Lily
September, October, November, December, January . . .
And now February, a few days before Valentine’s Day and here I am with a belly the size of a beach ball sitting behind a desk with a headset on my head staring at a computer screen. All around me, people are chattering. Markus sits at the head of this gathering of chatterers like some twisted conductor, his belly even bigger than mine, his face squashed up and piggish, his hair combed-over and sweaty. I have to sit far back from the desk so that I don’t squeeze Bump, who is so giant now it’s difficult to believe I have one month left until my due date.
“I understand that you are upset, sir,” I am saying, without even really listening to myself. “I am truly sorry, but you have to understand that your policy does not cover you for natural wear, just—”
“No, you listen here, missy!” the man barks at me. I always wonder what sorts of people these are, who have the capacity to scream at me like I’m some kind of pond scum, not human at all. “I paid one-thousand dollars for this couch and another one-hundred for the insurance policy so you will sort it out, or I’ll go to the papers! I will! I will!”
I sigh, silently. That’s a skill I picked up pretty soon after starting this job. Sighing silently is a necessity when you’re on the phone with assholes. I glance at the clock. Five fifteen, fifteen minutes until I can get out of this hellhole and get to my OBGYN meeting.
“I’m afraid your policy does not cover you for natural wear, sir. You have had this couch for—let me check—seven years. It is natural that it will wear a little over this time.”
“Wear, wear, wear!” the man snaps. “What are you, a parrot? Is that the only word you know, parrot? Is it? Is it? Parrot, parrot, parrot! See, I can do it too!”
Sighing surreptitiously, I repeat myself, which only prompts the kind gentleman to call me a parrot a few more times. Eventually, the call ends with him escalating the matter up the chain, as it often does. Then five thirty hits and I climb to my feet, no easy feat these days with Bump kicking and jostling inside of me.
I am on my way out, in the narrow hallway which leads from the cramped fluorescent-lit office to the chipped-brick, poorly-paved, grim-looking parking lot, when Markus calls after me. His belly jiggles as he runs and a flush of sweat creeps up his neck to his red face. “Wait a sec!” Flustered, he wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Yes?” I say, keeping my voice polite. That’s Betty Baker for you: Ms. Polite, Ms. Mouse, Ms. No Offence. Just behind Markus, there’s a glassed notice board. In it, I can see my reflection. I hate it. Bleached blonde hair, face plastered in makeup, wearing a frumpy pregnancy dress. The dress I don’t mind. But the hair and the makeup: it just isn’t me.
“Betty.” Markus drawls, leaning closer to me than I would like. “I just wanted to say, well . . . you’re single, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, though I wish with all my heart that Roman was here, standing between me and this man.
“Good.” He smiles. Markus has made a few passes at me before, even going so far as to try and slap me on the ass once; I only just managed to dodge out of the way. The fact that he’s pretending now that he’s some kind of nervous nice guy is worrying, as though he has no recollection of being a slime ball. “Because I just wanted to say that you look really fucking hot today. Like really fucking hot. You know . . .” He glances behind him, to make sure nobody is approaching. “I just wondered if you wanted to come out with me one night, maybe see where it goes?”
I swallow sick, make my face a nice Ms. Polite face, and then politely shake my head. “No, thank you. I have plans.”
“I haven’t said when—”
I turn away, make toward the car park, ignoring Markus’ muttered, “Stuck-up bitch.”
I climb into the Prius, which is full of takeout wrappers, discarded makeup containers, and other paraphernalia of a half-lived life. I pull out of the parking lot and drive through Carson to my birthing class, where I learn how to solo myself through a pregnancy without the help of the father. I always feel depressed as I drive toward these classes, especially when I pass couples walking hand in hand, going into movie theaters together. I think about Lily, about her life back in Vegas, working nonstop; I don’t want that, either. I want something in between. I want to work a shift at the hospital and then have Roman meet me so we can go to the movies together. I want him to lay his hand on my belly and tell me he’s happy everything’s going okay. But I haven’t heard from Roman, not once.
I’m starting to fear he might be dead.
I stop the car outside the center, trying to push this thought far down where it doesn’t have to be real. But, I reflect as I pass the colorfully-decorated desk area and into the activity room, equally colorful, the possibility is all too real. Of course he might be dead. Of course Darius might have gotten to him. The last time I saw him—that morning at the diner, which seems hazy now, the life of a different woman—he talked about how dangerous Darius is. A dealer of arms, a man who’s dealt with North Korea, a psychopath, Acid Man. I shiver, dropping my handbag on the hardwood floor. Roman, dead . . . Roman, the father of my child . . .
“Are you okay, dear?”
Roxanne approaches like a tidal wave, a mammoth of a woman carrying triplets, with a stick insect of a husband hovering at her shoulder. I have never learned the husband’s name because he never talks, except to whisper close to Roxanne’s ears. Roxanne is wide, tall, and huge. Her hair is lank and grey-tinged blonde and her eyes are soft and doughy. She looks about sixty though I know for a fact she’s only thirty; she made a point of showing me her driving license the first time we met.
“No man today, dear?” Roxanne asks, keeping her voice low. It’s always the same with Roxanne. Roxanne loves bullying Betty, and the pathetic part is, Betty takes it. Betty takes it because Betty knows that if she kicks up any kind of fuss in any aspect of her life, it might draw attention to her, and she must avoid that at all costs.
“No, Roxanne,” I reply, keeping my voice chirpy. The façade is that this is an inside joke between us; the façade is that we’re good friends and we like to joke about how I am the only one here without a partner. But we both know that she is being mean—that she enjoys being mean—but we both pretend it’s harmless.
“Oh, when will she ever bring a man?” Roxanne turns to her stick of a husband, who nods feebly. “Bringing a baby alone into this world . . . I just don’t know how you’re going to do it.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say shortly.
On the other side of the room, women and their husbands or boyfriends are filing in. The instructor, a bright-faced lady who has had seven children, is setting up at the front. Soon we’ll be on our backs, practicing breathing and talking in minute detail about giving birth. But not before Roxanne has put in a few finals words: “I just . . . you’re so brave, Betty, really you are. If I didn’t have my husband, I don’t know what I would do. I think I would cry myself to sleep every night! I really do! But I’m sure you’ll manage. Yes, I’m sure you will.”
She leaves me with that, and then the class proceeds.
As we go through the exercises and the discussions—and a few of the women look at me in pity, even if they don’t mean to—I fantasize about Roman walking through the door. I see him, framed in the doorway, surrounded on all sides by colorful posters and signs, and then walking into the room and kneeling next to me. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he’d say, taking my hand. Everyone would be impressed by him: by how big and strong and handsome he is, not at all like Roxanne’s stick. But of course that doesn’t happen, and as I waddle out of the center toward my car, Roxanne calls after me, “Good luck!”
Finally, at around eight o‘clock, I climb out of my car and walk down the street to my apartment building. Even the building looks dark and grim in the blinking streetlamps, a squat structure of grey with graffiti on the walls. The graffiti was meant to be modern and cool-looking, a program by the building owner to help with some government schooling project. But it has chipped away and more graffiti has been added by passersby until it is an ugly mishmash. I manage to open the main door after messing with the lock a few times, and finally shouldering it open, as I have to do most days. Then I walk up the stairs to the fourth story. I haven’t written a letter to the owner about the elevator, but I’ve overheard other people who have, but nothing has happened.
I push open my door, which is so flimsy I sometimes think it will just come right off the hinges, and then lock and double-lock it behind me. Finally, I collapse onto the couch. The apartment is a tiny one-bedroom, the living room almost in the kitchen, the bathroom a closet off to one side, the bedroom a narrow room behind me. My old apartment was full of flavors of Lily; this apartment is as bare as the day I moved in except for my clothes and my makeup and some groceries. I switch on the old box TV to some sitcom and then go into the kitchen and microwave a ready meal. I eat that on a tray in front of the TV, wash up, and then sit down on the couch and watch TV for the rest of the night.
But I don’t watch TV, not really. It’s the same every night. I am staring at the TV, at the flashing lights of some pointless, mundane, routine sitcom, listening to the canned laughter and the formulaic jokes, but really I am thinking back to that home in the suburbs. At the time, it was my prison. At the time, I was a captive there. But when I think of it now, I miss it. I miss how spacious it was. I miss how I didn’t have to listen to neighbors fucking and swearing and snoring. But most of all I miss Roman.
I was surprised at first by how much I missed him. I knew I liked him, and we had a connection, and he is my child’s father. Yes, I knew all that, but I didn’t expect this violent ache in my breast, this harsh longing which reminds me every hour of every day that Roman is not here, with me, that Roman might be dead. I tell myself to stop thinking like that, but it’s true. The possibility is too likely to be ignored. And if that is true . . .
I stand up, go into the bedroom and crawl into bed, lying in the darkness and listening to the sounds of the apartments around me. If Roman is gone, what does that mean for me—for us? If Roman is gone, will Darius still want to hurt me? If Roman is gone, can I return to Vegas, to Lily’s life, or am I doomed to forever be Betty Baker?
Bump kicks madly throughout the night, as though he, too, feels the desperation which flares constantly within my chest. He . . . Roman may never know that he has a son. I close my eyes, wondering if our son will have Roman’s wolf-blue eyes or my hazel-browns, wondering if he’ll be tough and strong like Roman or small and frail like me, wondering if these questions have any meaning to a woman named Betty Baker.