The Paternity Test (30 page)

Danny raised his grilling tongs and danced them down the lawn. Then Stu joined us, getting his sludgy legs to find the groove.

“Mãinha, too,” said Paula, as if she’d always planned this: push the grownups into a four-way ft of self-forgetting.

Debora took a half-step back. From me, in particular? Worried she might give away our secret? I wished I could let her know that Stu had had a turnaround, that she and I might find a safer way to be connected. Plus, I’d have told her: Your
hesitancy
is the giveaway. Play things cool, or they’ll all be suspicious . . .

“Okay, then, we’ll
get
you,” Danny said. “Come on. Let’s go!”

The gang of us, a monstrous pod, quickly overtook her. Debora started shrieking; she sounded truly scared. But then Paula writhed her little sinewy naked self, and Debora’s voice slackened, and slipped till it was laughter. She fell into our arms. She was dancing.

The music was a coiling rope; to match it, we all whirled. A blur of limbs and faces, with Paula as our center point, our goad, our grinning inspiration. Over the backyard fence, I saw the horseshoes-playing neighbors, caught up in their own celebration. What would they be seeing if they turned and looked at us? Tighter and tighter we clamped together, faster, intertwining, a beast with no right to be so balanced.

Suddenly I was thrust against Debora. Had someone pushed? Maybe just the speed of our rotation. I glanced at Stu, at Danny, at Paula’s blissed-out face, waiting for a sign that they objected . . .

Debora hugged me closer. I smelled her sandy smell; I felt her heaving weight and heat against me. Her shirt soaked up water from my sprinkler-wettened chest; her nipples, tight and bossy, prodded mine.

Why did no one notice us, and stop her? ( Just too drunk?)

Why did I not stop myself ? (Ditto?)

I loved getting away with this, but also felt the strain of it; maybe, then, subconsciously, I wanted to get us caught. But none of that psychologizing mattered as we hugged. All that mattered? Our wanting trumped our wanting not to want.

I knew I had to find a way to be alone with Debora, but also knew I’d have to wait a while. First, we had to do the insem.

Stu was more relaxed than he had been the times before, due to the drinks and dancing, I guessed, but also to our new plan. Before trooping off to the bathroom with his cup, he told Debora this was his last try.

“What?” she said. “Why? And after that, we quit?”

“No,” he said. “If I don’t do it, Pat will take my place.”

I watched for her reaction. Was she as eager as I?

Debora calmly nodded. She said she understood. “But,” she added, “right now your job is still to think you
can
. So go in there”—she nudged Stu on the back, toward the bathroom—“go in there and do your best. Believe.”

This was even better than the fervor I had hoped for: heartfelt, unfailingly humane. The screws of my attraction turned tighter.

When Stu was done, he and I took Paula to the yard again, while Danny, behind the bedroom door, worked with Debora. Paula wanted to dance some more, to boogie through the sprinkler, but I was past that mood, anxious to go back in; I withstood her poking attempts to roust me from my chair.

Paula found the volume control on Danny’s CD player, and cranked the music to stomach-churning strength. I told her to turn it down, and she did, for just a second, before annoyingly twisting the knob, high to low to high. Finally, I had to get up, to confiscate the disc, but I sat down again and wouldn’t budge.

“Grownups are so boring,” Paula announced. (If only she knew . . .)

“No,” said Stu. “We just get tired a lot more quick than you do.”

In truth, he looked, just now, the opposite of tired; he looked like a rusty hinge unstuck. It was so good to see him f nally loosened.

Paula crossed her arms. “Do you need to take a nap? I think someone maybe needs a nap.”

Her words, clearly cribbed from a parent’s speech to her, made me laugh, and I forgave her brattiness. “Thanks, but we’ll be fine,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

“Well,” she said officiously, “you have to rest up good. Have to stay awake tonight, for freworks!”

“Oh, we’re going, are we?” I said. “I don’t know about that.”

“Of course we are, silly,” she said. “My daddy made a promise.”

Stu said, “Well, now, honey. Today’s a little different.”

“No,” she said. “I know what day it is. Fourth of July.”

Stu must have seen a meltdown coming, and hoped to stall it. “We’d just better wait,” he said, “and talk to your dad, okay?”

“But—” she said.

“Just wait, okay? I love fireworks, too. I honestly do, but we’ll just have to see.”

And I started to formulate a plan . . .

Back in the house, we gathered around Debora, who lay in bed. “All went good,” she told us. “Much more easy now, you know, with Danny here again.”

“Really got the hang, I think,” he said, “if I do say so. Maybe I should open up a business?”

We were laughing, when Paula started in about the fireworks, whining about Danny’s vow to bring her. The girl sat atop the bed but banished to its foot, worrying a blanket’s fringed edge.

Danny explained that they couldn’t go, they had to stay with Mommy, and Mommy had to stay right here, in bed.

“But you said. You said I’d see the flowery ones!” cried Paula.

Next year, Danny told her. Next year she would see them. Tonight they were doing something special and important: helping Pat and Stu to make a baby.

“But the flag,” Paula said. “The flag that’s made of fire.”

“Go,” I said, trying to sound casual, uninvested. “I can keep Deb company. We’ll be fine.”

Danny appeared enticed, but said no, he should stay. “A husband’s job is never done, ha ha.”

“But look at her,” I said. I tapped Paula’s chin. “Look at her! She wants to go so badly.” Once again, it seemed Paula was offering instigation. I had started to think that she was secretly in cahoots.

“Please?” she said. “Oh please, Daddy, can we?”

“Not if you—be careful,” Danny said. “Don’t shake Mommy.”

Paula froze, a statue of high hopes.

Danny bent toward Debora. “What do
you
want, Deb?”

“You did promise,” she said. “And Paula’s been a good girl. If Pat really doesn’t seem to mind . . .”

I couldn’t read her smile. Did she see what I was aiming for? “Really,” I said. “Happy to stay. Honest.”

A gleam came into Danny’s eyes, and I could guess his logic: he saw how he’d bank the points from having pledged to stay, while also still getting to escape. “All right, then, I’ll take her,” he said. “And Pat and Stu can stay.”

“No,” I said. “That’s silly: Stu can go along.”

“Me?” said Stu, high-voiced with surprise.

“Yes,” I said. “You need a break, after all you’ve been through. This stuff and the business with your sister, too—you’ve earned it.”

“Well . . . ,” he said.

“But Stu, you just said how you love fireworks! Live a little. Give yourself a treat.”

“Treats!” Paula chimed in. “A treat for me and you.” She clasped Stu’s hand, just as she had done out in the yard, trying to persuade him to get wet.

This time he didn’t squirm; he kissed her clutching hand. “
You’re
the treat,” he said. “You. My little sweetmeat!”

Danny said, “We’ll take that as a yes?”

In a rush they gathered what they needed for the outing. A cute cardigan for Paula, in case the night got chilly. Bug dope. An old navy blanket. Stu borrowed a Brockton: City of Champions sweatshirt from Danny.

“Oh, you’ll have a ball,” I said. “I’m glad we worked this out.” I tried not to let my voice get yolky with too much pleasure, and also not to berate myself for being so persuasive.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” said Stu. “I don’t have to go.”

“Yes,” said Debora. “No more questions. Go.”

Kiss, kiss, kiss good-bye, and Stu and Danny and Paula left, footsteps fading quickly down the stairs. The front door creaked, clattered shut, and just like that, there we were, Debora and I, alone.

Alone. What I’d feared. What I’d dreamed of.

I felt I should have a speech prepared . . . but saying what? I had thought of getting to this point but not beyond it. Tell her about my talk with Stu? But this was not about him; whatever this was, whatever we’d do, above all else, was
ours
.

We were arranged like actors in a deathbed vigil scene: Debora lying, patient-like, and I standing beside her, close enough to mop her beading brow.

The silence sharpened—thinner, thinner. Brittle.

Debora made a jagged sound. Did something hurt her? Where? Then I saw her curled-up lips, and heard the sound correctly: a cackle of relief, of disclaimer.

Oh, I thought. Is
this
how we’ll clomp across these eggshells? I tickled her, the scoop behind her knee; she giggled harder. I pinched her side. I climbed up on the bed.

Like peeing in the ocean—a furtive liberation—that’s how sweet it felt to laugh, and laugh and laugh and laugh. I wrapped myself like gift wrap around her body.

Music, Debora suggested. Shouldn’t we have some music?

She couldn’t leave the bed, and I . . . I didn’t want to. All right, then: the dinky old clock radio on the nightstand, which only seemed to get a single station. The station beamed a clunker from my youth (angel, centerfold). Together again we laughed our high-test laugh. The only thing that stopped it was her kiss, deep and greedy. Trying to dig to China with her tongue.

I pulled away. “But aren’t you supposed to stay in bed and rest?”

“Bed, yes. But rest?” she said. “Rest is not the question. Lie on my back, is all—it’s for
gravity
.”

“I see. On your back? I think I can work with that.”

And so I did, hovering, hands along her neck, painting down her smooth, freckled chest. The oldie’s chorus came around (“. . . my memory has just been sold . . .”); Debora’s breathing rose and fell in time.

A noise, then.

A car door? Footsteps in the hall?

“Wait,” I said. “Listen.” My muscles turned to wire.

But it was just the song, I guessed. My humming skull. My pulse. “Sorry,” I said, and killed the tune. “You mind? I think it’s safer.”

Safety, not morality. That was my concern.

I thought about the AC, too. So loud. Turn it down? But no, the heat up here would get oppressive.

More important than safety, even: comfort.

Where had I left off ? Her chest; her bone-smooth chest; all those gourmet freckles to consume. I zoomed down and licked her there, and let my hands keep moving. Down, down . . . another inch . . . another.

“Did Danny already . . . finish you off ?”

“No,” she said.

“Okay, then.” My fingers did a rain dance on her skin.

“It’s not your
hands
I need,” she said. “I need—”

And that was it.

My clothes came off. I tossed the sheet and blanket to the floor. Clambered atop her. Knees between her thighs.

All of this crazy-quick. Crazy-crazy.

My hands pinned her hands against the mattress, near her hips, but I could push inside of her without the help of hands. Squirm and grind: an inch would give a mile.

Protection was the only thing that gave me pause, like last time. The Instead Cup—she had it up inside her still, now, right? The thing was leakproof, holding in Stu’s sperm. And clearly, if it kept Stu’s
in
, wouldn’t it keep mine
out
? The risk that mine would somehow get inside was awfully small . . .

I was in the middle of saying that, when something struck me. “Wait,” I said. “Think about it. Wouldn’t it only help? I mean, if by some wacky chance . . . we’d never know
whose
, would we?”

“Well, if it is blond,” she said. “Then it must be yours.” She smiled. Did she figure I was kidding?

“Seriously, Deb. Stu’s all but given up—you heard him, right? You heard. He’s ready for me to try.”

Debora seemed too deep in thought—or thoughtlessness—to talk.

“To tell the truth,” I added, “I’d want it to be his. Or anyway, you know, for him to think so. Isn’t there a precept? From Jesus, or . . . from someone. But anyway, the point is that, according to the precept, to help someone who doesn’t know you’re helping: that’s okay. It’s good, actually. You don’t need permission.”

“Pat,” she said.

I still loved the way she said it:
Patch
. Maybe, though, I should have thought of what that word could mean: something makeshift, something temporary.

“You
need
something to happen,” she said. “Something soon, for you and Stu. So, I think, whatever works, it’s good.”

“Yes?” I said. “You really think so, too? I mean, if—”

“Yes.”

Our faces were an inch apart; her breath was wet against me. All of her, against me: wet, wet.

This time there was no mistaking the sounds: a car, a creaking door.

“Oh my God, they’re back,” I said. “Shit. Shit shit shit.”

“How?” said Debora. “Finish, Pat. Come on.”

She was in her nightie again, covered up in bed. I had showered, dressed . . . or almost finished dressing. Shirt and shorts but not yet socks and shoes.

Lucky I had gotten this far, and lucky I had heard. Given the noisy AC, I might not have. Why had I left it blowing? Inviting my comeuppance?

I fought with one sock, two, my fingers dull and flimsy. I checked my hair: Was it still damp? Would that incriminate me?

“Why would they be back so soon?” I said. “This is crazy.”

“Fast,” said Debora, just as we heard someone bounding up.

“Mãe and Pat, Mãe and Pat, we’re home!” came Paula’s singsong.

I had tied one shoe but not managed to reach the other, when Paula landed just beyond the threshold: windblown hair, cardigan with its topmost button fastened, flowing like a superhero’s cape.

“The fireworks broke,” she said. “But guess what we did then. Lookit, Mãe. Look. We got ice cream.” With twiggish, suntanned arms, she offered forth two Fudgsicles. “One for you and one for Pat. Quick,” she said. “They’re melting.”

Then she saw me fumbling with my socked-but-shoeless foot.