I’m certain I’m in the clear. My fingers close over the doorknob…
And the place erupts.
The doorknob sets off a siren that rips through the house and maybe the whole neighbourhood. Gwen leaps out of sleep like it was last year’s fad and lunges for me, screaming, ‘Escape, newcomer trying to escape!’ With an elbow to the chest, she tussles me to the ground and hefts herself on to my strained bladder. Footsteps come running up the stairs and down the hall, coming from all directions.
Gwen’s mom arrives at the door, her robe slouching off one shoulder, her husband out of breath behind her and sulky Trish, looking rather uncharacteristically delighted, weaselling in between them.
I blush. What must I look like to them, what with Gwen on top of me, my body spread-eagled on the floor with nothing but a too-tiny T-shirt and two-day-old panties on to cover up my shame?
‘What the hell happened?’ wheezes the dad.
‘She was trying to escape.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘I caught her red-handed, literally. She thought I was asleep but I wasn’t. I caught her.’
‘I just needed to go to the bathroom,’ I protest.
‘A likely story.’
I admit it doesn’t seem very likely that I should have to pee, given that I haven’t had a single drop of real liquid for the entire day – whole milk notwithstanding. But nevertheless, the need’s there and rather urgent. ‘It’s true.’
‘You went before we came to bed.’
‘I needed to go again.’
‘Stop lying!’ screams Gwen and she jounces up and down on my prostrate body for emphasis.
This, as I’m sure Gwen herself comes to agree, is not a smart move, for my bladder, after a valiant effort, finally succumbs to the inevitable – all over both of us.
We want a baby; we aren’t babies ourselves any more so it’s time for another one. We realise this for definite one afternoon when we’re playing with Christy Crybaby. We’re four or thereabouts, I think.
Christy Crybaby ‘cries real tears and wets herself too’. She comes with her own bottle that you can fill up straight from the faucet and her own diapers that snap on and off. If you press her tummy, her eyes stream, just like the box says. Her thumb’s the same shape as the nipple of the bottle so when you’re not feeding her she has something else to suck on.
We love Christy Crybaby, but then doesn’t everybody? Christy Crybaby is the most beautiful, most loveable doll ever born. She has blonde-blonde hair that curls up into little babydoll ringlets, appley cheeks, eyes the colour of the brightest bluest blue in the Crayola box, limbs chubbed out with baby fat and fingers that dimple at the knuckles. Everybody in the whole wide world loves Christy Crybaby. She has an entire row of her own in the KayBee Toy Store and her own TV commercials. The Christmas before, we begged for our very own Christy Crybaby and yowled with glee when we stumbled downstairs before daybreak on Christmas morning and found her perched and glowing blondely atop the other presents that had to stay wrapped to seem half as exciting.
Grandma Shirland elbowed Grandpa Shirland as we tussled to release Christy from her box. ‘Do you see? It’s Christy, Christy as in Christmas. It’s a Christmas baby.’
‘That’s downright funny all right,’ Grandpa pronounced gruffly. Grandpa finds everything funny in an isn’t-that-slightly-out-of-the-ordinary way.
Grandma and Grandpa gave us two little stuffed bunny rabbits that year. One for you, one for me. They were very cuddly. We named one Bunny and the other Funny, after Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa Shirland always gave us one apiece of everything.
‘No reason to squabble that way,’ said Grandma.
‘They never squabble,’ Mommy told her. ‘They share everything, they like to share.’ She said that with pride, I could tell, like that made us different from other kids. We liked being different, though we didn’t know many other kids at that point.
So most things we had just the one of. And most times, that was fine. Until there was Christy Crybaby, the most wonderful baby doll ever born.
We’re playing in our room one afternoon after Christmas. At night, we take turns sleeping in the big bed versus the rollaway. Sometimes the one in the big bed rolls over and lands accidentally-on-purpose on to the one in the rollaway. That makes us laugh. We both like sleeping in the rollaway because it has a close-to-the-carpet, slumber-party feel about it. That’s why we take turns. Once you tried trundling me under the big bed with the mattress, but my face caught on the frame. It hurt real bad but I didn’t cry or squeal to Mommy. Scouts honour. You reckoned if I sucked up real tight I woulda fit under. Another time we tried it out on Christy. We mashed her down into the guest mattress, then squeezed her under the big bed. We had the darndest time getting her out. She kept jamming on the big bed’s frame coming the other way. When we did finally rescue her, Christie’s pretty plastic face was crosshatched from the big bed’s box springs.
This afternoon, we’re coddling Christy Crybaby, not tormenting her. We’re playing nursery maids; we’re the maids and the rollaway is the nursery. There are other babies in the nursery – grizzly Teddy Kennedy in the corner, Miss Piggy, Bunny and Funny, Barbie, Skipper and Gl Joe. But Christy’s the nursery’s star baby.
You’ve already had your turn at changing her and now I’m preparing her feed. ‘How’s my wittle girl, today? Is my wittle baby feeling huuungry?’ I tap the miniature bottle on my wrist, like I’ve seen them do on a TV hospital show.
‘Ooh, Miss Wilmington, I don’t know if it’s the right temperature.’ You’re a nursery maid after all and we’ve named you Miss Wilmington, Wilma Wilmington. Maybe it was Wilma Flintstone I saw testing the formula bottle for Pebbles.
You grab the bottle from my hand, rub it between your hands and sit on it a minute before giving it back. ‘That oughtta do it, Miss Betty.’
‘Thank you, Miss Wilmington.’ Then I say to Christy, inserting the bottle teat into her permanently puckered mouth, ‘My wittle baby must be weally huuungry now. Oh yes she is.’
As Christy feeds quietly, you attempt to wrap a Kleenex diaper round the Gl Joe that Dad gave you. Only Joe’s legs don’t open wide enough and he’s got a featureless but still noticeable bulge in his crotch that keeps getting in the way and the tissue keeps ripping when you wind it round his waist. You throw him out of the nursery. ‘He doesn’t even look like a baby,’ you grumble. Then you’re back at my shoulder, hovering. ‘It’s my turn now.’
‘Nu-uh, you just had her.’
‘That was ages ago.’
‘Nu-uh. She hasn’t even finished her bottle.’
‘Close enough, bet she’s already peed herself.’ You stick a digit down there and pull it out dripping. ‘See, she needs changing. Lemme.’
‘You been sucking that finger, that’s how come it’s wet. Bug off.’
You flop back on the mattress, making all the babies jump in their shoe-box cribs, except Teddy Kennedy who’s too big for a crib. ‘Not fair, we need another baby. We can’t both be nurses and mommies to Christie. We need another.’
I tip the bottle out of Christy’s mouth. She looks at me silent, kind of accusing-like. ‘It would be sorta nice if she burped occasionally or maybe if she said something every once in a while, like Trisha Talk-Talk. Maybe Mommy’ll get us Trisha Talk-Talk for our birthday.’
‘No, not Trisha Talk-Talk. No good. I want a real baby. We need a real one.’
We