Middle Age (64 page)

Neanderthal? Cro-Magnon? Roger’s own ancestors, in theory. Volpe was telling Roger that the framed photos had been given to her by “a very special friend, a woman” who’d since died of ovarian cancer. “The carvings tell us that sex is a biological fact, like our elbows, or teeth. It’s nothing mystical. Almost, you can reduce it to an equation. Sex as an act, having a baby—these are things the body
does
. New life is created in the female and expelled from the female through these devices. It’s no more mystical than the asexual reproduction of amoeba.” Volpe spoke as if proclaiming good news, but Roger was feeling mildly depressed. Amoeba! He wanted to protest
But it’s more fun!

They sat. Roger faced the wall of carved cunts. He sipped his drink as
Middle Age: A Romance



they talked. Somehow, he felt foolish. His erection throbbed like an ab-scessed tooth. Why wasn’t Volpe sensing his mood, or did she sense it, and was choosing to ignore it?
What did it symbolize, she’d removed her sexy
-

glittery little nose ring?
He wondered if she’d removed it for tonight, for him; or whether his visit was totally irrelevant. Volpe was telling him of

“profoundly significant” research she’d been doing, partly as background to the Elroy Jackson case, nationwide statistics on blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Caucasians arrested, indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison terms since 8.

Wanting to lighten the mood, Roger said, “Naomi, your research makes me proud of you.”

“Proud? Of me?” Volpe was startled, as if Roger had spoken an obscenity. Hurriedly she rose. She disappeared into the kitchen, Roger had the idea she was hiding from him. How unlike Volpe this behavior was! He began to feel uneasy, lifting his eyes to the cuneiform shapes carved in stone, that mocked him with their simplicity.

Homo sapiens: the species that makes too much of biology
.

Volpe returned, but didn’t sit beside Roger. Her forehead was creased and her skin looked sallow, slightly puffy. She was wearing the jumpsuit she’d worn on their Rahway visit, that fitted her wiry little body loosely as if she’d lost weight. She said, “Roger, I have news for you.”

Roger, not Mr. C.!

“Yes?” Roger wasn’t sure this was news he wanted to hear.

“I seem to be pregnant.”

“Pregnant!”

“I mean—I am pregnant. It’s certain.”

Roger’s first thought was
Now Marina is lost forever
.

His second thought was
Another chance!

In a daze Roger sat gripping his drink between numbed fingers. He saw rather than heard the spiky-haired young woman speaking to him, and in his astonishment he couldn’t have named her, or recalled what their relationship was. Naomi Volpe stood crossing her arms tightly beneath her breasts, as if cold; the fork-prong lines in her forehead deepened; her eyes gleamed with moisture. It was a shock to Roger, that this boy-female could become pregnant. Roger associated pregnancy with vulnerability, and vulnerability with femininity. She said, “I’ve known for about six weeks. I just haven’t known what to do about it. The due date is the first week of July—in theory.”



J C O

Now Roger’s heart had begun to pound, hard. He’d begun to sweat.

Six weeks! Due date! He saw himself pleading with Lee Ann to forgive him, and with Robin. Their disgust with him now would be absolute.

Numbly Roger asked what must be asked: why hadn’t she told him until now? What did she want to do? And—how had it happened?

“You were on the pill, I thought? Didn’t you tell me that?”

Naomi said, with sudden anger, “It can’t always be the woman’s responsibility, contraception. ‘You were on the pill’—
fuck you
.”

“I only meant—”

“I know what you meant, Mr. C. I read you loud and clear.”

Roger stammered an apology. Things were moving too swiftly for him to absorb. Pulses beat in his forehead and eyes as if about to burst. Jesus!

Afterward he would recall that he hadn’t taken Naomi Volpe’s hand, he hadn’t behaved instinctively as a man would, if he were in love with a woman who’d just told him she was having his baby.

(
His
baby? How could he know?)

(Demand a DNA test? Roger Cavanagh wasn’t so crude, or so cruel.) These matters might have passed through Naomi Volpe’s mind, too.

She was keeping a distance between herself and Roger. She was speaking quietly, almost formally; her old sexy-feisty manner had vanished, like her nose ring. Roger liked her more, but desired her less. He didn’t desire her at all. His erection had wilted, the pit of his belly felt cold. All his blood had rushed to his brain, or had all his blood rushed out of his brain? Roger picked up on part of what Naomi was saying, “—arrangements can be made. Right on East th, ‘WomanSpace,’ it’s called.”

Roger said, “I’ll help you. I mean,” Roger’s face burned, “—I’ll pay for it. And any other expenses.”

Naomi looked away with an air of pained acknowledgment. Her left forearm was pressed across her flat abdomen, in an awkward gesture.

There was a subtle hurt, and a more subtle acquiescence, in Naomi Volpe, as she listened to Roger. In the past, Volpe would have interrupted him.

“Maybe you’d like to take some time off, Naomi? After the—procedure?

You’ve been working very hard. For your paralegal salary. A vacation, over the holidays—?”

“Would you come with me?” Naomi asked, almost wistfully. “I don’t want to go alone.”

This took Roger by surprise. “I—I could, possibly. That might be a good idea.”

Middle Age: A Romance



“Somewhere in the Caribbean,” Naomi said eagerly, “maybe the Dominican Republic? It’s beautiful there. You’ve been working hard, too, Roger. Your two lives!”

Was this Naomi Volpe speaking? So hesitant, and so vulnerable? Roger would swear he’d never met the woman before.

He went to her, and held her. At once she pressed her face against his chest, and he felt the heat of her skin. There was no desire between them, nor even the memory of desire. Roger was thinking
This is what must be
done
.
These are the circumstances
.

In the walk-up flat in Jersey City they stood like that for what seemed like a very long time, spared from looking into each other’s face.



I  , Roger didn’t accompany Naomi Volpe to the Dominican Republic. If that’s where Volpe went, Roger wasn’t certain. She understood that he had little enthusiasm for being with her, obviously he didn’t love her. “I can go alone. I’m a big girl. Thanks for your solicitude!” Feeling generous as well as guilty, for it was Christmas, Roger made out a check to Naomi Volpe for $,; seeing the figure, Volpe smiled nervously, and put the check away. “Mr. C.! You’re a gentleman.”

Roger laughed, embarrassed. Thinking
I’m a prick
.

Volpe was granted a leave of absence from the Project. She disappeared, and Roger didn’t hear from her. Weeks passed: it was January, and finally February. By chance Roger learned that Volpe was back in the States but working temporarily in Washington, D.C., and traveling to Memphis and New Orleans. He called her Jersey City number and left polite, friendly messages—“Naomi? It’s Roger. Just checking in. Wondering how you are. Give me a call sometime, will you?” Unexpectedly, Volpe did call Roger, but at such shrewd times when she could assume Roger wouldn’t be in. Her recorded messages were brief and guarded. She was

“making progress” in her death-penalty research; she was “feeling optimistic, some days.” Her voice sounded strained. Roger thought
She has had
the abortion, and is in mourning
.

Roger felt the loss, it seemed to him a second, bitter loss. First, there was Robin. And now this wisp of life, unnamed, a fetus of less than two months.
Another chance
and he’d destroyed it.



J C O



A  V   to work in Manhattan, in early March. Roger was surprised and hurt she hadn’t informed him: he discovered her in the office one afternoon when he came in. Unmistakable, the paralegal’s rapid-fire telephone voice, corrosive as Drano. Roger stood in the doorway of her cubicle, dry-mouthed. There she was: the woman he’d impregnated. She was tanned, and her hair had been dyed a vivid plum-purple, no longer shaved up the back of her head but scissor-cut, covering just the tips of her ears. Both her earlobes glittered with metal and the nose ring was back. She was wearing a black jersey top loose over black wool trousers and, seeing the swell of her breasts, and the ruddy fullness of her face, Roger was stunned.
This woman is pregnant
.

Seeing Roger, Volpe quickly glanced away, and continued her vehement conversation. When at last she hung up the receiver she said, disgusted,

“What an asshole! I’d be better off talking to a recorded message.”

Roger said, “Naomi, we need to talk, yes?”

Volpe said, “I’m busy now, Roger. I’ve got weeks of e-mail.”

Roger said, “We do have something to talk about—don’t we?”

Volpe said, evenly, “Mr. C, how do I know? I can’t speak for you.
I
don’t have much to say to
you
.”

“But—how are you?”

“
I’m
fine,
I’ve
never felt better.”

Roger was staring, in a daze. He heard the most banal words issuing from his mouth. “Yes, you’re—looking good, Naomi.”

At once Volpe flared up, “Shouldn’t I? What’d you prefer, I should look like shit? I should’ve hemorrhaged to death, or OD’d on barbiturates?

That’s the preferred scenario?”

“Naomi, let’s go somewhere private, we need to talk.”

“ ‘Need,’ who says? Whose ‘need’?”

“For just a few minutes? I only want—”

“I told you, Mr. C., I’m fucking
busy
. I’m overworked, I’m underpaid, I’m a slave to this system, I never got my law degree like you hot-shit fellas, still I’m dedicated to the cause, see, so stop harrassing me. Go beat on some other disadvantaged female assistant.”

Roger was trembling. He saw the fury in Volpe’s ferret-eyes, and knew he’d better back off.

Middle Age: A Romance



In the office he shared with another lawyer, Roger clicked onto his e-mail and typed out a message for Naomi Volpe—

Dinner at Union Square Cafe at 8 PM? I’ll be the guy with a spike through his groin.

R.

Within minutes Volpe e-mailed him back—

Mr. C.! You are a gentleman.

Roger knew Naomi Volpe couldn’t resist the lure of a first-rate restaurant.

A  R , to his astonishment: yes she’d originally intended to have the abortion, no she hadn’t planned things quite as they were turning out, yes she “liked” him, “thought well” of him, “respected”

him as a lawyer and a man, no she hadn’t meant to “deceive” him. But her body was her body after all. Her life was her life. The life of the baby-to-be was her responsibility, not his. “The father’s role is minuscule. In nature. It’s over in an instant.” Volpe snapped her fingers. Her eyes shone, she was sleek with well-being, the most attractive Roger had seen her.

And she was certainly enjoying the wine.

Roger knew better than to inflame this woman, he chose his words with care. “Naomi, it’s just that I’m shocked. I am the father, after all.” He paused, to allow them both to think
But is this so? Without a test, is it a fact?

“I consider this a mutual responsibility. I thought we’d come to a decision back in December. I’m not accusing you of anything, Naomi, but—”

Volpe flared up, “ ‘Not accusing’! I hope not! Who the fuck are you to judge
me?
I’m not your assistant in my private life, Mr. C.! I’m not your sex slave. I’m not some vessel you poured your precious seed into, and walked away and forgot about, like you’d wipe your precious ass and flush a toilet. If maybe I changed my mind and want to bring this baby to term and find a good deserving home for him, or her, what’s it to you? This is the twenty-first century, not the first. A woman has autonomy over her own body, I hope!” Volpe’s nostrils were dilated, she leaned across the table with such drama that Roger shrank back. In an unnervingly loud voice,



J C O

which drew the attention of diners at nearby tables, she proclaimed, “I
freely chose
not to kill my baby, which
you’d dictated
.”

Roger protested, “I didn’t ‘dictate’—I didn’t want—”

“ ‘I’ll pay for it,’ you said. The first words that came from your mouth.”

“Naomi, I don’t think—”

“By which you didn’t mean you’d pay for the kid’s college tuition, right?”

“At that point, I thought you wanted—”

“You showed no emotion except shock. Possibly a little repugnance.

No, don’t look guilty, don’t look ‘concerned,’ it’s too late now. You wouldn’t even touch me, for Christ’s sake. Like I was a
leper
.”

“Naomi, I did touch you. I was very concerned for—”

“The fact is, Mr. C., you didn’t want this baby. This baby I’m carrying, four months and one week old, and kicking. Not a fetus but a
baby
. Get it?—
baby
. You surrendered your moral and legal right to this baby when you tried to buy me off, made out a check and considered the hit-job done, and couldn’t get out of my life fast enough. You
prick
.”

Roger gripped his head in his hands. Was this true? And even if true to a degree, did it bind him? Weakly he tried to explain, “Naomi, I wouldn’t have wished for you a pregnancy you wouldn’t have wanted. Maybe I mis-read you. Yes, I was in shock. I didn’t know how to respond.”

Volpe said, in a voice heavy with sarcasm, “Because you were terrified that having a baby would link us. That I might expect you to ‘commit’

yourself to me. We might live together, or get married, that terrified you, yes?” Volpe laughed, and swallowed a large mouthful of wine. Clearly she was enjoying this scene. Roger would wonder if she’d rehearsed it beforehand or if—but this was a thought too awful to allow into consciousness—she’d actually played it out before, with another man. Or men.