The Baby Chronicles. Judy Baer

toothpasty smile. “Chase, there’s a group in the other room talking treatments for football injuries. And one of the docs used to be a physician for World Wrestling Entertainment. Thought you and Kurt might be interested.”

      For a moment, I’d actually forgotten that my husband, too, was a doctor. I am so grateful he doesn’t bring his work home with him. An appendectomy retrospective over dinner is not my idea of a relaxing meal. Of course, Kurt, a WWE fan, led the way out of the room. Then Arch turned to Betty and Harry. “Maybe you’d like to see the new twenty-seven-inch computer screen I purchased for my office.” Arch looked—dare I say it?—archly at Betty. “It’s great for shopping on eBay.”

      Before they left the room, he turned to Kim and me. “By the way, Mitzi told me to tell you to meet her by the front stairs. She wants to show you something.”

      As we made our way past the scowling Jeeves, the string quartet and the cluster of women who were going to need chiropractic treatments after they took the multicarat diamond-crusted jewelry off their necks, Kim whispered. “How did Mitzi get a gem like him?”

      “She’s pretty and funny and he doesn’t have to work in the same office with her?”

      “Well, there is that…”

      Mitzi swooped down upon us, grabbed my arm and towed me up the curved staircase without explanation. Her flight of stairs hinted not only at antebellum Southern plantations, but also, oddly, at Andy Warhol. The wall along the sweeping white steps is decorated with somebody’s ancestors, strangers Mitzi picked up in an antique store, and large bright acrylic paintings of Mitzi and Arch. I don’t know how, but the look actually works, even though I keep expecting to see Marilyn Monroe or a large Campbell’s soup can in the mix.

      The hallways are carpeted a soft yellow, perfect with the white-painted woodwork and florals and landscapes in many shades of green. In each piece is a hint of the same maize color as the walls, like the soft yellow light of the sun. Discreetly placed speakers enveloped us with rain forest music.

      “This is beautiful, Mitzi.” Kim stared up at the architectural details on the ceiling. “Did you decorate it yourself?”

      “With help. That’s why I wanted you to come upstairs. I need some decorating advice.”

      As Mitzi tripped on ahead, Kim and I stared at each other. Mitzi asking us for advice? Had the world tilted on its axis when we weren’t looking? Were we being thrown into an alternate universe where everything was upside down and backward?

      Mitzi is the giver of advice, not the taker—advice about clothing, diets, behavior, grooming, nail art, body polishing and any other subject matter she deems worthwhile. No matter how many times we’d tried to stop her, Mitzi is the gift that keeps on giving.

      She halted in front of a door so quickly that Kim and I nearly fell on top of her.

      “This is it.” Drawing a breath as if to steel herself, she opened it and stepped inside.

      The only way I can manage to describe what we saw was Toys “R” Us meets Ralph Lauren meets stuffed-animal factory. The walls were streaked with various test colors—pale pinks, blues, yellows, peaches, greens and creams. There were more animals than Noah had on the ark, overflowing a bright red-and-blue playpen. Three cribs lined one wall. The round one with the jungle-print mattress and bumpers and the lion-tiger-and-elephant mobile was my immediate favorite.

      “What are you doing? Starting a new business? There’s more stuff in here than in Kmart!”

      Mitzi’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I wanted to decorate a room for my baby, and all I’ve got here is a big mess. No theme, no color palette, no…”

      “No baby?” Kim said gently.

      Mitzi sat down on a big yellow ball like the one I use at the gym. “I thought it might encourage me while I’m going through all these tests. I’m beginning to feel like a pincushion and not a person.” Her voice trailed away, and she stared in the direction of one of the cribs. “It just reminds me that perhaps I’ll never have a baby and this room will be a monument to my failure.”

      “Failure? Mitzi, don’t feel that way.”

      “How should I feel? Isn’t that what women are designed to do? Have babies?” Her eyes glittered. “I know you all think I’m a big goof-off at work, that I’m just there because I’d be bored staying home, but that’s not true. I actually…”

      I waited for her to say she loved us.

      “…am used to you now and it’s not so awful.”

      How do we keep our heads from swelling?

      “But my body isn’t cooperating. Can you even begin to understand how that feels?”

      Kim took Mitzi’s hand. “I know my issues aren’t the same as yours, but my body hasn’t always cooperated, either. Depression and breast cancer—I didn’t ask for either, but there it is. That doesn’t mean that I am only a cancer survivor or a depression-prone female, anymore than you are only an infertile woman. That’s a small part of who we are as people, not the sum total of our lives.”

      Mitzi looked at her doubtfully. “I suppose so.” I could see her gaze had cleared. Little lasers were emanating from her eyes. “It’s like Whitney before she found Chase. She wasn’t a total loser, but it was kind of hard to remember that.”

      “Wait a minute,” I protested, “I—”

      But Kim stopped me. “Yeah, just like that. She was never a loser. Not for a minute. And neither are you.”

      Well, thanks for that. I think.

      “Maybe you jumped the gun by trying to set up a nursery when you’re still working with the doctors.”

      A cunning look flickered on Mitzi’s face. “I suppose I did, but it usually helps to be ahead of the pack.”

      “What on earth do you mean by that?”

      “Now if you want a nursery as nice as ours, you’ll have to copy me, not the other way around.”

      “You mean this is all about being first?” I took her by the shoulders. “Mitzi, I can assure you that there is no way that you will ever be less than cutting-edge in the style department, so just relax. Get pregnant first, then do the nursery. It will be easier, I’m sure.”

      I could see her blue mood lifting. “Good idea.” Then her eyes began to sparkle. “But I have picked out baby names, and I’m never going to tell you what they are. You’d probably want to copy me.”

      “No doubt.”

      As if I had a tendency to run out and do whatever it is Mitzi does. If that were true, right now I’d have blue nail polish on my toenails, enough gloss on my lips to wax the floor at Grand Central Station and an ego the size of South America.