Wedding Cake for Breakfast (16 page)

The First Year

JILL KARGMAN

I spent my wedding night with Russell Crowe.

Harry had passed out after we (gag) “consummated” the marriage, which we did because, despite our extreme exhaustion at 1 a.m. after the candle-covered wedding of my dreams, that's whatcha do. Not that I didn't want to—I did; it's just that I was totally wiped out but felt there was some sort of medieval edict that said we had to bang and seal it all in somehow. Not that anyone would be waving my flag-of-Japan newly nonvirginized bedsheet in the town square or anything, but I figured, we gotta deal.

Naturally, per alleged male biology, newly minted hubby passed out while I was staring at the ceiling in a haze of surreal snapshots of the twinkling, romantic evening. I looked down at my hand. I still felt that with my manicure and chunk o' ice, I looked like someone chopped off the hand of some older lady and glued it onto my wrist stump.

So there I was, wide-awake with the remote control. Flip, flip . . . home shopping, flip flip . . .
Full House,
flip flip . . .
Gladiator
. BINGO. I lay back, and somehow this hundredth viewing was so much more emotional. A welling sadness rose within my chest until I burst into tears with full-on audible sobs. They fucking KILLED HIS KID? And RAPED HIS WIFE AND FUCKING TOLD HIM ABOUT IT?! I wanted to bash Joaquin's harelippy face in. And this was before he got all psycho on
Letterman
. There was no way someone could be THAT talented an actor and master evil so perfectly without actually being the apex of douchebaggery in real life. At least that's what they all said about Brenda on
90210
back in the day. Beeyotch on-screen, satanic in life. Finally, in the end, I felt my esophagus closing as a golf-ball-size lump rose in my throat, and by the time Russell bites it to allegedly join his dead fam in A Better Place, I was a rocking snotball of a mess.

Not to be a total drama queen read into this shit, but maybe in some small way I felt a new chapter coming upon me in that 3 a.m. moment, a crossing over. No, I wasn't married off in some kind of horrifying barter system for chattel, I was in love and ecstatic—but I still found that despite my elation from the best night of my life at that point, I felt a twinge of sadness that was coaxed out by the jeering Roman Colosseum.

I'd seen it all a ton of times (I'm big on high-budget Hollywood flicks. Extra credit for period shit), but somehow this time I was so much more hysterical. Maybe because I was channeling the swirling amorphous sea of my own feelings bubbling up inside me into a reaction to Russell's tragic journey. I was so so so elated to be married to Harry. And yet there was a slight melancholy about flushing my maiden name, Kopelman. We had agreed I'd gladly take his name, Kargman—I wanted the same name as my future litter of little of nuggets. I didn't know why now I was a lip quiverer; for crying out loud, it wasn't some whole new identity with unpronounceable fifty consonants jammed together or something. It was the same jewy-jewstein vibe and identical towel initials and paper monogram—
JK
. It was almost the exact name, just with the “opel” swapped out for “arg.” Not a BFD. I was more than thrilled to see Alison, my seventies middle moniker, swirl down the bowl forever, but my last-name change somehow felt like I was leaving my parents and entering this new family.

I decided I couldn't lie there in bed. I got up and walked through the long marble hallway of my Jay-Z suite.

Wait, let me back up.

The day before my wedding, I'd arrived with all my stuff to find my very sweet tiny one-bedroom hotel setup. It had a little living room area so that my bridesmaids could get their makeup done while we all sipped some champers from room service before the big event. After the rehearsal dinner, a few of my gals and my gay BFF, Trip, came over to tuck me in. We had a drink and hugged, and they left at about 2 a.m. so we all could get down to beauty rest.

I turned out the lights, and as I started to melt into the zillion-thread-count sheets and yummy hotel pillow fest, I heard a loud scratching sound from the wall that was very clearly some furry life-form.

The blood froze in my veins. Great. I called downstairs and tried to calmly explain in the most anti-Bridezilla, pleasant voice I could conjure, that I was very sorry to bother them, but there was BECLAWED RODENTIA BURROWING near me and that I WAS GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW. They sent up a dude who put his ear to the wall, listened to the hairball mystery menace, casually walked to the phone, and dialed downstairs.

“Yeah, hi, we got a Code Eleven.”

The next thing I knew, three butlers literally in tails (à la morning coat, not wall rat) carried all my belongings—including my wedding dress, which was stuffed like a dead body—to my new room: the Fifth Avenue Imperial Suite. The joint would make the late great Michael Jackson and his entourage of nannies, kids, handlers, and elephant bones gasp. It was insane. Ten rooms, a sprawling marble kitchen, a dining table for twelve, a princess bed, and a gilded rococo writing desk worthy of signing bills into laws with a feather plume.

So there I was, on my wedding night, wandering the grand apartment alone. I walked to the desk and opened the drawers, retrieving a piece of engraved watermarked hotel stationery. I sat down.

Dear Mom and Dad,
I began.

Tears flowed with the ink as I thanked them for the most enchanting of weddings. It was all so ethereal and sublime, and during my toast of gratitude on the dance floor, I morphed into Halle Berry's Oscar speech, mascara cataracts and moved beyond measure, despite not being a blactress breaking boundaries. Just a bride. Who loved everyone in the room.

I wrote them that even though my name was changing, nothing else would. I would always be their BG (baby girl). I wept for twenty minutes straight until I signed
dotter
(tradition), and then something happened. I stopped crying. I folded the paper into thirds, stuck it in the envelope, and as I sealed it, I also closed the flap on my worries. I was Mrs. Harry Kargman now. And I was so glad.

• • • • • • • •

Neither Russell nor the lump in my throat returned—the next few months brought blissful travels—our honeymoon in Italy and a business trip for Harry in Tokyo for ten days.

I'd decided to pursue a writing assignment, so I couldn't accompany him and scored a travel piece on then up-and-coming Cat Street for a travel magazine. We had a blast. I loved my new name on my passport. I loved being a unit. It was as if our first three months of marriage had shampoo-bottle-esque simple directions: Eat. Drink. Have Sex. Sleep Late. Repeat.

We came home and settled in. We enjoyed fun dinners with friends, and many weekends away for other people's weddings, which always seemed to reinforce our vows and make us reminisce about our own ceremony. We were feeling happily adjusted to married life. Harry was working round the clock, but I was busy as well and we were cocooned in a sweet bubble of self-indulgence and fun times, grinning with a newlywed glow.

And then one day I was sitting by the computer when I started to feel my boobs like . . . buzzing. I put my hands on my chest and m'knockers felt tender and firmer than usual. I must be PMSing.

And then it suddenly dawned on me . . . Oh boy . . . or girl.

I ran downstairs to Zitomer's “Department Store” (read: glorified pharmacy, but I love it anyway) and felt my heart pounding like timpani played by a cracked-out six-year-old. There they were: the pregnancy tests. I always remarked to friends when we saw them that people are either praying for a yes or praying for a no. But what was I? Neither, kinda. I bought First Response because they had the most commercials, so their media buyer won my arm reach to their product. I paid with a weird face on, like a smiley face whose smile has a squiggly line like it might barf. I went upstairs and pulled down the Calvins and peed on the stick. I was supposed to leave it in the stream for fifteen seconds or something. Gross. Okay, done. I decided to rest it on the cappy thing it came in and pace in the foyer. After two minutes, I busted back in and there it was clear as a nose job on a Horace Mann girl: Plus Sign. Holyshit. Knocked up. Bun in the oven. Casting my own Mini-Me. Child Star waiting in the green womb. With child. (How archaic.)

Despite that positive + screaming at me like the Bat signal in the Gotham night sky, I went back down to Zitomer's and bought three more tests, all different brands. As my bladder is roughly the size of a lima bean, there's always pee at the ready. I dropped trou and covered the three tips.
Shwing! Shwing! Shwing!
All three poz. I thought I was going to explode. I didn't know what to do. So I put my coat back on and went back to Zitomer's.

To the kids' area. I looked at the shrunken stuff and footie pajamas and diapers and bottles and was reeling. Then my jaw dropped as I spied two tiny booties with lions on them. Eureka! Because of his fluffy mane of curly hair, I'd begun calling Harry “LC” for Lion Cub back when we had first starting dating. And here I was, with a tinier cub in my tummy. I bought the booties and had them gift-wrapped. And then I paced, waiting for him to come home.

When he texted me that he was out of the subway and headed back, I couldn't contain myself. I ran down the block and met him on the corner. He looked surprised to see me, especially with my hand holding a bow-covered box.

“Hi! What're you doing here? What's this?” he asked.

“Open it!”

It had originally crossed my mind that I could put all the various pregnancy tests in a box with ribbon to tell him that way, but then it occurred to me it was grody and creepsville to hand him my urine.

His eyes widened as he pulled them out.

“NO!”

“Yes!”

We hadn't been trying. But we were lazy asses, so it wasn't a total shock. I wasn't into Jimmy Jackets and neither was he. I called the condies—even his allegedly imperceptible lambskin ones—raincoats. So we bagged whenever I was riding the crimson wave. Or just finished it. Or didn't feel like schlepping to rifle through the drawer for a dick hat.

So there we were on the corner of Seventy-sixth and Park in the autumn night. Uh . . . oops.

I guess it's true, that joke . . .” I said.

“What joke?” he asked.

“Do you know what they call people who use the Withdrawal Method?”

“What?”

“Parents.”

• • • • • • • •

So only a few months into our marriage, I would grow into a fatty. We were both twenty-eight, and while I was lying like a beached whale on the couch eating Ben & Jerry's, my friends were dancing on tables at Bungalow 8. While they were primping in size-four dresses for a night on the town, I was watching the circumference of my thighs expand by the day. Them: Barneys. Me: Buybuy Baby.

Harry and I immediately felt plunged from one club—married folk—into the new world of parents. There was a new lingo we didn't know, about Bumbos and Diaper Genies and all this crap we supposedly NEEDED. I looked at the airplane-hangar-size space and asked him what the fuck our parents did without all this crap? The way everyone talked about these special bottles and organic this and that, you'd think it was a miracle people survived anywhere else.

I started to panic when I went to a baby shower of a fancy-pants acquaintance and all these women were talking about nursery schools and parenting books. I wasn't going to read fucking parenting books! Snooze! What, was I supposed to cancel my
Vogue
subscription and sign up for
Family Circle
now? No fucking way! I got scared my identity might get funneled into the fetus.

Then one woman sent me off into a tizzy.

Beeyotch: “You're getting a C-section, right?”

Me: “Uh . . . not that I know of, no.”

B: “You're kidding, right? Oh no, no, no, no, no. You must get an elective C. You get your blowout and your manicure, it's all very civilized, no grunting, no sweating, you walk in, and they slice 'n' dice, and you get your baby in two minutes! And if you ask, I'm sure your doctor will do it a few weeks early so you don't have to deal with those last weeks of weight gain.”

Me: silent, jaw on floor.

B: “Trust me, Jill, do it. Your husband will thank you for it, ifyaknowhatimean.”

I walked away shaking. She made it sound as if my vag would be the Holland Tunnel and that if I didn't get a C, I might as well be some mammal in the woods squatting down and shitting out a baby. Panicked, I went to my gyno, who told me I was insane and that she didn't perform Cesareans unless it's an emergency.

I got over the fears of the birth and tried to just be in the moment and enjoy the pregnancy. No such luck. I puked my brains out and felt so exhausted it was as if I had taken three Ambiens and then had to have my day. But in the end, as my first anniversary approached, I realized my pregnancy really helped us nest and was a fire under my (fat) ass to really make a home. Soon we would be a family, and I couldn't defer dealing with the Crate & Barrel explosion that was my bachelorette pad, so we signed a lease on a fourth-floor walk-up and painted the baby's room yellow since we decided not to know the sex (which seems so weird in retrospect and I hate when people do that). As the painters were coating the apartment with paint, we decided to get away for our anniversary. Harry surprised me with a weekend at the Wheatley in the Berkshires, the hotel where we got engaged. We holed up and I got a prenatal massage and we ate like pigs and slept like the dead. After our first night, we told the manager how much fun we'd had and that maybe we'd make it an annual family tradition.

“I'm afraid that won't be possible,” he said looking at my swollen tummy. “There are no children under ten allowed.”

Oh well.

The next night, my actual anniversary, I ate so much I felt like I was prego with twins—my actual nugget and the food baby. Harry fell asleep and I lay awake again, staring at the ceiling. What a difference a year makes. My wedding night felt both five minutes and five years ago. So much had gone down. And it was amazing to imagine what the next year would bring.