layla
Macaroni and cheese. I didn’t eat it much as a kid, so it’s not like I’m regressing or reaching out to a comforting time. Yet it’s all I want. In various forms. Sure, Kraft straight out of the box, cooked as indicated, is the gold standard. But since all I have any interest in is mac and cheese, I have taken to spending countless hours researching new recipes. (I myself have invented at least three, and mac and Jack is currently my favorite—possibly because I just like saying the words. And that’s Jack as in cheese, not as in Daniel’s.) Anyhow, there’s an entire website dedicated to the foodstuff, http://macaroniandcheese.net, where I’ve found at least a dozen new versions, some of which include: four-cheese macaroni (A+), seven-cheese macaroni casserole (a little busy for my tastes, C-), Mexican mac and cheese (Olé A), spicy mac and cheese (F, spicy isn’t fun when you’re pregnant), beef and mac (C), chili cheese and mac (A+)—I mean, I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that all I want to do is eat macaroni and cheese, and when I’m not eating it, all I want to do is research new and exciting ways to eat it next. This is possibly a coping mechanism.
I haven’t seen Brett since he stormed out of my house. After I told him to leave. After Heather and her breasts told me that she dumped him and that he’s been trying to win her back. Why do we say and do the exact opposite of what we want? Because we want to test people? Because we think they’re mind readers? Because there’s a corkscrew turn somewhere in the connection between our brains and mouths that takes perfectly civil, sensible thoughts and spins them around backward before they come out? Or because we really just love macaroni and cheese?
It sucks. I’m lonely and hormonal and I miss Trish and I don’t know how to balance our business with my distancing myself from the family. And my heart aches for Ginny.
And I truly, deep down, want Brett to be a part of this baby’s life.
I can’t say that to him, though, because I have too much pride. My cupboards are filled with pride, and I am considering building a shed out back where I can store the surplus, because every time I consider opening up to him and the family about what I’m going through, I immediately dump the thought in the trash, ashamed of how foolish and vulnerable I’d look. I’m tired of looking stupid and desperate and vulnerable.
I keep having strange dreams. Once I was swimming in an upside-down pool. I dove in, and the water disappeared and I fell out onto the concrete deck. I tried to get out, but I kept going deeper, sinking into the concrete. Another time, Brett had become a successful investment banker and lived in a luxurious blimp that flew nonstop around the world, hosting dazzling parties. And in another that I’ve suffered through about eleven times now, I’m screaming and nothing comes out. I wake up trying to scream, and there’s a persistent wail but it’s only the alarm clock. I’m conscious but completely fogged in.
This time, instead of the alarm clock filling in for my scream and causing further confusion, I hear knocking. I’m disoriented for a second, because I can’t place the sound, but then I realize it’s not part of the dream at all: There’s a strange person at my house. I peer through the storm door and see a figure I don’t know, who may or may not be strange. “Layla Foster?” the man asks.
Instantly I feel panic. Someone showing up at your door, asking if you’re you, is never a good thing—at least from what I’ve seen on TV and movies, unless there’s a big Publishers Clearing House van nearby and the person knocking has a camera crew, balloons, and an oversized check. This person has none of the above. I look for the van anyway. Nothing.
“Yes,” I answer.
“This is for you,” the person says, and when I open the door, he hands me a piece of paper.
I open it to find it’s from my lawyer—or at least a person with the same last name as my lawyer—and it’s a notice to appear at a new mediation, which I can only imagine is regarding the custody of my unborn child.
Is. He. Fucking. Kidding?
I don’t know who I want to strangle more, my husband or my ex-lawyer. Is that even ethical? Can his relative even take this case? If it is actually allowed, can the Thames family be so unprincipled as to throw their own client under the bus?
The depression that sets in is a new low. It feels almost like the first time I saw Brett with Heather after we split up. I’d known we were technically split up, but I hadn’t anticipated him ever actually dating. This feels like that times a hundred. How can he do this?
I call Trish and she doesn’t answer. I leave a weepy message that I regret the second I hang up. I call back to leave a second message telling her to disregard the message, and then a third telling her that I stand by everything I said but am sorry for the whining. I consider calling a fourth time just to apologize for being annoying, but I don’t want to be a parody of that guy in Swingers, and I worry that she’ll get a restraining order against me if I make one more call.
Four days later, she still hasn’t called back. Trish has never not returned a phone call from me. Trish and I have never even gone four days without talking. Sure, things were stilted after I decided to take a break from our business to let Brett have his family back, but I’ve never ignored a phone call from her.
I feel ill. As if it wasn’t bad enough to lose the only family I had, now I’m potentially losing my baby to a hostile takeover. Isn’t there some sort of Gloria Steinem—type nouveau-feminist icon who wants to fight for the rights of me and my unborn child? But do I even want to fight? I’m so tired of it all.
My heart is broken into so many microscopic pieces that it would be impossible for even an experienced and extremely anal paleontologist to put it back together. I’m so dazed and confused, and not in a Richard Linklater, fun indie hit, Ben-Affleck-before-he-was-famous kind of way. No, I’m “dazed,” as in not knowing which way is up, and “confused,” as in not knowing what I’m going to do next. I get it together long enough to call Tommy Thames to give him a piece of my mind, but he won’t come to the phone. The only info I can get from his oddball secretary is that he is planning to attend the mediation with me and that I should “remain calm and not worry so much.”
She says those exact words to me, and I feel like there may be some double-dealing going on. If Thames’s brother or cousin or whatever is suddenly Brett’s lawyer, why is Tommy Thames going to accompany me to the mediation? I have a million questions and feel like I have nobody to ask.
I spend the next eighteen hours in bed. I bring new meaning to the word wallow. But then I get past the sad and enter the mad. Furious is more like it. And it’s with this new resolve and the anger of a lion protecting her cub that I answer my door to receive Tommy Thames on the morning of the mediation.
“You’re wearing that?” he asks, which I find odd, not to mention off-putting and insulting.
“I was planning to,” I say, looking down at myself.
It’s true. I’ve looked better. I could have more carefully planned my outfit or put something on that could actually be considered an outfit … or showered, for that matter. But I’m too angry to care. The baseball cap will have to do. And I tell Thames as much.
“I’d reconsider,” he says.
“Why?” I ask. “Because he’s going to be there?”
I can’t even bring myself to say his name. He’s become a pronoun. One said with permanent italics.
“Well, yes,” Thames says.
“I don’t need to impress him,” I say.
“No,” he replies. “You don’t. But you do want to appear qualified for parenthood.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means you haven’t even washed your hair,” he replies, unapologetic.
I open my mouth to say something about wrinkled suits, stained shirts, and shar-peis, but nothing comes out. Which is fine, because he’s not done talking.
“I’m going to go down the street to the diner and give you a half hour to clean up and make yourself look presentable,” he says. And then he turns around and closes the door behind him.
When Thames returns, I have showered and changed into a pretty A-line dress and knee-high boots, and I’ve pulled my wet hair back into a neat ponytail.
“That’s more like it,” he says, with a smile. But then a look of concern grows out of his grin. “Are you sure about the ponytail?”
“What is going on?” I snap. “Are you my lawyer or my stylist? And who the hell is representing Brett, and why does he have your last name?”
“Let’s go,” he says, with a sigh.
In the car, when he’s not looking, I take my hair down out of the ponytail and let it air-dry into loose waves.
When we pull up at the address, I’m confused to realize we’re at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
“The mediation is in a hotel conference room,” he tells me. “Oftentimes, law offices create an environment of hostility, and the purpose of this mediation is to step outside of the traditional realm and encourage open lines of communication so both parties can come to a mutually agreeable arrangement without litigation.”
“We didn’t meet at a Hilton last time,” I say, but that’s silly, because the last time was kind of a joke anyway, and he’s tired of my questions and doesn’t say anything in response.
I follow Thames to the conference room and stop outside the entrance to take a breath. Brett is probably behind those doors, I think, and I want to be strong.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Thames says.
“We could be here awhile,” I say. I’m hesitating to enter, and he thinks it’s nervousness, and it probably is, partly. But mainly I’m preparing my preemptive strike. If on top of everything else he’s done, Brett wants to make a bone of contention out of my baby, he’s at least going to know what I think of the whole idea, and the complete disgrace of a human being who hatched the idea. Complete, utter, and total disgrace. This phrase inspires me, I take it as a battle cry, and in the ten seconds or so that I stand there working myself up into a terrible fury, I seize on this assessment of the situation as the right and proper one and commit wholeheartedly to bursting in on him with both barrels blazing.
As I shove the door open I sing out in full voice: “You are a complete, utter, and total dis—!”
I never get it all out, because I’m not prepared for what’s on the other side. Brett. Ginny. Bill. Streamers. Trish. Scott. The photographer from Sears. Nick. Brooke. Balloons. Friends from high school. Friends from college. Presents. Smiles. And … it’s a baby shower?
I turn around to say something to Tommy Thames, but he’s not there anymore. He’s vanished back to wherever such odd angels of smoke and kindness reside.
Brett steps forward. “Surprise,” he says, with a soft smile.
Tears start to blur my eyes.
“I’m an idiot,” he goes on.
“He is,” Scott says.
“Complete, utter, and total,” Trish agrees, punching Brett hard on the shoulder. “Ow,” he says.
“But he planned this whole thing,” Trish continues, “so we’re giving him another shot.” She squeezes her brother’s shoulder and smiles at him sweetly.
My guard is still slightly up. “What about Heather?” I ask.
“A mistake. It didn’t even go very far. I know you probably don’t care, but she and I never … you know. I couldn’t. She wasn’t you. No one is. No one ever will be. Anyway, I ended things on New Year’s Eve.”
“I hear that’s a popular night for it,” I say without thinking. “You ended it, or she ended it?” I kind of have to ask.
“I ended it,” he says. “Me. And then she proceeded to prank-call me for the next five hours. I’m not kidding. And now she’s talking trash about me around school. Which I don’t even mind, because it’s just karma coming back to kick me in the ass.”
“Well.” I sniff. “I’d say something about your terrible taste in women, but—”
“Listen,” he says. “I’m going to say one last thing about Heather, and then I promise not to mention her again.”
“What?” I ask. “She was great.”
“What? Boy, you are—”
“Listen,” Brett cuts me off. “Before I dumped her and she became a bunny-boiler, she was great. Funny. Attractive. Nice. Smart …”
“Keep it up,” I practically snarl.
“But I still didn’t want to be with her. Didn’t want to be having dinner with her when I knew I’d rather be having dinner with you. Didn’t want to kiss her, and definitely didn’t want to sleep with her, even though she was undeniably hot—”
“Okay, I get it,” I say.
“The point is that it wasn’t Heather. It was me. Or, rather, you and me.”
I start to soften again.
“I love you,” he says, like it’s a confession and he hasn’t been to church in a few decades. “I love you, and I love that baby.”
Tears are streaming down my face now. I can’t stop them.
“I know it’s probably early for a baby shower, but we wanted to get a jump on things,” he goes on, clearly nervous. “And I’m not assuming anything about us here. I just wanted to do this for you. We did. Your family.”
“You didn’t call me back,” I accuse Trish, taking a napkin discreetly from a table.
“I was protecting us both, because I wouldn’t have been able to keep this a secret,” she says, with a shrug. “Besides, I knew you’d forgive me. And by the way, Brett here got our loan back on track.”
“What, did he go and whack Rex’s mother?” I ask. “No,” she replies. “Brett and your father had some angel investor for his underwear.”
“Wonder Armour,” Brett corrects.
“And they showed him our business plan and redirected the funds to Paw Prints,” Trish says. “So if and when you’re ready to do this, we have the funding to launch the pilot.”
I’m kind of amazed. This is a bit of sensory overload. I look around at all of our friends, at Bill and Ginny. At Trish and Kimmy, who I’ve desperately wanted to get to know better but haven’t been able to with the situation as it’s been. Is that an engagement ring on Kimmy’s finger? Oh, the Fosters. I’ve missed them so much. It hasn’t even been that long and it feels like an eternity. I look over at Scott, who has his arm around … April? The photographer from Sears? What the hell have I missed?
“She makes it all make sense,” Scott says to me, and then winks and adds, “She’s twisted in all the right ways.”
“Layla,” Brett says, and he holds out what looks like a contract. For a moment, I recoil. Is he trying to trick me with a shower into giving him joint custody of my baby?
“You’ve been a member of the family for years,” he says. “This just makes it official.”
I look down at what he’s presenting me and see that the papers have nothing to do with the baby. They’re adoption papers? For me?
“All you have to do is sign,” Brett says.
I’m stunned enough now that the tears stop. It’s so overwhelming that I just open my mouth, hoping something intelligible will fall out. But nothing does. I’m stone-cold stunned.
“Of course, if you sign those papers,” he goes on, “we will officially be brother and sister. And we can’t be married or have a romantic relationship again. And that’s okay with me if that’s what you really want, because all I want to do right now is make you happy. But if you might consider the other way you can rejoin our family …”
I take a step forward, and he meets me the rest of the way. We connect at the lips and I can feel everyone staring at us, sort of holding their breath, until Trish says, “Ugh, I HATE it when straight couples make out in public,” and the whole place erupts in laughter and applause. Tension gone.
“I’m so sorry,” Brett says.
“I know,” I say.
“I love you,” he adds. “We can fix this.”
“We’re having a baby,” he says, with a smile.
“I know,” I say.
“So I’ll stop acting like one.”
“Promise?”
He kisses me again and I take that to mean Yes.
“We love you,” I hear Ginny say, and I finally take a moment to look around at everyone there. Ginny and Bill, and just behind them, smiling, too, is my father.
“Nick and I have agreed to joint custody of you,” Bill says, and Ginny nudges him.
“I didn’t sign those papers,” I tease.
“Can I steal you away for a minute?” Brett asks.
Of course the answer is yes.
He takes my hand and walks me outside by the pool to a small garden in the back of the hotel. He points to a large rock that seems to be wedged into the soil, standing up. “Remember when I took you to that graveyard?” he asks.
“You mean with my dad?” I ask. “Of course.” My heart is beating a million miles an hour.
“I’m thinking kind of the same thing here. That’s my headstone right there. The old me. The stupid me.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Brett—”
“No. Let me finish. What I did … it’s inexcusable. I made a terrible mistake, and now I realize this me is me without you. The me I never want to know again. I was scared to be a grown-up,” he says. “I’m not scared anymore.” He kicks some dirt onto the rock and kisses me.
We kiss again and then reenter the party, where I take everyone in. This messed-up, mixed-up collection of misfits and miscreants is my family. They’re the most insufferable, maddening, unpredictable, irreplaceable, glorious bunch of yahoos I’ve ever known. God help me if I ever come close to losing any of them again.
I’m truly happy, and though that’s no great accomplishment, you can’t believe how strange and lovely it feels. It’s been … I can’t even remember when I last felt weightless, without envy and spite and anger and the whole messy stew of emotions that bubble up inside when you’re losing something important to you.
I’ll tell you just how happy I am. I actually catch myself singing quietly aloud as my dad picks up his guitar and begins to play “Layla.” Brett kisses me and joins in. It’s a great song, even though its backstory, about Clapton stealing Pattie Boyd from George Harrison and all, is a little seedy. But was it all Clapton’s fault? I mean, a lot of people still think, and a court found, that Harrison stole “My Sweet Lord” from the Chiffons’ song “He’s So Fine,” so maybe he had it coming.