Summer Rental (15 page)

“Oh my God,” Dorie said. “Pee-Pants Patti Shaffhausen! You won’
t believe this, but Patti Shaffhausen is my dentist. She and her husband live on the same street in Ardsley Park as Willa. And he’s a urologist.”

“Stop!” Julia begged. Now it was her turn to clutch at her chest. “Stop, or I’m gonna pee my pants.”

“Guys,” Dorie said. “It’s not just the laughing. I pee my pants—just a little—like, every day. I’m pregnant, guys.”

16

“That’s not funny, Dorie,” Julia said.

“But it’s true.”

Ellis and Julia both chose that moment to take large gulps of wine.

“Is this what you call a pregnant pause?” Dorie said finally, her grin lopsided.

“When?” Ellis asked, when she could catch her breath. “I mean, when are you due?”

“I’m three months pregnant. The baby’s due in February. I’m hoping for Valentine’s Day.” Dorie turned to Julia, her green eyes flashing. “And before you ask, yes, I do intend to keep the baby. I don’t know what else is going to happen in my life, but the one thing I do know is that I am going to have this baby.”

Julia bristled. “I wasn’t going to suggest…”

“Good,” Dorie said, her voice becoming uncharacteristically firm. “I know you don’t go to church anymore, Julia, but I do. I’m not one of those crazy bomb-flinging right-to-lifers, but for me, I just don’t believe in abortion. End of discussion!”

“I can’t believe you still buy into all that Catholic voodoo,” Julia muttered.

“I do,” Dorie said. “Well, most of it anyway. I guess I’m gonna have to figure out the divorce part, though.”

Ellis flung her arms around Dorie. “Oh my God! A baby. This is amazing! I can’t believe it. We’re gonna have a baby, y’all.” She looked over Dorie’s head at Julia, who sat back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. “She’s pregnant! Bet you didn’t see that coming, Witch Julia.”

“Nope,” Julia agreed. “I totally didn’t see that one coming.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t guess, Julia,” Dorie said. “I’ve been running into the bathroom every five minutes, it feels like, and feeding my face every minute of the day. I can hardly stay awake, I’m so sleepy all the time.”

“But you’ve been drinking wine with the rest of us,” Julia said accusingly.

“Nope,” Dorie laughed. “You guys have been so busy sucking down the wine and margaritas, you didn’t even notice me dumping my glass in the sink. I haven’t had a drink since the dipstick turned blue back in June.”

“What does Stephen think about all this?” Julia asked.

Dorie gazed down at her belly. Her voice, when she answered, was very small. “He doesn’t know yet. You guys are the first ones I’ve told.”

“I don’t understand,” Ellis said finally. “You found out you’re pregnant in June. Way before you and Stephen split up. Why didn’t you tell him about the baby when you found out?”

“I just … didn’t,” Dorie said. “We weren’t trying to get pregnant. Not at all. This was all my fault. A slipup. We’d talked about a baby, and he said he wanted kids, eventually. But somehow, when I found out about the baby, right after Stephen’s dad had a stroke, it just seemed like a terrible time to announce that I was pregnant. I knew he’d be worried about money, and I just didn’t want to pile on another responsibility.”

“For God’s sake, Dorie,” Julia said. “That is so like you. How can this be all your fault? Unless you impregnated yourself with a turkey baster when Stephen wasn’t looking. You’re the one who’s got to carry this baby for nine months, along with everything else, and you’re worried about poor old Stephen having too much responsibility. He doesn’t deserve you, Dorie. He never did.”

Dorie pressed her fingertips over her eyelids. “A month a
go, I would have said you were all wrong about Stephen. Now? I just don’t know what to think. One minute I hate his guts. I want to scream and rant and rave and kick him in the nuts and grab him and shake the crap out of him and ask him why on earth he ever married me if he thought there was even a remote possibility he was gay. I mean, how
could
he? How
dare
he? And then, I start thinking how painful all this must be for Stephen.”

“Go with the kicking-in-the-nuts reaction,” Julia said dryly.

“Damn,” Dorie said, standing up abruptly. “Now I’ve gotta pee again. You see what I’m like? I’m a mess. Guess I’ll run upstairs and change my shorts while I’m at it. I don’t want you guys to start calling me Pee-Pants Dorie.”

When Dorie was out of earshot, Julia poured herself another glass of wine, and after a moment’s hesitation, topped off Ellis’s glass too.

Ellis took a sip of the wine. She felt inexplicable tears welling up. Were they for what her best friend was facing, or were they, selfishly, for herself—unmarried and still childless at thirty-five, a state she’d never envisioned for herself?

Her brother Baylor was five years older, and as a child, Ellis had always longed for a baby sister to play with—even after her mother patiently explained that Ellis was “the caboose,” as she called her. She’d been a funny little girl, the kind who still played with dolls when all her other friends had long since abandoned them. She’d always baby-sat as a teenager, and still did, occasionally, for friends back in Philly. All their children called her “Aunt Ellie.” Was that all she’d ever be, Aunt Ellie?

“Wow,” Ellis whispered, hoping Julia would assume her tears were for Dorie instead of herself. “I don’t believe this. A baby.”

“Me neither,” Julia said. “What are we gonna do?”

“We’re going to throw her a fabulous baby shower,” Ellis declared. “Can’t you just be happy for her? You heard Dorie. She wants this baby. She’ll make a wonderful mother.”

“A single mom,” Julia said glumly. “I don’t believe she ever envisioned doing it all by herself. And speaking of mothers, I do not want to be around when she drops this little bomb on her mom.”

Ellis winced. “Ow. Yeah. I’m sure old Phyllis will have plenty to say on this topic.”

“She’ll figure out a way to make this all Dorie’s fault,” Julia predicted. “You wait and see. She’ll blame Dorie for turning Stephen queer.”

“Julia!” Ellis laughed ruefully. But she couldn’t argue with what her friend said, because it was too true. Phyllis Dunaway had a talent for finding fault with her youngest daughter. She might have been a big-deal college English professor, but as a wife and mother, Dr. Dunaway was, to Ellis’s way of thinking, a big dud. For years, she’d bullied Dorie’s dad, Gabe, a sweet and slightly nebbishy college professor whose specialty was
Beowulf.
It had been Phyllis’s idea to name all three Dunaway children after American writers—Willa for Willa Cather, Nash for Ogden Nash, and Dorie,
the baby, who had been burdened with the unwieldy and unlikely name of Eudora, for Eudora Welty.

“What about Gabe?” Julia asked. “Does Dorie ever see her dad these days?”

Dorie and the girls had just started seventh grade at OLA when the Dunaways announced they were splitting up. Not long after, Gabe Dunaway moved an hour away, to Statesboro, to take a job teaching English at the college there.

Ellis shrugged. “I think he sends birthday cards and Christmas gifts. But he remarried a couple years ago, and you know how her mom is. Dorie doesn’t dare mention his name, even after all these years. She couldn’t even invite him to the wedding, since Phyllis was paying for it.”

“What an evil shrew,” Julia said. “It’s amazing to me that Dorie turned out as well-adjusted as she did, especially considering all those years of verbal abuse Phyllis subjected her to. God, my mother hated her. Did you know, that time when we were sophomores and Phyllis threw Dorie out of the house because she found out Dorie was sneaking around dating that boy who got kicked out of Savannah High for selling weed, my mom actually tried to talk my dad into asking Phyllis to let Dorie live with us?”

“No!” Ellis said. “That’s so funny. When that happened, I begged my mom to adopt Dorie. I was so clueless, I didn’t understand you couldn’t adopt somebody whose parents were still living. God bless Mama, she actually got u
p the nerve to call Phyllis and suggest that Dorie wasn’t really the tramp of the town. Phyllis never spoke to my mom again. Mama and I have had our own moments, God knows, but I’ll never forget how proud of her I was when she stuck up for Dorie that time.”

“If Phyllis had been my mother, I think I would have taken an axe to her years ago,” Julia said. “Like it was Dorie’s fault that she was so pretty. I think Phyllis hated the fact that Dorie looked like her dad’s side of the family. Remember how she used to call Dorie ‘her pretty little flake’?”

“And Dorie wasn’t dumb,” Ellis agreed. “Maybe she didn’t have a 4.0 GPA like Willa, but she made decent grades.”

“Didn’t matter,” Julia said. “Willa was always the smart, successful one according to Phyllis. So Willa went to law school and made partner when she was only in her thirties? Whoopie-shit. And now she’s not even practicing law. And what about good old Nash, the only son, the golden boy who could never do wrong? What’s he doing these days? I’m almost afraid to ask Dorie.”

“Nash,” said Ellis succinctly, “is still Nash. Still writing poetry, although as far as I know, he’s never had a word published. Last I heard, he was living rent-free in Dorie’s grandma’s old house on Forty-eighth Street. And you’ll love this part: he drives a big ol’ ’70s hearse, and he gives these ghost tours of haunted houses downtown.”

“You’re kidding me,” Julia said. “For real?”

Ellis slapped her right hand over her heart. “As God is my witness. Last time I was home, I saw him handing out flyers on Bay Street. You should have seen him,” she said, giggling. “He was wearing this zip-front jumpsuit, and an army surplus gas mask, and he had what looked like an old vacuum cleaner canister strapped on his back. He gave me his business card. At first I thought maybe he was hitting on me, then I figured out he just wanted me to cough up eighty-five dollars for his stinkin’ tour. Can you believe it? Julia, he’s even got a website.”

“Ghostdusters.com,” Dorie said, padding barefoot into the dining room. She’d changed into a pair of drawstring cotton pajama pants and a Hello Kitty tank top, her hair caught in a ponytail on top of her head. She looked all of thirteen. “Could you die? All that fancy education, and he’
s squatting in Granny’s house and hustling tourists with these ridiculous stories about talking tombstones in Colonial Cemetery and headless duels in Monterey Square.”

Ellis blushed guiltily. “It sounds like it could be a pretty successful business, though.”

“Yeah, maybe if he wanted to work at it, it could be, but you know Nash. Work really is a four-letter word as far as he’s concerned. Hey, is anybody else hungry? I’m thinking about fixing myself a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“We just ate four hours ago,” Julia reminded her. “Not to mention popcorn and Fudgsicles.”

“I’m eating for two now,” Dorie said. “At least now that you guys know, I can stop sneaking around and binging on cereal and scrambled eggs when you’re not looking.”

“If I ate like that I’d blow up like a balloon,” Ellis said. “I still can’t believe you’re three months pregnant, walking around looking like a stick.”

Dorie pulled up her tank top and pooched out her tummy. “A stick? Look at this gut! There’s a baby in there, for real.” She turned around and wiggled her butt at her friends. “And look at this ass. It’s like, two axe handles wide, as my daddy would say.”

Julia gave Dorie’s butt an affectionate slap. “Who are you kidding? You’ve still got the tiniest hiney on the planet, Dorie. For now anyway. Come on. I’ll fix you your grilled cheese, little mama.”

The three of them trooped into the kitchen. Dorie and Ellis perched at the kitchen table while Julia melted butter in a frying pan and assembled Dorie’s sandwich.

When the sandwich was golden brown, with melted cheddar cheese oozing out the sides, Julia flipped it onto a plate and slid it in front of Dorie, along with a glass of milk.

“Oh, bliss,” Dorie said, taking a bite and rolling her eyes. “Stephen always says the best sandwich in the world is the one somebody else makes for you.”

“About Stephen,” Ellis said slowly. “Dorie, you really are going to have to tell him about the baby. Have you even talked to him since he moved out?”

Dorie chewed slowly. She took another bite of grilled cheese and then another. When the sandwich was half eaten, she pushed the plate away.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t talk to him. I can’t hear his voice. I can’t see him. Not yet. He calls, but I don’t answer. I know he drives past the house. I’ve seen his car cruise past half a dozen times. He doesn’t have the balls to stop and ring the doorbell. Which is good, ’cuz I don’t think I could answer the door if he did.”

“Do you even know where he’s living?” Julia asked.

“At Matt’s, I suppose,” Dorie said. “He’s got a big old Victorian in Midtown. We went to a party there last fall.”

“You’re going to have to talk to Stephen, Dorie, and sooner would be better than later. You know what a small town Savannah is,” Julia said. “You’re gonna start showing sooner or later. And you know how people talk. You need to figure out the next step.”

“I can’t,” Dorie wailed. “I don’t know what to say to him. Anway, I don’t know what the next step is. I don’t know how to get a divorce.”

“I do,” Ellis said lightly. “It’s not that hard, really. Look at me, I got mine at twenty-three. If this is really what you want, Dorie, I’ll give you my lawyer’s name. He was one of Baylor’s fraternity brothers. He’s still in Savannah, I know, because he sends me a Christmas card every year. Guess he thinks that now I’m in my thirties, I’ll start throwing some divorce work his way.”

Dorie tore off a chunk of the grilled cheese sandwich and nibbled at it. “I never, ever thought I would be thinking about getting a divorce. After my parents split up, I swore when I fell in love, it would be forever. You guys know how many men I went with over the years. I never even considered marrying any of them. Not until I met Stephen. That’s why I waited so long to say yes. I wanted to be sure.” She propped her feet up on the kitchen table. “The only thing I know for sure now is that nothing is for sure. And look at me—I’m barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And oh yeah, my baby dad
dy has a boyfriend.” She sniffed loudly.