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The third time Andy Sachs wakes up in a sterile hospital room with a dull ache pervading her entire body, it’s just her parents sitting on vinyl chairs adjacent to her bed, her mother holding her hand.
The first time had been very brief, and the ache had been worse, and her mother had been in the same position, and some hot woman who was definitely not a nurse had been standing in the corner of the room fiddling with her wedding ring.
The second time, she’d gone through a very tedious array of cognitive tests with some gal who said she was a neurologist but who couldn’t have been much older than Andy, which seemed young to her to be a highly specialized medical professional, and then she’d been carted off to various labs to be put into a coffin machine—she thinks that’s an MRI—and a donut machine—maybe that’s a CT scan.
She had recognized the regular old X-rays, during which she found herself discussing a Charlene Frazier Designing Women rant about the radiologists’ always assuring you it’s perfectly safe and then gearing up with all kinds of heavy-duty protective equipment. Andy had assured the tech that she understood that the amount of radiation was negligible to a one-time patient with a lead bib but a person doing the testing all day had to take better precautions.
They’d continued conversing about more Designing Women oversights for the benefit of the neurologist who’d done all those tedious cognitive tests, who’d seemed a little perplexed by the particular details Andy could and could not recall but who seemed not to want to show her hand about it.
So now upon her third waking, which seems a little more permanent and significant than the others, she has many questions, and she blurts the first one,
“So is anybody gonna tell me what in the wide, wide world of sports happened to me? Or is Dr. Susie Chapstick forbidding that?”
Her mother laughs, and it’s kind of a choked sob more than a laugh. Her father chuckles and squeezes her mother’s shoulder where his hand is resting in a loose embrace.
“What?” Andy says.
“It’s just nice to see firsthand you’re still you,” her mother says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Andy says.
She’s becoming increasingly alarmed. A machine she’s hooked up to beeps faster. She takes a deep breath, tries to calm herself. She wants to get some answers before one of the dour nurses—or, worse, Neurologist Barbie herself—appears to poke at her.
Her dad squeezes her mom’s shoulder again and then undrapes his arm, slumps to lean his elbows on his thighs, clasps his hands together, says,
“Alright, kid. Here’s the thing. It’s supposed to be easier if we tell you instead of a bunch of clinical people you don’t know. I’m just gonna rip off the bandaid. It’s 2012. That Illinois state senator you liked so much when you were in college there is now president of the United States. You’re the online content editor for Auto Universe, which you’ve been working for since you arrived in New York in 2006. You suffered a major head injury saving a drunk busker from an untimely demise in an accordion-related incident in a subway station and have amnesia that’s knocked your brain back to—best guess—just before that initial Auto Universe interview.”
He opens his mouth for an addendum, but closes it again.
“Well, that sucks. Not the first black president part or the online content editor part. Those both sound pretty cool. There’s something you’re not telling me, though.”
Her parents look at each other.
“Oh. That’s the part Dr. Jessica Simpson doesn’t want you to tell me.”
Her parents look at each other again, visibly fretting.
“This has something to do with the first time I woke up, doesn’t it? Who was that hot lady who was here?”
Her mother chokes on a laugh, and her father narrows his eyes at her mother, says,
“Do not do it, Antoinette.”
He uses her full name only when it’s especially serious. Toni, tears pricking her eyes, bites her lip and swallows a manic laugh.
“Oh holy shit, Mom,” Andy says. “You’re suppressing a vaudeville ‘that was no lady that was your wife’!”
Her mother winces, and her father places a hand on his forehead.
“I’m married?! To that gorgeous woman?! Why isn’t she here now to help break the amnesia news?”
“Oh, honey…” her mother says dejectedly.
“No!” Andy says. “I bagged that woman and then fucked it up? Please tell me this is an elaborate joke!”
“It is not a joke, Andréa,” the woman says from the doorway.
She removes her sunglasses, and several glances are exchanged between her and Andy’s parents.
“We’ll give you the room,” Andy’s dad says.
“Thank you, Richard,” the woman says.
Andy’s parents file out, and Andy’s dad squeezes the woman’s hand briefly, and the woman and Andy’s mom exchange cheek kisses.
The woman stands rigidly at the foot of the bed, says,
“Dr. Audrey Landers has finally allowed me to see you.”
Andy laughs.
The woman’s lip twitches in half a smile. She says,
“I’d hoped that would amuse you.”
She clears her throat, continues,
“As you’ve likely come to know, I am your wife. What you may have not been told is that we have been married for four years, and you courted me for nearly two years after we met at an Elias-Clarke event. We are currently separated.”
The monitor’s beeping fast again. Andy inhales through her nose, exhales through her mouth, says,
“Good to know. But what’s your name, baby?”
The woman’s eyes flash. Andy can’t tell exactly what that flash means. It’s some kind of recognition, though, some kind of intimacy, some kind of lust. She hadn’t consciously chosen to call her baby, but it’d rolled off her tongue, and the woman had had a visceral reaction to it.
“Miranda Priestly,” the woman says overly stiffly, as if she’s compensating for something.
Andy hums, says,
“Can’t see myself taking your last name. Can’t see you taking mine. Did we hyphenate or just not dick with the documentation at the DMV at all?”
“No names were changed,” Miranda says.
“Nice. So. Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why are we separated?
Miranda shifts her weight, purses her lips.
Andy scoffs, rolls her eyes, says,
“Don’t be shy. You’re basically a stranger to me. Let’s be honest here. My brain thinks Dub-ya’s still president, everybody’s got a flip phone, and YouTube is new. Just give it to me straight, baby.”
Miranda looks at her, then. A piercing gaze. She says,
“The only thing we ever got right was sex.”
xxx
Andy’s memory is decidedly not back, but she’s done enough research to keep up with her job so that she can afford the crummy long-term motel in which she had apparently been living since… Miranda had kicked her out? she’d walked out? Dr. Sarah Michelle Gellar has made it clear she’s not supposed to ask—to let her brain heal organically without implanting false memories or wish fulfillment fantasies or other people’s impressions of her, or something. She has also pronounced that her amnesia is likely permanent but other than that she is functioning normally.
It’s frustrating having so many information gaps both professionally and personally, but it’s not as difficult as she might’ve imagined it to be—if she’d ever imagined it—to just live a regular daily existence. Pretty lonely and melancholy, but serviceable on the whole.
Except for this truly pitiful motel room, of course.
It’s shady digs, and she wonders if she’d taken up residence here to spite Miranda or if she had just been depressed enough about the separation to consider it adequate. If her memory doesn’t return and they don’t reconcile, she’s definitely moving out of this place sooner rather than later. She feels like a divorced alcoholic detective with a court order to stay away from her wife and kids, still toiling away at an incomprehensible murder board of the big case she couldn’t solve in 1990 that got her kicked off the force.
One night, about a month after the accident, she’s basically gotten the hang of being a 2012 person and has maybe acclimated a little too much to her lodgings, and finds herself slightly inebriated—only slightly because she’s supposed to go easy on liquor—and calling Miranda on the iPhone that isn’t as hard to navigate as she thought it was going to be:
“Hey, hi. You busy? I’ve got an idea I wanna run past you.”
“Are you drunk?” Miranda says.
“Only two-bourbon drunk.”
“Which means four-bourbon drunk. You always accidentally make doubles when you drink alone.”
“It’s really not fair that you know that about me, but I don’t know anything about you except for what I’ve googled.”
Miranda hums and then,
“This idea?”
“Oh yeah. It is probably a bad idea, but hear me out. We’re not supposed to do a lot of rehashing of past events, and maybe that’s for the best since apparently I couldn’t cut it as your wife when I had a whole brain, and I doubt half-brain me would do any better. But. I fucked you right, right? What if we just did that? No strings, no expectations, just sex, and the only conversation is like… incidental pillow talk?”
There is a long silent pause, and Andy starts up again:
“This is gonna sound crazy, but I miss you. I don’t remember you at all but it just feels like there’s something missing. If you saw this shithole I’m in you’d probably blame it on that. But it’s like… I’ve got seven changes of clothes, one silver-framed 8 x 10 of you and your children, my laptop, a paperweight that appears to be a bust of Warren G. Harding, an old Walkman and four cassette tapes—all mixes with track listings written in what I suspect is your handwriting—and a copy of I Still Dream about You by Fannie Flagg. That is the entire breadth of my personal effects. It’s pretty obvious I wasn’t expecting to be holed up here for long. I’m not trying to weasel my way back into your life, but it might be a fun way to pass the time, and if that’s the only thing we did right, why not do it again?”
Miranda clears her throat. She sounds a little strained when she says,
“You really think this is a wise course of action?”
“Maybe not wise per se but practical. A good climax or several would help release your tension, which you seemed to have plenty of when you visited me in the hospital. And Dr. Avril Lavigne would surely endorse any extra blood flow to my brain that an orgasm here or there could provide.”
Another pause.
“You’re sure you’re well enough for any of this?”
“Clean bill of health physically. My mind is still not quite up to speed, but when have I ever been right in the head?”
xxx
Miranda doesn’t cry every time they have sex.
In fact, this is the first time she’s cried.
Andy has fucked her in plenty of varied locations including but not limited to on Andy’s kitchenette floor, up against Miranda’s front door, in the bathroom at Del Frisco’s, in the backseat of the towncar.
But now she’s thrusting into Miranda with her fake cock—very pointedly not among her possessions at her loser rathole—in Miranda’s bed, and there are tears in Miranda’s eyes.
She stills her hips, cups Miranda’s cheek, says,
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Keep going.”
“Bullshit.”
Miranda blinks back her tears, says,
“Just kiss me. And fuck me.”
She digs her fingernails into the back of Andy’s neck, pushes her hips up. Andy does not comply.
“This is too much for you,” Andy says. “I knew this was a stupid idea. I was selfish. I’m so sorry.”
Miranda flings an arm over her eyes, says,
“Don’t. I was selfish, too. I thought I could stand it.”
Andy gently encircles Miranda’s wrist and removes her arm from over her eyes, says,
“I really am sorry. I do admit I had the ulterior motive that maybe if… we were intimate it would trigger some memories to come back. I didn’t mean for you to be collateral damage. Just tell me if it’s too much and I’ll leave you alone.”
“A fine time to have this conversation,” Miranda says icily with a gesture to their nude intertwined bodies.
“Yeah, well. It’s not like we get together for chats over coffee.”
“Excuse me? You instituted this ‘fuck buddy’ policy. Don’t blame me for adhering to it.”
Andy rolls her eyes. Miranda is right, of course, but she’s not going to admit that.
“Are you going to finish what you started here, or…? I have other commitments this evening,” Miranda says.
“Forgive me for attempting to be empathetic,” Andy says as she attempts to pull out. “Won’t make that mistake again.”
But Miranda’s suddenly got her legs wrapped tightly around her and successfully pulls her down for one of the hottest kisses Andy remembers experiencing.
When Miranda finishes plundering her mouth, Andy’s a little stunned and shaky, and Miranda breathes,
“Maybe it’s best if we don’t look at each other too much.”
She releases her leg grip and pushes at Andy’s shoulders, and Andy pulls out. Miranda turns over and makes a gesture Andy’s come to be familiar with: a get on with it already flick of her wrist.
Andy obliges and takes her from behind.
xxx
Andy’s having lunch with the new social media intern. It’s part of her job to mentor this girl, but she’d be lying if she claimed it wasn’t really refreshing to meet a new person who’s actually new rather than just new to her. It’s a casual, dick-around Friday, so they’ve had a couple margaritas, and Andy finds herself telling this girl way too much about her current situation.
“Now wait a second,” Riley says. “So you had like… a whole life with this lady you don’t remember? And now you’re just… banging?”
“That’s the long and short of it, yeah,” Andy says.
“Look. I know I’m an idiot twenty-two year old with a leadership studies degree from a podunk nowhere state university, but this does not sound healthy to me in any kind of way.”
Andy hums. Doesn’t sound healthy to her in any kind of way, either, but it’s where she’s at.
“And my neurologist, who may or may not have been in your graduating class, is discouraging me from having anybody tell me anything about it. She keeps just saying shit like you find on those fucking posters with the kittens: ‘Life’s short!’ ‘Make new memories!’ ‘Hang in there, buddy!’”
“Just my uninformed opinion, but you may want to look into getting a new neurologist. Maybe one who didn’t get her degree from Hallmark University,” Riley says.
Andy laughs, and then her phone starts ringing. It is not her generic ringtone, nor is it one of her programmed ringtones she’s come to recognize (her parents have not changed from when she last remembered—her dad is still One Piece at a Time, and her mom is still Rose’s Turn—but she’s got a lot of new ones, notably her boss at Auto Universe is Take This Job and Shove It and Miranda is Donna Summer MacArthur Park for reasons still unknown).
This one is Beauty School Dropout from Grease, and she has no earthly idea who it could be. So she gives a little wave of apology to Riley and answers it.
“Is this Andrea Sachs?” a woman’s pinched, professional voice says.
“Yes. How may I help you?”
“This is the Dalton School, and we’ve not been able to reach either Miranda Priestly or Hunter Jones, and you’re next on the list.”
“Next on the list for what, exactly?”
The woman sighs.
“Cassidy has been caught smoking again. I’m afraid she’s going to have to be suspended and will need to be picked up.”
“Ah,” Andy says.
She’s heard the names batted around, even seen them in passing, but she’s yet to actually make contact with either of her kind of ex-wife’s children. That had been a recommendation from Bratz Neurologist, as well.
“I can be there in twenty.”
“Thank you, Miss Sachs,” the woman says in such a way as to sound as if she’s actually saying fuck you you very much.
“Do we have a story? Where are we going?” Riley says, eager.
“No story. You’re going back to the office and making my apologies to the rest of the staff. If anybody’s there still. I gotta go pick up the stepkid.”
Riley scrunches up her face, says,
“There are kids involved? Yeah, you’ve gotta get a new doctor.”
xxx
“Didn’t think I’d ever see your face again,” Cassidy says.
They’re halfway to Miranda’s house, not looking at each other in the back of the cab. It’s the first thing the surly teen has said to her.
“You’re still not seeing it, in point of fact. You’re looking out the window.”
Andy can feel the whoosh of air as the kid turns, probably very dramatically.
“I’m looking now.”
Andy turns to face her. She looks as if she’s very sad but is trying very hard to look pissed off.
Andy is not sure what to do with that, so she says,
“Newports, really? You strike me as more of a Virginia Slims girl.”
The kid bursts into tears and flops onto her. Andy tentatively wraps her arms around her, pats her back. The cab pulls up to the townhouse, and Cassidy sniffles, unceremoniously wipes her nose on the lapel of Andy’s blazer, and climbs out of the seat. Andy pays and follows her up the sidewalk.
“You did your duty. You can go now,” Cassidy says as she unlocks the door.
“I don’t think I can, actually. You probably ought to not be unsupervised right now, and it seems that we probably have some things to talk about.”
Cassidy sniffs and stomps into the kitchen, tears open the refrigerator.
“It’s been a real shitty couple of months for me,” Andy says. “It seems like you could say the same thing.”
Cassidy hands her a Fresca and opens one for herself, says,
“Yeah. Very shitty. Mom is a mess, and Caroline has thrown herself into fifteen extracurriculars so she doesn’t have one waking second to think about what’s been going on. And I can’t keep it together anymore. You need to come home. I don’t care if you don’t remember anything. Just move in as a roommate if you have to. We’re losing it over here.”
Andy opens her mouth, but Cassidy forestalls her:
“I really don’t think Dr. Scarlett Johansson knows what she’s doing. So fuck her and her advice.”
“Yeah, I’m at that point, too. But I can’t just move back in without talking to your mom about it.”
Cassidy rolls her eyes, says,
“What have you been talking about when you two get together if not that?”
Andy blinks a few times, clears her throat.
“OMG, you haven’t been talking at all! You’re disgusting!”
She throws her half-drunk Fresca into the sink and stomps up the back stairs.
xxx
“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to move back in,” Miranda says, pacing the den.
“I wasn’t totally sold on it, but it could be something to try,” Andy says, sitting on the divan, raking her nails against the armrest. “I mean, we’ve tried no contact, and we’ve tried just fucking. Neither of those worked for us. This could be a new option. Or we could try dating? And I could come over for Sunday dinners with the kids maybe?”
Miranda sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“Or, we could try hitting you over the head again, perhaps with a cast-iron skillet. That often works in cartoons and sitcoms.”
“Baby, I’ll try anything once.”
Miranda laughs, but it’s almost exactly the same strangled sob of a laugh her mother had first laughed about the initial Dr. Susie Chapstick, and she collapses onto the divan next to her.
“I know we’re not supposed to discuss this, as per Dr. Gwyneth Paltrow’s orders, but I can’t do this anymore. I need you to know that I called you the morning of the accordion incident. To ask you to come back.”
Andy stares at her for a few seconds. She’d said her piece with direct eye contact, but now she’s got her elbow propped on the back of the couch, with her chin in her hand, and she’s looking away from Andy. Andy slides closer and puts a hand on her thigh, says,
“You should not have agreed to the arrangement I proposed.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She pauses. “I stupidly thought maybe you’d…”
She turns, and they look at each other.
“What’s the real reason we were separated?”
“What I said to you in the hospital was a direct quotation from you in our last fight.”
“Ouch,” Andy says, taking Miranda’s hand. “And what? You hit menopause and didn’t want to bone as much anymore and I got pissy?”
“There were many factors as to why we were no longer having sex and why you were ‘pissy.’”
“But you wanted to get back together?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s get back together. I have a lot of catching up to do on getting to know you again, but I don’t think it’s feasible to keep away from each other. I mean I saw you for four seconds when I first woke up from an accordion-induced coma and was not surprised in the slightest when I was later informed that I had married you. And you agreed to do something that you knew would be very painful for you just to be close to me. I think we need to face facts here. And not just for our own sakes.”
Miranda sighs and squeezes her hand.
“They do miss you. They think it’s very hypocritical of me to make them follow Dr. Blake Lively’s recommendations.”
“It is. But technically, Dr. Reese Witherspoon did not disallow us from having sex, and this is the first substantive conversation we’ve had. So you’re not that much of a hypocrite.”
Miranda gives her a half smile, then hums,
“Do you suspect that Cassidy got herself caught smoking to purposefully get you called to the school? She very well knew her father is in Bangladesh and that I would be out of cell range most of the afternoon…”
Andy shrugs:
“Sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette.”
Miranda rolls her eyes.
xxx
“I would’ve expected you to have developed an aversion to accordions,” Miranda says as the Cajun band takes the stage on the veranda of the barbecue place Andy has taken them on their third date.
She has not moved back in and they’ve hit pause on sex, but they’ve had family dinner together twice a week for the past month, and Cassidy jokes that she’s down to half a pack a day and that Caroline’s cut out seven of her fifteen extracurriculars, so there’s progress on that front at least.
“Once you’re the kind of person who likes accordion music, there’s really nothing to be done about it. Like when they used to show gay people images of gay sex and electroshock them and then give them candy or whatever for images of straight sex. Never worked,” Andy says.
“You were born this way, then?”
“That’s what Dr. Lady Gaga says.”
Miranda chuckles.
“Speaking of, what does the new doctor say?”
“First new doctor was a sexist old blowhard buffoon, so he basically diagnosed me with female hysteria. Second new doctor said I should talk as much as I want about my old life, that it might help spark something, if I can handle it emotionally. Apparently head injuries can make your personality different, make you meaner or sadder. I don’t feel that different from when I remember last, so I think we’re good to go.”
“Good,” Miranda says and leans in for a quick kiss. “Because I am not watching The Big Easy with you tonight.”
“How did you know I was going to suggest that?”
“You always want to watch The Big Easy after you’ve taken me out Cajun dancing. And considering I am merely a two on the accordion Kinsey scale, I have my limits.”
“But you have watched it with me before.”
“Of course. You tricked me the first time.”
The band’s playing now, and they’re mostly done with their barbecue. Andy cleans herself off with a moist towelette and leans in with her elbows on the table:
“Tell me about it. The time I tricked you.”
Miranda half smiles as she cleans herself off and settles back into her chair, crosses her legs, begins:
“It was at this very establishment. We had very recently gone public with our relationship, and you wanted to do something fun with me where no paparazzi would document it, so you took me here. It may have even been the same band. That man playing the triangle looks familiar.”
Andy looks over her shoulder, laughs.
“That’s because he looks like your ex-husband.”
“You’re right. If only Hunter could grow a mustache like that.”
“So anyway, we were here…” Andy prompts.
“And we ate and talked about our respective days. You’d just been promoted, I believe, and I was on second assistant three in as many weeks, so we had a lot to discuss. And then you made me dance with you.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific. ‘Make you’ could have myriad implications.”
“You politely asked me whether I would do you the honor of dancing with you. We went out dancing often because we both enjoyed it.”
“Thank you. The context is helpful.”
“Another thing we both enjoyed was watching noirs together. So that’s how you pitched it: ‘Let’s put on pajamas and cuddle up and watch a sex murder movie.’”
Andy guffaws:
“That sounds just like me.”
“Doesn’t it just? I agreed, of course, and when I asked what exactly you had in mind, you said, ‘The one with Ellen Barkin,’ And I said, ‘Which one? She’s in at least three,’ and you smiled this very conniving little smile and said, ‘The one with the guy that I always mistake for the other guy.’”
Andy guffaws again:
“But that describes all three of the sex thrillers starring Ellen Barkin that I can think of off the top of my head.”
“Exactly.”
“I am curious, though, about the accordion Kinsey scale. Who’s a six? Surely even Lawrence Welk gave it a rest once in a while.”
Miranda rolls her eyes and stands, holds out her hand.
“Let’s dance before their set ends. The next performer is a very questionable looking Elvis impersonator, and I’d rather not listen to any off-key ‘Don’t Cry, Daddy’s this evening.”
Andy laughs and sets off with her.
They’re on their second spin around the dance floor when the drunk couple next to them bumps into an elderly gentleman’s oxygen tank, which sets off a whole Rube Goldberg situation:
The oxygen tank tangles up around an amp cord. The elderly gentleman’s son attempts to untangle it but pulls the amp cord, which sends the amp teetering into the accordion player who falls off the stage right into the trajectory of a baby in a stroller, and Andy lurches over to push the stroller out of the way.
And then darkness closes in.
xxx
It’s a different hospital room, there are no aches to speak of, and Andy’s mother is not there. It’s just Miranda sitting in a vinyl chair next to her bed, holding her hand, her eyes dry but red rimmed.
“We should’ve tried the skillet when you first suggested it,” Andy says.
One of those startled, sobby laughs bubbles out of Miranda’s throat, and she reaches to press the call button.
“Hold on just a sec,” Andy says, catching her wrist. “It really did work. I never told you, but you probably ought to know the primary reason I was pissy is that I thought we weren’t having sex because you were fooling around on me.”
“I… what?”
They stare at each other.
“Andréa are you really all right?”
“I’ve felt worse after a four-bourbon night,” Andy says with a wink.
“Real four bourbons or drinking alone four bourbons?” Miranda says with a raised eyebrow.
“Both.”
Miranda chuckles and then,
“Is that all you remember?”
“No. It’s kinda patchy, but the whole five years seems to be in there.”
Miranda looks relieved; her sigh is one of relief.
“May I call the doctor now?”
“Not so fast. Were you?”
A line of confusion wrinkles Miranda’s brow, and then it turns into outrage as she visibly comprehends the question:
“Was I unfaithful to you? Be serious.”
“I have now had two accordions dropped onto my noggin saving the lives of others. Indulge me.”
“I have never been unfaithful to you. Why on earth would you think that?”
“You were spending a helluva lot of time with that new board member. The guy with the teeth.”
“And the toupée? You’re joking. What do I always say about that?”
Andy rolls her eyes, then in an approximation of Miranda’s voice,
“‘Just be bold and go bald, for heaven’s sake. And if you must compensate, wear a hat or grow a nice mustache.’”
Miranda stands and stretches, says,
“Well. There must have been more evidence than a few lunch meetings with a repulsive man. I have lunch meetings with attractive people quite frequently without these insinuations. I know you’re possessive, but this is ridiculous.”
Andy lowers and steels her voice:
“There was a pregnancy test in the guest bathroom trash. I’m good, but I’m not that good, baby.”
Miranda places her hands on her hips, says,
“The second accordion was too much. You’ve obviously completely lost your mind.”
“The second accordion giveth and the second accordion taketh away,” Andy says.
Miranda huffs and begins pacing,
“So let me get this straight. The narrative in that pretty little damaged head of yours is as follows: We are having sex less frequently because, might I remind you, you had that awful cold that turned out to be strep throat, and then I start having hot flashes, and then you’re working overtime setting up Auto Universe’s YouTube channel, and then I’m working overtime because they’re replacing half the board and cutting my print budget. So somewhere during this period, I find the narrow window of opportunity when my ovaries are having their last hurrah to possibly get myself pregnant by a man with a spray tan and leave the evidence of this betrayal in my own home. Is that how this transpired? Is that the correct order of events?”
“What was I supposed to think? Unless I need to go out and kill a rapist, it’s certainly not Caroline’s, and Cassidy would not confess a pregnancy scare to you and not to me.”
“Cassidy is having sex?!”
“She wasn’t the last time we talked about it, but it’s been a while. And that’s not the point, anyway. The point is, your second assistant is not going to be taking a pregnancy test in our home, and we don’t have a lot of visitors.”
“Except for a dozen or so hormonal teenagers who fairly regularly traipse in and out of the house and the occasional chemically dependent model with low self-esteem who appears as a plus one at dinner parties. Honestly, I don’t know that I believe you even saw a pregnancy test. Maybe it was an old thermometer someone threw out. I’ve been telling you you need to go to the optometrist.”
Andy throws up her hands, and her machine is beeping a lot.
“Can we please finish this discussion after we call the doctor? It sounds like a casino in here. I really am starting to worry about your condition,” Miranda says.
“Yeah, you’re worried about my condition of winning this argument.”
Now Miranda throws up her hands:
“You’d rather die of an aneurysm than postpone a silly fight?”
It’s then that Andy’s parents walk in.
“Oh thank the Good Lord! You’re awake! What’s the doctor said?” Toni says.
“You mule daughter hasn’t let me call her yet,” Miranda says.
“What?” Richard says. “Why not?”
“She wants to finish fighting with me first,” Miranda says.
“She is right here, you know. You don’t have to talk about her in third person,” Andy says.
Toni and Richard share a look. They seem to be both hopeful and wary.
“Does this mean your memory is back?” Richard says.
“Hallelujah. I hate my wife again,” Andy says.
“Everybody take a deep breath, and I will just sneak right past ya and press the call button,” Toni says.
Andy flops back onto the bed resignedly, and Miranda stands in the corner with her arms crossed and lips pursed.
xxx
There’s another battery of tests and scans and a long nap, and Andy wakes up to the low murmuring of her mother and her wife’s conspiring against the far wall. Her dad is in the vinyl chair holding her hand this time.
She keeps her eyes closed to try to make out what the conference might be about. Her mother is saying with an audible eye roll,
“Oh good grief. Not Nancy Drew and the Phantom Pregnancy Test again! I told her the same thing you did and furthermore told her to drop it.”
“But when did this occur? How long has this suspicion been festering?”
A pause.
“Her birthday. Probably why she got so upset about it in the first place.”
Another pause.
She feels the air pressurize just a tad, and in a few seconds she can feel Miranda hovering over her.
“Andréa, open your eyes this instant. I know you’re awake. I heard your breathing change.”
She complies.
“Do you recall who’s expecting this month, Andréa?”
“Uh…I think I heard something about Tony Romo…?”
This is the wrong answer. She knows it in her bones.
In her periphery, she vaguely discerns her parents looking at each other, silently trading some understanding, and then slipping out of the room.
“Someone you know personally?” Miranda says, cold and precise and knowing. “Someone who was sick as a dog at your birthday party? The kind of person who is exactly odd enough to take a pregnancy test at someone else’s home during a birthday party?”
Andy groans. How could she have not put the pieces together about her looney tunes baby fever coworker Amber who is currently almost absurdly pregnant? She does have the amnesia excuse for the last couple of months, but she ought to have known better before. She says,
“You think a third accordion could get me to quit acting a fool?”
“Well, they do say the third time’s the charm, but I think this is more of a third time they call you a horse situation, and I’d really rather not take the risk,” Miranda says.
Andy thinks for a second.
“The first time you’re cold-cocked by an accordion, it’s a fluke, the second time you’re cold-cocked by an accordion it’s a coincidence, and the third time you’re cold-cocked by an accordion, it’s Adios, Au Revoir, Aufweidersehn?”
“Yes, my love,” Miranda says, kissing her on the goose egg on her forehead. “Now, it’s time for you to rest so that you can be released tomorrow. We can, will, should, and must revisit this altercation at home at a later date. May I send someone over to your grim little abode to collect your bindle stick of belongings?”
“Yes, Miranda.”
“Perfect. Are you well enough to see the girls tonight?”
“Only if I’m permitted to have legal counsel present.”
Miranda throws her head back in a laugh.
It’s the first time Andy’s seen her do that since this ordeal began—not just the accordions, but the constant petty squabbles that had led to the separation—and she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.
The weirdest thing is that she now remembers the not remembering of the most recent era of her life, the way she’d felt entranced by her wife anew, the way it had felt to romance her anew, the way it had felt to discover her anew. And looking back on that time with her memories intact, she recognizes with awe and wonder how considerate and careful and kind Miranda had been to her.
She can’t totally access all that anger and suspicion from before the first accordion very easily. She’d had to work at it earlier, and now she finds that she simply doesn’t want to.
She wants to be reasonable and rational and calm; she wants to talk about their problems like adults who care about each other; she wants to listen and compromise.
And more than anything, she wants to go home and sleep with her wife.
She registers that during her moment of contemplation, Miranda has exited the room and is now reentering, saying,
“Cassidy is on her way, and Caroline will be along after Steel Magnolias rehearsal in an hour. In the meantime, one of us might be able to smuggle in one of those dreadful Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready pizzas you love so much.”
“Pizza, pizza,” Andy says with a yawn.
Miranda brushes her cheek with the back of her fingers, says,
“Go to sleep now. If you’re particularly lucky, Cassidy will wake you with Crazy Bread and minimal intrusive questions. I’m leaving. I need to take care of a few things in preparation for your imminent return.”
Andy grabs her wrist, says,
“Hold your horses. Give me a real goodbye kiss, baby.”
Miranda’s eyes flash. Andy can’t tell exactly what that flash means. It’s some kind of recognition, though, some kind of intimacy, some kind of lust. She hadn’t consciously chosen to call her baby, but it’d rolled off her tongue, and Miranda had had a visceral reaction to it.
Miranda dips down and captures her lips for one of the hottest kisses Andy remembers experiencing.
Her heart is racing, and her monitors are dinging.
Miranda pulls back, says,
“More of this at home without all the obtrusive slot machine noises.”
“Keep kissing me like that, and I’ll expire by cardiac arrest way before a third accordion gets me.”
Miranda squares her shoulders, says primly,
“Now that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
She then puts on her sunglasses and sashays away.