Expecting: A Novel (18 page)

What
do
you
mean
you
know
what
she
means? You’ve been thinking about divorce?

“Do you ever feel like you made a mistake?” Nancy asks.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if life could give you a do-over?” That’s what Alan has written.

Another message. This one from Alan. “When is Bob going out of town again? I go out of town for business sometimes.”

Alan and Nancy are going to have an affair. Laurie can feel her throat closing; she can hear her heart beating over the hum of the computer. What does she do? Does she confront him? She’ll walk out to the living room—
sorry, Jack, it’s time you learn about the bitter reality of marriage. You think getting hit in the head with a cell phone is bad? My husband is having an
affair
. Instead of being with me, supporting me through our pregnancy, he’s planning on running away with his college sweetheart.

She’s too angry to cry. But she has to make it through the evening, so she’ll try to push Alan’s infidelity to the back of her brain, at least for now. “It’ll be okay,” she says to Buddy. “We’ll get through this. We’ve got each other.”

She clicks off the computer, not looking to see if Alan had anything else he needed to be saved. Tough titty.

On the desk she notices several crumpled up tissues. Alan has an annoying habit of blowing his nose and forgetting to throw the tissues away. Germ factory, Laurie has pointed out. But Alan (the cheating rat bastard) forgets. Laurie picks up the tissues, ick, and tosses them in the trash can. She sees something silvery at the bottom and—voila, there is Alan’s BlackBerry.

His skin is dark—not a deep, mahogany brown like the dresser in the bedroom, but a creamy, lightish milk chocolate color. It’s a beautiful color, warm with pigment, like the color skin should be instead of beige. Jack’s eyes are large and dark brown. And when he speaks, his smile is movie-star perfect.

He needs a haircut. Or maybe he likes wearing it long, the edges brushing his shoulders. It could be the way college kids wear their hair these days and Alan doesn’t know any better.

He can’t take his eyes off Jack. Because he’s not seeing Jack—he’s seeing Buddy. Buddy grown up at twenty-one, Buddy who won’t have blond hair and green eyes like Alan. Buddy with brown skin and black hair and a smile to make girls swoon.
I
bet
girls
swoon
when
they
see
you, Jack
, Alan thinks. Then wonders why he’s thinking of the word
swoon
; it sounds like something his parents would say. Hair too long, swoon. Alan is a thousand years old. He shouldn’t be having his first child; he should be a grandfather. He should be put away in an assisted-living facility.

Jack is handsome. Not aggressively handsome like a male model or most of the waiters in L.A. who aren’t really waiters, they’re actors passing time until they get their big break. But Jack isn’t aware he’s handsome. No wonder Laurie liked him when she met him—Jack projects innocence and vulnerability.

It’s obvious he’s scared to death of Alan. And if Alan were in a better mood, he’d try harder. But he needs to find his BlackBerry. He can’t function without it; he’s got meetings tomorrow for the Choc-O project, and yeah, it’s important to meet Jack, but couldn’t they put it off, do it another time? And Laurie, Laurie standing there smiling and pretending everything’s okay when it’s clearly not and seriously, nobody’s going to say
anything
about Jack’s black eye and the blood on his face?

And why does Jack smell like wine? Did Laurie leave out that tidbit? “Oh, Jack has the tiniest problem with alcohol, but he’s been in treatment and he’s fine now”? Except he’s not fine, he’s drunk. First on wine, now he’s drinking Alan’s beer. How’s he going to get home? They can’t let him get behind the wheel of his car. Suppose he smashes into somebody. Who’s going to be liable? The people who gave him the beer, that’s who. And Laurie, über happy, like she’s had a bottle of Xanax, which she wouldn’t do because of the pregnancy—but she’s acting as if she had a stop-and-shop lobotomy at lunchtime.

Alan watches as Jack devours the last of the chips. Oh—Jack’s not just drunk; he’s
stoned
. He’s got the munchies.

“Looks like you need a refill on the chips,” Alan says. He takes a deep breath. Okay, he will force himself to be nice. He promised Laurie.

But Jack jumps up as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t have lunch.”

“That’s okay. Come on, we’ll get some more.” Alan picks up the empty bowl and heads into the kitchen, nodding at Jack to follow him.

“What do you think of the house?” Alan says, trying to make conversation.

“Nice. I thought it would be. Laurie—Mrs. Gaines—your wife, she told me about it. I like the Valley. Some people don’t; they like the Westside better. But I think the Valley’s fine. I think it’s great.”

“How’s that beer? Need another one?”

“I’m good.” Jack raises his half empty beer. Alan looks down at his own bottle and realizes it’s empty. “Don’t mind if I do.” He takes another Red Trolley from the fridge. How many has he had? Is this his third? No, probably his second.

“That lasagna smells good. Especially when you’re starving, I bet.” Alan smiles at Jack. It’s supposed to be a friendly smile, but Jack looks more alarmed than relieved.

“It smells great.”

Alan opens the cabinet to get more chips, but the baby lock is stuck in place. “I hate these things,” he says. “My parents didn’t have baby locks or gates and I turned out okay.” He tugs at the cabinet door and it still won’t open so he yanks it, hard, and the lock cracks as the cabinet door swings open and smacks Alan in the head. “Whoa. That’s a pain that’s gonna linger,” Alan says.

“Yeah.” Jack looks like he wants to flee.

“So, let’s go back in the den. Maybe there’s a game on. I bet you’re a Dodgers fan.”

***

It figures Jack would like the Giants. One more dose of poison in Buddy’s genes. Jack tells Alan about growing up in Menlo Park, about his sister who went to Princeton and is in med school at Johns Hopkins.

Alan nods. Jack is obviously bright. Good-natured. All the things Laurie said about him. Alan was wrong to not want to meet Jack before. Everything is going to be
hunky-dory
. And naturally there’s a reasonable explanation for the blood and torn shirt and wine smell.

Jack takes a deep breath and looks down at his shoes. He’s ready to say something important. Alan isn’t sure he wants to hear this. Jack clears his throat and finally looks up. “Mr. Gaines, I’m sorry about what happened. If I could change it, I would.”

“Call me Alan. You won’t be insulted if I draw up a few legal documents for you to sign?” Alan is making a joke, but Jack doesn’t get it.

“Laurie didn’t say anything about legal documents.”

“Well, she wouldn’t. Because she’s not as suspicious as I am.” Alan is making another joke, but Jack doesn’t get this one either.

“I don’t know about signing anything,” Jack says. “I’d have to have somebody look at it first. My father always told me to be careful about stuff like that.”

“Is your father an attorney? Because if he’s not, what would he know about legal documents? Jack, I’m making a joke; obviously it’s not a very good one.”

Jack laughs. “I get it.” It’s obvious he doesn’t get it at all. “Maybe I should check on Mrs. Gaines,” he says. “Make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine. Hon?” Alan calls. “When’s dinner? We’re ready to
eat
each other out here.”

***

When Laurie appears, she’s still wearing the fake smile, but Alan senses something sinister behind it. “Look what I found,” she says and she tosses him his BlackBerry.

“Wow. That’s incredible. Where was it?”

“In the trash can. Under your desk. Isn’t that funny? It must’ve fallen off. When you were looking at Facebook.”

“I didn’t think of looking in the trash can.” His BlackBerry is beeping; he has unread messages. Good, he’ll check them later, after dinner. And something else starts beeping in the back of his head. Laurie said, “Looking at Facebook.” The way she said it, what did it mean, “Looking at Facebook?” And he realizes—his computer was on, he was checking Facebook while he was looking for his BlackBerry. And if Facebook was on—no, Nancy Futterman wouldn’t have sent him an IM. Would she? Alan looks up at Laurie.

He knows Nancy Futterman sent an IM. Laurie saw it. And probably checked his other messages from Nancy. Oh boy.
It
wasn’t anything
, he wants to say.
The
Albuquerque
trip
never
happened. Nothing to worry about
.

“I’ll get dinner going,” Laurie says and she walks into the kitchen. She takes the lasagna out of the oven and puts in on top of the stove. “I’ve got salad in the fridge. Jack, do you want to help me serve? And there’s garlic bread in the oven too.” Jack joins Laurie in the kitchen. Alan stays where he is; he can hear the refrigerator door open.

“Oh,” Laurie says. “Who drank all the beer?”

Something’s changed. It happened after Laurie found the BlackBerry, but Jack isn’t sure what’s going on. He looks over at the droopy flowers on the table. There didn’t seem to be any point in explaining to Laurie how after apologizing for throwing the cell phone, Normandie followed him to his car and watched as he got inside. She seemed fine, almost normal. Until she saw the flowers on the front seat.

“Flowers? For
her
?” she yelled and reached across Jack to grab them and she smashed them over and over against the car window. Then apologized again. Jack told her not to worry. He’s definitely going to get that restraining order.

***

Laurie’s husband is pounding down the beer. It’s like being back at the SAE house, watching Carter timing himself to see how long before he passes out. When they finally sit down to dinner, Alan switches to wine. He insists on filling Jack’s glass, and Jack lets him, but just to be polite. Somehow it seems important to keep a clear head.

No one says much as they eat their salads. “This is delicious,” Jack tells Laurie.

“Thank you, Jack. It’s nice to feel appreciated.”

Why does her comment seem more directed at Alan than at Jack? He watches as Alan separates the tomatoes and green peppers and mushrooms and arranges them into little piles on his plate.

“Do you go on Facebook much, Jack?” Laurie asks.

Alan drops his fork. “Shit,” he mutters and bends down to pick it up.

“Sometimes,” Jack says.

“It’s such a great way of keeping in touch with people,” Laurie says. “Back in the dark ages, when I was growing up, people wrote letters. Or talked on the phone. Now there’s email and texting. Isn’t it interesting how communication has evolved over the years? What’s next? Too bad we can’t figure that out or we’d be as rich as Mark Zuckerberg.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. He looks over and sees Alan eating his mushrooms. When the mushrooms are done, Alan moves on to the tomatoes.

“Facebook’s nice when you want to find old high school friends.” Laurie winks at Jack. “Or exes. You know, see what they look like now. Are they fat? Or bald? Married?”

“I don’t use it as much for that. Not yet.”

“Just wait. It’s sort of like having your very own private detective. Isn’t that right, Alan?”

Alan doesn’t answer. He’s eating his green peppers.

“Of course Facebook has a dangerous side too,” Laurie says. “What about all the people out there you
don’t
want to have contact with again? You didn’t like them in high school; why would you like them now? What happens if they track you down?”

“You don’t have to friend them,” Jack says. “Or if you do you can unfriend them later. Or block them so you don’t see their posts.”

“I guess I’m not too Facebook savvy. I only have about a hundred friends; you probably have thousands, Jack.”

“Eight hundred,” Jack says. He feels bad for Alan. Why isn’t he part of this conversation? Jack turns to him. “What about you, Mr. Gaines? Are you on Facebook?”

Alan looks at Jack. At Laurie. His eyes are sad. “The salad was terrific. Let’s have some lasagna.”

***

Laurie’s lasagna is excellent; she explains she’s been getting a lot of recipes from the web, healthy foods mostly. “For the baby, but also for Alan and me,” Laurie says. “We need to set a good example.”

“Are you going to let the baby have McDonald’s?” Jack asks.

“We’ll try to limit fast food, but I think it’s almost impossible to eliminate it completely. Plus there’s the ‘if you can’t have it, it’ll just make you want it more’ thing. Like saying to your child you can never have McDonald’s french fries, that’s the only thing they’ll think about. They’ll
kill
for french fries.”

“McDonald’s is the worst,” Jack says. “I like In-N-Out. Fresh beef and potatoes, real lettuce.”

Laurie nods and turns to Alan. “Alan and I used to go to In-N-Out all the time.”

***

After lasagna, Laurie asks Jack if he’d like a tour of the house. Alan volunteers to clean the table and load the dishwasher. Laurie says to Alan, “You can get the fruit tart out of the fridge and serve that up. Make some coffee too.”

The way she says “make some coffee” sounds as if Alan doesn’t make coffee, he’ll be in big trouble. Jack thinks Alan is already in big trouble. He and Alan seem to have a lot in common, besides the baby. Neither one is having an especially good night. And Jack’s face is starting to throb again and his eye feels puffy and sore.

“So you’ve seen the dining room and the kitchen and the den,” Laurie says. “I guess one of the good things about living in California is you’ve already earthquake-proofed everything so babyproofing is almost redundant.” Jack nods, but he’s lived his whole life in California and never thought about earthquake proofing, not once.

Laurie leads Jack outside to the patio. “There’s no pool. Maybe in our next house,” Laurie says. “But we’ll make sure we have a yard too. I hate backyards where you step out and all you see is pool. Zero yard.” She looks around. “I said ‘our next house,’ didn’t I?” Jack nods at her. “Huh,” Laurie says. And she’s back to describing the yard. “That’s a lemon tree and our neighbors have an avocado tree. Sometimes living in California is great.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. He wonders where he’ll be living next week. Life with Megan and the roommates isn’t going to work out much longer. Florence, the girl whose room he’s in, is breaking up with her boyfriend, so she’s moving back and Megan says Jack is welcome to stay in her bedroom, but it can’t be permanent because of the roommate policy, but hopefully freakish Jeff will leave soon—except he’s filed some petition to stay on for six additional months, although no one understands why he wants to stay with people who don’t like him.

***

So Jack’s about to be homeless. Will Laurie let him set up a tent in the backyard? He can live off lemons and avocados and drink water out of Laurie’s garden hose.

“It’s a one-car garage,” Laurie explains. She’s waving her arm like one of the models on
The
Price
is
Right
. “Of course we keep so much junk in the garage there’s no room for a car. In the imaginary next house we’ll have room for two cars. Plus storage.”

Good. Jack won’t have to sleep in the yard when it’s cold; Laurie will let him stay in the garage with the extra suitcases and Christmas decorations and bikes and boogie boards.

They step back inside the house. “I bet you’d like to see the baby’s room,” Laurie says, and Jack nods. He’s not exactly sure why Laurie is giving him a tour. In a way, he thinks it’s more for Laurie—she wants to prove how the baby is going to have a nice place to live. Jack’s never doubted that. But if it makes her feel better, he’ll let her show him around.

The baby’s room isn’t huge, but he likes the color. It’s a cheerful yellow, not too orangey. At the top of the room is an alphabet border with animals illustrating the letters. “Nice,” he says, pointing to the border.

Laurie nods. “We put that up ages ago. Back when I was pregnant the first time. I told you about that, didn’t I?”

Jack shakes his head.

“I had two miscarriages. Early ones. People say it could’ve been worse. I’m sure they’re right.” She is silent for a minute. “But it was still awful. Because they felt like babies, like my children. And then…they weren’t there.”

He’s not sure what to say. “But now you’ve got Buddy.”

“I do. I have baby Buddy.” She looks down at the pieces of crib on the ground. “Alan’s going to put it together this weekend. And my mother sent the chair. Try it out.”

Jack sits in the glider and moves back and forth. It’s comfortable, and he wonders if people other than new mothers buy gliders like this.

“How much does a baby remember about their first room?” Laurie says. “I think I remember my room, but it might be from seeing pictures of it. My room had wallpaper with roses on it. Big red roses. Did I look at them when I was in my crib, falling asleep at night? Did I try to count them? Touch them? Do you remember your room?”

Jack thinks. “I’m like you; I mostly remember the photos. My walls and ceiling were blue. And my father painted constellations on the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark paint. I sort of remember looking up at my ceiling and thinking,
Is
that
the
sky?
And then when my parents would take me outside, I was totally confused. The black sky, the stars? Why was that different than my room?” He smiles. “Who knows what babies think?”

“Did your mother sing to you?”

“I doubt it.”

Laurie smiles. “Of course she did. You don’t remember any songs?”

Jack shakes his head.

“You could ask her.”

“Yeah.” Knowing he never will because what’s the point? He looks at Laurie’s stomach. He reaches over and stops. Looks at Laurie.

“It’s okay,” she says.

He touches Laurie’s stomach, very lightly, his fingers barely touching the fabric. “Can he hear us? Does he know we’re talking about him?” Jack asks. As if baby Buddy wants to answer him, he kicks.

“Oh,” Laurie says. “Did you feel that?”

Jack nods. “It doesn’t hurt?”

“No. It’s kind of nice, him reminding me he’s in there.”

Jack keeps his hand on her stomach. It feels as if baby Buddy is trying to rearrange himself, make himself more comfortable.

“Should I talk to him?” Jack asks.

“If you’d like to.”

Jack hesitates, bends down closer to Laurie’s tummy. “Hey there, Buddy. This is Jack. How it’s going? Does it feel kind of crowded? Imagine if you had a twin.” Jack looks up at Laurie. Is he doing okay? She nods.

“You’re probably getting impatient, that’s why you’re moving around,” he says. “‘Let me out,’ is that what you’d tell everybody? I get it, man. Trust me. Hey, I’m standing in your room right now and you’re going to like it a lot. It’s pretty cool, even if you don’t have stars on your ceiling. Your parents are excited for you to get here too. Although I guess you’re already here, sort of. What your parents want is for you to be on the
outside
. Your mom especially.” Jack smiles at Laurie. He’s surprised to see she has tears in her eyes. He looks back at her tummy. “Hang in there, Buddy. It’s almost time.”

Jack straightens himself up. “That was weird.”

“No,” Laurie says. “It was amazing.”

***

They go back in the dining room and Alan has served up the fruit tart, although a third of it is missing. Alan swipes at crumbs on his chin and smiles at Laurie. “It’s good, honey. Especially the chocolate part.”

“Did you pick off the chocolate drizzle?” Laurie asks him.

“I can get some Hershey’s syrup from the fridge. It’s the same thing—”

“It’s not the same thing at all. I melted Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips and condensed milk and butter—I can’t believe you picked off the drizzle.”

Jack sits and begins to eat his slice. He pretends not to notice the finger impressions on the top. “Yum,” he says. “I don’t think you need the drizzle.”

“Of course you do,” Laurie says. She’s not looking at Jack; she’s staring at Alan. “The drizzle is the most important part. It isn’t a real fruit tart without the drizzle and you know that, Alan. Can’t you be honest about anything?”

Jack takes a bite of the tart. “Yum,” he says again.

But no one is paying attention to him. Laurie goes into the kitchen and comes back with coffee mugs and a pot of coffee. She pours coffee for herself and Jack, leaves the pot and empty mug on the table in front of Alan.

Jack eats his slice of fruit tart as quickly as he can; he wants to get out of here. Even the drama back at Megan’s or the thought of Normandie waiting in the shadows pales in comparison to the creepy vibe in Laurie’s house.

He stands up. “Um—I don’t mean to be rude, but I have an early class tomorrow.”

Alan pushes the fruit tart toward Jack. “Have some more.”

“No, thank you. Dinner was great.”

“Are you sure you have to go?” Laurie puts a hand on his arm.

Jack nods and turns to Alan. “Nice to meet you—” He’s ready to say Mr. Gaines again, but remembers in time. “Alan.”

“Same here, Jack.” Alan looks tired. “I’m not usually such a rotten host. And I’m sorry I was suspicious about how you got your black eye.”

Jack hesitates. “I lied, Alan. I didn’t run into a light post. My ex-girlfriend threw my cell phone at me because she saw a picture of baby Buddy’s ultrasound, and she thinks I’m having an affair with your wife.”

Alan doesn’t say anything.

“That’s ironic,” Laurie says, and Jack doesn’t understand what she means. She has her hands on her stomach, and he’d like to feel the baby kick again but isn’t sure he wants to do it with Alan watching him.

“How about another beer?” Alan asks Jack.

“I think you drank all the beer, Alan,” Laurie says and turns to Jack. “Thank you for coming.”

Why does Jack get the feeling there are going to be fireworks when the door closes behind him? Should he say something, tell them not to fight? Wish them good luck? Hope you don’t throw things at each other once I’m gone.

“Maybe we can do it again,” Jack says as he steps outside.

“I hope so.” And Laurie closes the door.