A Bump in the Road (4 page)

“So, how’s Matt?” I asked her casually.

“Fine.” She shrugged as the light left her face.

“Everything OK with you two?” I said.

“Fine. Great. Good. All of the above,” she said, and looked down at Grace.

“Are you sure? You sound—”

“So, married gal, when are you going to have some little ones running around?” she interrupted.

It is so typical of Reese to ask a loaded question to divert attention away from whatever she doesn’t want to talk about. I played along and answered her with my prepared response: “In our thirties, but every time you ask, it’s another year.”

“Seriously? No way, you should have some sooner. You guys would be great parents.”

I just smiled back at her and shook my head.

“Although, it is a huge lifestyle change. Do you know that you can’t have sex for six weeks after giving birth? And you remember how horrible it was when I had that infected milk duct a few months back—talk about pain!”

Why, why do new parents always try to convince me to have children and then proceed to tell me every disgusting, painful, grotesque story about actually having children? It’s like saying, “You guys should really take a vacation to Thailand! Just be careful of the biting flies, unclean tap water, and child prostitution. Oh, and try not to get sold into white slavery while you’re there.”

“Although that sounds like a winning endorsement, I’ll pass. At least for a while.”

“Why not sooner?” She continued to push.

This is when I should’ve said, “We’re just not ready.” Instead, I said, “We figure we should wait to have kids until they don’t completely annoy us.” Which is a valid statement, but probably not a good one to make to someone holding their own child.

I immediately clapped my hand over my mouth and apologized profusely and tried to explain that yes, kids annoy us (Li’l Mikey comes to mind) but that Jake and I love Grace and think she’s the best baby ever, etc. She laughed it off, but didn’t seem too happy with me after my brilliant comment. She quickly served lunch, I think in an effort to boot me out the door.

Even though I apologized and even though Reese knows I often say things without consulting my brain first, I still feel horrible. Not only because I hurt her feelings, but because today is just another example of the wide chasm between our lives these days.

I think I just need to kidnap her and get her completely drunk. Yes. A bar-hopping night where we can all forget about babies, pregnancy, and diapers.

I still feel guilty about the way things went with Reese yesterday, and Jake offered no help. His advice was, “Everything will be OK.” I stared at him, waiting for more words of wisdom, and after five minutes he turned back to me and said, “Was I supposed to say something else?”

Men are so worthless when it comes to giving advice. They don’t realize women just don’t brush off conflicts with a six-pack. I think I’m going to send Reese some flowers thanking her for lunch. It will hopefully smooth things over.

The flowers had the desired effect with Reese. She laughed off my comment again and thanked me. When I tried to ask her about Matt, she said she heard Grace crying and hung up the phone. I give up.

Rather than get depressed about Reese, I’m going to focus on this weekend. My shopping trip with Julie is finally here and I plan on staying in tonight so as not to be tired for the very important money-spending extravaganza. I plan on waking up feeling refreshed and looking fabulous (i.e., skin all glowy and not at all pasty and white, hair smelling like apples rather than an ashtray). Maybe I will even wake up early and work out and get Starbucks or something.

This is going to be just what I need.

6:00
P.M.

I am so proud of myself. I just got an e-mail from Jake’s cousin Carrie, his only normal relative, inviting Jake and me to a martini party
in the city with her and Patrick. It would be fun but I don’t even want to go. Who cares if they have five-dollar cranapple martinis and free appetizers? I have some great pasta from Trader Joe’s I can make and a new
Dateline
to watch tonight.

6:30
P.M.

I heard that bar is lame anyway.

6:35
P.M.

I don’t even like cranapple martinis.

6:38
P.M.

I don’t have anything to wear.

6:49
P.M.

I’m having a bad hair day.

7:02
P.M.

OK, we’ll go, but just one drink. We can still come home and get to bed at a reasonable hour. One drink each, which is only ten dollars, plus free appetizers. That’s like
making
money. I forgot Jake ate all of my pasta last week so we would have to go out and pick something up anyway, which would be more than eight dollars. So, we’ll get to socialize with Carrie and Patrick, who we haven’t seen in forever, eat dinner, and each drink a cocktail. We can still totally be in bed by eleven and wake up feeling refreshed.

8:30
P.M.

One and a half drinks won’t kill me. Jake’s already had three. We’ve only spent about thirty bucks. If we went out to dinner, it would’ve been at least thirty-five dollars. We’re right on track. Next I want to try some of those free appetizers.

Oh, they have four-dollar flirtinis?

10:04
P.M.

Little drunk. Who cares? Early. Much fun. Still can be in bed soon and get good sleep. Drunk = OK, but wasted = no. Grabbed Carrie’s left boob. Am lesbian when drunk.

12:17
A.M
.

Wasted. Jake hammered. Weird man keeps hitting on me but shoe broke. Think ankle is dead. Love cat. Love life. Love cranapples thing.

Quoth the hangover: I’m back, bitch
.

This hangover has to be the worst of my life. Much, much worse than my epic Vegas hangover. Yet it’s not the hangover that has me shaking at my desk.

Last night: awesome.

Today: not so much.

This morning, I said a silent prayer before I attempted to open my eyes, thirst pains having finally gotten the best of me, but mascara had crusted to form a sort of paste that kept my eyes from opening fully. I weakly reached for the bottle of water next to me and immediately chugged it, afraid it would run out and I’d still be thirsty. As soon as my stomach felt the water, it cramped, afraid I was abusing it with more alcohol. I silently thanked God it was Saturday and I could remain in a corpselike state for the entire day, moving only to turn on a classic made-for-TV movie starring Tori Spelling. And . . .

Fuck me.

It’s Friday.

I tossed my crusty strands, matted into a new-wave hairdo and reeking of a bar, into a ponytail and threw myself at my desk as quickly as I could.

All of which wasn’t a big deal. I mean, I’m hungover, but fine.

Until five minutes ago.

When I opened my calendar to check on the date for the meeting with the Women’s Board ladies, and my stomach immediately dropped and my hands started shaking for a reason other than the eight million drinks I had last night. I grabbed my purse and started clawing through it before locating what I was looking for and feeling a cold sweat form.

How did this happen? Am I hallucinating or something? How could I have missed it? Not a hair appointment or a painful family dinner, but IT. The Big One. The thing I don’t want each month but I don’t not want.

WHY DIDN’T I GET MY PERIOD?

I should’ve gotten it on Monday and tomorrow I’m supposed to start my next pill pack, which means it never came.

I must do Internet research. I’m sure there is a logical explanation. One that doesn’t involve anything “developing.”

11:15
A.M
.

Stress! I
have
been really stressed out lately with cleaning out my closet. And Butterscotch did barf on the couch the other day. Yes. I am stressed.

11:16
A.M
.

Exercise! I totally exercised last week on the elliptical machine. Like two miles. Two miles
has
to be pretty hard on the body. I’m so glad I figured it out.

1:00
P.M.

What am I going to do? No, no I can’t think like that. I
know
it is a fluke. Life will go on and I’ll laugh about this with Julie next month as we sit around with bellinis telling our “I
so
thought I was pregnant when . . .” stories. Yes, this will all be a funny story soon. I
know the way my life is supposed to go and missing a period for any reason other than stress or exercise is
not
what is supposed to happen.

2:00
P.M.

God wouldn’t do this to me. I’ve been a good person. I’ve donated to charity and given good advice to my friends and even pointed out when a sales clerk gave me the wrong change.

8:00
P.M.

I’m at the movies, watching an action movie Jake has been dying to see. I haven’t been able to follow it at all, considering I have bigger things to worry about than if the ugly guy is going to successfully kill the other guy. I’m not going to tell Jake. There’s nothing to tell. Due to stress or exercise, my period never came this month, so why worry him? I don’t want to freak him out over nothing. So, I’ll tell him next month when my bastard period finally shows up and I can sigh in relief. Besides, if anything was a possibility, wouldn’t I feel different? And I don’t feel anything at all, minus the rotting white fear gnawing at the pit of my stomach. And besides, birth control pills are like 100 percent effective. OK, so not 100 percent effective, but really, really fucking close. I’m always reading they’re the most effective method of birth control. If they stopped working at random times, people wouldn’t use them, would they? I take mine at the same time every day, so I’m sure it’s fine.

Except I want to beat the shit out of the voice in my head singing, “You were on antibiotics while you were in Vegas, weren’t you? You had lots of very dirty sex while in Vegas, didn’t you? Did you really take your pill at the same exact time every day when you were in Vegas? I didn’t think so. You are an irresponsible drunk who is most likely pregnant.” I mean, what’s the chance my antibiotics affected anything? I’d say probably slimmer than the guy with the gun to his head’s chances of surviving another hour. I mean, I’ve never seen articles in
Cosmo
about “My birth control stopped working after a sinus infection and it could happen to you!” I bet the myth of antibiotics
lessening the effectiveness of birth control pills is really just an urban legend. I will look on one of those urban myth Web sites when I get home.

8:36
P.M.

OK, some kid was just kidnapped and is being held for ransom. Another reason not to have children: they can be used for ransom when the entire future of our country is at stake. I mean, we could all die because of this dude’s weakness for his daughter. That is why it is not a good idea to have children.