Leftovers: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

menu off of a table and hid her face behind it while Paul and Eleanor continued to kiss, oblivious to the world.
    Babs rushed back to the front of the bar, threw the menu down and made a beeline for the exit.
    “Thank you, Ma’am,” the bartender said.
    “Mademoiselle!” she shouted as she left.
    Outside of the restaurant Babs ran to her lime green second hand Ford sedan. She eyed the backseat, which was full of Tupperware products and then checked her wristwatch. She knew Vivian’s doctor’s office was on the west side of town but the Tupperware party was on the complete opposite. She jumped into her car and paused for a moment having to make a decision. She shifted into forward and took a fast right out of the parking lot.

THREE
LEFTOVERS
     
    Vivian sat nervously opposite three very pregnant women in her gynecologist’s waiting room. The doctor was extremely behind in schedule.
    “My husband just looks at me and I get pregnant,” said the one heaviest with child of the three.
    Vivian picked up that week’s copy of
Life Magazine
featuring Judy Garland on the cover as Vicki Lester in the movie
A Star Is Born
.
    The second woman rubbed her swollen belly and laughed. “I think it’s something in the water.”
    Vivian pulled the magazine up in front of her face and flipped through pages pretending to be fascinated by the ads for low riding Studebakers, Blue Bonnet Margarine and Audrey Meadows endorsing O’Brien’s Liquid Velvet wall paint.
    The third spoke up and declared, “Whoever said cheaper by the dozen oughta be shot! I’m getting my tubes tied after this one.”
    Suddenly the room was quiet. Vivian peeked out over the top of the magazine and all three were staring at her. She gently touched her non-existent baby bump.
    “Um, this is my first.”
    The nurse entered, rescuing Vivian. “Doctor Moody will see you now, Mrs. Hayes.”
    •  •  •
     
    As Vivian zipped up her dress in the doctor’s examining room she noticed a poster advertising condensed milk. A young woman was happily bottle-feeding her newborn child as the ad explained:
    Why slow down your busy life breastfeeding when baby can be artificially fed?
     
    Evaporated canned milk with corn syrup and limewater.
    CONDENSED MILK makes mother’s and baby’s life HAPPIER and HEALTHIER!
     
    Vivian found the baby’s face familiar and then remembered the first doll her father had given to her as a young child. Unfortunately, it was a short life, for the doll that is. The moment Vivian’s mother discovered it she had Maid 1 toss it away.
    But knowing of his daughter’s love of dolls and trying to quell his guilt over spending more time at the mills than he was at home, Mr. Lawson secretly supplied his daughter with an over abundance of them. Vivian hid them in an almost inaccessible eve in the attic over the Maid’s quarters. And only when her mother was dining at the club or out for a game of tennis and the Maids weren’t in their rooms, would Vivian run up to the attic and play with the dolls, doting over them for as long as she could.
    She was obsessed with the need to mother and she knew why. Vivian’s intense desire to have children and shower them with love was her attempt to heal her own personal wounds and offer a child what she never had, tenderness and nurturing.
    Nervous at how long it was taking for Doctor Moody to return, Vivian started to pick away at a hangnail. She studied the poster for artificial feeding and decided it wouldn’t be the right route for her. The doctor finally entered the room reading Vivian’s chart and coughing while a cigarette dangled from his lips.
    “The test results came back, Vivian.”
    “Did the rabbit die?” she asked sarcastically.
    His dangerously long ash fell ominously onto the examining table. “I’m afraid not.”
    “But Doctor, I haven’t had my period and I’m like clockwork.”
    He held out his pack of cigarettes offering one to her. She shook her head, but he insisted.