interested, and he’d dumped her for a woman half her age. I had a boyfriend I couldn’t commit to. What the hell did I know?
Amber and her date left the bar together, hand in hand.
4
Sarah
A s Griffen and I collected our doggie bags (containing one chocolate cupcake each), put on our jackets in what felt like slow motion, and made our way to the door of Julien’s restaurant, Griffen was hit in the ankle by the smallest baby stroller I’d ever seen. I watched him peer inside at the sleeping infant, and I was quite sure he was about to throw up on the baby.
He managed a “sorry” to the mother, eyed the two wild-eyed children who refused to put on their coats and shot a glance at the father, who was struggling to get the little girl’s arm through her denim jacket when she was busy trying to stuff a bread stick down her brother’s pants. The father grabbed the bread stick, startling the girl, and she started bawling. The couple sitting to the left of them apparently had had enough, took final sips of their wine, threw a pile of bills on the table and left, dirty looks all around.
In the five minutes it took to get out of the restaurant, Griffen didn’t say a word. Not a sarcastic “And you want to have one of those? ” Not an offensive “Are you one hundred percent sure it’s mine?” He just clutched his doggie bag in his white-knuckled fist, held open the door for me and out we went into the oddly warm October air.
As we passed the entrance to the Seventy-seventh Street 6 train, he didn’t run down the steps. He didn’t hail the taxi that was stopped at a red light. He didn’t flee west around the corner to make his escape home through Central Park.
He didn’t do or say anything. He just walked, staring down at the sidewalk.
A few blocks later, at Eighty-fourth Street, he stopped. “Are you absolutely sure?” he asked me, glancing at the traffic for a moment, then at me, then at the sidewalk, then back at me. “I mean, did you see your doctor?”
I nodded.
“We can wait a few hours for the blood test results to be one hundred percent conclusive,” Dr. Scharf had said four days ago, “but you’re definitely pregnant. Your uterus is enlarged. Congratulations!”
It was interesting that the only two people who’d offered me congratulations were the doctor I saw every two years for birth control (lawsuit!), and a stranger in a restaurant.
When I’d walked out of Dr. Scharf’s office, Lisa at my side, the words Your uterus is enlarged had echoed over and over in my mind. Lisa had taken my arm and led my dazed and confused self to Barnes & Noble, sat me down in a big green leather club chair near the magazines, disappeared for two minutes and returned with three books: What To Expect When You’re Expecting, The Girlfriends’ Guide To Pregnancy and But I Don’t Know How To Be Pregnant!
And then we went to my favorite coffee bar, the very one where I’d met Griffen in the first place. She bought me a large decaf cappuccino and a Linzer torte (“Gotta watch the caffeine—in chocolate too,” she said), pointed at an overstuffed sofa and handed me But I Don’t Know How To Be Pregnant! while she started reading What To Expect. And so I drank and ate and read. We sat there for two hours, reading, flipping pages. Staring at truly frightening pictures of fetal development. I learned about the placenta. Sonograms. Arm buds. That I wouldn’t have to drink milk, after all, but that I would have to avoid aspirin and cough medicine and soft cheeses and any fish containing too much mercury. Caffeine, to be safe. Alcoholic beverages. Hot dogs, bacon, and anything with nitrites.
Oh, and I could expect my brain to go on hiatus.
“Ready?” Griffen asked, startling me out of my thoughts.
“As I’ll—”
Ever be, I’d been about to say. But I realized Griffen wasn’t talking about the pregnancy. He was talking about resuming walking.
We turned the corner of Eighty-fourth Street and walked
Amber and her date left the bar together, hand in hand.
4
Sarah
A s Griffen and I collected our doggie bags (containing one chocolate cupcake each), put on our jackets in what felt like slow motion, and made our way to the door of Julien’s restaurant, Griffen was hit in the ankle by the smallest baby stroller I’d ever seen. I watched him peer inside at the sleeping infant, and I was quite sure he was about to throw up on the baby.
He managed a “sorry” to the mother, eyed the two wild-eyed children who refused to put on their coats and shot a glance at the father, who was struggling to get the little girl’s arm through her denim jacket when she was busy trying to stuff a bread stick down her brother’s pants. The father grabbed the bread stick, startling the girl, and she started bawling. The couple sitting to the left of them apparently had had enough, took final sips of their wine, threw a pile of bills on the table and left, dirty looks all around.
In the five minutes it took to get out of the restaurant, Griffen didn’t say a word. Not a sarcastic “And you want to have one of those? ” Not an offensive “Are you one hundred percent sure it’s mine?” He just clutched his doggie bag in his white-knuckled fist, held open the door for me and out we went into the oddly warm October air.
As we passed the entrance to the Seventy-seventh Street 6 train, he didn’t run down the steps. He didn’t hail the taxi that was stopped at a red light. He didn’t flee west around the corner to make his escape home through Central Park.
He didn’t do or say anything. He just walked, staring down at the sidewalk.
A few blocks later, at Eighty-fourth Street, he stopped. “Are you absolutely sure?” he asked me, glancing at the traffic for a moment, then at me, then at the sidewalk, then back at me. “I mean, did you see your doctor?”
I nodded.
“We can wait a few hours for the blood test results to be one hundred percent conclusive,” Dr. Scharf had said four days ago, “but you’re definitely pregnant. Your uterus is enlarged. Congratulations!”
It was interesting that the only two people who’d offered me congratulations were the doctor I saw every two years for birth control (lawsuit!), and a stranger in a restaurant.
When I’d walked out of Dr. Scharf’s office, Lisa at my side, the words Your uterus is enlarged had echoed over and over in my mind. Lisa had taken my arm and led my dazed and confused self to Barnes & Noble, sat me down in a big green leather club chair near the magazines, disappeared for two minutes and returned with three books: What To Expect When You’re Expecting, The Girlfriends’ Guide To Pregnancy and But I Don’t Know How To Be Pregnant!
And then we went to my favorite coffee bar, the very one where I’d met Griffen in the first place. She bought me a large decaf cappuccino and a Linzer torte (“Gotta watch the caffeine—in chocolate too,” she said), pointed at an overstuffed sofa and handed me But I Don’t Know How To Be Pregnant! while she started reading What To Expect. And so I drank and ate and read. We sat there for two hours, reading, flipping pages. Staring at truly frightening pictures of fetal development. I learned about the placenta. Sonograms. Arm buds. That I wouldn’t have to drink milk, after all, but that I would have to avoid aspirin and cough medicine and soft cheeses and any fish containing too much mercury. Caffeine, to be safe. Alcoholic beverages. Hot dogs, bacon, and anything with nitrites.
Oh, and I could expect my brain to go on hiatus.
“Ready?” Griffen asked, startling me out of my thoughts.
“As I’ll—”
Ever be, I’d been about to say. But I realized Griffen wasn’t talking about the pregnancy. He was talking about resuming walking.
We turned the corner of Eighty-fourth Street and walked
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