She covered her face with her hand. “This is depressing, Wally. This isn’t how I wanted to have a baby. I thought this party would make it fun, but it’s just depressing.” She dropped her hand and looked into my eyes. “Do you think I’m crazy? You do, don’t you?”
Her eyebrows went up, pleading. Did I tell you about Tomasina’s freckle? She has this freckle on her lower lip like a piece of chocolate. Everybody’s always trying to wipe it off.
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Tom,” I said.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Because I trust you, Wally. You’re mean, so I trust you.”
“What do you mean I’m mean?”
“Not bad mean. Good mean. I’m not crazy?”
“You want to have a baby. It’s natural.”
Suddenly Tomasina leaned forward and rested her head on my chest. She had to lean down to do it. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. I put my hand on her back. My fingers found a peephole and I stroked her bare skin. In a warm, thoroughly grateful voice, she said, “You get it, Wally. You totally get it.”
She stood up and smiled. She looked down at her dress, adjusting it so that her navel showed, and then took my arm.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back to the party.”
I didn’t expect what happened next. When we came out, everybody cheered. Tomasina held on to my arm and we started waving to the crowd like a couple of royals. For a minute I forgot about the purpose of the party. I just stood arm in arm with Tomasina and accepted the applause. When the cheers died down, I noticed that Jackson Browne was still playing. I leaned over and whispered to Tomasina, “Remember dancing to this song!”
“Did we dance to this?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I’ve had this album forever. I’ve probably danced to it a thousand times.” She broke off. She let go of my arm.
My glass was empty again.
“Can I ask you something, Tomasina?”
“What?”
“Do you ever think about you and me?”
“Wally, don’t.” She turned away and looked at the floor. After a moment, in a reedy, nervous voice, she said, “I was really screwed up back then. I don’t think I could have stayed with anybody.”
I nodded. I swallowed. I told myself not to say the next thing. I looked over at the fireplace, as though it interested me, and then I said it: “Do you ever think about our kid?”
The only sign that she’d heard me was a twitch next to her left eye. She took a deep breath, let it out. “That was a long time ago.”
“I know. It’s just that when I see you going to all this trouble I think it could be different sometimes.”
“I don’t think so, Wally.” She picked a piece of lint off the shoulder of my jacket, frowning. Then she tossed it away. “God! Sometimes I wish I was Benazir Bhutto or somebody.”
“You want to be prime minister of Pakistan?”
“I want a nice, simple, arranged marriage. Then after my husband and I sleep together he can go off and play polo.”
“You’d like that?”
“Of course not. That would be horrible.” A tress fell into her eyes and she backhanded it into place. She looked around the room. Then she straightened up and said, “I should mingle.”
I held up my glass. “Be fruitful and multiply,” I said. And Tomasina squeezed my arm and was gone.
I stayed where I was, drinking from my empty glass to have something to do. I looked around the room for any women I hadn’t met. There weren’t any. Over at the bar, I switched to champagne. I had the bartender fill my glass three times. Her name was Julie and she was majoring in art history at Columbia University. While I was standing there, Diane stepped into the middle of the room and clinked her glass. Other people followed and the room got quiet.
“First of all,” Diane began, “before we kick everyone out of here, I’d like to make a toast to tonight’s oh-so-generous donor, Roland. We conducted a nationwide search and, let me tell you, the auditions were grueling.” Everybody laughed. Somebody shouted, “Roland left.”
“He left? Well, we’ll toast his semen. We’ve still got that.” More laughter, a few drunken cheers. Some people, men and women both now, were picking up the candles and waving them around.
“And, finally,” Diane went on, “finally, I’d like to toast our soon-to-be-expecting—knock on wood—mother. Her courage in seizing the means of production is an inspiration to us all.” They were pulling Tomasina out onto the floor now. People were hooting. Tomasina’s hair was falling down. She was flushed and smiling. I tapped Julie on the arm, extending my glass. Everyone was looking at Tomasina when I turned and slipped into the bathroom.
After shutting the door, I did something I don’t usually do. I stood and looked at myself in the mirror. I stopped doing that, for any prolonged period, at least twenty years ago. Staring into mirrors was best at around thirteen. But that night I did it again. In Tomasina’s bathroom, where we’d once showered and flossed together, in that cheerful, brightly tiled grotto, I presented myself to myself. You know what I was thinking? I was thinking about nature. I was thinking about hyenas again. The hyena, I remembered, is a fierce predator. Hyenas even attack lions on occasion. They aren’t much to look at, hyenas, but they do OK for themselves. And so I lifted my glass. I lifted my glass and toasted myself: “Be fruitful and multiply.”
The cup was right where Diane had said it would be. Roland had placed it, with priestly care, on top of a bag of cotton balls. The toddler cup sat enthroned on a little cloud. I opened it and inspected his offering. It barely covered the bottom of the cup, a yellowish scum. It looked like rubber cement. It’s terrible, when you think about it. It’s terrible that women need this stuff. It’s so paltry. It must make them crazy, having everything they need to create life but this one meager leaven. I rinsed Roland’s out under the faucet. Then I checked to see that the door was locked. I didn’t want anybody to burst in on me.
*
That was ten months ago. Shortly after, Tomasina got pregnant. She swelled to immense proportions. I was away on business when she gave birth in the care of a midwife at St. Vincent’s. But I was back in time to receive the announcement:
Tomasina Genovese proudly announces
the birth of her son,
Joseph Mario Genovese,
on January 15, 1996.
5 lbs. 3 oz.
The small size alone was enough to clinch it. Nevertheless, bringing a Tiffany spoon to the little heir the other day, I settled the question as I looked down into his crib. The potato nose. The buggy eyes. I’d waited ten years to see that face at the school-bus window. Now that I did, I could only wave goodbye.
1995
EARLY MUSIC