“Okay,” she said. “Then you call her.”
“What? Me? Are you nuts? You’re the patient. What would I say? I think you’re the best person to handle this sort of thing. I believe in you.” I was terrible at confronting people. Whenever I had an item to return to the store, I always asked my wife to do it because I was afraid the cashier would have me arrested for not having a proper receipt.
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. She went to call the doctor’s messaging service while I bought a beer, chugged the beer, and then bought another beer. I had planned on chugging that beer and then ordering another, but my wife came back, so I reverted to sipping.
“Is that a new beer?” she asked.
“No.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“It is. Did you get the service?”
“Yeah, but now we have to wait here until she calls back.”
“Maybe I should head back to our spot,” I said. “You know, so no one takes it.”
“You can wait five goddamn seconds, Drew. It’s not even the main act.”
At that moment, a particularly loud power chord rained down on us. My wife gripped her belly as if there were a bombing raid going on. Such was the power of Jet’s secondhand riffs. I could see real fear in her eyes.
“I gotta get out of here,” she said.
“You’re overreacting.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
“You could hang in the car while I stay here. The car’s nice.”
“Seriously?”
“Was that a poor suggestion?”
“YES!”
Another power chord. I caressed my wife’s belly, shielding her from the musical onslaught, as if my back fat would somehow repel the sound waves. Now she was sick with worry. Her cell phone finally rang. I watched as she took the call.
“Hello? . . . Oh, hi, Doctor! So sorry to bother you at this hour! . . . Yes, yes, I think everything is okay! . . . Well, it’s just that I’m at a concert, and the music is particularly loud. And I was wondering, you know, if extremely loud music could be detrimental to the fetus? Like, in any way?”
I saw her nod a few times and then hang up.
“What’d she say?” I asked.
“She said never to call her with something like this again.”
“So you’re okay?”
“Yes.” She sounded disappointed. And frankly, I think I was too. I’d like to live in a world where rock and roll has the ability to cause spontaneous fetal ejections.
“So we’re cool to go back to the concert?”
“I don’t feel great about it.”
“The doctor just said it was fine. You could fire a goddamn cannon next to your uterus if you wanted to.”
“Well, I don’t like it. I don’t feel comfortable here. Is seeing some stupid band worth it, Drew?” She gave me a look that told me that I would have to choose between her and the music. And I didn’t want to choose. I wanted both. I mustered up the very little courage I had and bravely stood up to an angry pregnant woman.
“Worth what? Worth you not magically aborting? YES. Totally worth it.” I gestured to the crowd. “Come on,” I said. “We’re never gonna get to do this again. Let’s have fun. I’m only being selfish so I can show you how much fun you can still have.”
“Yeah, but you’re also being straight-up selfish.”
“That I am.”
She looked back at me. “Gimme a sip of that beer.” I couldn’t give it to her fast enough. She took the tiniest of sips. Barely a vapor. A totally responsible sip of beer for a pregnant lady. “God, that’s good.”
“You see?” I said.
“Am I a crazy person for calling that doctor? I am, aren’t I?”
“Not at all.”
“Maybe a little.”
“Maybe a little, yes.”
“But she was kind of bitchy to me. And that’s not right.”
“Yeah! Who the hell is she to criticize you like that?”
“Jesus. I don’t wanna be a crazy person.”
I extended my hand. “Come on. This all goes away soon.”
She took my hand and off we went merrily back to our spot. And we made it nearly halfway through Oasis’s set before she got spooked again and dragged my ass out of there.
CHICKEN