down from the top of the bookcase directly at the unsuspecting Tony, who was busy lapping from a bowl of water that Janie had conveniently placed by the kitchen door. With a silent swoosh of feathers he zeroed in on his furry white nemesis like an air-to-dog heat-seeking missile.

It was all over so fast that all Tony saw was a flash of mean green, and then he felt a searing pain at the back of his neck as the impact of the bird-warrior knocked him off balance and sent him face first into the water bowl. Chester, his mission accomplished, soared once more up to his belletristic aerie, clutching a silken tuft of white hair in his beak.

“Chester!” cried Janie, wagging a threatening finger at him. “One more incident like that and you're dead poultry. Understand?”

Chester, imperious with victory, only puffed out his feathers.

Steve was comforting the shivering, slightly hysterical Tony, who had sequestered himself under the couch out of beak's way. When he was sure the dog was all right he repeated his question to Janie.

She thought for a minute, decided that, after all, to say no would be to risk hurting Steve's feelings, and said yes. And anyway, it wasn't as though she had anything else to do on Saturday.

Even the best of intentions can result in the worst of experiences. It would not be stretching the bounds of credibility to say that Janie's day with Steve and his children could be summed up in two words—Dis-aster.

It all began benignly enough when Steve picked up Janie and the two of them headed for Grand Central Station to meet the train bearing Steve's progeny in from suburbia. Steve was in the best mood Janie had ever seen him in, a state she attributed rightly enough to the fact that he was about to have a whole day with his kids. They were running a little late, and rather than risk having little Bethany and Jared detraining and finding no one to meet them, Steve decided they should grab a cab. He flagged one down and he and Janie hopped into the back seat.

“Grand Central Station and step on it,” he called to the driver and then turned to Janie. “I've always wanted to say that.” He laughed. And, good moods being catching, Janie laughed with him. The driver just turned on the meter. He had heard it all before—several hundred times.

When they got into the station, the nine o'clock train from Fairfield was just pulling in. “Perfect timing,” cried Steve, grabbing Janie's hand and hurrying along the platform. But fifteen minutes later they were sitting on a bench without the children, drinking bitter coffee from styrofoam cups. Steve's mood had deflated somewhat and Janie was silent, letting him deal with what she guessed must be either anger or frustration.

After a few minutes he heaved an enormous sigh. “Wouldn't you think that considering I only get the kids once every three weeks
she
could get her ass out of bed in time to get them to the station to catch the goddamn train? She's doing this on purpose, I know she is.”

Janie tried to placate him. “Everybody misses trains from time to time. Don't let it spoil the day. She told you when you called that she had put them on the ten o'clock train. They'll be here”—she checked her watch—“in another forty-five minutes.” She smiled. “I'm really looking forward to meeting them.”

Steve glowered for another minute or two and then crushed the styrofoam cup in one hand and flipped it into a nearby garbage container. And as if he was tossing out the bad feelings along with the used container, he turned to Janie and smiled. “You're right. There's no point letting her spoil the whole day. Anyway, it's probably just what she wants.” He looked around the station. “You want to play some video games or look at the magazine stand while we wait?”

Forty-five minutes later the next train pulled in, and Janie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Steve's face light up.

“There they are!” he cried, and he rushed up the platform to meet them. Janie hung back, deciding that it would be better for him to see his kids alone first. She saw him hug and kiss both children enthusiastically. And they in turn grudgingly allowed themselves to be hugged and kissed. Then he turned and pointed at Janie and began to herd the children in her direction. This gave Janie an opportunity to form a first impression from a distance.