The Stork Club (49 page)

After a while he began frequenting the computer store himself to find out what he was missing and found what he called bells and whistles galore. He bought software for screenwriting and tried out the new format by writing funny opening scenes of silly movies to amuse himself and to make Ruthie laugh when she got home.

At the end of five weeks he started writing a real screenplay. Often when Ruthie got home and found her way to his room Sid would be on Shelly's lap where he'd fallen asleep from boredom while Shelly typed madly away in that kind of glazed-over otherworldly writer place inside his brain.

Sometimes he was already sitting there, or still sitting there, in the morning when Ruthie woke to the sounds of Sid stirring in the nursery. This morning it was the clickity clicking of the computer keys that woke her, and she walked into the room where Shelly was working feverishly. For a while she stood in the doorway watching him, then finally she spoke.

"Shel."

"Hmmm."

"What would you say if I told you you were right about Louie Kweller?"

"You mean that he's a rich asshole?"

"No, that I should start dating him."

"I'd say hallelujah." She walked into the room now and looked at his face.

"Hey, I think you should pursue him with everything you've got. Maybe he can pay for Sid's bar mitzvah. By the time the kid is thirteen, the cake alone will cost five hundred thousand."

"You don't mean it. You're pissed off. I know the way your eyes get all bugged out when you're annoyed."

"You're confusing me with Peter Lorre. I'm not annoyed. Can you get him to adopt me and pay my medical bills?"

"Is this your way of saying yes?"

"I don't know why you think you need my permission, but yes. It's a yes. Tell him to come on over."

Louie began by calling her at work every day, and soon he was sending flowers and gifts and cards. One day he sent over an actor in a gorilla suit to her office, and the gorilla brought flowers and serenaded her and the entire writing staff. When the gorilla, paid extra by Louie Kweller to do so, lifted an enraged Zev Ryder above his head and spun him around, all of them laughed out loud.

"I want her to marry him," Shelly said one day in group. "I want her to have a future and I want that for Sid too. I joke around about Louie, but he has a lot of great qualities."

"It sounds as if you're saying that it's okay with you for Ruthie to leave you and be with Louie," Barbara said.

"I'd like to give the bride away," Shelly said, but Barbara detected the fear behind all he was saying. It made sense that he would worry that Louie might take his place, not just as Ruthie's love, but as Sid's.

"Yeah, well, what about Sid?" Judith asked. The group worked in a way that allowed all of them to challenge one another freely, and none of them was afraid to speak out.

"He'll still be our son. And sometimes he'll be with me. And sometimes with them. It's a hell of a lot more amicable than a divorce."

"Louie and I are just dating," Ruthie said. "I'm not getting married so fast."

"Why not?" Shelly flared, and everyone, especially Ruthie, seemed taken aback by his anger. "Don't postpone your life waiting for me to die, Ruthie. Because I refuse to oblige. I
don't
need you to take care of me. I've got a nearly finished screenplay I'm going to sell, and a million other ideas for things to write and do, and I won't have you stop living because you're waiting for me to stop living. If Louie is serious and you love him, it's going to be the best thing for all of us if you goddamned marry the rich bastard. And don't you dare turn me into the reason you're not doing it. I'm calling the caterer the minute we get out of here."

Ruthie, who had been holding tears inside during his tirade, let them go now, and she wept openly, struggling for her words which came out in spurts. "I can't . . . I don't think I can. I don't want to ruin our . . . I can't."

"Well, you'd better figure out why you can't and not put the blame on me," Shelly said tenderly and put an arm around her while she covered her face with her hands, embarrassed to be crying so hard in front of the others.

"Ruthie," Barbara said, "Shelly's right. You need to work on why you're so unsure about how to proceed when it comes to having a relationship with a man who offers you sexual intimacy, and the real possibility of a marriage."

Ruthie shook her head. "I don't know," she said and sniffled, and Lainie handed her a Kleenex. "I think about it all the time. Maybe because when my brothers died it was so painful it made me afraid, or maybe it's because nobody ever really wanted me before the way
Louie does, so I don't believe him, or maybe it's because I wanted to keep up the ruse for Sid that Shelly and I are a conventional couple. I don't . . . I don't . . . " Then she turned in her chair and faced Shelly and took his hand. "I love you so much," she said. "I can never tell you how you are my life and my love, because it was your love for me that gave me a life and a reason to survive."

Shelly smiled at her, holding both of her hands in his, and when their eyes met he said, "Likewise I'm sure. And it's because I feel this way about you that I'm telling you it's time to move on." Then he stood and moved her to her feet and took her in his arms and hugged her. And when the hug broke and Ruthie blew her nose, Rick said, "Yeah, but the real bottom line question is . . . when do
I
get to read the nearly finished screenplay?"

"I'll bring it in next week," Shelly said, and everyone laughed.

45

Y
OU OKAY?" Stan asked, curling up next to Barbara, fitting himself against the curve of her back, further warming her already very warm body. She was only half asleep. All evening long she'd been dozing a little, then opening her eyes to peek at the clock and wonder if his plane had landed and how long it would take him to get home. Now she could let herself drift into that unconscious world because he was there and safe. She started to float there, then jumped, remembering in her misty state that she'd been saving the big news to tell him in person.

"I am okay," she said, her voice husky with sleep. "In fact I just happen to be okay enough for two people."

"Well, that's good news," Stan said in a voice she knew meant he was about to get friendly. So she wasn't surprised when he moved his hands under her nightgown and up to her breasts, which were already so large and
so sore she wasn't able to lie on her stomach. "My, my," he said. "If I didn't know any better . . ."

"You'd say I was pregnant?" she asked, turning to him slowly and carefully to protect her sore breasts.

"You're joking?" he said looking into her eyes.

"I wouldn't joke about this."

Stan's face filled with wonder and elation. "A baby? You're telling me I'm having a baby?" he said proudly, and pulled her so close that she flinched at the hardness of his chest against her sore breasts.

"Yes," she said, and burst into tears from hurt and hormones and confusion.

"Honey, that's extraordinarily profound news. Have you told the kids?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because I wanted to tell you first, and because Jeff's never home, and Heidi doesn't return my calls, and . . ."

"And?"

"Because I'm afraid they'll laugh."

"Laugh? I think this is fabulous news. I'm going right out and getting one of those jogging strollers I've seen dads using all up and down Ocean Avenue. It's a great way to take the baby out for fresh air."

"You don't jog."

"I know, but I'll start. I mean, I'm going to have to get in shape for those late-night feedings, and those early-morning wake-ups, and those soccer practices—"

"Oh, my God," Barbara said, feeling as if her breasts were going to explode, and her bladder was full and she was so tired just thinking about it all. "It sounds awful."

"No, it doesn't," Stan said, as puffed out as he had been the day she told him the news about Heidi, twenty-four years earlier. "It sounds great. I'm so glad, believe
me, sweetheart, your hormones are just awry now, but you'll see, you're going to be so glad." He kissed her again and again and tenderly moved down to kiss her throbbing breasts.

At least, she thought as his kisses became heated, I don't have to worry what day of the month it is.

"So am I crazy out of my mind if I go ahead and have this baby? I know as usual you'll tell me the brutal truth, won't you, Mother?"

"When have I not?" Gracie asked, smiling. She and Barbara were walking down San Vicente Boulevard. Gracie loved putting on what she laughingly called her "tracksuit" to make her way along the grassy strip with her daughter, greeting the morning runners and walkers.

"I can't understand why there would even be a shred of doubt in your mind," Gracie said. "Believe me, I wish there was a chance for
me
to do it again. And I say that because it's taken me years to figure out what constitutes being a good mother, and perhaps now in my old age I could do it right. Do as I say, not as I do. Raising a child is the best and most important and most creative act you'll ever perform. Besides, selfishly speaking, I could use another little cherub of a grandchild in my life, so I insist."

Gracie's step faltered for an instant and Barbara held her arm, but then she seemed recovered and they continued. "I was never what you are, good at my work and good at life. My own life was too difficult for me so I lost myself in other people's cultures, values, ways. I guess I was trying to find myself in all of them. But you and your sister, you are without a doubt my greatest accomplishments."

Then she laughed as if she'd just realized something important. "Maybe
that
was my contribution! I was so
bitchy it was a character builder just to be related to me. Eh?"

"That must have been it, Mother," Barbara said.

"What did your husband say when you told him about the baby?" Gracie asked, turning down Twenty-sixth Street so they could stop at the outdoor market for breakfast.

"Are you kidding? He now thinks he's the most potent, virile creature on earth, and he wants to go shopping for a jogging stroller."

Gracie chuckled. "And the kids?"

"Jeff loved the news. He said he'd feel less guilty leaving for college, knowing I had someone else to hug. Heidi thought about it for a while after I told her, then she laughed and said, 'Go for it, Mom. I'll help.' She's been in very good spirits lately. She has a new job, and she's dating a new young man."

"Well, now that we've settled the baby issue, what are you going to do about work? You're always threatening to retire but I know you better than that, so how will you handle the baby
and
your clientele?"

They stood together at the coffee counter where Barbara watched the woman steam the milk for Gracie's cappuccino. She couldn't help feeling a little stab of envy because since she'd discovered she was pregnant, she'd given up coffee.

"I don't know. They've all come such a great distance, particularly my group who call themselves the Stork Club. The issues they're going to continue to face with their children makes me think I ought to stay with them forever."

"So?"

"So, the groups at the hospital are time-limited. They're scheduled from September through June, and there's a long waiting list to get into them. Practicality dictates that nine months is an adequate time period in
which to make any necessary intervention. Then we have to say good-bye and good luck to these families and send them out into the world."

"That's preposterous," Gracie said, moving her arm in a way that almost knocked over the coffee cup the woman behind the counter had just set there. "That'll never work. Certainly not for that group of little ones whose parents had them in all those newfangled ways. Their need for an extended family is going to go on endlessly, and those parents are going to have to put their heads together regularly and figure out what to do about it. You
should
run that group forever. There must be other people who are needing to get in there and work out those things too."

"There are," Barbara said. "I've been getting a lot of phone calls."

"Well, I suggest you tell your colleagues you refuse to put a time limit on people's emotions, and if they say no, you'll go ahead and run the groups out of your living room if you have to."

Barbara gripped the counter as a freight train of nausea rushed through her body.

"And what'll they have to say to that?" Gracie asked her, picking up her coffee cup and heading for a table.

"Mother, if I can have morning sickness at this point in my life . . . anything can happen."

Louise Feiffer was especially imposing that morning, taller than Barbara remembered, especially articulate in telling Barbara about the budget problems the program was having and her concerns about the upcoming board of directors meetings. When it was Barbara's turn to explain why she had requested this private meeting, she felt a flutter of nervousness. She tried to keep back the emotion she knew was a result of the way she felt about
the group and the hormones in her body, which were doing something akin to the Ritual Fire Dance.

She remembered Ruthie Zimmerman telling her about the times she sat in meetings with all the male writers at work, and had to repeat what she called her mantra, which was "Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry." Barbara said those words to herself now as she talked about why she wanted to have an open-ended continuation of the Stork Club. She knew it wasn't the way the hospital's program usually operated, but she wanted the staff to look closely at the possibility that certain groups would benefit from longer terms.

She watched as Louise took a sip of her coffee. And when she thought about coffee the way she'd watched Louise fix hers, with lots of Coffee-mate and sugar, that made her feel so sick that the floor and the ceiling seemed to get closer together. She hadn't yet told anyone at the hospital she was pregnant.

"Barbara," Louise said, "what I think I'm hearing is on two levels. I understand how it feels every year to terminate these groups. You and I have both been doing this for a while and we acknowledge the solitude we as therapists feel as we let these people go. But I think the process of letting the families separate from us, or leave us behind if you will, closely parallels the emotions we feel about our own children leaving us to go out into the world. And I know that in your case it's exactly what you're going through in your own life now.