Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead (31 page)

Was she a pharaoh in another lifetime that she deserved such crappy karma in this one? Why did it have to be that every time she came close to getting what she wanted, God laughed and said, “Ha-ha, Mindy, not so fast, I’m not done with you.”

The cruise she’d waited a whole year for had sucked. The insurance money that was an unexpected windfall was going to have to be split with Stan. The contest she entered was totally bogus. Which all meant one thing: her father wasn’t totally right.

Maybe bad things could be good things in disguise, but it could just as easily work the other way around.

“Send me a sign, Daddy,” she whispered as she so often did in moments of despair. “I need to know if this is all going to work out.”

Twenty-four

It’s never the stuff you worry about that happens, it’s the stuff you don’t see coming that incapacitates you like a Taser. And nothing like five-thousand volts of electricity to get your undivided attention.

“What time is it?” A startled Mindy opened one eye to find Beth shaking her shoulder.

“I don’t know. Two-thirty maybe?”

“What’s wrong? Why are you up?”
It better be good.

Beth threw herself onto the unmade part of the queen bed and sobbed into a pillow.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Mindy fumbled for the lamp.

“Yes, a horrible dream,” she cried harder. “Then I woke up and it was all true. You were right! I am pregnant!”

“Pregnant?” Mindy bolted up. “How is that possible? You said the test was negative!”

“I lied. I never even opened the box until a few minutes ago.

Now look.” She waved a plastic stick. “Pink is the new black. . . .

I swear I’m going to die!”

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“Don’t say that!” Mindy’s heart raced. “Start from the beginning. Tell me everything.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she gagged. “I was too freaked out to take the test the day you brought it over. I just thought I hadn’t gotten my period because of some hormonal screwup, but obviously that wasn’t it because I feel like shit, I’ve put on all this weight, and it looks like my body’s been taken over by this alien being.”

Mindy held the stick up to the light. The pink YES was un-mistakable and she didn’t know what threw her more, that Beth was pregnant or that she’d been right all along. “This is scary.”

“Ya think?” She wiped her eyes. “And don’t start in on that whole bad news can be good news crap. This is a disaster. I wanted to LEAVE Richard, not have another child with him!”

“Well then you do what’s best for your own survival. Nobody has to know.”

“I can’t have another abortion, okay?” Beth choked. “I had one in college and almost died from the hemorrhaging, which was so bad I needed a second D and C, and then a blood transfusion, plus I had this thing called sepsis . . . a high fever and then the chills. Why do you think I married Richard when I found out I was pregnant with Jessica?”

As Beth and Mindy sat in the darkened living room sipping tea, one thing was certain. Whatever was scheduled to have taken place this morning was a scratch. There would be no meetings, no opportunities for advancement in the greeting card industry—just two moms glued to hotel couches, grap-pling with the implications of a pink stick.

As best as Beth could figure, she was in her second trimes-ter, and though she had yet to feel signs of life, this stage was eerily familiar—the heavy breasts, the stretched abdomen, and 278

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the endless urge to pee. Was this God’s way of punishing her for having undergone that risky late-term abortion in college, which nearly took her life?

At the time she pledged she would never succumb to another, but like a broken spell, that promise had returned to haunt her amidst circumstances that were far graver than when she was nineteen and clueless. She would be bringing an unwanted baby into a broken-down marriage with little hope for a meaningful family life.

“How could you even think that this baby wouldn’t be loved?”

Mindy asked. “Maybe you just need time to let it sink in.”

“No, I don’t. Time isn’t going to change anything. I don’t want more children or responsibility, and I certainly don’t want to be even more tied down to Richard. Plus, I would rather die than get as big as a house. Can’t you just see the looks on everyone’s faces when I show up wearing maternity clothes? My kids will be mortified, especially Jessica. When Jordy Schreiber’s mother got pregnant last year, she was like ‘Ohmygod mom, that is sooo gross’!”

“This is good,” Mindy said. “Express your deepest fears . . .

maybe you’ll hear yourself say something that gives you hope.”

“Would you stop with the Oprah babble? I have no hope!” She rocked in a fetal position. “Everyone thinks I lead this charmed life but I’m a fraud! I have a shitty marriage, our finances are a mess, and my daughters think I’m this selfish bitch. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. . . .”

Who knew,
Mindy thought? All these years she’d watched Beth’s lavish lifestyle from afar, teetering between envy and disgust: the beautiful family, the showcase house, the great cars and vacations

. . . It suddenly gave new meaning to House of Cards. “Maybe try to look at the big picture,” she started. “You’re beautiful and talented, you’ve done a great job raising your daughters, your parents are supportive of you—”

“I don’t want a baby!” Beth screamed.

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“Okay, but think about this. Only yesterday we were talking about how precious life was, and about how the only reason we were even born was because God spared your mom and my grandmother. Maybe this is a sign.”

“Yes, that I should have made birth control a higher priority! If I have an abortion, it’s a huge risk medically. If I have a baby, it’s a huge risk emotionally and financially. I swear to God I should just throw myself down the stairs. . . .”

“Would you stop? I understand you’re in shock, but this is not a death sentence. Lots of women have late-in-life babies and it works out great.”

“Well, good for them, but I’m not one of those mushy, maternal types who goes all gaga over little kids. The greatest day in my life was when I didn’t have to do those boring mommy-and-me classes anymore. I can’t go back to that life. I’ve done my time!”

“I know, but look how fast those years went.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, but I’m trying to get you to see this from a different perspective. You’re only focused on the negatives right now.”

“That’s right. There are no positives.”

“There are too! How about the fact there is no greater joy or anything that gives you greater hope than holding a life you created? And oh my God, the baby clothes are so cute now!”

“Whatever . . . I just don’t understand how with everything you know you could tell me to go against my better judgment here. Do you honestly think Richard will somehow magically transform into this wonderful husband, and Jessica and Emma will be thrilled at the prospect of having a baby in the house, and my friends will shower me with support, and I’ll look back and say ‘Thank you, Mindy, thank you for showing me the light?

This baby was the greatest thing that ever happened to me’?”

Mindy blinked. Had Beth accused her of having a positive attitude? “You’re right. I don’t know what I’m saying. You woke 280

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me out of a dead sleep, hit me over the head with this . . . It’s like what happened when we found out Aaron’s mother died . . . I just started blabbing.”

“If only I’d left him when the real estate market was at its peak. We could have sold the house for over a million and both started ove. . . .”

“ . . . Artie’s cousin went through this, too. She already had three kids and went nuts when she found out she was pregnant again. Now that kid is the love of her life. . . .”

“ . . . Jessica would be starting college when this kid was starting kindergarten. . . .”

“ . . . I was really nervous about having a third child, but there’s something so special about the baby in the family . . . like Olympic gold. . . .”

“ . . . I don’t even know how to tell Richard . . . he’s just crazy enough to think this is good news. . . .”

“I thought of something else my dad used to say. He’d tell me that the worst thing about anger and fear was that it made you overreact. Like when the stock market plunges and everyone rushes off to sell, he’d say to me, if you panic, you lose. . . .”

“Did you hear a word I said?” Beth looked up.

“No, did you hear anything I said?”

“Not really.”

“Well I was making a lot of sense.”

“Nothing makes sense right now.” Beth cried out. “Oh my God!”

“What? What is it?”

“I think it just kicked—the alien’s alive!”

“It’s not an alien,” Mindy laughed, “it’s your baby.”

“I know.” Beth hugged the pillow. “I know.”

Nothing wrong with cell phones. It was the addiction to using them that stirred anger and anxiety if someone with whom you Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead

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were in constant contact suddenly stopped answering or returning calls. Mindy had been trying to reach Artie since early yesterday to no avail, and the mystery deepened when her mom told her she hadn’t heard from him either. Of all times for him to be missing in action . . . Mindy fumed as she packed her suitcase.

“Any luck reaching Artie?” Beth yelled from the other bedroom.

“No, and I’m so pissed! He always does this to me. He leaves me a message, then shuts his phone off. Or I leave him all these messages, then he walks in the house and asks what’s new?”

“Maybe something is wrong.” She walked in. “Didn’t he almost have a heart attack recently?”

“Thanks for the reminder, but if he’s lying in a hospital bed somewhere, don’t you think I would have heard from Aaron by now? ”

“Unless maybe they were both in an accident.”

“Why do you always have to be so positive and ruin everything?” she mimicked her. But it did remind her to try Artie again, and miracle of miracles, he finally answered.

“Where the hell have you been? Why didn’t you call me back?

I’ve been worried sick!”

“Sorry,” Artie answered in a fog. “I lost my phone and just got it back a few hours ago. . . . I didn’t want to wake you. What time is it?”

“Around seven your time I think. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on.”

“Hold on. . . . I’m grabbing my jacket and going outside. Aaron’s asleep. We just got to bed like two hours ago. Where are you?”

“Chicago. The contest thing was a disaster. It’s not even worth it to stay. We’re heading back to the airport to see if we can change our f lights.”

“That’s too bad, but you know what, then? Why don’t you come here instead?”

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“Come where? To Portland? Why would I do that?”

“I have my reasons and your mom is with the kids. What’s the difference where you are?”

“Arthur Sherman, you better promise me you didn’t buy a house.”

“No,” he said, and laughed, “but I could. We could afford it.”

“Thank you, Bill Gates. Now put my husband back on.”

“I’m not joking. I have some amazing news to tell you.”

“Oh my God! We got the insurance money?”

“Yep, but that’s not all!”

It’s never the things that you plan on that go right, it’s the things you don’t see coming that can turn your life around. While Beth finished packing, Mindy sat on the bed and listened to the tale.

Seems that after Aaron resolved his police matter, he insisted on going back to his house to search for the toy fire truck that once belonged to little Jimmy Fitzgerald. But after tearing apart his room and the garage, he lost hope of finding it. Then he remembered the boxes in the basement.

The last thing Artie wanted to do was spend time in a dun-geon that reeked of mildew, beer, and cat urine, but Aaron was on a mission. “I got something back of my Mom’s, now I wanna give Jimmy something back that reminds him of his dad.”

It was too noble a cause not to help, so Artie helped dig through shopping bags and old cartons, only to find a box shoved in a back corner underneath a garden hose and back issues of
Guns
and Ammo.
Unlike the others, it wasn’t labeled, “Keep out Sucka”

or “Nunna Ur Beeswax.”

At first it looked like nothing more than piles of bank state-ments, until Artie realized he was holding the deed to the house, which was attached to a closing statement proving that Walter had bought it for cash over twenty years ago.

“What does that mean?” Mindy’s heart raced.

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“It means that after probate, we can try to sell the house, pay off the back taxes and legal bills, then set up a nice little college nest egg for Aaron. A broker told me that this neighborhood was getting hot again and the place could be worth as much as two hundred thou. Maybe more. How amazing is that?”

“I am so happy for him, Artie. And you must be so relieved.”

“You have no idea . . . but wait. There’s more.”

“Let me guess . . . Walter also owned stock in Microsoft.”

“You’re close,” he laughed. “Davida bought stock in Starbucks.”

“Holy shit! We may have to call him Prince Aaron.”

“How about Prince Artie?”

“What?”

“Yeah. The stock certificates were in our names: Arthur and Davida Sherman.”

“What does THAT mean?”

“It means that I’m going to stop bitching about spending four bucks on a cup of coffee because it looks like my insane bride bought the stock from our joint brokerage account.”

“You had that much money?”

“Hardly, but I was thinking back. Ira had just started working at Merrill Lynch and was under a lot of pressure to meet his quota, so my dad had me open an account, and every few months he’d throw in a few thousand to give to Ira to invest. And no surprise here, Davida played the market like she played the horses. But she must have had one hell of a strong hunch about Starbucks, because I found stock certificates for fifty thousand shares dating back to 1994, the year she left me.”