Part 26 (1/2)
”Both.”
Then Joe's cell phone rang. It was his daughter. She could tell by the way he stood up and lowered his head as soon as he picked up the call.
”I know, sweetheart.”
From where she sat Meredith could hear a wail of complaint through the receiver. Father and daughter wrangled for several minutes as Meredith scratched her initials into the steps with a stone and pretended not to listen.
”Livvy, I can't do anything about that. I'm halfway across the world.... On Sunday... Yes, I promise.” Joe made some soothing noises into the phone before finally hanging up.
He looked up, and Meredith thought he seemed very tired.
”She's having a problem with her course registration. I'd better go back to the hotel and make some calls,” he said. ”Sorry to bother you with all this. It must be pretty boring on your end.”
”Not really,” said Meredith. ”You should go. I'll get a taxi.”
”No, no, I'll walk you,” he said, jamming the phone into his jacket pocket. ”But before we go...listen.”
He was stooped over a few steps down from her so that they were now eye to eye. Meredith hugged her knees and looked at him, waiting.
”Okay,” he said finally. ”I know things between us have been kind of strange up until now. It's understandable, especially given the circ.u.mstances of our first meeting.”
”I'll say.”
”But I was wondering if I could try to make it up to you. Since we're over here and everything, and I have a couple of days to kill, I thought maybe...” His voice drifted off. He looked at her. Looked away. Took one step down and a second step up. ”Maybe we could hang out.”
”What did you have in mind?” Meredith asked.
”I don't know.” He shrugged and smiled. ”Rent a Vespa. Hang around the piazza. Smoke. Learn to swear in Italian.”
Later that night she lay in the cast-iron bath in her tiny room at the Hotel Excelsior. She slid down the tub and bent her knees so her head could dip back and under the surface of the water. She blew a noisy stream of bubbles through her nose and brought her head up for air, then submerged herself again and blew some more. She lingered long after soaping and rinsing her skin, allowing the pleasantly tepid bathwater to cool her blood. Something was different, as if somewhere along her walk through the streets of Florence with Joe she had pa.s.sed through a membrane that allowed her to enjoy things she normally wouldn't. Earthy things, like taking off her shoes and walking barefoot along the smooth, hot cobblestones. Or taking a late-night bath in the sulfur-stained tub at the Hotel Excelsior. (Why was it, anyway, that all cheap European hotels were called either Bristol or Excelsior?) The soap looked as if it might have been used once and refolded into its waxed paper packaging, and the roll of paper beside the toilet was not new, nor was its end folded into a little point-all things that would have bothered her enormously before, but the new Meredith was like...whatever. It wasn't that she didn't care about these little things anymore, just that she suddenly felt unwilling to let them overcome her and prevent her from caring about the things that really did matter. Things like...like...oh G.o.d.
Meredith surged up suddenly in the bath. Water sloshed out of the tub onto the floor. She wasn't beginning to...was she? She got out of the bath and stood dripping on the cement. Reaching for a towel, she knocked her toiletry kit from its perch beside the sink. Tiny bottles of perfume, lotion and hair conditioner scattered everywhere. Something large landed between her feet with a thud. The ovulation-measuring device that Mish had given her back in London. Meredith bent down and picked it up. The screen was blank. She turned it on to see if the batteries still worked. It beeped twice and a little pink light flashed. She began to raise the thing to her ear to take her temperature, but then she had a stronger impulse. She held out her arm and dropped the device in the bath. It beeped again-a pathetic digital cry for help-and sank to its death. Water splashed over the side of the tub, soaking the mat and slinking off in rivulets. She felt giggles bubbling up inside her. Uh-oh, she thought, throwing a threadbare towel over her wet head. This was not the plan.
”You're smitten. It's pathetic. I can totally tell from the dopey look on your face.”
”Excuse me. You should talk. I'm not the one who spent the night with a h.o.r.n.y twenty-year-old.”
”Actually if you must know, he happens to be a very mature nineteen.” Mish took a bite of her pastry and regurgitated it into a napkin. ”Bleh! Gross. Why do the Italians do that? It's like a perfectly normal-looking croissant from the outside and then the inside is filled with, like, the most disgusting spooge.”
”I think it's actually called marzipan.”
”Whatever. It's f.u.c.king sick.” Mish picked up the pastry with two fingers. ”Wannit?”
”No, thanks.” Meredith sipped her cappuccino. She couldn't eat. Not with the organ grinder in her stomach.
Mish tossed her head back and honked. ”Oh my G.o.d, it's so obvious-you're in love. I'm sorry, honey, but it is.”
Old friends were overrated. Meredith made a back-off face, but before she could control it her features had morphed from hostility to a goofy smile. f.u.c.k.
”So c'mon, tell me. Is he the One?”
”How should I know?”
”Can't you just tell? I mean, Mere, he seems perfect-tall, good skin, lots of hair. He's a doctor so he can't be dumb.”
Meredith began to object but Mish held up her hand.
”Wait. Did you check out his family history? Any alcoholism? Abuse? Mental illness? Because you know those things are genetic. A kid might look totally normal until the age of twenty and then-pow!-they turn into a hallucinating alcoholic. Think about it.”
Meredith was shaking her head. ”No. I'm off that.”
”Off what? The Quest?” Mish was incredulous. ”But I thought you were looking for the Donor, not a husband.”
”I'm not looking for a husband,” Meredith snapped. ”I'm just sick of being a sperm bandit.”
”But I liked you as a sperm bandit!”
”Really? I thought the whole thing actually bothered you. Because of what happened,” Meredith said, referring to the miscarriage.
Mish paused, suddenly serious. ”It did at first, a little. It just seemed like everywhere I looked, women were trying to get pregnant. But then I remembered that's actually just the way of the world. People are born, they make some other people, then they die.”
”It's not the only thing,” said Meredith.
”No, it's not. And it's not for everyone.” Mish cupped her chin. ”Much as I wanted it, it wasn't for me.”
Meredith reached for her hand but Mish waved her away.
”The point is, I'm not going to be one of those childless women who spends the rest of her life feeling like a tragic failure because she never got to clean banana barf off the sofa. There's more to life than having babies.” She stuck a finger in her pastry so the goo spurted out. ”Having said that, I'm sorry you've abandoned your plot-quest-whatever.”
”Yeah, well, it wasn't exactly working out.”
Mish licked her finger, dipped it in the icing sugar on the plate and tasted it thoughtfully.
”No, I guess it wasn't. But you still want to have a baby, right? I have to be Auntie Mish to somebody.”
”Yes! I mean, no. I mean, yes, but just for different reasons.”
”Did you tell Joe?”
”Tell him what?”
”That you're no longer out to commandeer his j.i.z.z?”
”Oh G.o.d.” Meredith wrinkled her nose.
”Well, have you?”