Page 56 of Just Say Christmas
Ugh. The whole thing was so tricky.
Also not the issue at the moment. She ran her eye down the list and said, “I can work with this. How involved do you want to be?”
“I don’t,” Nyree said. “I’mbeggingyou not to make me be involved, and to say my list is enough. I’ve already heard about seven hundred things I’m supposed to decide. That’s why Marko’s here, so I don’t bolt. He had to come for the food selection, too. Although as that involved tasting food, he didn’t hate it.”
“In gridiron,” Marko said, “they call it ‘punting.’ What we’d call kicking for territory. The point is—you give it back to the other team, maybe because you aren’t getting anywhere with your offense. You’ve given Zora your list,laztana.Tell her what else you want for the wedding, anything about the . . . bouquets, or whatever they are, and she’ll make it happen, and be happy to have you out of the way.”
Nyree laughed. “Sorry, Zora. I’m not usually a diva, and I’m trying not to be one now. I’m pregnant, though, and painting like fury, and maybe a wee bit overwhelmed by all of this. Also, I had some unexpected morning sickness on the wedding-food day. We’ll just draw a line through that unfortunate episode and move on.”
“You’re a painter?” Zora hadn’t heard that. She also got a stab of pain, or maybe jealousy, at the pregnancy news, wrong as it was to be jealous of somebody else’s good fortune. It wasn’t like it made yours less. Happiness wasn’t a zero-sum game. Pretty much the opposite, really.
And yet.
She’d stopped trying to prevent a pregnancy all the way back in autumn, and it was now summer. Every month since, she’d had to tell Rhys that it hadn’t happened, and every month, she’d wanted to cry herself at the news, and to try not to feel that she’d failed. To listen to him work out with the architect how to redo and cushion the scary open staircase, how to add on another room on each floor of the house, and then to get it done, to decide on paint colors and put in the comfy window seat she’d always dreamed of, and to tell herself, six months after the house was ready and her body wasn’t, that this wasn’t, it couldn’t be, any kind of judgment on the two of them, because that wasn’t how life worked. You didn’t always get what you wanted, and you definitely didn’t always get what was fair. You did your best to work out what the right thing was to do, and then you did it, and you got what you got.
It was hard to get pregnant, of course, when the fella wasn’t around, but Rhyshadbeen home more since the Super Rugby season had ended. He wouldn’t be around much longer, though. She had about two months, and that was it, because next season’s Blues calendar was just exactly wrong for her cycle. She’d already checked.
It hadn’t helped when her extremely matter-of-fact doctor had told her, “You’re not twenty-one anymore. You say it happened the first month back then, but you don’t have the same body anymore, or the same partner.” Which was true, but a bit tactless. “Also,” she went on, “your partner’s over forty. That can make a difference as well, both for sperm quality and performance, especially if he has any obesity issues, which can affect both sexual performance and hormone levels.”
“He doesn’t have an issue with performance,” Zora said. “Or obesity,” she added, and thought,Geez.Dr. Robinson wasn’t a Blues fan, clearly. When Rhys was on screen, most women had trouble lookingaway.She knew she did. Arms. Chest. Stare.Face.
If you could get pregnant from estrogen surges, she’d have done it so long ago.
“Suggest that he help you orgasm as well, especially if you can do it after he does,” the doctor said, as if she heard that from all the girls, “or handle it yourself, if he’s off to the shower or fallen asleep. Multiple orgasms are even better, so you may want to consider a vibrator. The contractions can help with sperm motility, especially if they’re swimming a bit more slowly these days.”
Lost for words,Zora’d have called that. She needed to share this one with Rhys. “Give it six or seven more months,” Dr. Robinson finished, “and if you still come up dry, we’ll test both of you and go from there. Meanwhile, take your temperature every morning, and try to work to a schedule. Once a week is probably not going to suffice for this. Watching porn together can be helpful, if performing on demand does become an issue. Oh—and knees up, or more, if you can manage it athletically—legs overhead, for example—and hips in the air can work better, including afterwards, and during any additional orgasming on your part, for obvious reasons. Keep all the little buggers swimming in the right direction.”
She’d told Rhys that night. They’d laughed until their sides hurt, and then he’d taken her to bed and proven, with emphasis, that (A) his performance was effective, (B) he wasn’t going to be asleep when she was orgasming, (C) he didn’t need porn, (D) he could do it more than once a week, and (E) she definitely, most definitely, did not need to buy a vibrator. “Unless you want one,” he’d said. “Mmm. I could think of some . . . ways . . .”
“Uh . . .” She hadn’t been at her most articulate, but then, his hands had been holding her thighs open at the time, her hipshadbeen in the air, because he’d shoved a couple of pillows under there, and his mouth had been . . .
Oh, yeh,she’d thought. Also,Please. Do it some more.She may have said it, too.
“Could be . . . extra fun,” he’d said against some very sensitive flesh, and one of his hands had gone on a little wander that had had her eyes opening wider, her hands clutching the headboard, and her body tightening up, and sent her that much closer to the edge. Again. “Or two, maybe. We could try some different . . . things here. Multiple orgasms are better, eh. Yeh, I’m pretty sure I can take care of you.”
You never wanted to give a professional sportsman a challenge like that, unless you were prepared for the result.
But still. Here she was. Laughing, and as multi-orgasmic as a woman could be and still walk afterwards, but still stubbornly non-pregnant. And, yes, they clearlyhadmade too many assumptions.
They had two kids. Two brilliant, beautiful, loving kids. They’d had some bad luck in their lives, and some very good luck, too. They had each other. Was it wrong to yearn this fiercely for that feeling of a new life starting inside you, for that moment when you felt the first magical kiss of butterfly wings, the day when you needed to borrow his shirt because yours wouldn’t stretch far enough? And then to want to run your thumb gently over the tiny fingernails, to look into those unfocused eyes with somebody’s arms around you both, somebody’s big, careful hand over yours where it cradled the new life you’d created together? To know, belly deep, that his arms would always be around both of you—allof you—even when he wasn’t there?
Was it wrong to want so much, when you’d been given more than you’d dreamed possible?
Probably.
Wait.She needed to get back to the program. Marko and Nyree’s flowers, and thesenseof them. The feel of them, because that would make the flowers come out better.
“Nyree’s an awesome painter,” Marko had said, back in that early-September moment, when they’d worked out the details of the wedding flowers in a hurry before he’d left for the Rugby World Cup.
Firmly, Zora would call the way he said that. He really was an extremely attractive man. Intense, like Rhys, although less subtle about it. “Here.” He pulled out his phone, and Zora prepared to be politely delighted and found herself seriously impressed instead. Nyree’s work was nothing like she’d thought, some kind of ultra-modern thing that she was supposed to like, but actually found bleak and depressing.
This was different. It was color, and it waslife.The paintings, of vibrantly colored interiors full of fruit and flowers and fabrics and lit by sunshine, made you want to crawl inside the frames and live there. They were energetic, and they were powerful in a purely female way, a way that said,I like making the world more beautiful, and I’m not going to apologize for it.
“She’s got a show coming up in February at the Gow Langsford Gallery,” Marko continued, putting the phone away, “and she’s going to kill it.”
“You hope,” Nyree muttered, looking, for once, not at all sure of herself.
“Iknow,”Marko said, and Zora liked him even better.
