“Okay, sis, I’ll see you on Tuesday,” said Nan. “Now you have Spaceman kiss your belly for me, okay? You make sure to tell him to do that.”
“I love you, Nan.”
“Right back at ya, Jilly-o.”
Jillian hung up the phone happy. She threw herself down on the living room couch, smiling broadly at the thought of her sister’s forthcoming visit…, then her eyes settled on the radio. She looked at it for a moment, then reached out and touched it. Then she turned it on. This time hot, brassy salsa music poured out of the speaker, music with a pounding bass line and heavy beat.
Jillian smiled. “It’s just music,” she said. And then, not quite knowing that she was actually doing it, she jumped to her feet and started to improvise a mambo. She put her hands on her bulging belly and held it tight, as if dancing with her two unborns. She danced and dipped and spun until she turned and saw Spencer standing in the doorway.
Jillian yelped and stopped dancing. “Spencer! How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see you do the mambo,’Spencer replied. “I learn something new about you every day.”
“Would you like to see some more?” she asked, starting to sway to the music again.
“You bet.”
Jillian danced over to where he stood, put her arms around him and rubbed up against him like a cat.
“Are you ready to serve me, slave?” It had become a joke between them since that night he bathed her. She pushed him toward the bedroom, a lascivious look on her face.
“As my mistress desires,” Spencer intoned.
“Oh, I have desires,” she said. She took his right hand and put it on her swollen belly. “Can you handle all three of us?”
“As my mistress desires.”
She leaned into his face and kissed him hard, then pulled back. “You love me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You love this big belly of mine?”
“Yes,” said Spencer again.
“That’s good,” Jillian said emphatically, “because I love the big belly, too.” There were no windows in the high-tech ultrasound imaging room that Jillian and Spencer Went to the next day. The only light came from the monitor. A technician moved an ultrasound wand across her belly, bare except for the conducting gel that had been slathered on her skin once again.
The increased power of this machine was obvious, the pictures from inside of Jillian’s womb were clear and distinct. It took the technician only seconds to find the fetuses.
“There they are;” he said. “Right where they are supposed to be. Nice and cooperative.’
Spencer and Jillian looked at the dark, shadowy images from within Jillian’s body, and fuzzy though they may have been, the two bodies were obvious and alive. They were floating in the amniotic fluid, peacefully waiting their time to emerge.
Jillian had never been so excited. “Oh God, Spencer, there they are.’ The fetuses seemed to hear her and they wriggled and kicked slightly as if they recognized her voice. “Oh, I feel them moving… Oh look, Spencer. Look.’
The technician pressed a button on the machine and an instant black and white picture of the twins emerged from a slot, as if from some kind of photomachine one might find at a carnival.
“How’s that for a photo op?” the technician asked with a wide grin. “Not bad, huh?’ Jillian showed the picture to her support group the next day. Of course all the other women oohed and ahhed over it, but it was mostly for Jillian’s benefit rather than from any genuine admiration. Most of them had similar pictures in albums or stuck to their refrigerators at home and they had all realized that an ultrasound picture is beautiful only to the parents-to-be. But there was no harm in playing along. They had all done it for others and had had it done to them.
But as Jillian played the beaming proud mother, a young woman approached her. She wasn’t a member of the group but a nanny who worked for the woman who was hosting the meeting this week.
“Mrs. Armacost?”
Jillian looked up. “Yes?”
“I just got a message from your husband,” the girl said. “He said that he wants you to meet him on the main concourse at Grand Central Station.”
“Grand Central Station?” said Jillian, puzzled. “When?” Of course the more likely question was why.
“He said right now. As soon as possible.”
“Did he say why?” Jillian asked.
The young woman shook her head. “No. That’s all he said. For you to meet him there as soon as possible.” Of course the traffic on Park Avenue was terrible and everyone and his brother in New York seemed to be looking for a taxi and Jillian had not been living in the city long enough to have begun to have mastered the labyrinth that was the New. York City subway system. So she was flustered and frustrated when she pushed her way through the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance of Grand Central Station, stumbling down the stairs to the wide expanse of the Grand Concourse.
The vast room was thronged with rushing commuters and travelers sitting on their suitcases waiting for their trains to be called. Hundreds of feet above the travertine floor was the ceiling, which was painted a deep blue and speckled with golden stars and the figures of the constellations. But the bustling commuters didn’t notice it and neither did Jillian. She was too preoccupied looking for her husband.
Near the circular, ornate information booth set in the middle of the concourse, Jillian stopped and scanned the crowd. Next to her a woman played the cello her instrument case open and littered with currency—everything from quarters to dollar bills. She was working her way through the beautiful suite #1 in G minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. At another time Jillian would have taken pleasure in the music, but she was too busy scanning the crowd for a glimpse of her husband.
Then, suddenly, she felt him, sensed him standing directly behind her.
“I know you’re there,” Jillian said. She did not turn around to face him.
Spencer smiled. “Now tell me, how do you know that?”
“I can feel you,” she said.
“Because we’re connected?” As he spoke he reached around her body and took her hands in his. She pulled his hands to her body’ cradling her belly.
“Connected,” Jillian said, she looked for the words to explain it. “It’s like…”
“Like what?”
“Like when even we’re apart, we’re together It’s silly, I know, but I—”
Spencer whispered in her ear. “No, it’s not silly. I feel it too, Jill. Sometimes I think I know what you’re thinking. Sometimes when I’m at work I close my eyes and I feel as if I can almost see what you are seeing. Feel what you’re feeling.”
Spencer looked at the ceiling of the station. Jillian looked up, too, the two of them looking at the figures of the constellations painted on that field of gorgeous cerulean blue.
“Can you see what I’m seeing?” Spencer asked.
Julian nodded. “Yes,” she said. “The twins.”
“Castor and Pollux,” said Spencer.
Up there on the ceiling were beautiful renderings of Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Zeus known as the Dioscuri. The two young men had been brave warriors and great horsemen. To honor their courage and purity Zeus created the constellation Gemini.
“How do you feel?" Spencer asked his wife.
“Like there’s a part of you always inside me,” she answered. “It’s nice. I always know where are.”
“Inside you,” Spencer whispered.
“Yes, that’s right.”
The music the cellist was playing changed. She had finished the Bach suite and swung into something a little faster. A big smile on her face, she started to play “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” Jillian turned around and embraced her husband.
“Happy anniversary, Jillian,” Spencer said. He kissed her warmly and held he close.