ten
Logan’s Running
I order a smoothie and the man doesn’t offer me a free boost.
“Can I get a Vitabek?” I ask.
“Umm. Those aren’t good for pregnant girls.”
And this is the first time someone, totally unprovoked, alludes to the baby. Just from looking at me.
Which makes today one of those days I know for sure that I’m pregnant.
This isn’t just something I want to be true. This isn’t just some ruse my doctor and husband are in on, cooking up fake sonograms just to make me happy and using some other baby’s prerecorded heartbeat sound to convince me.
The confused background processing that passes for thinking in the pregnant mind can present this as a real possibility: Every symptom, every item of clothing that no longer fits, every middle-of-the-night leg cramp, every esophagus-scorching bout of heartburn, these are all just figments, coincidences. Maybe a delusion, an elaborate sham, or a long trance.
There can’t really be a baby.
That would be too weird, if you just wanted to have a baby, had unprotected sex, and two months later peed on a stick and got a plus sign. That could not have happened. Not to me.
Yet this smoothie guy is a total stranger. He could not be in on the hoax. He took one look at me and decided it would be a bad idea to offer me a boost. Because I’m pregnant. I tell him I think the vitamin boost will probably be okay, and he says he didn’t want to say anything to me because last time he declined to give someone a boost, the lady turned out not to be pregnant and he felt terrible about insulting her. I check out the reflection of my belly’s profile in the glass door of the smoothie shop and announce, “Well, I really am pregnant, so don’t feel bad.”
And the most banal of errands, just running out to get a raspberry banana smoothie, turns out to be pretty juicy. (Carrie Bradshaw just vomited when she read that last line. Give me a break. They can’t all be gems.)
Emboldened by the fact that even the smoothie guy knows I’m pregnant, I clutch my giant vitamin-enhanced beverage and wander, finding myself at a park on Beverly Boulevard near Larchmont Village. I’ve never been here before, though I’ve driven by a thousand times, barely registering the balloons on the picnic tables, swing sets, jungle gyms. Maybe I just want to get close to where the mom people and children go. There are strollers, sippy cups, nannies and a playground lousy with toddlers.
Spreading out my sweater on the grass, I survey the scene for a second, and wonder if this is home, or the future, or an oasis of simple pleasures I don’t yet understand, or some kind of grape juice-stained, soul-crushing daily drudgery that I will never, ever embrace or even hack. I look for signs, read the mom faces. I give up, deciding I have five more months to figure it out. I return a few calls. I download a meditation app on my iPhone and zone out, which is easier now than ever. Pregnancy hormones are supposed to be making me overwrought and insane, but I started out that way, so perhaps they are having the opposite effect. Being in the second trimester feels like being stoned; I’m forgetful, unmotivated, want to eat strange food combinations and just feel high. First-trimester angst has largely given way to a mind-set not unlike an early Eagles song, peaceful and easy, allowing me to smash my previous meditation record of three and a half minutes.
When I come to, a woman is screaming at an old man in a straw hat and faded plaid shirt. “Don’t talk to these kids. Get out of here. You are disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
She is pointing at his face and there is a chorus of silent moms behind her, arms crossed, chinos in a bunch, angry, but no one calls 911. I don’t know what the story is with these moms and this old man. I want to help, but I feel detached, like I’m observing the whole thing behind glass in a mom exhibit somewhere.
The old man swivels on the bench, which is oriented toward the playground. He turns sideways, head on his shoulder, and stares right at me. I am way too old for you, pal. Maybe he’s trying to get a gander at my tiny, naked fetus. Creepy. Now I have to worry about registered sex offenders, or I guess it’s really the unregistered sex offenders that should concern me. Maybe this guy is just a geezer who enjoys the bench on a sunny afternoon, I don’t know. I don’t know whose side I’m on, but visiting the park is like taking a college tour when you can’t picture leaving home but know your departure is looming. Some of the park moms seem bored and some seem put-upon and others seem quietly content. Some have nannies with them and some swing their children with one hand and tie their hair back with the other. All of them seem much older and more mature than I am (though let’s face it, most are probably younger), but even the smoothie guy knows that I’m about to be one of them. I may be rubbernecking now, but it won’t be long before I’m living life in the mom lane, which will surely make me lose my mind. Or not. For now, I can just Take It Easy.
There were moms and babies all around before; I just never noticed them. Now, I carefully observe them everywhere I go, stare at a woman struggling to corral her little boy at the grocery store while attaching her infant’s car seat to the top of her cart. The diaper and baby food aisle has always been there, but I’ve never walked down it until now. The bulletin board at the bagel shop has always been covered with ads for Mommy and Me classes and babysitters, but now I take note. It’s not that baby stores are sprouting up at strip malls across the greater Los Angeles area; it’s just that I can finally see what’s always been there.
Being pregnant for the first time is like learning a new word; suddenly you hear it all the time, now that you finally know what it means.
Will I go to this very park with my boy? Stroll him to the smoothie shop so I can show him off to the smoothie man and reassure him the vitamin boost was okay? Will I know how to play with him, seeing as I’ve never pushed a child on a swing in my life, or handled a sippy cup, diaper or onesie? Will I be accepted into this clan of moms? Do babies need sunscreen or just a hat? What if caring for a child is so gratifying that I never want to work again? Or, what if, like my mother, I will take any job I can get to afford paying a nanny to do all of this for me? If there is a continuum of mommy excellence, with Medea on one end and June Cleaver on the other, where will I land? Hopefully, nowhere near Nancy O’Dell, who owes me a punch in the face, though I assume she is pretty close to June Cleaver in overall saintliness.
It’s cooling off, but I stay even after the old guy bails. A mom in a striped oxford and Keds ties the ends of a knit hat under the chin of her wriggly child and produces a box of raisins from somewhere in her giant backpack. Some kid trips and cries. Every kid seems to be named Logan. “Logan, say you’re sorry. Logan, you want your juice box? Logan, I said stop that. Logan, time to go. Logan, I said time to go. Logan, it’s okay, play nice. Logan, do you remember your friend Logan? You met him last week. Logan!!!! Not on the slide! Logan, tell your brother Logan to put on his sweater because we have to go. Logan, you need a nap. Logan, this is what happens when you eat candy. Logan, this is what happens when you don’t go pee before we leave the house. Logan, use your words. Logan, don’t be shy. Logan, don’t run. Logan, say good-bye to Logan, Logan and Logan.”
A quick search on the iPhone reveals that the name Logan is of Scottish and Gaelic origin and means “hollow.” A baby name Web site explains that the name gained momentum in recent years, a fact the site attributes to the character Brooke Logan on The Bold and the Beautiful. Really? A word meaning “hollow” becomes ubiquitous at a Los Angeles park because of a soap opera character who has a brother named Storm and a romantic history with a guy named Ridge (more Googling).
It’s almost dark now, and the moms have scattered and I realize that there is a lot of information I just don’t have yet and a lot of it you can’t get on your iPhone. I toss my spent smoothie in the trash. I stare at the abandoned playground, pull the sleeves of my sweater over my hands. I’m stuck here motionless for a second, with no one to tell me if I’ll ever want to come back, or if I’ll ever belong, or if my mom days at the park will be filled with wonder or Valium. There is no way to know if the future will be like a never-ending, poorly reviewed science fiction movie or if I will enjoy watching the Logans run.