Twins, the doctor told her last week. She had gone to the appointment on her own, and she could sense the nurse wondering how she’d got herself into this mess.
“Okay, we’ll go together next week,” says Al.Thank God.He’s coming for spring break, driving across the country—he says it’s not because of his growing fear of airplanes. He’ll enjoy the journey, he says. It won’t be a moment too soon. Al always seems to know what questions to ask at the hospital. What to be concerned about.
“We can ask them the genders.”
“Don’t you want to be surprised?”
“I guess.” Her heart is aching for at least one girl. To bring a woman into this limitless planet. She is struck with a small wave of nausea.Hello there, she thinks familiarly.My awful, wonderful secret.
“I’ve been thinking more about names,” says Al. “How about Lawrence?”
“Of Arabia?”
“No, after my dad.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“No, it’s just. Surprising, that’s all.”
“It might make my mom happy.”
“Is that the factor?”
“No, it’s just. It would be nice.”Nice for whom?Al always seemed afraid of his father. Afraid of becoming him, afraid of disappointing him. It wasn’t a legacy Susan much wanted to carry on.
“I was thinking more Hollywood. Brigitte, Marlon.”
“Mm. Something from Shakespeare?”
Susan laughs. “That would make your mom happy. Me pretending to be highbrow.”
“What is that supposed to mean.”
The phone hung silent.
“Let’s just stay open. It will come.”
When he hangs up, she pulls off her oversized shirt, holds her hands onto her sore breasts. She’s so tired she could cry.
A knock at the door. Costumes, no doubt, coming to collect the many layers she wore today to hide her belly. Baggy dresses, a shapeless coat. They are miracle workers. She brought them all coffees today and little chocolates from the patisserie near her apartment. It’s the least she could do.
“Just a minute,” she says, but the door opens anyway and there is Mark, taking in the half-naked swell of her, the slow understanding of her betrayal hardening into an unforgiving rock.
Flowers’s office is full of heavy objects, solid glass paperweights, a heavy silver bowl, a photograph of the child that he gets to see every other weekend. On the wall are framed posters and playbills and letters from fans. He stands with his back to her, looking out of the small window, occupying the space with a rare grip over time. They are always rushing here, fielding daily catastrophes minor and major, adapting, abandoningstorylines that other soaps are copying, writing people in and out, and changing the wardrobe or the lines. Stillness is precious—which is to say, expensive. So, you better make good use of it.
“Have you done something new in here, Mark? The wallpaper or something?”
An odd serenity has descended over Susan, an almost giddiness. Whatever happens next, there is no more hiding. She stands, one hand on his long, leather Chesterfield, the site of rare, precious naps and several rumored fucks. She has never been alone in here with him.
“Sit,” Flowers says, and though she would rather not, the tone doesn’t leave much choice. She sits.
“I know you’re upset. I should have talked to you.”
Flowers removes his tinted glasses, wipes them with his pocket square. She is aware of movement outside the room, the chatter of people packing up for the day, making evening plans, light gossip. The office is thick with bergamot cologne, with his silence.Men are always trying to figure out what to do with her, aren’t they?She can still remember that look on Bourke’s face—was it six years ago now? What a child she was! How foolish, thinking she had the world to lose. She had nothing—no credit to her name, no tools more sophisticated than self-sabotage, no respect other than her own. She hadwantedBourke to give up on her, hadn’t she? To admit she was too big for him? Like Bridget Bishop, she had been prepared for the very worst.
Well look at you now.Everything to lose. And maybe just enough savvy to save herself. She shifts on the sofa, aware of her stomach, his resentment of it.Think of something, Margie hisses at the back of her mind.I don’t want to die.
