The Man Who Can't Be Moved

June 11th, 2009

******

“Maybe I shouldn’t go to Detroit after all,” I comment, as I stand in the middle of Peyton’s living room; gently and rhythmically swaying from side to side in an effort to soothe the fussy in baby that lays along my left forearm.

Luc Kristopher Allen Letang is two weeks old and quite possibly the most stunningly beautiful and phenomenally precious creature I’ve ever laid eyes on; he’s been blessed with his mother’s pale, creamy skin and her incredible blue eyes framed by impossibly long lashes, a pair of luscious pink heart shaped lips and his daddy’s thick, silky nearly coal black hair. Considering how gorgeous his parents are, the looks factor could have gone either way with Baby Lepretty; he was either going to be insanely attractive or unbelievably ugly. No in between.

“Maybe I should just stay here with you guys,” I suggest, as I use the tip of my index finger to pop the Pittsburgh Penguins soother back between Luc’s lips. “Maybe Auntie Em will stay behind and spend some time with her new boyfriend.”

“Lee-Lee, it’s game seven of the Stanley Cup Final and you’ve been given doctor’s clearance to travel there,” Peyton reminds me, from where she’s perched on the couch in a mint green Baby Phat track suit -only that bitch could fit into ‘normal’ clothes only two weeks after giving birth- with her shimmering blond hair piled on the top of her head in a messy bun as she busies herself with folding a basket of laundry.

She looks sensational; there’s not a hint of exhaustion lining her face and there’s a healthy, envious glow to her skin. I’d been somewhat hopeful that she’d been a total wreck after having the baby; that the lack of sleep would result in hideous, enormous dark circles under her eyes and that her hair would be nasty from her inability to shower on a regular basis due to her hectic schedule and that she’d be bloated and uncomfortable and be forced to wear all her ‘fat clothes’ for at least a couple more months. No such luck though; she’s almost completely back to being her fabulous self while I look like a beached whale. Sixty pounds, incessant heartburn and extremely swollen ankles and an aching back later and I am more than ready to have these twins out of me. Thankfully I’ve avoided being put on bed rest; my blood pressure has been a safe, consistent level for over a month and while the doctor has ordered that I need to avoid standing for prolonged periods of time and that it’s best to keep my feet up as often as possible and to stay out of stressful situations, I’ve been enjoying my last trimester.

Now if only the next four weeks would fly by so I could get to my scheduled c-section. Patience has never been my strong suit.

“Why wouldn’t you want to go now that you’ve been giving the green light?” she asks. “You can’t tell me that you’re not dying to go. That you’re not excited about. You live and breathe the sport as much as much as anyone. Not to mention I know it kills you to not be able to support the boys.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go,” I reply, smiling down at the now sleeping infant in my possession and running a palm over his silky hair. “I’d hate myself forever if I wasn’t there to be with Max regardless of a win or a loss. It’s just…I don’t know….I guess I’m just a little worried…about being so far from home in case something goes wrong…”

“They do have hospitals in Detroit,” my best friend points out. “Damn good ones. And what happened to that nurse that’s been practically following you around for the last month? What was her name? Helga? I thought Helga was living with you guys?”

“She is,” I grumble, and shake my head in disdain at the mere thought of the private nurse that Max had hired -shortly after the Pens had ousted the Flyers- in order to keep an eye on me during the remaining rounds of the playoffs while he travelled with the team -and spent a lot of nights while he was in town in a hotel because the management didn’t want the players being ‘distracted’ by the stresses and drama of home life- and his parents and brothers followed him around from place to place. And while Helga has thirty years of experience taking care of pregnant women -most of them had carried multiples or had had some sort of high risk situation- and she’s even delivered her fair share of babies -either because labour had hit hard and fast and there’d been no time to get to the hospital or because women had opted for home deliveries- the woman is grating on my nerves. She follows me around the house constantly and lectures me about every bit of food I put into my mouth or even simple chore I attempt; she’s even been making plans on helping me whip myself back into shape once the twins are and talking as if she’s garnered some form of long time employment in our house.

The only thing I’m grateful about is that she’s not some hot, young thing with a tight little body on display in a white nurse’s uniform like the ones people wear to Halloween parties. Or for a little ‘kinky time’ in the bedroom. I’d been slightly worried -okay, so a lot worried- when Max had wandered into our room a few weeks ago with his laptop in his possession, glasses perched on his face and with a shit eating grin plastered from ear to ear , announced he’d ‘bought me someone’. At first I’d thought he’d gone insane and had hired us a sex slave; I’d thought maybe the orders to avoid sexual contact for the remainder of the pregnancy had drove him mad and he’d gone on line and picked out some skank to share our bed -and himself- with. So I’d been phenomenally relieved -and a little embarrassed considering I’d not only lost it on him and threatened to chop his balls off and shove them up his ass, but had erupted into a fit of tears and accused him of cheating on me while pregnant and called that behaviour ‘the lowest of the low’- when he’d informed me that the ‘slut’ in question was a fifty five year old nurse he’d decided to bring in so he wouldn’t be so worried about me and he could concentrate better on the remainder of the playoffs.

“I can’t take much more of that woman P,” I heave an exasperated sigh. “She’s driving me absolutely mental. The only reason she’s removed herself from my hip for a couple of hours is because she has some personal errands to run before we leave for Detroit. But she did drop me off and she did inform me that she’d be back to get me in exactly three hours. She’s unreal. Living with her is like having to conform under a Nazi regime.”

“She’s being paid extremely good money to look after you,” Peyton points out. “You and those babies. Max trusts her with all three of you. I can’t see him hiring anyone that’s less than the best to take care of his family.”

“Max is just as overprotective and irrational as she is. If not worse. I’m surprised he didn’t put his foot down when I told him I was going to be at the game. I thought for sure he’d freak out and go on and on about it being too dangerous for me to fly and how Red Wings fans are evil and he didn’t want me being caught up in the craziness. I seriously thought he’d go all caveman and forbid me to go.”

“Well he knows you’re in good hands, Lee-Lee. He’s got Helga keeping an eye on you, you’ll be with his parents and his brothers in a private box. It’s not like you’ll be mixed in with regular fans. Now that I could see him having a problem with. Things can get insane in the stands. Definitely not the place for a pregnant woman. Especially one that’s married to a member of the opposing team. There’s a lot of insane people out there. Get alcohol into them and they’re capable of anything. I’m sure if Mario hadn’t arranged for a ‘safe haven’, Max would never agreed to letting you go the game.”

“Your uncle Max is extremely anal retentive.” I inform Luc, and then lean down to press a tender kiss to the tip of his nose. “Wait until I tell him that I have a new love in my life. That my heart is no longer his.”

“Uncle Max is not anal retentive or overprotective,” Peyton argues. “He just loves Auntie Em and your cousins to the ends of the earth and it would legitimately kill him if anything happened to them. Plus he knows just how big of a stubborn bitch your auntie can be, so…”

“Mommy!” I gasp. “Watch your mouth! We have virgin ears in this room! Curb your potty mouth! Don’t make me resort to tucking baby Lepretty into my purse and smuggling him back to my place; to a less scandalous environment.”

“Less scandalous environment,” she smirks. “You live in a former funeral home that you’re convinced is haunted, you’re married to a reformed manwhore and whether I really want to or not, I know all of the insanely dirty and kinky details of your sex life with him. I think it’s safe to say that your place is a house of ill repute.”

“Just because you keep quiet when it comes to your sex life with Kristopher does not mean you’re not as kinky and dirty as me and Max. In fact, I bet this whole demure act is just a cover up for that fact that you’re a total freak between the sheets. Not that I blame you. Look who you’re married to. How could you not want to tie him up and jump him as often as humanly possible?”

“You are seriously disturbed. And would you please sit down? You know you’re not supposed to stand for prolonged periods of time.”

“I’m standing because the pressure in the small of my back whenever I sit is unbearable,” I admit. “Last couple of days it’s been intense. I can’t sit for more than fifteen minutes at a time without having to get up and I’m barely getting any sleep because I can’t lie down for too long. I am a legit mess.”

“I’m surprised that Helga hasn’t dragged you to the doctor,” Peyton frowns. “You’re thirty two weeks now, Em. All that pressure and discomfort could be a sign that the babies are dropping. Or it could be back labour. You should really…”

“She forced me to go yesterday. The OB says there’s nothing going on that I need to worry about. It’s just that I’m considered ‘relatively petite’ and the weight that I’ve put on is starting to take its toll. Trust me; I was ready to have these twins a long time ago.”

“You should phone your doctor while you’re here and she if she can’t fit you in,” my best friend suggests. “Your flight doesn’t leave until four and it’s only noon. Why don’t you call her right now and see if she’ll check you out.”

“P, I’m fine,” I insist. “I’ve just put on a lot of weight and it’s messing with my back. That’s all. It’s not a sign that I’m going to go into labour. Or that I already am. It just means that I’m a fat ass; a Pregasaurus.”

“Don’t you think it’s better to be safe than sorry? Considering all the problems you’ve had in the past…”

“Mommy is just as bad as Uncle Max when it comes to being a worry wart,” I complain to Luc, and then press a kiss to his forehead and inhale his soft, intoxicating baby scent before carrying him to his bassinette and laying him on top of the receiving blanket spread open inside of it. “Look at that…” I praise myself, as I effortlessly swaddle in him the blue, yellow and green striped sheet. “…those parenting classes are paying off after all! I know how to wrap you up like a little piggy in a blanket!”

“I’m surprised that Max even agreed to go to those things,” Peyton says, as I wander over to the couch and slowly lower myself onto one of the cushions. “He just does not seem like the parenting and lamaze classes kind of guy. I practically had to bribe Kris to get him to go.”

“What did you bribe him with? Blow jobs? Sex?” I wince in discomfort as I gingerly raise one leg and place my foot on top of the cluttered coffee table and then repeat the process with the other. “Or do you just try to scare him with the whole ‘do it or you won’t get laid for the rest of your life’? You’d think that kind of threat would be old by now. It doesn’t even work in my house anymore. Max doesn’t fall for it like he used to. Probably because he’s realized that it doesn’t matter how lazy he’s been or how much of a shit head he’s been acting like; my hormones are out of control and he’s going to get himself some regardless. He’s like a kid that no longer falls for the ‘Santa won’t come if you’re bad’ threat. Because he knows that Santa comes no matter how much of a brat he’s been.”

“Well imagine how surprised he’ll be one night when you do threaten him with no sex for a couple of weeks and you actually hold up to your threat,” Peyton chides, and then tosses the final sleeper she’d been folded into the basket of clean clothes next to the couch and props her own feet on the coffee table. “When did we become so boring?” she inquires, as she closes her eyes and lays her head on my shoulder. “When did our lives start revolving around laundry and house work? When did I start not caring about not putting on makeup the second I roll out of bed? When did I go from wearing designer clothes to borrowing hand me downs from friends? And when did I go from being worried about my appearance twenty four seven to not even flinching when the baby spits up all over my shoulder and down my back?”

“We became boring and pathetic when we met a couple of flightless birds that shall remain nameless,” I mutter, as I lean my head back against the rear of the couch and close my eyes as well. “They’ve caused all of this. They’ve turned us into hot messes. If they had have just keep their mouths shut so we wouldn’t swoon over their accents and kept their Johnsons in their pants…”

“Something tells me this was all inevitable. That despite the fact we were both with other people at some point in time, I would have eventually found my way to Kris in the same way you did with Max. And despite how much we bitch and moan about them, let’s face it; we’d never be able to live without them.”

“I’d be sane but incredibly bored if Max wasn’t around,” I admit. “Even if he does drive me nuts ninety percent of the time, I’d rather have him around to get under my skin than not have him in my life at all. I’d miss him. Like crazy. I miss him even right now. And I just saw him yesterday before the team left for Detroit. Although it was for only half an hour…”

“Your hormones are seriously messing with your brain,” Peyton teases. “You actually admit to missing a man? Next thing you know you’ll be ‘fessing up to needing a guy. And I’m not talking for purely sexual reasons.”

“Between you and me, I do need him. He keeps me sane, P. When things seem like they’re crazy and out of control and it feels like my brain is going to explode, he’s the one that somehow manages to calm me down. And make everything seem right again. Not to mention he’s ten inches taller than me and able to get things off the higher shelves instead of me having to get a step stool. And and he’s one hell of a sexy mo-fo even when he is wearing his dork glasses and making stupid faces in nearly every photograph we have of us together.”

“Not to mention he’s madly and hopelessly in love with you,” Peyton adds. “And that he totally transformed his entire life just to be with you. Do you realize how lucky you are? Do you realize how many girls would have given anything to be the one to tame Mad Max? You didn’t even have to try very hard. He did it all willingly. Now that’s a good man right there.”

“A great man,” I correct. “A phenomenal one considering everything he’s had to put up with just to be with me. How many would have done that? How many guys would have willingly gone through all of that?”

“Barely any,” she admits. “Which is why I hope to hell you appreciate him with every fibre of your being.”

“I do,” I confirm. “Although I’m sure I don’t tell him or show him that nearly enough. But I have missed him and I am looking forward to seeing him. Even if he does have his whole Paul Bunyon look going on. That beard is just…” I shudder at the mere thought of is. “…I can handle a neatly trimmed beard. I can even handle the fu-man chu. But that? I swear to God I will shave his face myself the second the game is over. I feel kind of bad for him though.”

Peyton arches a quizzical eyebrow.

“If the Pens win tonight, he doesn’t get any Stanley Cup booty,” I pout dramatically. “Doesn’t get any for at least the next three months, actually.”

“At the risk of sounding like a sex ed teacher, there’s other things you can do -for each other- that don’t involve actual sex.”

“Well thank you for sharing that little bit of wisdom Mrs. Letang,” I chide. “I never would have known that had you not pointed it out.”

“Smart ass,” she giggles, and playfully and lightly- digs her elbow into my side. “It’s only actual sex that you can’t have, right? It’s not like you can’t have an orgasm.”

I nod in confirmation. “I told him on the phone this morning that if he scored a goal or even got an assist, I’d let him keep the beard long enough to rub it all over my naked body. And seeing as Max isn’t exactly the biggest point notching threat, I think it’s safe to say he’ll be clean shaven when we indulge ourselves.”

“He could always surprise you. Him being able to rub his beard all over your naked body just may be enough incentive for him to bust his ass twice as hard,” my best friend laughs. “You might have actually created a monster by making that promise.”

“Well between me and you and these four walls, I’ll let him do it even if it’s just a win. But you never heard me say that and you will not repeat it to him that there are times that I find his Unabomber look rather sexy.”

“My lips are sealed,” she promises. “So…what’s your prediction for tomorrow night? I’m keeping my thoughts to myself because I don’t want to jinx the team.”

“I just want them to win. I don’t care by how much or how little. As long as they do. Honestly, I don’t think my hormones can take a loss. I don’t think I’ll be able to compose myself if that happens. So let’s just…” I sigh, and holding up my left hand, place my index finger over my middle one. “..let’s just keep our fingers crossed.”

“And our hopes up,” Peyton adds. “Extremely up.”

I nod in agreement and close my eyes once more.