Claire shook her head. “Such news,” she said.
“His picture’s been plastered all over the newspapers. And they showed him on Huntley-Brinkley last night. Gorgeous.”
“What?”
“He’s gorgeous,” Rose said. “Looks like a movie star. Like that young actor. Ed?” she called again away from the phone. “Who’s that actor I like so much? The young guy?”
“Robert Wagner?” Ed said.
“No, not Robert Wagner. I’ll think of it as soon as I hang up,” Rose said, back to Claire now. “Gorgeous,” she said again.
“Wait until Peter hears.”
“Is Peter there?” Rose asked.
“That’s the thing. We’re at the hospital in Rhode Island. His mother,” she added.
“As I remember,” Rose said, “I didn’t much care for her. Kind of stuck-up. Pretty, but kept to herself.”
“I just thought that since we were so close, I should call,” Claire said.
“Did you have to drive in that blizzard?”
“We did. And I’m pregnant. Fat and swollen and uncomfortable,” Claire said.
“Again?” Rose laughed. “Do you two know what’s causing them?”
Claire laughed along with Rose. But the laughter seemed to strangle her, and she coughed to clear her throat and before she knew it she was crying.
“What’s the matter?” Rose was asking, but Claire couldn’t find her voice.
“Can I do anything?” Rose asked.
Claire shook her head, as if Rose could actually see her. Claire thought of all of Rose’s flippant advice, delivered so matter-of-factly, about affairs and blow jobs and men and life. She tried to think of the question she needed an answer to, something that Rose might be able to know how to handle. An affair, yes. But getting caught like that. Being pregnant now.
“Oh,” Claire said finally, “it’s all such a mess.”
“Did he cheat on you?” Rose said quietly, and Claire could imagine her friend stretching the cord of the phone as far as she could so that Ed wouldn’t hear. “Is that it? I know some women get pregnant when they catch their husbands. It’s a way to keep him, they think.”
Claire laughed.
“What?” Rose said.
“Rosie,” Claire said, still laughing, “the thing is, I had the affair—”
“What?”
“—and he found us together and now I’m pregnant—”
“Claire,” Rose said, “I don’t know what to say.”
“You always said it was all right. That affairs were all right.”
“That was before I got married, I guess,” Rose said, her tone no longer warm and caring.
“But, Rose—”
“I think you’d better get ahold of yourself,” Rose said. “Jesus, Claire. You’re Peter’s wife. You’re a mother.”
Claire rested her head against the wall. Bored people had carved their initials in the wood. Someone had written HELP!!!! in pen. The hot, airless phone booth reeked of perfume and sweat mixed with the hospital odors. She tried to picture Rose on the other end of the phone, in her home in Connecticut. Hadn’t she told Claire once that she could see the ocean from her living room window? Is that where she stood now, her face creased with judgment, Ed looming somewhere in the background?
“This baby,” Rose began, but she stopped herself.
“Rose,” Claire said, breathing in the strange phone booth smells. “Maybe I could come and visit you. I would like that.”
There was a silence that seemed to go on forever.
“Rose?” Claire said.
“That would be swell. But Ed’s got a flight to Rome and I think I’m going to go along.”
“Oh.”
“Remember that crazy place where we used to get Chanel bags? Down that alley?”
“I should hang up,” Claire said.
“I can get you one, if you want,” Rose said. A peace offering. “Nothing cheers a girl up like a new bag.”
“Thanks,” Claire said.
After she hung up, Claire sat in the phone booth, her head pressed against that wall, taking slow deep breaths.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there before the accordion door opened.
“Oops,” a man said. “I didn’t know you were in here.” He was holding a jar of dimes.
“I’m finished,” Claire said.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she said, standing.
Her pregnant belly made it hard for her to squeeze past him. For an awkward moment they stood wedged half in and half out. Then the man angled his body, making room for Claire to leave.
Dr. Spirito and Peter stood in the hallway outside her mother-in-law’s room.
“I can’t be optimistic at this point,” the doctor was saying when Claire approached them.
“But she sat up,” Peter said, and the desperateness in his voice made Claire want to go to him and wrap him in her arms.
Peter looked at Claire and said, “She just asked for a cup of Darjeeling tea and some cinnamon toast.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Dr. Spirito said. “I wish I did. The damage to her heart is substantial.”
“I’m sorry,” Claire told the doctor.
Peter turned to her, his eyes hard. “Why are you sorry?”