She enjoyed the new shine of her hair, the only improvement her pregnancy had brought to her. Well, that’s not true, she thought. My face has filled out a little, and I look better this way. Less gaunt. She counted out the brush strokes, and when she’d finished she took a last look at herself in the full-length mirror.
She put one hand on her hip and the other at the back of her head, like a prostitute lounging in a dimly-lit doorway. She lowered her head, and her blond hair fell over one eye. She wet her lips, narrowed her eyes, and then rotated her hips in mock lewdness, tossing a burlesque grind and bump at the mirror.
“Baby,” she said aloud, “you should be in the movies.”
She burst out laughing suddenly, covering her mouth and almost looking over her shoulder to see if anyone had been watching her. She was still laughing when she left the bathroom and went into the bedroom to dress. She put on the three-sizes-too-large girdle she’d bought over Rick’s protests. Rick hated girdles. “Who wants a stuffed sausage?” he was fond of repeating. When she explained that her doctor felt a girdle would take some of the strain of carrying away from her stomach muscles, he’d grudgingly allowed her to buy one, but his attitude plainly stated that this had better be only a temporary thing.
She struggled with her stockings, stooping to roll them up over her calves. The stockings and shoes were always the hardest part. What did people who were fat all the time do? Pregnant women should have eunuchs to help them on with their stockings, she thought. And then she wondered. Eunuchs? Why in heaven’s name would a pregnant woman need a eunuch?
Poor Rick, she thought. He’s a technical eunuch. I wonder if it’s difficult for a man? I mean, it doesn’t really matter to me because I haven’t any desire anymore. Isn’t it terrible how this takes away desire? I wonder if you have to feel desirable in order to feel desire? The only thing I desire right now is to have this over and done with. Nine months is such an awfully long time. It seems to me that Whoever planned all this should have taken that into consideration. But Whoever planned it was probably a man. Or a manlike God. Why is God always presented as a manlike figure? Something there to consider, all right.
I’ll make it up to Rick, of course. Afterward. They tell me the afterward is the worst part, the six weeks’ wait after the baby is born. Because desire returns then, and you can’t do anything because it’s dangerous. That’s what they say, anyway. Freida finally took to sleeping on the living room couch during those six weeks, but Freida’s a nymphomaniac, I’m sure.
I’ll make it up to you, darling, she promised. And I won’t sleep on the living room couch, either.
And it won’t be too long, either. The middle of December, Dr. Bradley said. Wouldn’t it be nice if the baby were born on Christmas day? Or would it? It would be nice for Rick, I suppose, a sort of super Christmas present. It wouldn’t be very nice for the baby, though, because he’d miss out on either a birthday present or a Christmas present. It wouldn’t be fair to cheat him of...
Him.
I always think of him as him. I suppose I subconsciously want a boy. Rick wants a boy, I know. Oh, he’d love a boy.
I love you, Rick, do you know? she thought, and she smiled and reached for the slip her mother had given her. She pulled the slip over her head, and then thwacked the elastic around her waist. She put on a blouse and the skirt with the hole in it, the one that allowed her stomach to pop out through the big hole, with the blouse covering it, so that the skirt fell straight and no one could tell you were carrying.
No one except everyone you met, she thought.
She smiled, dabbed on some lipstick, and then went into the kitchen where she started the coffee going. She drank a little orange juice, put up the toast, and then had two cups of coffee, leaving half a slice of toast on her plate. She lighted a cigarette, smoked it down, and then reluctantly rose and washed the dishes. She dusted around a little, and then decided she’d better get downstairs and do some shopping if anyone expected supper that night.
Eating, as far as she was concerned, was something that had to be done now. There was no longer any enjoyment attached to it. Like the bed, she supposed, except that you couldn’t do anything there in the eighth month, no this was the ninth month, well not really but soon, even if you did enjoy it, and even if you had the desire to do anything, which she certainly did not have, not now in the eighth-nearly-ninth month.
She put on her coat and locked up the apartment, walking down the hall to the elevator. Viola Jackson, her colored neighbor, was standing in front of the red elevator door, waiting for the car to come.
“Hello, Anne,” she said warmly. Viola had a rich voice that started deep down within her someplace. She was a plump woman with a ready smile, and Anne never failed to feel a warm sort of happiness in her presence.
“Hello, Viola,” she answered, smiling.
“I think the kids are holding the elevator downstairs,” Viola said. She shook her head. “It’s a shame.” She smiled suddenly and asked, “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” Anne said.
Viola laughed a hearty, booming laugh. “It’s the first ten are the hardest,” she said. She sobered instantly and said, “Now, listen, you haven’t been taking your laundry down to those washing machines all by yourself, have you?”
“Well, yes, I have,” Anne said.
“Well, you can stop that right now, do you hear me? You in your eighth month. My daughter will take it down for you, do you hear me?”
“That’s awfully nice,” Anne said, surprised, “but—”
“Never you mind your buts,” Viola bullied. “She has to take mine down, and she can just as soon throw yours in, too. Now do you hear me?”
“All right,” Anne said, smiling. She had first met Viola Jackson two days after Rick and she had moved into the project. Her husband, Fred, had been out sweeping up the corridor, and when they’d stepped off the elevator he’d explained, “If you got a nice place to live in, you got to keep it nice.” He’d introduced himself, then, and Viola — hearing the conversation through the open door to her apartment — had come out and joined them. Fred had been in his undershirt, and he’d seemed embarrassed over having been found in this state of undress. He’d put down his broom and gone into the apartment, to emerge a few moments later wearing a shirt. That had been the beginning of their friendship.
“Here it is now,” Viola said, wagging her head. “Darn kids.”
The car stopped and they got in and punched the ground floor button. They got off in the wide entrance foyer and Anne walked directly to the mailboxes, taking the key out of her purse, and unlocking the box.
There was a phone bill, and a handbill from the local supermarket, and also a letter. She glanced at the brown telephone company envelope without opening it, stuffed the handbill into her purse for later when she made out her shopping list, and then looked at the letter.
The envelope was neatly typed and it read simply:
She looked in the upper lefthand corner for a return address, but there was none. She turned the envelope over, looking at the flap, hoping for some clue as to the identity of the sender. There was nothing on the flap.