THE PICTURE CLEE CHOSE FOR the birth announcement was the one of me and him she’d taken with her phone. She kneaded my shoulders while I designed it on my laptop.
“Can the writing be a little more fun?” she said.
“You mean a different font?”
“Maybe.”
I put everything in chubby cartoon letters as a joke.
“That looks good,” she said. She was right. The cartoon letters had a love of life in them, and wasn’t that what we were celebrating here?
JACK STENGL-GLICKMAN
BORN 3-23-2013
5 LBS. 6 OZ.
We sent it to all of Clee’s friends, her parents, Jim and all the other Open Palm employees, both our relatives, and everyone else we could think of except for Rick, who we had no way of reaching. Rick probably thought Clee and I were lesbians together all along. To everyone else it had to be a shock, but they all replied with the same appropriate word: congratulations. Some people, like Suzanne and Carl, did not respond at all. When Clee was asleep I quietly addressed an e-mail to Phillip and pasted in the announcement. Surely he had heard about my very young girlfriend by now. I stared at his name on the screen. Of course, there’s young and then there’s young. Sixteen was too young. Improbably young. I picked up my phone and scrolled until I found the picture of the girl in the Rasta alligator shirt. Who was she? Because she wasn’t K-ear-sten. There was no Kirsten; that was suddenly obvious. No sixteen-year-old girl yearns for a man nearing seventy. I gasped quietly and smiled. The texts were a game! A little game between consenting adults. What a saucy flirt he was. I erased the birth announcement and then, command-V, pasted it in again. How to put it? What to say? Or was it better to call? Or text? Or just come over?
I looked down at my hands; they were clasping each other like two giddy bridesmaids.
What was I thinking?
I deleted the e-mail, closed the computer, and turned out the light. Clee was spread across the bed like a person falling; I folded myself around her.
NEAR THE END OF THE week we stopped by Open Palm together. Clee passed her phone around and Nakako and Sarah and Aya cooed over the pictures of Jack and told her how thin she looked. I had missed a lot of work. Jim said not to worry, I had six weeks’ maternity leave plus my sick days—but he had trouble looking me in the eye.
“Want to see the new Kick It banner?” He unfurled it on the floor and I called Clee over.
“What do you think, hon?”
“I don’t know anything about this stuff, Boo.” She rubbed the small of my back. I covertly scanned the room to see the reaction. Michelle was red-faced. Jim kept his eyes on the floor. Everyone else was working.
“But that’s what’s great, hon, you have fresh eyes.”
Jim took me aside.
“You know I have no problem with it. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m not the one who calls the shots around here.”
“What are you saying?”
“Carl and Suzanne are here—they’re with Kristof in the warehouse.”
“They’re in the warehouse right now?”
“They’re waiting for you to leave.”
I went outside and walked down the block to the warehouse. They were peering out the big windows but quickly turned away as I approached. I asked Kristof to take a ten-minute break.
“Actually, Kristof, you can stay,” Suzanne said. “Stay right where you are.” Kristof froze between us, one foot poised in midstep.
I held up my phone. “Your grandson is beautiful. Would you like to see?”
“Do you know what a persona non grata is?” Carl said.
“Yes.”
“It’s Latin for person not great.”
Kristof started to say something and then stopped himself. Maybe he knew Latin.
“For Clee’s sake we’re not going to fire you, but you’re a persona non grata. And you’re not on the board anymore.”
Kristof looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I put my phone away. It wasn’t hard to see the situation from their point of view; they’d trusted me and look what happened.
“It was her decision to keep Jack,” I said.
Kristof looked at Suzanne and Carl.
“It’s not about the baby. It’s about your inappropriate relations with our daughter.”
Kristof whipped his head back to me.
Jack. Your grandson’s name is Jack.
“You don’t know what our relations are.”
“We have a pretty good idea.”
“We haven’t had sex.”
“I see.”
Kristof didn’t seem to believe this either.
“Her doctor said she can’t have sex for eight weeks.”
“Eight weeks from when?” Kristof asked.
“From the birth.”
Suzanne and Carl exchanged a look of relief.
“That’s May eighteenth,” I continued. “You might want to mark your calendars. That’s the day we’re going to have intercourse.” I realized that was probably the wrong word for it but I forged on. “And then every day after that. Many times a day, in every position, all over the place, probably even in here.”
Kristof let out a Swedish whoop of excitement and then caught himself. Too late. Suzanne fired him on the spot—her face shaking with regret about things she had not nipped while they were still in the bud.