Rainbowland V – It’s All Coming Back To Me Now

A fantasy that takes place somewhere over the rainbow,
in one of many possible realities involving Katharine McPhee,
her McPhamily, McPhriends and McPhans

Oh my God, I thought, this is it. The dull cramps that kept me up half the night and then subsided are turning into real pain. Is it supposed to work this way? I don’t know. How would I know? I’ve never done this before. And everything I read tells me something different, with the consensus being a really comforting "in the final analysis it’s different for everybody." But it looks like I’m going to have this baby today.

I’m not usually one to talk to myself, but at that point it seemed to comfort me, so I just continued my little monologue. And of all things, I said to myself, I’m out shopping for Adriana’s shower gift. Well, heck, it’s not every day your only sister gets married, and I’ve got John with me, so it’s not like I’m just floating around in a sea full of sharks all alone. He’d think that was a funny thought, he’s such a San Jose Sharks fan, but despite his best efforts, I just can’t seem to muster much appreciation for hockey. Funny some of the things we wind up talking about when he’s driving me around. Funny how he started out being a fan and wound up being…whatever it is that he is…secretary, chauffeur, personal assistant… in some ways, he’s the guy who does a lot of the things Chris would do for me if he had time, but he doesn’t. I have one of those on again, off again, up and down show business schedules, familiar and natural to those in the business but crazy to those who aren’t. And my husband is locked into a 9 to 5 job that requires more time and attention as his boss expects more and more of him.

I have Grammys and a couple of platinum albums, someday Chris will be managing director of SoCal Animal Care Centers, and I don’t know how we manage. Some days everything flows like a river. On the days when it doesn’t, I just sing myself a few bars of Love Will Keep Us Together and keep on going. At least we don’t have two show business egos butting against each other. My success doesn’t threaten his in that sense. It just means less time together and more juggling of precious minutes.

"That’s the Sherman Oaks Hospital, right?" John said, rather nervously.

"Yes. I mean no. Take me home first. We’ve got to pick up my hospital bag, remember? And I need to time contractions, just to make sure," I said, trying to remember everything my doctor had told me.

"You gonna call Chris?" John asked, sounding as nervous as though it was his first baby underway here.

"No, not yet. No sense getting everybody all in an uproar before they have to be. I am going to call Mom, though. She’s not likely to be standing there ready to stick a scalpel into somebody just as she gets the big news."

"Somebody?" John said, thankfully sounding as though he’d lightened up a bit. After all, he was driving.

"You know Chris. Somebody’s falling-apart old mutt is just as important as the Governor of California to him. Pets are like kids to him."

I said the magic word—kids—and John stiffened up all over again. He slowed down, then speeded up the car. "I’m not sure what to do," he said, sounding absolutely agonized. "Should we rush? Don’t want to have an accident or anything."

"Just drive at a normal speed, John, and don’t panic," I said, trying to follow my own advice. I knew I’d feel better once Mom was on the scene. She’d be in her excited-but-cheerful take-charge mode, and although we occasionally clashed when she got like that, right now it sounded pretty good to me. She and Chris had mutually arrived at a theory about how to handle me. "The Talent"--as opposed to Management, Entourage, and other categories--was to be pampered, helped, and generally kept away from as much needless trivia and unpleasant details as possible, whatever it took. But sometimes I got the feeling they thought I didn’t always know what was best for me. So my addition to the theory was that I would accept this rule as long as it worked for me, but if I decided it might actually be fun to be involved in said details, you’d better get out of my way. We usually made it work, even though my life had been about as crazy post-Idol as it had been during the show.

It got so you couldn’t pick up a copy of Us Weekly, In Touch, or Star without finding my face, my hair, my wardrobe, even the status of my relationship, being dissected in the endless search for something newsworthy. Who wore it best? Who’s hot? What is their body language telling us? Right now my body was telling me to go home.

I thought perhaps I should try to distract myself with nonsense, relax so nothing would happen too fast. I didn’t feel like trying to count red cars, so I tried to remember titles of songs on my last CD with the word "me" in the title. The label had stuck me with another one of those horrible album titles—Katharine, Red Hot and Blue—and we’d made a double album of all the old songs Mom and I and a lot of my fans loved, coupled with a companion disk of songs in more contemporary styles that I had learned to make my own.

The second time around, time had been no problem, and I was enough of a known quantity that producers asked to work with me instead of the other way around. That, together with the fact that arrangements for the oldies were readily available and all of us knew the songs inside and out, meant that despite the total number of songs involved, we’d turned it out in record time. I laughed to myself at my little pun. "They Can’t Take That Away From Me, You Do Something To Me, Dream a Little Dream of Me," I recited. I’d even done Cry Me A River. If people wanted to compare me to Jackie O’Hanlon, let them.

Wait a second. No pain. Maybe this had all been a false alarm. That happened, didn’t it? Maybe it’s not what I think.

That set me off singing the song of the same name from my first album. Some people had said It’s Not What You Think was an odd kind of song for me, but I didn’t think so. It was upbeat in the same way as Think, with a lot of clanky-bangy Jerry Lee Lewis-like piano chords, and audiences had loved the dance version of it Raelynn and I had done on tour.

"It’s not what you think, it’s what you do, baby that’s why I fell in love with you," I sang softly to myself. It had a rousing beat, a simple melody, and a hook that got repeated often enough that audiences usually started singing along with us. After every verse relating the stages in a relationship came the chorus of "It’s not what you say, it’s what you do," followed by "that’s why I’ve been steppin’ out on you," and at the very end, "that’s why there ain’t no more me and you." Nothing elegant about the lyrics at all—the beat carried it. It was up to the performer to sell it with sheer energy, and Raelynn and I had certainly sung and danced our tails off to do that. It had seemed to work.

The first time Chris heard it he immediately claimed he’d heard it before. "Good boy," I said. "I stole it from myself."

"Always steal from the best," he’d said, reminding me again of why I’d married him in the first place. "Sing that last line for me one more time."

"You-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo—oh yeh-eh-eh-eh-eh!"

That time he chimed in with "That’s why I’m all shook uh-uh-up, oh yeah! You stole it from Elvis Night!"

As we pulled into the driveway, I was wondering if that song was going to be prophetic. Maybe it wasn’t what I thought. But just as I walked into the bathroom my water broke, and although it couldn’t have been more convenient in some ways, it put an end to my theory that maybe today wasn’t going to be The Day after all. My contractions stayed manageable and within the guidelines until Chris got home.

I knew it was too soon to leave for the hospital but I was unable to simply sit and relax. Something told me I needed to be in motion so I simply walked around the house. Mom relaxed in the living room with a soft drink and after I snapped at Chris for hovering, he joined her there. As I was touring the upstairs room we’d established as my "trophy room" I looked up at the large painting a fan had sent me in one of my best-known guises: The Girl in the Yellow Dress. It had been done from a widely circulated photo of me scowling into the microphone I was clutching, one leg protruding from the slit skirt of my now infamous floor length gown. Beneath it on a small stand was a glass case exhibiting the famous lost button Chris had bought from some enterprising pirate on eBay. It was either authentic or the best fake either of us had ever seen.

"Well, I may never have that body again," I sighed, looking down at my swollen midsection. "But I’m sure you’re going to be worth it."

A particularly incisive contraction hit me, hard enough that I yelled from sheer surprise. Before I could get my head together, Chris was pounding up the stairs and skidding around the corner, looking horrified. "Why are you so nervous?" I asked. "I’m the one who should be falling apart, if anyone should. You’ve done this before."

He looked at me like I’d just said the craziest thing he’d ever heard, and it sort of was. I knew he hadn’t been allowed anywhere near the scene of Ajay’s arrival. "Yeah, but not with you!" he said indignantly. As though that explained anything. But what it did do was bring a torrent of memories flooding back into my mind. Of all the times to think of that. But then, maybe it made sense. I was about to embark on one of the most important journeys of my life, do something really milestone-making, and I suppose you’d have to put the week we spent in San Luis Obispo in that category as well, just in a slightly different way. I’d just turned 18, was on my way to college, and on the verge of a whole new phase in my life. There were a lot of things I wanted to leave behind.

We had driven up in the middle of the week so we could spend the weekend there and Chris wouldn’t have to take so many vacation days, just one more concession to the normal, non-show business life he led. In the back of my head I sometimes wondered how difficult it would be to mesh our schedules someday, years in the future, when I was famous and he was well established in his profession, and had become THE guy the stars brought their pampered pooches to for advice and repair, or perhaps just for boarding at the elaborate doggie-spa type kennel that adjoined SACC. Despite what my head, and everyone else I knew, might tell me, I knew that someday Chris and I would be married, and although I had no idea what might transpire in the meanwhile, I couldn’t shake that dream out of my head.

I didn’t even care that Chris didn’t seem to be on my wavelength. He’d come around eventually. He had to. I wouldn’t let myself think anything else. And all during the drive up the coast, I refused to let myself dwell on the fact that, in reality, one short week MIGHT be all of his total, undivided attention I would ever get.

The only word for the little out-of-the-way bed & breakfast we stayed at was quaint. The big old house had been refurbished from cellar to attic but still managed to look ancient and weathered and atmospheric. The interior was practically brand new but looked comfortable and lived-in. I just knew the food was going to be simple, plentiful, and superb, and it was. The Bakers were old friends of Chris’ family, and in fact his father had helped redesign the place.

There was plenty to do. We were near Edna Valley so naturally we had to attend some wine tasting events,. but since I was technically underage and Chris wasn’t on the friendliest of terms with alcoholic beverages, we sampled pretty gingerly. I knew nothing about the proceedings but was saved from feelings of inadequacy by the fact that Chris didn’t either. "There’s a lot of things I’m totally ignorant about," he said. "I just know what I like." Then he shrugged and smiled at me and I didn’t care what he did or didn’t know about wine. He knew how to make me happy and that was all I cared about.

We visited some of the local tourist attractions, the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, the Hearst Castle, and of course Chris had to see the Marine Mammal Center. The Bakers had something that you might call a stable if you felt generous, consisting of a couple of rather old, friendly, easy to ride horses which they saddled up for us. I love horses but I’m not an expert rider. Thankfully Relampago and Butterscotch were gentle and would not be hurried along no matter what, and it would probably have been impossible to fall off one of them, so I was able to enjoy even that novel experience.

San Luis has a wonderful Farmers’ Market one evening a week, and we wandered down Higuero Street inspecting local products and listening to the music. At one point I even joined in and sang La Paloma with a strolling mariachi band. They didn’t mind and Chris seemed absolutely enchanted by my bold little deed. "Someday I’m going to be doing this for more than just a bunch of people at a local street fair," I said, and he agreed with me. I know, what else was he going to say, but I really think he meant it. Then we wandered on, arms around each other, enjoying the warm evening air, the various sights and scents, and just being close to each other.

That, of course, was the best part of all. There had been boys and boyfriends and friendly boys, incidents in back seats and deserted school hallways and drama club prop rooms, but I think somewhere inside me I’d always known, ever since I was 12 years old or so, that although they would be fine for a lot of purposes such as dates and proms and miscellaneous learning experiences and fitting in with the crowd, they did not have the right credentials to usher me into womanhood, so to speak. I probably always knew who I had in mind for that, and it was none of them.

Somewhere in there, Mom had given me one of those little books full of useless facts, and we’d had a discussion about it that ranged from solemn to utterly hilarious. Mom could be like that, and although she had a stern side, she could also make me laugh at just the right times. "Okay," she said, "now that you’ve got that part of it out of the way, just remember one thing: they left out a lot."

"Then what good was it?" I said, puzzled.

"Well, you have to learn how to program the VCR before you can enjoy watching what you’ve recorded."

"You got it," I said, feeling a bit relieved. "It read like that manual in the glove compartment of the car, only a lot yuckier."

"When you’re just thinking in abstract terms, I guess maybe that could apply," she said. "They give you a good grasp of the how, when and where, but they leave out the most important part--the who. When you’re thinking in terms of a specific person, it’s a lot different."

Even then, my thoughts went immediately to our almost-neighbor Chris, but I didn’t dare say that to Mom. Chris had just disgraced himself in her eyes by getting entangled with a college girl and becoming a reluctant father. Not much got past Mom where her kids were concerned. She knew I’d always had more than a passing interest in him and through our neighbors the Lowengards, who knew his parents, kept track of his circumstances. But as time went by and she began to run into him in the drugstore, carrying what she sometimes referred to as his little clone around in a backpack, buying diapers and baby wipes, doing all kinds of daddy stuff and generally starting to act more like a responsible person, she gradually gave in, and Chris started showing up at our house now and then, just as he had before he’d disgraced himself in her eyes. It was years before I learned all the details but I knew all I needed to know. Chris was allowed in the house again and I was once more able to be friends with him. He didn’t want more than that from me at the time, but still, I could hope.

It took almost seven years, but I finally had what I wanted.

With typical tact, the Bakers went to visit relatives and left us completely alone in the house the first night we spent there. For some reason that made me feel much better, although I still had the worst case of nerves I could ever remember. How could I want something so much and still be terrified?

Chris left me alone to have a leisurely soak in the tub, complete with candles and a nice glass of wine. Just no Chris. At first I thought that felt strange, but then decided it was perfect. I put on a short white gown, giggling a bit at the thought that this would be the last time I’d be able to "deserve" to wear it, in the traditional sense, then I dried my hair, washed my face, and looked at myself in the mirror, wondering if I should memorize this face because I might look different in the morning. Then I laughed at myself for having such a silly thought.

I realized that despite the relative warmth of the room, I was shivering a bit. It’s just nerves, I told myself. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s not like you’re going to war. You’re just going to… Well. How did I think of it? I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’d hit on a good analogy there. I supposed no matter how well trained you were, it was probably a good deal different when the bullets started flying.

Horrible. Why was I having such thoughts? This was love, not war. Or, well, I wasn’t quite sure what it was to Chris. Suddenly I felt like someone had grabbed me and was squeezing my guts until I nearly cried out. The pain was almost physical. The truth was, I was about to embark on this great emotional journey and he was probably just still being very much like the big brother he’d always been, taking care of the kid, just in a different way this time. Oh, I knew he liked me, maybe more than that, but not the way I liked him. I knew I occupied a very special place in his life and his heart, but then so did his parents and his son. I wanted that, but I also wanted more.

When he came back upstairs, he actually knocked on the door. I opened it to find him standing there, unexpectedly shirtless, and eating a pear. I thought he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. "You want one?" he said. "I stuck another one in my pocket just in case—"

I didn’t let him finish. We almost did a Benjamin-and-Mrs.-Robinson because he had to swallow hard before he could actually return my kiss. We both started to get tickled but then everything turned very serious.

I had accompanied him to the clinic before and been astounded at how frightened or disoriented creatures seemed to become calm and yet attentive when he touched them, but now I understood. Something guided his hands, maybe it was an instinct, maybe he just paid close attention to the smallest sign, I wasn’t sure, but most of the time it worked. When it didn’t, he simply asked questions.

There was just one horrible moment when I felt confused, uncomfortable, and trapped. Somehow I’d flung my hands up close to my face and he’d clasped them tightly in his with our fingers intertwined. It was as though my passionate but tender Chris had been replaced by some Neanderthal stranger I hoped never to see again, because just for a few seconds I was quite sure that he had no idea who I was, nor would he understand a word I said if I were to speak or cry out. I totally panicked.

Mercifully, before the feeling could build, I suddenly flashed on a memory, vivid and unexpected, of the first time I’d ever taken a run with my new puppy Lily. We’d loped into the house, where I’d flopped on the couch only to have her jump up next to me and start nuzzling my ears. In her puppylike exuberance, Lily had wound up pinning me to the couch, because being a Labrador, she was a big puppy well on her way to being a big dog. Such a silly thought, and yet it saved me from the panic. The ragged breathing in my ear even felt familiar. But Lily hadn’t been able to maneuver one of my hands onto her head and say "Holy crap. Is it still there?"

"What?"

"I could be wrong but I think my head just exploded."

Now that sounded like my Chris again. I felt like a little kid discovering to its relief it was really just Daddy under the scary Halloween mask. I could have laughed harder if he hadn’t been holding me so tightly. "I think you’re wrong," I finally said.

He moved back slightly and stroked my cheek with the back of one hand. "That was an idiot thing for me to say, but my brain isn’t working very well right now. Oxygen deprivation, I think. See, there, I just did it again. I’m just gonna shut up. Are you okay?"

"I’m fine. How are you?" I replied, then started giggling again.

"What?"

"I sounded like somebody just introduced us at The Ball. I’m sorry. It’s just nerves. And I really don’t know how I am yet."

We disentangled from each other and I realized that I really needed to find the white gown I no longer "deserved" because I suddenly felt naked and exposed and ill at ease. It had gotten tangled in the sheets, but Chris retrieved it and helped me into it again. Then he turned into Dr. McDonald and asked me some very practical questions which I as yet had no answers to so I excused myself and walked into the small adjoining bath, thinking about how delicately he’d handled things so far, all things considered.

I felt emotionally detached, as though there was a whole big collection of emotions hanging somewhere over my head like the thousands of balloons that are held suspended over a convention floor, waiting to be released at the right moment. I wondered when that moment would be for me.

I examined my face in the mirror and even made a few faces at myself to see if I looked like the same person. This is totally crazy, I said to myself, but was unable to stop doing it. Then I removed the gown and examined myself, from top to bottom, absorbed by the insane thought that I should look different somehow, somewhere. What did I expect, handprints? A stamp that said Used Goods? You’re losing it, I told myself. Minimal damage everywhere. You survived. Survived? What a…cold way to put it. And I’m not a cold person. Where are my feelings?

When I came back to bed, Chris was sitting silently with his hands clasped behind his head. I perched on the edge with my back to him and felt him shift around until he could put his arms around me and his cheek next to mine. "Well, did you look different?"

I shook my head. "Chris? You want to know something funny?" I actually waited for his answer.

"Tell me something funny," he said softly into my right ear.

"I don’t know how I feel. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. Nobody tells you that."

I heard him take a deep breath, could almost hear him thinking. "Sweetie, I don’t think there’s any ‘supposed to’ about it. This is your experience. It is whatever it is. Let’s just say I hope it was an experience you’ll want to repeat." When I didn’t answer, he said, "You just gonna leave that one hangin’ out there? It’s a good thing I left my ego at home."

"Oh crap, that was terrible," I said, starting to feel panicky again until I heard him chuckling softly.

"No it wasn’t. I’m teasing you. This isn’t about me, it’s about you."

I wiggled around until I was all the way into his embrace, facing him, my head on his shoulder. That’s when I started to cry and couldn’t stop myself and he didn’t try to talk me out of it. He just held me and let me fall apart for awhile. He probably thought it was just a natural reaction, given the circumstances, but there was a bit more to it than that. The words were right on the tip of my tongue. He had no idea how badly I wanted to tell him I loved him, or how hard I was fighting myself not to say it.

For the rest of the week, I fluctuated between being wildly happy and wanting to cry myself silly. He’d let slip something that would sound like he saw us in some kind of tutor and student relationship, with the obvious implication that soon I’d be able to use all my new-found knowledge and experience to make serious inroads on the BoCo boys, and I’d have to pretend that was okay with me. Because I had no idea what he would do after he’d taken me home, shortly after which I’d have to pack and head East to college. Go back to his usual life, I supposed. Back to whatever women had been in his life before. I didn’t think there was anyone serious or he’d never have agreed to come up here with me, but neither did I think he would be living like a monk. Not Chris.

But I knew the week I’d always think of as something like a honeymoon wasn’t just a fling with a passing fancy. I knew it was more to him than that. It just wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I’d known he was dead serious when he’d kissed me while we were inspecting the kitchen, and we’d had one of those awkward moments where he leaned toward me just as I heard a noise and turned my head. He’d put his hand on my cheek and turned me back toward him. "Old house. Funny sounds. I just kissed the air next to you," he said. "Hold still."

"I’m just nervous," I said.

"Me too."

"You? Why are you nervous? You’ve done this before."

"Not with you!" he’d said, astonished that I wouldn’t realize that on my own.

For the first of many times that week, I congratulated myself on having picked exactly the right guy to be doing all this with.

I sincerely hoped he’d be the right guy to help shepherd me through the birth of my first child as well. We’d discussed it all in great detail, and without the stress of actually being in the middle of the birth process, everything had seemed quite reasonable. I didn’t want any more drugs than necessary, in myself or my child. I had friends with babies. We talked. I knew I might say anything now and wholeheartedly regret it later. But I made Chris promise he’d remind me of my resolve and try to help me stick with it. He was at a considerable disadvantage, since by temperament and training, his instinct was to relieve suffering whenever he saw it, but he promised to try.

Actually he did pretty well. We walked up and down the hallways together, he provided back rubs and foot rubs as requested, and we actually hauled out a deck of cards and played double solitaire. As time went by, it became harder to concentrate on anything except how to convince myself I wasn’t in pain. We made a game out of thinking of pleasant and soothing things. Cold Stone Creamery Berry Trinity. My first sight of Lily as a puppy. I found I really loved listening to Eva Cassidy, and cried when she sang Over The Rainbow.

On the opposite wall, where I could see it simply by looking up, was an enlargement of one of the first pictures taken of me as a newborn. We’d had it on our bedroom wall for months, and since we both wanted a daughter this time, counting Ajay as Number One, we would frequently sit holding hands and just looking into those dark, intense little eyes, trying to imagine someone who looked just like that occupying the room down the hall from us. Sometimes I cheated and pictured her with Chris’ blue eyes, but we agreed on the basics.

Particularly during my first post-Idol year, I had sometimes felt there would never be enough time for this, and I would feel some sadness and frustration when listening to tales of my little god-daughter’s growth and achievements. She was sitting up about the time I returned from the Idol tour, crawling when I was furiously working on my debut album, starting to walk when it hit 500,000 in sales, and able to babble something that almost sounded like my name when it went pl