Kevin stood by me while I was struggling, and he deserves my patience now during the worst time of his life, though it isn’t easy, especially when he’s sullen and withdrawn and drinking too much. There are moments when I want to tell him the same thing Cookie said to me: “You gotta pull it together.” Just last night, a news story in the Inquirer sent him spinning. Tamara had made a statement to the paper, pointedly inviting him and Chris to attend Justin’s funeral next Saturday. “I want them to see what they did.”
“I know what I did!” he yelled. “They think I don’t know?” Then he spun even further the implications of being invited （“Does she mean this to be a publicity stunt?”）， then agonized about whether he should go, which was a terrible idea. Then he landed in full self-pity: “I’m so tired of this. I wish I’d been the one who was shot. I wish it had been me.”
I look back down at my phone screen—Riley’s face is frozen in place where I paused the video. How could you? I think. And then, Where are you? I need you. I send the last part like a wish into the air before tucking my phone back into my bag. I peek around the waiting room. For so many years I hated to be around pregnant women, people with kids. The envy ripped me apart. Now I crave their proximity even if I have no desire to interact with them. Look at me. I made it into your club.
But I’m still scared. I start imagining all the terrible possibilities; excruciatingly detailed scenarios play out in my mind on a loop. I picture myself lying down on the scratchy paper stretched thin across the vinyl exam table, bending my knees, the nurse with a big fat smile on her face spreading the cold goo over my stomach and waving that wand that looks like a sex toy. The nurse’s smile droops into a straight line, then further into a worried frown. She busies herself putting away the equipment, tells me to wait while she grabs the doctor. When the doctor enters, she picks up the wand, rubs it against my skin, and then looks at me over my swollen belly.
“There’s no heartbeat. The baby is gone.”
I shake myself out of the dark spiral and stare at the couple holding hands in the opposite corner. The woman’s wearing an elegant wool maxidress from that expensive maternity store that bombards me with ads on Instagram. Her husband has on the shiniest loafers I’ve ever seen, no doubt off to his job at some big-time law firm after this, but even with his demanding job he never misses an appointment with his wife. I start down the road of imagining their perfect lives when I’m startled by a familiar voice booming across the waiting room.
“Would you look at all these big bellies!”
Seriously?
There’s Lou sipping loudly from an oversize plastic Wawa cup, in faded black jeans and a thin black Eagles hoodie even though it’s freezing outside. On her feet are the scuffed Dr. Martens she’s owned since before I was born. When I was twelve, I begged for a pair just like hers, and Lou bought them for me for Christmas that year. I didn’t realize they were knockoffs until the yellow stitching started coming out of the soles after only a couple of weeks.
“What are you doing here, Lou?” I didn’t once think about asking her to come to this appointment. When I went through the list of possibilities, my own mother hadn’t even occurred to me. “How did you know I was going to the doctor today?”
Lou sits down and places her arm around my shoulders in a strange sort of half hug, and I’m smothered by a cloud of stale smells: coffee, cigarette smoke, last night’s perfume. The familiar eau de Lou transports me right back to the floor of her closet. “Kevin called and told me about the appointment.”
It takes only a second to work out why Kevin hadn’t mentioned it—he was sparing me in case she didn’t show.
“I worked an early shift this morning, so it was easy for me to pop by.”
Of course, as long as it was convenient, Lou could make it. She’s been here for approximately two minutes and my jaw is already locked tight from being on edge.
“You worked at the bar this morning? It’s ten thirty a.m.”
“Bar’s been closed for a month. I told you that. Fire. They gotta redo the whole first floor. They’re calling it a grease fire, but you know it could’ve been a case of Jewish lightning…”
“What?”
“You know, when people burn something down for the insurance money.”
I look around to make sure no one else heard her.
“Besides that, that’s offensive, Lou, the bar owners aren’t even Jewish. They’re Irish.”
Lou shrugs. “It’s just what they call it. I hope they open back up at all. Too many of the old-time bars are selling out to the new hipster places. Places that don’t even open at seven in the morning—hell, they don’t open until seven at night. Sometimes people need a drink when they wake up, you know? Anyways, I’m unemployed until they finish fixing things, so I’m driving for Uber! I didn’t tell you? It’s great. You meet so many interesting people. Like I just came from taking this couple to the airport. Indians. From over in India, dots not feathers.” She points to her forehead with her index finger. “They had an arranged marriage and are going thirty years strong. Maybe I should have had one of those. He works in the diamond and ruby business. She runs an orphanage. I told her my daughter was pregnant but wants more babies. I got her email address for you. Maybe you can go over there and pick up one of them brown babies.”
“I don’t understand why they told you all that.”
“Come on, I’ve been a bartender for thirty years. People tell me things.” She pokes my belly with the tip of her index finger.
“Ow!” I make a dramatic show of pulling away, even though it didn’t really hurt.
“You’re getting big.”
“Thanks.” I glare at my mom, taking in the face that has yielded to a film of wrinkles. She’s barely into her fifties, but all the smoking and days down at the shore smothered in baby oil have taken their toll.
She’s jiggling her belly now. “It’s hard to lose the weight. Harder than you think. I gained twenty pounds with you that I’m still trying to lose.”
As usual with Lou, I’m mortified. I peek around and am grateful that no one seems to be listening. The golden couple is gone; they must have been called back already. Thank God they’re missing this little spectacle.
“So all’s I’m sayin’ is be careful, you don’t want Kev to go off and find something more like this, do you?” Lou picks up a People, pointing to the cover image of a bikini-clad Kim Kardashian. Lou loves anything Kardashian.
The nurse, Rita, couldn’t have called me back a second sooner. Lou trails behind us on our way to the exam room like a child accompanying her mother on a shopping trip.
“Aw, look at these little boo-boos,” Lou says, taking in the newborn pictures clipped with clothespins to strings that line the entire hallway. “Jesus, all these babies look mixed. I don’t see a single white baby up there. Oh, there’s one.” She points to a smushed-face baby named Maddy, wearing a sparkling pink bow on her bald head to signal she’s a girl. “It’s true what they say, I guess, we’re all going to be one color one day. A lot of little mixed kids. That’ll be nice. Like if you and Riley had ended up being lezzies, you could get you one of these mixed kids and it would look like both of you.” Lou elbows me and cackles loudly.