Last Night at Chateau Marmont

‘Thanks. We’re both pretty excited. A little freaked out – it happened a lot faster than either of us expected – but excited.’

Brooke felt her breath catch. ‘What do you mean “faster”? You planned this?’

Randy laughed. She heard him say, ‘Give me a minute,’ to someone in the background, a student probably, and then he said, ‘Yeah, she went off the pill last month. The doctor said it would take at least a couple months for her cycle to regulate before we’d even be able to tell if pregnancy was a possibility due to her age. We just never figured it would happen immediately …’

It was surreal to hear her big brother – an avowed bachelor who decorated his house with old football trophies and dedicated more square footage to his pool table than he did to his kitchen – talk about regulated cycles and birth control pills and doctor’s opinions. Especially when all bets would’ve been on Brooke and Julian as the likeliest candidates to make a big announcement …

‘Wow. What else can I say? Wow.’ It really was all she could say; she was worried Randy would hear her voice catch and interpret it the wrong way.

She was so excited for Randy, she felt a lump in her throat. Sure, he managed to take care of himself just fine, and he always seemed happy enough, but Brooke worried about him being so alone. He lived in the suburbs, surrounded by families, and all of his old college buddies had long since had children. She and Randy weren’t really close enough to talk about it, but she’d always wondered if he wanted all that or if he was happy with his life as a bachelor. Now hearing his excitement confirmed how badly he must have longed for this, and she thought she might cry.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Can you imagine me teaching the little guy how to throw a pass? I’m going to get him a kid-sized pigskin right from the outset – none of that Nerf crap for my boy – and by the time he’s grown into his hands, he’ll be ready for the real deal.’

Brooke laughed. ‘So you obviously haven’t considered the distinct possibility that you could have a girl, huh?’

‘There are three other pregnant teachers at school, and all three of them are having boys,’ he said.

‘Interesting. But you are aware that, although you all share a work environment, your future child and their future children are not required by law or physics to be the same gender, right?’

‘I’m not sure about that …’

She laughed again. ‘So are you guys going to find out? Or is it too early to ask that question? I don’t really know how these things work.’

‘Well, being that I know we’re having a boy, I don’t really think it’s relevant, but Michelle wants to be surprised. So we’re going to wait.’

‘Aw, that’s fun. When’s the little one due?’

‘October twenty-fifth. A Halloween baby. I think that’s good luck.’

‘I do too,’ Brooke said. ‘I’m marking it in the calendar right now. October twenty-fifth: I’ll be an aunt.’

‘Hey, Brookie, what about you guys? It’d be pretty nice to have first cousins be close in age. Any chance?’

She knew it was hard for Randy to ask her such a personal question so she was careful not to jump down his throat, but he’d hit a nerve. When she and Julian had married at twenty-five and twenty-seven, respectively, she’d always figured they’d have a baby around her thirtieth birthday. But here they were, already past that and nowhere near even starting to try. She’d broached the subject with Julian a few times, casually so as not to put too much pressure on either of them, but he’d been just as casual with his response. Namely, that a baby would be great ‘someday,’ but for now they were doing the right thing focusing on their careers. So although she did want a baby – actually wanted nothing more, especially now, hearing Randy’s news – she adopted Julian’s party line.

‘Oh, someday of course,’ she said, trying to sound casual, the exact opposite of the way she felt. ‘But now’s just not the right time for us. Focusing on work, you know?’

‘Sure,’ Randy said, and Brooke wondered if he knew the truth. ‘You’ve got to do what’s right for you guys.’

‘Yeah, so … listen, I’m sorry to run but my break’s over and I’m late for a consult.’

‘No worries, Brookie. Thanks for the call. And the excitement.’

‘Are you kidding me? Thank you for the incredible news. You made my whole day – my month. Congrats again, Randy. I’m so excited for you guys! I’ll call later tonight to congratulate Michelle, okay?’

They hung up and Brooke began the trek back to the fifth floor. Incredulous, she couldn’t stop shaking her head as she walked. She probably looked like a crazy person, but that would hardly draw attention at the hospital. Randy. A father!

Brooke wanted to call Julian and tell him the news, only he’d sounded so stressed earlier, and there really wasn’t time before her consult. With one of the other nutritionists out on vacation and an unexplained influx of births that morning – nearly twice the usual amount – her day felt like it was moving at warp speed. It was good: the more she moved, the less time she had to wallow in her exhaustion. Besides, it was exciting and challenging when they got hit like this, and although she complained to Julian and her mother, she secretly loved it: all the different patients from every walk of life, each in the hospital for hugely varied reasons but still in need of someone to fine-tune a diet to their specific condition.

The caffeine hit exactly as planned, and Brooke banged out her final three appointments quickly and efficiently. She had just finished changing from scrubs into jeans and a sweater when one of her colleagues in the break room, Rebecca, announced that their boss wanted to see her.

‘Now?’ Brooke asked, watching her evening begin to disintegrate.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were sacred: they were the only days of the week she didn’t need to leave the hospital and head uptown to her second job, a position as a visiting nutritionist for the Huntley Academy, one of the most elite all-girls private schools on the Upper East Side. The parents of a Huntley alumna who’d died in her twenties of severe anorexia had set up a fund at the school for an experimental program where a nutritionist was available on site to counsel the girls on healthy eating and body image awareness twenty hours a week. Brooke was the second person to staff the fairly new program, and although she’d originally accepted the position solely as a way to supplement her and Julian’s income, she had found herself growing more and more attached to the girls. Sure, the anger, the awkwardness, the never-ending obsession with food sometimes wore her down but she always tried to remind herself that these young patients didn’t know any better. Plus the job had the added bonus of giving her more experience working with adolescents, something she lacked.

So Tuesdays and Thursdays she worked only at the hospital, from nine to six. The other three days a week her schedule shifted earlier to accommodate her second job: she worked at NYU from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon and then took two trains and a crosstown bus to get uptown to Huntley, where she’d meet with students – and sometimes their parents – until close to seven. No matter how early she forced herself to bed, and regardless of how much coffee she sucked down when she woke up, she was perpetually exhausted. The dual-job lifestyle was absolutely grueling, but she estimated she needed only one more year of work before being both qualified and experienced enough to open her own private pre-and postnatal nutrition practice, something she’d dreamed about since her very first day of graduate school and the very thing she’d worked diligently toward since then.

Rebecca nodded sympathetically. ‘She asked if you’d stop in before you left.’

Brooke quickly packed up her things and headed back to the fifth floor.

‘Margaret?’ she called out, knocking on the office door. ‘Rebecca said you wanted to see me?’

‘Come in, come in,’ her boss said, shuffling some papers on her desk. ‘Sorry to keep you late, but I figured there was always time for good news.’

Brooke sank into the chair opposite Margaret and waited.

‘Well, we’ve finished calculating all of the patient evaluations, and I’m happy to report that you received the highest marks of the entire dietitian staff.’

‘I did?’ Brooke asked, barely believing she’d come in first among seven.

‘It wasn’t even close.’ Margaret absentmindedly slicked on some ChapStick, smacked her lips, and returned her gaze to her papers. ‘Ninety-one percent of your patients evaluated your consultations as “excellent,” and the remaining nine all ranked them as “good.” The next best on staff had an “excellent” rating of eight-two percent.’

‘Wow,’ Brooke said, aware that she should be aiming for a little modesty but unable to stop smiling. ‘That is great news. I’m so happy to hear it.’

‘So are we, Brooke. We’re extremely pleased, and I wanted you to know that your performance doesn’t go unnoticed. You’ll still be assigned cases in the ICU, but as of next week, we’ll be replacing all of your psych shifts with neonatal. I’m assuming that’s okay with you?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s wonderful with me!’ Brooke said.

‘As you know, you’re only the third most senior on staff, but no one else has your background and experience. I think it’ll be a perfect fit for you.’

Brooke couldn’t keep herself from beaming. Finally, that extra year of coursework in child, adolescent, and newborn nutrition in grad school, plus her optional double internship – both in pediatrics – had paid off. ‘Margaret, I can’t thank you enough for everything. That is just the best news ever.’

Her boss laughed. ‘Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

As she walked to the subway, Brooke sent up a silent thanks, both for her semipromotion and, almost better, the fact that she didn’t have to.

She jumped off the train at the Times Square stop, quickly weaved her way through the masses of people underground, and strategically emerged onto the street at her usual Forty-third Street stairwell, which was closest to their apartment and allowing her to avoid the crush of humanity she’d otherwise encounter walking along Forty-second Street. Not a day went by that she didn’t miss their old apartment in Brooklyn – she’d loved nearly everything about Brooklyn Heights and hated almost everything about Midtown West – but even she had to admit that both their commutes were a little less hellish.

She was surprised when Walter, her tricolored spaniel with a black eye-mask patch over one eye, didn’t bark when she inserted her key into the apartment door. Nor did he race to greet her.

‘Walter Alter! Where are you?’ She made kissing noises and waited. Music was playing from somewhere in the apartment.

‘We’re in the living room,’ Julian called back. His reply was punctuated by Walter’s frenetic, high-pitched woofs.

Brooke dropped her bag just inside the door, kicked off her heels, and noticed that the kitchen was significantly cleaner than she’d left it.

‘Hey! I didn’t know you were getting home early tonight,’ she said as she sat down next to Julian on the couch. She leaned over to kiss him but Walter intercepted her and licked her mouth first.