Mommies Who Drink Page 9

  Dr. Sammy bounces back in with stickers and hands them to Spence.

  “Stickers!” Spence says, sliding off Pat’s lap onto the carpet.

  Dr. Sammy plops back in his chair, grabs the file, and leans back again.

  I see Pat in my hospital room, moving the tubes aside and carefully lying down next to my waiflike body. Hanging on to my last few breaths, I whisper, “I loved only you.”

  “Your progesterone is good,” says Dr. Sammy.

  Pat looks at me, smiles, and grabs my hand like we won something.

  It’s not cancer.

  “Pat’s sperm is good.”

  Pat nods like he knew that all along.

  I look down to see Spence sitting in the middle of frog stickers he’s stuck to the carpet. He looks up at me and smiles. King Frog with his subjects.

  “So what is it?” I ask.

  “Well, Brett, it’s nothing really,” says Dr. Sammy. “It’s just that you’re forty-two and your eggs are old.”

  “But I don’t look like I’m forty-two,” I say. “Forty is the new thirty.”

  A patient smile spreads across his face.

  “Not biologically,” he says.

  I realize at this moment that I hate him.

  “Old eggs?” asks Pat.

  “Mmm,” says Dr. Sammy, leaning forward, his beaky nose hanging over his weak mouth. “A woman has only a set number of eggs at birth. She loses these eggs as she gets older, and by forty the eggs that remain are old; they’re tired.”

  How old are they? I hear in my head. So old they need a walker just to get them over to the uterine wall.

  He goes on, “There’s a higher risk of chromosomal problems. And it’s harder to get pregnant.”

  I watch as he rests his talons on top of the file.

  “Christie Brinkley had a baby at forty-four,” I say.

  “I’m not saying you can’t get pregnant,” he says. “In fact, if I were to bet on a forty-two-year-old getting pregnant, I would bet on you.”

  “You would?” I ask.

  My voice sounds girly and flirtatious, not my own.

  “You’ve got everything going for you,” Dr. Sammy says. “You’ve got the blood pressure of a teenager.”

  “I do?” I ask, giggling.

  “And your uterus is in great shape. Pink and healthy.”

  “Pink. Great,” I say.

  Dr. Sammy is such a handsome, kind man, I think. We should have him over for dinner sometime.

  Spence grabs onto my knee and pulls himself up from the frogs.

  Pat raises an eyebrow at me and turns to Dr. Sammy.

  “Well, we wanted to know what we’re dealing with, because if it looks unlikely that we’ll get pregnant, we’re going to start looking into adoption,” he says.

  Spence pulls on the neck of my shirt. “I want more stickers.”

  “Just a minute,” I say, prying his fingers away. “Dr. Sammy’s talking to Mommy.”

  Dr. Sammy laughs. “Well, that’s a surefire way to get pregnant—start adoption proceedings.”

  “Really?” I ask. I look at Dr. Sammy’s lovely long fingers.

  “Stickers,” says Spence, his voice insistent.

  “Just a minute,” I hiss. “So why would starting to adopt make me pregnant?”

  “Oh, well, it’s nothing scientific, right?” he says, winking at Pat. “It’s just the way the world works. You get what you want when you’re looking the other way.”

  “Stickers!” screams Spence.

  “Spence,” I say, “this is my turn. I get to talk to the doctor now. You are not the only person in the world.”

  Spence’s face drops and he sinks back to the carpet of frogs.

  My heart lunges toward him. I want to take it back. I want to say, “You are the only person in the world. That’s the problem. That’s why we’re here. I’m terrified that you will be alone someday. I can’t sleep thinking of you alone in the world.”

  The truth of this hits me like a hokey God moment in a made-for-TV movie.

  I hear Dr. Sammy intone more about my pink cervix and attractive follicles. I hear percentages and words like “artificial insemination” and “donor egg.”

  But most of this sounds like it’s bits and pieces from outside a door. Inside, I hold my answer. Turn it over and tuck it into my chest. My answer. The reason for this near-psychotic pining for a second child.

  The reason offers itself up and I know that it’s been there since the day my brother was born. It is this: I want for my child what I have. A witness. Someone who will say, “Yes, it’s true. Yes, I was there. We were so very loved.”

  Purse Party

  I am convinced that some women have an accessory gene. They are predestined to understand what looks right with what. They instinctively know what’s in and what’s out. They care deeply about this year’s green.

  I could be wearing a green that’s so four years ago and still have a good time. If there’s anything equivalent to the opposite of an accessory gene, that’s the gene I have. The only accessory I had for any length of time was a watch my father gave me. It was silver and it hung around my neck. I’d probably still have that watch if I hadn’t misplaced it while stripping on a roof in New York City on a dare. It’s the only accessory I ever gave a shit about.

  So why, oh why, do I go crazy at the purse party? I don’t plan on buying a purse. I carry a backpack with a broken zipper. And now that I have Spence, I occasionally tote around the diaper bag the hospital gave me when he was born. It’s pink plastic with bears on it and doesn’t match a thing I own. I don’t know from purses.

  There’s nothing ominous in the invitation. Katherine tells me that a friend of hers, who has a beautiful home in the Los Feliz hills, is having a purse party. Would I like to go? The “beautiful home” part is important because I am far more interested in homes than purses.

  I say yes mostly because of a prurient interest in this home of a hugely wealthy actress. I also say yes because, despite my accessory handicap, I love girl things. I like huge groups of women jabbering about things that don’t really matter. I love clothing swaps and Tupperware parties and bridesmaid fittings. I like to giggle and talk about whether something is slimming. I like experimenting with eye shadows. And I have an almost hormonal need to know what would be the best container for pickling things, even though I’ve never pickled.

  I want to be where women are together. I breathe better around the sound of high-pitched chatter. So it is with these expectations that I go to the purse party.

  Katherine calls me a few days before the party. She asks what I’m planning to wear.

  “What are you wearing?” I ask, looking for a clue.

  “Well, I’m just going to try to look hip,” she says. “And I’m worried about what purse to bring. But I was thinking that if I go with something vintage, I can probably get away with it.”

  “Get away with what?” I think.

  “Karen said that In Style magazine is going to be there. So be prepared,” she says. Karen is the home-owning hostess.

  Prepared? I think.

  “I guess I’ll just wear jeans and my denim top,” I say. I figure the monochrome look will make me look tall and pull attention away from the middle of me, where all my problems are.

  When Katherine picks me up for the party, she looks hip to me. But then, what do I know?

  The house is worth it. Redone, remodeled, and rethought. A lot of light. I love the kitchen. The cabinets are white against a dark green wall. A couple of hired workers bustle around a metal island as big as a bed.

  Karen’s publicist is really working the party. She buzzes around introducing people to each other. She’s a short woman with a wide smile and crazy eyes. Bulbs flash around Karen and some very thin women. I spot some famous people and some sort of famous people. A poor man’s Demi Moore talks to a guy taking notes.

  Purses are placed on furniture all around the first floor. I’m disappointed. I thought it was
going to be like a Tupperware party in which a lady explains all about the bags. In this situation I’m going to be on my own. Or with Katherine, who immediately starts chatting with a stranger about the merits of the particular bag she’s holding. Not prepared to lay bare my bag ignorance so early, I drift off to the deck to get a large glass of wine and several slices of Brie.

  The deck is all dark wood and air. The Brie is soft and buttery. I sit on one of several matching wicker chairs and pretend that the deck is mine.

  Katherine gives me a “come here” wave from the kitchen. I help myself to a second glass of wine and a cheese cube before returning to her and the purses.

  There are big purses and small purses. Roomy ones, and others shaped like bowling bags. A whole line of them is made out of a pink dotted fabric. These cause a lot of activity near the sofa. The most popular purses are made out of kicky, fun fabric covered in a clear plastic. The “fun fabric” sports something like floating Eiffel Towers surrounded by floating pink poodles. One woman starts laughing when she sees images of martini glasses dancing beneath the plastic surface of a triangle-shaped purse. The laughing woman shows it to a friend, who also starts laughing.

  Whimsical diaper bags sit on a wooden pew in the hallway. They come with matching Eiffel Tower or camouflage or whatever bibs. The diaper bags go for about a hundred dollars. And the purses range from forty-five to a hundred. “But,” I hear from several women who heard from the bag lady, “these are at cost. And you get fifteen percent off. Bags like this are two hundred dollars at Fred Segal.”

  I tour the bags with Katherine and even pick up a few. Katherine snags one and hangs on to it. More women pour through the shabby-chic front door. Bags are slung on shoulders. One small woman carries four bags. Bags start disappearing from the coffee table and a nicely restored armoire.

  A woman who looks like Peppermint Patty sits on the stairs, hunched over a calculator. A line of women with bags on their shoulders forms in front of her and winds out to the kitchen.

  The wine is beginning to fade, so I grab another glass from the deck. I begin to worry about all those bags that have already been sold. Have I missed the one? Have I missed a bag that might change people’s image of me forever? Have I been hasty in assuming that I’m above bags? I could get a life-changing bag here, for a quarter of the cost that a famous person would buy it for at Fred Segal. Am I fucking out of my mind?

  I leave my glass on the deck and weave through a gaggle that’s formed around a furry light blue clutch. I start moving fast through the remaining purses. There has to be one somewhere. One that was overlooked. A gem. I find one on the stairs that looks promising, but it has things in it. It’s an already owned purse. Damn.

  How can I not know what all these women know? How can I not know that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I’m throwing away, just like I threw away that offer to play Titania in Midsummer, my junior year in college. If I had taken that part, I would have been able to work my way into the company. I would be doing Shakespeare now, instead of bit parts on TV shows nobody ever sees.

  I find a plastic fun purse propped up against a chair leg in the living room. Someone put it down on the floor, under the sight lines of most of the women. Ah-hah. I pick it up. God, it feels good. It’s a solid purse. Roomy. And I love the way it’s shaped—a trapezoid, shorter on top and wider on the bottom. How clever. This purse has a sense of humor. A woman tells me that the plastic-covered fabric was green upholstery fabric. She just appears, this woman. She says that she designed these bags. She tells me that she found the fabric in an out-of-the-way place in Korea Town. Who knew? She hadn’t even been looking for fabric that day.

  “Magic,” she says.

  I try the purse on. The strap fits perfectly in the hollow between my neck and the small hump of my shoulder bone. My hand feels the hardy, smooth plastic at my side.

  “Oooh,” says a woman next to me. She has two purses over her shoulder. “That’s a great one. I missed that one.”

  I feel strong and proud. My hand grips the plastic tighter.

  Once the trapezoid is on my shoulder, my breathing slows. I find Katherine with a group of women who all have plastic purses. She’s found a purse with a flowery motif. It’s so perfect for her that I want to call my mother about it.

  “Katherine, I found one. I found a purse,” I say in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine. She takes a long look at the purse as I wait for what seems like forever for her pronouncement.

  “This purse belongs to you,” she says. “It’s amazing how everyone just picks out the perfect purse. What a great color. It’ll go with your brown faux alligator jacket.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. But she’s right, of course. It’ll really set off that jacket.

  I suggest to her that we sit on the deck with another glass of wine and our purses. We should savor this moment, not let it go by too quickly.

  Sitting on the breezy deck with my trapezoid propped against my chair, I sip my wine and say witty things. The only other thing that has given me this sense of well-being and power before is cocaine. And the purse is a lot cheaper.

  A satisfying sense of acquisition floats through the air. Women stroke their purses. Cameras flash. No one takes a picture of me, but I don’t care. There will be pictures of me, with the trapezoid, later.

  Several other bepursed women move onto the deck. Normally, I sink into myself in big groups. But the purse makes me brave. It also makes me an expert.

  I chat with a famous-looking woman about the wisdom of mixing strappy square-toed sandals with a conservative skirt. I tell Katherine she should stop flattening her hair. She should get a graduated cut that flips in the back. I retrieve things from my magazine reading. I hear myself loudly exclaim that brown is the new black, and fifty the new forty.

  I could stay there forever. But women start leaving.

  Katherine tugs at my arm and I sigh. I don’t want to go. I haven’t had a chance to talk about what kind of pumps I should buy to match the trapezoid.

  “Brett,” Katherine whispers insistently, “we’re the last ones here.”

  I look around to find that it’s true. Katherine pulls me through several rooms to find Karen lying on one of her many couches, her feet elevated.

  We thank her.

  “You guys got great purses,” she says.

  “I really love mine,” I say, wanting to sit on the couch with Karen.

  I start to sit, when Katherine grabs my elbow.

  I straighten up and stand, looking at Karen, who glances at my glass of wine.

  “Would you like me to pour your wine into a paper cup so you can take it with you?” she asks.

  “Oh, no. That’s too much trouble.”

  “None at all,” she says.

  Leaning on Katherine as we walk down the driveway, I think of all those leftover, unclaimed purses. The thought makes me sad.

  I take a sip of wine from my paper cup as Katherine opens the car door.

  “I like Karen,” I say, sliding in.

  “Good people,” says Katherine.

  “And giving me wine to go? Damn. You don’t often find class like that in this town.”

  As the car winds down the hill, I impress myself by moving the paper cup with the rhythm of the car, not spilling a drop.

  Friday

  Diet Coke?” asks Katherine, looking at my soda.

  “I might have a glass of wine later,” I say. “I’m trying to shake these last ten pounds.”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, sounding unconvinced.

  “Brett, you are the worst at secrets,” says Lana. “If I was a press secretary and wanted something leaked, I’d tell it to you.” She downs a black shot and places the glass upside down on the draining grid of the bar.

  I want to say that that is absolutely untrue. I know a shitload of stuff about her that I’ve never told a soul except Pat, like the blow job she gave a docent in the bathroom of the Museum of Tolerance and the washcloth she s
tole from Phil Spector’s house.

  “You’re pregnant,” says Michelle. “Aren’t you?”

  There it is. The first public airing of what I’ve known for two days. The time between knowing you’re pregnant and saying it is emotional twilight. Soft and personal, it is the in-between time Pat and I have shared, sitting on the couch the last two evenings.

  “You guys, it’s really early,” I say, swirling the ice cubes of my watery soda with my straw.

  “It’s a girl,” announces Michelle.

  “You can’t know that,” says Katherine. “It’s the size of a comma right now.”

  Mack walks up and the conversation dies like we’re guilty of something.

  “You ready for a wine?” he asks me.

  “Um, sure,” I say, planning a sip or two to throw him and any regulars off the scent.

  Mack walks down to the other end of the bar to grab a bottle.

  “Michelle’s a seer,” Lana says to Katherine.

  “A seer?”

  “I see things,” says Michelle.

  “Like what?” asks Katherine.

  “She saw, a long time ago, that Tony wasn’t going to stay with Daisy and me,” says Lana.

  “Well, we all see that,” says Katherine.

  Plop. Talk about secrets. Katherine has said the unsaid thing—that Tony is not the one who will stick around; not the one who will be sitting next to Lana at graduations and holiday meals; and that we all know it.

  Katherine looks like she’s just been asked for the ticket she forgot to buy. It’s an expression of guilt, desperation, and bravura.

  Lana looks down at her lap.

  “I mean,” says Katherine, “that we all see that you aren’t happy. You don’t have to be a ‘seer’ to see that. Right?”