“You both need to go for genetic counseling,” his doctor said. “Unmarried couples don’t do well with surprises.”
Sam was early at Coogan’s. Both his parents were punctual, to a fault he had often thought, and both had insisted on the boys being punctual. Even Jack learned to be on time some of the time; his parents would cancel his trumpet lesson if he was late for school more than twice in a week. If any of them was late for dinner—dinner was a command performance most nights, seven o’clock with five minutes’ grace, like the theatre—he had a cheese sandwich in the kitchen. Once, there was a palace revolution. They all tripped in at seven thirty. They found the dinner table cleared. Eleanor was in the kitchen putting out the ingredients for cheese sandwiches on the counter. “See you later,” she said. She and Rupert went downstairs to the Café. The next night she served cheese sandwiches for dinner. “If you’re going to be late,” she said, “I don’t see the point of serving a proper dinner.” The revolution was suppressed. Changing tactics, the boys would tease Eleanor for being so rigid, comparing her to her mother. “Bah. Water off a duck’s back,” Eleanor would say. “Granny is not always wrong. Some standards are worth holding to. Being on time is respectful of other people’s time. Being late is disrespectful.” Rupert backed her up. “Don’t be rude unless you intend it,” he said. “Don’t waste capital needlessly.” In his last year with Andrew, Sam had been late all the time, sometimes as much as an hour. He’d be early for Susanna.
Susanna showed up five minutes later, also early. “Mom got to you too, I see,” Sam said.
Susanna laughed. “If it wasn’t for your parents, I’d be totally uncouth, still slouching, eating with my mouth open, not standing up when I met someone, doing that silly fork-hand exchange after cutting my meat. I liked that lesson best, eating with two implements.”
Over their drinks, Sam outlined his plan for post-baby living. They’d have adjoining apartments, with an interior connection for easy movement in between them. “The little guy,” Sam said, assuming, as Harry had, that he’d have a son, “could sleep where he wanted. None of this three-nights-with-me-four-with-you nonsense.”
“Who would own ‘my’ apartment?” Susanna asked.
“I was thinking we’d both own both, a joint tenancy, the survivor getting it all. If one wanted to sell, we’d sell both and share the proceeds.”
“That’s some gift,” Susanna said.
“You’d be the mother of my child,” Sam said, “maybe children. It seems to me a mother should have what a wife would have.” He gave her a knowing look. “It’s not as if I don’t have the money.”
“Who pays the mortgage? Maintenance?” Susanna said. “Christ, I sound grasping.”
“No mortgage. The plan is to buy them outright. Cash. I assume I’d give you enough child support for the maintenance. You don’t have to pay taxes on child support.”
“I’d feel remiss if I didn’t ask about medical insurance,” Susanna said, looking Sam square in the eye.
Sam laughed. “Maybe I should just give you three million outright. Look, we’ll make a contract, get it all settled, a kind of prenup. You need to get your own lawyer and you have to pay for him, so I’m not seen as overreaching or suborning or perpetrating some such nefarious act of malfeasance. He or she should be very good. I’ve made it clear to the Maynard lawyer what I want, but he can’t help thinking I’m making a mistake. It’s his job, I suppose. My mother has the same problem with them. It’s probably the correct instinct for a Wall Street firm, but I don’t like their hovering. They want to protect me from myself.”
“I may not be an heiress, but it’s not as if I don’t have money of my own,” Susanna said. “Granny Bowles left me a small pile”—she smiled—“and my mother might still come through.”
Sam hooted. “What is Prudence planning to do with her money?”
“I’m guessing either a cat sanctuary or an ashram.” Susanna said this matter-of-factly, not even allowing herself a sigh. She wasn’t making a joke. “She asks me periodically if I need money and then sends me eleven thousand dollars, no gift tax. She said she’d double it if I got married. She might do it for a child.”
“One of the best things about college, you find out what’s out there in the way of parents. We all found out how lucky we were.” Sam paused. “You were not so lucky.”
Susanna knew she was very lucky, in the great scheme of things. She was an American; she was a Princeton graduate; she had a good job, with medical insurance; she was probably in the top twenty-five percent in looks. She wished she felt lucky, luckier.
“I need to think about this,” Susanna said.
“Yes, of course. I’m just putting in my oar,” Sam said. “I don’t want you planning another pregnancy without giving me a chance to make an offer, or counteroffer.”
“?‘Just’? It’s plainly unbeatable. You know that,” she said.
“That was the plan: to make an offer you couldn’t refuse.”
“My first reaction? It sounds like concubinage.”
“I can see that,” Sam said, “but in a good way.”
“Oh, Sam, Sam, I missed you so.”
They stirred their drinks, occasionally looking at the other and smiling. They were back together, observing the unities of time, space, and action. Sam began mentally kicking himself for his relationship with Andrew.
“Why didn’t you leave Andrew for Joe?” Susanna asked, jolting Sam. She’s on my wavelength, the way he never was, Sam thought.
“I tried,” Sam said. “Andrew kept saying it was a flash-in-the-pan romance. He said it was nostalgia for the high school prom king. He said Joe was like Jack; he called him a black hole of self-absorption. He said he’d dump me within six months. Joe had been in two relationships the year before we met. He’d move in, he’d get a new part, he’d move out.” Everyone at Trinity, not only Sam, had had a crush on Joe. He was like James Dean, the universal sex object. Sam thought back to Trinity, wondering if anyone ever recovered from high school. All the people who were fat in high school still thought of themselves as fat. A PhD from Harvard never made up for not getting into Harvard College.
“You never get over your high school sweetheart, even if he didn’t know you existed,” Sam said. “When Joe made a pass at me when I was twenty-nine, I was jelly. I was sixteen all over again.”
“I think that’s a Southern experience. Like a Loretta Lynn song. You may be an outlier. In the North, you never get over your first bad boyfriend.” Susanna gave him a small smile.
“Well, then, I’ve nothing to get over. I’ve never had a bad boyfriend.” Sam laughed. “I’ve been the bad boyfriend.”