Monica is having her ultrasound today at two.
She had to get her blood drawn too and some other stuff, so she ended up taking a personal day. Sam is coming too, obviously, but all three of us will be arriving separately, and then meeting up. It’s an awkward situation, but there’s not much we can do about it. I want to be there for the ultrasound, especially if Sam is going to be there.
I eat lunch at my desk just to ensure I’ll make it there on time. At one- thirty, I grab my purse and head for the door. But I swear to God, Denise must have cameras in my office to know when I’m trying to leave, because she heads me off before I can get to the elevator.
“Abigail.” She narrows her ice-blue eyes at me. She’s the only person here who has the ability to make me feel terrible with a single gaze. “Where are you going? You’re not leaving, are you?”
“I’ve got…” I swallow. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. I’ll be back soon.”
I’m going to be here till ten o’clock tonight. I just know it. “Are you ill?” Denise says the words with utter contempt. “No.” I look away. “It’s just an appointment.”
That’s vague enough. No way can she get an inkling of my arrangement with Monica. In another few weeks, Monica will be resigning, before she starts to show. If Denise found out what we were up to… well, I don’t even want to think about it. It wouldn’t be good.
Thank God, Denise seems to accept this explanation. In any case, she doesn’t physically stop me from leaving. Which is what she’d have to do to keep me from going to this ultrasound.
“By the way,” Denise says. “When you get back, I’d like you to catch up with your correspondence. When Cuddles sends you an email, I expect you to answer within twenty-four hours, if not within the hour.”
“I do.” I glance at a clock on the wall—one-thirty-five.
“They told me several of their emails have gone unanswered.”
What? That can’t be right. I’m obsessive about answering all my emails. Missing one—possible. But several?
I’ll have to check my spam folder when I’m at the doctor’s office.
“I’ll take care of it,” I assure Denise, then I push past her to get to the elevator. I’m not missing anything else because of her. I’m still upset about that dinner I missed last week.
I hail a cab quickly outside the building and make it to the hospital in record time. It’s ten minutes to two, which means I’ve got time to spare.
The waiting area for maternal-fetal medicine is populated with several women in various stages of pregnancy. In the past, seeing a bunch of pregnant women like this would have made me burn with jealousy. I probably would have gone home and sobbed into my pillow, thinking about how unfair it all was. But it’s okay now. I’m part of it.
Monica and Sam are nowhere to be found—I guess I’m the first to arrive. I settled into one of the plastic chairs to wait. A receptionist gives me a funny look. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
I smile, but it feels crooked. “I, uh… I’m meeting someone here.” The woman arches an eyebrow at me. “Meeting someone?”
“Yes, she’s my…” God, I don’t want to explain this to a stranger. “Monica Johnson.”
“Oh!” The receptionist’s face relaxes as she smiles in recognition. “Yes, she’s just about done.”
Just about… done?
Before I have a minute to mull this over, Sam and Monica burst out of the back. She’s holding a string of black-and-white images, and he’s grinning ear-to-ear. My mouth falls open. What. The. Hell?
“Abby!” Sam waves at me. “You missed it, but we’ve got pictures.”
I jump out of my seat and rush over to them. I don’t want to lose my temper in this waiting room, but I’m furious. How did I miss it? I’m on time! I’m early! What is going on here?
“How could you be done?” I hiss at him. “The appointment is at two!” “No,” Sam says patiently. “The appointment was at one.”
I look at Monica, who is no longer smiling. “You told me it was at two,” I say.
She frowns. “I told you one, Abby.” “You told me two.” Damn it.
She shakes her head. “I know I told you one. You put it in your calendar—I saw it.”
Bullshit. I reach into my purse and yank out my phone. I bring up the calendar and…
Monica ultrasound – 1PM.
Oh my God, how did I get it wrong? I had in my head the whole day that it was at two. Did I really manage to screw that up? What’s the matter with me?
“Why didn’t you text me?” I say to Sam, desperate for this to be someone else’s fault but mine.
He shrugs helplessly. “You’ve been so busy lately with that Cuddles baby food stuff. I didn’t want to bother you. I figured you couldn’t make it.” I feel like bursting into tears. I can’t believe I missed the ultrasound. I wanted to be there so badly. And the worst part is that Sam and Monica don’t seem to care in the slightest. I wouldn’t expect Monica to care
necessarily, but Sam doesn’t seem to feel all that bad about it either. “Everything looked good, they said,” Sam adds.
I guess that’s all that matters. The point of this ultrasound was to make sure the baby is okay, not for entertainment purposes. “Well, that’s good.”
He holds up the row of images. “Do you want to see?”
I snatch the pictures from his hand. My anger fades slightly at the sight of them. The images are mostly black, but in white is an outline of the baby’s face—a tiny nose, a tiny chin, and the curve of the baby’s skull.
Sam grins at me. “Great, right?”
“Can…” I look up at them. “Can we keep this?”
Sam and Monica exchange looks. “That’s mine, actually,” she says. “But they’re printing out a second copy. They just had an issue with the printer.”
“Oh.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that if there’s only one copy, why does Monica get to keep it? After all, it’s our baby. “Our” meaning mine and Sam’s.
Before I can get worked up, the receptionist calls out, “Mrs. Johnson?”
Monica smiles at us and walks over to the reception table, where the woman is holding another set of images. She hands them over to Monica. “Here’s an extra copy for your husband.”
“Thank you,” Monica says.
“Enjoy! And congratulations, you two!”
Wonderful. This woman just referred to Sam as Monica’s husband and nobody felt a need to correct her. The best thing I can say about Sam is he’s looking down at the images of the baby and not really paying attention. He probably didn’t hear the receptionist call him Monica’s husband. But still.
Monica flashes us both a big smile. She’s wearing lipstick again. She’s been wearing makeup a lot more lately, and dressing less like a nun. Today she’s wearing a low-cut black blouse that clings to her breasts. And of course, she’s still barely showing.
“We should celebrate,” she says. “How about coffee?” “I’ve got to get back to work,” I mutter.
She doesn’t seem surprised or perturbed by my refusal. “What about you, Sammy?”
No. She didn’t just ask my husband out for coffee without me. That didn’t really just happen. And why is she still calling him Sammy?
“Um,” Sam says, glancing in my direction, “I actually also need to get back to work.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I thought you said you were done for the day?”
“Done with classes.” He smiles awkwardly. “But I’ve got, you know, research.”
“Oh, really? What sort of research?” she asks with what appears to be genuine interest.
Sam brightens the way he always does when someone asks him about his research, which doesn’t happen too often in social situations. “I’m studying random integral matrices and the universality of surjectivity and the cokernel.”
She looks thoughtful. Did she actually understand that? “So what specifically about the cokernal?”
“Well,” he says, “I’m looking at the probability that the cokernel is isomorphic to a given finite abelian group.”
“And how about when it’s cyclic?” He nods eagerly. “Yes! That too.”
“Wow, that sounds fascinating,” she says. “I would love to hear more about it.”
Sam glances at me again. I can tell he’s dying to talk to her more about this, but he doesn’t want to upset me. “Abby,” he says, “are you sure you
don’t have time for a quick coffee?”
That lump in my throat returns. “No, I don’t. But if you really want to go, Sam, it’s up to you.”
“Oh.” He looks between the two of us, unsure what to do. Except isn’t it obvious what he’s supposed to do? He’s supposed to say “no” to the attractive twenty-three-year-old woman asking him to coffee! Any idiot would know that! I’d like to tell him as much, but I don’t want Monica to see me forcing him to turn down what would probably be an entirely innocent coffee.
Probably.
“Maybe just like twenty minutes,” Sam says. “Then I really need to get back to work.”
“Wonderful!” Monica beams at him. “I know the perfect place.”
We walk out together to the lobby, then Sam and Monica go together to the coffee shop while I hail a cab. I watch them walk down the street together, getting farther and farther away from me. They seem to be standing awfully close to one another. Isn’t there some rule that you’re supposed to stand at least one foot away from someone you’re walking with? Or did I just entirely make that up?
All right, I need to stop driving myself crazy. I trust Sam. And that’s all there is to it.
