Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [163]
Hours earlier, when he had boarded, he had told Daphne by cell phone that the airport looked so empty that the terminal might as well have been the Museum of Transportation, there were so few people in it. Forlorn little passengers could be seen scurrying down there at the ends of the corridors, on their errands. The vendors of hot dogs and newspapers presented the public with expressions of end-of-the-world nihilism. From the TV sets hanging from the ceiling came the unreassuring voice of the president of the United States, encouraging the terrified citizenry to help the economy by buying things. It was all very grungy and Amtrak-ish.
“ ‘Fear and love his loins’?” Daphne asked. “What’s that about?”
They were eating in their favorite Brooklyn sushi restaurant, and Daphne, sitting next to an orange window curtain, delicately nibbled at her California roll, held like a prized specimen at the tip of her chopsticks. Beside her, the curtain’s folds blew in lightly, ruffled by a mild breeze, and, watching the fabric, Nicholas thought of the northern lights he had seen from the airplane window, and of how Daphne’s hair sometimes looked like that, too, a magical electric shivering beyond anyone’s descriptive powers. Thinking of his girlfriend’s hair, he himself shivered.
“What?” He had lost track of the topic.
“The thing she wrote,” Daphne said, noting his inattention. The curtain brushed against her arm. “On the wine bottle.” She pointed her chopsticks at him. “Do I even know what loins are? I don’t think I do. Why should I fear them?”
“They’re down here, I think,” Nicholas said, glancing in the general direction of his waist and crotch. “In French I think it’s ‘reins’ or something like that.”
“Oh,” Daphne said. “Those.” She chewed thoughtfully. “Loins. Like a cut of meat. I wonder if she was ever assaulted. Well, probably not.”
Following a respectful pause, Nicholas said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s about that. It’s about her husband, or God, or maybe her husband-as-God, or God-as-her-husband, one of those messed-up dirt-road deals. Beats me.”
Daphne scowled at her sushi plate, while she fiddled with a piece of raw salmon. “Hey, guess what? I’m pregnant again,” she announced with the flat apologetic tone she always employed for big declarations. “What do you think of that?” She tried on a quick, blissful expression for him. “I threw up this morning,” she said, trying to disguise her happiness. “But I knew a few days ago.”
The calamari in Nicholas’s mouth went a little dry as he leaned forward to kiss her. They had been through this whole business a couple of years ago, so in a sense he was prepared, and he remembered to resume chewing. Somehow, they both had been negligent when it came to reproductive issues down through the years, and they had slipped up before. They had known each other since high school and had a devotion to each other that neither of them could quite accept. The last time Daphne had found herself in the family way, the problem had been disposed of rapidly and efficiently, and they had—or at least Nicholas had—chalked it up to one of those unexpected outcomes of sex. Love was one; babies were another. Something told Nicholas it would not go that way this time around. Easefulness, ever so gently, was slipping out of his grasp. He gazed at her hair again. Somewhat against his will, he felt the voltage of his love for her pass through him.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s great. I’m … happy, I guess. Oh, honey. It’s so …” He searched for an adjective. “Decisive.” He gave her one of his great grins, out of his arsenal of grins and smiles. “I hadn’t expected.”
“Me, neither. Well, listen, Nickie. We can talk about this more later. You know? We don’t have to talk about it now. Not over sushi. I didn’t mean to stop the conversation. I didn’t mean to drop a bombshell. Well, of course, I guess it is a bombshell, but I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Daph, it’s not a bombshell,” he said, speaking out of his one general principle that a man should never appear to be fazed by anything a