Four of a Kind Page 5

  “Do not say another word,” said Carla, in a terminal tone. The boys ran away from the landing and disappeared into their rooms. Carla lifted her hand to look at her cards, and said, “As you were saying, Alicia?”

  The sexless brunette blinked at Carla in amazement. “Can I just say that if Joe asked me to watch TV and I told him no, he’d throw a fit.”

  Carla wasn’t in the mood for tales of inferior mothering. She waited, as they all did, for Alicia to get on with it.

  “Okay, here goes,” Alicia said. “It’s hard to say exactly why Tim and I stopped doing it. Sex got weird when we had trouble getting pregnant with Joe. Neither one of us expected it. We were in our early twenties, always the youngest couple at the fertility doctor’s office. We tried for three years. The cycles of expectation and disappointment weren’t exactly sexy. I think maybe Tim started to associate sex with failure, or uselessness. When we finally got pregnant, we pretty much stopped having sex. Fear of dislodging the baby—ridiculous, I know, but you make all kinds of bargains. Any of you had infertility issues?”

  None had. Alicia continued, “No sex was a bit of a relief after the mechanical sex we’d been having. I thought we’d start doing it again after Joe was born. And we did. But it was never the same.”

  Bess asked, “How did you meet?”

  “We both worked in the marketing department at Macy’s,” said Alicia. “I left for an ad job. Tim stayed at Macy’s. He did really well there. He went all the way up, to president of marketing. He ran a staff of twenty, made a great salary. Benefits, discounts, lunches, dinners. Those were the days, let me tell you.”

  “Downsized?” asked Bess.

  “He was let go during the first round of layoffs two years ago.”

  “You mean, around the time you stopped having sex,” said Robin.

  Alicia’s eyes got wide. She put her hand to her cheek, as if in shock. “Gee, I never made that connection before,” she said, dripping sarcasm.

  Robin said, “I’m just saying.”

  “Even before that, the sex was dwindling,” said Alicia. “Everything was a mood killer. We had problems adjusting to parenthood. Working full time wrung us out. Joe had his share of problems that needed a lot of time and attention. Adjustment issues at his previous schools. Sex became less and less important. And then—yes, coinciding with the layoff—we just stopped doing it. For a while, Tim used his unemployment, feeling bad for himself, as an excuse. But then he stopped making excuses, too.” Alicia shrugged. “It sounds bad. But Tim and I get along great. We love each other. We’re in a happy marriage except for this one thing.”

  “That’s a pretty big thing,” said Bess.

  Hmmm, thought Robin. Maybe Borden had a decent cock after all. Good for Bess. Alicia’s home life, meanwhile, sounded awful. A sexless partnership wasn’t a marriage. It was a friendship. Eventually one of them would look for romance elsewhere.

  “I’m dying to ask a question,” said Bess.

  Carla said, “You have to win first.”

  Bess said, “Oh, God. I was so engrossed in the story, I forgot we had cards.”

  The women examined their cards, and figured out their best combinations.

  Carla said, “Nothing.”

  Alicia threw her cards down. “Me, too.”

  Bess said, “I’ve got two pair.”

  Robin smiled broadly, and showed her cards. “Three sevens. Sorry, Bess.” Turning to Alicia, she asked. “Do you cheat on Tim?”

  Bess said, “That was my question.”

  “I’ve sure thought about it,” replied Alicia, the celibate. “There’s a guy in my office. Finn. He’s the star of my sexual fantasies. But he’s thirty, kind of a lothario. He doesn’t seem to realize I’m a woman. And I’d never pursue it anyway.”

  “So you jerk off a lot?” asked Robin.

  Carla bristled across the table. “That’s too personal,” she said.

  Alicia’s cheeks were red as cherries. “You’ll have to win another hand to get that answer.”

  “What’s the big deal? Everyone does it,” said Robin.

  “Talk about winning hands,” said Bess.

  Carla said, “I don’t.”

  “You should,” said Robin. “And you should have a drink once in while, too. It won’t kill you.”

  “Speaking as a health care professional?” asked Carla, her dark eyes focused on Robin, a sly smile on her lips.

  She likes me, thought Robin, especially when I bait her. “A blind woman could see that you need to loosen up, Carla. Starting now. Tell those kids they can watch a little TV.”

  Carla shook her head and said, “My deal.”

  The other women passed their cards over to her. Carla shuffled expertly while talking. “Even though I had a bad day, I’m not going to take the easy route and turn on the TV. I’m not going to give in to temptation by drinking in the house. When you feel weak, you have to be extra vigilant. Otherwise, TV and alcohol become the things you rely on, instead of inner strength.” Carla drew in a breath, dealt the cards quickly while talking. “I’ve been seeing a patient for about a month now, a one-year-old boy who kept having respiratory problems. His parents didn’t want me to, but I insisted on giving him a sweat test for cystic fibrosis. It came back negative. I gave the results to the parents in my office today, assuming they’d be happy with the result. Instead, they were angry because they’d have to cover twenty percent of an expensive test. They’ve complained to the hospital and are refusing to pay.”

  Bess said, “That’s unfortunate.”

  “You don’t even know,” said Carla. “The hospital keeps track of complaints and unpaid bills. I’ve been given a warning by the board. They already think of me as a troublemaker. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.” She glanced at her hand. “I’ve got nothing, by the way.” Carla turned over her cards, showing a deuce and a five.

  The rest turned over their cards. Alicia won the hand, with two pair. To Carla, she asked, “Why are you so pissed off at your husband for working late tonight?”

  Excellent question, thought Robin. She’d been itching to ask the same one. That seemed to be happening a lot. Like minds? Or were they all clueing in to the same signals, grabbing from the air the one question that begged to be asked? Carla had said, “Why bother?” about her hospital job, but was her frustration only about work or about her home life, too?

  Carla sighed. “I asked Claude to be here to take Manny and Zeke out to a movie so we could have privacy. I called to remind him to come home early. He said he forgot. Couldn’t make it. The boys were disappointed. I’m angry. And Claude does it all the time. He makes promises but nothing happens—like fixing the bathroom door—and then I’m a nag for complaining about it.”

  “Textbook passive-aggressive behavior,” said Robin. “He’s making you angry on purpose, Carla, so he can blame you for starting a fight. He forgot to be here. Forgot to fix the door. Maybe he’s forgotten a few other things, too?”

  Carla stared at Robin for a few seconds, mentally spinning through a list of other things Claude hadn’t done. “You just hit the nail on the pinhead,” said the host.

  Bess had gathered the cards and was shuffling the deck. “Since we’re on a husband theme,” said the blonde, “I have a complaint about Borden.”

  Alicia said, “I just realized. You’re Bess and Borden. And,” turning toward Carla, “you’re Carla and Claude.”

  “Cute, ain’t it?” said Carla.

  Turning toward Robin, Alicia said, “And you’re …”

  “Just glad to be here,” said Robin, smiling.

  Alicia blushed. For a second, she’d forgotten that Robin was husband-free. Maybe that’s a good thing, thought Robin. She was usually self-conscious about being single.

  Bess finished shuffling and dealt the cards. “I’m sorry if this sounds strange, considering Alicia’s situation,” said Bess, “but Borden wants too much sex.”

  Robin looked at her pocket cards. “So gorgeous Borden
is wildly attracted to you after many years of marriage,” she said. “I can see how hard that must be for you.”

  Bess said, “I think he’s got a compulsion, seriously. I get sore!”

  “Tragic,” said Robin.

  “The thing is, I think he wants another baby,” said Bess. “I’m forty years old. Four kids is more than enough. I can’t bear another pregnancy.” She paused, looking around the table at their unsympathetic faces. “This is a real problem. We fight about it!”

  Carla turned over her cards and said, “Four of a kind. I assume I win?” The others checked and nodded. Looking at Bess, she said, “By the age of forty, you must have heard of a little thing we folk in the medical profession call birth control?”

  Robin snorted. “How about what we folk at the singles table call a blow job? Or a hand job? Or anal sex?”

  Alicia said, “Eww.”

  “Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it,” said Robin.

  “I have a diaphragm,” countered Bess. “If I went on the pill, I’d be withholding vital information from my husband. It’d be a little lie, every day. Don’t you think that’s wrong?”

  Crickets.

  “Go on the pill until menopause, and then you’re done,” said Robin. “So what if it’s a deception? It’s your body. Pregnancy is your decision. I’m sure your feminist mom would agree.”

  At the mention of Bess’s mother, the formidable Simone Gertrude, Bess’s blue eyes got two shades darker. Robin sensed that she’d stepped on a toe; she quickly gathered up the cards, and started shuffling loudly.

  “My turn to deal, and talk,” Robin announced while flipping out cards to each woman. “Since we’re on the husband theme tonight, and since I don’t happen to have one, I’m going to tell the true story of how I got pregnant with Stephanie.”

  The three other women ignored their cards, and leaned forward in their chairs, their full attention on Robin, their anticipation palpable.

  Robin said, “I see you’ve been curious.”

  Alicia said, “Only a lot.”

  “I usually tell people one of two stories,” said Robin, placing five cards faceup in the middle of the table. “Story one is from an old New York magazine article about a single woman going into a sperm bank, the name of her doctor, the money, the hormone shots. You give people a few specific details, they’ll believe a total fiction. The other story is that I went on vacation to Quebec and had a fling with a French Canadian named Jacques. I never knew his last name. I had no way of contacting him. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I’d been back in the city for two months. Again, the lie had just enough truth to be believable. I had been to Quebec, and could mention my hotel name, the park where Jacques and I met, where we had a romantic dinner. There was no Jacques. I described the concierge at the hotel, if need be.”

  Robin checked the women’s reaction thus far. Carla seemed appalled. Alicia was expectant. Bess appeared frankly fascinated. It occurred to Robin that this wasn’t really a diversity meeting. Or a card game. It was grown-up storytime. Women needed stories. More than food and sex, maybe.

  “Okay,” continued Robin. “The true story, which I haven’t told anyone, except my therapist, starts on New Year’s Eve, 1999. The eve of the millennium. I was single, of course. A three hundred and forty pound woman who rarely left her apartment? Who was I going to meet? I’d been making Zogby calls all day—even on New Year’s Eve. That year, the big night was on a Friday, and most people were too busy to talk. I must’ve placed a hundred calls, but did only a dozen interviews. The question of the day was timely. Something like, ‘Do you feel you’ll be better off in the New Year?’ I called one number and the woman who answered the phone asked, ‘Don’t you have somewhere to be?’ and then hung up on me. I stared at the dead phone in my hand in horror. I had nowhere to be. No one to be with. I said to myself, ‘Screw her! I’m going out.’ The only place to be in New York on New Year’s Eve when you don’t already have plans, where a fat girl would be anonymous, alone in a crowd …”

  “You went to Times Square,” said Alicia.

  Robin touched the tip of her nose. “It was a mad scene, total mayhem. Half a million drunk people cordoned off into five square blocks, cops on horseback, flashing lights, bright like the middle of the day. In the mass of humanity, no one paid any attention to me except to complain if I was in the way. I was sweating like crazy, even though it was freezing. I felt claustrophobic and hassled. I regretted going uptown from the second I got there. But I was determined to stick it out until midnight. A few minutes before the ball dropped—I was counting every interminable second—a guy started talking to me. He was also alone, had come to see ‘what all the fuss was about.’ We made fun of the drunk idiots around us. He was nice. Sort of cute, but too earnest for my taste. I assumed he was from out of town or a geek. When the ball finally dropped, he kissed me. He invited me to his place in Chelsea. I went. Maybe Carla can help with the next part …”

  “And forty weeks later, a child came into the world,” said the doctor.

  “During Stephanie’s newborn months, I barely left the house. I was entertained by the 2000 presidential election that went on forever. Which was exactly how I felt about her infancy,” said Robin. “So, showdown?”

  The women remembered they had a hand, and fumbled to check their pocket cards.

  Alicia said, “Three of a kind.”

  Bess said, “Ha! Full house.”

  Carla said, “Pair of fives.”

  Robin said, “Nothing.”

  “I get to ask what we’re all wondering,” said Bess, glancing quickly at Carla and Alicia. “Did you ever see him again? Does he know he’s a father? How was the sex?”

  “That’s three questions,” said Robin. “You only get one.”

  “And you will answer all of them,” said Carla, in her take-no-prisoner’s tone.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Robin. “The sex? It was eh. I was always suspicious of men who were attracted to me back then, that they had a fat fetish. I didn’t get that vibe from him, though. We were both alone on a big night, found each other, and tried to make the best of it. We did it in the dark. I never got a good look at his apartment, but I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. After he fell asleep, I took a cab home at three in the morning. No point in exchanging numbers. Of course, I didn’t know I was pregnant until weeks later. The idea of tracking him down for a ‘knocked up’ conversation was too hideous to consider. Can you imagine the shock, him coming home from work, tired and stressed, and then seeing a huge—and I mean huge—lapse in judgment waiting outside his building with baby news?”

  “You chickened out,” said Carla.

  “Oh, big time,” said Robin. “It was just easier to go my own way. I didn’t need money from him or to be talked into an abortion. Keeping the baby was a selfish decision. I had nothing else in my life. No husband, no meaningful career. I had means and time, and then I had Stephanie.”

  Carla asked, “And which story have you told her about her father?”

  That sounded a tad judge-y. Robin said, “The artificial insemination story. And it was artificial, in a way. When I look back on that night, I don’t think about the guy as much as I think about that woman on the phone. The one who said, ‘Don’t you have somewhere to be?’ At the time, I despised her. But now, if I could, I’d thank her.”

  “Oh. My. God,” said Alicia, her eyes popping.

  “What?” asked Robin.

  “I am that woman,” said Alicia. “I remember taking a call from a pollster that night and being kind of rude.”

  Robin’s jaw unhinged. “Are you fucking serious?”

  Alicia grinned and said, “Nah.”

  Carla burst out laughing, an explosion that shook the room. It was infectious, and suddenly all four women were howling.

  Robin was still breathing heavily from the release of tension. She made eye contact with Alicia across the table, and said, “Good one, Alicia. You must kill at your ad agency.�
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  “I wish,” said the tiny brunette.

  Carla, meanwhile, had walked around the table to the bookshelf built into the wall. She gently opened the glass door, moved a few of her figurines aside, and knocked gently on the wood panel behind them. A hidden door unlatched.

  Bess said, “Look at that. I love old houses.”

  Carla reached into the secret compartment, and pulled out a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

  Robin shook her head. “Bloody hypocrite.”

  “I said I don’t allow drinking in the house,” sniffed Carla. “Alicia, grab a few Dixie cups on the kitchen sink.”

  The ladies retired to the front porch with Jack, taking seats on wicker chairs or on the railing. Alicia passed out the paper cups, and Carla poured a finger of the lethal liquid into each. They toasted and sipped. Robin lit a cigarette, never loving the taste so much.

  Alicia said, “We are TMI-ing all over the place tonight.”

  “With a surprising lack of sentimentality,” said Bess. To Robin, she said, “You talk about major life events as if they didn’t happen to you.”

  Robin nodded. She knew she came off sometimes as detached. Was that why she was so good at her job? “When I was telling the story just now,” she said, “it felt like I was talking about a made-up person. I’m a character in my own life.” It occurred to Robin, at that second, that for much of her existence, she’d watched herself as if through a scrim, a transparent wall of gauze, like at the ballet. She’d been a witness to her own history, keeping a few steps of emotional distance from experiences and people, including, she was ashamed to realize, her own daughter. She’d lied to Stephanie about her conception, and that was wrong. The sudden insight wet her eyes, and she noticed that her hand shook slightly as she lifted the Dixie cup to her lips.

  “What made you break out the booze?” Robin asked Carla.

  “I figured you needed a drink,” said Carla.

  “You figured right,” said Robin.

  “You’re going to have to contact this man one of these days. You need his family health history,” said Carla. “And Stephanie deserves to know the truth.”