Plan C (19 page)

“He’ll be fine,” says the nurse. “’Driving tired,’ he called it. We call it ‘asleep at the wheel.’”

“I guess I should be grateful he wasn’t text messaging,” I say.

“Oh we get a lot of those, too.”

Now a groggy Ben smiles at me and says, “Hi honeyyyyyyyyyy. Did the plumber take the cat on time to the airport?”

“The pain killers will keep him foggy,” says the nurse, squeezing the blood pressure cup on his arm. I glance at his bumped, bruised, and bandaged face. I know it’s not the time to say “I told you so” so I settle for “Hi honey,” and lean over to kiss the only spot I can find that’s not covered in gauze. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m here now.”

“I love you,” he murmurs.

Well, if you love me, I think, then why the fuck didn’t you listen to me?

As though he can read my mind, he says, “I’m sorry,” and reaches for my hand. Then his wrist drops to his side and he’s asleep. Practically snoring.

If only it were that easy, I think. Just roll over and go to sleep, while my life feels like one of those Rubik’s cubes. No matter how much I twist the components, I can’t seem to make the colors match. And no matter how many times he says, “I’m sorry,” he still makes the same mistake. Men - can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em. Although, on second thought, I could suffocate him with a pillow.

Instead I run a hand over his ears and cheek – there’s only a slight graying at his temple and hardly a receding hairline. I do know that I love him. This is a man who can annoy the hell out of me by knowing every bit of useless information on the planet. Like the time we were driving in the countryside and I spotted some goats. “Is it true that goats eat tin cans?” And he replied, “No, it’s a myth. It’s the glue on the label that they’re attracted to.” Who
knows
that kind of stuff? Or take the time I was listening to some guys from Pakistan conversing on a street corner. I said, “I wonder what they’re speaking…” Ben said, “Urdu,” without missing a beat. How does he know that?
Why
does he know that? Plus he can speak French and he has a passion for fine French wines. The music he composes sounds a little French, too.

Playing with his fingers, I try to block out the what if? What if something had happened to him?

I lift the sheet to make sure the rest of him is still there. Broad shoulders, six pack abs, solid thighs and not even the slightest sign of love handles. His penis, asleep like the rest of him, is huge, even when resting. I chuckle to myself remembering Bebe’s Bible: “Good hair, good teeth, good shoes, and good penis.”

Of course for Bebe, Bernie had all those things, too - but nothing else. And I’m not entirely sold on Bernie’s shoes either.

Who knows what I’ll look like in a few years, I think, glancing down at my puffy stomach. Maybe I should just shut up and be grateful I have a man at all. They say that for men everything sexy is visual so I’m always careful about the lighting whenever we make love. Candles are every woman’s trade secret.

But at least I look ten years younger than my actual age. My crow’s feet are minimal, my jaw line smooth, and my breasts are firmer than those of most women my age, though my stomach has finally gone from being flatter than a surf board to a bit more Rubensesque. I love that forgiving euphemism. It’s just hard to accept that every time I squeeze into my jeans, there’s this muffin top at my waist. Only four years ago I had a stomach that could rival any twenty-one year old - worthy of piercing. Kitty says that if I were to wear something other than low-slung jeans my tummy wouldn’t be an issue, but when I step on the scale I now weigh - despite my size eight self - ten pounds more than when I was nine months pregnant with Scarlett. Can you imagine? Tell pounds more than I was when I was nine months pregnant? Why do I always repeat that, as though saying it over and over will somehow magically make the weight disappear?

Pulling up a chair next to the monitors, I eavesdrop on the woman on the cot behind the next curtain. She’s having her vitals checked.

“Have you been doing any kind of drugs?” asks the doctor.

“Drugs? No, no drugs,” she says.

“Well, we found drugs in your blood work.”

I peer at her through a gap in the curtain. She sits up with authority, wagging her finger under the doctor’s nose, and says, “Don’t you go telling me that the crack cocaine I did at 7 a.m. is giving me a heart attack six hours later!”

I laugh to myself, wishing I had the guts to be so tough even when I’m wrong, let alone when I’m right.

Ben stirs and his snoring gets louder, so I stroll slowly out to the waiting room where I know I anticipate a long night of hot coffee, and CNN news reports until Ben can be wheeled to a room. The nurse has told me: “We’re just waiting for a bed to come available should he need it. But they may send him home.”

I stand at the window and look out at Manhattan, the taxi lights reflecting colors in the dark, until my attention shifts to the revolving door where I see Madeline jump from a cab. As she zooms in under the neon emergency sign, her eyes plead for an answer. My calm face tells her Ben is alive.

She heads straight into my arms. “Mom? He’s okay, right?” She pulls back and looks at me. “I came as soon as I got your voicemail.”

Four cups of coffee, three trips to the bathroom, endless watching of the clock hands that have forgotten how to move, I’m slumped in one of those plastic chairs that are bolted to the wall. Madeline is into hour two of her recap of her high school sweetheart. They had fallen in love in her sophomore year, played air guitar in his basement, filled Poland Spring water bottles with Vodka for “Thirsty Thursdays,” lost
their virginity to each other junior year - he was the football player she was the cheerleader – though neither subscribed to any labeling. Senior year she had hooked up with a guy on the crew team after her boyfriend had kissed a girl behind the bleachers. Technically I never knew what “hooking up” means though I know it can be anything from kissing to a blow job. I certainly know it doesn’t involve dinner first.

Madeline managed to make up with her sweetheart just in time for the senior prom and then they went their separate ways to college. They ran their cell phone bills up - way up - avoided studying much in freshman year, and spent most weekends on the four buses, two trains and one taxi that would bring them together. Now, she had just learned that over their last winter, he had cheated on her. Again.

“…So, if he wants to hook up with other women, that’s his choice. I’ve made my own plan…” says Madeline.

I perk up from my slumping position against the wall.

“That’s right, Mom. You’ll be happy to know that I just decided I want to hang out with friends, study, get a job to make some Christmas money and not worry about men anymore.” She takes a foamy sip of her hot cocoa.

“Hallelujah to that.” I raise my empty cup.

“I don’t care if he and I get back together or not. For now, I’m done worrying about what move he’ll make next or whether he’ll call my cell. I can’t respect a man who makes excuses for his bad behavior,” she says, looking at me to make sure I’m still paying attention. “And furthermore…” Oh God, there’s a furthermore… “No matter what any of our friends tell me I feel confusion. I don’t believe he actually ever cheated
on me earlier in the relationship.”

“Right,” I say.

“I will never go back with him, that’s for sure,” she says, folding her arms. “I’m not going to let boys disappoint me anymore.”

“Great,” I say wishing she never had to realize that men will disappoint her for her entire life.

“And as for the boy I hooked up with – the one to get over the pain of my ex hooking up on me, we adore each other, but it’s not going to work.”

“Huh? Remind me…Where did he come from?”

“He delivered my pizza.”

“So what’s wrong with him?”

“Well, he’s kind of fat.”

“So…”

‘And short…”

“So…”

“And he’s got this weird haircut. I mean, somebody needs to tell him this isn’t 1980. A mullet just screams pedophile.”

“That isn’t good.”

“But he’s a player anyway, and not my type. Its better we stay just friends.”

“How do you know he’s a player?” I ask.

“A sober man’s thoughts are a drunken man’s words.”

“Wow, very mature. So he told you he cheated.”

“Not exactly. But, he told everybody else,” she says.

“I see.”

“If he wants to have a fuck buddy…” Hooking up, fuck buddies, and friends with benefits. This generation’s Woodstock.

“I don’t mean to burden you with my love life, Mom…”

“Oh please. Its fine, Madeline. You required so little energy from me when you were in high school…With your sister, well that’s another story…everyday I worried the Principal would call to say she drove her Toyota through the cafeteria.”

“While I was the perfect daughter who would have run the fundraiser to repair the damage. I know,” she beams.

“That’s right, honey. But Scarlett turned out fine. And you will, too. Despite all the heartbreak from men.”

“Well, not anymore, mother. I’m done with men and heartbreak.”

“Fabulous,” I say, closing my eyes to possibly nod off.

“I’m going to focus on me,” she says slouching in her chair. “Life should be about being wild and free.”

She had a point. “Well, yes and no,” I say. “It’s not just about having fun.”

“Why the hell not?” Great. The kid was starting to sound like her Aunt Kitty.

“You gotta get in where you can fit in.”

“Okay,” I say.

“And if men and college and career fail me, I have a backup plan,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“Mom’s house.” She yawns, and I pat her knee. “I need a vacation,” she says.

“But you just spent two weeks in August with your father on Cape Cod.”

She rolls her eyes.

“With an ocean view and a pool….”

“And a
Nazi
,” she says.

“Your father’s not
that
bad.”

She rolls her eyes again.

Listening to my daughter, I was certain she won’t make the same mistakes with men that I had made. In fact, she’s happy I divorced her father. “Hey, I didn’t have to be married to him. You did,” she’s often said. She has no qualms about my choice in men now. She adores Ben - thinks we’re the perfect couple. Even Scarlett, the daughter who usually calls only for money just wrote me a beautiful birthday card that said, “It’s so nice to see how a relationship
should
be.”

So how long can I maintain this façade? How long can I pretend to accept his situation? My kids often say that parents are better at delaying gratification then they are, but I don’t have much more time to delay mine!

And then Madeline nudges me. “This year, I just know I’m going to meet a boy who’s a complete package by the time my 21
^st
birthday comes.”

“Twenty-one again…” I say. “Like me being thirty-nine
again
but for a different set of reasons. At your age you
want
to be older, and at my age, we fake that we’re younger. I’m just trying to remember when that transition takes place?”

“Probably at thirty,” says Madeline. “When you really
are
old!”

“Probably.”

Thirty and old. Oh God. So what does that make me? Forty and ancient? Oh why aren’t I sitting in a Parisian café writing in my diary…

As though Madeline can read my mind she says, “Hey Mom, why don’t’ you take that trip to Paris you’re always talking about?”

“I’d love to…But I can’t afford it just now. And especially with Ben in the hospital…”

And then my cell phone rings.

“Hello,” I whisper, horribly conscious that cell phones are banned in hospitals.

“Oh for God’s sake,” says Kitty. “I got all your voicemails. Is he okay?”

“Yes, Kitty. He’ll live. It was minor car accident while driving to pick up the kids.” And then I realize Madeline is listening in. She doesn’t need to know the
real
story. “But, can we talk about it later?”

“Well, as long as he’s alive…”

“I can’t use my phone in the hospital, but quick, say something to make me laugh.”

Well it’s not funny but I’ve had it with Larry, Eric and Sergey…”

“More penis artists?”

“No, the Google guys. They’ve destroyed my life!”

“Huh? Kitty I’m tired. What the hell are you talking about?”

“The guys who own Google. Did you ever Google me?”

“Um, no.”

“Well, don’t. Because I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought it up.” Just then the nurse signals me to come inside to sign Ben’s release papers. They’re sending him home after all. “Kitty, I have to go….” I click my phone shut.

*

Back home a day later, Ben is resting in bed. I rub his head but he doesn’t feel it, he’s still out cold from the pain killers. I pour a cup of coffee and take a slow sip. It’s been a long couple of days and I have to be at the station at ten a.m. for a taping. But before I go, I pull up a chair in front of my computer, log onto the internet, and type in the name “Kitty Morgan.”

The Google list that comes up causes me to spit my coffee onto the screen. The first entry says, “L’il Kitty.”

The rapper? Her last name is Morgan, too? I click on it.

“Notorious for bar room brawls, outbursts, lewd behavior and getting arrested….L’il Kitty Morgan…”

“…But I only want to replace the old deadbolts,” I say to the man on my cell phone. I lower the volume on the French lesson CD in my car’s dashboard.

“No,” I continue. “I don’t need an alarm system… Yes, I know a man broke in, but I know him…No, you don’t understand, it’s not like that. He didn’t steal anything…Yes, yes, I know it sounds crazy. He just wanted to sleep there…With a woman. It’s Cape Cod. Contractors aren’t criminals!”

Ironic that Betty Carmichael’s distraught cheating call is what prompted me to drive up to investigate my cottage at this inauspicious moment. Apparently “Hurricane Matilda” is about to collide with me, “Hurricane Libby,” which is expected to hit the coast in two days. But I think maybe I can beat the storm – just get in, check the cottage, change the locks, talk to my realtor and possibly board up some windows to protect them from Matilda, before hightailing it back to New York City.