The Nine Month Plan

  “Joey . . .”

  “You really want me to stop?” he murmurs, nuzzling her.

  “Nope.” She never wants him to stop. She wants the next seven months to pass as slowly as possible so she can savor every moment of being with Joe this way, and carrying his child.

  “Uh-­oh.” He raises his head suddenly.

  “What?”

  “The doctor’s appointment. We have to be there in . . .” he turns his head to check the bedside clock. “Less than half an hour.”

  “Can’t we call and cancel and spend the rest of the day right here?” she asks plaintively.

  “Do you know how badly I want to do just that?” He kisses her neck again. “I feel like as soon as we get out of this bed and get dressed and leave this room, everything will be different.”

  “Then let’s not go.”

  “Sooner or later, we have to,” he points out. “And anyway, maybe things won’t be different. Maybe we can keep . . .”

  “Fooling around?” she asks cautiously.

  “Maybe.”

  “But then what would that make us, Joey?”

  “Best friends who just can’t keep their hands off each other,” he says simply.

  “That seems wrong.” She shakes her head. “I mean, we’re supposed to be having this baby in a totally platonic way. If we suddenly start sleeping together—­”

  “Psst, Nina,” he interrupts in an exaggerated whisper. “Guess what? We already have.”

  “Well, we should probably stop,” she says reluctantly. “Just so we can keep things simple. For the baby’s sake.”

  “Maybe it’s just me, but, Nina, I really don’t think the baby has any clue what’s going on right now. Frankly, I think the baby couldn’t care less what we do until bottles and diapers are involved.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I am right. Come on, we’ve got to get dressed and out of here. If we miss this appointment you’ll have to reschedule, and I can’t take another day off to be there.”

  “We still haven’t solved the problem of what I’m going to wear.”

  “Sweatpants,” he says, sitting up and hurriedly pulling his boxers on again. “And then we’ll go shopping, and I’ll buy you the most high-­fashion, non-­frumpy maternity wardrobe we can find. You’ll look like one of those pregnant supermodels.”

  “Yeah, right. And anyway, you don’t have to do that, Joey,” she says, climbing out of bed and going to the bureau.

  “I want to. I want you to feel good about yourself, Nina. Believe me. I’ve never seen you look more beautiful.”

  His words spark a cozy little glow inside of her, sweatpants and all.

  “OKAY, NINA, THIS stethoscope might be a little cold on your belly. Sorry.”

  Seated beside the examining table, Joe squeezes Nina’s hand as Dr. Sanjna, an attractive fifty-­something woman, leans toward her.

  “There it is,” the doctor says with a smile as a rapid throbbing sound becomes audible.

  Joe’s breath catches in his throat. His child. He’s listening to his child’s heartbeat.

  Caught up in the miraculous moment, he squeezes Nina’s hand again, and realizes that she’s trembling.

  “Is it supposed to sound that fast?” she asks the doctor, her voice higher-­pitched than usual.

  “Yes. It’s good and strong. It sounds great.”

  “It does. It sounds great.” Eyes glistening, Nina looks up at Joe, who struggles to find something profound to say.

  He settles for a hoarse-­sounding, “That’s awesome.”

  They listen, enraptured, for a few seconds longer.

  “I know you could do this all day, but . . .” The doctor smiles and shrugs, removing the instrument from Nina’s stomach.

  The room falls silent, and for a moment, Joe experiences an odd sense of loss.

  Then the doctor says, “We’ll schedule more bloodwork for your next visit. And I want to keep careful watch on your blood pressure. I saw in your family history paperwork that your mother had eclampsia.”

  A bitter chill sweeps through Joe.

  “Yes, she did,” Nina says quietly. “She died when she had my youngest brother.”

  “I’m so sorry, Nina.” The doctor’s expression is somber. “It’s good that we’re aware of that, and we’ll monitor you.”

  “Is there . . . does Nina have a chance of getting that?” Joe asks, finding it suddenly difficult to swallow. If anything ever happened to Nina . . .

  “Full-­blown eclampsia is extremely rare these days. We’ve become far more successful at preventing it. Listen . . .” The doctor pats Nina’s arm. “Don’t worry, okay? Everything is going to be fine.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  She begins describing the tests she’ll perform at various stages in the pregnancy, and describes the amniocentesis that can be done in a few weeks, if Nina chooses.

  “It can reveal certain genetic disorders, and neural tube defects that are slightly more common in pregnancy when the mom is over thirty-­five.”

  “I’ve read about that test,” Nina says, “and there’s a risk of miscarriage if I have it, isn’t there?”

  “A slight risk, yes.”

  “And the needle can poke the baby and cause a puncture wound.”

  “It can, yes. But such wounds are usually minor and—­”

  “She doesn’t want the test,” Joe says, unable to bite his tongue any longer. “If something were wrong with the baby, well—­that wouldn’t change anything. We’d still want to have it.”

  The doctor nods at Joe, and looks at Nina.

  “Absolutely,” Nina says. “I would never . . . well, I’m having this baby no matter what. And I don’t want to take any chances of hurting it with a needle.”

  “Fine.” The doctor moves on briskly, discussing the ultrasound tests she’ll be scheduling, to carefully monitor the baby’s growth.

  “When we do that test, we can try to find out the baby’s gender. You’ll have to decide beforehand whether you want to know.”

  Nina and Joe speak simultaneously.

  “We do.”

  “No way.”

  Uh-­oh.

  “You don’t want to know what we’re having?” Joe asks her.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. I want to get everything I’m going to need.”

  “Like what? An all-­blue wardrobe if it’s a boy? Frilly pink dresses if it’s a girl?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Nina rolls her eyes and looks at the doctor, who smiles cheerfully and says simply, “You two will have to work things out before we do the test. Now, Mom, do you have any questions?”

  Mom?

  Oh, right. Mom . . .

  As in, Nina.

  Joe looks at her. She’s nodding, meaning she’s acknowledged that she’s the baby’s mother—­if only inside this office.

  She hasn’t said a word to the doctor about their plan for Joe to raise the baby single-­handedly.

  “Sometimes I have these slight little cramps inside,” Nina says. “Like I’m going to get my period.”

  “But you haven’t had any more spotting since the first month?”

  “Right.”

  “Slight cramps, like little twinges, are normal,” the doctor says. “Anything sharp or strong, and you need to let me know right away.”

  “I will.”

  “Any more questions? No?” As Nina shakes her head, the doctor stands and looks down at her clipboard, saying briskly, “All right then, I’ll see you in—­”

  “Excuse me?” Joe speaks up. “I have a few questions.”

  “Oh! Of course.” The doctor drops back into her rolling stool and shoots him an expectant smile.

  Joe reaches into his tote
bag and retrieves a pencil and the notebook he brought along. Flipping to the first page, he scans his notes and asks, pencil poised, “First of all, what should Nina be eating and drinking?”

  “Anything she feels like eating and drinking. Except, of course, alcohol. That should be avoided. So should most herbal teas and unpasteurized cheeses, and caffeine should be consumed only in moderation.”

  Joe nods, taking notes.

  “Joe, I know all that,” Nina says impatiently, sitting up and pulling her shirt down over the waistband of her sweatpants. “I’ve been reading all those books you’ve been buying for me for the past few weeks.”

  He ignores her. “What about sushi?”

  The doctor makes a face. “I wouldn’t advise anyone to eat raw fish, let alone a pregnant woman.”

  No sushi, Joe scribbles in the margin.

  “The way I’ve been feeling, trust me, sushi is the last thing I want,” Nina mutters.

  “Which brings me to item number two. She’s been having morning sickness every day,” Joe says. “Is there anything you can give her?”

  “My sympathy, first of all,” the doctor says. “I’ve been there myself, and it isn’t fun. In fact, my daughter is pregnant now, and she’s had a terrible time with nausea.”

  “Can you prescribe something to help?” Joe asks.

  “I don’t prescribe medication unless there are dire circumstances, but I can say that an empty stomach only makes matters worse. You should eat healthy snacks as often as possible, whether you have an appetite or not, and try eating saltines before you get out of bed in the morning. Some of my patients swear by ginger tea.”

  “Ginger tea.” Joe jots that down.

  “I don’t like ginger tea,” Nina protests.

  Joe frowns. “You’ve had ginger tea?”

  “No, but I don’t like my Aunt Carm’s gingerbread and I don’t like that pickled ginger they give you with sushi at Japanese restaurants, and if I can’t eat sushi I’m sure as hell not going to eat—­”

  “You don’t have to eat it, you just have to drink it,” Joe cuts in. “Right, Dr. Sanjna?”

  “Well, she doesn’t have to drink it,” the doctor says, looking amused. “Only if she wants to.”

  Nina flashes him a smug expression. “Yeah. And I don’t want to. So don’t get any ideas about force-­feeding me anything disgusting, Joey.”

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  The doctor smiles at him. “And you’re not the first husband to come in here with that attitude. I think it’s great that you’re playing such an active role in your wife’s pregnancy.”

  Husband.

  Wife.

  He exchanges a look with Nina.

  Just let her think that, Joe pleads silently. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t want the doctor to know they’re not a conventional married ­couple—­or even a ­couple at all. Just for now, just here, for some reason, it’s important to him to maintain the illusion.

  Nina opens her mouth, as if to correct Dr. Sanjna.

  Joe looks away, deflating. Here we go.

  But Nina only says, addressing him, “Do you have any other questions?”

  Flashing her a grateful smile, he says, “Actually, I do. Quite a few.”

  “Why did I know you were going to say that?” Nina sighs loudly.

  Ignoring her, Joe turns the page of his notebook. “Let’s see . . . is it normal for an expectant mother to be moodier than usual? Because I’ve noticed a level of crankiness . . .”

  “Hey!” Nina snaps.

  “See? That’s what I mean,” Joey says.

  Nina groans, not so sure she wants the next seven months to drag by after all.

  “OKAY, WHO ATE all the French onion dip?” Danny Andonelli asks, peering into the empty bowl on the coffee table.

  “Guilty,” Nina says, raising her hand from her sprawled perch on the couch. Her feet are dangling over the arm, still aching from her all-­day shift at her father’s restaurant. “I seem to have polished off the barbecue chips, too.”

  “Yeah, and I ate the rest of the peanuts,” Barb adds. “Can you refill the bowl, sweetie?”

  “And get some more chips while you’re at it,” Nina says, flashing Danny a sweet smile and handing him the empty chip bowl.

  “Geez, Nina, that was a jumbo-­sized bag. I don’t think there are any left.”

  “Oh, no,” she wails. “I really want more.”

  “And more peanuts, too.”

  “What’s with these two?” Danny asks, rolling his eyes at Joe. “You and I go into the kitchen for five minutes to get a beer and they turn into chow hounds. I mean, I know Barb’s pregnant,” he adds, with pride that hasn’t worn off in the weeks since they found out they’re going to be parents. “But what’s Nina’s excuse?”

  Her heart skips a beat. She forces herself not to look over at Joe, who’s just taken a seat in the armchair across from the couch.

  “My excuse is sheer gluttony, Danny,” she says lightly. “I’m starved. And I thought we were going to order Chinese food.”

  “We are, but we have to wait until Paulie gets here.”

  “Why wait?” Barb asks, taking the plastic clip out of the pile of long dark hair on her head. “We know what he likes. Anything deep fried and dripping in sticky sweet sauce, and make sure you get extra crunchy noodles because he hogged them all last time and he didn’t leave me any to put in my soup.”

  “He’s bringing a date.” Joe untwists the cap on his beer bottle. Nina watches him, admiring his broad shoulders in his green cashmere sweater.

  She wonders if they’ll go back to his place later, alone together. It seems that all she can think of lately when she’s with him is . . .

  Well, being alone with him. She’s been fantasizing about tonight ever since the other day in her room, before her doctor’s appointment and the shopping trip to an exclusive maternity boutique on Madison Avenue. He insisted on buying her a complete wardrobe, everything from a green velvet empire-­waist dress for Christmas to a bathing suit in case she wants to swim laps at the gym.

  She’s seen Joe a ­couple of times since then, when he stopped by the pizza place after work, but she was too busy to talk and he was tired and on his way home.

  “Yeah, we should wait and see what Paulie’s date wants to eat before we order,” Danny is saying.

  Barb speaks around the hair clip she’s holding in her mouth as her hands—­manicured with long red nails—­deftly twirl her hair back into a neat coil. “If this chick is anything like the date he brought to the movies with me and Danny last weekend, we should order her a fast food Happy Meal.”

  “Who? Ashley? I thought she was great,” Danny protests.

  Putting the clip back into her hair, Barb rolls her eyes and tells Nina, “I swear to God, I thought they weren’t going to let her into the movie because it was rated NC-­17.”

  “She was that young?”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Angie wasn’t,” Joe points out. “She was a year older than Paulie.”

  “Yeah, and look how long that lasted,” Danny says. “Does anyone know if the divorce papers are final yet? The least he could do is cut back on all the sleeping around until it’s official.”

  “Nah, Paulie just uses Father Tom to justify his active love life,” Barb says.

  Nina frowns. “Father Tom?”

  “Paulie keeps quoting that sermon where he said that whenever God closes a door, He opens a window.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think Father Tom meant that Paulie should put up a ladder and invite a parade of bimbos to climb through it,” Joe says.

  Danny snickers. “Well, at least Paulie’s not still after Nina, right, Joey?”

  “After me?” Nina looks from Danny to Joe. “Since when is Paulie after me?”
r />   “I don’t know . . . I think he said something about it one night.” Joe shifts his weight and sips his beer.

  “Yeah, but Joey told him to lay off.”

  “I knew I loved you for a reason, Joey,” Nina says, helping herself to yet another handful of M&Ms from a candy dish on the end table. Good thing she’s wearing new maternity jeans with a stretchy waistband concealed under her baggy blue sweater. “The last thing I need is for Paulie to start hitting on me. I thought he got over that in the eighth grade when I kneed him in the groin in church that time he grabbed my butt when I was on my way back from communion.”

  “Only Paulie would get turned on by Father Hugh’s annual sermon about Mary Magdalene.” Danny shakes his head. “Anyway, he said he was going to ask you out, Nina. But then Joe told him not to bother because you’re leaving.”

  She looks at Joe.

  He nods. “I saved your butt big time, Nina. You owe me.”

  “I owe you?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

  He grins. “Yeah, you definitely do. What are you going to do for me?”

  “Hmm, let’s see. There must be some small favor I can do. Scrub your grout with a toothbrush? Iron your shirts for a month? Give you my firstborn child?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.” Joe lifts his beer bottle in a silent toast to her.

  “Speaking of firstborn children . . .” Barb rises. “I have to pee again. I swear, my bladder is the size of a pinhead now that I’m pregnant.”

  Nina can relate. She wonders if anyone other than Joe has noticed that she’s been to the bathroom twice since she and Joe got here an hour ago.

  If only they could share their news with Danny and Barb, who excitedly announced their own miracle pregnancy the moment she and Joe arrived tonight.

  “Hey, do you think anyone would mind if we ordered Japanese instead of Chinese?” Barb asks. “I can’t eat anything raw, but I’d love some of those deep-­fried banana pastries they make over at Hanada.”

  “Barb’s been craving bananas. She can eat three or four a day,” Danny says with pride, as if he’s just announced that his wife has been nominated for an Oscar.

  “Yeah, well, Japanese is fine with me. And Nina, you love sush—­” Joe cuts himself off, flashing a look at Nina. “You know what? We should stick with Chinese tonight. I don’t think Paulie likes Japanese.”