“Really?” Peter said, putting the car into drive. “Where did you hear that?”
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she stared out the window, watching the sad triple-deckers go by. The streets were empty this early in the morning. Claire let herself think about how busy Washington, D.C., must be preparing for the inaugural parade. She wondered what Dot would make for the party. If Claire were going she would bring her Hilo hot dogs, franks cooked in a glaze she made out of soy sauce and apricot preserves, cut into bite-sized bits, and speared with toothpicks topped in colorful cellophane spirals. Roberta was supposed to make a cake decorated like an American flag, and Trudy was making her mustard and ham dip that everyone loved so much she had to bring it to every party, even though it was just cream cheese and canned deviled ham with some mustard added to it.
The early morning sun shining on the snow made a strong glare and Claire closed her eyes against it. Peter had turned on the radio and the Shirelles were singing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” Sometimes it seemed like that was the only song they played these days, and Claire had grown to hate it. She tried to think about Dot’s party again, but instead she found herself wondering what her lover was doing right now. Was he even awake this early? She imagined him shoveling snow in his driveway, a driveway she could picture too well. Right before Christmas she had driven past his house, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. She had looked up his address in the White Pages and driven to Silver Spring, Maryland, where she asked for directions at a gas station. The house was stunning, white with gabled roofs and turrets, like a house out of a fairy tale. Compared to her own center-hall Colonial, it looked like a house in a magazine, special. The driveway, the one he might be shoveling snow from at this very moment, was long and curved, climbing uphill.
There had been a lot of snow that day too. No lights on that she could see. No cars in sight. Claire parked across the street and studied each detail. The biggest front windows had lace panels instead of draperies. Like everyone in her neighborhood, Claire had hung heavy damask ones. Hers were in a color called Goldenrod. The corner window seemed to have no window treatments at all, and Claire could see dark red walls. The dining room? she wondered. Red walls? The trim around the house and roof had an ornate design. Claire squinted at it, trying to make out the shapes. Animals, she realized. Squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks. The shutters around the windows had the same motif. She decided she hated it, hated the entire house with its woodland animals and lace panels and ugly red walls.
A car turned down the street and panic shot through her. She sunk as far as she could behind the steering wheel, holding her breath until the car passed. Safe, she sat up, glancing once more at the house. Now she saw the shrubs were covered in Christmas lights. Triple strands of them. More Christmas lights than she’d ever seen. How vulgar, she thought. She tried to picture her lover hanging all those lights, wrapping each strand around the hedges. Did his wife stand beside him, guiding him? The thought made Claire sick to her stomach. Quickly, she lurched the car forward, catching a glance of something hanging on the front door. Not a wreath, but something blue and white and complicated-looking. Vulgar, she thought again.
“Here we are,” Peter said.
Claire opened her eyes, the large gray hospital looming in front of her.
“I’ll park,” he said. “Go on inside. Room 401.”
The pavement at the front door was slick with ice and Claire walked carefully across it, taking baby steps. Through the revolving door and into the lobby where the hospital smell made her gag, to the bank of elevators. She rode up to the fourth floor, trying not to throw up.
At the nurses’ station, Claire stopped and asked for a ginger ale.
“You okay?” the nurse there asked her. “You’re pale as a ghost.”
Before Claire could answer, the nurse grinned. “Oh, just in the family way, huh?” She came around the desk and pointed Claire to a row of green chairs. “I’ll be right back,” she told her.
The nurse looked so young, Claire thought as she sunk onto the scratchy chair. Her white uniform showed off her slender waist and long legs. Her stiff white cap looked almost jaunty above her dark hair. What had she called it? The family way. Claire had never heard that one before. Another wave of nausea spread over her. Face pale, raise the tail, she told herself. She pulled a small square table stacked with Good Housekeeping magazines in front of her and stretched her legs out on it.
“You going to faint?” the nurse said, appearing in front of her with a small plastic cup of ginger ale.
Claire shook her head.
“Maybe you need a basin?” the nurse asked. Without waiting for an answer, she walked away again, returning with a pea green kidney-shaped dish.