Chapter 17 Arthur Wren Stay in Bed All Day
Arthur Wren: Stay in Bed All Day
Wren woke the next day and gently opened her eyes to find Arthur staring at her.
“Hi,” she said groggily.
“Hi,” he said, smiling. He was lying there in his usual spot with a gentle hand on her belly. He looked like he’d been up for a while.
“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s frightening.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just pumped to be awake and lying next to you. I take one page out of your book and it’s like I have a new lease on life. Is this how you feel all the time?”
She slowly propped herself up. Do I look like that’s how I feel?
she thought. His cheeriness was really grating, especially when she felt like such crap.
They’d really been pushing it lately and she was utterly exhausted.
Apparently even just watching Arthur do things, and singing while sitting on a stool, was pushing it now.
Turns out you can only pretend you’re not eight-and-change months pregnant for so long before reality becomes undeniable, like Wile E.
Coyote running off a cliff…You know the second he looks down, he’s going to fall.
And she was currently falling. Her feet hurt, her muscles were sore, her back was screaming.
And Arthur was all sunshine and rainbows.
“No.”
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Terrible.” She’d been waking up a lot during the night, which was strange. She used to sleep like a log. Her legs always seemed to be restless and it was hard to find a position that was comfortable for more than a few minutes at a time, squishy C-shaped pillow be damned. “You?”
“A little weird. Had some pretty bizarre dreams if I’m being honest. The freaky mime on stilts was there, but, like, he was my mom? I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You’re so chatty,” she said. It would be really, really great if she could have a coffee right about now. But truth be told, she was proud of Arthur for facing one of his greatest fears. And since he did so well, that would make it her turn to do the same.
She groaned at the thought of doing anything. Anything at all. But Arthur was grinning at her like an idiot. And that’s when she put it together.
“You’re holding the jar, aren’t you?” she asked.
He smiled even bigger and whipped it out from under the covers, the jar that is, the one with the A, and held it out for her.
“You get to be me today,” he said. “How fun is that?”
“All right,” she said, mentally preparing herself. “Might as well get this over with.” She just knew the challenge was going to be Prepare and File My Own Taxes or Learn How to Tie a Bow Tie.
She reached into the jar, which was getting considerably less full these days, and felt around. There were fewer slips than before, but still several left. Still so much to do. They hadn’t made that much progress after all, and they were nearly out of time.
Without any drama or showmanship, she pulled one out and read it to herself.
Oh no.
She didn’t feel like doing anything, but she also didn’t feel like doing nothing, and that’s what this was.
She’d rather work on their taxes. She’d rather spend the whole day touring cookie-cutter suburban McMansions.
She’d rather spend the day studying wealth-building strategies and comparing the long-term performance of different stock portfolios.
Literally anything would be better than this.
“Come on, let’s see it,” Arthur said, craning his neck. She sighed and flipped it around so he could read.
“Yes!” he shouted. “This is going to be amazing.”
No, this was going to be a nightmare.
Years ago, on lazy mornings in his dorm room, Wren would hear Arthur pacing around the room fully dressed, zipping and unzipping his backpack, aimlessly shuffling the contents inside as he got ready for the day’s classes.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew it was all a performance, meant to make just enough noise to rouse Wren from her slumber.
She would be tucked under the covers like a lump of mashed potatoes and he’d be eager to start the day; that was their natural state.
But she would play along by poking a single squinting eyeball out of the bedding, as if she hadn’t been listening the whole time.
And he’d come over and apologize: “Oh gosh, did I wake you? I’m sorry. ”
She’d grumble and bury her head in the covers.
And he’d say, “Since you’re up, we’ve really got to get to class.
” She’d pretend to ignore him, or that she’d fallen back asleep.
And she’d wait until he got closer to check on her, and when he was close enough she’d reach out and grab for him like a monster, pulling him into the bed, trying to trap him under the covers.
And he would try to escape, but not that hard.
She’d nuzzle and kiss him and say, “I wish we could stay in bed together all day.”
But that was then. When she was younger and had all the time in the world. Now the clock was ticking on her freedom, her life. And sitting around doing nothing with it was the absolute last thing she wanted to do.
But she had brought this on herself. She had wondered aloud why she couldn’t be satisfied just spending time with Arthur and Ferdie, and now that’s exactly what she was going to get, in the most highly concentrated version possible.
Since it was her own karmic fault, she had to give it an honest effort.
Arthur went face-to-face with a vampire ballerina for her.
The least she could do was lie here and try to relax.
“Uh-oh,” Wren said.
“What’s wrong?” Arthur said, barely looking up from his book.
They’d been lying there for an hour already, he absorbed in a book—The Happiest Baby on the Block—and she doomscrolling.
It was like the social media algorithms knew what was happening to her.
Through no fault of her own she was being bombarded with content from the crunchy moms, the child psychologists, the pediatricians.
It was barely 10:00 a.m. and she’d already been accused of ruining her unborn child’s life in numerous ways.
The sudden tingle in her bladder was a welcome excuse to get up and move around.
“I think I have to pee.”
“OK?”
“How does that work?” she asked.
Arthur blinked. “You usually start by sitting on the toilet.”
She slugged him playfully. “How can I pee if we’re supposed to stay in bed all day?”
Arthur laughed and doubled over, burying his face in the covers.
“I’m serious!” she said. If she was going to play, she was going to play by the rules.
“We’re allowed bathroom breaks, obviously,” he said, coming up for air.
“Come on, that’s weak. Where’s your commitment?”
“My commitment stops well short of a pee-soaked mattress. Just go!”
Wren scanned the room as if hoping an answer would appear.
“What if…” she started, a nugget of an idea forming in real time, “we can’t touch the floor?”
“Like Floor Is Lava.”
“Exactly.” She hadn’t had much of a childhood to speak of, but even she had played Floor Is Lava.
She’d played with her brothers, when they all still lived together, and was known for her ability to balance on just about anything, including her now legendary tightrope walk along the length of an extension cord running through the living room.
That one had earned her a spontaneous round of applause.
He threw up his hands. “If you want to go for it, I support you.”
“Good. Give me your pillow.”
“What—” He yelped as Wren yanked his pillow out from under him, causing him to bump his head on the headboard.
“Sorry,” she said. “All for the cause.”
“What are you doing?”
She dropped Arthur’s pillow on the floor, close to the bed. Then she took her own and tossed it a few feet farther. From there, it was a couple more feet to the edge of the bedroom carpet, the threshold where the scuffed hardwood began, and a few more feet from there to the bathroom door.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, taking a deep breath, taking the first step onto Arthur’s pillow.
“You are so extra.”
An extra-long lunge got her to the next pillow, where she stood and steadied herself.
She turned around to grab the first pillow again, to build a stepping-stone bridge as she walked across it, but she had misjudged her first stride.
It was too far. She wouldn’t be able to reach that first pillow again without stepping onto the carpet.
Wren squatted down and reached as far as she could and nearly toppled over in the process.
“Having trouble, dear?” Arthur mocked.
“Throw me your other pillow.”
She held out a hand, waiting for her supplies to arrive, but instead, a pair of balled-up socks whizzed through the air and clonked her in the head. She nearly lost her balance then and there. It was a direct hit.
“What the hell?” Wren looked up. “Ew, and these are dirty! You’re disgusting.”
He whizzed another sock ball at her. Wren just barely ducked, nearly losing her balance again.
“I’d hate for you to fall in the lava,” he said. “Anything I can do to help?”
And that’s when he chucked a pair of boxers at her, which landed on her face.
“Underwear?! Too far, Arthur, too far.” She flung them off. “Seriously, I’m about to soak the carpet if you don’t toss me something I can use!”
“Good! Maybe it’ll kill the roaches.”
“Gross.” She retched.
Arthur floated a T-shirt into the air, tossing it like a Frisbee, and it landed over her like a blanket. “ARTHUR!”
When she could see again, Arthur had positioned himself in front of her, kneeling on the pillow closest to hers. They looked into each other’s eyes, both unsure of the next move, and both burst into laughter.
“Hey,” Wren said, “catch me.” She sat up on her knees and fell toward him, hands outstretched in front of her. He did the same. They met in the middle, holding each other up like a human tepee. They tried to kiss, but their balance failed, and they toppled over onto the carpet laughing.
“We didn’t last five minutes,” Arthur said after the laughter had died down, both lying on their backs watching the ceiling fan spin.