Cannie Shapiro 02 Certain Girls (38 page)

M
y mother steered the minivan down South Second Street, where the bare tree branches arched above our heads, turning the pavement into a tunnel of flickering shadows. We drove past the Wawa, and the little Chinese take-out place that had caused such a stir when it opened and some of the neighbors had passed out leaflets complaining that the restaurant would attract the wrong element. "Which is what, exactly?" Samantha had demanded, tossing the flyer onto the kitchen counter for my mom to see. "Jews?" I smiled at the memory.

My mom turned onto Delaware Avenue, then onto the highway. The day had been warm and breezy, a hint of spring in the air. Now the night sky was cloudless, illuminated by the moon. The car seat was snug in the backseat, and I'd double-checked the diaper bag for everything the baby book said we would need: diapers and wipes and ointment, burp clothes, bottles and formula, a change of clothes, a soft fabric ball lined with snippets of ribbon, each one a different color and different texture, which was a good developmental toy. I'd found it in a box in the attic. I think it used to be mine.

"Are you doing all right?" my mother asked. It was only a two-hour drive, but she'd packed a cooler with snacks for us: string cheese and crackers and apples and juice.

"Do we have a name yet?" I replied.

"It will come to me," she said with her eyes on the road. "That's how I named you. The name just came to me."

I didn't say anything to that, but I thought I saw a smile flicker across her face when I pulled the
1001 Baby Names
book out of my backpack. "Not Peter," I said, half to myself. My mom shook her head. I read down the list of P names. "Pablo. Pace. Padriac. Patrick. Paul. Pax. Paz."

"Pace?"

"'From the Latin word for peace,'" I read.

"Then it would be Pah-chay."

"Okay," I said. Thinking,
No way will I let her name an innocent child Pahchay.

"What do you think of Charles? With Peter as maybe a middle name?"

"That's good, I guess."

"We could call him Charlie. His Hebrew name could be Chaim. Life."

"Charlie Krushelevansky," I said, trying it out. "It sounds good. We'll see. Maybe he won't look like a Charlie." I ran my finger down my list again. "Maybe he'll look like a Padriac."

My mother snorted. I rested the top of my head against the cool glass of the window, and I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes, she was parking the car underneath a haloed streetlamp in a big parking lot. Then we were inside, smelling that familiar hospital smell.

"Maternity?" she asked at the front desk.

"Fifth floor," said the woman, and she gave us both
VISITOR
stickers (I stuck mine on the leg of my jeans; my mother, of course, put hers proudly on the uppermost swell of her bosom).

We rode up in the elevator, and as the nurse at the desk on the fifth floor buzzed open the heavy swinging doors. You could smell urine and vomit, eye-watering disinfectant, and fear--but on this floor, you could also smell flowers. Every room we passed, I glimpsed a bouquet out of the corner of my eye, lilies or roses or a bunch of pink or blue balloons bumping against the ceiling.

At 514, my mother stopped so abruptly that if I'd been behind her instead of at her side, I would have walked right into her back. "Oh," she said softly. "Oh."

Betsy was in bed in a striped cotton bathrobe, smiling at us. "Hey, guys!" There was a plastic bracelet around her wrist, a blue-and-white-wrapped bundle in her arms. The baby had a dusting of dark hair underneath a knitted blue-and-white cap, a crooked little nose, skin so pale that I could see blue veins tracing their way on his eyelids and his cheeks. I tiptoed closer to the bed. I thought I recognized the shape of my mother's eyebrows, my father's forehead and chin. One of the baby's tiny hands was tucked into the blanket. The other hand was doing a kind of spazzy wave in the air. His fingers opened and closed, opened and closed, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for me to stretch out my hand and give him my pinkie to grab. He held it tight.

"Charlie," I said. "He looks like a Charlie."

"Want to hold him?" Betsy asked. She looked exhausted, as drained as if she'd been up all night running on a treadmill, but she also looked happy.

"Is it okay?" I asked.

"Sure, big sister," said Betsy. I crouched down, and she shifted the baby into my arms without his letting go of my finger.

My mom stood with one hand against the doorway, like she was afraid to come inside. Betsy looked at her. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," she said faintly. Then she shook her head and seemed to collect herself. "Better question: How are you?"

My mother pulled up a chair, and the two of them talked about labor and Apgar scores and episiotomies. As soon as I heard the word "placenta," I closed my ears and walked the baby over to the window, thinking that he didn't need to hear about any of that. "Check it out," I said, bouncing him lightly in my arms, aiming his face so he could look out at the night sky. He looked at me with eyes that were a muddy grayish-brown. "Charlie," I said experimentally, and cuddled him close to my chest. I felt my mother's hand on my shoulder and saw her face reflected in the window, her expression tender as she looked at the baby in my arms, her eyes shining as she kissed me and then the baby's forehead; her secret face, the one she's only ever shown to me.

T
his book would not have been possible without the hard work and stewardship of my agent, Joanna Pulcini. I am grateful, as ever, for her unflagging enthusiasm, painstaking attention to detail, and for her inadvertently hilarious failure to get the dirty jokes or X-rated references in any of my books.

My editor, Greer Hendricks, is, as ever, worth a price above rubies for her patience, kindness, and good humor.

I'm grateful to Joanna's assistants, Elizabeth Carter and Trinh Truong, and to Greer's assistant, Sarah Walsh, for their attention to detail, and to Suzanne O'Neill and Nancy Inglis for their careful work on the manuscript. I'm also lucky to have found an assistant as fabulous, indefatigable, and good-hearted as Meghan Burnett.

Judith Curr at Atria and Carolyn Reidy at Simon & Schuster have always taken the best care of me and of Cannie, as have all of the people at Atria: Gary Urda, Lisa Keim, Kathleen Schmidt, Christine Duplessis, Craig Dean, and Jeanne Lee.

I'm grateful to Jessica Fee and her team at Greater Talent Network, and to Marcy Engelman, Dana Gidney, and Jordana Tal, my NYC PR miracle workers.

Curtis Sittenfeld was a perceptive and generous reader.

In researching this book, I was lucky enough to be invited to the bar mitzvah of Charlie Sucher and the bat mitzvahs of Samantha Wladis in Cherry Hill and Abby Kalen in Simsbury, Connecticut, where absolutely NOTHING untoward happened. I thank Charlie, Samantha, and Abby and their parents, friends, and families for being so gracious and welcoming.

My friends and family, far and wide, are still supplying me with love, support, and material. Jake and Joe Weiner are not only my brothers, they do an excellent job with my business on the coast. Molly Weiner is a constant source of inspiration and fun. I'm grateful to Faye Frumin, Frances Frumin Weiner, and Clair Kaplan, for all of their help and encouragement, for laughing with me and, occasionally, being willing for me to laugh at them.

Finally, on the home front, Wendell is still the king of all dogs. My husband, Adam, is still my traveling companion and the person I'd most like to watch
The Big Lebowski
with. My daughter Lucy Jane is the light of my life, and her new little sister Phoebe Pearl demonstrated unflagging courtesy by keeping the kicks and rolls to a minimum while I wrote this book. My love and thanks to all of them...and to all of the readers who've come with me this far.