One Small Thing (3 page)

Tomás was asleep in Avery’s arms, Valerie eating as if it were her last meal. In fact, her best friend’s face looked too thin, Tomás sucking every last bit of fat out of her. “I had my cholesterol checked,” Valerie had told her last week. “One eighteen. One eighteen! My doctor wondered how I was still alive.”

Avery looked down at Tomás, the milk-drinker, her godchild, his beautiful brown face so sweet in sleep, his eyelashes long and black, his hair a fuzz of darkness.

“I am so hungry,” Valerie said, scooping up the last of the lasagna on her plate and then serving herself another square.

“I can see that,
amor
,” Luis said. “Hey, why don’t I just slide the cassarole in front of you?”

“Watch it, Luis,” Dan said, winking at Avery. “You’re on dangerous ground.” Dan smiled, his eyes dark with laughter. When she and Dan were first going out back at Cal, she had warned him, “Don’t ever say the word ‘fine.’ Don’t say, ‘It’s all right.’ Women know what fine and all right mean. And to be on the safe side, don’t talk about thighs or weight or hair. On a bad day, I won’t be able to take it.”

Luis nodded. “I know it, man.” But Valerie didn’t blink, cutting at the lasagna, flipping her long red hair behind her shoulder when it got in the way of her fork. Avery knew Luis wouldn’t care what size Valerie was; he loved her so completely, his eyes always on her, appreciative, glowing. After Tomás was born, he sobbed as he cut the umbilical cord, saying, “
Dios mio
,” and other Catholic Spanish sayings Avery and Dan couldn’t catch. To Luis, Valerie was a queen,
La Reyna
, as he called her.

In a different way, Avery knew how he felt because she looked at Dan with those same appreciative eyes. While she picked on him and teased him and felt he was her equal, she knew that he would protect her, care for her, love her. Sometimes at night, she wondered what she gave him, what he truly loved about her. Was it that she was beautiful? That she could earn a living? That she could cook? Then he would throw a heavy, sleepy arm across her and pull her close, and she would forget to figure out what their marriage was all about, safe in the warmth of her husband’s flesh.

Tomás made a small cry and stretched out an arm, turning a bit in Avery’s arms. She bent her head down and breathed him in. She knew her own baby would be as sweet and wonderful as him. Sometimes, when she watched Tomás, while Valerie took a long, soaking bath or went to the grocery store, she imagined that he was hers. When Valerie walked back into the house, Avery almost had to shake herself into the real world.

“So what did the doctor say? Did you ask him about the herbs?” Valerie asked, finally pushing her plate away. “Luis’s cousin Rosalinda swears by them.”

“I didn’t ask. I forgot. But he wants me to do acupuncture.”

“That’s crazy stuff, man,” Luis said. “The Chinese say our body is all connected by electrical currents, which is true. But to stick in needles to activate them . . . what is it? The
chi
? And a teacher at my school, she told me about cupping. They light a match in a cup and extinguish all the air and stick them on your back. To pull out the ‘bad humors’ or something. It’s superstition.”

Luis taught high school science at Las Palomas High School, and whether it was a cow’s eye or a frog or a twenty-five pound feral cat that his students had to dissect, it was straight forward and clear, muscles and nerves and flesh in clear understandable systems. In some ways, he was just like Mara, though he didn’t talk about it as much.

“Don’t get me started on superstition,” Valerie said. “Every time we leave on a trip, you’re genuflecting all over the place. Kissing your Saint Christopher and whatnot. How can that be scientific?” Valerie smiled and patted Luis’ shoulder. “There are things we just don’t know about, and getting pregnant is sometimes one of them.”

Dan nodded. “I know. One of the administrative assistants at work adopted a baby, not knowing that she was actually four months pregnant. She’d been trying for years, and then she and her husband decided to adopt. The night they brought the baby home, she realized what was going on. She thought she wasn’t having a period because of all the hormone treatments.”

Avery leaned in closer, hovering over the happy story that floated in the middle of the table. She loved these tales where the miracles happened. Sometimes, with the right crowd in Dr. Browne’s office, the women would begin to recount the unbelievable—the twins after five years of hormones, IUI, and then in vitero. The adopted baby who was now in the same grade with the baby the couple conceived after the adoption went through. The triplets, identical, no fertility drugs at all. The quads who weighed four pounds each and were now thriving. The sister of a friend of a women’s husband who didn’t even know she was pregnant and went in to the hospital for indigestion. All of these stories had to be true, and one of them just might end up being Avery’s. She didn’t care which because all of them ended happily with a child.

“Unbelievable, man,” Luis said, standing up and clearing dishes from the table. “God was sure good to us.”

“Superstition,” Valerie whispered as he and then Dan left the room loaded down with plates.

“No, maybe he’s right,” Avery said, pressing Tomás just a bit closer. “You guys are so lucky. Tomás is beautiful. Look at him!”

Valerie reached a hand over and rubbed Avery’s arm. “Hon, you’ll have a baby. I know it. Some people just take longer.”

“Yeah. So I’ve been told.” These were the stories that were harder to listen to—the couple who tried homopathetic treatments, psychotherapy, weeklong infertility retreats, acupuncture, IUI, and IVF for twelve years before giving up, having spent almost all of their retirement money . The co-worker’s daughter who had fibroids removed, tubes blown clean, a dye study, and a uterus scraped all for nothing. The woman who went to England for a new procedure that cost twenty thousand dollars and failed. Even afterward, she kept trying and was still at it ten years later.

“Look, it’s summer,” Valerie said. “We’re going to hang out by your pool and relax. Your body is going to be so rested, you’ll be pregnant by fall. You’re ripe, girl. Don’t get down.”

Avery smiled. “I am like a melon, a tomato, a plum.”

“Damn right,” Valerie said. “A veritable garden. You’ve just got to get seeded.”

“What?” Dan said, walking into the dining room, Luis behind him.

“Don’t ask,” Avery said, laughing. “I’ll explain it all to you later. I promise.”

Avery lay behind Dan, his body a strong silhouette in the bed. She pressed closer, wrapping an arm around him.

“What?” he asked, turning his head toward her. “Are you a little anxious?”

That was their term for needing each other—anxious. They would be at a party dancing to music in the middle of a room, arms tight around each other, and Dan would lean into her ear and whisper, “I’m feeling a little anxious,” rubbing the silk covering her back.

Now, while she would welcome the forgetfulness of sex, the familiar and comforting ways their bodies moved together, the skin she knew so well, she was actually anxious. Worried. Frightened. Even though Dr. Browne, Valerie, her mother, Loren, and all the women in the waiting room had declared that anxiety and stress of any kind would ruin her chances. That’s why she’d quit her job, despite how hard she’d worked for years. She couldn’t help it though, still feeling Tomás’ warm weight against her body, the empty space after Valerie had taken him from her.

“I’m . . . I’m scared it’s not going to happen. Another cycle, Dan, and nothing.”

Without saying anything, he turned to her, pulling her across his chest. He was always so warm, she often thought of buttered toast or anything brown and hot when she was near him. He was so alive, she’d always known that it was her fault they couldn’t get pregnant—her body still and slim and cold.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Aves. You’ve been so good about just going forward. You know it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when.” He held her tight, spoke in his confident sales voice, the one he used every day at VentureOut, a telecommunications company. While most salespeople’s over eager tones would convince her the worst was around the corner, Dan’s voice was as sure as her father’s had been. He sold promise and hope, as he always had. Everything he’d told her since his first, “Hello” had been the truth.

“I know. I want it so bad. I look at Tomás and Loren’s kids, and I know I’d be a good mom.”

“Of course you’ll be a good mom. That’s not the point. The point is you need to do what Dr. Browne says, go to this accupuncture place, and rest. We have to follow the program, and it will happen.”

Avery nodded against her husband’s skin. Dan had always followed the program, and look how well things had turned out for him. Maybe he’d spent a couple of vague years working after high school instead of going right to college, but in short order he’d been admitted to Cal, earned his degrees, and been hired right out of business school. He worked long hours, putting out fires with testy clients, traveling all over the state for meetings, taking calls from his boss Steve well into the night. But look how well it had all worked out. They were married, bought the house, and eventually, they would have children. Two or three. A boy and a girl for sure, like Avery had always planned. The boy old enough to protect the girl. That’s the way she saw it, and she wanted to believe Dan. She had to. There was no reason not to.

“All right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t stop thinking about it. You know me. It’s the way I was in school and at work. I think because it’s possible, I can do it. If I can’t for some strange reason, I just cut bait and move on. But I just don’t have much of a say here. I can’t go in and pluck the egg myself and slap a sperm in it and watch it grow in a Petri dish on the kitchen window sill. I can’t do anything but lie back and let people do things to me. I hate it.”

“That’s why you’ll be a good mother. Our kids won’t have anything to worry about, not with you around. You’ll be the president of the PTA. In charge of all the fundraisers. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up running the school.”

Avery pressed into him again, wondering how she had found this man who knew her and still wanted her close. This close, rubbing her body, kissing her hair.

“I’m actually feeling a little anxious myself right now,” Dan said, touching her breasts, kissing her neck. “And I happen to know the perfect cure.”

Avery closed her eyes, let herself forget about the day. She stopped thinking about her insides as if they were charts in the exam room—the red curve of uterus and fallopian tubes, the small, potent egg falling down to swimming sperm. She blinked away the vision of her own body through the laparoscope lens, the slick, shiny organs that didn’t work right. She forgot to be jealous of her sister’s fertile reproductive fortune. She even let go of the sweet smell of Tomás, his baby hands, his rosebud mouth, his caramel skin. Her husband’s warm palms, his mouth, his dark hair against her cheek, neck, breasts brought her to a place where it had all started, this solid attraction between them. Avery pulled Dan close, let go of all her anxiety, the real and the imagined.

TWO

Luis leaned in and laughed. “Tom thinks his oysters have it all over us, man. But he hasn’t tasted my mother’s
carne asada
. And she also brought over some home-made
chorizo
. I’ll bring that out later. Wait until you taste that!”

Smoke rose from the old Weber, Luis insisting on using charcoal. “The flavor, man. You can’t get that from gas!”

Dan looked at the thin, tender strips of beef on Luis’ grill, knowing that with the salsa and the fresh corn tortillas Luis’ mother Dolores had brought over earlier in the day, the oysters would be just appetizers. “I think you’re right. Happy Fourth.” He brought up his Corona bottle and clinked it against Luis’.

“Damn straight. Fourth of July. I’m just so glad school is out. Now I can spend all my time with Valerie and Tomás. But probably she’ll make me do all the laundry.”

Dan nodded and swallowed his beer. Out in Dias Dorados Court, the neighbors were busy preparing for the long afternoon and evening, grills fired up, the air full of cooking meat and smoke. Earlier, Dan had helped set up about ten tables in the middle of the court, and now Frank Chow and Tim Mueller were bringing out large, green canvas umbrellas they’d all chipped in for after last year’s epic sunburn, every other person tossing all night on painful sheets. Kids were sitting on the curbs, wishing the day away, holding boxes of fireworks Ralph Chatagnier had bought in Livermore—Lotus Bloom, Flame Tower, Go Forever, Night Parade. Dan had already filled three water buckets so they could put out the blaze if a rare Monte Veda policeman were to drive by. They’d held the line at bottle rockets, knowing that even one spark could set a roof or dry, blonde hill ablaze. In fact, even though it was only ten am, it was already 85 degrees, as hot as it had been for weeks. By two, they’d all be huddled under the umbrellas, taking turns bringing the kids to either Dan and Avery’s or the Chow’s pool. When the sun finally set sometime after eight, they’d relax, take in the night, wait for the big guns to come out, the sky alight with color.

“Yeah,” Luis was saying. “It’s great being able to watch him just sleep. I’m usually at the high school by seven.”