Clairvoyance
Fiona hadn’t been invited to Jasper’s wedding, obviously. Later on, she saw pictures online, posted by old college friends they both knew. Jasper and his bride posing on the beach in Honolulu. He had on white linen slacks and a cream-colored guayabera, a lei of dark green leaves draped over his shoulders that hung in two thick vines down the front. The wife, pretty in a bookish way, with a bright smile and dark blond corkscrews. She wore a crown of gardenias and baby’s breath on her head. The top and bottom halves of her body looked as if they belonged to two different women. She had narrow shoulders and arms like matchsticks but below the waist, her hips flared voluptuously. Fiona studied the pictures, trying to decide if she felt anything about them. Jasper, her college sweetheart, her first love.
She reached for the phone to call up Jane.
“Well, you’re winning,” Jane said. “You’re on your second marriage, he’s only on the first.” A laugh in her voice. “What an amateur.”
“He looks constipated,” Fiona said. “He never knew how to smile like a real person.”
“It takes practice to look like a real person,” Jane agreed.
“I never thought he would get married,” said Fiona. “I always had a feeling he would end up alone and weird—”
“What’s her name?” Jane asked. “Who is she?”
“Kenji said she’s rich.”
“Rich how? What did he say?”
“Maybe now he can finally finish writing his novel,” Fiona said.
It had been more than a decade since Fiona moved to New York, straight from undergrad. Back then, she and Jasper were boundless, dancing along the city’s golden rhythm. Nothing and nobody could stop them.
“Fi? You still there?” Jane said.
Fiona realized she’d been silent a long while. “I’m still here,” she said. “Guess what.” She hesitated a moment. “I’m—well, the thing is . . . I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
“I went to the doctor’s yesterday. It’s only eleven weeks, but—”
“You’re having a baby?” Jane said. “I didn’t even know you were trying to—wait a minute,” Jane said, her voice suddenly serious. “You want this, right?”
“Yes,” Fiona said quickly. “I do. We do.”
“Oh my God. I can’t believe it,” Jane said. She was quiet for a moment. “A baby!” she said. “Congratulations,” she added. “Did I say that already?”
Fiona felt warmth spread through her chest. She recognized then that she felt relieved. Now that she’d told Jane, the baby felt real.
“Are you having a boy or a girl?”
“Too early to tell,” Fiona said. “Bobby wants a girl.”
“Course he does,” said Jane. “By the way, I can’t believe you told him before you told me.”
Fiona laughed. “I mean—he’s only the dad—”
“So what?” The laughing was back in her voice. “Male privilege strikes again.”
“You hate babies,” Fiona said.
“I won’t hate yours.”
“You said babies shouldn’t be allowed in public last week.”
“Your baby won’t be an asshole like the one sitting next to us at brunch.”
“What if she is an asshole?” Fiona said. “Or he?”
“Dude, see,” Jane said. “You’re totally winning over Jasper. It’s sealed now, with this baby.”
Fiona recalled the time she and Jasper walked over the bridge into Brooklyn to cheer for Kenji in the Idiotarod: stolen Pathmark carts festooned in tin foil, silk flowers, and painted cardboard; grown men in stretch-Lycra bodysuits muffing down Bedford Avenue. Kenji was on a team with some teachers from his school. Dirty, hardened snow piled up along the sidewalk, her breath visible in the air. At the finish line, she stood with her hand tucked inside the pocket of Jasper’s corduroy coat, her ears frozen, nose dripping, watching for Kenji to bend around the corner. When he finally appeared, shopping cart wheels scraping, she’d waved wildly and shouted his name but couldn’t catch his eye. Kenji rushed for the long red ribbon that hung across the middle of the wet black street. She’d looked up at Jasper then. A smile creased his face. In his eyes, she glimpsed her whole future.
That was all before Kenji got sick.
He’d recovered, anyway. It took time, but he got his mouth back. His throat, his voice. His hair grew in after the chemo rounds, his eyebrows and eyelashes. His skin lost that waxy, plastic doll sheen. She’d been afraid he might die. If he had, Fiona thought, maybe she and Jasper might have worked things out, sewn together by grief. Then she felt terrible for imagining that possibility.