The Perils of Pauline (29 page)

Impact Area: An area having designated boundaries within the limits of which all ordnance will detonate or impact.—Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Exhausted, I stumble into work, resolved to turn off my cell for the morning while I tackle inventory. There’s plenty to distract me today since Wednesday is Mom’s Morning. Serenity’s pregnancy has been a boon for sales in the baby book section lately. She’s like some kind of crazy magnet for all the expectant moms in town.

The Moms all troop in, bellies bulging, and sit at the back eating apple-bran muffins, discussing the best diapering methods and perusing the dog-eared baby name finder that Serenity leaves on the counter as a free service. She set up a small crib and filled it with books to share, on a leave-a-book, take-a-book honor system. Every service agency in town comes in to drop off pamphlets on everything from breastfeeding to free growth charts. Whenever they visit, the agencies order books for their own libraries. And Serenity has turned into a fountain of useful information. She has read every baby-related book in print, and knows which lead-filled pacifiers have been recalled and where to buy the cutest booties.

Wearily, I begin shelving books. Mommy Rotten crashes through the door with JR. In a loud voice she announces, to the apple bran group, “O. M. G. I can’t believe it. I’m pregnant. My doctor told me
that I could get cancer from smoking and taking birth control pills at the same time. So I stopped taking the pill. Now look at me.” She lifts her shirt to show a bulge and then starts pawing through the crib for her free book. JR grabs a muffin, picks all the blueberries out, and throws them on the floor.

At lunch I run to my cell and turn it on. Nothing from Donald but there’s a message from Michael: “Meet me at the Dingy Cup. I need to tell you something.”

I grab my coat, leaving Serenity in charge.

On the way over, I wonder what it might be. Has he gone back to his wife? Found a new lover? Is over me? All of the above?

I enter the bar and spy him at the back, sitting at our favorite table, the one where we first met to talk about books and canoodle the afternoons away. He’s reading a book and doesn’t see me come in. There is still something about him that melts my heart into a puddle but at this moment I know I can’t keep on.

It’s a deep down knowing, an unwordable word knowing. I love Michael, but we won’t survive. By the time I get to the table I have my speech ready. I sit down and blurt it out straight away before I can change my mind: “I love you, Michael. But you need a woman who will adore you. You know I’m not the adoring type.”

Michael nods. I put my hand on his. “I told Donald about us. I still love him, but I don’t think he’s coming home now. That doesn’t change anything between you and me. I can’t start over with you, or anyone, just now. Not with Jack and Olympia and Serenity and the baby coming. I hope you understand.”

I sit back hoping Michael won’t make a scene or cry or shout at me. I deserve it. I am a terrible person to be crushing his beautiful soul this way.

Instead, Michael’s face breaks into a radiant smile of relief. “I’m glad you feel that way about us because I’ve made a decision, too. I went on a two-week silent retreat in January and something powerful
happened. I came back to tell you and make all the arrangements.” He pauses and looks at me as if trying to gauge my reaction.

“It’s okay, go ahead, you can tell me.”

“I’m going away again, this time for an extended silent retreat. At least six months.”

“Six months? Why so long?”

“That’s not long, relatively. There are people who go into silent retreats for years. There’re even dark retreats where you spend the time in total darkness.”

“So you’re going to live in a cave in India?”

“No, no. No caves. I’m staying in a heated cabin. In the country. There’s a small hermitage in upstate New York called the Diamond Mountain Center. It’s mostly for aspirants and students. Guru Greg is going to be my teaching advisor. Carmen is okay with it. And when I get back, Nick will come live with me for six months.”

“You’re planning to become a monk, aren’t you?”

“Not necessarily. I’ve always wanted to go deeper into my practice. Now’s a good time for me, that’s all. I’ve been looking for answers in all the wrong places. All those years of research, reading and studying. I thought you might be the answer. Turns out, you were an amazing question.”

What does he mean, I’m an amazing question? Whatever, it sounds cool.

Michael continues. “I finally figured out that I have to look inside. I need time to do that.”

Michael is going to become a monk. In a way, I’ve known it all along.

He grins at me. “You finally admitted it. You love me. I knew it all along.”

“Shut up.”

We sit in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, smiling at each other. I’m trying to picture Michael with a shaved head wearing a saffron robe. Wait, no, saffron is the Hare Krishna’s thing. The Benedictines are dark brown with a rope. The Dalai Lama has an attractive red robe.

“What color is your robe going to be?”

“Robes are worn by ordained monks only.”

“But if you do get ordained, what color would you get?”

“Yellow.” He looks at me and sighs. “Cotton.”

“Nice,” I say. Even without his long curly hair, Michael is going to be a very handsome monk.

Michael leans over the table and looks into my eyes. “I think you did the right thing, telling Donald. Are you alright?”

“Thanks. Yeah, I’m okay. Well, maybe not so okay, but I’ll manage. I’ll just have to keep going.”

“How’re things going at the store?”

“I’m starting to get the hang of the book business. But I’ve decided I’m going to turn the shop over to Serenity eventually. It’s really her store. She loves it.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I’ll still help out. With the baby and everything. Serenity is going to need a lot of extra hands. But beyond that, you know, I want to finish my degree. And then maybe grad school.”

Grad school? Where did that come from? That’s the first time that idea ever occurred to me. It’s a good thought. “I was also thinking of starting a communist cell.”

On the way home it strikes me: if Michael is going to be a monk, I wonder what I might have driven Donald to? CEO of a major corporation?

Wendy wants to host a surprise baby shower for Serenity. By host she means have it at my house. I set the date, extended the invitations, cleaned the place and supplied the food. I even birthed the guest of honor. Wendy said she “will do the rest.” When she gets here. She’s running late.

Meanwhile I’m Wendy-Pauline, dipping and soaring all over the house, putting clean hand towels in the bathroom, adding ice to the punch and mopping up the spill Olympia made when she sampled the punch.

Wendy’s guests are due any minute, and Shae is upstairs doing her maximum to keep Serenity from coming downstairs into the living room where Jack and Olympia have been decorating. Olympia is building a diaper mountain by taping together a pile of disposables with masking tape and Jack is making balloon animals. He wanted me to make the balloon animals but I ran out of racetrack. I suggested he make balloon worms, or maybe some pregnant balloon worms.

As soon as I say this, Olympia wants to know how worms get pregnant. Jack shows her by humping a green worm and an orange worm across the living room. Charmed, Olympia grabs a yellow and red pair, and soon the living room is writhing and humping in a colorful worm balloon orgy. I’m sure this idea will go over big at the next birthday party she goes to.

Disaster strikes when Olympia’s yellow balloon worm pops. She runs upstairs shrieking. I hurry after her to console her as the doorbell bongs. “Get the door, Jack,” I call.

I find Olympia in Serenity’s room. Serenity is wearing purple pajama bottoms tucked under her belly and a tiny Mars Volta t-shirt. Shae is drawing an elaborate graffiti design on Serenity’s bump with temporary tattoo markers. She has written, “Hello my name is …” Shae hands Olympia a neon green inkpen and points at her broad canvas: “You can color in the H.” Serenity giggles as the tip of the marker scribbles across her skin.

Good, solid grown-up fun could be had with those markers. Trouble is I have no one to play graffiti with me now.

I race back downstairs to find Wendy twirling around in the living room. She has sprinkled a ton of heart confetti and pink glitter over every surface, including the side tables, the chairs and the carpet. Some is floating in the punch. “It’s so close to Valentine’s, I decided we should do a Valentine’s theme,” she squeals.

Winter static is causing the confetti to stand on end and leap straight at me as I cross the floor. I must look disgruntled as I pick bits of confetti from the chip dip as she shouts, “Don’t worry, confetti is easy to clean up.”

Bibienne arrives carrying a cake. “There’s, like, a ton of confetti all over your walkway and doorsteps.”

I turn to glare at Wendy.

“I’ll vacuum it up later,” she cries and runs back outside to her car.

“We don’t need any more confetti,” I yell after her.

“What games have you got planned?” Bibienne asks me.

Games? When I was expecting Serenity, my party consisted of drinking games since my friends were all enlisted gals and a baby shower is as good an excuse as any other day. They stayed sober long enough to stick a gooey paper plate on my head. I remember drinking ginger ale and shuddering at the sight of a mountain of bonnets, receiving blankets, and tiny onesies.

I know one thing: if I stick a plate of bows on Serenity’s head, she’ll rip my face off.

It’s too late to google shower games; the doorbell is bonging again and the guests are arriving. Mackie arrives with a bottle of champagne, and she and Bibienne and I watch from the door of the living room. A girl with braces is telling everyone that she drove over here in her dad’s car as she passed her driver’s license today, and she only hit the curb once. She looks about 12 years old. I’m tempted to run outside to check my car for dents.

Serenity comes downstairs and lifts up her t-shirt to show them Bump, covered with Shae’s graffiti drawings of seahorses, dolphins and a spouting whale. They all squeal and pull out their phones to take pictures of Bump so they can upload them to the Internet.

“Oh God, they all look so young,” says Mackie.

“That’s because they’re so young.”

“Are you ready for this?” Bibi asks.

“What? The shower?”

Bibienne shakes her head and looks me straight in the eye.

“Oh. Right. Am I ready for my baby having a baby? I don’t know. Some days I think my daughter is hopelessly immature, and completely unprepared for the world. And then other days she surprises me with how smart and resourceful she can be.”

Bibienne hugs me. “It’ll work out. She’s a good kid. We weren’t that much older when we got started, remember?”

True. I was 20 when I had Serenity. A lifetime ago. Yesterday.

None of the kids are of legal age so army-style drinking games are out of the question. But I’m more than old enough for combat, and so are Mac and Bib. We go back out to the kitchen where I pop the cork from Mackie’s bottle and pour three glasses. “Chin, chin,” I say. “A baby shower is as good as any other day.”

The kids were all happy with soda pop and pizza, worm balloon games and hanging out. Easy peasy. In a year or so, when the baby turns one, we can run this same party formula all over again.

Serenity loved her gifts. Mom and Brian stopped over and brought over a rocking chair that Brian refinished himself, and I threw in a bassinette filled with swaddling blankets. Jude’s friends all gave the cutest little girly outfits while the girls all gave toy cars and trucks.

“No dolls,” Serenity warned us all in advance. “And no pink ponies.”

“Are you sure you’re having a girl?” asked Bibienne as she surveyed a set of pink Matchbox racecars.

“Only unless it’s a boy,” said Jude.

Serenity is adamant. “It’s a girl. I’m craving orange juice. And I did the wedding ring test.”

“But you aren’t married. Maybe it doesn’t count,” said Wendy.

“Does too. We used Shae’s silver skull ring.”

“Why not just get a blood test?” asked Mackie.

Serenity shrugged dismissively. “It’s a girl.”

At that moment George limped into the room and everyone rang in with their opinions on George’s paw.

Jude thinks it’s allergies while Wendy thinks maybe George has scurvy. Wendy had scurvy when she was little but her mother used crystals and now she’s cured. I was afraid to ask if she meant vitamin C, amethysts, or crack.

“Maybe it’s early onset arthritis,” suggested Bibienne.

“But George is barely two years old,” I said.

“Osteo issues aren’t unheard of in a young animal.”

She went on to say that if I plug him with glucosamine now, I may be able to delay, for a couple of years anyway, the inevitable hip dysplasia that comes with arthritic pets. In other words, in a few short years, Bibienne figures I’m going to be carrying George up and down stairs, and supporting his butt when he has to pee and poo.

4 a.m. Serenity is standing beside my bed. “Mom, I feel funny.”

I sit up, fast. That’s new mom speak for “the baby is coming.” This is only the third week of March. Serenity’s due date is still a month away but I knew this baby would come early, I knew it. I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing.

I snap on the light and peer at Serenity’s face, which is crimped in pain.

“A contraction?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. My back hurts like crazy. Wait, it’s getting better now.” She sighs, and sits on the end of my bed.

“And these pains in your back? How far apart are they?”

“I don’t know. They started coming yesterday but now I can’t sleep, it hurts too much.”

“Where’s Shae?”

“I paged her but she isn’t answering. She’s out plowing. It’s snowing again.”

“Did you call your midwife?”

“Wait. I have to go to the bathroom.”

I run downstairs. The baby is coming! I better alert Bibienne. She said she would watch Jack and Olympia. And Jude. I better call Jude first. Wait, no, I still don’t know if Serenity paged the midwife. What’s her name again? Wait. First, I should call Mom. And maybe I better try to page Shae again. I wish I could call Donald. It’s been a week since I texted him my messages. Nothing came back. It’s over.