We ate breakfast, which I made. Yes, my bride is a passable cook, but breakfast is my domain. I made a six-egg omelet, ham and cheese, with a few chunks of onion I chopped quickly. I toasted English muffins, mixed frozen orange juice, and brewed two cups of coffee, black for me, light and sweet for her.
"What?" she asked, smiling across the table as she washed her last bite of muffin down with her orange juice.
"I can't wait to be pregnant with you," I said.
She giggled at that.
"Ummmmmmmm," she said, "I'll be the preggo. You'll just be along for the ride."
I laughed and said, "You know what I mean."
She turned serious.
"Be careful what you wish for, David," she said, "you just might get it."
"I can't wait to be pregnant with you," I said again.
She smiled.
"Come on," she said and led me into the front room. She picked up her cell phone, scrolled through her contacts, and hit "Call."
"Good morning," she said after she worked her way through the phone tree and managed to contact a human being.
She smiled, and said, "This is Nancy Jones. Did the Richardson Medical Clinic call in a prescription for me?"
Pause.
She rattled off her birthday.
Pause.
"Okay, thank you. And did they include syringes in that?"
Pause.
"Great," she said, "I'll send my husband in for it in a little while. Thank you, Dear."
She hung up and smiled.
"Okay, Sweet Cheeks. You want to be a good hubby to a preggo. Head over to the CVS and pick up my prescription. While you're there get me a tube of
Desitin
, that's D-E-S-I-T-I-N because I tend to get weird rashes when the hormones take hold, and a fresh box of Tampon Pearl Ultras."
She laughed when she saw my look.
"Oh, Sweety, this ain't nearly the most embarrassing thing you'll be buying," she said.
I grinned, kissed her cheek, and said, "After what I did this morning, I'm pretty sure I'm beyond embarrassment."
"We'll see," she said to my back as I headed to the bedroom.
I dressed, quickly, just jeans and a T-shirt, this one with Snoopy on the front in his "Joe Cool" persona, and stuck my feet into my tennis shoes, the laces tucked into the shoes.
Back in the kitchen, where she sat sipping her coffee, I kissed her quickly and said, "Be right back."
At the drugstore, I couldn't help but smile. I don't know why, but I was. I was reminded of a friend of the family back when I was a kid. Of course, in those days, everyone seemed "old" to me, but thinking about it, I think Ted, the next-door neighbor, was probably somewhere in his 40s.
Anyway, I was aware in that sort of peripheral way kids have, that the topic of discussion was Jan, Ted's wife, who was pregnant. The group, Mom, her current boyfriend, Ted, Jan, my cousin Don, and his wife Ruth were laughing and congratulating. Ted stood, suddenly, dramatically hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, hitched up his pants, and proclaimed, - "Yep, knocked up the old lady," to a round of laughter and Jan throwing a peanut at him.
That's the way I felt, walking through the drug store with my little basket in my hand, and making my way to the pharmacist station. I could picture myself hitching up my pants, smiling, and announcing, "Yep, the old lady got her period and she'll be knocked up soon."
I didn't do that, of course, but I DID smile.
I waited behind a man I guessed was in his 70s while we both watched a girl, still in her teens, casually fill her prescription. I imagined it was for birth control pills. The man argued over the price of his half dozen prescriptions until I was getting aggravated but eventually handed over a plastic card, accepted the white bag, and left, muttering, "Fucking prices are crazy."
Finally, it was my turn.
"Pickup for Nancy Jones," I said. I couldn't help but observe that the technician, a black girl I guessed in her mid-twenties, was attractive, heavy-chested, and had great hips.
"You'd make a great surrogate," I couldn't help thinking.
I rattled off her date of birth and when the technician came back with a paper bag she said, "Step to the window, and the pharmacist will talk to you."
So I sidestepped to the little semi-private "consultation" spot and waited.
"Have you ever given an IM shot?" he asked.
"Dunno," I said, "what's that?"
He chuckled and said, "Sorry. I tend to use too much jargon. Intramuscular shot. A shot into big muscles rather than trying to hit a vein."
"Either way, the answer is 'no,'" I said, "I've never given any kind of a shot."
He smiled then.
"Okay," he said, "if you don't have any, on your way stop at the grocery store and get an orange and practice. It's not hard, but if you hesitate or jerk or anything you will hurt her."
"Okay," I said.
He opened the bag and dumped its contents.
I chuckled.
"Jesus," I said.
"Yeah," he said, "it's complicated but Nancy does a good thing."
"You know her?" I asked.
He grinned. "She's been a customer here for years."
"Anyway," he said, and started going through the stuff, explaining.
"These," he said, offering me a little round plastic case that looked like a woman's compact, "are birth control pills. Start..." but I cut him off.
"Huh? She's a professional surrogate, she wants to be pregnant," I said.
He chuckled and said, "Bear with me, please. The birth control pills will help organize and stabilize her periods so the doctor can get a firm count of days."
"Oh," I said, abashed.
"This," he said, holding up one of the little glass vials, "is Lupron. It will suppress her ovaries." He held up his hand, "Yes, I know," he said, "Her ovaries are lazy but we still need to regulate her."
I held up my hand in surrender.
