The Baby Squad Read online

  Yet, ironically, it was this inaccessibility, this special effort it took to get to the Cherry Hill, that made it a successful restaurant and lounge, especially for the well-to-do. The owner-chef, Joachim Walter, was a forty-year-old cordon bleu chef who created wonderful German, French, and Hungarian dishes.

  The main room looked like the set of Rick’s café in Casablanca. Along with the famous ceiling fans, there were higher levels for some tables, little nooks for privacy, and a special room for catered affairs. On weekends, the Cherry Hill featured Connie and Tino Planta. He was on the piano, and she sang sultry songs reminiscent of the 1940s and early 1950s, songs filled with romantic lines and promises of love.

  Actually, Natalie was surprised the Cautherses had taken her suggestion and chosen the Cherry Hill for this dinner meeting. She couldn’t imagine a stuffier couple. At sixty, Bertram Cauthers looked like a man nudging seventy-five, with tufts of yellowed white hair along the crest of his head and larger puffs around his temple and behind his ears. He had birthmarks over his wrinkled bald skull and a complexion that made her think of tissue paper. With a rim of red at the base of his eyelids, his dull brown eyes were always somewhat watery. Tiny veins crisscrossed his bulbous nose. They looked as if they had been scribbled down the sides with a pen. His thick, pale lips were always turned up when he finished his sentences, and there seemed always to be a small bubble of sputum at the corners, something that nauseated and disgusted her.

  His wife, Margaret, was almost the same height at five feet ten, but she was broader shouldered and wider in the hips. She had a small bosom, which made her stomach more prominent. Despite her wealth, she never seemed to get the right hairdresser, because her dyed hair always looked metallic, the strands harsh and thin like metal threads cut and trimmed under her ears. They were swept around too sharply to emulate the latest New York or Paris model. She wore too much makeup, too. Somehow, however, she did still have nice facial features, a small nose, a soft, sexy mouth, and wonderful green eyes.

  They were already at the bar when she and Preston arrived. Margaret had a heavy drinking hand. She loved her martinis. The drinking didn’t make her belligerent; it made her talkative. She had an opinion about everything, even the newest driveway materials, since her brother-in-law had just redone his.

  “Driving up here made me think of it,” she told Natalie. “Those bumps and cracks in the road. I swear, I was afraid I’d lose my appetite the way Bertram drives, even with the sensitizing shocks in the Astro Car he’s always bragging about. I can’t imagine driving up here in a less expensive automobile. Your teeth could be shaken loose.”

  “I know,” Natalie said, laughing, “but I always think it’s worth it after I get here.”

  “Do you? I suppose it is,” Margaret said, but not with any real enthusiasm or agreement.

  Bertram had reserved one of the tables off to the right, where they could have more privacy. Natalie thought it was too far away from Connie and Tino. She was hoping to get involved in the music and ignore the business conversation.

  After they sat and she and Preston were able to order their cocktails, Margaret pounced. It was her usual topic. “When are you two going to break down and order a child? I know you’ve got the highest approval rating possible, and for God’s sake, you work for the firm that has the most influence when it comes to that, Preston.”

  Natalie glanced at Preston, who fit a smile on his lips like a mold of wax.

  “We’re getting close,” he replied.

  “Close? You two have been getting close for as long as I have known you. How long has that been? Bertram?”

  “Preston has been with the firm nearly eight years now,” he dutifully recited.

  “You shouldn’t be afraid you won’t be able to do your love books,” Margaret continued, sipping her martini. Natalie hated that terminology, love books. They were romantic novels, not love books. “You shouldn’t worry, anyway. Babies are nothing like what they were to take care of,” Margaret continued. “And besides, you can afford to have a mother’s helper. I did when we were making much less than you two are now.”

  “Margaret, maybe you ought to let them come to these decisions themselves,” Bertram said softly.

  “Oh, they don’t mind my putting in my two cents, do you, Natalie?” she asked.

  “Well…” Natalie looked at Bertram, and his eyes widened. “It seems more like fifty cents.”

  Both Bertram and Preston roared. Margaret’s mouth dropped, and then she, too, laughed.

  “That’s the nicest way I’ve been told to shut my mouth in decades.”

  Connie and Tino Planta began their second set with “The Very Thought of You.”

  “Oh, I love this song,” Natalie moaned.

  Margaret glanced back at the singers and nodded. “Sweet,” she said.

  The waiter brought Natalie and Preston their cocktails.

  “I’ve been waiting for you two to get your drinks,” Bertram said. “I want to make a toast.”

  “Oh, wait!” Margaret cried with a grimace of panic. “I don’t have anything left in my glass.”

  “Well, just use your water for now until you do,” Bertram ordered sternly.

  “That’s no toast,” she muttered, but picked up the glass. “Well? What is this toast that can’t wait another second, Bertram?”

  “To our newest partner, Preston Ross, and his beautiful wife. Congratulations.”

  Preston beamed, and they tapped glasses.

  “Oh, well, that is special. We’ll have to do it again,” Margaret insisted, “as soon as I get a refill.”

  “Let’s do it all night,” Preston said, and everyone laughed.

  Natalie turned to pick up the last few bars of the song. It amused her that she was more interested in it than she was in her husband getting this great promotion. Maybe that was because they had anticipated and expected it. There was no spontaneity anymore. Everything was planned, contrived, designed.

  Even Margaret Cauthers overdoing the martinis was anticipated.

  There were no more surprises.

  Except the one inside her.

  Except that.

  Two

  Lois cowered on the bed. Her father seemed to swell to twice his size in the doorway of her bedroom. Anger and rage filled his face like fire pumped into a steel-skin balloon, turning his light complexion crimson and threatening to explode in spontaneous combustion.

  “Are you crazy? Don’t you know what this could mean? I’ll be ruined. We’ll have to move. We’ll lose everything we have, everything I’ve spent years and years building for this family, Lois.”

  He stepped farther into the room and closed the door softly behind him. Her normally even-tempered father suddenly looked like a maddened killer. Her heart wasn’t merely pounding. It was raging in her chest, throwing itself against the walls of flesh, a petrified, terrorized organ anticipating its demise.

  Chester Marlowe was only five feet nine and barely one hundred sixty-five pounds. He had a shock of straw-yellow hair that, along with his freckles, made him look ten years younger. His boyish charm was what made him so successful as an insurance salesman. How could anyone distrust so innocent a face, with those two soft blue orbs and that bright, sparkling smile with its snow-white set of perfect teeth? Whatever promises this man made were surely done deals.

  He held out his hands as if he were begging Lois to be sensible.

  “You refuse to tell them? You refuse to give them what they want? You risk being arrested? Who is so much more important than your parents that you would sacrifice our well-being to protect him or her? Who?” he cried.

  “I don’t want to be a rat, Daddy. No one will speak to me anymore.”

  “You don’t want to be a rat? What do you think you’re going to be in twenty-four hours? An angel? A hero? What?” he demanded, now only inches away.

  They had just finished reading Gulliver’s Travels in English literature class, and she was impressed with the section abou
t the land of the giants, “Part Two: The Voyage to Brobdingnag,” where Gulliver was the tiny one and ordinary people were gigantic. Every feature of human beings was exaggerated. Their nostrils looked like deep caverns; the skin pores, their smelly breath, all of it was seen in a different light. Exaggeration made them ugly, terrifying. Her father seemed that way to her at this moment. He looked as if he could breathe fire down at her.

  “Where did you get those pills?”

  “In school,” she said.

  “I know that. Who gave them to you?”

  She hesitated.

  His face seemed to liquefy, turn plastic, his mouth stretching, his eyes bulging.

  “Lois!” he screamed.

  She covered her head, expecting a storm of blows, but nothing happened. He stood over her, a black cloud ready to burst.

  “I…”

  “What?”

  “I’ll get her to confess herself,” she countered.

  He seemed to deflate a little. “When?”

  “First thing in the morning. She’ll go with me to Mr. Sullivan’s office. I promise. That way, I won’t look like a rat.”

  The reasonableness of her suggestion calmed him further. His face softened. His eyes cooled, and his shoulders relaxed. “You must do this, Lois. You must bring this to an end tomorrow, and you must apologize to the authorities for being so un-cooperative, understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Good,” he said, nodding. He started for the door. “There’s nothing wrong with having loyalties, but you have to get your priorities straight. Your first loyalty should be to your family, Lois. I’m still a little disappointed in you,” he added.

  “I don’t like being a rat,” she repeated.

  He shook his head, opened the door, hesitated, and then just walked out, closing it behind him.

  Lois waited a moment and then reached for her telephone.

  “By the way,” Bertram Cauthers said as their soufflés were served, “I understand there was some commotion in your village earlier today.”

  “Oh?” Preston said, holding his spoon over the chocolate crust. He looked at Natalie.

  “I haven’t spoken to anyone today except Judy Norman,” she said, “and Judy didn’t mention anything unusual. After that, I was in Middletown doing some shopping, and by the time I got home, it was time to get ready to go out. I didn’t even check my answering machine,” she added with a light laugh.

  The truth was, she had become immediately involved in her condition.

  “We’ve got one of those annoying, pestering ones,” Margaret complained. “You know that digital thing that announces, ‘You have messages,’ every twenty seconds until you turn them on. Imagine being nagged by a machine,” she muttered.

  “It’s very helpful,” Bertram insisted. “When you have a lot on your mind, you can miss important things.”

  Margaret laughed at him, which annoyed him. “If someone has something important to tell you, Bertram, he or she will do it regardless of your calling them back, I’m sure. Everyone is so worried about their careers and their businesses these days.”

  “Getting back to what I was saying,” Bertram continued, his eyes lingering like two branding irons on his wife’s grin and then shifting to Preston and Natalie, “it appears the baby squad discovered a teenage girl hoarding prenatal vitamins in her school locker. They hunted down her and her mother in the supermarket and immediately escorted them out to have her checked for pregnancy. Full physical exam,” he emphasized.

  “How degrading,” Natalie muttered, but no one heard her.

  “Really? Who was that?” Preston asked.

  “Lois Marlowe, Chester Marlowe’s daughter,” Bertram replied.

  “No kidding. He has most of my insurance. What happened?”

  “She isn’t pregnant, but there is a good deal of suspicion now. Someone in Sandburg might very well be pregnant.”

  “Ugh,” Margaret said. “How could a grown woman, even an Abnormal, want to endure such a condition, and for what, an imperfect child? Where’s the logic? It has to be some imbecile,” she concluded.

  “An imbecile wouldn’t be thinking about prenatal care, Margaret,” Bertram pointed out. “And besides, I don’t think there are many women like that around anymore, even in a small community upstate. What do you think, Preston?”

  He swallowed his spoonful of soufflé and nodded. “There are a few domestic servants I might suspect.”

  “Let’s hope they find her quickly and get her out of your town without any attention being brought to the incident. Here we are holding a government contract to review and bring forward parental applications for licensing, and someone from your own little community is defying the accepted mode of behavior and risking everyone else’s health and welfare.”

  “Maybe whoever it is has permission to have a child,” Natalie suggested. “I’ve heard of variances granted to some Abnormals under the right circumstances. Right?” she asked Preston with some obvious hope in her eyes.

  “The baby squad would know about that,” Cauthers said. “It’s so rare, you could count on your fingers how often that was done in this state over the last two years,” he quickly countered before Preston could respond.

  “And I repeat, for what purpose? To give birth to an imperfect offspring?” Margaret added. “There simply are no right circumstances. Wouldn’t you look twice at such an individual requesting such a variance and wonder if she was all there?”

  Natalie glanced again at Preston, who was nodding. “I agree. If there is such a woman in Sandburg, she has to be an aberration or probably an illegal child to begin with, the parents not properly licensed,” he said. “Or, as you suggest, Margaret, she is the child of some unbalanced woman.”

  “If she is married, you have to wonder if her husband even knows,” Margaret said prophetically.

  “If he does, he should be strung up,” Bertram said fiercely. He looked as if he could personally execute the man. “You’re going to head up our parental licensing division now, Preston. Stay on top of this situation, and let me know if there is anything we can do. It’s your hometown, for crissakes.

  “I’m close friends with Chief McCalester. I know we can depend upon him to be discreet if need be. I wouldn’t want any bad onus on your village. The fact is, if such a thing did occur, you might very well have to consider selling your home and moving out of there.”

  “Selling?” Natalie practically screamed. “But, we just built, and…”

  “Now, now, don’t jump the gun, Natalie,” Bertram said calmly. “I’m not saying it’s all going to turn out that badly. As I said, even if there is some validity to the rumor, we’ll do our best to keep it quiet. But I just want you guys to be in on the beginning, so if you should have to sell, you won’t be as damaged by the events. You know how quickly real estate values fall when something like this happens in a community these days. Who wants to pay the added taxes and lose the development funds, not to mention the diminished business, the empty stores, and the vacant commercial buildings?

  “It just happened in a community in Orange County, Goshen. MicroVenture canceled its plans to build that plant and bring in four hundred employees. You know about that, Preston.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Think of the developers, the businesses, the investment money already committed and now lost and all because of what was, in this case, four women who defied their baby squad.”

  He shook his head.

  “What the hell is this society coming to? People are never satisfied.” He looked up at Preston. “Don’t let it happen in Sandburg.”

  Preston nodded. “I’ll be on it. Let’s hope there is no such woman after all.”

  “Whether there is or not, as far as the general public is concerned, there isn’t. Get the picture?”

  “Absolutely,” Preston replied.

  To Natalie, he was like some lower officer taking orders like a toy solder.

  “Good.” Bertram sm
iled, took a deep breath, and gazed around. “You were right, Natalie, this place is worth the trip.”

  Connie and Tino Planta announced they were taking a break.

  “Oh, poop,” Margaret cried, “just when I finished my soufflé and wanted to hear them.”

  Natalie stared right through her, actually turning her eyes inward to look at the darkness that clouded her own mind and filled her with fear.

  Chester Marlowe wore earphones when he watched sports, especially prize fights. Jennie sat reading Natalie Ross’s newest romantic tome, A Sudden Kiss. She was so entrenched in the story, she could have been wearing earphones as well. Lois easily tiptoed down the stairs and out the rear door of their home undetected. She decided to take her bike and rolled it out of the shed. Then, as soon as she was on the street, she got on and pedaled in computerized high gear all the way to Highland Road before turning off to meet Stocker Robinson at the Lakehouse, for many years a favorite rendezvous for high-school lovers.

  Lois half hoped to catch her current boyfriend, Miles Parker, in the throes of lovemaking with Selma Prince as well. She was very suspicious of her boyfriend these days. He had good excuses for not being able to see her too often, and she caught him talking with and looking at Selma frequently. She expected him to break it off with her any time now, and she certainly didn’t want to be the one dumped. She could kill two birds with one stone here tonight. It was almost that more than her father’s rage that motivated her to meet Stocker at the Lakehouse.

  Spring in the Catskills was rarely as warm as it was this year. There were summers without nights as humid and tepid as it was tonight. By the time Lois reached the clearing where most of the young couples parked their cars, she was drenched, her blouse sticking to her arms and between her breasts, the sweat trickling down to her navel. She had her midriff exposed and wore a pair of knee-length khaki shorts, a pair of pink sneakers, and no socks. Her light brown hair was loose, some strands falling over her eyes.