Chapter_17_Sage
I’m unsettled. The letters from my father have created an extra pain in my heart. It’s not like I can magically make everything better with Biz and expect him to comfort me. In the past, we’ve been able to bounce back from our differences immediately. It just sucks that this time feels different. At a time when I need him the most.
I’ll eventually need answers from my mom but there are so many obstacles standing in my way. The situation with me and Biz, our trip, the baby. Right now, I just have to get my mind off this building trauma.
“Find some music?” I ask Biz as I drive. He’s already on it, scrolling through his phone for road trip songs. “No show tunes, please.”
“How about something moody like Rufus Wainwright?” Biz suggests.
He hits play as a noisy semitruck plows next to us. It’s the exact same orange color as Virginia Woolf. From a bird’s-eye view, it probably looks like we’re the newborn puppy detaching ourselves from our mom.
Biz lifts his arm and pulls down on an imaginary horn, signaling to the frowning truck driver to honk. My adrenaline races slightly.
“What is that? Why’re you doing that?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Didn’t you ever do that as a kid? Try and get truck drivers to honk?”
“Of course, but that was in the before times. When people were friendly and not everyone was a potential homophobe with road rage and an AR-15.”
“Oh my god. Is that how you see the world?” Biz asks.
“I’m just saying. You don’t know how someone’s going to react to that gesture. Maybe we’re appropriating truck driver culture and he could be offended.”
“You’re right. I’m sure he wouldn’t want us imitating his people,” Biz says sarcastically.
My thoughts veer back to my mom. When it comes to analyzing and discussing this stuff, I’m not as good as Biz. Somehow, I just don’t have the same tools. I need to occupy my mind with something else.
“Let’s play a game,” I suggest, realizing I don’t know a single car trip game.
“I’m good,” Biz says, taking a selfie with the sleeping Matilda and turning his face upward to soak up some sun.
“How about we come up with a baby name then,” I try.
“Okay, I vote for Oprah Winfrey the second,” Biz jokes.
“C’mon. I’m serious. We have four weeks and six days to decide.”
“You already know my thoughts on this,” Biz pushes back.
“We can’t just wait until the baby comes to choose a name,” I say.
“Why not?” Biz asks, genuinely not understanding why this isn’t a good idea.
“No one wants to be born into this world without a name.”
“Naming our baby isn’t something to pre-plan,” Biz says.
“Oh, god. Here we go.”
“What? It’s a feeling. A vibe,” Biz explains. “We have to see the baby in order to name the baby.”
“We could do city names. Find the new Brooklyn or Rio. How about...” I wait for the first passing sign on the road. “I-90 East?” I joke.
“I know you want to plan everything but you have to give me this one. I’m telling you, the name will come to us when we meet the baby.”
This is so difficult for me to wait but I’m doing it for Biz. He knows I already have two unisex names picked out: Harper, because of my favorite author, and Cassidy, my mom’s maiden name.
We’ve had endless conversations about baby names. At first, it was a friendly disagreement, something funny to quibble over. Like how Biz jokes I’m going to be the disciplinarian dad and he’ll be the easygoing one. But eventually the baby name discussion became a point of contention during the course of our journey. The more I wanted a name set in stone, the more Biz wanted to wing it after the baby was born.
Sage was a baby name that Biz had briefly considered before holding steady on his rule to name the baby later. We met a cute Border Collie named Sage on a walk one September morning in Prospect Park. There’s an off-leash section before nine a.m. where we bring Matilda to freely frolic with her doggie friends. This particular Sunday was the first day of fall and, as it often happens in New York, the temperature strictly adhered to the exact changing of the seasons. It snapped into autumnal weather with temperatures in the low fifties. So the off-leash area wasn’t too crowded that morning, with people avoiding the frosty, crisp air.
The second we’d popped off Matilda’s leash and presented her with a tennis ball to fetch, a medium-sized dog ran up to her. The dogs did their usual dance and sniff while the owners only addressed the dogs as a way of projecting their true feelings at a distance.
This owner was a woman in her forties, with smart features, bouncy dirty blond hair, a loud, booming voice, and she was dressed in expensive designer athleisurewear.
“He’s cold this morning,” the woman said about her dog but really about herself.
“I know, she almost didn’t want to go out,” Biz said about Matilda but really himself.
“Aw, they like each other,” the woman said about our dogs and as a way to signal she likes us. “What’s her name?”
“Matilda,” I said.
“Hi, Matilda. This is Sage, your new friend,” the woman said.
Biz looked up from the dogs. The woman did too and for the first time we all had eye contact. “Oh, cool name. I love that. What kind is he?”
“Border Collie.”
“You have such a great voice. So distinct,” Biz said, somehow sensing she was a fellow performer. It took the woman by surprise that Biz had transitioned the conversation from the dogs to the people. It rarely gets personal in New York City dog parks.
“Thank you.” The woman watched the dogs smell each other’s butts before reluctantly adding, “I do voice-over work.”
“No way. I’m an actor. Was...” Biz said.
“?‘When you live with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ’?”
“That’s you?!” Biz asked, genuinely impressed as she nodded with a laugh.
“You’re perfect. We’ve totally heard you before,” I said.
The dogs chased each other in circles, getting along like gangbusters, as we all talked about acting, dog breeds, dog parks and acting again. When a lull in the conversation finally presented itself, we all looked down to find our dogs had disappeared behind a tree. Sage was wildly humping Matilda. A frightened look on Matilda’s face told us she wanted to run away but was cornered.
“Sage, no!” the voice-over artist demanded before physically removing Sage from Matilda. Embarrassed, she said her goodbyes and left immediately, cradling her horny, panting dog in her arms.
“I don’t think that was Sage’s first offense,” I said, kneeling down to make sure Matilda was okay. Right away, she bounced back to playing fetch.
“Probably not,” Biz said, keeping an eye on Matilda and the surrounding area for any more horndogs. “But I love that name for a baby,” he added.
It was a nice change of pace for me to hear Biz thinking about baby names but I wasn’t sure this was the one. “Are you seriously considering naming our baby after a dog who just violated our dog?” With a name like that, I would only ever think of this aggressive dog. “And do we really want our child named after an aromatic herb?”
“Oh my god, you’re right,” Biz said. I felt bad I shot down his name idea but at least he agreed with me on this one.
Thirty minutes later on the highway, Biz neglects his DJing duties and he’s fast asleep. Luckily, Rufus Wainwright keeps me going for a couple hours until my stomach starts to growl.
I remember spotting a “Taco Bell—Exit 42” sign a few exits ago. I look over at the still sleeping Biz and decide to pull off the highway. If the foodie is not awake, you don’t get to object to fast food. “Dems da rules,” I quietly say out loud to myself.
“Rerouting... Rerouting... Rerouting...” says our GPS lady.
“Where are we going?” Biz stirs awake, sitting up.
“Just getting lunch,” I say. Biz looks at the passing fast-food places: Subway, KFC, McDonald’s, Chevys.
“I don’t approve,” he says.
“Come on. You know Taco Bell is my fast food of choice on the road.”
“Isn’t there anything else?” he asks, still waking up from his nap but coherent enough to demand Michelin-star-quality food.
“I’m not listening to you. We’re doing the Bell,” I say as we pull into a parking space.
“Then at least do the drive-through?”
“I thought we’d have lunch inside. Make it fancy,” I say.
“What about the sandwiches your mom made?”
“Not really in the mood for those,” I say, not wanting a reminder of my mom right now.
Something must be on Biz’s mind because he immediately stops objecting and goes along with my plan. Even though I promised him no fast food on this trip. I throw the car in park and glance at him twice to make sure he’s okay.
He turns to me and in true Biz fashion, he has a smirk on his face that says he’s about to throw a wrench into our plans.