Baby proof

ten

Ben calls me twice that night.

The first is when I am still at the pet store, gazing at those goldfish and wondering who the hell thinks that fish make good pets. Then he calls again just after I've returned to Jess's apartment, showered, and dumped two manuscripts and a sharpened red pencil onto the kitchen table. Both times, I feel too sad and queasy to answer. I never fancied myself irreplaceable. I mean, our divorce is proof that I am totally replaceable. But I really didn't think Ben would be out there so soon, meeting women already, as if he is up against some male biological clock. And whether Tucker is just a friend or his actual girlfriend or someone he's sleeping with or someone he aspires to sleep with or his second wife or the mother of his future children isn't the point. Tucker actually is entirely beside the point.

The point is-Ben is moving on and I am not. Instead, I'm trekking up to his apartment with some half-baked inquiry about a purported fear. A total, transparent, pathetic excuse. The kind of thing I would rip Jess apart for. All of this not only confirms that I'm taking the divorce harder than he is, but now I also know that Ben knows that I am taking the divorce harder than he is. And this part probably sucks the most.

I try to concentrate on my work, but my mind keeps returning to Tucker. I remember Ben's introduction and say her name aloud: "Tucker Jansen." Then, against my better judgment, I slowly get up from the table and make my way to Jess's computer, set up in a corner of her bedroom. My heart is pounding as I log on to Google and prepare to do a search of my ex-husband's new friend. I put Tucker Jansen in quotes, just as Jess taught me to do. Jess is a masterful cyberspace stalker. She has found numerous ex-boyfriends online. Wedding gift registries on theknot.com are her bread and butter. She pores over the selections, recruiting me to help rip on her ex's fiancee's taste. ("Have you ever seen such a hideous china pattern?") She has also found houses on domania.com ("Jack's doing well-he just bought a five-bedroom chateau in Greenwich.") and baby registries on Amazon.com ("Brad's wife is due on April fifth-they don't know the gender because they only registered for yellow things.").

But my favorite of her hits was when she found one ex on an obscure cooking Web site. She read details about his upcoming dinner party for twelve, which happened to be planned on her birthday, shortly after their breakup. It just added insult to injury to read his chipper online chat about how to make venison taste less gamey with a milk marinade. Of course she couldn't resist posting an anonymous response: "Who the hell serves venison at a dinner party? And if you want it to be less gamey, skip the milk marinade and just go with steak."

I hesitate for a moment, worried about what I will find on Tucker. Then I close my eyes and hit return. I am beyond relieved when I open my eyes and discover that Ben's new friend does not exist on the Internet. Clearly she is too young to have accomplished much of anything. To reinforce the point, I do a search of myself. I feel an enormous sense of satisfaction when my name retrieves four hundred and thirty hits, including articles in Publishers Weekly, mentions on author Web sites, and quotes from various conferences and speaking engagements. I scan some of the articles and start to feel the tiniest bit better. Tucker needs a baby to give her life some meaning. I do not.

I log off and return to the kitchen table, determined to get some work done. I tell myself not to listen to Ben's messages. It was bad enough that I Googled his (girl)friend. But after twenty minutes of rereading the same paragraph, I cave and dial my voice mail. In his first message Ben is all business. He simply says, "Claudia. It's Ben. Please call me when you get this."

In his second message, he says virtually the same thing, word for word, but then he pauses for several seconds and says, "It was great to see you… It really was."

His really is so sincere and has something of a desperate edge-an edge you could only detect if you know someone well. I listen to the message again and can't stop myself from dialing his cell even though I know he could be reunited with Tucker by now. I figure I've already blown my pride for the day. Besides, he asked me to call him. Blowing him off might appear more pathetic. Like I'm too wounded or angry to talk.

Ben answers on the fourth ring, and before I can say hello, he says my name, sweetly and softly: Claudia. I shiver, but quickly tell myself not to get sentimental. There is no point.

"Hi, Ben," I say, careful to keep my voice even. "Look. I'm really sorry to drop in on you like that. I didn't mean to interrupt…"

"You didn't interrupt anything," he says quickly.

I laugh, as if to say, I sure did interrupt something.

"Tucker's just a friend," he says.

"Uh-huh," I say.

"It's not like that," he says. "We just went for a run. It was nothing."

"Whatever. It's none of my business," I say a little too emphatically. I don't want to come across as bitter. The last thing I want to be is bitter.

"It's not like that," he says again. "Truly. It's not."

"Okay," I say.

After a long pause, he says, "So. Was something on your mind when you came by?"

"No. I was just in the neighborhood… and I thought I'd say hello."

"Claudia. C'mon."

"What?"

"Talk to me," he says, his voice a near whisper.

My heart is pounding in my ears, and I can't get any words out. Not that I know what to say anyway.

"Are you okay?" he says.

"Yeah. I'm fine," I lie. "I just… I don't know."

"Say it," he says. "Tell me."

"I don't know… I guess I was just wondering if we did the right thing?"

He says, "Sometimes I really don't know… I miss you so much."

I want to tell him that I miss him, too, but instead I deflect with a laugh and say, "Yeah. This whole divorce business ain't easy."

We're both quiet for something close to a full minute and then he says, "You want to come over? Watch a movie or something?"

I feel goose bumps rise on my arms and legs but shoot back, "I don't think that would be a very good idea…"

I know I am right, but I still hate myself for saying it. I want nothing more than to go back to my old apartment, sit with Ben on the couch, and watch a movie. At this moment, I miss our friendship more than anything else.

Part of me hopes he'll talk me into it, but he just says, "You're probably right."

"Yeah," I say.

"Okay," he says.

"Well. I better go," I say, my eyes filling with tears.

"Okay. Good-bye, Claudia," he says softly. "Be well."

"You, too," I say, feeling unbelievably empty inside. I can't ever remember feeling this lonesome. As I hang up, I tell myself to memorize the ache in my chest just in case I ever get any more bright ideas to get in touch with Ben. I don't want to be reminded of what I no longer have.

Jess returns the following morning from her red-eye flight, bursting into my bedroom. The best way to describe her is giddy.

"I'm so glad you're awake!" she says, running and jumping on the foot of my bed.

"What's up?" I say, just as Tucker's vivid features come into sharp focus. "How was your trip?"

Jess sings, "Trey's leaving his wife!"

"That's great!" I say, my voice sounding stilted. It's hard for me to muster up a lot of enthusiasm around the subject of divorce.

"He's telling her this week," she says. "She's going on her annual girls' trip to the beach this Friday-and he's going to tell her right before she leaves."

How thoughtful, I think. The girls will have something to talk about now. But I say, "And then what?"

"What do you mean 'then what'?" she says. I know she is hungry for my approval in the way that all single women need the approval of their best friends. In the way that I now need her approval.

"I mean-what are the logistics? Is he moving to New York?"

"We haven't talked about that yet," she says.

"Oh," I say, and then worry that I'm probably not sounding jubilant enough. The last thing I want to do is rain on Jess's parade when every single one of her parades over the past decade-plus has been rained out. Besides, nothing I say is going to change what she does so I might as well be supportive. Sometimes you just need someone to be happy-or sad-along with you. Still, I can't help having a very bad feeling about Trey. Except in a few, very rare circumstances, I am a firm believer in the saying, Once a cheater, always a cheater.

I know Jess can sense my skepticism because she says, "You don't like him, do you?"

"I don't know him," I say quickly. "I just… I don't know…"

"Say it," she says.

I hesitate and then say, "Do you think you could ever really trust him?"

"We're totally in love," Jess says, which doesn't really address my question. You can love someone you mistrust. "He's my soul mate."

My legs feel weak just hearing the words soul mate, words I once used to describe my relationship with Ben. There is no better feeling in the world than believing you have found your soul mate. It's utter euphoria. Which is sort of the exact opposite of how I feel right now.

"I'm happy for you, Jess," I say. "I really hope things work out."

She grins and then disappears, returning with her digital camera. "I took photos of him. Just so you could see him," she says, clicking through highlights of their tryst at the Four Seasons. There is one picture of Trey holding a towel loosely at his waist. He has a six-pack, maybe even an eight-pack, complete with those ledgelike indentations where ripped stomach dips into pelvis territory.

"Wow. He's gorgeous," I say, wondering how an investment-banker-father-husband has time to carry on an affair and hit the gym that hard. It confirms something else I've always said-I don't trust men who have bodies that fabulous.

Jess blushes and says, "I know! He really is… I think this is it, Claudia. This is really it this time."

"We'll see," I say, crossing my fingers with feigned optimism.

I don't tell Jess about Tucker until the following Saturday morning, after Trey-surprise, surprise-does not tell his wife that he wants a divorce. He had his reasons, of course. They always do. Something about his son having a high fever and his wife's beach trip getting canceled. I think to myself that it's so unfair that shit marriages seem to have a way of limping along for decades-while perfectly good ones like mine can just end overnight.

Meanwhile Jess is telling me how she doesn't hold the delay against him. That this just proves what a good father he is.

I guess it's the "good father" reference that makes me think of Ben because I tell her the whole Tucker story.

Jess looks surprised that I didn't confide in her sooner, so I shoot her a look of apology and say, "I had to digest it before I could talk about it."

She nods as if she understands. Unlike my sisters, she's not one to get her feelings damaged around these sorts of things. In fact, she's not one to get her feelings hurt around much of anything. She has developed an extremely thick skin over the years-which probably stems as much from her bad luck in love as her hardass profession.

"Did you Google her?" Jess asks.

I laugh and admit that I did. "You taught me well."

"And?"

"Nothing. She's nowhere to be found."

"You put her name in quotes?"

"Yup," I say. "Nothing came up."

"Good," Jess says, flashing me one of her devilish smiles. "Just proves what we already knew."

"What's that?" I say.

"That he doesn't have a prayer of upgrading from you."

"Say it again," I say.

So she does, with a little extra flair the second time.

Later that afternoon, Jess and I meet my sisters at Union Square Cafe for lunch. Jess and I were working all morning while Maura and Daphne shopped. They are loaded up with bags from Barneys (Maura's favorite store) and Bloomingdale's (Daphne's favorite). I'm in the best mood I've been in for a long time, likely because I'm spending time with my three favorite women. I can literally feel my heart healing just being in their company.

The waitress is grinding fresh pepper on Daphne's ravioli when Maura comes right out and asks if I've heard from Ben. I glance at Jess and fleetingly consider saying no. It's not that I don't want to tell my sisters. I'm just not in the mood to relive the whole tale. But I have a very difficult time keeping track of those sorts of deceptions. I know I will forget in several months that I didn't tell them and will make a Tucker reference-and then it will become an issue: why did I tell Jess and not them? So I just go ahead and divulge everything, down to the rainbow sprinkles and the pet store and my Google search and short conversation with Ben later that night. Daphne's brown eyes look pained and downright teary. Daphne cries a lot. It is her natural reaction to any extreme emotion-anger, happiness, worry, fear. Meanwhile, Maura puts on her determined, competitive face. I can tell she wants more information. Sure enough, she starts firing questions. "How pretty was she?" she asks, even though I just completed a rather detailed physical description for the express purpose of preempting this line of questioning.

"I told you," I say with a shrug. "She was attractive. She had good hair and skin. And a decent body."

"Decent?" Maura asks. "Define decent, please."

"It was pretty good," I say, and then amend my statement as I consider my audience. "Actually, you probably wouldn't think so."

Maura's standards are ridiculous-for herself and everyone else. She is extremely thin-and with frequent workouts with a trainer, she is also toned and fit. You would never guess that she had three children. Some might even call her too thin. Daphne thinks so, but that might be because Daphne and she look so much alike except that Daphne is perpetually trying to lose fifteen to twenty pounds. In fact, one of my sisters' biggest arguments of the last five years came when Daphne was complaining about some bizarre diet not working and Maura said to her, "I don't get it. Just don't eat, Daph. Just don't put the food in your mouth. What's so hard about that?" To Maura, it's not hard. I've never seen someone with so much self-discipline. To Daphne-and millions of other Americans-it's just not that easy. If it were, nobody would be fat.

So Maura continues now, "So she was chunky? I can't see Ben with a chunky girl."

"No. She wasn't chunky. Big-boned maybe," I say. "Lush."

Jess laughs. "Lush?"

"Young… curvy… strong," I say matter-of-factly.

"Yikes," Daphne says. "I don't care for that description."

"Well," I say, scraping my container of dressing onto my salad. I don't know why I ever bother getting dressing on the side when I always eat all of it. "What're you gonna do? We knew that Ben was going to date. That was the point of our breakup, right? Find a good woman with an available womb."

Daphne makes a face. I usually try to avoid words like womb around Daphne. Unlike my insensitive mother who tosses around expressions like shooting blanks and barren.

I field another few questions about Tucker's looks.

Probably a size ten.

About Ben's height.

Green eyes, I think. Maybe blue.

"So it sounds like her hair is her only decent feature?" Maura concludes.

"It's probably her best feature, yes," I say.

"So she wouldn't pass the Rosannadanna-do test?" Daphne says, smiling.

I laugh and say probably not. The Rosannadanna-do test is pretty self-explanatory, but this is how it works: give an otherwise pretty girl frizzy, brown Rosannadanna hair and ask if she's still pretty. Maura devised the litmus test when we were in high school and she insisted that the only reason Tiffany Hartong beat her out for homecoming queen was that Tiffany had this gorgeous blond hair that fooled everyone into thinking she was pretty. Of course, I would argue that that's sort of like a test that says, "Give the girl a buttass ugly face and ask if she's still pretty." Hair is a pretty integral part of the package.

Still, I resist the urge to announce that I'm not as all-consumed with looks as some other women seem to be, and that I'd rather Tucker be a Victoria's Secret model than a concert pianist or fighter pilot or something else that Ben would really respect. Of course if I were in Maura's shoes, and my husband had cheated on me with his secretary, a Norwegian bombshell who refused to lick envelopes because she once heard that the gumming on the flap equals three calories, I'd probably be obsessed with body fat, too.

"Well, who gives a flying fuck about Tucker," Jess says, raising her glass of wine. "She's clearly just his rebound. In fact, I bet he'll stay in the rebound stage for years. Nobody's going to measure up to you, Claudia."

This is more like it. I flash Jess a grateful smile and raise my glass. "I'll drink to that!"

Maura takes Jess's lead and says, "Yeah. He'll never find someone like you."

"Not in a million years," Daphne says. "Hear, hear!"

I clink my glass against theirs and say, "Thanks, guys."

This is the moment Jess chooses to begin her smitten chatter about how wonderful Trey is.

"Wait. Which one is Trey?" Maura asks.

"The married guy with the hot bod. Right?" Daphne says. Daphne lived with Jess and me for a year before she married Tony, so she and Jess occasionally e-mail and talk on the phone. In fact, Jess has told me before that Daphne will likely be one of her bridesmaids, an exercise I find just as silly as picking baby names before you're pregnant.

" 'Married guy' hardly narrows things down," Maura says.

Jess laughs and flips her off.

"Don't tell me you're dating another married man, Jess," Maura says. She pushes away her salad with disgust and crosses her arms.

I was worried about the Trey topic for this reason, and suddenly wish that I had warned Jess to tread carefully.

"This time it's different," Jess says, dabbing at her mouth with her cloth napkin. "Trey and his wife are totally wrong for each other. They married really young."

The "married too young" theme, of course, rubs Daphne the wrong way so she says, "Hey! Nothing wrong with that. If you find the right guy, you can't help it if you're young."

"That's the point," Jess says. "He's not the right guy for her. Clearly. And he's going to leave her soon. Tell them, Claudia."

"He's leaving her soon," I echo, keeping my eyes focused on an orb of hardboiled egg.

Maura sniffs. "Jesus, Jess. Is nobody off-limits to you?"

"Hey. It's not my fault that there are bad marriages out there," Jess says. "I didn't create that dynamic. It was preexisting."

"There are bad marriages out there in part because of women like you!" Maura says. "You don't have to be so predatory?"

"And you don't have to be so naive," Jess says. "Affairs happen when people aren't happy. A third party can't penetrate a happy, mutually satisfying marriage."

"I beg to differ," Maura says, looking pissed.

I don't really blame her for being upset. The topic hits a little too close to home.

But instead of backing off, Jess goes for shock value and says, "So I guess you'd disapprove of me getting pregnant on purpose?"

"What do you mean?" Maura says, aghast.

"You know… forgetting to take my pill. To sort of move the process along." She makes an investment-banker hand gesture.

Maura's eyes widen. "You have got to be shitting me."

Jess looks pleased with herself. I can tell she is mostly kidding, but not entirely. Of course, beyond the obvious unethical nature of such a dirty trick, this whole topic strikes a chord with me as I think of how I would have felt if Ben had, say, replaced my birth control pills with placebos. The word unconscionable comes to mind. So I say, "What if Ben had pulled something like that with me? Punched tiny holes in our condoms, so to speak?"

Jess says, "That's totally different."

"Not really," I say.

"Sure it is. It's your body. You should have ultimate say."

"Well, it's his sperm," Maura says. I can tell she's imagining what she would do if Scott had an illegitimate child on the side. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, that's for sure.

Daphne, on the other hand, looks suspiciously conspiratorial. Anything for a baby. I am pretty sure that she would steal a bit of seed if she had to.

I call her on it. "You think it's okay, Daph. Don't you?"

"No," she says unconvincingly. "Well… it depends… I guess."

"Depends on what?" Maura says.

"On why she's doing it," Daphne says, turning to Jess. "Would you be doing it to get Trey to leave his wife? Or would you be doing it to have a baby?"

"Look, Daph, motherhood ain't so noble that it overrides basic morality," Maura says.

Daphne kicks me under the table, as if the argument brewing at the table is subtle, something that I could somehow miss. She gives me a "do something" look.

"C'mon, guys," I say. "Enough. We gotta stick together."

"That's my point, Claudia," Maura says. "Women should stick together."

"Friends should stick together," Jess says. "I don't know Trey's wife from Adam. Eve. Whatever. I owe her nothing."

"I'll remind you of that someday," Maura says, her voice shaking a little. "When you're married to a man who once looked into your eyes and promised to forsake all others. I'll remind you of that after you've just had his baby and you have postpartum depression and feel as fat as a cow and you are pumping milk into little plastic containers in the middle of the night while he's running around with some twenty-two-year-old named Lisette. I'll remind you of that."

"Wait a second," Daphne says. "You didn't breast-feed."

I give her a look that says it's probably not the right moment to play the role of superior-earth-mother-to-be.

"I nursed Zoe for three weeks!" Maura says. "And then I had to quit because of mastitis. Remember?"

Daphne shakes her head.

"Well, I did… And besides, Daph, talk about missing the point."

"God. Well. Excuse me for living," Daphne says.

I give Daphne a sympathetic look, knowing that she would kill for a raging case of mastitis right about now. Remarkably, I also think she'd settle for a philandering husband if it meant she could be a mother.

A few minutes later, with a lot of cajoling on my part and the ordering of another bottle of wine, the storm has passed and we are on to safer topics. But as I listen to the three women I love most, I can't help but think how crazy it is that we all want something that we can't seem to have. Something that someone else at the table has in spades. I want my husband back, hold the baby. Daphne wants the baby, these days never mind her husband. Maura wants her husband to stop straying. Jess wants someone else's husband to stray a little more.

I consider what we did to get to this place. Whether any of us is entirely blameless for our predicament. Should Daphne have tried sooner to have a baby? If she knew that she wanted a child more than anything else, should she and Tony have tried to conceive in their twenties, rather than saving their money to buy a house? Should Jess use her head and follow her heart a little less? Should she only date available, unmarried men-for reasons of morality and practicality? Should Maura have seen the signs in Scott earlier? Should she have married a nicer guy, someone more like Niles? And what about me? Should I have just sucked it up and had a baby to keep the only man I've ever truly loved?

Things certainly aren't the way you imagine them when you're a kid and dreaming big dreams about what your life as a grown-up will look like. Even with a mother like mine, even with my untraditional wishes, even with all the books I've read about all the people with lives screwed up in one way or another, I still could have sworn things would be so much neater and easier than they're turning out to be.