The tears came faster, sliding in one motion down her cheeks and fal ing with a plop on her paper. Final y she raised her hand and didn’t wait for her teacher to say anything before getting up and going to the bathroom, where she locked herself in a stal and cried until her friend Lizbeth was sent to check on her.
She told the whole class that she’d had an al ergic reaction to the kind of cereal she’d eaten for breakfast that morning. It was a reaction, she said, that gave her a sudden pain so bad that she cried. When Tina Bloom suggested that Lauren’s story was a lie, because her dad was an al ergist and she’d never heard of such a thing, Lauren told her she was stupid and, above al , mean for not having more sympathy, and none of the girls in the class talked to Tina for a week.
On their tenth date, Mark told Lauren he never wanted to live with someone else.
“Never?” Lauren asked.
“Never,” he said. He didn’t sound sorry about it. Lauren wasn’t sure that she ever wanted to live with anyone else either, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you said aloud. It was something that you kept to yourself, knowing that if you ever found yourself seriously dating someone or getting married, that you would just do it. Because that’s what people did.
“So, what’s your plan?” Lauren asked.
“My plan for what?”
“I mean, let’s say you meet someone one day and get married. Separate residences?”
“Maybe,” Mark said. “One uptown and one downtown? Or maybe just two separate apartments that join together somehow?” He was lost in thought and Lauren was horrified for him. It was like on their fifth date, when he’d tied a windbreaker around his waist and had no idea that he should be embarrassed as they walked around the Central Park Zoo.
“Maybe you’l change your mind someday,” Lauren said final y. She wanted him to stop thinking about it.
“Maybe,” Mark said. “But I doubt it. I don’t like other people touching my stuff.”
Lauren met the Kansas City couple on their closing day. The wife was wearing a plaid dress and a headband. “Congratulations!” Lauren said.
“You’re going to love New York.”
The couple walked around the empty apartment and Lauren recommended a cleaning service they could use if they wanted to get it scrubbed down before they moved their furniture in. She found the wife standing in front of the new wal that had been put up to make the second bedroom.
“Is everything okay?” Lauren asked.
The wife smiled at her. “I just never pictured myself here, you know?”
“Yes,” Lauren said. “I know how that goes.”
On their fourteenth date, Lauren brought Mark over to Mary’s apartment for dinner. Mary and Isabel a had been hounding her. “It’s real y weird that we haven’t met him yet,” they’d kept tel ing her. “Fine,” she’d said. “Fine, we’l come to dinner.”
Henry took an immediate liking to Mark. Henry always chose the person who paid him the least attention and then spent the night trying to win him over. This worried Mary. She was sure he was going to end up in some sort of abusive relationship. “It’s just so odd,” she always said. “It’s like he can sense who doesn’t like children and then he won’t leave them alone.”
This night was no different. Henry sat on the floor at Mark’s shoes and played with his shoelaces. Every once in a while, he patted Mark’s leg affectionately. Mary gave Lauren a look like she was sorry, and Isabel a laughed and tried to distract Henry. “No!” Henry yel ed at Isabel a. “Go away.” He grabbed tight fistfuls of Mark’s pants and held on to them for dear life.
“So, he hates babies,” Lauren thought. She had kind of suspected it, but now Henry confirmed it. She watched Henry climb onto Mark’s lap and rest his head on his chest. “Mark,” he said in a perfectly clear voice. He’d never been able to say Lauren’s name right. He cal ed her “Peg” for reasons that no one could figure out.
“I think the little guy might need a diaper change,” Mark said at one point. When Mary came to take Henry away, he screamed like she was a stranger ripping him out of the arms of his parents.
“I’m real y sorry about this,” Mary said to Mark.
“Not a problem.” Mark brushed the legs of his pants where Henry had been sitting.
“I just don’t know what has gotten into him,” Mary said as Henry kicked and cried. She locked eyes with Lauren. Your boyfriend hates babies, her face seemed to say. “So what?” Lauren thought. She wasn’t so fond of them herself. But she didn’t actual y hate them. You weren’t supposed to hate them, were you? Even if you didn’t know if you wanted them, you were supposed to like them a little bit. Lauren had never thought she would date a baby lover, but she’d certainly never thought she would date a baby hater. She searched Mark’s face for a sign that he was baby neutral, but she couldn’t decipher anything.
The day that Lauren’s sister had her baby, Lauren drove to Boston to see it in the hospital. She hadn’t been planning on it, but as the due date neared it was clear that it was expected of her. She was tired and a little hungover as she entered the hospital room. Her mom and Betsy’s mother-in-law were hovering over the bed, holding the baby like they were going to steal it. When Lauren walked in, they excused themselves to get some coffee.
Before Lauren could even say, “The baby is cute,” Betsy started talking.
“I ripped,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Lauren said.
“I ripped during the birth. The doctor I had doesn’t like to do episiotomies anymore, and he didn’t do one.”
“Epeeze-whats?”
Her sister sighed. “Episiotomies. You know, where they cut the vagina to make it easier to give birth.”
“No,” Lauren said. “I did not know.” She sat down, suddenly feeling light-headed.
“Wel , the birth took forever and the numbness started to wear off down there and I could feel the tearing, and I said, ‘We should do something,’
but no one would listen.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Lauren said. She wondered if her sister was stil drugged up. She must be, Lauren thought, otherwise she would never be discussing such things. Her sister was so embarrassed of everything that once, when they were teenagers, and Lauren asked her if she could borrow a tampon, Betsy turned bright red and cal ed Lauren a pervert.
“They had to stitch me up, which I felt al of,” her sister went on. “I bet it’s a mess down there. I can’t even imagine. And now we have to be careful of infection.”
Lauren looked at her niece, who was red and sort of busted-looking. Her head was pointy and she looked like she had some pretty bad acne.
“It wil go back to its normal shape,” her sister said.
“Excuse me?”
“Her head. It’s just in a cone because it took her so long to make it out of the vaginal passage.”
“Right,” Lauren said.
“Listen, Lauren, can you do something for me?”
“What?”
“Can you take a look down there and tel me what it looks like? I’m imagining Freddy Krueger’s face right now, and it would real y help if you could tel me that it’s not that bad.”
“You want me to look at your stitched-up vagina and describe it to you?”
“Don’t make it sound gross,” her sister said. “Come on.”
Lauren pressed her lips together. She and Betsy had shared a room for fifteen years, and every single night, Betsy had turned to the wal when she changed into her pajamas. Lauren used to wonder if Betsy would ever let a boy see her naked. She’d honestly been surprised when Betsy had announced that she was pregnant.