Baby Love by Joyce Maynard Read Free Book Online

opening TV Week to Thursday. “ Mork & Mindy. ‘Mork picks a fight with Mindy and she tosses him out of the apartment. Mork: Robin Williams. Mindy: Pam Dawber.’ That sounds good.
    “Now, at eight-thirty we have a choice. We have Benson , comedy. That’s the show with the Negro and the little girl. Also Family Feud , game. I never cared for that one. And Dick Cavett. He is a strange man, Dick Cavett. Short.
    “Nine p.m. ‘Julia Child prepares a dinner that won’t strain the pocketbook.’ We can surely use that. ‘Julia suggests stuffed hen, fresh asparagus and salad.’ Mmm. Sounds good.
    “But we also have Quincy and Barney Miller and Hagen. That’s a new show. Hagen is Chad Everett. He used to be on Medical Center , before you were born. That was a good show.
    “Ten o’clock, Rockford Files. 20/20 , newsmagazine. Dick Cavett again. And I see Johnny has Suzanne Pleshette on tonight. It looks as if we’re going to be busy.”
    Melissa has tipped over on her side, so that one of the crocheted pillows covers part of her face. She is making soft snorting sounds. Mrs. Ramsay has just remembered the little hat she made the other night during High Plains Drifter. There was a violent movie for you. She would never let Baby see a show like that.
    “What are you doing lying down?” she says. “Don’t you like Mork?” She sits the baby back up against the pillows and ties the hat under her chin. Then a bib. She does not intend to get Blueberry Buckle on the duck sweater.
    “I don’t want to upset you,” she tells Baby. “But I do not think your mother is up to any good tonight. She is running around with m-e-n. ” A little trickle of pureed blueberry is dribbling out one side of Melissa’s mouth. She has not had solid food before, and doesn’t know how to swallow it. Mrs. Ramsay sticks another spoonful into her mouth.
    “That is how you got here in the first place,” says Mrs. Ramsay. Mork has just walked into a closet and stood on his head.
    “She spread her legs. She made terrible noises in the night. They thought I was asleep, but I heard them. She enjoyed it. She did it over and over again. She is a slut.”
    Now Bill Cosby is on, eating chocolate pudding. The Negros are everywhere.
    “Don’t worry,” she tells Melissa, who looks as if she has a blue beard. There’s Blueberry Buckle all over the duck sweater now, in spite of the bib. “You are coming to live with me soon.”
    Mark did not finish his harlequin parfait. After three beers (he didn’t want the Cella Lambrusco either) he told Sandy, “I’m going for a drive.” Most likely he has gone to Rocky’s to play pinball. He will probably spend five dollars tonight on those stupid machines and the jukebox. Jill said when she was in there last Saturday he played “Blue Bayou” three times in a row.
    She has finished the bottle of wine and wishes there was more. She turns on the TV, but it’s just Mork making dumb faces. She turns it off. She takes out the scrapbook her mother gave her when Mark Junior was born—“The Golden Days.” She has already filled in the pages concerning the baby’s birth, of course. Weight: six pounds twelve ounces. Height: twenty inches. Eyes: blue. First activities: wets on his father, curls hand around mother’s finger. Major events of Birth Day: Author of Born Free found dead, believed to have been mauled by a lion.
    She tries to think of some new things she can write in the book. Mark Junior has been sucking on his fist a lot lately. She thinks he may be getting a tooth. His father gave him a sip of beer yesterday, out of a spoon. Mark Junior screwed up his face and sneezed. Much funnier than any TV character. Why do people sit around watching TV when they could be watching real babies? Sandy can’t think of anything bigger or more important, except maybe finding a cure for cancer, than having babies. She still cannot get over the fact that she and Mark made a person. Just two teen-agers in the backseat