“She might look young but her eggs are dried up. I’ve seen those old eggs under the microscope and I know.”
Annie’s face darkened, then she stuck out her chin and said, “I don’t believe that’s true for every woman. What about those older women having babies you read about in the paper? Some of those women are in their sixties. They look like grandmas, but they had the babies.”
“Those are surrogate eggs.”
“Not all,” Annie said resolutely. “There are lots of women in their forties having babies. What about Susan Sarandon?” When Annie got that tone, no one could convince her otherwise; she had her mind made up.
Gabriella, having heard this sad argument many times in the Women’s Health Center, sighed and shook her head, knowing the futility of listing facts and data.
“In fact,” Annie said clinking her glass, “I’ve got some news myself.”
Everyone quieted and leaned forward.
“John and I’ve decided to have a baby. Actually, we’ve been trying for months now.”
There was a long, strained silence.
“Well, don’t everyone shout at once,” Annie quipped, a blush betraying her.
Gabriella rushed to hug her. “I was busy biting my tongue for what I’d just said about old eggs. Of course I’m happy for you, if this is what you want.”
“Is it what you want?” Midge asked, cocking her head.
“Or is it what John wants?”
“Both of us. He’s wanted a baby since we got married but after Tom’s funeral I finally decided that hey, it’s now or never, right? The ol’ biological clock is ticking away.”
That old clock has run down, Doris thought to herself. Annie was forty-three years old! Who did she think she was kidding? She should be worrying about menopause, not having a baby.
“Are you sure you want to be making lunches and driving carpool when you’re fifty-three? Sixty?” she asked.
“And won’t it interfere with your work?”
“It’ll all work out,” Annie said in her typical bravado. “I don’t intend to let it interfere with my job. I’ll get lots of help, and as for being sixty, what’s sixty? I think young therefore I am. That’s my motto. It’s how you feel inside that counts.”
“Well, your insides are going to feel tired,” Doris replied dryly. “Trust me.”
There was a chorus of agreement, yet they did not give voice to the arguments uppermost in their minds: how, at her age, the odds of getting pregnant were slim and the odds of Down’s Syndrome high.
Annie’s shoulders slumped and she crossed her arms tightly across her chest.
“Well, I think it’s terrific,” Midge surprised everyone by announcing in a loud, authoritative voice. “The rest of us are moping around worrying about wrinkles, and moaning about hot flashes, gray hair and sagging boobs, and you’re out there getting pregnant.” She raised her glass high in a toast. “You go, girl!”
Suddenly it was a rallying call. The mood shift was electric and everyone was raising their glasses, laughing loudly. Relief and victory was visible on their faces as they made jokes about menopause and aging and all the horrors of the inevitable change that they were marching toward like soldiers. Good soldiers facing certain doom. Now they had Annie to hold up as a symbol of defiance. They gloried in her fertility. It was a shared fertility.
In all the excitement and laughter, no one heard the doorbell ring, or the front door open. No one saw a small, slim woman in the long black wool coat enter the foyer, her library, hardcover copy of Madame Bovary clutched in her leather-gloved hand, her dark-brown hair tucked into a beret. She stood quietly on the outside of the tight circle, looking in, her pale-green eyes guarded. She stood and waited, her face a closed book.
Doris sensed a new presence in her home and turned her head. Her heart beat furiously with pleasure as she caught sight of the woman at the threshold. She felt a gush of triumph. Doris just knew she’d come to her house!
“Eve!” she called out in a high-pitched voice and ran toward her, open-armed.
Heads turned, sounds of delight pierced the air, and in a blur of color and motion, Eve Porter was kissed and hugged and loudly welcomed back, again and again. In return, Eve smiled and wept and told them all how she missed them, too, and could they forgive her for staying away so long, and yes of course, she’d read the book! With words and movements they gathered her carefully, firmly, lovingly back into the circle of the Book Club, each feeling a joy, a deep satisfaction that the circle was complete again, stronger, now that the missing link had returned.
Later that night Doris was floating on air, feeling that the whole evening had been a complete and utter success. Everyone had exclaimed how this was one of the best meetings ever as they left, and it was true. She did know how to throw a good party. Treat your family as guests and your guests as family. The crystal clinked in her hands like bells as she cleared away the last of the wineglasses from the library where the Book Club had completed one of their best book discussions. Annie had vehemently defended Emma’s passion and rung Emma’s husband, poor dull Charles, through the ringer. But Doris was smug with the satisfaction of the group’s ultimate support of her own position that, to put it crudely, Emma was a slut.
“Thank God they’re gone,” R.J. said with a grunt as he strode into the library. Her husband always made a powerful entrance; it was ingrained in him like a whorl in a slab of hardwood. “Couldn’t stand another moment of that damn squealing.”
Doris bristled. “We do not squeal. We were simply laughing and talking.” She picked up the tray of appetizers in a huff.
“Leave that. I’m hungry.” When she put the tray back onto the coffee table, he poked around them with his index finger, then pointing to the canapés he asked, “What are they?”
Doris narrowed her eyes and thought suddenly of Annie Blake. She and R.J. were a lot alike. Blunt, bold, beloved by all—and shrewd.
“Crab.”
He frowned in distaste and reached for the quiche, picked one up and tossed it in his mouth like a peanut. “These are pretty good,” he said with his mouth full. “What was all that caterwauling about?”
“Oh, R.J.,” she exclaimed, deaf to the insult, “it’s wonderful. Eve’s back in the group. I knew she wouldn’t miss a meeting at my house. She’s too good a friend. You should’ve seen Annie’s face,” she said smugly. “I could tell she didn’t know she was coming. What did she think? Eve and I’ve been friends for years. We live only a few blocks apart. We raised our children together, for heaven’s sake. Remember how Sarah and Bronte liked to wear the same thing every day? And how they got braces at the same time? One just doesn’t forget that kind of friendship. I’ll never understand women like Annie Blake. She thinks she’s so superior just because she’s a lawyer.”
“She’s a damn good lawyer.”
“Well, she should know enough to dress her age.” R.J. glanced at her, smirked and swirled the ice in his glass of Scotch. “She looks pretty good, if you ask me.”
Doris knew that look in his eye and suddenly felt as if she’d absorbed a wallop in the solar plexus, the KO punch that dropped her to her knees. All the success she’d felt earlier drained like blood, leaving her pale and shriveled.
“You should do some exercise,” he continued, popping another quiche into his mouth. “Join the club. Now, don’t get huffy. You want to look good too, don’t you?”
She looked at his tall, muscular trim body that had survived years of football, then handball and now golf. “I wasn’t aware that I didn’t look good.”
“Come on, you’ve put on twenty pounds at least.”