Summer of '69(31)
“He’s supposed to,” Blair says. “But he may have forgotten and planned a rendezvous with Trixie.”
Kate laughs and says, “It’s best to keep a sense of humor about it. Let me know how it goes. We should be on Nantucket by four in the afternoon tomorrow. Love you, sweet pea. Be well.” Kate leans over to kiss Blair on the forehead and give her shoulder a squeeze, and for one instant, Blair feels okay.
“Bye,” Blair says. She can’t believe her mother is being so nonchalant about the news. Blair should have disclosed the prostitute part; maybe then Kate would have been appropriately aghast. Her mother grew up in a time when young women were expected to just put up with unfaithful husbands. But now it’s 1969 and Blair won’t stand for it. If moving into Nonny’s isn’t an option, then Blair will just go to Nantucket for the summer. She’ll have the baby on the island, at the cottage hospital.
But…Blair won’t last two hours in the car and two hours on a ferry; merely driving up the cobblestones of Main Street might send her into premature labor.
She’s trapped.
Angus remembers about Blair’s doctor’s appointment the next day, which is a relief to Blair because the notion of going anywhere alone in her condition is daunting.
Ruth, the office receptionist, takes one look at Blair and Angus and leads them right back to the office where Dr. Sayer is sitting at the desk, smoking. Blair can’t tell if Ruth is alarmed by her size or if she’s impressed that Dr. Whalen has chosen to accompany his wife to the appointment when he’s such a busy man working on a matter that’s so important to the nation’s pride. Maybe it’s a little of both.
There is no mistaking Dr. Sayer’s reaction, however. When he sees Angus, he jumps to his feet and starts pumping Angus’s hand. There follows a long conversation about the moon launch and the merits of various astronauts—Angus wholly defends Armstrong and Aldrin, but Dr. Sayer feels Jim Lovell should be included—and then Angus shifts into technical talk about thrust, elliptical orbits, and Hohmann transfers, and Dr. Sayer nods along, though Blair is certain he’s just as lost as she is.
When she can’t stand being ignored another second, she clears her throat.
“Oh, yes,” Angus says. “My wife is concerned about—”
“My size,” Blair says. She finally has Dr. Sayer’s undivided attention and she knows she’d better take advantage of the opportunity. “I’m huge. A hippo. I’ve outgrown every dress but this one.”
Dr. Sayer gives her an appraising look, then comes around his desk and puts a hand on her belly. Blair feels the baby kick. “Let’s send you to X-ray,” he says.
Angus chooses to stay in the examining room while a nurse leads Blair down the hall and asks her to lie on a cold metal table. While the X-rays are taken, tears leak out of Blair’s eyes. She’s certain they’re going to find she’s carrying a giant, a monster, an octopus. She regrets ever marrying Angus and allowing herself to get pregnant. She imagines her life if she had taken an alternate path: Blair Foley, slender of body and nimble of mind, becomes a renowned scholar in the field of twentieth-century women’s literature, starting with Edith Wharton and moving on to Shirley Jackson, Flannery O’Connor, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich. She would date different men, as Sallie does, an architect one weekend, a museum curator the next. She would not be here, lying on a metal table like a side of beef, awaiting news of what horrific creature is growing within her; she would be lounging on Cliffside Beach on Nantucket, and Marco, the lifeguard from Rio de Janeiro, would watch her trim, firm backside when she strolled from her umbrella to the water.
She would be having a mad, passionate affair with Marco, who would be devoted solely to her; she would not have to share Marco with a call girl named Trixie.
Blair closes her eyes to better focus on her rapture, and she must have dozed off because the next thing she knows, the nurse is shaking a blurry black-and-white film in front of her face and saying, “Would you like to see a picture of your twins?”
Twins.
Blair bursts out sobbing.
The next afternoon, there’s a knock on the apartment door, and Blair suspects that, on receiving the news that there will be two grandchildren instead of one, her mother immediately left Nantucket and is now back in Boston. When Blair opens the door, she finds a tall, attractive man in a neatly pressed khaki suit. It takes Blair a moment to recognize Joey Whalen, Angus’s brother.
“Joey!” Blair says. “Are you a sight for sore eyes. You look wonderful. What a surprise!”
“A surprise that I look wonderful?” Joey says, beaming. He kisses Blair on the cheek and hands her a bottle wrapped in brown paper and a bakery bag that smells of chocolate.
“Babka, right out of the oven,” Joey says. “And our old friend, cold duck.”
“You sure know how to cheer a girl up,” Blair says, and she holds the door open for her brother-in-law.
Twins.
Every time she says the word in her mind, it seems more outrageous. Twins. Two babies. Two babies at once. The enormous life change that is having a baby has doubled in an instant. She presently has one of everything—one bassinet, one crib, one stroller—and now she needs a second of each. It’s overwhelming.
Joey steps inside, loosens his tie, and sheds his jacket while Blair admires him. Right after Angus and Blair got married, Joey moved to New York City and landed a job with a prestigious advertising agency that specializes in food products. He worked on the Sara Lee campaign and has been chosen to promote the brand in New England and parts of eastern Canada. He’s going to be in Boston for three to six months, he tells Blair; the agency rented him a suite at the Parker House hotel on Tremont, right down the street from the Marliave, Blair’s favorite restaurant, and gave Joey a house account. He’s wearing a beautiful suit, tailored for him at Alan David in New York, and gleaming Florsheim loafers. He’s clean-cut and freshly shaved, and he smells good—in distinct opposition to Angus, who often forgets to brush his teeth and apply aftershave before he dashes headlong into his days.