Kate Jacobs (21 page)

* * *

Lucie packed up the mess and put the camera
aside for another day. Too bad—she was looking forward to having an excuse to
keep herself busy. She hadn't told anyone about the baby, not even Will, who
occasionally dropped her an e-mail and wanted to get together. Wouldn't he get
an eyeful? She let him down gently, explaining there was someone else in her
life. She didn't say the "someone else" was a baby. His baby. But she
didn't think of it that way. Lucie thought of this baby as all hers.
And then there was Rosie, who was threatening to actually do what she hated
most and make a trek into the city. No, she couldn't wait too much longer, not
really. She was coming up to eighteen weeks along; the baby was due in late
October.
By Christmas she'd be the mom of an infant.

* * *

The TV producer left the office door open and
walked the few steps into the main part of the store, surprised to see
Peri
handing Darwin one of the shop's distinctive lavender
paper bags, the words WALKER AND DAUGHTER emblazoned on one side; you could
certainly see Dakota's hand in that choice. More surprising, however, was
seeing Darwin with such a bag, overflowing with chunky orange and fuchsia and
lime-green yarns—a jarring combination, was she going to try to use them
together?—and a new pair of size-fifteen needles, still in their plastic
wrapper, poking out of the top.
Peri
and Lucie exchanged a glance; Lucie winked at
Darwin, who shrugged.
A wave to Georgia, who was off to one side helping a client assess her gauge
and convincing her to go up a needle size, and then Darwin and Lucie fell in
line with each other, down the steps and onto the street. They began to amble
together in silence, heading uptown on Broadway but without any announced
destination.
"Well, we'll have to take a look at what you picked out there," said
Lucie. Darwin nodded, a little shy.
It was funny, thought Lucie, how you could go from really not caring about a
person to suddenly looking forward to seeing them. When you gave them a chance.
She hated when such schoolyard wisdom had some basis. And she'd been surprised,
the last few club meetings, to find herself scanning the room upon arrival for
her new…secret-keeper? What was Darwin to her, anyway? They didn't know each
other all that well. Still. It felt good to walk uptown, the bright sun just
hinting at the hot summer to come, passing all the Saturday shoppers poking in
and out of the boutiques and restaurants, someone to talk to as she sauntered
along.
"I have something for you, by the way. I picked it up earlier and was
going to save it until the next club." Darwin pulled a small packet out of
her pocket and pressed it into
Lucie's
hand a little
too roughly, commenting dryly: "Ancient Chinese medicine."
"What is it?" asked Lucie, finally accepting. Friend. She had really
made a new, true friend in Darwin.
"Candied ginger. It settles the stomach and it's good for, you know."
Darwin made a rounding movement in front of her abdomen.
"We're out of the shop so I guess we can say it out loud." Lucie
giggled. "I'm having a baby!" A feeling of elation came over her; she
realized that was the first time she'd said the magical words out loud to
anyone but her caregivers at Planned Parenthood. Even though she knew Darwin
knew already, it felt fantastic just to say it. Before, when she turned forty
and no man in sight, knowing she couldn't afford the clinic-donor thing, she
had tucked away her hopes in that regard. And now that she'd found a way…she
was blooming with excitement. A little shocked, sometimes, at what she'd done.
But happy overall.
"Yes, you're having a baby!" Darwin repeated, grinning, looking
genuinely thrilled for Lucie.
"All the tests have been really great so far; it's all good." Lucie
was overflowing now, caught in the joy of sharing her news. "I just have
to take it easy a bit, older pregnancy and all that, and things should be just
fine."
"Well, put your feet up when you get home and pop a ginger candy in your
mouth. It's soothing," said Darwin.
"Is this really a Chinese thing you learned from your mom or
something?"
Darwin laughed. "God, no, Lucie. I read about it in
Natural Health
magazine." She shook her head. "I think maybe the hormones are
addling your brain. You may not have noticed, but I kind of skipped out on
good-Chinese-girl classes? So no traditional remedies from me. I also avoided
the all-American-sweetheart lessons, so don't ever expect me to toss the old
pigskin or make you an apple pie."
Lucie laughed. "I'm
kinda
failing obedient
daughter myself."
"I'll drink to that! Here's a Starbucks—let's go get you a milk and me a
venti
caffeine infusion."
"Hear
hear
!" agreed Lucie.
Darwin steered the pregnant woman through the doorway. "I also need a
favor—I still have to work on tying a damn slipknot onto a needle," said
Darwin. She paused for a moment to give their order to the barista. "This
knitting thing is all in the name of research. I want you to know that."
"Of course it is! I don't think you'd knit unless you were under duress."
"I just want to be clear. I'm not going to like it."
"Right. Hey, can you get me one of those muffins, too."
Darwin ordered two fat-free blueberry treats as Lucie, hovering over two
teenagers slowly making their way to leave, rushed in and sat down at the only
free table in the place. A man who had also been fishing for a table gave her a
scowl.
"Sorry," she mouthed. "Baby on board." He raised his hands,
palms open, as if to say, "No problem." Aha, thought Lucie, this baby
thing might just change everything. It might not get her a seat on the
subway—nothing got you a seat on the train in this town—but it might just let
her get a chair in the coffee shop.
"I doubt these will be as good as those cookies of Dakota's, but here you
go." Darwin handed over the goodie and the milk.
"Let me guess—that just cost you something around ten bucks. My treat next
time."
"I know! Living on the East Coast is astronomical. When I moved from
Seattle, I couldn't get over the price of food. Food!"
"It's crazy, I know. So, speaking of food…and other things that cause your
waistline to swell, I need to get some new clothes."
"Yes, you're
kinda
popping out of those
ones."
"Darwin, you're not supposed to agree. You should tell me I'm
glowing." In a way, Lucie enjoyed her new friend's candor even as she felt
chagrined. She didn't look that bad, she thought, even though she'd taken to
wearing an oversized old sweater that Will had left lying around before she'd
ended their relationship. She wore it pretty much all the time: It was one of
the few things that still fit. "It's just a little tight," said
Lucie.
Darwin nodded, making an elaborate show of keeping her mouth shut. "
Hmmmm
hmmm
hmmm
," she said,
her lips pressed together. Lucie made as if to swat her head.
"Point taken, professor." Lucie smiled. "So I need someone to
give me a second opinion while shopping, since clearly the Annie Hall dressing
in men's clothing didn't quite work the way it was supposed to."
"I don't think Annie Hall was known for wearing gigantic sweaters with the
too-long sleeves flipped back—but at least you were trying to make a
statement," said Darwin. "I had no idea what you were going
for."
"So says Ms. Fashion Police?"
"I'm about the mind, not the body," insisted Darwin. "Not
ironing my clothes is my way of flipping off the patriarchy. I am not bound by
rules."
"And it's clearly working," said Lucie, rolling her eyes. "Are
you coming with me or what? I have to go tomorrow before another week of work
or I'm going to bust out of this skirt. As it is, it's pulled up to my boobs
because my waist has expanded too much."
"Well, I'm totally behind on my research and I have to master this damn
slipknot thing." Darwin saw a look of disappointment flicker on
Lucie's
face. "In other words, count me in. Want to
meet at Filene's Basement in Chelsea tomorrow morning?"
Lucie's
face broke into a wide smile. "I'll be
there."

* * *

Welcome home to Jersey, thought Darwin, walking
the two steps from the front door to her living room, tossing her keys onto the
Formica counter in the galley kitchen, catching sight of the calendar-and its
pictures of tulips. April. She hadn't changed it since, well, that night. That
night with
Elon
. She gave a shudder, fished her cell
phone out of her backpack to call Dan.
"Hi, this is Dan, I'm either asleep or at the hospital, so leave me a
message!" Typical. He was becoming impossible to reach. They talked every
few days, but it was always rushed, Dan exhausted, Darwin insisting nothing was
wrong in response to his exasperated concern. She felt as though, somehow, he
suspected—even though there was simply no way he could know.
Flopping onto the faded mocha suede couch, the one they'd bought for $150 from
the old lady moving out next door, she pushed aside a pile of laundry. At first,
she had washed everything—all the sheets, all the towels, the ones that had
been used, that
Elon
had touched, and then all the
ones that had been resting in the linen cupboard. She washed and rewashed the
offending jeans and panties and socks from that night, then did load after load
from each dresser drawer until everything that could withstand water had been
cleaned. The kitchen counters had been bleached; the floors scrubbed until the
worn linoleum gleamed; the toilet turned blue with some tablet that promised
months of disinfecting.
She douched.
The piles of clean clothes had lain, nicely folded, waiting to be put away or
pressed. But Darwin had walked in the door of her compact apartment one day
and, not really glancing at the work to be done, just sat down. In the dark.
And cried. She hadn't done a speck of laundry since then; she hadn't ironed,
hadn't put the clothes away; she hadn't cooked; she hadn't slept. Not in the
bed, anyway. An elbow rested now on a pile of shirts that, if not exactly dirty,
had probably been worn. Some of them. Maybe. She couldn't keep track. Most
mornings now she just pulled out some sort of top from one of the many piles,
gave it a shake, and left for class, her bottom half clad in jeans.
The only thing she could keep up with was the recycling—all the empty takeout
boxes had to go. That much Darwin could keep straight. Because if she didn't do
even that, then the formerly fastidious, iron-loving professor-to-be would be
living with cockroaches.
And even she didn't deserve that, did she?

* * *

Her right index finger was already turning red
and sore; she'd been casting on for hours and it was damn near impossible to
get beyond that first row. How did Lucie and all those guys knit so quickly?
She could barely pull the stitches off the left needle to get them onto the
right.
"
Aaaah
!" Her size-fifteen needles went
flying through the air, along with shirts and socks and dish towels. And the
ball of fuchsia yarn, tangling its way around the legs of the coffee table and
the lamp.
"Fuck it all, fuck it, fuck
fuck
fucking stupid
fucker." She was crying now, her butt on the floor, laundry—clean, dirty,
somewhere in between—blanketing the room as if someone had set off a bomb.
So this was it. You take a wrong step and you end up wearing yesterday's
underwear, sitting on the carpet trying to teach yourself how to knit. And even
that doesn't work. She never expected it to be so hard. Life.
Her bags had been packed, her mind made up, and she floated across the country
after college knowing that, finally, she was coming into her own. Going to
celebrate women, elevate her peers, make a difference, kick all the old ideas
in the ass. ("Be a feminist or whatever you call it, Darwin," her
mother had said the day she left for grad school. "But just don't look
like a dog's breakfast doing it." Her mom was sad to part but also
relieved: her parents thought she was Dan's problem now.)
He'd never been anything but supportive, though he didn't seem to think there
was any pressing need for feminism anymore. "Everything's pretty equal
now," he said. "Though I still wouldn't mind if you burned your
bras." Only equal, she pointed out, if all the men were just like him.
But now there was another thing, an idea just tickling the back of her mind. In
all her planning and defiance, all her rejection of her parents' requests and
values, all her talk of live and let live, she hadn't factored in one thing:
She still believed in right and wrong.
Oh, yes, yes, she always had more than enough to say about how companies,
societies, men and women should behave regarding each other. (If two people of
the same caliber are up for a job, she would say, but one is male and the other
female, the best choice for the society is to place the female in the job,
thereby moving in the direction of correcting decades of inequality.)
But, at the same time, she'd also believed in this moral gray area about
sexuality and personal life-choices and the importance of doing what felt
instinctual.
And that belief, she realized with a clarity she had been missing for the past
month, was naive.
Right or wrong wasn't about being straight or gay or liking sex one way versus
another. It was about disrespecting her integrity as a person. As an individual
who had made a promise. A marriage vow. ("I still don't know if I believe
in marriage," she told Dan the night of their wedding, tangled in sheets
on their air mattress, the only piece of furniture they owned at the time.
"I wouldn't expect anything else from you,
wifey
,"
he said, teasing her. "I know you'll always keep me on my toes.")
She'd spent so much time focused on the fear of contracting a disease from
Elon
—he'd said nothing to her to indicate such—that she'd
neglected to look at the situation from any other angle. It didn't matter whether
she believed in it or not. Because she
was
in it. Being married wasn't
just about who played Suzie Homemaker. It wasn't, really, in a good marriage,
about that at all.
Running a relay race to cross the finish line healthy, happy, and whole. It was
about being one half of a team.
And Darwin had basically placed a bet against hers.
Who knew what was going to happen now? It was impossible, really, to imagine a
life without Dan. She'd spent so long fighting domestic expectations that she
hadn't focused, very much, on the relationship itself. She'd gotten tangled up
in the peripheral stuff. Focused more on being on the other side of the country
than on being closer to Dan than anyone else on the planet. And now she might
have to pay the price.
Hours later, she pulled herself off the floor, having cried herself to sleep,
fumbled for the phone. If only she had
Lucie's
number! Instead, she looked at the lavender bag on the coffee table, the shop's
info printed right there. It was only seven thirty; it would still be open. She
dialed. Heard the familiar voice announce, "Walker and Daughter."
"Is
Peri
there?"
"Sorry, she's gone for the day, but is there something I can help you
with?"
"Georgia? It's Darwin." She waited for the sigh, the sound of
exasperation when Georgia realized it was she. Instead, there was simply
silence; she couldn't tell if the lack of sound indicated anger or lack of
interest. So she kept quiet, too, hesitating.
"Darwin?" Georgia's voice had just a hint of concern. "Are you
okay?"
"I'm, uh,
Peri
said I could call." Darwin
paused, her mind racing. She'd had some vague notion about trying to talk to
Peri
about the night with
Elon
.
And now she wasn't even there. Georgia, though, was going to think she was
nuts. She cleared her throat. "I thought I'd try this casting-on thing and
I'm having trouble."
"Well, I can talk you through it. I bet you're pulling the yarn too tight;
it's a common thing that beginners do. Are you having trouble getting the
needle through the yarn? Uh-huh? Okay, let's start from the beginning, one
needle in your left, one in your right…" Georgia began to walk her through
the process, going all the way back to the slipknot. Darwin could do that part,
of course; now she stopped working her hands as she listened to Georgia talk
about the craft she loved. It was relaxing to hear her voice, a grown-up
version of a bedtime story.
"There's lots of skill to knitting, certainly, but if you ask me, a lot of
it is all about the muscle memory," said Georgia. "One day you'll just
find your fingers making the moves and your brain will go to this deliciously
soothing place, and all the knots in your brain will unwind just as your
fingers make knot after knot after knot in the yarn."
"Oh, I'm not trying to do that. This is all in the name of research, you
know."
"We know, Darwin, we know. Still, I'm surprised you're at home on a
Saturday night trying to knit. You're young—why aren't you off trying to meet a
special someone?"
"I'm married." A rush of guilt over
Elon
.
"I had no idea! Darwin, you hardly ever say anything except how knitting
is going to send us back to being barefoot and pregnant." Laughter.
"Well, Dan's in LA now," said Darwin. She kept her tone light.
"It's a temporary thing. He's doing his residency. And you know, the
commuting marriage is very trendy right now. And I'm nothing if not
trendy."
More laughter from Georgia.
"You are just one surprise after another, Darwin," she said.
"You should bring this
fella
of yours into the
shop sometime."
"I'd like that," said Darwin. And she meant it. She'd really like to
have Dan back in town. She'd enjoy introducing him to all the friends she'd
made. He'd never believe it. Well, no, Dan
would
believe it. He'd always
been his wife's biggest champion. It was Darwin who was surprised by being a
part of the club.
And so the two women picked up the threads for a conversation, weaving a bit
about Darwin's studies, Georgia's plans for the video with Lucie, some banter
back and forth about Dakota's upcoming school project on the suffragettes.
And then good-byes, a welcome but unfamiliar feeling of goodwill about each
other lingering after the click of the dial tone, the store owner musing about
the scholar's request for Dakota's baking—it was an easy one, Rice
Krispie
treats. (Georgia knew Dakota would roll her eyes at
its simplicity.) Her daughter was tiring of the women asking for nibbles that
reminded them of their own childhoods. Don't they see I'm trying to expand my
culinary horizons, Dakota had complained. If they're not careful, I'm going to
make squid tartlets. With octopus sauce. Like on
Iron Chef
.