by Sally Simon

Dr. Herman stares at my basketball belly as he hands me the exam questions and a blue book. “When are you due again?”

“Three weeks,” I tell him, “but it’s my first, so I’ll probably be late.”

After finishing the third question, I look up. Everyone else is gone. Dr. Herman hunches over the desk, pen in hand. I wonder if he’s doodling. He strikes me as a doodler.

For the last question, I explain how the disillusionment of WWI manifested itself. I spend too much time on loss of identity and not enough on the overwhelming uncertainty about the future. My unborn child is kicking like a midfielder in a soccer championship. I wonder if I’ll ever have sex again.

A blue wool sweater protects Dr. Herman from a December draft sneaking through a crack in the window. I gave my husband such a sweater, but it sits in his drawer. Maybe I should mail it to Dr. Herman. He’d look good in it.

If this were a play, we’d be at opposite sides of the stage. The silence would be awkward. The audience would squirm in their seats. Someone would clear their throat. I like the silence, drink it up like applause.

His left leg, which has been bouncing up and down, stops when I approach. I hold the blue book, like a peace offering, in an outstretched hand. I’m sorry if I stared at you longer than socially acceptable. I’m sorry I’ll never see you again.

He looks at his watch and says I’ve taken longer than anyone else by–he pauses–twenty-one minutes. 21. I wonder if he is imagining what my basketball belly would look like doggy style. I am.

“I’m thorough.” My voice is too breathy and my breasts ache. I want to chortle, but I’m not a chortler.

As I walk out the door, he calls my name, stops me. Tells me not to worry if my paper on Eugene O’Neill is late. I take this as flirtation. God, I hope I’m not blushing.

I’m out the door when I hear him add, “You’ll have your hands full.”

I yell back, “I guess I will.” But, thoughts of other things my hands could do invade my thoughts.

The baby presses against my bladder as I beeline to the bathroom.

I sit in the stall. Relieve myself. Imagine him alone in the classroom. He clicks open a briefcase and lays my blue book atop the others. My crotch tingles when I wipe.

I imagine him sitting beside a roaring fire, swirling brandy around a snifter, lifting it to his nose. He breathes in the aroma. He is surrounded by books: Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir. And I think existentialism is what we have in common. Angst is what we share.

I imagine him fingering through my blue book before scrawling a red A on the front. Him, never seeing the note I left after answering #2: In another life, I could have loved you.