Fiction Ruined My Family - Jeanne Darst [93]
The wedding was on a barge in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in my eighth month. As my dad began walking me down the aisle, or “the plank” as he called it because it was again, a barge dock, the QE2 began pulling out of the harbor. I made him stop and wait for the ship to pass, because otherwise I was going to be this preggo bride with an ocean liner behind me and that was too disturbing an image to have in my memory. I was gigantic, having miscalculated how pregnant I was going to be, thinking seven months but I was actually eight months pregnant. My friend Cassie had loaned me the most outrageous high shoes to wear with my silver sequin dress. I could definitely have swung them. Nick was not happy about me walking in high shoes at eight months pregnant, and the day before the wedding he forced me to go to Aerosoles, the comfortable-shoe store, and get some two-inch numbers that someone’s grandmother might wear. I ended up writing a poem to read during the ceremony about going to Aerosoles with him, about how he was, certainly, the more practical of the two of us and that our differences were what made us us.
So while we waited for the QE2 to pass, Dad talked about Kennedy’s inauguration day. He also let me know he was “flying on prednisone,” his steroid medication for his asthma. The next day, many of my friends let me know that my dad had told them he was “flying on prednisone” as well.
We had just a few weeks as married people before the baby was due. My due date was December 7, Mom’s fake birthday. December 7 came and went, no baby. Then her real birthday, December 11, passed, no baby. I was somewhat relieved these two dates were not my baby’s birthday. On December 15, my son was born. In less than a year my mother had died, I had gotten pregnant, gotten married, moved to Los Angeles, and had a baby.
Four weeks later, we were getting ready to go back to Los Angeles. Nick checked our tickets to verify the departure time the next day and came running into the room where I was nursing and yelled, “It’s today! Our flight is today not tomorrow. Today! In three hours! Come on! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!!!!!”
I was running around, throwing diapers in bags and clothes in bags, when my dad called. This is the kind of phone call that the second you pick up the phone your whole body says, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR? THAT WAS THE WORST DECISION YOU HAVE EVER MADE! YOU’RE CRAZY! YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN CRAZY!
“Jean-Joe, how goes it?”
“Not good, actually, I can’t talk.”
“I’m in your neighborhood.”
“Oh. Um, well, we thought we were leaving tomorrow but it’s today. Like right now.” I was opening the fridge and chucking Chinese food containers in the garbage.
“I’ll just drop in and see you off.”
“Oh, gosh, I don’t know, Dad. We have to get this whole operation to JFK in about forty minutes.”
“I’m at the bookstore across the street.”
“Dad, I uh . . .”
“Well, I’ve gotta give Hudson this present I got him.”
OH! Present, well, why didn’t you say so? Come on over.
We hung up and he buzzed our buzzer in under two minutes. He followed me back to the kitchen where he handed me a brown paper bag. The present.
“Did you know Murray’s cheese shop was closing? Well, I ran right over there, Jean-Joe—my God, was I in shock. Turns out they’re just moving across the street.”
I opened the bag, and there, in some waxed paper, was a hunk of blue cheese.
“Damn good blue there I got for Huddie. Stilton, I believe.”
I looked up at my dad. “Well, Dad, he can’t, uh, he’s only, you know, four weeks.”
“Well, if you think he doesn’t want it—” he said, as if my son were particular.
“It’s not that he doesn’t want it—he’s not a snob or something, Dad, he’s a newborn.”
“It’s a soft cheese,” he said, taking a bite of the cracker he made for himself.
“No, I know . . .”
“Let’s have at it ourselves, shall we?” He plunked some on a cracker and handed it to me. I took it appreciatively and when he turned his