The Grown Ups Read online

  Suzie had been so freaked out that she had called her mother, which turned out to be a disastrous idea. Instead of offering any sort of comfort or congratulations, Sarah Epstein had said ominously that now Suzie would have to start behaving like a mother. Suzie had no idea how to do that, no idea what her mother even meant. Instead Suzie bought a multipack of pregnancy tests, peed on three plastic sticks, and found them all negative. As if on cue, her period arrived the following day.

  Suzie had been in an inexplicable funk for days after, and when Michael asked her why, she had blurted out that she wanted a baby. Her admission had taken them both by surprise.

  They had moved to the bed, because the weight of the conversation felt manageable if they were touching. Neither of them had said they were in a hurry to have a family. Suzie knew Michael thought children were something that would happen eventually, later, in those hazy future years when they might own a car and live in the suburbs. They spooned beneath the blankets and talked about the impossible, demanding schedules of a resident and a doctor. They knew people in their programs who’d had babies during this time and it wasn’t easy. But then Michael had asked Suzie another question: “When would it ever be perfect, really? Wouldn’t we always find an excuse?”

  Suzie had felt a fluttering of nerves. “So you’re saying you want a baby?”

  “I’m saying that sometimes you can’t overplan.” Michael paused. “I feel like I’ve been planning everything forever.” He laughed. “I’m kind of tired of planning.” He nuzzled her neck and that liquid feeling flooded her limbs. “Suzie, you are the best thing that has happened to me and you took me completely by surprise.”

  Suzie smiled. “I can say the same thing about you.”

  Michael pulled back from the exploration of her ear to look her in the face. “Then why shouldn’t our baby be just as much of a surprise?”

  “Our baby, really?” Suzie had said as she slipped a hand inside his boxers. “You’re telling me the truth, right? I can take it.”

  Michael laughed, and then tried for a deep, sober voice even though Suzie was distracting him with her hands. “Scout’s honor.” He sighed as soon as she touched him. “But I’m easy,” he said as he helped remove his boxers and lifted her T-shirt over her head. “Obviously.”

  Suzie shivered, giddy with anticipation as she climbed on top of him and showered his face and throat with kisses. Michael pulled her hard against his chest and flipped her onto her back as he slowly began to move inside of her. As her hips moved in sync with his, she rationalized that it almost never happened the first time. And then she forgot that they were even trying to make a baby.

  After her mother’s initial reaction Suzie never brought up the pregnancy again, and neither did her mother during their weekly calls. It was a testament to their powers of avoidance. Their relationship seemed to work only when her mother was happy with her own life, which she never would be sober. To make things even harder, Suzie knew her mother would never forgive her for excluding her father from her wedding.

  Suzie’s mother had been nearing the end of her rehab when Suzie had taken her out on a day pass to go shopping for a mother-of-the-bride dress. There was a quaint village shopping area in town, complete with cobblestone walkways, concrete planters filled with flowers, and striped awnings, and Suzie had planned an early lunch. She had called ahead to the restaurant to ask that they not offer her mother any cocktails. It turned out to not be that unusual of a request; the restaurant catered to a large clientele of patients on day passes and had a dry menu.

  Suzie’s mother had put on some weight while in the facility. Part of the program was three healthy meals a day, as well as cooking classes, which were intended to, as the center put it in all the literature, enhance the quality of healthful living through hobbies. Suzie thought her mother could afford to put on another fifteen pounds, maybe more, but at least some fullness was back in her face. At the dress shop she stood in her slip on the elevated platform. The flesh on her chest was mottled and freckled and her breasts had disappeared. She had looked a little overwhelmed, her veiny hands fluttering at her neck, the wedding rings on her fingers spinning round and round.

  Suzie rifled through the rack of suits and picked three of her favorites. Two suits in shades of blue and one a pale violet. She held up all three for her mother’s approval. Sarah pointed to the violet suit and Suzie handed it to her. As she took the jacket from the hanger she said, “Your father has always liked me in this color.”

  “Mom, you remember that he’s not coming?”

  Suzie’s mother shrugged into the jacket. She fussed with the collar, frowning. “They have their own seamstress here, right? I think this needs a little something.” She pulled back a handful of the suit at the waist.

  “Dad’s not invited, Mom. You know that, right?”

  Her mother met her eyes in the mirror. “I assumed you and Michael would change your minds. I thought that was just you being you and making that typical first hothead response you always do before you calm down.”

  Suzie swallowed hard. She really didn’t want to get in an argument with her mother today. “It was not an easy decision. But I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t. You will deny him the right to give his only daughter away?”

  “You really think he earned that right?”

  “Did he not clothe you and feed you and house you?”

  “Seriously?” Suzie asked, feeling fifteen all over again.

  Susie’s mother stepped into the skirt and fumbled with the button. Her torso through her hips was like a reverse hourglass, the bloated alcoholic belly and stick-thin legs. “Suzie, you always wanted something more than you had.”

  “How can you say that? I did everything you wanted. I helped raise Josh and Eli.”

  Suzie’s mother sighed. “I think you exaggerate your role, Suzie.”

  “Okay, okay,” Suzie said, wanting to appease and not argue. “But did I also hallucinate the emotional abuse my father inflicted on you? On us?”

  “He never raised a hand to you.”

  “So, because it never came to that? No harm done?” Suzie couldn’t bring herself to say any more.

  “You’ll find out what it’s like to be married soon enough.”

  “I can tell you one thing. If Michael ever did to me what your husband did to you, I would be gone in a second. No, I take that back. If I even imagined he could ever be that kind of person I wouldn’t be with him in the first place.”

  At that moment the salesgirl knocked, opened the door, and stuck her head inside. “How’s everything going in here?”

  Suzie stepped back and allowed her to open the door all the way. She kept her eyes on the carpet. She remembered how she would watch Sarah get ready for dates with her father. How she was nearly giddy with anticipation, how unaware she was of anyone but him.

  “Can I see the seamstress?” Sarah asked. “I want this one, but it needs some reworking.”

  “Sure.” The salesgirl seemed to be hesitating, waiting for Suzie’s approval also, but Suzie didn’t look up.

  When Suzie heard the door click shut she said to her mother, “I want you at my wedding. But if you cannot be there happily, then you don’t have to come.”

  For once Sarah looked at her and didn’t immediately look away. Her eyes looked clear, as if she had understood what Suzie meant. “Mom?” Suzie prodded.

  Sarah still said nothing. The silence was broken by a knock at the door: the seamstress. Suzie was prepared to send her away, to put the suit back on the hanger, to take her mother back to rehab without lunch, without ever saying another word again. They would walk past the flowers, across the cobblestones, into Suzie’s rented car, and that would be that. No more forced attempts at mother/daughter pre-wedding bonding.

  “Can you hold on a minute?” Suzie’s mother asked, a tremble in her voice. She turned to Suzie. “Promise me you will give it some thought.”

  “I have,” Suzie said. “I’m not
changing my mind.” She paused. “So you have to come knowing that. You have to be there for me, for Michael. Will you?”

  Her mother was still fussing with the fabric. She didn’t appear to be paying attention. But then she nodded to herself, took a deep breath, and said, “All right, then.” She looked once again at herself in the mirror, the too-big suit falling from her frame. “All right.”

  It was the most Suzie’s mother was willing to give her, and Suzie was willing to accept that this was it; this was all it was ever going to be. Sometimes she forgot, as in that moment of panic, elation, and confusion when she had thought she was pregnant. That neither of them had followed up seemed the solution, rather than the problem.

  Suzie and Michael were at a dinner celebrating Bella’s job offer from Hunter. It was a job Bella had heard about from a former colleague in Iowa and had thought of as a long shot. But now here they were. It was too much good fortune for Suzie to comprehend and she tried not to jinx it, not even asking Bella about it until they knew it was a sure thing.

  Suzie was late getting to the restaurant, and Michael had been even later. But they were finally all together. Suzie raised her glass of sparkling lemon water and clinked with Bella. Ted, who had seemed distracted since Suzie arrived, was looking the other way and chose not to join them in a toast. Suzie felt Michael put pressure on her elbow with his; he tried hard to like Ted for Bella’s sake, but things like this always derailed him. She made eye contact with Bella, who smiled, but it was too wide, too bright, and a minute later Bella got up to go to the bathroom. Suzie followed her.

  When Suzie opened the bathroom door Bella was standing at the sink staring into the mirror. She didn’t turn to look at Suzie. Instead she said to her reflection, “Now, isn’t this classic. Girlfriend hides in the bathroom because boyfriend pisses her off.” She wiggled the faucets, splashed some water on her wrists, and then turned them off. “You don’t see him storming off.”

  “You didn’t storm off,” Suzie said as she leaned back against the door. “What’s going on?”

  “Ted doesn’t think he’s a New Yorker. He’s not sure he can commit to a year here.” Bella’s speech was clipped.

  “But didn’t he know when you came here that this was the third interview . . . and that the third interview is usually when they want to make an offer?”

  “Of course.” Bella sighed. “Everything was fine. I think—” She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Did he think you wouldn’t get the job? Is that why he’s mad?”

  Bella shrugged. “Ted loves me. He’s a really great guy. I know you don’t get to see that part of him. I can be difficult too, I guess, springing this on him. I don’t want you to think . . .” She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “He’s so smart, so brilliant, really. His poems, they are these delicate strings of words that just gut me. But his people skills . . .”

  Suzie hated to see Bella so miserable. She looked as if she hadn’t slept well in days; there were smudges of violet beneath her eyes. She hugged her. “Bella, we like Ted.”

  “Really?” Bella rubbed her face against Suzie’s shoulder. “I sound like a fucking toddler.” She lifted her head and pulled away, then glanced at her reflection and tried to fluff her hair. “Look at me, shit. I’m just fucking hormonal.”

  “You can be angry at Ted, Bella. I’m not going to hate him.”

  “I wanted this job, Suzie. I know it sounds lame, but I really like teaching.”

  “Why shouldn’t you?” Suzie answered, and thought: and Ted thinks real writers don’t teach, they write. But she couldn’t go there. Instead she said, “Ted will get used to New York. All the best poets and writers have been through here. What’s more poetic than this city?” She smiled. Her stomach growled so loudly Bella heard it and laughed.

  “You know, I had these silly daydreams of you and me together again, meeting for coffee, lunch, a movie. I mean, okay, we both have to work, but still. I couldn’t believe I was going to get a chance to be with you again. To talk to you every day just like we used to. To bitch about stupid things without making a phone call. So maybe I wasn’t really thinking about how Ted would feel.”

  Suzie stared at Bella, trying hard to compose her feelings into a mask of neutrality. Bella had lived in a cabin without running water just to be with Ted. Surely Ted could stand some indoor plumbing for a year. “Being a couple means compromises. Tell him how much you want it, maybe agree to let him go to Montana for a month here or there if that’s what he needs to recharge. It could be the best of both worlds.” Suzie paused. “Show him some Woody Allen movies, early Woody, before he went European.”

  Bella laughed and shook her head. “I overreacted.”

  “He was being kind of a dick.”

  “He was, wasn’t he?”

  Suzie nodded, and Bella smiled. “What do you think he and Michael are doing out there?”

  “Michael deals with children every day. I’m sure they’re fine.” Suzie said it quickly and a little more sharply than she intended. But Bella just laughed again.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Suzie asked.

  “What? I should ply him with sex? Promise a blow job a week?”

  “I’m pregnant,” Suzie whispered. It was three weeks shy of the agreed-upon date she had promised Michael. She sent a silent prayer of forgiveness to whoever was in charge of these things in the universe.

  Bella’s mouth fell open. “Suzie!”

  Suzie grinned and touched her flat stomach. Bella put her hand over Suzie’s. “Pregnant? Oh my God. No way. No freaking way.”

  Suzie felt tears come to her eyes and before she could stop they were spilling down her cheeks and running down her neck. “Now who’s hormonal?”

  “Oh my God, a baby!” Bella repeated. “We’re happy? Right? You’re happy? Michael’s happy?”

  “Everyone’s happy,” Suzie assured her, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. “Deliriously happy.”

  Bella leaned over, grabbed some paper towels, and handed them to Suzie. “I thought you were glowing. I thought something was up. I don’t know what. Maybe I just always think you two look so much more in love than anyone in the room.”

  Suzie considered that Ted usually looked miserable or out of place, and felt bad for Bella. “You can’t say anything yet. I promised Michael that we would wait until the first trimester was over.”

  “My lips are sealed. But how much longer do you have to wait?”

  “Three weeks.”

  Bella threw an arm around Suzie’s shoulders and squeezed. “I’m going to be an aunt! That settles it, you know. Nothing’s going to stop me from moving to New York now.”

  Suzie tossed the paper towels in the trash. “That was my plan all along.”

  When they returned to the table Michael and Ted were talking as if nothing had happened. Ted appeared engaged, at least from a distance. He looked up at Bella with a contrite expression and pulled out her chair. Bella leaned down and kissed him on top of the head. Michael shrugged at Suzie and handed her a plate of quesadillas that had arrived while they were in the bathroom.

  The room was hot and busy, full of people laughing and talking, striving to be heard over the music. Michael rested his hand on Suzie’s knee under the table. He and Ted had ordered a variety of small plates that slowly began appearing in front of them. Suzie leaned against Michael’s shoulder, her cheek finding a familiar place against the curve of muscle. She was hungry and drowsy at the same time, and she could have closed her eyes for a catnap right then. But if she had she would have missed Ted smiling at Bella as if she were the only person in the room. She wanted her best friend to be loved. Really loved. She wanted everyone she loved to be loved. Suzie smoothed the napkin in her lap and placed her palm against her abdomen. As much as she couldn’t wait to share, she loved the idea of a secret. Hello, hello, hello, little one, she said silently. I cannot wait to meet you.

  THIRTEEN

 
You Are Always Leaving Too Soon

  Sam—2010

  Michael and Suzie had invited Sam to their apartment on the Upper West Side for dinner. The apartment was in one of those buildings with a name and a doorman. Michael and Suzie didn’t have Central Park views, but everyone knew the park was right there, which was good enough as far as Sam was concerned. But then again, good enough had always been his problem.

  Sam had been working for a caterer because he wanted to be back in a kitchen but didn’t know if he wanted to commit to a restaurant. The prep kitchens were in a warehouse building near the West Side Highway, and the food was what you would expect at a wedding for a hundred or so of your not-so-close friends. There were always a multitude of chicken dishes on the menu, as well as salmon puffs and shrimp rolls, and roasted red potatoes. These dishes traveled well on the Long Island Expressway en route to their location. It wasn’t exciting work, but it was regular, and because Sam came with the most kitchen experience, he often was left alone to do as he pleased in the kitchen.

  His name was not with the doorman at Michael’s building, and the doorman was new so he didn’t just wave Sam up. He had to call Michael. Sam could tell from the way he said brother with a question mark at the end, and how he repeated his name into the receiver, that Michael had forgotten they had invited him over. Even after he got the go-ahead Sam thought about turning around and leaving. But he really didn’t want to go back to his crappy apartment and spend the evening avoiding his roommates.

  Michael answered the door on the phone and wearing his coat. He held up a finger but ushered Sam in as he walked away, leaving him to close the door. The room was large but dark, the blinds shut, the air suffocating. Michael disappeared into the back of the apartment as Sam stood in the center of the living room. In front of the long windows were a table and chairs with the remains of what looked like breakfast: several cereal bowls and a milky mug of tea, as well as a substantial pile of old New York Times Magazines. In the galley kitchen Sam could see a raw chicken sitting in its plastic wrapping on the counter alongside a bag of potatoes. Dinner was most definitely not being prepared.