The Nine Month Plan

  “I’ll get the coats. Go find your father and I’ll meet you in the vestibule.”

  Nina says her goodnights and is promptly swallowed up by the crowd gathering nearby, where the desserts are being set out on a long table. Barb, Rosalee, and Timmy become caught up in a debate about Italian versus Greek pastries.

  “Hey . . . is everything okay, Joey?” Danny asks in a low voice.

  “Sure, everything’s fine, Danny. Why?”

  “I don’t know. You two just don’t seem to be . . . Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

  Suddenly, Joe is weary of the whole game. Overpowered by the urge to confide in someone, he admits, “No, Danny, you’re right.”

  “You and Nina are having trouble?”

  “Not trouble. We’re just not what everybody thinks we are.”

  “She’s definitely pregnant . . . right? I mean, you can’t fake that.”

  “That’s not the part we’re faking.”

  Danny’s eyes widen. “It’s not yours?”

  “Of course it’s mine!” Joe sighs and looks at his watch. “Look, it’s late. I’ll explain everything later.”

  “Joey, no matter what’s going on, you gotta know that you and Nina belong together.”

  “Danny—­”

  “Anybody can see that.”

  Yeah. Anybody but Nina.

  “Goodnight, Danny.”

  “Happy New Year, Joey. It’ll all work out.”

  “Yeah. Happy New Year.”

  And it will be, he promises himself. This is the year his dreams will come true . . . with or without Nina.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “ARE YOU SURE you’re up for this?” Joe asks Nina a week later, as they take seats in Dr. Sanjna’s crowded waiting room to wait for their ultrasound session.

  She blows her sore nose into a tissue. “Do I have any choice?”

  “We can postpone the appointment.”

  “Nah.”

  It comes out Dah, thanks to the lousy cold she undoubtedly caught from him on New Year’s Eve, since he was deathly ill by mid-­afternoon the next day, too sick to even watch the Rose Bowl.

  Truth be told, she wishes she hadn’t, not just because she’s come down with this horrible cold and can’t take anything for it.

  But his kiss left her wanting more, as always. With the holiday chaos, his parents’ extended visit, and now illness, it’s been a few weeks since they’ve been alone together.

  Nina is torn between indulging her insatiable lust for him at their earliest opportunity . . .

  And suggesting to Joe that they abstain from now on.

  After all, things will be less complicated down the road if they get their relationship back on platonic footing now.

  “You look like you should be home in bed, Neens.”

  “I wish.” Nina watches a pregnant woman across the room hoist a whining toddler onto what’s left of her lap. “After this I have to get over to Ralphie’s school for a conference with Father Luke.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Is everything ever okay when you’re summoned to the principal’s office?” Nina exhales through puffed cheeks, trying not to think about the possibilities.

  Ralphie is basically a good kid, but lately, she’s been distracted by the pregnancy. She isn’t keeping tabs on him as closely as she should. For all she knows, he’s been cutting class and smoking, just as Dom did when he was Ralphie’s age.

  “Maybe Father Luke wants to tell you what a great job Ralphie’s doing.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Nina watches the enormously pregnant mother across the room struggle to bend and retrieve her toddler’s dropped pacifier until the less pregnant woman beside her picks it up with a sympathetic smile.

  As the two women begin chatting about due dates, Nina recognizes the spark of instant bonding. It seems wherever she goes lately, other women strike up a conversation with her. It’s amazing that total strangers are willing to freely share graphic information about their pregnancies and deliveries.

  This is what you wanted, Nina reminds herself. To know what it was like to be pregnant. Now you know.

  “Nina?”

  “Hmm?” She realizes Joe has been talking to her.

  “What did Father Luke say when you talked to him?”

  “Just that he needed to see me or Pop as soon as possible. Trust me—­I don’t think he wants to give us a motivational speech for selling twenty-­twenty fundraiser tickets.”

  “Why don’t you let your father handle it, Nina? That’s what you did when Dom was in trouble senior year.”

  “Yeah, but Pop’s older now, and he’s been sick all week. His cold is worse than mine. In fact, I made Dom get up early this morning and take over at the restaurant so that Pop could come home to bed.”

  “I’ll bet Dom loved that.”

  “Yeah, he was complaining about his hangover. I threw a bottle of aspirin at him and told him to get his butt out of bed. I’m just glad he’s around. If he were away at school I don’t know what we’d do.”

  “How long is his semester break?”

  “Two more weeks, and he’s going to have to spend it help—­” Nina clasps her hand to her nose, launching into a series of violent sneezes.

  “Poor you,” Joe says as she moans and blows her raw nose again. “If I didn’t have to get back to the office, I’d tuck you in and make you homemade chicken soup.”

  “Your mother brought us some last night, before you got home from work. She also insisted on sticking around and folding two loads of laundry for me. It was incredibly sweet of her to do that, Joey.”

  “She loves you, Nina. She wants to help.”

  “I know. I just feel so guilty, letting her think—­”

  A door opens and a nurse calls, “Mrs. Chickalini?”

  Nina stands, conscious of everyone in the waiting room glancing up at her. She wants to tell the nurse that it isn’t Mrs., but somehow, she can’t bring herself to do it.

  With Joe at her side, she follows the nurse back along a hall into a no-­frills examining room.

  “The doctor is going to do the sonogram herself,” the nurse says, after checking Nina’s vitals, weighing her, and giving her a gown to put on. “She’ll be right in.”

  When the nurse leaves, Joe asks Nina if she remembered to eat a chocolate doughnut and drink orange juice before leaving the house, as Barb advised. She read somewhere that sugar will wake up the baby so it’ll be active during the sonogram.

  “Yes, sir,” Nina salutes. “In fact, I ate three doughnuts.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “It wasn’t planned. They were Krispy Kremes and I couldn’t help it. Which might explain why the scale says I’ve gained twenty pounds already.”

  “You’re supposed to gain weight. You’re pregnant.”

  Nina looks down at her stomach. “Do you think it’s all baby? I have a feeling some of it might be plain old flab.”

  He laughs. “Put the gown on, Nina.”

  She steps into the bathroom, blows her sore, stuffy nose, and hurriedly disrobes. Reaching for the gown on the hook where she hung it, she realizes there’s a full-­length mirror on the back of the door. Oh, geez. Whose idea was that?

  Nina has managed to avoid her own reflection for weeks. Now she can’t help but stare at her ballooning figure in utter fascination.

  Her breasts are fuller, lined with fine blue veins, and her nipples are larger and darker. Her rose tattoo—­which she hasn’t glimpsed in a good month—­is contorted by her swollen torso, and the protruding belly button above looks like the air plug on a beach ball. Her stomach is huge and taut; her thighs, also huge, are about as firm as Aunt Carm’s dreaded tomato aspic.

  Nina finds it impossible to imagine her body ever springing back to
the way it was. Maybe it won’t. Maybe she’ll carry extra padding for the rest of her life.

  Feeling glum, she pulls on the blue and white gown and steps out into the examining room, where Joey is leafing through an issue of Parenting magazine.

  “Hey, Nina, look,” he says, holding up an advertisement for Baby Gap. “If it’s a boy we can get him a pair of little jeans like this.”

  The giddy anticipation in his eyes obliterates Nina’s concerns about her lost figure. That she can do this for Joe is worth any price. That she can make him this happy . . .

  Well, what’s a little permanent flab in the grand scheme of things?

  “Girls can wear jeans, too, Joey,” she points out, hopping onto the table, her bare legs dangling.

  “Yeah, I know, but if it’s a girl, I’d want her to be in little pink dresses.”

  “All the time?”

  “Most of the time,” he concedes. “That way, if she’s bald, ­people will know she’s a girl.”

  “You can always put a big sign on her. You know, a stick figure in a skirt, like on a restroom door.”

  “Yeah, or I can tape a bow to her head or something. I’d have to stock up on ribbons.”

  “Just so you know, Joey—­” she pauses to sneeze—­“I haven’t changed my mind about finding out the baby’s sex.” She sneezes again. And again.

  “God bless you. And I figured you wouldn’t change your mind, Neens. But how about if the doctor just whispers the sex in my ear?”

  “You’d never be able to keep it a secret from me. I’d see it in your eyes. Or I’d see you buying dozens of little Yankee caps.”

  “I’m doing that anyway. Any kid of mine is going to wear a Yankee cap, regardless of sex.”

  “For what it’s worth, I already told you that my intuition says it’s a boy.”

  “Your intuition also said that the Giants were going to get into the Super Bowl this year and they already blew the playoffs, Nina.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, you’ll just have to trust me on this one, Joey, because I really don’t want to know the baby’s sex. I want it to be a surprise. You have to give me that. I want the whole delivery room experience, right down to the moment where the doctor announces, ‘it’s a boy.’ ”

  “Or ‘it’s a girl.’ ”

  “It’s not a girl.”

  “But you don’t know that.”

  “I do. I get feelings about things, and I have to trust my instinct.”

  She’s as certain the baby is a boy as she is that . . . that . . .

  That she isn’t cut out to be its mother.

  That if she stayed—­not that she’s considering it, but if she did—­she would always long for what might have been. For where life might have taken her; for the adventures that might have been in store for her.

  She could never remain in Astoria without feeling as though she were being slowly smothered in a quagmire of predictability.

  After awhile, she would probably resent the baby, even if she never admitted it to anyone but herself. But the baby might sense that.

  And what would happen when Joe finds a wife?

  Because he will find a wife. He’s never even gone this long without a girlfriend. Sooner or later his dream woman is going to sashay into his life and fall in love with the single dad and his adorable baby.

  Then the baby would have two mothers—­if Nina stayed. And how could she leave at that point?

  How can you leave at all? Ever? When is a good time to go?

  Before the baby is born, she thinks ruefully. That would be a good time.

  That way, she won’t have a chance to develop any attachment to it. Because she knows that the second she holds that perfect little person in her arms, and smells that pristine baby smell, she’s going to feel something.

  Oh, hell. She feels something now.

  This is so much more complicated than she ever imagined.

  What did she expect? Did she think she would just carry this fetus for Joey as if it were a . . . a piece of luggage that she’s hauling around for nine months? Did she think that when the time comes, she can just put it down and drift on her merry way?

  She looks up at Joe. He’s reading something utterly fascinating in Parenting magazine, unaware of her gaze.

  If only he and I were in love with each other, Nina thinks sadly.

  That would change everything . . . wouldn’t it?

  If they were in love, she would stay because . . .

  Well, because she would want to stay.

  Because staying would feel right, and leaving would feel wrong.

  She tries to imagine what it would be like to forget her plan. To spend Independence Day here in Astoria, as she has every year of her life.

  She would work at the restaurant at some point, preferably early in the day. It would be hot and unbearably humid, most likely, with the sun shimmering in waves off the concrete.

  Nina would probably set up her brother Pete’s old hibachi by the back door and grill some Italian sausage to go with cold salads from the deli around the corner. Somebody might open the hydrant on the street if it got sweltering enough. Then the adults would gather on stoops with cold sodas and beers and radios broadcasting the Yankees or the Mets while the kids splashed around until the cops put an end to the hydrant fun.

  At dusk, the neighbors would make their way to rooftops or over to the river to watch the elaborate fireworks display light up the Manhattan skyline. Everywhere, kids would be twirling sparklers illegally purchased down in Little Italy, and mothers would caution them that somebody is going to lose an eye, and rowdy teenagers would shoot off bottle rockets until the cops showed up again and chased them off.

  It’s the same thing, year in, year out.

  Nobody else seems to mind. In fact, some—­like Pop, and Joey—­seem to thrive on routine. They actually like knowing where they’ll be, and what they’ll be doing. They like being surrounded by familiar faces and places.

  There’s a sharp knock on the door, and then Dr. Sanjna walks in, wearing her white coat and a smile.

  “Hello, Mom,” she says cheerfully. “Hi there, Dad. Are you ready to meet your little one?”

  “We can’t wait.” Joe tosses aside the magazine, rising to stand beside the examining table.

  Nina smiles, hoping she looks equally enthusiastic.

  But this whole Mom thing is throwing her. The nurse called her Mom, too, when she was taking her vitals. What is it with these ­people? How would Dr. Sanjna like it if Nina called her Granny?

  Joe hovers anxiously as the doctor examines Nina, making notes on her clipboard.

  “Your blood pressure is a little higher today than it has been at your last few visits,” she tells Nina.

  Uh-­oh. Nina has read enough about eclampsia to know the warning signs.

  “Is that dangerous?” Joe asks.

  “We’re monitoring it very carefully.”

  She asks Nina several questions and seems reassured by her replies, but Nina feels as though a pall has been cast over the room.

  “I’m going to give you a home blood pressure monitor before you leave here, Nina,” the doctor says. “You need to check it daily and let me know if it rises.”

  A cold knot of fear has formed in Nina’s stomach.

  “You should also cut back on stress, since that affects blood pressure.”

  The doctor puts her Doppler instrument against Nina’s stomach, pressing the cold metal here and there.

  “Is everything okay?” Nina can’t shake a vague sense of foreboding.

  Calm down, she urges herself.

  She turns her head and looks up at Joey. He smiles reassuringly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

  “Dr. Sanjna?” Nina asks when the doctor doesn’t reply.

  “Hmm? I’m sorry, Nina, I?
??m just looking for the heartbeat . . .”

  Oh, God. A wave of sickening fear washes over Nina. The doctor probes her belly, intently focused. Nina glances up at Joe again. He squeezes her hand, but she isn’t reassured by his worried expression.

  Then suddenly, the baby’s rapid little heartbeat fills the room.

  “Oh, thank God.” Nina exhales, dizzy with relief. “Thank God.”

  “The baby’s okay in there?” Joe asks the doctor, his voice cracking.

  “The baby sounds just fine, Dad.”

  They listen in awe to the heartbeat for a few moments.

  Then Dr. Sanjna swivels on her stool to put away the instrument. “Okay, time to meet that baby. You’ll see the images here.” She taps a monitor beside the table, then reaches for a tube of gel. “I’m going to squirt some of this on your belly . . .”

  Nina shrieks as the icy goo makes contact with her bare skin.

  “Oh, I’m sorry . . . I forgot to tell you it might feel cold.”

  “It’s okay,” she says through clenched teeth.

  “Do we want to know whether it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “No!”

  Joe is silent.

  “Okay, then. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell anyway. And sometimes, depending on how it’s lying and whether the legs are wide open, well, it can be hard to ignore a little boy.”

  The doctor speaks in a calm, reassuring voice as she begins to run a scope over Nina’s belly.

  “There it is!”

  “Where?” Nina gazes at the screen, seeing only a blurry bluish white blob. “I don’t see it.”

  “I don’t either,” Joe says.

  “Okay, I’ll show you.” The doctor keeps one hand on Nina’s belly, and turns to point at the monitor with the other. “See? It’s right there. That’s the baby’s head, and the spine . . .”

  “I see it!” Joe blurts.

  “I don’t,” Nina wails. “I don’t see any—­”

  She feels a flutter of movement inside of her, and the image on the screen shifts abruptly.

  “He’s moving!” the doctor exclaims. “There . . . See?”

  “Oh my God.” Nina’s breath catches in her throat. The baby. She can see the baby. Its face. Its legs. Its . . .