Mine Are Spectacular! by Janice Kaplan Page A

twins? Has any one of them ever brought a cadaver in the morgue back to life? Because Kirk has.”
    Berni’s so passionate, she’s even got me convinced that Kirk’s the man for the job. But the nurse decides otherwise. She gives Kirk a lascivious glance, but in the end professionalism gets the better of her. Either that, or his bare chest under the leather jacket is undercutting Kirk’s authority.
    â€œIt’s okay, Berni,” Kirk says, giving her a kiss on the cheek as the nurse prepares to wheel her to the maternity floor. “Delivering twins is easy. So easy, we never do less than triplets on the show.”
    â€œThe show,” calls out Berni, suddenly remembering that she has at least five minutes left as an agent before she turns into a full-time mom. “As soon as I’m finished here, I’ll call the producer. From now on, you don’t deliver anything less than quints.”

Chapter THREE
    I STAY WITH BERNI for close to an hour until her husband Aidan rushes in, holding a bedraggled bunch of daisies he obviously picked up at a Korean market on his way, and the Kate Spade overnight bag that Berni had packed for the hospital weeks ago.
    â€œHow are you?” Aidan asks, kissing Berni and stroking his hand across her brow. “Sorry it took me so long. I left the edit studio as soon as you called. But I was way downtown and the guy at the garage had jammed ten other cars in front of mine.” He pauses, flustered, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to say now. Unlike Kirk, he’s not working from a script. “Anyway, wish I got here faster.”
    â€œMaybe you can get these babies moving a little faster,” Berni wails, shifting from one side to the other, unable to find a comfortable position. “When the hell am I getting the epidural?”
    â€œSoon,” Aidan says patronizingly, stroking her forehead again and trying to distract her from the clicking monitors, the clucking nurses and the contractions that are coming closer and closer together. “Very soon.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Berni asks, agitated. “You just got here.”
    Aidan looks at me, and I can see he’s at a loss. So I chime in.
    â€œGood news,” I say cheerfully. “The doctor says the labor’s going well. Right now it looks like it’ll be a natural delivery. No C-section.”
    â€œHow’s that good news?” Berni roars. “I’m forty-two already. I don’t have much time. The least they could do is get these babies out of me. Isn’t anybody going to do any work around here but me?”
    â€œI’ve been working on the movie,” Aidan says defensively, trying to elevate cutting a film to the same league as cutting the umbilical cord. “And guess what? The set designer offered to come by the hospital and feng shui the room. He said not to deliver before he gets here.”
    â€œI’ll just hang on until he can rearrange the furniture and paint the door red,” Berni says irritably.
    â€œHe said he wouldn’t charge us,” Aidan says, as if the bargain will ease the pain. “Volunteered his services.”
    â€œWell I didn’t mean to volunteer mine,” Berni screams at her husband. “I don’t want to do this anymore. In fact, I’m not sure why I agreed in the first place. If you ever want more babies you can do the whole thing in a test tube. Or find somebody else. Preferably somebody with wider hips.”
    Aidan resists making the obvious point that at the moment, when it comes to size, Berni’s hips are unsurpassed. Instead, he squeezes her hand and gives her another kiss. Thank goodness for Lamaze class. It teaches women how to count their breaths during labor and teaches men how to count to ten during their wives’ predictable rants.
    â€œI’m here for you, honey,” Aidan says. “Fifteen hours, twenty hours, however long it takes.