“A raw egg, gelatin, herbs . . .”
“Tannis root?”
“Some of that, some of some other things.”
Minnie brought the drink every day in the same glass, a large one with blue and green stripes, and stood waiting while Rosemary drained it.
One day Rosemary got into a conversation by the elevator with Phyllis Kapp, young Lisa’s mother. The end of it was a brunch invitation for Guy and her on the following Sunday, but Guy vetoed the idea when Rosemary told him of it. In all likelihood he would be in Sunday’s shooting, he explained, and if he weren’t he would need the day for rest and study. They were having little social life just then. Guy had broken a dinner-and-theater date they had made a few weeks earlier with Jimmy and Tiger Haenigsen, and he had asked Rosemary if she would mind putting off Hutch for dinner. It was because of the pilot, which was taking longer to shoot than had been intended.
It turned out to be just as well though, for Rosemary began to develop abdominal pains of an alarming sharpness. She called Dr. Sapirstein and he asked her to come in. Examining her, he said that there was nothing to worry about; the pains came from an entirely normal expansion of her pelvis. They would disappear in a day or two, and meanwhile she could fight them with ordinary doses of aspirin.
Rosemary, relieved, said, “I was afraid it might be an ectopic pregnancy.”
“Ectopic?” Dr. Sapirstein asked, and looked skeptically at her. She colored. He said, “I thought you weren’t going to read books, Rosemary.”
“It was staring me right in the face at the drug store,” she said.
“And all it did was worry you. Will you go home and throw it away, please?”
“I will. I promise.”
“The pains will be gone in two days,” he said. “ ‘Ectopic pregnancy.”’ He shook his head.
But the pains weren’t gone in two days; they were worse, and grew worse still, as if something inside her were encircled by a wire being drawn tighter and tighter to cut it in two. There would be pain for hour after hour, and then a few minutes of relative painlessness that was only the pain gathering itself for a new assault. Aspirin did little good, and she was afraid of taking too many. Sleep, when it finally came, brought harried dreams in which she fought against huge spiders that had cornered her in the bathroom, or tugged desperately at a small black bush that had taken root in the middle of the living room rug. She woke tired, to even sharper pain.
“This happens sometimes,” Dr. Sapirstein said. “It’ll stop any day now. Are you sure you haven’t been lying about your age? Usually it’s the older women with less flexible joints who have this sort of difficulty.”
Minnie, bringing in the drink, said, “You poor thing. Don’t fret, dear; a niece of mine in Toledo had exactly the same kind of pains and so did two other women I know o£ And their deliveries were real easy and they had beautiful healthy babies.”
“Thanks,” Rosemary said.
Minnie drew back righteously. “What do you mean? That’s the gospel truth! I swear to God it is, Rosemary!”
Her face grew pinched and wan and shadowed; she looked awful. But Guy insisted otherwise. “What are you talking about?” he said. “You look great. It’s that haircut that looks awful, if you want the truth, honey. That’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your whole life.”
The pain settled down to a constant presence, with no respite whatever. She endured it and lived with it, sleeping a few hours a night and taking one aspirin where Dr. Sapirstein allowed two. There was no going out with Joan or Elise, no sculpture class or shopping. She ordered groceries by phone and stayed in the apartment, making nursery curtains and starting, finally, on The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire. Sometimes Minnie or Roman came in of an afternoon, to talk a while and see if there was anything she wanted. Once Laura-Louise brought down a tray of gingerbread. She hadn’t been told yet that Rosemary was pregnant. “Oh my, I do like that haircut, Rosemary,” she said. “You look so pretty and up-to-date.” She was surprised to hear she wasn’t feeling well.
When the pilot was finally finished Guy stayed home most of the time. He had stopped studying with Dominick, his vocal coach, and no longer spent afternoons auditioning and being seen. He had two good commercials on deck -for Pall Mall and Texaco-and rehearsals of Don’t I Know You From Somewhere? were definitely scheduled to begin in mid-January. He gave Rosemary a hand with the cleaning, and they played time-limit Scrabble for a dollar a game. He answered the phone and, when it was for Rosemary, made plausible excuses.
She had planned to give a Thanksgiving dinner for some of their friends who, like themselves, had no family nearby; with the constant pain, though, and the constant worry over Andrew-or-Melinda’s well-being, she decided not to, and they ended up going to Minnie and Roman’s instead.
Two
One afternoon in December, while Guy was doing the Pall Mall commercial, Hutch called. “I’m around the corner at City Center picking up tickets for Marcel Marceau,” he said. “Would you and Guy like to come on Friday night?”
“I don’t think so, Hutch,” Rosemary said. “I haven’t been feeling too well lately. And Guy’s got two commercials this week.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing, really. I’ve just been a bit under the weather.”
“May I come up for a few minutes?”
“Oh do; I’d love to see you.”
She hurried into slacks and a jersey top, put on lipstick and brushed her hair. The pain sharpened-locking her for a moment with shut eyes and clenched teeth-and then it sank back to its usual level and she breathed out gratefully and went on brushing.
Hutch, when he saw her, stared and said, “My God.”
“It’s Vidal Sassoon and it’s very in,” she said.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said. “I don’t mean your hair.”
“Do I look that bad?” She took his coat and hat and hung them away, smiling a fixed bright smile.
“You look terrible,” Hutch said. “You’ve lost God-knows-how-many pounds and you have circles around your eyes that a panda would envy. You aren’t on one of those ‘Zen diets,’ are you?”
“No.”
“Then what is it? Have you seen a doctor?”
“I suppose I might as well tell you,” Rosemary said. “I’m pregnant. I’m in my third month.”
Hutch looked at her, nonplussed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Pregnant women gain weight, they don’t lose it. And they look healthy, not-“
“There’s a slight complication,” Rosemary said, leading the way into the living room. “I have stiff joints or something, so I have pains that keep me awake most of the night. Well, one pain, really; it just sort of continues. It’s not serious, though. It’ll probably stop any day now.”
“I never heard of ‘stiff joints’ being a problem,” Hutch said.
“Stiff pelvic joints. It’s fairly common.”
Hutch sat in Guy’s easy chair. “Well, congratulations,” he said doubtfully. “You must be very happy.”
“I am,” Rosemary said. “We both are.”
“Who’s your obstetrician?”
“His name is Abraham Sapirstein. He’s-“
“I know him,” Hutch said. “Or of him. He delivered two of Doris’s babies.” Doris was Hutch’s elder daughter.
“He’s one of the best in the city,” Rosemary said.
“When did you see him last?”
“The day before yesterday. And he said just what I told you; it’s fairly common and it’ll probably stop any day now. Of course he’s been saying that since it started . . .”
“How much weight have you lost?”
“Only three pounds. It looks-“
“Nonsense! You’ve lost far more than that!”
Rosemary smiled. “You sound like our bathroom scale,” she said. “Guy finally threw it out, it was scaring me so. No, I’ve lost only three pounds and one little space more. And it’s perfectly normal to lose a little during the first few months. Later on I’ll be gaining.”