Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

around,” Connie explained. “I mean … hey, I’m almost thirty-three. What good is a bun in the oven, if the oven is broken? You know what I mean?”
“Mmm,” answered Mary Ann.
“I mean … Jees … I want a baby a lot more than I want a husband, so I said to hell with it and stopped taking the pill. You can have a husband any ol’ time. There’s a time limit on babies.” She paused and studied Mary Ann with a look of earnest concern. “Am I freaking you out, hon?”
Mary Ann laughed as jauntily as possible. “Are you kidding?”
“Good. Anyway, the father is either Phil, this software executive who took me to the Us Festival last year, or Darryl, this really super accountant from Fresno.” She shrugged, having made her point. “I mean … it’s not like they weren’t both great guys.”
In some ways, it made a lot of sense. Leave it to Connie to name the baby before she had named the father. “You look just great,” Mary Ann said. “It really becomes you.”
“Thanks.” Connie beamed. “You and Brian got married, didn’t you?”
The question came out of left field, but Mary Ann wasn’t really surprised. According to Brian, he and Connie had slept together once back in ’76. Later that year he had brought her to Mrs. Madrigal’s Christmas party. Nothing had ever come of it. To hear Brian tell it, the interlude had meant a lot more to Connie than it had to him.
Mary Ann nodded. “Two years ago this summer.”
“That’s great,” said Connie. “He’s a neat guy.”
“Thanks. I think so too.”
“But no babies, huh?”
Mary Ann shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Your career, huh?”
In a matter of seconds, Mary Ann weighed her options. It was time to talk about this to someone, and Connie suddenly struck her as a logical candidate. She was decent, practical and completely detached from the tight little family unit at 28 Barbary Lane.
“We need to catch up,” said Mary Ann. “Why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Super!”
So they walked across the square to Neiman-Marcus, where Connie elaborated on the joys of impending motherhood. “It’s like … it’s like this friend you’ve never met. I know it sounds dumb, but sometimes I just sit and talk to Shawna when I’m home alone. And you know … sometimes she even thumps back.”
Mary Ann set her cup down. “That doesn’t sound dumb at all.”
“I don’t know why it took me so long to do it,” said Connie. “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I kid you not.”
“Are you on maternity leave or what?”
Connie looked puzzled.
“Aren’t you still with United?” asked Mary Ann.
“Oh.” Connie let out a little laugh. “You are behind the times, hon. I quit that five or six years ago. The glamor was gone, if you know what I mean.”
Mary Ann nodded.
“In my day, we were stews, ” Connie continued. “Now they have flight attendants. It’s just not the same thing.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
“I saved some money, though, so I have my own little house in West Portal. I manage a card shop there. You should come by sometime. I’ll give you a press discount or something.” She smiled wanly at Mary Ann, suspecting that it would never happen. “You must be superbusy, though.”
“I’d love to come,” said Mary Ann.
“There might even be a story in it. It’s a cute place.”
“Mmm.”
Connie reached across the table and took Mary Ann’s hand. It was a sisterly gesture, reminiscent of the days when Mary Ann had camped out on Connie’s sofa in the Marina, crying her eyes out over rotten times at Dance Your Ass Off. Connie had been her only refuge, a benevolent link between Cleveland and her family at Barbary Lane.
“What’s the matter, hon?”
Mary Ann hesitated, then said: “I wish I knew.”
“About what?”
“Well … Brian wants a baby very much.”
Connie nodded. “And you don’t, huh?”
“No. I want one. Maybe not as much as Brian does … but I want one.”
“And?”
“Well … I stopped taking the pill eight months ago.”
Connie’s mouth opened slightly.
“Nothing’s happened, Connie. Zilch.”
Connie cocked her head, showing sympathy. “And Brian is freaked, huh?”
“No. He doesn’t know about it. I haven’t told him.”
Connie screwed up her face in thought, “I don’t get it. You didn’t tell him when you went off the pill?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise, Connie. Like in the movies. I wanted to see the look on his face when I told him I was