Good In Bed Part 39

My mother was among the first wave of arrivals. "Who's my big girl?" she cooed, lifting Joy from her crib. "Who's my bundle of joy?" Joy chuckled and waved her arms. My beautiful daughter, I thought, feeling my throat catch at the sight of her. She was almost eight months old, and still it felt like every time I saw her she was a miracle.

And even strangers said she was a miraculously beautiful baby, with peachy skin, wide eyes, st.u.r.dy limbs pillowed with cushiony rolls of fat, and a wonderfully happy way about her. I'd named her perfectly. Unless she was hungry, or her diaper was wet, Joy was always smiling, always laughing, observing the world closely through her wide, watchful eyes. She was the happiest baby I knew.

My mother handed her over, then impulsively reached and hugged us both. "I am so proud of you," she said.

I hugged her hard. "Thank you," I whispered, wishing that I could tell her what I really wanted to, that I could thank her for loving me when I was a girl, and for letting me go now that I was a woman. "Thank you," I said again. My mother gave me a final squeeze, and kissed Joy on top of her head.

I filled Joy's white tub with warm water and gave her a bath. She cooed and clucked as I poured the water over her, washing her legs, her feet, her fingers, her sweet little baby behind. I rubbed on lotion, dusted her with powder, snapped her into a white knitted dress and put a white hat with roses embroidered around the edges on her head. "Baby," I whispered in her ear, "baby Joy." Joy waved her fists in the air like the world's tiniest triumphant athlete and gurgled a liquid string of syllables, like she was having a conversation in a language none of us had learned.

"Can you say mama?" I asked.

"Ahh!" Joy announced.

"Not even close," I said.

"Oo," she said, looking at me with her big, clear eyes, as if she understood every word.

Then I handed her off to Lucy and went to take my own shower, to do my hair and face, to practice the speech I'd been writing for days.

I could hear the doorbell chiming, the door opening and closing, people coming inside. The caterers had come first, and Peter had come second, with two boxes wrapped in silver paper and a bouquet of roses. "For you," he'd said, and put the flowers in a vase. Then he took Nifkin for a walk and emptied the dishwasher while I finished getting things in order.

"What a sweetheart," said one of the caterer's a.s.sistants. "I don't think my husband even knows where the dishwasher is." I smiled my thanks without bothering to correct her. It was all too confusing to explain to strangers... like telling them I'd gone through the day with all my clothes on backward. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage. Even little kids knew how it was supposed to go. But what could I do? I reasoned. What happened happened. I couldn't undo my history. And if it had given me Joy, there was no way I would want to.

I walked into the living room with Joy in my arms. Maxi was there, and she smiled at me, giving me the tiniest of waves. Samantha was next to her, and next to Sam were my mother and Tanya, Lucy and Josh, Betsy and Andy and Andy's wife, Ellen, and two of the nurses from the hospital who'd taken care of Joy. And, in one corner, was Audrey, impeccably turned out in crisp cream-colored linen. Peter was standing beside her. All my friends. I bit my lip and looked down to keep from crying. The rabbi asked for silence, then asked for four people to come forward to hold the posts of the huppah. It was my grandmother's, I saw, recognizing the fine old lace from my cousins' weddings. It was the huppah I would have been married under, had I gotten things in the right order. At naming ceremonies the huppah is meant to shelter the baby and the husband and wife. But I'd made prior arrangements, and at the rabbi's request everyone crowded under the huppah with me. My baby would get her name surrounded by all of the people who'd loved and sustained us, I decided, and the rabbi had said that it sounded fine to her.

Joy was awake and alert, taking it all in, beaming as if she knew she was the center of attention, as if there was no doubt that it was exactly where she was meant to be. Nifkin sat politely by my feet.

"Shall we begin?" asked the rabbi. She gave a short speech about Israel and Jewish tradition, and how Joy was being welcomed into the religion handed down from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. She chanted a blessing, said prayers over bread and wine, daubed a cloth in Manischevitz and pressed it against Joy's lips. "Ooh!" Joy chortled, and everybody laughed. "And now," said the rabbi, "Joy's mother, Candace, will tell how she chose the name."

I took a deep breath. Joy looked at me with her wide eyes. Nifkin was very still against my leg. I pulled a notecard out of my pocket.

"I've learned a lot this year," I began. I took a deep quavering breath. Don't cry, I told myself. "I learned that things don't always turn out the way you planned, or the way you think they should. And I've learned that there are things that go wrong that don't always get fixed or get put back together the way they were before. I've learned that some broken things stay broken, and I've learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you." I stopped and swiped my hand across my eyes. "I named my baby Joy because she is my joy," I said, "and she's named Leah after her father's father. His middle name was Leonard, and he was a wonderful man. He loved his wife, and his son, and I know that he would have loved Joy, too."

And that was all. I was crying, Audrey was crying, my mother and Tanya were holding each other, and even Lucy, who tended to go non-reactive at sad occasions ("It's the Prozac," she'd explain), was wiping away tears. The rabbi observed this all, a bemused look on her face. "Well," she finally said, "shall we eat?"

After the bagels and whitefish salad, after b.u.t.ter cookies and apple cake and mimosas, after Nifkin had devoured a quarter pound of Nova lox and been sick behind the toilet, after we'd opened the gifts and I'd spent fifteen minutes telling Maxi that Joy, wonderful baby that she was, was really not going to be needing a strand of cultured pearls until at least her eighteenth birthday, after we'd cleared away the wrapping paper and put away the leftovers and the baby and I had taken a nap, Peter and Joy and I walked down to the river to wait for the century's end.

I was feeling good about things, I thought, as I bundled Joy into her stroller. Preproduction on my movie was beginning. My version of "Loving a Larger Woman" had come out at the end of November, replacing Bruce's column. The response, the managing editor told me, had been overwhelming, with every woman who'd ever felt too big, too little, too ugly or strange to fit in or be worthy of love writing in to praise my courage, to decry B's selfishness, to share their own stories about being big and female in America, and to offer best wishes to baby Joy.

"I've never seen anything like this," the managing editor had said, describing the piles of mail, baby blankets, baby books, teddy bears, and a.s.sorted religious and secular good-luck icons that had filled the Moxie mailroom. "Would you consider writing for us regularly?" She had it all figured out- I'd do monthly dispatches from the single-mom front, ongoing updates on my life and Joy's. "I want you to tell us what it's like to live your life, in your body- to work, to date, to balance your single friends with your obligations as a mother," she said.

"What about Bruce?" I asked. I was thrilled with the chance to write for Moxie (and even more thrilled once they'd told me what it paid), but I was less than enamoured with the thought of seeing my articles appear next to Bruce's every month, watching him tell readers about his s.e.x life while I filled them in on spit-up and p.o.o.py diapers and how I could never find a bathing suit that fit.

"Bruce's contract hasn't been renewed," she said crisply. Which was just fine with me, I said, and happily agreed to her terms.

I spent December settling back into my new apartment, and my life. I kept things easy. I'd wake up in the mornings and get dressed and dress the baby, put Nifkin on his leash, push Joy in the stroller, walk to the park, sit in the sun. Nifkin would fetch his ball, the neighbors would fuss over Joy. After, I'd meet Samantha for coffee, and practice being out in public, around cars and buses and strangers and the hundred thousand other things I'd learned to be afraid of after Joy came into the world so abruptly.

Along those lines, I found a therapist, too: a warm woman about my mother's age with a comforting way about her, plus an endless supply of Kleenex, who did not seem at all alarmed when I spent the first two sessions crying nonstop, and the third one telling the once-upon-a-time story of how much my father had loved me and how it had hurt me when he'd left, rather than addressing what surely seemed like the more pertinent issues at hand.

I called Betsy, my editor, and made arrangements to come back part-time, to pitch in on some big projects, to work from home if I was needed. I called my mother and made a standing date: Every Friday night, dinner at her house, and Joy and I would sleep over so we could go to Wee Ones swimming cla.s.s at the Jewish Center the next morning. Joy took to the water like a little duck. "I've never seen anything like it," Tanya would growl, as Joy paddled her arms, looking adorable in a small pink bathing suit with ruffles all over the bottom. "She's going to swim like a fish!"

I called Audrey and apologized... well, I did whatever apologizing I could, in between her nonstop apologies for Bruce. She was sorry for how he'd behaved, sorry he hadn't been there for me, sorriest of all that she hadn't known so she could have made him do the right thing. Which, of course, wasn't possible. You can't make grownups do what they don't want to do. But I didn't say any of that.

I told her I'd be honored if she would have a role in Joy's life. She asked, very nervously, if I had any intention of letting Bruce have a role in Joy's life. I told her that I didn't... but I told her that things change. A year ago I couldn't have imagined myself with a baby. So who knows? Next year maybe Bruce will come over for brunch or a bike ride, and Joy will call him Daddy. Anything's possible, right?

I didn't call Bruce. I thought about it and thought about it, turned it over and over in my mind, and looked at it from every angle I could think of, and in the end I decided that I couldn't. I'd been able to let go of a lot of the anger... but not all of it. Maybe that too would come in time.

"So you haven't talked to him at all?" Peter asked, as he walked alongside me, balancing one hand beside mine on Joy's stroller.

"Not once."

"You don't hear from him?"

"I hear... things about him. It's this very Byzantine system. Audrey tells my mother, who tells Tanya, who tells everyone she knows, including Lucy, who usually tells me."

"How do you feel about that?"

I smiled at him, beneath the sky, which had finally gone completely black. "You sound like my shrink." I took a deep breath and huffed it out, watching it turn into a silver cloud and blow away. "It was awful at first, and it still is sometimes."

His voice was very gentle. "But only sometimes?"

I smiled at him. "Hardly ever," I said. "Hardly every anymore." I reached for his hand and he squeezed my fingers. "Things happen, you know? That's my one big lesson from therapy. Things happen, and you can't make them un-happen. You don't get do-overs, you can't roll back the clock, and the only thing you can change, and the only thing it does any good to worry about, is how you let them affect you."

"So how are you letting this affect you?"

I smiled sideways at him. "You're very persistent."

He looked at me seriously. "I have ulterior motives."

"Oh?"

Peter cleared his throat. "I wonder if you'd... consider me."

I tilted my head. "For the position of in-house diet counselor?"

"In-house something," he muttered.

"How old are you, anyway?" I teased. It was the one topic we'd never quite gotten around to during our trips to bookstores and the beach and to the park with Joy.

"How old do you think I am?"

I took my honest guess and revised it five years downward. "Forty?"

He sighed. "I'm thirty-seven."

I was so startled at that there was no way to even try to hide it. "Really?"

His voice, usually slow and deep and self-a.s.sured, sounded higher, hesitant, as he explained. "It's just that I'm so tall, I think... and my hair started going gray when I was eighteen... and, you know, being a professor, I think everyone just makes certain a.s.sumptions"

"You're thirty-seven?"

"Do you want to see my driver's license?"

"No," I said, "no, I believe you."

"I know," he began, "I know I'm still probably too old for you, and I'm probably not exactly what you had in mind."

"Don't be silly..."

"I'm not glamorous or quick on my feet." He looked down at his feet and sighed. "I'm kind of a plodder, I guess."

"Plotter? Like, Murder, She Wrote?"

A faint twitch of a smile lifted his lips. "Plodder. Like, one foot in front of the other."

"Especially now with the shinsplints," I murmured.

"And I... I mean, I really..."

"Have we come to the emotional part of the presentation?" I asked, still teasing. "You don't mind that I'm a larger woman?"

He wrapped his long fingers around my wrist. "I think you look like a queen," he said with such intensity that I was startled... and tremendously pleased. "I think you're the most amazing, exciting woman I've ever met. I think you're smart, and funny, and you have the most wonderful heart..." He paused, swallowing hard. "Cannie." And then he stopped.

I smiled- a private, contented smile- as he sat there, holding my wrist, waiting for my answer. And I knew what it was, I thought, looking at him looking at me. The answer was that I loved him... that he was as kind and considerate and loving a man as I could ever hope for. That he was warm-hearted, and decent, and sweet, and that we could have adventures together... me, and Peter, and Joy.

"Would you like to be the first man I kiss this millennium?" I inquired.

Peter leaned close. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. "I would like to be the only man you kiss this millennium," he said emphatically. And he brushed my neck with his lips... then my ear... then my cheek. I giggled until he kissed my lips to quiet me. Snuggled against my chest, squeezed between us, Joy gave a little shout and waved one fist in the air.

"Cannie?" Peter whispered, his voice pitched low, for my ears only, and one hand in his jacket pocket. "I want to ask you something."

"Shh," I said, knowing in my heart what his question was, and what my answer would be. I do, I thought. I will. "Shh," I said, "they're starting."

Above our heads, fireworks burst, in great blooms of color and light. Silver sparks showered down, racing toward the river, and the night was full of explosions and the whistling shrieks as the spent fire-crackers hurtled through the night and into the water. I looked down. Joy's face was rapt, her eyes wide, both her arms extended, as if she wanted to embrace what she was seeing. I smiled at Peter, holding up one finger, asking him with my eyes to wait. Then I unstrapped Joy from her carryall, putting my hands under her armpits, holding her in front of me as I scrambled to my feet. Ignoring the good-natured shouts of "Down in front!" and, "Hey, lady, be careful!" I stood on the ledge, letting the cold and the light pour down over my hair, my face, and my daughter. I raised my arms over my head and lifted Joy up toward the light.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Good in Bed would not have been possible without my brilliant, patient, and devoted agent, Joanna Pulcini, who plucked Cannie from obscurity, cleaned her up, and found her a home. I'm grateful to Liza Nelligan's careful reading and good advice. I also thank my editor, Greer Kessel Hendricks, whose keen eye and invaluable suggestions made this a much better book.

Thanks to Greer's a.s.sistant, Suzanne O'Neill, and Joanna's a.s.sistant, Kelly Smith, who answered a thousand questions and held my hand.

Thanks to Linda Michaels and Teresa Cavanaugh, who helped Cannie see the world, and Manuela Thurner, the German translator of Good in Bed, who caught a dozen discrepancies and learned the meaning of Tater Tot.

From elementary school through college, I was gifted with teachers who believed in me, and in the power of words: Patricia Ciabotti, Marie Miller, and most especially John McPhee.

I work with, and have learned from, the best people in the business at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Thanks to Beth Gillin, editor extraor-dinaire, and Gail Shister, Jonathan Storm, Carrie Rickey, Lorraine Branham, Max King, and Robert Rosenthal.

Thanks to my friends, who inspired me and amused me, especially Susan Abrams, Lisa Maslankowski (for the medical advice), Bill Syken, Craig and Elizabeth LaBan, and Scott Andron. Thanks to my sister Molly, my brothers Jake and Joe, and my grandmother Faye Frumin, who always believed in me, and to my mother, Frances Frumin Weiner, who still can't believe it. Thanks to Caren Morofsky, for being a very good sport.

Thanks to my muse, Wendell, King of All Dogs.

And finally, thanks to Adam Bonin, first reader and traveling companion, who made the journey worthwhile.