HAPPILY EVER BEFORE (4 page)

“What are you thinking of right now?”

“Fireman Jack.”

“Who is Fireman Jack?”

Grace blushed. “Just a guy that I’m hoping will no longer be just a guy anymore.”

Dr.
Yael
smiled. “I see. Does he know?”

“About my pending seat on the Jerry Springer Show if I agree to have my sister’s baby?
Or that I hope we turn into a thing?”

“Both.”

“Uh, no, we haven’t even had our first date yet.”

“I see. Well, his reaction to the Jerry Springer Show reveal will definitely clue you in about whether or not he should move past just a guy to
the guy.
”

“I suppose.”

“Well, there’s no supposing about it. Everything about his reaction will tell you that. So, make sure that you’re listening, really listening to everything he says-- especially his body language. The old says one thing, but does another is tied into the body language. It lets you know how he truly feels.”

“Listen, if he doesn’t run screaming from the room, I’ll see that as a plus.”

Dr.
Yael
laughed again. “You know, a true test for any man is pretty simple; just bring him around a dog or a child and if he doesn’t get bitten or peed on by either, chances are he’s a good man.”

“Does it count if the kid is in
utero
?” Grace looked around the office and sighed.

Dr.
Yael
leaned back in her chair. “There is no physical reason why you can’t have your sister’s baby. From these tests, I fail to see any psychological setbacks, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any. What are you feeling?”

“I’m completely freaked out. If I agree to this I’m giving Clair full control over my body. That’s a bit too sisterly for me.”

“I can’t disagree with you, but what’s the real issue?”

“I don’t want to get fat--I’m kidding,
kinda
. Uh, don’t you mean issues? There are so many issues that my issues have issues! ” Grace stared at her.

“No one is going to make you do this. It’s a big decision with a lot of ramifications. Now, from my side of the table you are a hundred percent capable to handle this.  Obviously, from your side of the table you’re stuck. Why?”

“I never really thought about having kids. Now I’m supposed to have one for my sister? It’s her kid for all intent and purpose, but I have to carry it. I have to forego cheese, alcohol--not that I need alcohol, skinny jeans, high heels, sushi, dating, sex, my Audrey Hepburn ankles, sleeping on my stomach, hot tubs, drinking alcohol and eating sushi in hot tubs, roller coasters--I don’t even like ‘
em
, but what if I felt like going to Six Flags one day?”

“Slow down! Not all of those things are really scaring you
except
maybe the alcohol and sushi. You did mention those twice. What’s the real problem?”

“Well, among other things, sex.” Grace looked at her toes. “Not that I’m fornicating like a bunny. I’ve basically stopped having sex because I realized it clouded my decisions when it came to men, but come on there’s a difference between not having sex because you don’t want to and not having sex because you can’t--that’s just torture!”

“Well, you don’t need to give it up. You can have sex while you’re pregnant.”

Grace sarcastically
drolled
, “really? Me pregnant, my boyfriend, for arguments sake let’s say Fireman Jack, making out on the couch, we get all hot and heavy and then BAM! He’s going to have sex with an enormous--I’ve seen pictures of my mother, so I know
what’s
gonna
happen to my ass--pregnant woman who’s not carrying
his
child?”

Dr.
Yael
smiled. “A lot of men find pregnant woman sexy, but I see your point.”       

Grace sighed. “It’s backwards. You’re supposed to fall in love, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. This way it’s all jumbled up, it’s happily ever before!”

“But, you’d be giving Clair her happily ever after.”

“Yeah, well I taught her how to skateboard, how to drink, how to wear a mini skirt, and most important how to dance. I helped her study and nursed her back to health. Why is it my job to make sure all her dreams get fulfilled? What about my dreams? What about my life?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me about them?”

Grace grabbed a tissue. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t have any dreams. I never had any fucking dreams. My goal was to avoid ever making another decision as long as I lived.”

Dr.
Yael
pulled a couple of cans of Coke out of the mini fridge and offered one to a surprised Grace. “You do know by not making any decisions, you made decisions.”

“No shit. And, by deciding to stay in bed I killed my father.”

“I thought a snow plow killed your father.”

Grace was surprised. “How did you know that? Same difference though.”

Dr.
Yael
opened Grace’s file. “Here it is Question number 453. You answered, and I quote, ‘death is to me like a snowplow running over my father’, end quote. That’s why I get the big bucks. I read between the lines. How does your staying in bed equate a snowplow killing your father?”

An irritated Grace stated, “
if
I had gotten up to help him, he’d still be alive.”

“Or you’d be dead or you’d both be dead.”

Grace didn’t want to dwell on it. Instead, she popped open her can of soda and took a sip. “What’s with the soda?”

“It throws my patients off and calms them down.”

“Caffeine calms them down?”

“The action of doing something familiar in the middle of an awkward situation calms them down. They may leave here jacked up on caffeine, but that’s not my problem, is it?”  Dr.
Yael
tried to get Grace to focus.
“So why the fear of making this decision?”

“Holding the fate of someone’s happiness in my uterus seems precarious at best.”

Dr.
Yael
watched as Grace fidgeted uncomfortably on the couch. “Okay, so how about this. Come up with a pros and cons list. Bring it to your next session and we’ll get down to the
nitty
gritty.”

“The
nitty
gritty?
You learn that in Harvard or Yale? That’s
gonna
be fun isn’t it?”

 “Well, it depends on how you classify fun. If I recall, there was something about a tour with a heavy metal band in here.” She pointed to Grace’s file.

 
“Death Parade.”
Grace got wistful. “I haven’t done anything important since then. How can I have a kid if I haven’t even lived my life?”

“But, you don’t get to keep the kid.”

“But, that doesn’t change much does it?”

Dr.
Yael
studied her patient and sighed, “I suppose not.”

Earlier it was noted that in this tale there was no evil stepmother or, for that matter, evil stepfather and there isn’t, but there is a somewhat opinionated, domineering, witty, corporate shark who happens to be Henry’s mother, as well as the primary shareholder of the family’s mayonnaise empire. Patricia Erickson was married to her second husband, Henry, Sr., an athletic, handsome, and amiable man. Many things have been said about Patricia: loving mother, loving wife, dog lover, philanthropist, cutthroat bitch, and a morally challenged, price-gouging whore. And, really, with credentials like that how could you not love her? Patricia sat in all her glory in the middle of the Union League Club of Chicago and studied them. Something, as far as she could tell, was rotten in
Denmark
.

Henry tried to remain calm and relaxed. His dad, with his thick head of silver hair and early spring tan, always looked calm. He envied that. “So how’s retirement?”

Patricia took a sip of her Long Island Iced Tea and looked for the waiter. Monday’s were slow lunch days, so where on earth was her Cobb salad? “Just being the Chairman of the Board, dealing with big picture stuff, and not running the day-to-day operations frankly, sucks. I miss the intrigue.”

Henry, Sr. smirked, “
it’s
mayonnaise dear, you’re not creating alternative fuel options that the government is trying to protect from our enemies.”

Patricia snapped, “
considering
the shape our country is in mayonnaise may be our future--especially since the
United States
doesn’t have many friends these days.”

Henry, Sr. laughed. “You’re going to get the
Middle East
to declare peace, cure the aids epidemic in
Africa
, and stop genocide with mayonnaise?”

“A good egg salad sandwich can heal a lot of things.” Patricia narrowed her eyes at Henry, Sr., a sure sign that her retirement wasn’t agreeing with either of them, and honed in on her son. “Okay, spill it. You practically threatened us to come to lunch; what the hell is going on?”

Henry grabbed Clair’s hand “Oh--, well--, that--, you see-- it’s like this. We, uh, that would be Clair and I, well, uh, we can’t have kids.”

Patricia did not expect this. “What’s wrong? Did you check your plumbing?”

“Yes, we checked the plumbing.”

Henry, Sr. gave his son a sad nod. “I’m so sorry.”

Patricia studied Clair. “Did you get a second opinion?”

Clair started to nervously organize the sugar packets. “And, a third, and, a fourth--we’re thinking of having a surrogate.”

Patricia did not like the sound of that. “That’s quite a risk don’t you think?”

Henry started to speak, but Clair cut him off. “My womb can’t nurture an embryo, but my eggs are good enough to plant into another woman’s uterus, so we thought we’d have Grace carry our baby to term.”

To say the bottom just fell out of Patricia’s world is to understate how she really felt. “No, no! There is no way a grandchild of mine is going to spend nine months in that roach motel!”

Clair was dumbfounded and Henry was appalled at his mother’s behavior. “Grace is a sweetheart.”

Henry, Sr. leaned in and whispered, “
forgive
me Clair, but Grace is a whore and a murderer.”

“She got drunk at our wedding, everyone was drunk at our wedding--it was Vegas! If I recall you and Mom went skinny dipping and ended up in jail.” Henry huffed.

“Yes, dear, but your father and I didn’t dirty dance with your ninety-five year old Uncle Harrison who turned up dead two days later.”

Clair couldn’t believe what was just said. “He was sleeping with his caretaker, a thirty year old ex-stripper.  Did it not occur to you that maybe she was the problem?”

Patricia scoffed. “Bambi came from a good family--old money.”

Through gritted teeth Henry retorted, “
how
are crumpled dollar bills in her G-string old money?”

Patricia took another swig of her drink and sighed. “I hardly see your point.”

“If Grace agrees to do this huge favor for us you are going to treat her with love and respect or you’re never going to see your grandchild. Do you understand?”

Patricia did not like her son’s tone. “Oh, so now you’re threatening me.”

 “Do you understand the terms of the threat?”

Patricia both admired and despised her son right now.
“Perfectly dear.”
She smiled at the waiter when he brought her salad, nodded sweetly at what was now her disappointment of a daughter-in-law, and vowed that the subject was far from closed. This was the Erickson family bloodline and she’d be damned if anyone screwed it up. And, by anyone, she meant Grace.

Clair stared at her grilled
Mahi-Mahi
sandwich. “Unless we adopt or hire a complete stranger to have our baby, Grace is our best alternative.”

“Honey,” said Patricia between bites of tiny cubes of lettuce and avocado, “Grace is no one’s best alternative. I mean no disrespect, but really, Grace? Grace who hasn’t held down the same job for longer than six months? Grace who lives in squalor? Grace who hangs out with a woman named George and wakes up drunk in foreign countries? That,
Grace
, is your best alternative?”

Clair was pissed. “Yes, Patricia.
That
Grace! The one who kept my family from falling apart after my dad died, saves lives as a 911 Operator, took care of me when I was too sick to take care of myself, and yes, hangs out with a woman named George and occasionally wakes up drunk in foreign countries, which in my opinion is better than being a bitter-country-club-lunching-Long-Island-Ice-Tea-swilling-bitch!” And, with that said, Clair stormed out. “And Patricia, for the record, a Long Island Ice Tea is
not
the epitome of class unless you’re a twenty-two year old sorority girl!”

Her mother-in-law, the Long-Island-Ice-Tea-swilling-bitch, finished the rest of her drink and laughed. “Henry, go after your wife. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times that girl’s a keeper!”

Henry, Sr. chuckled as his son left the table.
“A bitter-country-club-lunching-Long-Island-Ice-Tea-swilling-bitch.
The very words I’ve been searching for, for the past forty years!” Patricia kicked her Husband hard, yet discreetly, as only an Erickson could do.

Henry found Clair as she paced outside by the valet. The club was quiet today. The usual crowd of ladies who lunch, husbands, wives, and the soon-to-be mistresses weren’t in attendance. Henry hated
the club
. It was fine as clubs go, but it wasn’t his style. From the moment he recognized, at the age of five, that his parents held this place in such high esteem it annoyed the living shit out of him. “You okay?”

“Sometimes your mother, well she just…”

Henry pulled her into his arms. “I get it, she’s my mother, remember?”

Clair relaxed into his arms. “I’m sorry I snapped like that, but really how the hell can she say stuff like that about Grace while I’m in the room? We’re not going to be like them as parents are we? I refuse to raise my child to think they’re better than seventy-five percent of the human population. She’s insane. Truly insane and drunk, she’s drunk too!”

“Honey, she thinks she’s better than ninety-five percent of the population. And, she’s never drunk. To be truly drunk she’d have to loosen up and be open to change. And, for the record, the only time I’d ever seen her drunk was at our wedding and even then, well, I thought she was faking.”

Clair pulled away and Henry followed his wife as she strolled past the cars and onto the club grounds. “How did you come from them?”

“My father’s side--normal people; they always blew a hole in my mother’s hypocrisy. That’s why she loves them and you--she loves you Clair. She’s just testing you.”

“For what?
For Malaria, or allergies, or to see if my bitch levels are elevated? I don’t want to be the type of parents who test their kids. If we do this at the end of nine months we’re going to be parents. We have to make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to child rearing.”

Henry grabbed his wife’s hand. It sometimes surprised him just how much he loved her. As they passed the stone fountain in the middle of the club’s driveway he used his Grandfather Al’s stern lecturing voice. “You’re right. And, I strongly believe there will be no running with scissors, glue sniffing, or nose picking and definitely no tattoos, belly rings, or piercing of any kind. They must color within the lines and call me father. I will not stand for dad, daddy or the dreaded pops.”

Clair punched him.
“Idiot.”

“And, no name calling.”
Henry pulled his wife behind one of the oak trees, kissed her, and started fiddling with the buttons on her starched white shirt.

“This conversation is far from over.” Clair whispered as she pulled Henry further from view and started undoing his belt buckle.