"Good in Bed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weiner Jennifer)

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, Cannie… what did I tell you about sex with the bereaved?”

“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?”

“Cannie…” She looked at me, her eyes beseeching. “A single mother… I mean, it’s hard enough to meet decent men as it is… do you know what this is going to do to your social life?”

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, Cannie. Major impact.”

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 dinners, no more $80 afternoons at the spa where I’d pay some nineteen-year-old to scrub my feet and tweeze my eyebrows.

“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.”

“Cannie,” said Samantha, “that’s no kind of life. Living hand-to-mouth…”

“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?”

“Come on, Samantha. This is Bruce we’re talking about. Big, dopey Bruce? Bruce with the ponytail and the ‘Legalize It’ bumper sticker…”

“He’s a good guy, Cannie. He’d probably be a really good father.”

I bit my lip. This part hurt to admit or even to think about, but it was probably the truth. Bruce had been a camp counselor for years. Kids loved him, ponytail or not, dopiness or not, dope or not. Every time I’d seen him with his cousins or his former campers they were always vying with each other to sit next to him at dinner, or play basketball with him, or have him help them with their homework. Even when our relationship was at its worst, I never doubted that he’d be a wonderful father.

Samantha was shaking her head. “I don’t know, Cannie. I just don’t know.” She gave me a long, sober look. “He’s going to find out, you know.”

“How? We don’t know any of the same people anymore… he lives so far away…”

“Oh, he’ll find out. I’ve seen enough soap operas to guarantee you that. You’ll run into him somewhere… he’ll hear something about you… he’ll find out. He will.”

I shrugged, trying to look brave. “So he finds out I’m pregnant. It doesn’t mean I have to tell him that it’s his. Let him think I was sleeping around on him.” Even though I felt struck through with grief at the thought that Bruce would ever have cause to think that. “Let him think I went to a sperm bank. The point is, he doesn’t have to know.” I looked at Samantha. “And you don’t have to tell him.”

“Cannie, don’t you think he’s got a right to know? He’s going to be a father”

“No, he’s not”

“Well, there’s going to be a child born that’s his. What if he wants to be a father? What if he sues you for custody?”

“Okay, I saw that Sally Jessy, too”

“I’m serious,” said Samantha. “He could do that, you know.”

“Oh, please.” I shrugged, trying to look less worried than I was. “Bruce can barely keep track of his rolling papers. What would he want with a baby?”

Samantha shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Or maybe he’d think that a child needs… you know… a male role model.”

“So I’ll let it hang around Tanya,” I joked. Samantha wasn’t laughing. She looked so upset I felt like offering her a hug, until I realized I’d sound just like Tanya at her most Anonymous. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, keeping my voice light, and convincing.

Samantha looked at me. “I hope so,” she said quietly. “I really do.”

“You’re what?” asked Betsy, my editor. To her credit, she recovered a lot faster than Samantha did.

“Pregnant,” I repeated. I was getting a little tired of playing this particular cut on the soundtrack of my life. “With child. Knocked up. Bun in the oven…”

“Oh. Okay. Oh, my. Um” Betsy peered at me from behind her thick glasses. “Congratulations?” she offered tentatively.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Is there, um, going to be a wedding?” she asked.

“Not in the forseeable future, no,” I said briskly. “Will that be a problem?”

“Oh, no, no! Of course not! I mean, of course, the paper would never discriminate, or anything”

I was suddenly very, very tired. “I know,” I said. “And I know it’s going to be weird for people…” “The less explaining you do, the better,” said Betsy. We were in the conference room with the door closed and the shades pulled, which meant I could only see my colleagues from the knees down. I recognized Frank the copy-editor’s beat-up loafers slowing as they made their way to the mailroom, followed closely by Tanisha the photo clerk’s stack-heeled Mary Janes, moving at a ridiculously snail-like pace. I was sure, if I had the full-body view, their heads would all be swiveling toward me, trying to figure out why Betsy and I were in here, whether I was in some kind of trouble, and what the trouble was. I was sure that once they’d made the obligatory stop at their mailboxes, they’d make a sharp right to the desk of Alice, longtime departmental secretary and depository of all things juicy and scandalous. Heck, if someone else were in here with Betsy right now, I’d be doing the exact same thing. It’s the downside of working with people who poke and pry and investigate for a living. You don’t wind up with much of a private life.

“If I were you I wouldn’t say a word,” Betsy said. She was in her forties, a short, quick-witted woman with a shock of white-blond hair who’d lived through sexism, corporate takeovers, budget cutbacks, and half a dozen different editors in chief, all men, and all with their own unique visions of what the Examiner should do. She was a survivor, and my mentor at the paper, and I trusted her to give me good advice.

“Well, eventually I’m going to have to say something”

“Eventually,” she said. “But for now I would say nothing.” She looked at me, not unkindly. “It’s hard, you know,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“Will you have any… help?”

“If you mean, is Bruce going to ride in on a white horse and marry me, probably not. But my mother and Tanya will help out… and maybe my sister, too.”

Betsy had come prepared. She pulled a copy of the union contract out of her briefcase, then a notebook and a calculator. “Let’s see what we can do for you.”

What she came up with sounded more than fair – six weeks of paid leave after the birth, and if I wanted, six more weeks of unpaid leave after that. Then I’d have to work three days a week to keep my health benefits, but Betsy said she’d be amenable to having me work one of the days from home, as long as I was reachable. She tapped out my new salary-to-be on a calculator. Oof. Worse than I thought it would be… but still livable. At least, that’s what I hoped. How much would day care cost? And baby clothes… and furniture… and food. I saw my carefully maintained nest egg – the one I’d built up, figuring I’d need it someday to pay for a wedding, or maybe a house – dwindling down to nothing before my eyes.

“We’ll work it out,” Betsy told me. “Don’t worry.” She gathered up her papers and sighed. “At least, try not to worry more than you absolutely have to. And let me know if I can help.”

“Eight weeks,” said my gynecologist, in her melodious clipped British voice. “Or perhaps nine.”

“Eight,” I said faintly. It’s hard to be emphatic when you’re flat on your back, with your feet up in stirrups and your legs spread.

Gita Patel – at least, that was the name on the tag clipped on to her lab coat – set her instruments down and slid around on her wheeled stool to face me, as I struggled into a sitting position. She was about my age, I guessed, with shiny black hair pulled into a low bun at the nape of her neck. She wasn’t the one I usually saw in this HMO-run hidey-hole of a doctors’ office, located one level below the street on Delancey, but she had the first available appointment, and, thanks to my mother’s ceaseless chorus of “Have you seen a doctor yet,” I decided not to wait. So far, I thought, it was working out. Dr. Patel had gentle hands, and a pleasant way about her.

“You are feeling well?” she asked.

“Fine. Just a little tired. Well, very tired, actually.”

“No nausea?” Wow. I even loved the way she said “nausea.”

“Not for the last few days.”

“Very well, then. Let us discuss your plans.” She tilted her head ever so slightly toward the waiting room. I admired the discretion of the gesture even as I shook my head.

“No. It’s just me.”

“Very well,” she said again, and handed me some glossy brochures. My HMO’s name was emblazoned at the top. “Little Sprouts” read the title. Ugh. “Helping our members as they begin one of life’s most exciting journeys!” Double ugh.

“Now then. I will see you monthly for the next five months, then every two weeks for your eighth month, and then weekly until it is time to deliver.” She flipped some pages on the calendar. “I am giving you a due date of June 15… understanding, of course, that babies come when they please.”

I left with my purse rattling with bottles of vitamins and folic acid, my head spinning with lists of things I couldn’t eat and things I’d have to buy and calls I’d have to make. Forms to fill out, birthing classes to register for, a fact sheet on episiotomies that I didn’t even want to look at in my current state of mind. It was December, and the weather had finally gotten cold. A brisk wind kicked dried-up leaves into the corners as I walked, my thin jacket wrapped tight around me. I could smell snow in the air. I was tired down to my bones, and my head was spinning, but I had one more stop left.

Fat Class was just getting out when I arrived. I found my classmates, and Dr. K., exiting the Weight and Eating Disorders offices, chatting happily, bundled up in sweaters and winter coats that looked as if they were being worn for the first time that year.

“Cannie!” Dr. K. waved and walked over. He was wearing khakis, a denim shirt, and a tie. No white lab coat, for once. “How have you been?”

“Oh, okay,” I told him. “I’m sorry I missed class. I meant to stop by earlier”

“Why don’t we step into my office,” said Dr. K.

We did. He sat behind his desk, I took the chair opposite, not realizing until I’d sat down that I wasn’t just tired, I was completely exhausted.

“It’s good to see you,” he said again, looking at me expectantly.

I took a deep breath. Get through this, I told myself. Get through this, and you’ll be able to go home and go to sleep.

“I’m going to, um… stay pregnant. So I have to drop out of the program,” I told him. He nodded, as if this was what he’d been waiting to hear.

“I’ll make arrangements for the department to send you a check,” he said. “And we’ll be starting new studies next fall, if you’re still interested.”

“I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of free time,” I said.

He nodded. “Well, we’ll miss you in class. You really bring a certain something.”

“Oh, you’re just saying that”

“No, I’m not. That imitation of the female fat cell you did two weeks ago… you really should think about stand-up.”

I sighed. “Stand-up’s hard. And I’ve got… a lot of things to think about right now.”

Dr. K. reached for a notebook and a pen. “You know, I actually think we might have some kind of nutrition workshop for expectant mothers,” he said, clearing books and papers away, locating his telephone directory. “I mean, since you’ve paid already, you might as well get something… Or, of course, if you just want a refund, we can definitely do that”

He was being so nice. Why was he being so nice to me? “No, that’s okay. I just wanted to say that I had to drop out, and that I’m sorry”

I took a deep breath, looking at him looking at me from across the desk, his eyes so kind. And then I was crying again. What was it about this room, and this poor man, that every time I sat across from him I wound up in tears?

He handed me the Kleenex. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’ll be okay I’m sorry”

And then I was crying so hard that I couldn’t speak. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I think this is one of the first-trimester things, where everything makes you cry.” I patted my purse. “I’ve got a list in here somewhere… things you’re supposed to take, things you’re supposed to feel…”

He was reaching over me, pulling a white lab coat off the coat rack.

“Stand up,” he said. I stood up, and he draped the coat over my shoulders. “I want to show you something,” he said. “Come with me.”

He led me into an elevator, then down a hall, through a door marked “Staff Only” and “Keep Out,” through another door marked “Emergency Only! Alarm Will Sound!” But the alarm didn’t sound as he pushed open the door. And suddenly we were outside, on the roof, with the city spilled out beneath our feet.

I could see City Hall. I was practically at eye level with the statue of Billy Penn on top. There was the PECO building, studded with glistening lights… the twin towers of Liberty Place, shining silver… tiny cars, inching down infinitesimal streets. The rows of Christmas lights and neon wreaths marching down Market Street to the waterfront. The Blue Cross RiverRink, with tiny skaters moving in slow circles. And then the Delaware River, and Camden. New Jersey. Bruce. It all looked very far away.

“What do you think?” Dr. K. asked. I think I must have jumped when he finally started talking. For a moment, I’d forgotten him… forgotten everything. I was so wrapped up in the view.

“I’ve never seen the city like this,” I told him. “It’s amazing.”

He leaned against the door and smiled. “I think you’d have to pay a pretty hefty rent in one of the Rittenhouse Square high-rises to get a view like this,” he said.

I turned toward the river again, feeling the wind blow cool on my face. The air tasted delicious. All day long – or at least since Dr. Patel had given me the pamphlet listing Common Complaints of the First Trimester – I’d noticed that I could smell everything, and that most of what I could smell made me feel sick. Car exhaust… a whiff of dog crap from a trash can… gasoline… even things I normally enjoyed, like the scent of coffee wafting out of the Starbucks on South Street came to me at ten times their normal intensity. But up here the air smelled like nothing, as if it had been specially filtered for me. Well, me and whatever rich balcony-lined-penthouse-‌dwellers were lucky enough to have regular access.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Dr. K. sat down, cross-legged, and motioned for me to join him. Being careful not to sit on his lab coat, I did.

“Do you feel like talking about it?”

I shot him a quick sideways glance. “Do you want to listen?”

He looked embarrassed. “I don’t mean to pry I know it’s not any of my business”

“Oh, no, no, it’s not that. I just don’t want to bore you.” I sighed. “It’s the oldest story in the world, I guess. Girl meets boy, girl loves boy, girl dumps boy for reasons she still doesn’t really understand, boy’s father dies, girl goes to try to comfort him, girl winds up pregnant and alone.”

“Ah,” he said carefully.

I rolled my eyes at him. “What, you thought it was someone else?”

He didn’t say anything, but in reflected light from the streets below, I thought he looked abashed. I hunkered around until I was sitting facing him.

“No, c’mon, really. You thought I found another guy that fast? Please,” I snorted. “Give me a little less credit.”

“I guess I thought… well, I guess I really hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, believe me, it takes a lot longer than a few months before I meet someone who likes me, and who wants to see me naked, and before I get comfortable enough to actually let them.” I looked at him sideways again. What if he thought I was flirting? “Just FYI,” I added lamely.

“I’ll file that away,” he said somberly. He seemed so serious, I had to laugh.

“Tell me something… how do people know when you’re kidding? Because you always sort of sound the same way.”

“Which is what? Nerdy?” He spent a long time saying the word nerdy, which, of course, made him sound… a little nerdy.

“Not exactly. Just serious all the time.”

“Well, I’m not.” He actually appeared to be offended. “I actually have a very fine sense of humor.”

“Which I’m just somehow managing to completely miss,” I teased.

“Well, considering that the handful of times we’ve spoken, you’ve been having some extravagant life crisis, I haven’t been at my funniest.”

Now he was definitely sounding offended.

“Point taken,” I said. “I’m sure you’re very funny.”

He looked at me suspiciously, thick brows furrowed. “How do you know?”

“Because you said you were. People who are funny know that they’re funny. People who aren’t funny will say, ‘My friends say I’ve got a great sense of humor.’ Or ‘My mother says I’ve got a great sense of humor.’ That’s when you know you’re in trouble.”

“Oh,” he said. “So if you were to describe yourself, you’d say you were funny?” “No,” I sighed, looking out at the night sky. “At this point, I’d say that I was fucked.”

We sat in silence for a minute. I watched the skaters turn.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do?” he finally asked. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to”

“No, no. I don’t mind. I’ve only figured a few things out, really. I know that I’m going to keep it, even though it’s probably not the most practical thing, and I know I’m going to cut back my schedule when the baby comes. Oh, and I know I’m going to maybe start looking for a new place to live, and see if my sister will be my birth coach.”

Laid out like that, like a losing hand of cards fanned out on a table, it didn’t seem like much.

“What about Bruce?” he asked.

“See, that’s the part I haven’t figured out yet,” I said. “We haven’t talked in weeks, and he’s seeing someone else.”

“Seriously?” “Seriously enough for him to tell me about it. And to write about it.”

The doctor considered this. “Well, that might not mean anything. He might just be trying to get back at you… or make you jealous.”

“Yeah, well, it’s working.”

“But a baby… well, that changes everything.”

“Oh, you read that pamphlet, too?” I hugged my knees into my chest. “After we broke up… after his father died, when I felt so miserable, and I wanted him back, and all, my friends kept telling me, ‘You broke up with him, and you must have done it for a reason.’ And I know that it’s true. I think I did know, deep down, that we probably weren’t supposed to be, you know, together for the rest of our lives. And it was probably my fault I mean, I’ve got this whole theory about my father, and my parents, and why I don’t trust love. So I think that maybe even if he was perfect… or, you know, not perfect, but a good fit for me… that maybe I wouldn’t have been able to see it, or I’d have tried to talk myself out of it. Or whatever.”

“Or maybe he wasn’t the right guy for you. They always taught us in medical school, when you hear hoofbeats…”

“… don’t look for zebras.”

He grinned at me. “They said that in your medical school, too?”

I shook my head. “No. My father was a doctor. He used to say that all the time. But I don’t know. I think this might actually be a zebra. I mean, I know how much I miss him, and how awful I felt when I found out he had somebody else, and I think that I blew it… that he was actually supposed to have been the love of my life, my husband.” I swallowed hard, my throat closing around that word. “But now…”

“Now what?”

“I miss him all the time.” I shook my head, disgusted at my own mopiness. “It’s like being haunted or something. And I don’t have the luxury of being haunted right now. I need to think about myself, and the baby, and how I’m going to plan and get ready.”

I looked at him. He’d taken off his glasses and was watching me intently.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

He nodded.

“I need a male perspective. Do you have any children?”

“None that I… I mean, no.”

“See, you were going to say, ‘None that I know of,’ right?”

“I was, but I stopped myself,” he said. “Well, almost.”

“Okay. So no kids. How would you feel, if you’d been with someone, and then you weren’t with her, and she came to you and said, ‘Guess what? I’m having your baby!’ Would you even want to know?”

“If it were me,” he said, thoughtfully. “Well, yes. If it were me I’d want to know. I would want to be a part of the child’s life.”

“Even if you weren’t with the mother anymore?”

“I think children deserve to have two parents involved with them, and who they become, even if the parents live apart. It’s hard enough to grow up in this world. I think kids need all the help they can get.”

That, of course, was not what I’d wanted to hear. What I’d wanted to hear was, You can do this, Cannie! You can go it alone! If I was going to be apart from Bruce – and there was ample evidence that I would – I wanted every assurance that a single parent was a fine and proper thing to be. “So you think I should tell him.”

“If it were me,” he said thoughtfully, “I would want to be told. And no matter what you do, or what he wants, you’re still the one who ultimately gets to decide. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“He and his mother sue me for custody and try to get the baby for themselves?”

“Wasn’t that on Oprah?” he asked.

“Sally Jessy,” I said. It was getting colder. I pulled the lab coat tight around me.

“Do you know who you remind me of?” he asked.

“If you say Janeane Garofalo, I’ll jump,” I warned him. I was forever getting Janeane Garofalo.

“No,” he said.

“Your mother?” I asked.

“Not my mother.”

“That guy on Jerry Springer who was so fat that the paramedics had to cut a hole in his house to get him out of it?”

He was smiling and trying not to. “Be serious!” he scolded me.

“Okay. Who?”

“My sister.”

“Oh.” I thought about it for a minute. “Is she…” And then I didn’t know what to say. Is she fat? Is she funny? Did she get knocked up by her ex-boyfriend?

“She looked a little bit like you,” he said. He reached out, his fingertip almost brushing my face. “She had cheeks like yours, and a smile like yours.”

I asked the first thing I could think of. “Was she older or younger?”

“She was older,” he said, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “She died when I was nine.”

“Oh.”

“A lot of my patients when they meet me want to know why I got into this line of medicine. I mean, there’s no obvious connection. I’m not a woman, I’ve never had a weight problem…”

“Oh, sure. Rub it in,” I said. “So your sister was… heavy?”

“No, not really. But it made her crazy.” I could only see the side of his face as he smiled. “She was always on these diets… hard-boiled eggs one week, watermelon the next.”

“Did she, um, have an eating disorder?”

“No. Just neuroses about food. She was in a car accident… that’s how she died. I remember my parents were at the hospital, and nobody would tell me for the longest time what was going on. Finally my aunt, my mother’s sister, came to my room and said that Katie was in Heaven, and that I shouldn’t be sad, because Heaven was a wonderful place where you got to do all your favorite things. I used to think that heaven was a place full of Devil Dogs and ice cream and bacon and waffles… all the things that Katie wanted to eat, and would never let herself have.” He turned to face me. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“No. No, actually, that’s kind of how I imagine Heaven myself.” I felt terrible as soon as I’d said it. What if he thought that I was making fun of his poor dead sister?

“You’re Jewish, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I am, too. I mean, I’m half. My father was. But we weren’t raised as anything.” He looked at me curiously. “Do Jews believe in heaven?”

“No… not technically.” I groped for my Hebrew school lessons. “The deal is, you die, and then it’s just… like sleep, I think. There’s no real idea of an afterlife. Just sleep. And then the Messiah comes, and everyone gets to live again.”

“Live in the bodies they had when they were alive?”

“I don’t know. I personally intend to lobby for Heidi Klum’s.”

He laughed a little bit. “Would you…” He turned to face me. “You’re cold.”

I had been shivering a little bit. “No, I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“No, it’s fine! I actually like hearing about other people’s, um, lives.” I had almost said “problems,” but I’d caught myself just in time. “This was good.”

But he was already on his feet and three long-legged strides ahead of me, almost to the door. “We should get you inside,” he was muttering. He held the door open. I stepped into the stairwell, but didn’t move, so that when he shut the door he was standing very close to me.

“You were going to ask me something,” I said. “Tell me what it was.”

Now it was his turn to look flustered. “I… um… the, uh, pregnancy nutrition classes, I think. I was going to ask you if you’d consider signing up for one of those.”

I knew that wasn’t it. And I even had a faint inkling that it might have been something completely different. But I didn’t say anything. Maybe he’d just had a brief, fleeting thought of asking me… something… because he’d been talking about his sister and he felt vulnerable. Or maybe he felt sorry for me. Or maybe I was completely wrong. After the whole Steve debacle, and now with Bruce, I wasn’t feeling very trusting of my instincts.

“What time do they meet?” I asked.

“I’ll check,” he said, and I followed him down the stairs.