Dunkin and Donuts (3 page)

Chapter Six

We make it to the movies with fifteen minutes to spare, an impressive feat considering the fact that Dunkin picked me up at work at 3:15 and we made a stop at my apartment so I could shower and change. In record time, I managed to scrub my body, dress, decide I didn’t like my outfit, change, and sprint out the door and back into Dunkin’s idling car where he informed me that I’d only taken six minutes to get ready.

“You are the best girlfriend ever,” he decides.

“I try.” I smile.

I don’t point out the fact that the best girlfriend ever would likely manage to avoid being hit with projectile vomit. Instead, I bask in the compliment.

“I have to pee,” I declare as soon as we’ve got our tickets.

“Okay. You pee. I’m gonna get a soda. Want anything?”

Of
course
I want something. Does he not know me? I raise a lopsided eyebrow at him.

“Popcorn and Milk Duds?” he guesses.

“I’m in the mood for Sour Patch Kids.”

“If we get all three, we can share…”

“I knew there was a reason I love you.”

He winks and, like his caveman forefathers before him, goes off valiantly to procure food for his woman. I head over to the bathroom. There’s a line. Surprise, surprise. Inwardly, I groan. Then, I notice that the woman in front of me is holding the most adorable baby boy and suddenly I have the patience of a saint. I could smile at that adorable face forever. I almost forget I have to pee. The little boy is smiling broadly and, as if he were a beauty queen in a pageant, waves regally at me. I smile and wave back. Have I mentioned yet that my biological clock is ticking inexorably toward procreation? Just looking at the tiny bundle of joy, my body ovulates spontaneously.

“What a cutie,” I remark.

“Yeah, I love him.” His mother smiles. “He can be quite the handful though.”

As if on cue, the baby starts wiggling out of his mother’s grasp, holding out his arms to me.

“May I?” I ask.

“Would you?” She hands him over gratefully and I allow myself to be wrapped up in his little embrace. “Do you mind holding him while I pee?”

“Of course not,” I say.

It’s the woman’s turn. Did the line really move that quickly? She enters into her stall and, just as she does, I hear Dunkin’s voice calling my name from just outside the ladies’ room.

“Can you all hold my spot in line?” I ask the women behind me.

“Sure.” Each of them nods.

I poke my head out the door, baby in hand. “What’s up?”

“You gotta see this…” Dunkin does a double-take at the sight of a baby in my arms. “How long have I been gone?”

“Shut up.” I swat at him playfully. “See what?”

Outside, there is a middle-aged woman wearing blue jeans, a cowboy hat and a lacey purple bra and pushing a cart full of ferrets. I stare at her agape. Why on earth would anyone, especially a middle-aged woman walk around with nothing but a bra for a shirt? And what is with the ferrets? I’m amazed at the idiocy and utter lack of awareness of some people and am about to open my mouth to say so when the little boy’s mother runs out of the bathroom screaming at me hysterically and snatches her child out of my arms.

“What kind of person…” and “Are you an idiot…” and “Where’s your common sense?”

Startled by his mother’s ferocity, the baby starts wailing as I start apologizing.

“Some people are so idiotic.” The woman storms off, her baby boy tucked under one arm like a football.

Dunkin blinks awkwardly, speechlessly, at me.

“I still have to pee,” I say, stunned.

“I’ll wait.” He pops a kernel of popcorn into his mouth and waits patiently for me to re-enter and re-exit the bathroom, this time without incident and sans infant.

Chapter Seven

“What happened to your eyebrows? They look hideous,” are the first words out of my mother’s mouth when the four of us meet for dinner at Verge on Friday night.

“A bad wax job,” I say. “Hello to you too, mother. Please stop with the flattery. You’re too kind.”

She backs off. “I’m sorry dear.”

“That’s okay. They are pretty startling.”

“Yes. They caught me by surprise.”

“Me too.” I smile halfheartedly. “But, they’ll grow back. I mean, in the scheme of things, who cares?”

“It’s just that you could be so very beautiful if you just tried a bit harder.” My mother, the Queen of the Backhanded Compliment.

“Vanity, do you remember that time you got that ridiculous perm?” My father interjects. “You looked like a poodle for almost a week.” He laughs.

Good old Dad to the rescue, although it doesn’t bode well that we’re not even five minutes into the evening and my mother has already found something to criticize me for. In her defense, the eyebrows are an easy target. Only Dunkin and my dad have remained silent on the subject, but each of them would tell me I’m beautiful if I dressed in a garbage bag and shaved my head, so they’re hardly impartial.

“This restaurant is fabulous,” my mother tells Dunkin. “Have you ever eaten here?”

“No, but it seems like a great place.”

Verge is a swanky, upscale Philadelphia restaurant which caters to the glitterati—models, actors, agents, up-and-coming artists and women who, like my mother, have little to do other than attend to their appearance and spend their husbands’ money. The hostess, a statuesque anorexic twenty-something aspiring model who looks as if she hasn’t eaten in a week walks us to our table while extolling the virtues of the braised lamb.

“Today’s special. It is simply divine.” She licks her lips as if she’s actually tasted more than her cherry-flavored Chapstick, water, and Diet Coke today.

I’d bet my as of yet unborn first-born child, that the hostess hasn’t eaten anything with a face in years.

“It just melts in your mouth,” she adds.

My mother perpetuates the charade by rubbing her own flat belly and claiming to be starving.

Vanity Ross would no more eat lamb than she’d eat dog crap. The woman prides herself on her dietary rigidity. But, part of the act involves pretending to be less vain than she actually is.

We glance at our menus as Dunkin and my dad launch into a discussion about Dunkin’s practice and the state of healthcare in the United States. My eyes glaze over. Mom studies her fingernails attentively.

Dunkin is the first to take the hint. “Sorry, ladies. This must be boring you. Let’s change the subject. Ms. Ross, Shayla tells me you have twin boys as well. What was it like raising twins?”

“Oh,” she smiles. “The boys were easy. Shayla was the handful. When she was six years old, she attempted to cut her own hair with children’s scissors. It took forever to grow back. And, once, she decided to wear all her underwear outside of her clothing just because. She actually went to school like that. Can you imagine?”

“You seem to be forgetting that, at thirteen, the boys took your car and went joyriding and crashed into our mailbox or the time when they had a party at the house and we came home to find everything trashed,” Dad reminds her.

My mother actually laughs. “Oh well, I guess my boys were endearingly mischievous. What about you, Dunkin? Were you a troublemaker when you were younger?” She actually bats her eyelashes at him.

My mother is trying to make a good impression. I swear, she is incapable of not being charming with members of the opposite sex. Women too, come to think of it. My mother is sweet as can be to everyone except me and telephone solicitors.

When the waitress comes to take our order, Dunkin opts for the lamb, my father for roasted chicken, and my mother for poached whitefish with steamed vegetables.

“How’s the calamari?” I ask.

Vanity tsks at me. “Darling, that’s fried.”

“Great. I’ll take the fried calamari,” I say. “Extra greasy.”

“Sounds delicious,” Dunkin says.

Mom glares at me while I avert my gaze. I’ll eat what I want when I want it, damn it. And, unlike her, I’m not about to starve myself in the presence of the man I love. Dinner goes well. We chat about the weather, the monotonies of my mother’s activities, and about each of our respective jobs while dining on delicious entrees. All-in-all, it’s not the most unpleasant night of my life, although I’d rather have a root canal than sit across from my mother when the waitress hands me a dessert menu and I order a slice of German chocolate cake. Her eyes contain more disdain than I’d thought possible. Don’t get me wrong, my mother loves me. But, for her, thinness is linked to morality and me ordering dessert, especially such a decadent one, is the equivalent of me getting naked and having sex right there on the table in front of her. The woman is appalled.

“It’s refreshing to be with a woman who eats.” Dunkin fans the flames, intentionally or accidentally, I’m not sure. “I was so sick of dating the kind of girls who refused to order a pizza with me.”

Dad chuckles. “I wouldn’t know,” he says, kissing my mother’s cheek.

As she snuggles into him, I see how much my parents love each other. Mom worships Dad and he adores her. Not for the first time, I think that her animosity toward me is at least partly rooted in her feeling threatened by my closeness to my father. Maybe, now that I finally have a boyfriend, she’ll ease up a little.

But, then, the dessert arrives and I take a bite of chocolaty deliciousness. As Dunkin and Dad return to their boring conversation about the state of healthcare in this country, Mom leans over to me and hisses.

“Never mind your eyebrows, dear. If you keep eating like that, it’s your ass that’ll be growing.”

Apparently, a boyfriend offers no insulation against her criticism after all.

Chapter Eight

“Thanks for agreeing to babysit with me.” Dunkin smiles.

“Of course. I love babies.”

We’re at Dunkin’s buddy’s place. One of Dunkin’s closest friends, John, and his wife, Helen, have a one-year-old daughter and Dunkin and I have agreed to watch the baby so they can have a date night. Helen is one of those nervous, overbearing mothers who has a panic attack every time anyone other than the nanny watches little Lindsay. But Leslie, the nanny, only works during the week while Helen and John are at work which means that they never have any couple time.

When Dunkin and I offered to watch Lindsay, Helen had to admit that leaving her toddler in the care of a physician and a kindergarten teacher was probably a safe bet. That doesn’t stop her from providing us with a four page typed list of instructions and a laminated index card full of emergency contact numbers.

John shakes his head as he ushers his wife out the door.

“You’ll be fine,” he tells us, practically pushing Helen toward the car.

I love watching Dunkin with the baby. He looks completely at home with her tucked under his arm.

“You are so sexy with her,” I gush.

“You’re pretty sexy yourself, with or without a baby in your arms.”

Oh God, between the baby at the movies and Lindsay now, I hope Dunkin doesn’t think I’m pushing the whole kid thing. I’m stressed. Have I mentioned that I eat when I’m stressed—or happy, or depressed, or celebrating? When Dunkin takes Lindsay into the living room to play, I go into the kitchen and snag a sleeve of Oreo cookies from the box. Then, under the pretense of “straightening up,” the baby’s room, I close the door and scarf down eight cookies with a ravenousness that surprises me. I barely even chew—chocolate and icing congealing in my mouth as I chomp. At one point, I actually have two cookies in my mouth simultaneously.

I feel like the Grace Addler character on
Will & Grace
when she finds out she’s not pregnant. She says, “You know, I guess I should stop eating for two,” and Will replies “Nah. Why stop now? You’ve been doing it since you were eleven.”

I wouldn’t say I have a problem with food, but I’m not exactly one of those people who forgets a meal either. I sneak the remaining cookies back into their box. I feel like a teenager again when the best perks of babysitting are eating the parents’ food and making out with your boyfriend.

As Lindsay starts to yawn, I turn to Dunkin and ask, “Wanna make out?”

He grins broadly at me.

“Why don’t I put her down for bed and we can break in this couch.”

He does and we do. Only, when I was a teenager, my boyfriends and I stopped at making out. Dunkin gets me so incredibly horny that I can’t stop. We can’t stop. Before I know it, he’s inside of me and I am biting his shirt to keep from making any noise. After all, we don’t want to wake the baby. I dunno why couples always say that relationships turn sexless after having kids.

I find caring for a child together to be an incredible aphrodisiac. Then, again, I’m not sleep-deprived and my nipples haven’t become infant chew toys so what do I know?

Dunkin and I straighten up the couch cushions and ourselves then cuddle under a blanket and watch late night TV until Helen and John come back.

“How was it?” Helen asks. “How’s Lindsay?”

“You two had nothing to worry about,” Dunkin tells her back. He can’t address her front because Helen is already heading out of the room to go check on her precious daughter.

“Thanks, man, I owe you one,” John says, giving Dunkin an awkward man-hug of thanks. “We had such a great time. Who knows? If I play my cards right, I might even get laid tonight.”

Dunkin and I skedaddle. We’re not ones to get in the way of another couple’s copulation, especially due to our own frequent fornication. We’re on the side of love—and lust.

A couple days later, Dunkin gets a phone call from John asking if we can stop over at the house for a few minutes.

“What do you think they want?” I ask.

“I dunno. John was pretty cryptic on the phone. Maybe, they want to give us something for watching the baby.”

When we walk through the door, I’m excited. Five minutes later, I’m embarrassed.

“Um…” John begins. “You know how crazy Helen is about Lindsay and… Um… her care.”

“Stop stalling, John!” Helen shrieks.

“What’s up?” I ask. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes, something is wrong!” Helen shouts. “Something is very wrong!” She turns to her husband. “Show them,” she demands.

“Well, Helen is paranoid about the baby so, about a year ago, we got a few nanny cams just to be on the safe side. To make sure that Leslie was a good caregiver and whatnot,” John says by way of explanation. “And, I guess, after our date the other night, Helen decided to review the footage… Any guesses what she might’ve seen?”

Like kids called into the principal’s office, Dunkin and I avert our eyes and then bluff.

“Nope. No idea,” Dunkin says.

“Shit man. This is friggin’ embarrassing,” John pleads.

But, then, supermom cuts in. “Oh just play the fucking tapes. Now, this one I grant you was funny if a bit disturbing. Shayla, really, you ought to have more self-control.”

On the TV screen appears an image of me shoveling Oreos into my mouth by the fistful. I cringe. Dunkin laughs.

“So what?” he says, taking my hand in his. “We’ll buy you some more Oreos. You guys are being silly.”

“Silly! Silly?” Helen is indignant as she hits a few buttons on the remote and suddenly my bare ass is up in the air, writhing atop a glazed-eyed Dunkin. The image is far from flattering.

“Shit,” I say.

“Shit indeed. What if Lindsay had heard or, worse yet, seen you?”

“Helen, Lindsay was asleep in her crib. She’s one year old. She wasn’t going to get out of bed and walk in on us doing it.”

“Can you turn that off?” I ask, my face beet-red with mortification.

Helen sighs exasperatedly. “Well,” she huffs, “In the future, maybe you could refrain from doing it on our furniture.”

“Okay,” Dunkin says, chagrined. “So, next time, we’ll confine ourselves to doing it standing up or in the bathroom.”

Helen storms off. Laughing after her, John turns to us, shrugs, and gestures to the door as if to say, “She’s crazy, this is funny, and can you guys let yourselves out?”

Happy to oblige, Dunkin and I make a run for the door.

As I close it gingerly behind us, I hear Helen shriek, “Those people are never again watching my precious baby girl!”

Okay, so, evidently, I’m not the world’s greatest babysitter after all.