Free Mine Are Spectacular! by Janice Kaplan

When I delivered Dylan, the only goody I got was a take-home bag with Pampers and Pond’s cold cream. Now with so much competition for the baby business, choosing a hospital is like deciding between luxury hotels. Choice of Frette sheets or Anichini. Reflexologists or accupressurists. Not to mention birthing bed or birthing pool—which shouldn’t even be a choice. Some crazy expert or other decided that since the baby has already spent nine months in a womb full of water, why not deliver her into a pool of water? Berni nixed the suggestion. She decided Mommy and Me swim class would be quite enough.
    â€œSo are you eating?” I ask Aidan, remembering that Berni had preordered a lobster and steak dinner for him.
    â€œThere’s a great spread here, but I don’t dare touch it. It doesn’t seem fair. Berni’s on ice chips, I’m on ice chips,” he says supportively.
    â€œWell, if you faint from hunger, at least you’re in a hospital,” I say. “Hang in there. Call with any news.” I decide not to add that I’m on my way to have dinner at some fancy Chinese restaurant in midtown that Bradford has suggested we try.
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    Twenty minutes later, I pick up Dylan in the West Village from a playdate with his best friend, and we head to Sianese Palace. It’s supposed to be the new hot place, but it sounds to me like a hoity-toity name for a nasty nasal infection. The white-gloved doorman opens the restaurant’s heavy gold door, and I wonder what Bradford could possibly have been thinking. Has he forgotten what it’s like to have a seven-year-old? Given that there’s a noisy, kid-friendly Chinese joint in New York on every corner, did Bradford have to pick an elegant room where the loudest sound seems to be the ping of Perrier splashing into crystal goblets?
    Dylan looks around the hushed, child-free room, tugs at the collar on his polo shirt worn especially for the occasion, and looks dubiously at the maître d’.
    â€œDo you have fortune cookies?” Dylan asks hopefully.
    â€œPardon me, sir?” The maître d’, dressed in a tuxedo and bow tie, looks at him uncertainly.
    â€œFortune cookies. The Chinese restaurant we used to go to had a big bowl in front.”
    â€œThis is
not
a Chinese restaurant,” the maître d’ says haughtily. “We’re Chinese-Thai-French fusion.” He lays down the menus grandly and holds out a chair for me.
    What could possibly happen when you fuse all those cuisines? General Tso’s chicken paté? Moo goo gai pan bouillabaisse? Must have taken a host of green cards to open this place.
    We sip on lemonades for a while, waiting for Bradford. But when he still doesn’t appear, I order rice wontons for Dylan, who’s thrilled by the rainbow-colored crackers and works his way happily through the bowl. I order another round. Starved myself by now, I absentmindedly munch on a pink one.
    â€œEew,” I say, tossing it onto the table. “Tastes like Styrofoam. How can you eat those things?”
    â€œI like them,” he says, grabbing another handful. Then he yawns. “I’m full. Can we go?”
    The waiter has stopped refilling our water glasses since he’s now figured we’re making a dinner out of the crunchy Styrofoam wontons. At $4.95 a clip, I think the tab’s running up just fine, but he has other ideas. He can’t expect that everyone will order the hundred fifty dollar per person Taste-of-the-World Tasting Menu, but he had to be hoping we’d spring for at least a couple of egg rolls.
    I’m getting as pissed off as the waiter. Where is Bradford? At least I can keep Dylan amused in the meantime. I pull out two pens and a piece of white paper and put it on the table between us.
    â€œTic-tac-toe or battleship?” I ask.
    â€œBattleship!” Dylan says with a grin, grabbing a pen.
    I draw six rows of six evenly-spaced dots and we take