Be My Baby Tonight (33 page)

“Nope.”

“Tim—”

“
Lucky’s
keeping that appointment. I’m
just the traitorous bastard who’s taking him on his last ride as a
man.”

“Oh, okay,” Suzanna said, smiling. “That’s
what I meant.”

“I know you did. But it still makes me
cringe. And what about Margo?”

“She goes next week, too. I probably should
just change vets, go to yours.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asked as he held open the
door for her and they stepped into the hallway.

“Why change vets? And, if someone does, why
shouldn’t it be me? You don’t always have to do what I do,
Suze.”

She pushed the DOWN button on the wall. “Tim,
believe it or not, and I know this is hard, considering how moody
I’ve been, but it just would be easier to go to your vet. Mine’s
way across town.”

“Oh,” he said, stepping into the elevator
behind her. “But do I get good marks for being cooperative?”

She reached up and kissed his cheek.
“Definitely. Now, let’s find me one of those machines with the
frogs. I’m also feeling lucky.”

* * *

Tim looked at the plate Suzanna put on the
table before the attentive waiter helped her into her seat once
more. She’d been a good girl at the salad bar, until she’d hit the
cheese section, and the dressings. A couple of calories for the
greens, definitely a few more for the black olives and the shredded
cheese, and then a mountain of them for the bleu cheese
dressing.

“What?” she asked, looking at her plate.
“What’s wrong now?”

“Nothing. Not a darn thing. Hey, did I ever
tell you the story about Joey and red meat?”

She lifted a forkful of salad, then let it
hang there as she said, “No. And maybe I don’t want to hear it. I
like Joe. I think he’s sweet, and definitely smarter than you all
give him credit for being.”

Tim rested his elbows on the table. “Five
bucks says you won’t think so after I tell you the red meat story.
You on? Your luck’s been running pretty good all day.”

She took a bite of salad, then motioned with
her fork for him to tell her the story.

“Okay, here we go,” Tim said, trying not to
laugh. Every time he thought of this story, he laughed. “We’re out
to dinner. For Keely’s birthday, I think, not that it matters.
We’ve all ordered steaks, New York strips. You with me so far?”

“Hanging, breathless, on your every word,”
Suzanna said, rolling her eyes.

“Good. So we’re eating, and we’re talking,
and we’re eating, and then Joey says, ‘That’s it for me, this meat
is too red.’“

“Too
rare.”
Suzanna said, correcting
him.

“You wish. But that’s what we thought he
meant, too. He’d eaten most of it, leaving the center. That’s when
he said it was too red. Too rare, that’s what we all thought. He
then explained to us that he
likes
it red, but he’s learning
how to eat it
not
so red. Do you want to know why,
Suze?”

“You’re dying to tell me. Go ahead.”

Tim grinned. “He said, and I swear we didn’t
laugh at him at the table—although Keely had to quick excuse
herself to go to the rest room—he said, in all seriousness, ‘The
doctor says I shouldn’t eat so much red meat.’“

Suzanna just stared at him.

He sat back in his chair, folded his arms
across his chest. “That’s okay, I’ll wait. This is one of those
slow-building things.”

“He... He was eating steak.”

“Uh-huh. Keep going.”

“But steak is red meat.”

“To you and me and the rest of the world,
sure. But not if it’s well done, according to Joey. I think his
doctor should have realized that with Joey, sometimes it’s better
to explain using words of no more than two syllables.”

Suzanna raised her napkin to her mouth and
looked at Tim, her eyes sparkling. She coughed politely, lowered
the napkin, and said, “That’s funny. I mean, that’s really—”

And then she laughed. And Tim laughed.

All through dinner, Suzanna would smile,
exchange glances with him.

She giggled a time or two as she sat next to
him at the roulette table, saying, “You know, the longer you think
about that, the funnier it gets.”

On the way back up the elevator to their
suite, she suddenly said, “The doctor says I shouldn’t eat so much
red meat,” and giggled again. “How can I ever look at Joe again?
I’ll just burst out laughing.”

“I’ve got a million more Joey stories, but
they’ll keep. I can just drag out one every time you need a good
laugh.”

“Is that so often?” she asked as he slipped
the key card into the door of their suite.

“No, babe, it’s not. Hey, this is our
honeymoon. Should I carry you over the threshold? Maybe I should
have done it earlier.”

“Yeah, about six months earlier,” Suzanna
said, giving him a quick punch in the arm. “Sam would kill me if
you threw out your back two months before spring training.”

“Now, there’s a dare if I ever heard one,” he
said, and he quickly swooped down, grabbed her under her knees and
around her back, lifting her high into his arms. “Where to, madam?”
he asked, walking into the living room of the suite.

“The bathroom, unfortunately. I shouldn’t
have had that bottled water while we were downstairs.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, and
walked down the hallway to the main bathroom, the one that would
have been just one huge playground, if Suzanna wasn’t pregnant. And
if she would have let him near her, which she hadn’t done in a
very, very long time.

“Thank you, kind sir, you can go somewhere
and groan now,” she said as he put her down just outside the
bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”

Tim continued on to the bedroom, pulled down
the bedspread, and then opened the large suitcase holding the
special pillows he’d brought from home.

His wedding night. His second wedding night.
The first had been more exciting.

But this one meant more, so much more.

Suzanna rejoined him about ten minutes later,
dressed in one of his Phillies T-shirts and a pair of his
sweatpants, pulled high above her waist, her face clean and sort of
shiny.

She was the most beautiful woman in the
world. His heart swelled with love.

“I’m really tired,” she said, rubbing at the
small of her back. “It’s been a long day.”

Tim took a quick look at the bedside clock.
It was five minutes after eleven, definitely past Suzanna’s
bedtime. “I should have cashed in earlier.”

“No, don’t be silly,” she said, lowering
herself onto the bed, then allowing him to swing her legs up onto
the mattress so that he could position one of the pillows between
her thighs. “Oh,” she said on a satisfied moan, “that’s
better.”

He remembered when she’d moaned for him for
quite another reason. But he batted down that thought and helped
her carefully wedge a much smaller pillow just beneath her belly.
“Comfortable?”

“Hmmm,” she said, smiling up at him.

That’s one of us,
he thought, turning
off the lights and then walking around to his side of the bed,
wishing his libido had gone wherever Suzanna’s had, considering
that they were both having these damn pregnancy symptoms.

He crawled into bed and moved across the
mattress, putting his back against hers. “Better?”

“No,” she said, her voice small. “I... I
think I’d like you to turn around. You know, like spoons?”

“Spoons,” he repeated, not understanding.

“You know, Tim, like spoons in a drawer? You
lie with your front to my back, and—oh, just turn over, okay?”

He didn’t need any more urging. Lifting the
covers slightly, he turned onto his left side, then shifted so that
he was curled close to Suzanna’s body. His belly against her back,
his knees bent so that their legs also touched.

And, unless she was already asleep, she knew
that he was aroused.

Problem was, he didn’t know what she’d do if
he tried to get... closer.

And then there was his right arm. There was
nowhere to put it.

“Oh, what the hell,” he muttered, and slipped
his arm around her, so that his hand fell somewhere on her belly.
Any higher, and he’d probably get tossed from the bed entirely.

“That’s so nice,” she said, her voice
sleepy.

“I think so, too,” he said, beginning to run
coaching signs through his head, to take his mind off how he was
feeling, south of the border. But her hair smelled so good, and she
was so soft, and he wanted her so damn much he’d—what was that?

He said it: “What was that?”

Suzanna sighed. “Oh, he does that every night
now. I try to rest, and he thinks it’s time to party. Did you feel
it?”

Tim swallowed hard as he pressed his palm
flat against her belly, and was rewarded soon after by the feel of
a healthy kick.

His stomach did a small flip, and he wished
he’d skipped the chocolate mousse for dessert. His brow broke out
in perspiration. But he couldn’t move his hand. “Will he do it
again?”

“Keep your hand there,” Suzanna told him. “I
think he sort of... gravitates to the warmth.”

Tim closed his eyes, waited for the next
kick. And there it was. His nausea subsided as he smiled in the
darkness. “He’s real, babe. He’s really real.”

“I know, Tim,” she said, putting her hand on
top of his.

They were still lying that way the next
morning, after both of them spent a very restful, uninterrupted
night’s sleep.

Tim used the smaller bathroom, leaving the
large one to Suzanna, and he sang as he showered, feeling good
about life, feeling good about Suzanna, feeling good about
himself.

He’d passed second and had just slid into
third. Home plate was looking closer and closer....

Q: Do you want french fries?

Yogi Berra: Okay, but no potatoes. I’m on a
diet.

Suzanna turned pages in the magazine, not
seeing a single word.

Why couldn’t Tim be here with her? He’d
wanted to, she knew that, but both he and Jack had to fly to
California the previous day, to appear in the commercial Mort had
set up for them months ago, and Tim had totally forgotten about, or
he would have canceled it.

He must have told her that a dozen times: “I
would have canceled the damn thing.”

But how was he to know that Dr. Phillips
would break her ankle, skiing, over the holidays, and postpone the
sonogram?

So here she was, all by herself. Keely
couldn’t come, because Candy was down with a cold, and so was Aunt
Sadie. Mrs. B. was substitute teaching again, and Joey was in
Bayonne.

Until she believed she could look at him with
a straight face, she hoped Joey would
stay
in Bayonne. “Mrs.
Trehan?”

Suzanna looked up, to see the same male
technician motioning for her to follow him.

She pushed both hands against the arms of the
chair and got to her feet. She had a scale at home now, thanks to a
Christmas present from Tim, whom she could have cheerfully murdered
as he stepped on the thing, showing her that it printed out
digitally—in half pounds.

So she knew she’d gained another eight pounds
this month, and nothing she did seemed to mean anything when she
looked at food. It all still cried out, “Eat me, eat me!” Why
couldn’t she be nauseous, like Tim? Not that she actually could
envy him that one....

“There you are, Suzanna,” Dr. Phillips said
as she entered the room, hobbling a little on her purple, knee-high
cast. “I’m sorry for the delay, but since you saw my associate in
the office, I know you’re still doing just fine. Still blossoming,
I see?”

The technician helped Suzanna up onto the
examining table. “Flowers blossom, Doctor,” she said. “I’m a
mountain being pushed up by some shift in the seismic plates.”

“And now we’re going to find out, once and
for all, I hope, just why you’re gaining so quickly. I’m still
thinking multiples, you know, even if my associate couldn’t find a
second heartbeat. Babies can hide really well.”

“I think the Twinkies have something to do
with my weight gain. Tim watches me like a hawk, but I still found
a way to hide them in the laundry room, a place he never goes. I’m
shameless, and I know it. I complain about my weight, and then I
eat.”

Dr. Phillips chuckled, then took charge of
the sonogram, moving the sensor over Suzanna’s bare stomach.

“Where is your husband, Suzanna? I was sure
he’d be here.”

“In California,” Suzanna said, sighing, and
also trying to look at the screen on the machine. It looked like a
piece of pie. Everything looked like a piece of pie to her. “He’s
filming a commercial, then has to stop in Saint Louis on his way
home, for some autograph show. What do you see?”

“Well, I’m still just checking, but I can
tell you without hesitation that you did not swallow a watermelon
seed. You’re definitely pregnant. Ah, nice full bladder, good.”

“I always have a full bladder,” Suzanna
groused, wishing Tim were here, holding her hand. She was so
nervous.

“Uh-oh.”

Suzanna lifted her head as far as possible
while lying on her back. “Uh-oh? What uh-oh? Is... Is something
wrong.”

“It would be, if I seriously believed your
baby has three arms. As it is, I’d say we’re looking at twins.” The
doctor did something with the dials that caused a white square to
appear on the screen, then pushed a button that made it sound as if
she’d snapped a picture. “Got you, you little dickens. Did you
really think you could keep avoiding me?”

Suzanna heard the doctor as if from a
distance.
Twins.
Not one life growing under her heart, but
two. Double the reasons to make this marriage work. Not only work,
but thrive.

“Tim’s going to faint,” she said at last,
when she could speak again.

“Yes,” Dr. Phillips said, taking more
pictures. “How is he, anyway? Still struggling with his
couvades
syndrome?”