Stork Raving Mad (8 page)

“Am I glad to see you two,” I said. “Come in.”

“Meg! You’re looking wonderful!” Abe exclaimed. He was tall, lean, and Lincolnesque.

“But a little pale,” Art added. “Don’t you think she looks a little pale? Are you eating enough?” He was short, plump, and always looked as if he’d misplaced something and couldn’t quite remember what.

“I’m fine and I’m eating more than enough to keep Gilbert and Sullivan happy,” I said. “Come in; you’re letting out all the warm air.”

“Where’s Michael?” Abe asked as they shed their coats and and hung them on one of the coatracks.

“In the kitchen with the students,” I said, gesturing.

“And Dr. Wright?”

“In the library.”

“We should probably have a short huddle with Michael before we tackle them,” Art said. “If Wright’s in the library, then I suppose Michael’s office is out. Perhaps we could go out to the barn and use your office.”

“Dr. Blanco’s out in my office,” I said. I noticed that they hadn’t asked about him—clearly they shared my view that he was a lesser menace. “He wanted privacy for his important phone calls. If you want a room not already filled with either anxious students or hostile faculty, I’d suggest either the pantry or the nursery. Sorry, having all these students around does rather complicate things sometimes.”

“It’s the nursery, then,” Abe said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Top of the stairs,” I said. “I’ll—”

“Oh, my God!” Art was pointing at something at my feet. A small puddle.

“Did your water break?” he asked. “Do you need to go to the hospital?” He had clutched Abe’s arm and his eyes were as wide as I’d ever seen them.

“No, I’m fine,” I said. “That’s only some spilled ginger ale.”

“Are you sure?” Art asked.

“Now, now,” Abe said, patting his arm.

“If my water broke, it wouldn’t contain ice cubes,” I said, pointing to one sitting in the middle of the puddle. “Trust me, only ginger ale.”

“That’s a relief,” he said. “I was so worried that your water had broken.”

“Why worried?” I asked. “I’d be relieved. It would probably mean I was going into labor soon. I’m looking forward to getting this over with.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” Art asked. “Wouldn’t we have to rush you to the hospital if it broke?”

“Dangerous?” I echoed. “It’s a normal part of pregnancy.
Although it doesn’t happen to everyone; according to Dad, seventy-five percent of the time it doesn’t happen until well along in the delivery. And the only danger is that if you don’t give birth within twenty-four hours of your water breaking, there’s an increased risk of infection. So if it breaks, I call my doctor, very calmly, and do whatever she tells me to do.”

“What if you can’t reach her?” Art asked.

“Then we call my dad,” I said. “Remember, he’s a doctor, too.”

“But they don’t live here,” he said. “I thought they lived in Yorktown. That’s at least an hour away. What if—”

“He and Mother bought a farmhouse here so they can come to visit as often as they like without being a bother, as Mother puts it. And they’ve been staying here for the last few weeks, just in case. And Dad’s been giving Michael and Rose Noire all kinds of lessons in what to do under every possible circumstance—Michael says it’s the next best thing to med school. So there’s no danger that I won’t have help if I need it.” Of course, there was some danger that I might trip over all the eager helpers and well-meaning worriers, but I decided it wouldn’t be tactful to say so aloud.

“That’s a relief,” Art said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ve got everything covered. Why don’t you go on upstairs? I’ll send Michael up.”

“We could fetch him,” Art said. “So you don’t have to exert yourself. How about—”

“I’m just going to call him,” I said, holding up my cell phone. “These days, we both carry our cell phones twenty-four/seven.”

“Let’s go upstairs and let her make her call,” Abe said. He was patting Art’s shoulder in a reassuring manner. I found myself wondering how Art had survived his own children’s births if the mere possibility that I might be going into labor unnerved him so much. I made a mental note to ask his wife one of these days.

They trooped upstairs. Abe seemed to take the stairs well enough, but Art lagged a little. Was he still worrying about me, or was he feeling unwell? He’d come through heart surgery last year just fine, but everyone was trying not to put too much stress on him. Everyone in the drama department, that is. I felt a sharp surge of anger and resentment against Drs. Wright and Blanco for causing Michael and his closest colleagues so many headaches. If they were fretting Art into some kind of stress-related medical problem . . .

Nothing I could do about it now. Except maybe ask Dad to take a look at him. But first, they had to have their conference.

A wave of tiredness washed over me. I could remember days when I’d have dashed out to the kitchen in a few seconds, but right now I felt too exhausted to stand up. I leaned back in my chair and called Michael.

“Meg?” he said. “Where are you?”

“Just out here in the hall,” I said. “Art and Abe have arrived and they’re upstairs in the nursery, since at the moment it’s probably the only empty room in the house. Apart from our bedroom, of course, where I’m planning to take a nap before too long.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

“By the way, did you know we have displaced programmers in the basement?” I asked.

“Is that something like carpenter ants?”

“No, it’s more like I was so focused on the drama students occupying our extra bedrooms and living room, I never even noticed we had a whole extra colony of guests underground.”

“Oh, Rob’s people.” Michael was standing in front of me now, so we both shut off our phones. “Yes, I found out about them a week ago. I chewed Rob out for not asking, then told him that under the circumstances, it was fine if they stayed. Should I have told you? I didn’t want to worry you.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Maybe even useful.”

“Do you want me to bring you another chair?” he asked. “Something more comfortable?”

“Nothing’s all that comfortable right now, and I like this one. I can get out of it when I want to. Art and Abe are waiting.”

“Just rest there, then.” He planted a kiss on the top of my head and began galloping up the stairs, two steps at a time.

I leaned back. Maybe I’d rest for a few moments and then go up and join them. Or go out to the kitchen to check on events there.

The doorbell rang again.

“This is ridiculous,” I said.

Michael came running back down the stairs.

“Stay put,” he called. “I’ll get it. I thought you said you let them in and sent them up to the nursery.”

“I did,” I said. “This must be someone else. Our lives are starting to resemble that scene in the Marx Brothers movie—you know the one where they have fifteen people in the ship’s cabin?”

“
A Night at the Opera
. Good practice—when the kiddies arrive they’ll be a crowd all by themselves. Oh, hello,” he said as he opened the door. “Meg, it’s your mother.”

“Surprise!” Mother trilled.

Mother and her best friend and usual co-conspirator, Mrs. Fenniman, sailed into the foyer. Both of them were carrying bolts of fabric in shades of lavender and green. Behind them, I could see a small party of workmen carrying tool kits and lumber.

I had a bad feeling about this.

“Hello, dear,” Mother said. “We’ve come to decorate your nursery.”

She and Mrs. Fenniman both flourished their fabric bolts.

“Decorate the nursery?” I said, blinking with surprise. “It’s already decorated.”

Behind Mother, the workmen shuffled from foot to foot and looked sheepish. I recognized the tall, lean form of Randall Shiffley, owner of the Shiffley Construction Company. The other two workmen, equally tall and lean, were probably two of his many cousins. No wonder they looked sheepish. Randall and the rest of the Shiffleys should know by now how I felt about my mother’s kamikaze decorating attacks.

“Meg, darling, it’s not decorated. It’s barely furnished.” Mother kissed my cheek as she strolled past me toward the staircase. Her entourage followed.

“It’s got cribs,” I said, pulling my feet back to make sure the twins and I weren’t jostled. “Cribs, a table for changing them, and a couple of chests for the clothes and diapers and stuff.”

“The cribs don’t even match,” Mother said, in a tone that suggested that I was on the verge of committing child abuse.

“They don’t need to match,” I said. “Jeeves and Wooster won’t—they’re fraternal. And I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have different cribs for the kids. Help them establish their independent identities from the start.”

“Matching doesn’t mean the cribs have to be identical,” Mother said. “Matching means they coordinate. Look well together.”

“Look like you didn’t just buy them from the thrift shop,” Mrs. Fenniman put in, with her usual tact.

“We didn’t buy them in a thrift shop,” I said. “They were gifts.”

“Hand-me-downs,” Mother said, with a sniff, as if to imply that hand-me-downs were not suitable for her grandchildren-to-be.

“And I’m not sure I approve of any decorating that requires a construction crew,” I said. “No offense intended,” I added to Randall.

“None taken,” he said. “We’re just here for the papering and painting and such.”

Michael and I exchanged a look. Michael recognized the pleading in my eyes. I didn’t want to deal with Mother.

“Why don’t you show me what you have in mind?” Michael stepped forward and offered Mother his arm. “I don’t think
Meg has the energy to make decisions. And I have some pretty definite ideas about what we do and don’t want for the nursery. Nothing frilly for example, in case they’re boys.”

“They can find that out these days, you know,” Randall said. “They can do a test to find out whether you’ve got boys, or girls, or a mixed set.”

“Meg and Michael have decided they want to be surprised, the old-fashioned way,” Mother said. From the tone in her voice, you’d have thought she had agreed with us all along, instead of arguing with us for months. Probably, as I now realized, because it made her surprise decorating scheme more difficult.

“You’ll have to evict Art and Abe from the nursery, then,” I said. “Maybe they can have their meeting in our bedroom—it’s about the only empty room I can think of.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Michael said. “I’ll let you know what I think of the plan after I’ve reviewed it.”

He led the caravan upstairs. When they were out of sight, I closed my eyes and realized I had to go to the bathroom again. And as long as I was getting up, maybe I should see if Rob had recruited my tame hacker. Yes, that was the ticket. I’d visit the refugee computer science students in the basement. Art’s and Abe’s arrival had given me a new burst of energy, and I thought I could handle the stairs.

I passed through the kitchen on my way to the basement. Normally the kitchen would be alive with students reading lines to each other, debating the merits of the latest movies to hit town, and arguing over such timeless philosophical questions as whether killing another human being was ever justified and
who was funnier, the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges. And after Señor Mendoza’s arrival, the kitchen had temporarily become a nonstop party. But the arrival of the prunes had cast a pall over the proceedings. Instead of the impromptu flamenco band, a single student sat in one corner, fingering soft, melancholy blues chords on his guitar. A few students sat in twos or threes, talking in undertones. Even Rose Noire seemed preoccupied as she listlessly stirred something on the stove.

Luckily she was too preoccupied to notice me or she’d have tried to keep me from climbing down to the basement. I slipped through the door, closed it behind me, and carefully began descending the stairs.

I heard melodramatic music coming from somewhere down in the basement.

“What is the name of this monster?” a tinny-sounding voice said.

“Godzilla.”

More melodramatic music, followed abruptly by the loud music and louder voices of a commercial so familiar and annoying that I wanted to throw something at the TV every time I heard it. Clearly, at least some of the interns shared Rob’s eccentric taste in cinema. The commercial continued as I slowly descended, and the volume was up so high that I doubted anyone would hear me coming. I was surprised I hadn’t heard it up in the kitchen. No doubt the programmers had turned the volume up to hear over the flamenco music and never turned it down again when the prunes’ arrival dampened the festivities.

When I was close to the bottom of the stairs and could see the main part of the basement, I peered around. Five—no, six—young men sat at makeshift desks made of boards and cinder blocks, peering intently at the monitors of their computers. Rob’s interns.

None of them looked up.

I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with their dedication or feel sorry for them for having to work with all the excitement that had been going on upstairs. I wondered if I should have a word with Rob about driving his staff too hard.

Around and behind the desks I could see sleeping bags, air mattresses, and the same piles of clothes, books, and electronics the drama students had created in the rooms they occupied upstairs. The computer interns were no tidier, but certainly no worse.

I tried to pick Danny Oh out from the crowd, but I couldn’t see any of their faces well enough. I was about to call out his name when one of the young men, who had been slouched back in his chair while studying something on his monitor, suddenly sat upright and slammed his fist down on the makeshift desk.

“Damn!” he exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?” another asked, almost shouting to be heard over the sound of planes and bombs on the TV.

“Ajax just plundered my new city,” the first one said.

“Lose much?” asked a third.

“Three million stone,” the plundered one said.

“Stupid to keep that much around,” one of the others said. “You knew he was going to hit you before long.”

“Josh’s right,” another said.

“I was saving up to upgrade my wall,” the first intern said. “Damn, but I hate Ajax.”