Jennifer Weiner - Good in Bed

“Oh, really? You mean you didn’t have your eyes shut the whole time last night?”

He didn’t laugh.

“What’s her name?”

“Cannie,” he said gently.

“I refuse to believe that you found another girl named Cannie. Now tell me. C’mon. Age? Rank? Serial number?” I asked jokingly, hearing my voice as if from a million miles away.

“She’s thirty-one… she’s a kindergarten teacher. She’s got a dog, too.”

“That’s great,” I said sarcastically. “I bet we have lots and lots of other things in common. Let me guess… I’ll bet she’s got breasts! And hair!”

“Cannie…”

And then, because it was the only thing I could think of, “Where’d she go to school?”

“Um… Montclair State.”

Great. Older, poorer, more dependent, less intelligent. I was dying to ask if she was blond, too, just to make the run of clichés complete.

“Do you love her?” I blurted instead.

“Cannie…”

“Never mind. I’m sorry. I had no right to ask you that. I’m sorry.” And then, before I could stop myself, I asked, “Did you tell her about me?”

He nodded. “Of course I did.”

“Well, what did you say?” A horrible thought struck me. “Did you tell her about my mom?”

Bruce nodded again, looking puzzled. “Why? What’s the big deal?”

I shut my eyes, assaulted by a sudden vision of Bruce and his new girl in his wide, warm bed, his arm wrapped companionably around her, telling my family secrets. “Her mother’s gay, you know,” he’d say, and the new girl would give a wise, professionally compassionate kindergarten-teacher nod, all the while thinking what a freak I must be.

From the bedroom, I heard choking noises. “Excuse me,” I murmured, and ran into the bedroom, where Nifkin was busily regurgitating a Baggie. I cleaned up the mess and walked back to the living room. Bruce was standing in front of my couch. He hadn’t sat down, hadn’t so much as touched anything. I could tell just from looking at him how desperately he wanted to be back in his car with the windows rolled down and the Springsteen cranked up… to be away from me.

“Are you okay?”

I took a deep breath. I wish you were back with me, I thought. I wish I didn’t have to hear this. I wish we’d never broken up. I wish we’d never met.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m glad for you.”

We were both quiet then.

“I hope we can be friends,” said Bruce.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Well,” he said, and paused, and I knew that he had nothing left to say to me, and that there was really only one thing he wanted to hear.

And so I said it. “Good-bye, Bruce,” I said, and opened the door, and stood there, waiting, until he walked out.

Then it was Monday, and I was back at work, feeling both queasy and abidingly dumb. I was shuffling things around on my desk, half-heartedly going through my mail, which featured the usual spate of complaints from Old People, Angry, plus a collection of bitter missives from Howard Stern fans who were most displeased with the review I’d given his latest on-air venture. I was wondering whether I could simply come up with a form letter to the seventeen guys who’d accused me of being ugly, old, and jealous of Howard Stern, and signed themselves “Baba Booey,” when Gabby sauntered over.

“How’d it go with Maxi Whosit?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said, giving her my best bland smile.

Gabby raised her eyebrows. “ ’Cause I heard through the grapevine that she wasn’t doing any interviews with print reporters. Just TV.”

“Not to worry.”

But Gabby was looking worried. Extremely worried. She’d probably scheduled Maxi as the main item for tomorrow’s column – just for the sheer joy of undercutting me – and now she was going to wind up scrambling to fill the space. Scrambling was not something Gabby did well.

“So… you talked to her?”

“For about an hour,” I said. “Great stuff. Really great. We really hit it off. I think,” I said, drawing the words out to prolong the torture, “I think we might even be friends.”

Gabby’s mouth fell open. I could tell she was trying to figure out whether to ask if anyone had mentioned her planned chat with Maxi, or to just hope I hadn’t learned about it.

“Thanks for asking, though,” I said sweetly. “It’s so nice of you to look out for me like this. It’s almost like… gee!… like you’re my boss.” I pushed back my chair, got to my feet, and walked by her regally, my back straight, my head held high. Then I went into the bathroom and threw up. Again.

Back at my desk, I was groping through my drawers, searching desperately for a mint or some gum, when the phone rang.

“Features, Candace Shapiro,” I said distractedly. Thumbtacks, business cards, three sizes of paperclips, and not an Altoid to be found. Story of my life, I thought.

“Candace, this is Dr. Krushelevansky from the University of Philadelphia,” said a deep, familiar voice.

“Oh. Oh, hi,” I said. “What’s up?” I gave up on the desk drawer and started going through my purse, even though I’d already looked through there.

“There’s something I need to discuss with you,” he said.

That got my attention. “Yes?”

“Well, you know that last blood draw we did…” I remembered it well. “Something came up that I’m afraid makes you ineligible for the study.”

I felt my palms go icy. “What? What is it?”

“I’d prefer to discuss this with you in person,” he said.

I quickly ran through everything else that a blood test could reveal, each possibility more awful than the one before. “Do I have cancer?” I asked. “Do I have AIDS?”

“You don’t have anything life-threatening,” he said sternly. “And I’d prefer not playing Twenty Questions.”

“Then just tell me what’s wrong,” I begged. “High cholesterol? Hypoglycemia? Scurvy? Gout?”

“Cannie…”

“Do I have rickets? Oh, God, please not rickets. I don’t think I can stand being fat and bowlegged.”

He started laughing. “No rickets, but I’m starting to think you might have Tourette’s. How do you know all of these diseases anyhow? Do you have a physician’s desk reference in front of you?”

“I’m glad you think this is amusing,” I said plaintively. “I’m glad this is your idea of fun, calling up innocent reporters in the middle of the day and telling them there’s something wrong with their blood.”

“Your blood is fine,” he said seriously. “And I’ll be happy to tell you what we found, but I would prefer to do it in person.”

He was sitting behind his desk when I came in, and he got to his feet to greet me. I noticed, once again, how very tall he was.

“Have a seat,” he said. I dropped my purse and backpack on one chair and parked myself on another.

He fanned my folder out on his desk. “As I told you, we do a standard series of tests when we draw blood, looking for conditions that could possibly disqualify study participants. Hepatitis is one of them. AIDS, of course, is another.”

I nodded, wondering if he’d ever get to the point.

“We also test for pregnancy,” he said. I nodded again, thinking, okay, already, but what’s wrong with me? And then I realized. Pregnancy.

“But I’m not…” I stammered. “I mean, I can’t be.”

He flipped the folder around and pointed to where something was circled in red. “I’d be happy to arrange for another test,” he said, “but generally, we’re very accurate.”

“I… I don’t…” I stood up. How had this happened? My mind was whirling. I sank back into the chair to think. I’d gone off the Pill after Bruce and I had broken up, figuring it would be a long, long time before I had the need to contracept again, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that I was at risk during the shiva call. It had to have happened then.