“No, definitely not,” came the response. “You want it to be a little loose in the belly. You’ve got three more months.”
The woman clucked her tongue. “Yeah, I just can’t imagine that I’m going to get any bigger than this. But I guess I will.”
“You will,” said the salesgirl, in a firm, low voice. She was young and pretty, her dark hair pulled back into a thick ponytail, and slender in the way all New York shopgirls were slender. Sadie somehow couldn’t imagine that she’d experienced pregnancy firsthand. “Hello,” she called out to Sadie, as if sensing her skepticism. “All that stuff’s on sale. It’s all samples. There are some amazing deals.”
“Right,” she said, a self-consciousness creeping up on her. Were they—customer and clerk—wondering what she was doing here, with her near-flat (though not as flat as it had been) stomach? She held up a dress of blue silk charmeuse, a knot of fabric between the breasts from which folds of fabric fell in a sort of ripple. If it weren’t a maternity dress, she would definitely consider it for her cousin Jenny’s wedding in May. But then—Of course, she thought, for the second time that day—by the time that wedding came around she might need a maternity dress. And what about her own wedding? Would she and Ed marry—if she went through with this, the baby? And before or after the baby? Surely, that would be the first question out of her mother’s mouth. Somehow, getting married seemed more terrifying than having a baby. The monstrous planning involved. Her mother’s checklists.
Across the room, the blonde had changed into a black version of the dress in Sadie’s hands. “That looks great,” said the clerk, tugging at the hem. It did, in fact, with her pale hair and freckly skin.
“You think?” the woman asked, glancing at Sadie. “It’s so hard for me to tell. I feel huge. My face is all puffy.” She patted her thin cheeks and twisted her torso to see the back of the dress.
“It looks great,” Sadie confirmed.
“Thanks.” The woman pulled up the sides of the skirt and watched them float back down. “It’s so hard to tell. It’s like it’s not my body.” Reluctantly, she took her eyes from her own reflection and faced Sadie. “How far along are you? Three months, right?”
“Yes,” said Sadie, thinking, Close enough.
“I was totally like you,” the woman said. “I was looking at maternity clothes when I was, like, a day pregnant.” Sadie found herself nodding. She did know, didn’t she, in some weird way? Yes. “I guess it’s like that for a lot of people. Especially when you’ve been trying for a while, like we were.”
“Yeh,” Sadie agreed.
“Well, before you know it you’ll look like this,” the woman offered, running her hands over her silk-covered stomach. “And, p.s., all that clothing I bought at first? It’s all too small on me now. It’s like, you have to buy new stuff every six weeks.”
“You do,” confirmed the salesgirl.
“Wow,” said Sadie. She was strangely reluctant to end this conversation. Tell me more, she wanted to ask the woman. Who’s your doctor? What’s a nuchal? Did you feel this sick and tired at first? Did you feel like nothing else in the world mattered? Like you could leave your job—your job that you loved—and never come back again? Like you could think of nothing else but this person inside you? Were you afraid that this person would eclipse you, would occlude your very being, that your life would become the baby and nothing else, and that—and this is the most important thing—you wouldn’t mind?
“Good luck,” the woman chirped, padding back into the dressing room.
“You, too,” said Sadie.
Outside, the sky had turned a deeper black. Sadie pulled her coat around her and glanced at her watch. Five thirty. She should start heading up to Bleecker. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to go home and get into her warm bed, never mind that getting there involved the horrible, hot train, with its sickening lurch, never mind the various thoughts and worries that would crowd her head the minute she stepped over the threshold. Sighing, she pulled her gloves back on. She could call Lil back and say she was too tired. No, no, she would go. It would be fun. She had seen no one, really, in months. It would be good.
She turned back up Mott. At Cafe Gitane, she bought a paper cup of coffee, decaf, and sipped it carefully as she crossed Houston. In the near distance, where Mott came to a dead end, intersecting with Bleecker—the street on which Von lay to the east—she saw figures carrying signs and shouting; among them wandered large persons in fluorescent vests. A protest or strike. With orange-vested cops to keep the peace. There were demonstrations all over lately, as the economy slowed and slowed. So as not to get caught up in the proceedings—her body, now that it was a vessel, struck her as frail—she crossed to the other side of the street. But as she approached Bleecker she saw that the signs were emblazoned with images rather than words, fuzzy red-tinted photographs of large-headed alien-type creatures. “Oh my God,” she said aloud, stopping cold. “No.” And then she started to laugh. The creatures were not, of course, aliens. They were babies. Or, no, fetuses. The protesters were shouting, over and over, “Murderer,” rendering the word nonsensical. This was an antiabortion rally. Antichoice, she corrected herself. In New York? she thought. In the village? Bleecker, at its eastern end, was a posh block lined with quiet, elegant restaurants. As she rounded the corner, she found her answer: Planned Parenthood, the words imprinted in discreet teal script, several feet above the building’s glass doors. Somehow—how?—she’d never noticed.
A whoop went up from the crowd and she saw a flash of orange pass through the door and barrel its way through the crowd. Escorts, Sadie realized, not cops. Escorts for the women who need to go inside. “Murderer!” a lone female voice screamed. “You’re an evil murderer!” Sadie started. This was too much. The escort, she saw, was emerging from the crowd, a thin, black-haired girl held tight in her large arms. “That’s enough,” the escort shouted. “Enough already.” She hailed a cab and put the girl quickly inside it. Sadie watched as the cab sped away, east, toward the river, the girl’s face—pale, round, sleepy, above a puffy black jacket—staring out the back window.
Oh God, thought Sadie. This is crazy. Lil, she knew, would say that “fate” had brought her here for a reason. But what reason. To frighten her? Or the opposite? In a movie, a novel, the meaning would be clear. Wind crept icily down the collar of her coat and she tucked her scarf deeper inside, against the heat of her neck, then turned her head up to the sky, which was starless, a faint slice of a moon glinting faintly in the distance, so slim she nearly missed it. Even the moon has deserted me, she thought, smiling at herself. God, Sadie, no one has deserted you. Stop it.
A moment later, she reached the bar—the voices of the protesters still all too audible—only to find the doors locked. She waved at the bartender, who stood behind the counter, wiping glasses. He waved back and held up six fingers, shouting, “We open at six!” She looked at her watch. Twenty till. “Okay,” mouthed Sadie, flummoxed. She couldn’t stand out here in the cold for twenty minutes, listening to the pro-life fanatics chant their stupid lies—though, in a strange way, she wasn’t sure now that they were actually lies—nor could she walk past them again, out to the shops on Broadway. Okay, she thought, fine, and turned abruptly east, away from the protesters, toward the Bowery, nearly colliding with Tal, who, for a brief moment, looked nearly as surprised as she, his face open and kind, the face she remembered from freshman orientation, when she’d sat next to him at a rap session. But then his features hardened into—there was no denying it—something akin to hatred, revulsion, disgust. He wanted, she could see, to walk right past her, to pretend she didn’t exist, to make her understand that for him, she didn’t exist. And she wanted—it was an almost animal urge—to take him into her arms and make him love her again. How could she go on with Tal—Tal—hating her? She could not.