We Could Be Beautiful (31 page)

The Indian man in black appeared with salads, and Caroline said, “Please, I don’t want this. Just coffee.”

“Good girl, watching your weight,” Mom said.

In a flat voice—she was beyond crying at this point—Caroline said, “Bob has a mistress.”

I put my fork down. Mom stabbed a crunchy piece of lettuce.

“He told you that?”

She rubbed her eyes with the too-long sleeves of Bob’s sweatshirt.

“Oh, Caroline, I’m so sorry.”

“He has a mistress, and he wants to keep her.”

“What?”

“Let him,” Mom said.

“Mom,” I said.

“You mustn’t let him leave you, Catherine.”

“He doesn’t want to leave me. He wants to stay with me and keep his mistress.”

“How long has it been going on?”

“They met a year ago. On a plane. She lives in Miami.”

Just as I said, “Who meets someone on a plane?” I realized that Bob was exactly the type of person you would meet on a plane. He was the guy who ignored it when you put your earbuds in and asked you a question about the weather or the tray table or where you were going and why.

“I don’t know.” Caroline rubbed her whole face now like it itched very badly.

I would be uplifting, which was how you were supposed to be in situations like these. I made it about honesty because honesty was on my mind. “At least he was honest about it, right?”

“I don’t know. I would almost rather not know. Even though I’ve known for a while, I just wasn’t sure.”

“Of course you would rather know.”

“Would I though?”

“I would want to know,” I said, very sure of myself, and then I wondered if that was true. Would I really want to know?

“He wants to spend one weekend a month with her. That’s his proposal. What a fucking asshole.”

“Don’t curse, Caroline,” Mom said.

“Oh my God, you called me Caroline. Thank you.” She rested her head on Mom’s shoulder and was smart enough to leave it there for only a second before what we knew would happen did: Mom said, “Don’t touch me.”

“What do you get out of it?” I said.

“I’m now free to find someone on the side, too. That’s how he phrased it. Bob is ‘freeing’ me.” She did air quotes, but I couldn’t see her fingers inside the sweatshirt. The coffee came. She looked at it like it was a brick, or part of the table, or nothing at all.

“Are you into that idea?”

“No. I mean—no. Would you be?”

“No,” I said. “Sorry.” Her face told me she didn’t like that response, so I backpedaled. “But I haven’t been married, so I’m not the right person to ask. Maybe it will end up being a good thing?”

“Yeah right.”

“I’m sorry, Caroline.”

Mom leaned toward me and whispered, “Catherine, you are the strong one,” and ate the radish she had waiting on her fork.

“Mom, you’re mean,” Caroline said.

I waited for Mom’s comeback—we never told our mother she was mean—but she ignored Caroline completely and vigorously chewed her radish.

I felt so sorry for Caroline that I said, “Want to get a mani-pedi after this?”

She didn’t bother to look at her nails. “Not really.”

•

After lunch we sat on a bench in Riverside Park. Caroline put her head in my lap and I stroked her hair because that’s what I was supposed to do. I felt awkward. How long was I supposed to do this? Could I take a break? Would she be hurt if I took a break? Her hair was so oily. Did I have hand sanitizer in my purse?

I tried to keep it neutral. “How are the kids?”

“I’m a shitty mom.” She curled her twig legs farther into her stomach.

“No you’re not.”

There was a long pause. A man, who seemed normal at first, threw half a cheeseburger down on the cobblestones very hard. It hit with a smack. I braced myself for ketchup spray. None came. A mess of crazed pigeons were on it immediately. I was hoping this event would change the subject for us, but it did not. “I’m scared of my kids,” Caroline said, in the vacant, pared-down way of a person who has been completely exhausted by life. I wondered if she’d slept, but this seemed like a stupid question to ask.

“Why are you scared of them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you love them a lot and they love you.”

“And I love Bob and he loves me.”

“Right.”

A pause. A pause that said, Oh, but maybe that’s not enough.

“Maybe you need a hobby.” I was trying to be helpful, but it sounded like such a trite suggestion in this context. I continued anyway. “Why don’t you start painting again? You’re such a talented painter.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Make one of your guest rooms into a studio and just go in there and paint.”

Caroline turned her face up and smiled at me. Her teeth were all perfect except for one; that one was curtain-shaped, the others were boxy. “I feel so much better when I talk to you.”

My heart was pounding. My eyes blinked involuntarily, too many times. I tried very hard not to look away.

30

S
usan told me to come to the shop because she had something to tell me. She waited for me outside and gave me a huge hug, which was a much grander reception than I’d expected. “Sorry for being a bitch at Bloomingdale’s. I want to make it up to you. You must be so stressed. I was thinking about it last night—I couldn’t sleep. Just the thought of losing all that money, oh my God. So I am going to help you.”

Two million, I thought. Susan would offer me $2 million now.

She pulled me through the door. “You’re going to sell your cards here.”

Fuck cards, give me money! I tried to look appreciative. I didn’t say anything.

“This will be your corner,” she said in a hushed tone, so as not to bother the twelve—yes, I counted—customers, who appeared to be browsing with the intention to buy. “I’ll ask Henry to clear it out.”

“Did I hear my name?” Henry popped up into view—he was always popping up like that over the plants—with a turkey baster in his hand. He added a few droplets to the bonsai in front of him, a gnarled thing with yellow leaves.

“You’re doing a great job, sweetheart,” Susan said, and kissed the air.

“So put some cards here, okay? I’m worried if you don’t have something to do, you’ll get depressed and kill yourself,” she whispered into my cheek, her scent an overpowering mix of coffee and Gucci Rush.

I coughed. “Thanks.”

“Of course! I want to be a good friend!” She rubbed my arm. I smiled without teeth. And then Susan cocked her head and looked at me more closely. She was inspecting my face. “Why are you glowing? Did you call Dr. Butterworth?”

“No.”

“Oh my God.” She covered her mouth with her hand. Her nails were painted a teenage blue. Henry was making her young again, apparently. “Are you pregnant?”

•

I knew Susan was wrong, but I bought a pregnancy test at Duane Reade anyway. Yes, I hadn’t had my period for a while, but that was normal for me. My cycle had been irregular since my twenties.

I went to a Duane Reade that was not my regular Duane Reade, because the guys at the regular one kind of knew me, and if I bought this and turned out not to be pregnant (which was what would happen), they’d feel sorry for me and I would be embarrassed.

I added some magazines and a few packs of Mentos to the pile so the pregnancy test wouldn’t be alone on the counter. I thought the woman who rang me up gave me a look, though I might have imagined that. Tina Turner was playing. What’s love got to do with it? What’s love but a secondhand emotion?

I put the test in my purse so Lucia wouldn’t see it when I got home. “Hello, how are you?” she said in her new phonetic way.

“Fine,” I said, and went straight to the bathroom.

I followed the directions. I played the same Tina Turner song that had been playing in Duane Reade on my phone. I’m not sure why I did that. Maybe so I could keep the experience just to Tina Turner. If it was a no, which it would be, I would avoid listening to Tina Turner for a while.

I waited. I waited for a no, for a no, for a no. I was too old, I had fucked everything up with my abortions, there was no way.

And then, as with everything else in my life I had been so sure about, I was wrong.

In the tiny white square:
POSITIVE
.

•

After another trip to another Duane Reade (I had to walk a little farther, and I walked fast), I came home with five more tests and more magazines and Mentos and a strange key chain of a squealing dolphin. I’d been pretending to be interested in it so as to avoid eye contact with the clerk as she rang me up, and when she said, “You want that, too?” I said, “Sure, yeah, everyone needs a dolphin key chain, ha.”

Lucia was vacuuming the bedroom when I got home. I gave her a no-talk-right-now smile and headed back to the bathroom, where I took all five tests with Tina Turner and all five said yes.

I called Dr. Rose and said, “I think I’m pregnant.”

“I have a cancellation. Can you be here in half an hour?”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

•

Dr. Rose was a small, attractive Asian woman from Seattle who always wore spandex under her white doctor’s coat. I liked her a lot. She had walked me through the Fernando abortion with no judgment. Or if she had judgment, she hid it well. She was professional. We also had a history together outside of work, which was why she fit me into her schedule so easily. She had dated Fernando’s brother, Esteban, at Yale. In the past she’d said more than once, “You can call me Patricia. I know you socially.” But I didn’t want to call her Patricia. I wanted to think of my doctor as a doctor and not as a flawed human.

Dr. Rose had me take yet another test. (I had planned for this. I had chugged water at the sink before walking over.) I waited in the room, my eyes lost in a diagram on the wall.
Musculature of the Human Body.
I thought about texting William, but this seemed premature.

When Dr. Rose returned (there was a ruffle on the hem of her spandex crops today), she said, “The urine test came back positive. I don’t have time for an ultrasound, and I’m going on vacation. Ralph and I are going to Belize. So we’ll do the ultrasound when I come back, okay?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Yes. If you’ve been drinking, stop drinking. One cup of coffee a day, no more. Be wary of fish. I’ll give you some literature.”

“I’m fucking pregnant.”

She put her hands on my shoulders, looked right at me. “You need to start eating, Catherine. I’m serious.”

“Okay. I know. I will.” I thought, For $10 million, I will eat cheeseburgers all day. Which was horrible. I told myself to delete that thought. Because I also truly wanted a child, I reminded myself of that. I had always wanted a child. The money was just a bonus, and it happened to be good timing.

“Can I call you in Belize? What if something happens?”

“You can call the office. Dr. Maslow is great. And listen, don’t worry too much.”

“I’ll try.”

“Just eat. Three meals a day at least, okay?” She wrapped her slender arms around me, which was both nice and, I thought, slightly inappropriate. “I’m so happy for you.”

•

After it was confirmed, I walked through Midtown aimlessly in a tan Donna Karan dress, wondering about which day exactly the lucky sperm had made it. My breasts, which Dr. Rose had said would grow a lot in the next few weeks, suddenly did seem larger to me. And I had been hungrier. Was that true? Yes, I thought it was.

I was about to call William, and then I decided not to. I wanted to tell him in person. I would tell him in person when he got home from work.

I got myself a vanilla milkshake from Shake Shack and called Susan, who said she knew it, she was always right. And she was so, so, so happy for me. She also told me about something called pregnancy mask, which was a skin pigmentation that could happen during pregnancy. How had I never heard of that? Your face broke out in brown splotches. She’d seen it happen to a friend. But only one friend, only one out of a million, so I would probably be fine.

Caroline was ecstatic, of course. She also said pregnancy mask was incredibly rare, and since it hadn’t happened to her and we were from the same gene pool, it probably wouldn’t happen to me either. She was feeling better. Bob was in Miami, and she was painting today. “An angry painting. No one will want it,” she said, “but I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about you. I’m so happy for you, sis.”

I called my mother next, whose reaction was, “Good.” She sounded out of it, and distant, and disengaged. I imagined her sitting there in all the yellow, looking into space. “Are you happy for me?” I said. “Yes,” she said, flat. I asked her if she knew who she was talking to, and she did. “Catherine,” she said. I might have been hurt that she seemed to care so little, and sad that no matter how old I got, it seemed I would never stop needing my mother’s approval. I would never be adult enough to grow out of that need. She was so withholding. She left so much unsaid. There were so many things I wanted her to say, so much more to want. I told myself what every pregnant woman tells herself: With my baby, it will be different.

•

I made dinner that night. I had a clever idea: eggs. The main course was an afterthought; I threw a salad together. I added black beans for protein. The important part was the eggs, which I hard-boiled. I presented them on little egg holders.

When William got home, I poured him a glass of wine.

“You’re not having any?”

“Nope,” I said.

“This is an interesting dinner.” He cracked the eggshell with his spoon, peeled the shell with ease. He dropped the egg on top of his salad and sliced it up into neat, uniform slices.

I accepted that this clue might have been too obscure and said, “I have something to tell you. I made eggs for a reason.”

William looked at his plate. “What reason is that?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He swallowed quickly. I thought he might choke. “Truly?”

“Can you believe it?”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

He got up and walked around the table, Herman skittering in tow, and wrapped his arms tight around me. “I can’t believe it. This is wonderful,” he said. “Oh, Catherine, this is wonderful. I’m so relieved.” He put his big hands on my stomach. “This is going to make everything right.”