Good in Bed

“I always wear my seat belt,” I said.

“Call me as soon as you know the due date.”

“I’ll call! I promise!”

“Okay,” she said. She reached over and brushed her fingertips against my cheek. “I’m proud of you,” she said. I wanted to ask her why. What had I done that anyone could be proud of? Getting knocked up by a guy who wanted nothing else to do with you wasn’t exactly the stuff she could brag to her book-club friends about, or that I could send in to the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Single motherhood might be getting more acceptable among the movie-star set, but from what I’d seen from my divorced colleagues, it was nothing but a hardship for real-life women, and it certainly wasn’t a cause for celebration, or pride.

But I didn’t ask. I just started the car and drove down the driveway, waving back at her until she disappeared.

Back in Philadelphia, everything looked different. Or maybe it was just that I was seeing it differently. I noticed the overflow of Budweiser cans in the recycling bin in front of the second-floor apartment as I made my way upstairs, and heard the shrill laugh track of a sitcom seeping beneath the door. Out on the street, somebody’s car alarm went off, and I could hear glass breaking somewhere nearby. Just background noise, stuff I’d barely notice most of the time, but I’d have to start noticing now… now that I was responsible for somebody else.

Up on the third floor, my apartment had grown a thin layer of dust in the five days I’d been away, and it smelled stale. No place to raise a child, I thought, opening windows, lighting a vanilla-scented candle, and finding the broom.

I gave Nifkin fresh food and water. I swept the floors. I sorted my laundry to wash the next day, emptied the dishwasher, put the leftovers in the freezer, then rinsed and hung my bathing suit to dry. I was halfway through making a grocery list, full of skim milk and fresh apples and good things to eat, before I realized I hadn’t even checked my voice mail to see if anyone… well, to see if Bruce… had called me. A long shot, I knew, but I figured I’d at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

And when I found that he hadn’t called, I felt sad, but nothing like the sharp, jittery, anxious-sick sadness I’d had before, nothing like the overwhelming certainty that I would die if he didn’t love me that I’d felt that night in New York with Maxi.

“He loved me,” I whispered to the neatly swept room. “He loved me, but he doesn’t love me anymore, and it’s not the end of the world.”

Nifkin raised his head from the couch, looked at me curiously, then fell back asleep. I picked up my list. “Eggs,” I wrote. “Spinach. Plums.”

TWELVE

“You’re what?!?”

I bowed my head over my decaffeinated skim-milk latte an d toasted bagel. “Pregnant. With child. Expecting. In a delicate condition. Bun in the oven. PG.”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got it.” Samantha stared at me, full lips parted, brown eyes shocked and wide-awake, even though it was only 7:30 in the morning. How?

“The usual way,” I said lightly. We were in Xando, the neighborhood coffee shop that turned into a bar after six at night. Businessmen perused their Examiners, harried moms with strollers gulped coffee. A good place, clean and bright. Not a place for making scenes.

“With Bruce?”

“Okay, maybe it wasn’t the usual way. It was right after his father died”

Samantha gave a great exasperated sigh. “Oh, God, Ca

“I know,” I said. “It just happened.”

She allowed herself another sigh, then reached for her DayTimer, all brisk efficiency, even though she was still wearing black leggings and a T-shirt from Wally’s Wings advising “We Choke Our Own Chickens.” “Okay,” she said. “Did you call the clinic?”

“No, actually,” I said. “I’m going to keep it.”

Her eyes got very wide. “What? How? Why?”

“Why not? I’m twenty-eight years old, I’ve got enough money…”

Samantha was shaking her head. “You’re going to ruin your life.”

“I know my life’s going to change”

“No. You didn’t hear me. You’re going to ruin your life.”

I set down my coffee cup. “What do you mean?”

“Ca

Truthfully, I hadn’t given it much thought. Now that I’d gotten my mind around losing Bruce irrevocably, I hadn’t even started thinking about who I might wind up with, or whether there’d ever be anybody else.

“Not just your social life,” Samantha continued, “your whole life. Have you thought about how this is going to change everything?”

“Of course I have,” I said.

“No more vacations,” said Samantha.

“Oh, come on… people take babies on vacations!”

“Are you going to have money for that? I mean, I’m assuming you’ll work…”

“Yeah. Part-time. That’s what I’d figured. At least at first.”

So your income will go down, and you’ll still be spending money on child care for when you are at work. That’s going to have a major impact on your standard of living, Ca

Well, it was true. No more three-day weekends in Miami just because USAir had a cheap flight and I felt like I needed some sun. No more weeks in Killington in a rented condo, where I’d ski all day and Bruce, a nonskiier, would smoke dope in the Jacuzzi and wait for my return. No more $200 pairs of leather boots that I absolutely had to have, no more $100 di

“Well, people’s lives change,” I said. “Things happen that you don’t plan for. People get sick… or lose their jobs…”

“But those are things they don’t have any control over,” Samantha pointed out. “Whereas this is a situation you can control.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” I said quietly. Samantha was undeterred.

“Think about bringing a child into the world with no father,” she said.

“I know,” I told her, holding up my hand before she could say anything else. “I’ve thought about this. I know it’s not ideal. It’s not what I’d want, if I could choose”

“But you can choose,” said Samantha. “Think about everything you’re going to have to manage by yourself. How every single responsibility is going to be on your shoulders. Are you really ready for that? And is it fair to have a baby if you’re not?”

“But think of all the other women who do it!”

“What, like welfare mothers? Teenage girls?”

“Sure! Them! There’s lots of women who have babies, and the babies’ fathers aren’t around, and they’re managing.”

“Ca

“I’ve got some money,” I said, sounding sullen even to my own ears.

Samantha took a sip of coffee. “Is this about Bruce? About holding on to Bruce?”

I looked down at my clasped hands, at the wadded-up napkin between them. “No,” I said. “I mean, I guess it involves that… somewhat by default… but it’s not like I set out to get pregnant so I could get my hooks back in him.”

Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Not even subconsciously?”

I shuddered. “God, I hope my subconscious isn’t as unenlightened as that!”

“Enlightenment has nothing to do with it. Maybe, deep down, some part of you was hoping… or is hoping… that once Bruce finds out, he’ll come back to you.”

“I’m not going to tell him,” I said.

“How can you not tell him?” she demanded.

“Why should I?” I shot back. “He’s moved on, he’s found somebody else, he doesn’t want to be involved with me, or my life, so why should I tell him? I don’t need his money, and I don’t want whatever scraps of attention he’d feel obligated to throw me”

“But what about the baby? Doesn’t the baby deserve to have a father in its life?”