The Nine Month Plan

  “What about you fitting into the maid of honor dress? And what about the reception? It’s for adults only and I already told Timmy’s cousin Shannon she can’t bring her kids. If you and Joey want to bring the baby, I don’t know what I’ll—­”

  “Look, Ro, we’ll get a sitter,” Joe assures her. “And Nina will fit into the dress.”

  Yes, and this isn’t about you, Nina wants to say. This is about me. For once, something is about me.

  But she bites her tongue. She’s used to it, after all. She’s been doing it for years. With Rosalee, with Pop, and all the rest of them.

  She never says what she wants to, or does what she wants to, or goes where she wants to. For Nina, it’s always been about restraint. And now . . .

  She takes as deep a breath as her control-­top hose will allow, and exhales heavily.

  Now it’s more about restraint than ever before.

  “I think we should toast Nina and Joey with champagne,” Timmy says. “Got a bottle around here anywhere, Mr. C? Maybe we can chill it before dessert.”

  Pop shrugs. “Check the liquor cabinet in the other room.”

  “I’ll go look, Pop,” Dom says, and disappears into the kitchen with Timmy and Rosalee at his heels.

  Nina’s gaze meets her father’s. He looks . . .

  Well, not disappointed. But not thrilled, either.

  A familiar shadow looms in his brown eyes. The same shadow she sees there every year on Ralphie’s birthday. And on Mother’s Day, when they bring roses to the cemetery.

  “Pop,” she says softly, stepping closer to him, “everything is going to be okay.”

  “Of course it is!” His voice is gruff.

  “You’re going to be a grandfather.”

  “And you’re going to be a mother.”

  Nina swallows hard. The lump in her throat has become painful.

  “Yeah,” she manages to say.

  She sneaks a peek at Joe.

  He’s looking down at his shoes.

  If only it were different, she thinks wistfully. If only. . .

  “Whenever you two are ready to get married, I’ll pay for the wedding.” Pop pats Nina’s hand.

  “Oh, Pop . . .” She has to tell him the truth. She has to.

  “That’s not necessary, Nino,” Joe says. “I can pay for the wedding.”

  “She’s my daughter.” Pop has a lot of pride. It still kills him that Joey wouldn’t allow him to pay back all the money he spent on Pop’s hospital bills.

  “I know she’s your daughter, but . . .” Joe shrugs. “Let’s just talk about it when the time comes.”

  Nina wants to ask him what the hell he’s doing. What the hell they’re doing. Why are they leading everyone on this way? Why are they letting the family think they’re madly in love, instead of admitting that Nina is a human incubator, and Joey’s going to be a single dad?

  “I’ll pay for the wedding, Joey,” Pop says. “I guess I’m just old-­fashioned that way. In a lot of ways. But I’m happy for the two of you. I couldn’t ask for a better son-­in-­law, Joey. You’re family already, where it counts. In here.” He thumps his heart—­the heart Joey kept beating for him that awful night three years ago. “And Nina . . . you don’t know how happy I am to hear that you’re not leaving after all. Because I would miss you too much. We all would.”

  That does it.

  The tears in Nina’s eyes spill over.

  “Pop,” she says, unable to go on with the charade a moment longer, “I—­”

  “Think I’ll go get the champagne,” Pop says abruptly, his face relaxing into a smile at last. “They won’t find it in there, and I’ve got a bottle I’ve been saving for a special occasion. I thought maybe I’d open it on Rosalee’s wedding day, but . . . we won’t tell her, okay?” He winks at them, then disappears into the next room.

  “Joey, this is awful,” Nina wails, turning to him.

  “Relax, Nina, it’s going to be okay. Did you see how happy everyone was?”

  “Yes, but not just about the baby. They think that you and I are going to—­”

  “So let them think it,” he says softly, gently pushing her hair back from her eyes. “Is that so wrong? Maybe it’ll make things easier.”

  “But we can’t plan a wedding that’s never going to happen.”

  “No, but—­”

  “And I am leaving, just like I planned.”

  “Yes, but they don’t need to know that yet.”

  “Well, when they do need to know, you can be the one to tell them,” Nina says.

  “Deal. Relax, Nina. It’s going to be okay. At least we don’t have to hide anything anymore.”

  No, they don’t have to hide. They can go around kissing whenever and wherever they feel like it. In fact, everyone’s going to expect it of them.

  She looks up, into Joe’s reassuring gaze. He smiles, and she finds herself relaxing. At least, as much as she can relax with a tourniquet around her middle.

  “You know what I feel like doing, Joey?”

  “Yeah, but we should probably wait until later, when we’re alone.”

  She grins. “Not that. I’m going upstairs to take off these panty hose so that I can gorge myself on pumpkin pie.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “And you know how I love plans.”

  “Yeah,” he says quietly, as she starts up the stairs. “I know how you love plans.”

  JOE HAS BEEN home for all of three minutes that night when the phone rings.

  “Joey! What’re you up to?” Danny asks.

  “I just walked in. I was next door all day.” Leaving his shoes at the foot of the stairs, Joe carries the cordless phone upstairs to his bedroom.

  “So I hear.”

  “So you hear? What do you mean? I told you I was going to the Chickalinis’ this year.”

  “Yeah, but . . . you and Nina. Why didn’t you tell me that part?”

  Joe’s mouth drops open.

  “How long has this been going on?” Danny wants to know.

  “Danny . . .” Joe sinks to the bed—­which is still neatly made. He and Nina never did get to sneak over here before pie. And after the pie, she dozed off on the couch, snoring more loudly than her father, as Joe and her brothers watched back-­to-­back football games.

  “Joey, all I have to say is, I’m shocked . . .” He hears Barb’s voice in the background, and then Danny quickly adds, “and happy for you, too. You know that, right?”

  “Danny—­”

  “This is going to be great. Our kids will be the same age. You and Nina can hang out with us all the time. We’ll do the family thing together, you know? The park, the zoo, hell, the poopy diapers . . .” Danny chuckles.

  Joe’s mouth clamps shut. The picture Danny has conjured is idyllic, poop and all. Two ­couples negotiating the trials and joys of first-­time parenthood together.

  But Nina won’t be here.

  He should tell Danny. Now. There’s no reason to let his friend believe there’s a romance where there’s only . . .

  What?

  There is something between you and Nina, Joe reminds himself. Something temporary, yes. A passionate fling, maybe. Certainly not a courtship. Not with Nina leaving. But . . .

  “I can’t believe she’s changed her mind about getting out of here next year,” Danny is saying. “I guess true love can change anybody’s mind. Even Nina’s. Even when all she’s talked about for years is backpacking across Europe, or whatever it is she’s going to do when she leaves. You know?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Joe toys with the piping on the edge of the comforter.

  “But I always thought you two would be good together, Joey. She needs somebody like you to keep her grounded. And you need somebody like Nina to—­”

&nb
sp; Joe hears Barb’s voice interrupting in the background again.

  “I know. I will. Would you let me talk to him? Why don’t you go eat another turkey sandwich or something?” Danny tells his wife. Then he sighs and said, “No, I’m not implying that you’re eating too much. All I meant was, you should eat. The baby needs nutrition.”

  Into the phone, he says, in a low voice, “You sure you know what you’re getting into, Joey? Because the thing about women is that they won’t leave you alone. You know? Ever. I can’t even have a two-­minute conversation without Barb trying to tell me what to say. And Nina . . . she’s even more outspoken than Barb is. But she’ll be a great wife, Joey,” he adds hastily. “And a good mom. I can just see her carrying around that little bundle.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  He could tell Danny the truth.

  If he were in the mood.

  Right now, he’s in the mood to crawl into bed with the television remote.

  “Hey, Danny,” he says, needing to change the subject. “Did you spend Thanksgiving in Jersey today with Barb’s family?”

  “Yeah. And the traffic coming home just now was brutal. A bus tipped over in the Lincoln Tunnel—­did you hear about it?”

  “No. But obviously some news travels quickly around here. How’d you hear about me and Nina so fast? We just told her family this afternoon, and nobody else knows.”

  “I had a message from Paulie on the machine when we got home just now.”

  “Paulie knows, too? How’d he hear?” Joe frowns.

  “He was down at the Adonis and somebody mentioned it.”

  How the . . . ?

  Oh. Rosalee’s fiancé Timmy left in the late afternoon to start his shift at the firehouse. He must have blurted the news to somebody there. Somebody who spread the word at the local bar. Terrific.

  “So Nina’s due in May, huh?” Danny says.

  “Cripes, what don’t you know?”

  “I don’t know how this all fell into place. I mean, was this pregnancy thing planned, or an accident?”

  “It was planned.”

  “How long did you try?”

  He’s not about to tell Danny, of all ­people, that it only took one time. “Not that long.”

  “That’s good. How did you hook up with Nina in the first place? Did the two of you look at each other over a slice one day, and just realize that was it? Or what?”

  “Something like that,” Joe says, exhausted. “Look, Danny, I’m beat. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you on Saturday morning at the gym, okay?”

  Tossing the phone aside, he sinks back against the pillows and closes his eyes.

  This is crazy. The whole thing. Crazy.

  The next thing he knows, his mother’s going to call from Florida and ask why all of Astoria is aware of her impending grandmotherhood while she’s been kept in the dark.

  Joe sighs.

  His parents are going to be thrilled.

  They love kids.

  They love Nina.

  They’re going to think they’re getting this terrific daughter-­in-­law.

  Joe realizes there’s a lump in his throat.

  This is what you wanted, remember? A baby. You wanted to be a dad. You told yourself—­you told Nina—­that fatherhood would be enough for you.

  And it will be, he decides. He’s just tired, and emotional. It’s been a long day . . .

  Joe can feel himself drifting off to sleep. With any luck, he won’t dream about Nina, for a change. Nina, and all the things that can never be.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “FA-­LA-­LA-­LA-­LA, LA-­LA-­LA—­CRAP!”

  “Nina!”

  “Relax, Joey, the baby’s heard worse.”

  He just shakes his head. They’re in Bloomingdale’s, in the crowded men’s department on the Saturday before Christmas, along with every other New Yorker, and throngs of tourists. It’s a festive scene: poinsettias, twinkling white lights, even an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls” playing in the background.

  “I just can’t believe this sweater costs three hundred and eighty-­nine bucks,” Nina mutters, folding it haphazardly and tossing it back on the pile. “Cripes, what’s it made out of? Spun gold?”

  “Cashmere,” he says, picking it up and inspecting the label before refolding it neatly.

  “Too bad. That color would’ve been perfect on Dominic, with his coloring. What am I going to get him?”

  “Get him the sweater. I’ll pay for it. I still have to get him something anyway, so it can be from both of us.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Joey.” She takes it from him, puts it back on the pile, and leans against a display counter, wishing she’d worn more comfortable shoes.

  Then again, these ugly white sneakers are pretty much the most comfortable shoes she owns. It’s just that they feel a size too small lately—­as does everything else in her closet, including her woolen winter coat.

  “Why isn’t that a good idea? Everybody thinks we’re a ­couple anyway.”

  “Yeah, which also isn’t a good idea. We should tell them the truth, before your parents get here tomorrow.”

  “Nina, I keep telling you, they already know about you and the baby and they’re thrilled. My mother’s been knitting booties since the day after Thanksgiving.”

  “Yeah, but Joey, I just don’t think I can look her in the eye and lie about what’s going on between us.”

  “Can you look her in the eye and tell her you and I had sex without any intention of getting married?”

  “That will be easier. I mean, we did it for a good cause,” Nina says. “To give her a grandchild.”

  “Yeah, and what about the other two hundred times since then?”

  “You really think we’ve been together two hundred times, Joey?”

  “Okay, maybe a hundred.”

  “Well, she doesn’t have to know about that.”

  “She doesn’t have to know anything other than what we tell her, Nina. And I think we should go with what we told your family.”

  Nina sighs. “And my family has been driving us nuts ever since Thanksgiving, Joey. If Rosalee isn’t fluttering around, all nervous that I’m going to try to steal her wedding thunder, then Pop is bugging me about talking to Father Tom about announcing the banns.”

  “Yeah, well . . . maybe we should just do it.”

  Nina’s jaw drops. “Get married?”

  Joey’s gaze locks with hers. Then he bursts out laughing. “Relax, Nina. I was only kidding.”

  “You were?” Her heart is pounding.

  “Of course. You should have seen the look on your face. It was as if I’d told you that the epidural had just been outlawed.”

  “Don’t even kid about that.” She’s already informed Joe, and Dr. Sanjna, that she has no intention of attempting natural childbirth.

  “Come on,” Joey says. “Let’s go upstairs and get some hot chocolate.”

  He takes her arm and begins guiding her through the jostling crowd. She wishes she hadn’t insisted on carrying the shopping bag that contains the white satin negligee she bought for Rosalee, and that she weren’t wearing this heavy navy pea coat that is too warm and too tight.

  She wishes she could think about something other than the way Joe teased her back there about getting married.

  Or about the little thrill that jolted through her the moment he said it.

  Joey wants to marry me!

  It was as if every dream—­every plan—­Nina ever had for herself evaporated in that split second.

  Independence Day? Gone.

  Europe? Gone.

  No strings, no roots? Gone.

  In that moment, all she saw was Joey. Joey, and a rosy future. Together.

  Of course, that didn’t last long. No, that foo
lish jolt of romance was quickly replaced by dismay—­and shock—­that he would even suggest such a thing.

  Good thing he didn’t meant it, she tells herself as they make their way toward the escalators.

  “So you were just kidding back there?”

  “Hmm?” He tightens his grasp on her arm as an enormous woman brushes past them juggling at least a dozen bulging shopping bags.

  “Should I be insulted that you don’t want to marry me?” Nina asks, smiling. But her facial muscles feel oddly strained.

  “Why would you?” he returns easily. “I’m not insulted that you don’t want to marry me.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Nah. You’re Nina. You’re not the marrying kind.”

  She smiles harder. It hurts more.

  “Speaking of not being the marrying kind,” he says, “I got a Christmas card from Minnie yesterday.”

  “So did I. Did she write about the little boy dying of AIDS in her arms?”

  “No. She just wrote a short note, same as always. What’d you get? A letter?”

  Nina nods. “I have to write back to her.”

  “Are you going to tell her about the baby?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “You’re the one who’s pregnant, Nina. You decide.”

  “Well, I’m not going to lie to her about us. She’s a nun, Joey.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  They mount the escalator. Nina steps onto it on the right-­hand side. Pre-­pregnancy, she’d have been on the left, striding up the moving steps and passing all the shoppers who merely ride up leaning on the rail.

  Now she’s one of them, with aching feet—­not to mention an aching, smiling face that’s supposed to prove to Joe that she doesn’t mind his not wanting to marry her.

  Oh, c’mon, Nina. You’re being ridiculous. If he meant it back there—­if he were really asking you to marry him—­would you have said yes?

  Nope.

  But it hurts, somehow, that he isn’t even considering it. That she’s good enough to sleep with and to carry his baby for nine months and to give birth, but not to consider seriously as a wife.