Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [75]
“Thank you, Dr. Gourson.”
The doctor’s office was at Hollywood and Vine. Vine was near Highland. Highland ran up to Barham and Vine ran up to Barham, and Barham ran up to Bob’s Big Boy. At the drive-through, I got three burgers. One for me, one for Cary, and one for the baby. The baby ate in the car.
How was I going to tell him? A few ideas came to mind. How was he going to react? A few more ideas came to mind.
Wish I’d gotten the baby another hamburger, I thought.
Cary wasn’t inside the house when I arrived, but I looked down the backyard slope and saw him by the pool, relaxing in swim trunks and his cotton robe. I hoped he was in a good mood—as if something like the whole future of our family-in-the-making could hinge on whether he’d gotten caught in traffic on the way home or had skipped lunch and had low blood sugar. Well, I thought, let the Bob’s Big Boys lead the way.
“I got a little snack for you—I mean, us,” I said, sitting down on the chaise lounge with him. I opened the bag and gave him his burger.
“Good stuff!” he said. Good start, I thought. He noticed the shopping bag I’d brought along with me. “What’d you get?” he asked.
“Go ahead and eat your burger. I have a little surprise for you.”
Cary was already giving the burger his full attention and deferred answering until he’d devoured it. Then he wadded up the wrapper, popped it into the bag, and rubbed his hands together. “Did you say something about a surprise?”
I handed him the bag and he reached inside. He took out one package, unwrapped the tissue from around a little pink dress, and looked at me quizzically. Then he unwrapped the tissue from around a little boy’s blue jumper.
“Are you trying to tell me what I think you’re trying to tell me?” he asked.
“How do you feel about being a father?”
“How do I feel about being a father?”
Oh God, is this going to do us in? I thought.
“Are you asking me that because you’re going to be a mother?”
I gulped and nodded.
Oh no. Somebody help.
Cary looked like someone had told him a story that didn’t quite make sense, and now he was trying to figure out how to be amused by it. My heart started to sink.
“Just one minute, Dyan,” he said. He got up, walked to the deep end of the pool, and let himself fall in backward. He disappeared beneath the surface, bobbed up again at the other end, then got out and shook himself off like a wet dog.
The next thing I knew, he picked me up and rocked me like a baby before giving me a big, long kiss.
“I finally am going to have the family I’ve always wanted,” he said.
We were happily on our way.
The morning of the wedding, I got my hair done and had a manicure. “Maybe a little rinse to brighten your hair?” the beautician asked.
I felt a jolt of electricity go down my spine. “No! No rinse! Please!”
Disaster averted. Doing anything to my hair color before the wedding seemed like the equivalent of crossing the paths of a hundred black cats while walking under a succession of ladders. I was even extremely judicious about the color the manicurist put on my nails: it was a very light peach color, just a shade deeper than natural. I had to wonder about it, though . . . why was everyone always wanting to “brighten” my hair? Maybe after the wedding I’d dare to do something about it. Certainly not before.
From the beauty parlor, I met up with Addie and Cliff, who were flying to Las Vegas with me.
On the plane, I suddenly became inexplicably weepy. “What’s wrong with me, Addie?” I asked, plucking yet another tissue out of a package. “I’m getting everything I wanted. The husband, the baby, the family. And I can’t stop crying.”
“Premarital heebee-jeebies,” Addie said. “And your first-trimester hormones are probably having a hootenanny. Did you tell your mom and dad?”
“Not yet. They have enough on their minds.”
“You’ll be fine. And you look beautiful. Cary’s going to melt when he sees you.”
In Las Vegas, Cary had arranged for a small chartered plane to take me to neighboring Clark County to pick up our