Authors: Kate Rockland
Billy napped on the couch, as he often did these days. His boss at the bar loved him so much he had guaranteed Billy his job back after he beat the cancer, and Alexis was glad they’d both decided last year to pay the extra money and get health insurance, because it helped cover Billy’s chemotherapy and checkups. Still, as things were, they were going to have to figure something out financially; he still had about two thousand a month in medical bills, even
with
insurance. They’d elected for the least expensive plan (which sadly came with the least amount of coverage), thinking that, at twenty-six years old, what could possibly happen?
Not a day went by that Alexis didn’t think about how to pay Billy’s bills.
Alexis sighed. It was her and Billy against the world, as it had been since college. If things got really bad she’d go to her parents, but after quitting law school and refusing her inheritance, she was reluctant to do so. Still … she would if it meant helping Billy. She’d do anything for him.
She heard Vanya rustling around in the kitchen cupboards and began mentally making a grocery list for when she went out later to do errands and hit the gym. Billy was craving cold things lately, which soothed him, so … Popsicles. Ice cream. Milk.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway, and then Vanya appeared. Her dark hair framed her face and Alexis saw … could it be?… light brown streaks tastefully woven with the black. Had she gotten
highlights
?
“Oh! Sorry to bother you while you’re working,” she said.
“No problem,” Alexis said.
She was much less scared of Vanya now. Noah talked to her often, and discovered she worked in some hilarious vampire bar on the Lower East Side where the drinks had names like Vampire’s Kiss, Whiskey of the Damned, Coffin and Coke, and, of course … Bloody Mary.
“She’s just your typical goth chick,” Noah said. “Why were you and Billy so afraid of her? She’s nice.”
Billy had asked Alexis not to mention the cancer, so she hadn’t, but she was pretty sure Vanya knew; it’s hard to hide a secret that large in such a small apartment. Alexis had found some strange powder in the bathroom one day, and thought it might be coke. (Billy had been known to snort a line or two when they first moved in together, but the idea that he might be doing so now made her angry.)
“Were you doing coke in the bathroom?” she asked him one day, while he watched an episode of
Mad Men
.
“I wish!” he said without looking up.
She summoned up the nerve to ask Vanya about the substance, and was subsequently told it was something called “unicorn horn powder,” which, apparently, was for healing. She was making it into a tea for Billy. So yes, Vanya knew. She was touched Vanya was trying to help him, in her own weird way.
Alexis chatted with her more and more lately, finding it easier to discover subjects in common with her when Noah was there. Billy called it the “Noah effect.” People came into contact with Noah, and became instantly friendlier and more outgoing. She smiled, remembering Billy coining that phrase as the three of them sat in the cafeteria of the hospital after a particularly brutal chemo session. Billy hadn’t eaten anything, claiming he just wanted to keep them company while they ate, which of course made Alexis so upset she had quietly gone to the bathroom and thrown up the pea soup she’d been so recently hungry for. Her stomach was in knots. Billy claimed the only thing he had an appetite for lately was Noah’s cooking, and Noah continued to cook at their apartment, using their shitty 1970s yellow stove, claiming Billy was helping him get the ingredients for his chili or wings or Cajun chicken sandwich just right while he waited for the construction to be finished. Alexis suspected he was just cooking for Billy to try and heal him, like Vanya.
“Do you by chance have a tampon or pad? Just got my period,” Vanya said now, in a shy, quiet voice.
Suddenly Alexis looked up from her papers and stared out the window, feeling startled. A nervous humming sounded in her ears. Something clicked, the thing that had been living in the back of her mind, vibrating in her nervous system these past few weeks.
When was the last time she’d bought tampons?
Or had a period, for that matter? It had been way over twenty-eight days ago. All the crying, the time she threw up the soup, the upset stomach, moving to a size
four,
her boobs being sore when Noah touched them, that could only mean one thing …
“Oh, my god!”
Alexis screamed.
Vanya jumped back into the hallway, which Alexis would have found ironic two months ago, when she’d been the one terrified of this slight, sweet girl.
“Oh, my god!”
She rushed past Vanya and grabbed her purse. Pushing past her, Alexis suddenly turned. “Wait. Did you get highlights?”
“Er … yeah.” Vanya blushed and touched her hair. “Noah and Billy thought it might make me look less … freaky.”
“Oh. Well, they look good.”
She passed a sleepy Billy on the couch, grabbed her purse, and ran down the stairs to the bodega on the corner. She raced past the packaged nuts, the Lotto tickets, and cartons of cigarettes and cat food, until she found a dusty pink pregnancy test and plunked a twenty-dollar bill down on the counter. “Keep the change!” she screamed, the bells on the door clanging as it slammed shut behind her.
She streaked past Off the River Ale House just as Noah was shaking hands with the contractor on the sidewalk.
“Alexis?” he called out.
“No time!” she yelled, running like a marathoner across the street, dodging an MTA bus and two cabs, and finally getting out her keys before dropping them twice, her hands were shaking so hard.
Racing upstairs, she flung open the bathroom door, bit the plastic packaging open with her teeth, yanked down her pants, and peed on the stick.
“What’s going on in there?” Billy asked, knocking on the door. “Is this some kind of new workout?” His voice sounded weak.
“No … just go away, Billy!” she said, a sob catching in her throat.
She knew he was still standing on the other side of the door, she could hear his breathing, but she didn’t care.
Carefully, slowly, she placed it on the sink and stared, her new H&M pants around her ankles. When the first red line swam into vision she finally exhaled, until a smaller, fainter line met the first in a very unholy cross. She put her hand over her mouth to try and contain the alien and strange sound emitting from her throat. Then she bent over the sink and vomited. She had nothing in her stomach other than the eggs and bacon Noah had cooked for everyone this morning, and it came up, sweet and hot, burning her throat. Her eyes felt as though they’d pop out of her head when the feeling rushed over her and she vomited once more, making sad-sounding whimpers as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Alexis ran her slim hand over her flat stomach, feeling the familiar rush of pride over the thinness she’d worked so hard to achieve all her life. She may have slipped a little with eating high-calorie food as of late, but she’d still managed most of her workouts. Oh, it was all Noah’s fault! This! The weight gain! Everything! She flipped the lid down and stood on the toilet in front of the large bathroom mirror and turned sideways, imagining herself pregnant, cheeks round, a stomach that stuck out like a shelf, bloated feet in slippers instead of her usual heels. The girl that was reflected back at her looked terrified.
I must be in shock,
she realized dazedly.
Noah picked that moment to come bursting into the apartment.
“Where is she?” he asked Billy.
“In here,” he said. She could hear whispering, Billy and Noah discussing her.
She’d left the door unlocked and Noah threw it open.
“Babe!” His brown eyes were lit up. “Guess who I just met?” He’d let his hair grow long, and he ran his hand through it now, letting the soft curls stick up around his head like a crown. Alexis loved twirling bunches of it around her finger as they lay in bed.
The sun shone through two buildings across the street and made a vertical line of golden light across Alexis’s face. He was struck as he always was by how beautiful she was to him. He was too excited to notice her stricken look, and, being Noah, didn’t seem deterred that she was bottomless, her underwear and pants strewn about on the floor.
“Wh … who?” Alexis asked. Might as well delay telling him and ruining the rest of both their lives.
“Tony Andrews! He came by right after you went jogging past us. He reviews restaurants for
New York
magazine. He heard about my idea, you know, a laid-back kind of microbrewery normally found in Colorado but plunked down right in the middle of Manhattan? And he wants to write up Off the River Ale House as soon as it opens!”
“That’s so great, Noah. I’m happy for you,” she said flatly. She climbed down off the toilet and curled the test stick into her palm, dropping her arm behind her back.
He glanced at her face and frowned. When Noah frowned, he somehow had the ability to look even cuter. He’d taken off his shirt to help the contractor measure and install booths and his brown torso was sleek with sweat. “What’s wrong? Billy said you were upset.”
Not knowing what to say, she thrust the pregnancy test at his chest, as if she were jousting with a small plastic sword.
“Oh.” He squinted at the small plus sign. “Never saw one of these in person before. Only in the movies.”
“That’s all you can
say
?” she shouted.
She heard Billy rustling on the couch, and tried to lower her voice. “What the fuck am I going to do?”
She hastily bent down to put on her pants, struggling with the button so hard it popped off, falling to the floor and bouncing twice before landing on the shower rug. Noah reached over to help her but she pushed him away. She sat back down on the toilet, head in hands, and sobbed quietly, hopelessly.
He was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Hey. Look at me, at least.” He put his hand under her chin and raised her blotchy face gently up to his.
“It’s not what you’re going to do. It’s what
we’re
doing. We’re in this together, you know.”
“But how did this even happen?” Alexis cried, looking up at him. “We used condoms, every time.”
“Well…” Noah said, chewing his lower lip, which in any other situation would have made Alexis want to kiss him. Instead, she stood and leaned over the toilet and vomited for a third time. She felt Noah’s large, cool hands holding back her hair, and she had a sudden sense of déjà vu from the hospital, when he’d held her hand while she was stitched up. The stitches had since dissolved, but they’d left a slight white line.
She shook off Noah’s hands and leaned over the sink to splash cold water on her face, shutting her eyes as she did so. She roughly wiped her face on the monogrammed hand towel Billy bought her for her nineteenth birthday to be ironic.
“Because we’re like a married couple!”
he’d said gleefully.
“There was that one time, after we went to the movies in Union Square? I remember we were arguing about whether the butter they put on top of popcorn is real or not. Remember, we didn’t have any condoms that night so we just … didn’t use one?”
“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Alexis wailed. “How could I be so irresponsible? This doesn’t happen to people like us. It happens to stupid people.”
“Alexis,” he said softly. “This happens to all kinds of people. I must not have pulled out in time—”
“
Stop.
Just stop,” she said, putting her hands over her ears. She sighed deeply. “So what now?”
“Now we go grocery shopping.” Her list had fallen onto the shower mat and he bent down to retrieve it.
“Let’s go buy…” He glanced down. “Popsicles.”
“Are you on drugs?
Fuck
the Popsicles!” Alexis cried.
Noah crossed his arms and leaned against the wood doorframe. The muscles in his forearms bulged. “Alexis, it’s not such a bad thing, you know. Some people might think this is actually … a happy day, really.” He picked up steam as he spoke. His optimism, though usually a welcome shift in thinking for Alexis, served now only to annoy her.
“There are so many people who can’t have kids,” Noah continued. “And we’re not spring chickens. I’ll be thirty this fall. It’s not like we’re teenagers. I can support you and the baby. I’ve been saving money since college. I was going to put it toward the restaurant, but I can easily cut back there.” He made up his mind as he spoke. The news had been shocking, of course, but Noah was nothing if not malleable, able to change direction, easygoing. And Alexis hated him for that. It wasn’t practical.
“Are you fucking delusional?” she screamed. She was seriously reconsidering ever falling for Noah. “This is no time to be Mr. Optimist, okay? This is a disaster. This is worse than Hurricane Katrina. This is September Eleventh.”
“This is not September Eleventh. Or Hurricane Katrina.” He took a deep breath. She’d shaken off his hands from her shoulders, and they hung now at his sides like weights. “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s your body … but…”
“You’re damn right it’s my body. And I have the right to choose. And I choose getting rid of this … this
growth
as soon as possible. It’s June. Bathing suit season. It’s already making me fat.”
Noah punched the wall, tearing a large-sized hole in the plasterboard. Alexis jumped. “You’re not fat!” he shouted. Anger was so out of character for him that Alexis took a step back. “You are a size four! Do you know how many women would die to be a size four? My sister! My mother! Most of the women in America! And yes, you have the right to choose. And I will support that choice. But you’re not making a choice here. You’re basing your decision on what you’ll look like in a stupid
swimsuit
. I’m so sick of this skinny shit. It’s crazy!” He picked up her phone, which had fallen out of the pocket of her pants. “And this stupid button you press every time you eat something. It has to stop!” Before Alexis could stop him, he lifted the window behind him with a loud squeak, pushed up the screen, wound back his arm, and chucked her phone as far as he could.