It was a beautiful sunny morning and life was good. I was the boss. I had a trusty sidekick or more appropriately confidant and I had a beautiful woman in the bathroom throwing up.
Wait a minute.
“Are you ok?” I asked nervously.
“You bastard.” That was what I understood.
It was sandwiched in between a lot of Polish. I am pretty sure she was cursing me out in Polish too but ignorance truly is bliss sometimes.
“Was it the Mexican food?” I asked. “I doubt they were really Mexicans.”
Not that it mattered.
She emerged from the bathroom, hair strewn in more directions than a compass had ever known, sick dripping from the corner of her mouth and her eyes red and puffy.
“The Communists didn’t come.”
“Erm, good.” I said not sure what she meant.
She just stared at me. Looked down at herself and then back it me.
It hit me.
It hit me link a mother fucking Mack truck.
The Communists were her period and oh shit they hadn’t invaded in sometime.
Her boobs had gotten bigger as well. I just thought that Jesus had finally opened his heart to me and let me in.
Damn.
This is going to be a tricky conversation I thought.
I have to admit even then, in the middle of this life altering realization, I was still looking down at her naked bottom half, except for her skin tight zebra print briefs, and thinking about doing to her the thing that got us to this point.
I don’t know how she understood my sex haze but she pushed past me and dived head first into bed. She was sobbing loudly but when I turned around all I saw was the peach popping out of the zebra.
God damn!
What was wrong with me?
What was so God damn right with her?
I shuffled over and put my arm around her.
Why was she crying?
Did she want to get rid of it?
Was she happy?
Was it my reaction to the news?
Or was it just that she’d been retching up her guts and this time it wasn’t to make weight for a shoot?
“What’s wrong baby?” I tentatively asked.
“Baby? Baby?” Momentarily she lifted her head to question me then buried it again followed by her muffled words, “You’ve ruined my life!”
Those are strong words.
Even muffled they are shocking.
I didn’t have a response to that.
It seemed pretty clear that she wasn’t ready to be a mother.
I had to offer her a way out.
“We can get rid of it if you want. We can always get pregnant again.” It seemed right saying it then but I don’t know if I wanted to get rid of it. I wanted a family in the future and it felt too soon at that time.
You may never be ready for your first child. The stars are unlikely to align how you hope they will but in this scenario I was very happy. Breeding animals is an art form and I believe that attraction, physical attraction works in the same way.
Humans want to mate, to breed with the correct specimen. Elly was a great specimen; tall, beautiful, elegant. What more could I ask for?
“I am happy either way.” I continued.
I was trying to be supportive.
“I won’t kill it.” She sobbed.
“Great.” I said sitting down.
“No. Not great. I wanted to study.”
“You are young. You have your whole life ahead of you.” Maybe I was better at customer services than sales, wait, which one would this fall into?
“I’ll never be in a disco again.” She had stopped sobbing and mucus bubbles were inflating and popping on her right nostril.
I tried to ignore it but it had a rhythm that wouldn’t quit. She became self-conscious and rubbed her nose back with the inside of her wrist, she instantly looked like a pig. It was the first time I found her unattractive. I think she noticed as she headed back into the bathroom.
I sat and stared out into the grey abyss that was the view from my window. The Warsaw sky looked like someone had opened up Microsoft paint and put a grey paint can on the sky. I had no texture, no shades. It was flat and lifeless grey.
Was it significant?
Everything has significance if you attribute some to it but I wasn’t interested in playing fate and futures. Elly got pregnant because we weren’t safe. We weren’t safe because we were drunk or too ‘in the moment’.
Could I believe that I had planned this?
That I had meant for her to get pregnant?
I didn’t believe it after her tearful performance but it was just as likely that she planned such mischief. Even, it was possible, that we both planned it secretly and we were both celebrating our evil plan while cursing dumb luck.
A baby would be a joyous thing anyway. I had nephews that I loved. I had grown up babysitting for my cousins and now I was going to be bonded to another human being in the strongest possible way. Me and Elly were going to be a team, we were no longer two separate hearts, we were three and we would beat as one.
I can’t remember how long she was gone or how long I stared into the abyss. I had stopped seeing the sky anyway. I was remembering my past and attempting to forecast our future. The future is so hopeful. However much shit you have had to live through there is always that bright new day which until the sun sets again holds all the possibilities imaginable and then some. I now had more structure to my future than I think I had ever had.
When I snapped out of my trance I was smiling and when I realised Elly was cuddling my arm I smiled harder and wider. I rubbed her tummy, then the back of her neck, underneath her hair. I knew then that we were a family, we were three.
“We should buy a test.” I said. Better to be safe than sorry. Or disappointed.
“Sometimes I missed when I modelled.” She said calmly.
We both knew why that was and that wasn’t a factor now. Other reasons could have caused it or the lack of it, depending what we are referring too but a test wouldn’t hurt.
“Shall I go alone or do you fancy a walk?” I asked.
She didn’t say a word but she got her coat so I got mine. We went downstairs in the lift and the speed made your tummy flip if there were no other stops. It made me nervous and I held Elly’s hand tighter. She pulled it away then put her hand on mine.
I could not do with nine months of crazy lady mood swings.
We disembarked and made our way over to the shopping centre. Once inside we used the map of the stores to locate the Boots like retail pharmacy called Rossmann’s. It had a large selection of make-up and toiletries and other things I didn’t need but I couldn’t find the pregnancy test kit. I checked next to the condoms but they weren’t there.
“I can’t find them.” I confessed to Elly. She was finishing off her ice-cream on a bench. I helped her up, it was almost as if the whiff of pregnancy had induced chronic back pain and restricted her knees ability to bend.
“I’ll do it.” She said.
I followed close behind and observed her as she talked to the store-girl. An observant security guard was either checking me out as a potential thief, my baby-mama’s ass or the store-girl who was way too young for him. I ventured over to him and he nearly stood his ground but as I got closer he started on a lap of the perimeter.
I returned to Elly.
“Which one do you think?” She said holding up two boxes.
The only difference I could tell was that one box was purple and white and the other was green and white.
“Take them both. Athletes need a B test to confirm.”
She banged the boxes against my head but took the advice. Since we were there I took gum, honey chap stick and some more toothpaste which came with free mouth wash. Elly seemed happier now and we rushed back to the flat to test out our theory.
“I can’t make it rain.” She shouted through.
“Here, here.” I said passing another glass of water to her.
She squatted down smiling and drinking her water, just waiting for the magic to happen then it started. We had read the instructions on both sets of tests and after the glory of the rain we had to wait to see what the tests said. The rain seemed to be a downpour so Elly handed off both tests to me and I was never happier to possibly have piss, someone else’s piss, all over my fingers.
We waited and waited but you know what they say, a watch stick of pee never boils.
“I want it to be true.” She said and for a moment everything stopped.
“So do I.”
I kissed her and by the time I’d finished we looked down to see that both tests agreed. We kissed again and started dancing around, finally landing on the bed.
“I hope it’s a boy.” She said. I did too really. “It’s better to have a boy first.”
“I just hope it’s healthy.” That was also true. “How many are you planning on us having?”
“Two.” She said without any hesitation. She had clearly though more about this than I had. “A boy and a girl but I didn’t expect him yet.”
“Well he’s on his way so let’s make him welcome.”