Page 11 of Summer of '69
Blair wore low, stacked heels, comfortable for walking, but when she reached Marlborough Street a tiny, blue-haired woman stopped her on the sidewalk, told her she had no right to be out in her condition, and implored her to return home.
Blair stared at the woman, aghast. “But I’m only five months along,” she said. She immediately regretted giving out this piece of personal information. One thing she had noticed with dismay was that being pregnant made her public property. It meant that old women who had probably given birth at the turn of the century felt they could stop her on the street and tell her to go home.
Blair had moved on, indignant but self-conscious. Her maternity dress was buttercup yellow, which suited the spring day but also made her stand out. She had been looking forward to strolling over the Longfellow Bridge and watching the rowers below, but after she’d walked a few more blocks, a taxicab pulled up alongside her; the driver cranked down the passenger-side window and said, “Lady, where ya going? I’ll give you a ride for free.”
Blair thought about protesting, but her feet were starting to complain and the bridge was still a ways off and MIT ten to twelve blocks beyond that.
“Thank you,” she said and accepted the ride.
When Blair reached the astrophysics department, she was informed by the receptionist, a graduate student who introduced himself as Dobbins, that Angus was out.
“Out?” Blair said. “What does that mean?”
Dobbins was wearing a glen plaid suit with a matching bow tie and pocket square—Jaunty!Blair thought—but his expression was dour. The department secretary, Mrs. Himstedt, had retired in January, and Angus and his colleagues had been too busy to find a replacement, so they assigned graduate students the odious tasks that Mrs. Himstedt used to handle. Most of the graduate students felt put-upon, as young Dobbins clearly did. He also seemed to be offended by Blair’s pregnant state; he watched her warily, as though he thought she might burst. “Professor Whalen had an appointment at ten.”
Blair had started out the day with a strong sense of optimism, but it was rapidly dissolving. “Where is the appointment?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m his wife.”
“I’m sorry,” Dobbins said.
“Please just tell me where he went. Is he somewhere on campus?”
“Actually,” Dobbins said, “it was a personal appointment.”
“Personal?”
“That’s what he said. Personal.”
Personal,Blair thought.Where could he be?He had his hair cut every other Saturday without deviation and he wasn’t scheduled to see the dentist until the following month.
She said, “I’ll wait for him to return.”
Dobbins pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose and turned his attention to a textbook on the desk before him. Blair took a seat in a straight-backed chair and perched her handbag on what remained of her lap. She eyed Dobbins and caught him glancing up from his studying to inspect her with obvious distaste. He was probably made uncomfortable by her fecundity. So many men were.
She sat for more than thirty minutes and was about to get up and leave—she would take a taxi home, she decided, because the sitting was causing her lower back to ache—when Angus came rushing through the door.
“Angus!” Blair cried out, both relieved and joyful. She struggled to her feet.
The expression on Angus’s face wasn’t one she remembered seeing before. He looked…caught. He looked…guiltyof something. And then Blair noticed he was in a state of disarray, his tie askew, his shirt misbuttoned, and his hair mussed. Blair blinked.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“What are youdoinghere?” he asked. Then an instant later, he added, “I was at a department meeting.”
Blair looked to Dobbins, who had wisely fixed his gaze on his textbook again. “This nice young gentleman told me you were at an appointment. A personal appointment. Who was it with?”
“Would you excuse us, please, Dobbins?” Angus said.
Dobbins didn’t need to be asked twice. If there was anything worse for Dobbins than being confronted with a pregnant woman, Blair supposed, it was being plopped in the middle of a marital squabble. He darted off down the hall.
“What are you doing here?” Angus asked again.
“I came to surprise you!” Blair said and then she dissolved in tears. She was fat, so fat, filled to bursting with child and fluids. She was an overripe fruit. She was…oozing, unctuous, moist, pungent. Blair had to urinate so badly and had lost so much control over her bladder that she feared she would piss a river right then and there.
“I need the ladies’ room,” she told Angus. “Right now.”
