DUE DATE

They sat across from each other. The artist and the republican.

She talked of the latest Patty Griffin CD. He talked of Hedge Funds and numbers. Words like facilitate and procure dashed out of him in short bursts like the sound of keys on a computer.

He was handsome though. Must have made time for the gym at 5:30 every morning. She was beautiful too. But, not in a gym kind of way. She was beautiful with ease and grace. Hair never had a comb through it but was still luxurious. Not much more than a gloss and a powder to touch up her already smooth and contoured complexion.

"How could their friends even begin to think this would work?" They both thought.

But, they also both thought it was time to broaden their horizons. Opposites attract, so went the old saying.

After a painful 53 minute dinner with wilted spinach, a fish and a meat entree, and small wine glasses cramped with Pinot Blanc, the conversation hugged the line and made a sharp turn toward talk of families and babies.

He was so focused on his career and accumulating his prized possessions. The car, the house, the property, the IRAs, the 401Ks. He needed to secure these things before bringing a child into the world. (This means, "I don't want a child to distract me from the miserable money-making life I am leading right now. I am just too selfish to focus on the life of anyone else.")

She was staring her thirties square in the face and realizing 10 years had gone by without true love or even a glimpse of life with another. She was tired of using the city as an excuse for the lack of love and affection in her world. She frequently had thoughts of Gerber, and burping, and the smell of a baby's skin. In her dreams she would be walking down a crowded street with everyone staring at her as she breast fed this enormous adult sized baby. She was the girl in her circle that oogled at passing strollers and could be found rubbing her un-pregnant tummy as if she were willing it to grow a baby without the proper ingredients.

"Do you enjoy your job?" she asked the Banana Republican.

"I enjoy the paycheck and the perks," He replied with one eyebrow raised as punctuation.

"So, what you mean is you don't really like your job at all, you just suffer gladly for the money?"

He stared at her with a perplexed look on his face. The first sign of some sort of thoughts running through his mind. After a pregnant pause, he said...
"I am not suffering through anything. I am prospering. I am building for my future."

"A future that doesn't involve anyone else but you? Who will ever see the back seat of your SUV? What good is owning a home on the island or a brownstone in the city if it stays empty for years on end? What you are building is a platform hardly large or strong enough for even yourself to stand alone on." She spoke these last few words as a slow fade or losing air. Similar to the last song softening after the DJ calls last call. She realized she had, yet again, said too much-gone too far.

"And a baby is my salvation?" He asked. Leaving another nine months for her to respond. Finally." I have my own ideas of the future don't assign me yours," and with a fast and furious scribble of the pen the tab was signed and the deed was done.

She walked all the 40 blocks home despite the winter winds, with her iPod repeating the soundtrack from Grey's Anatomy. She made a pit stop at Hot and Crusty Bagel Cafe for small cup of Hot Cocoa. She cried herself to sleep in a bed filled with coffee stains and strewn papers, while lifting her shirt up and pulling at the fat above her hip bones.

He hailed a taxi, messaged all his pig-headed male friends from his blackberry then arrived at his high raise only to stay awake for exactly 45 more minutes. The time it took for him to lay out his plans for tomorrow and sort through life's paper work.