Eleven Weeks (21 page)

“Here.” Before I can protest, Michael’s hands are under my arms and he stands, lifting my body up with him like I’m a ragdoll. His caring eyes bore into mine, light flecks of gold visible in the harsh fluorescent light of the toilet.

“Let’s get you some water.” Michael half carries/half walks me over to the sink and turns the faucet on full ball. The water hurries out like a train, and he splashes his hand under the stream then catches some droplets for me, raising his hand to my lips. “Drink.”

We’re close, so close, my arm on fire from his touch, his eyes burning with this strange glow. The water in his hand has slowly escaped through the cracks in his fingers.

With shaky hands, I pull his wrist closer to my face and slowly, ever so slowly, run his pinky finger horizontally through the gap between my lips, flicking out my tongue to lap at it.

His eyes glaze over, and I feel as if I am on fire, as if there’s a burning in my body that needs answering. I take my other hand and wrap it around his neck, pulling him closer, staring at his lips, and …

I just vomited
.

Oh, ew. Ew, ew,
ew.

What must he think of me?

“Stacey,” Michael says my name, and something inside me breaks. I can’t kiss him. I taste like vomit.

I can’t kiss him. He could soon be a member of one of a Grammy-award winning band. He’s a virgin. I’m pregnant. He’s everything I’m not.

He’s … Michael.

Tears prickle my eyelids, and I kick myself mentally for letting my thoughts go there. Like it matters. It’s just Michael. Michael, who always has been and always will be my
friend
.

I hate how dirty the word sounds.

Except now Michael is wiping his big, calloused thumbs under my eyelids, carefully pressing away the tears I didn’t realise had eventuated.

My hormones are out of control! Stupid pregnancy.

“You okay?” He gives this gentle smile, and God, as if my heart doesn’t break.

“Mmhmm.” I nod and smile.

“Virus?” he asks.

“Mmm.”
Yes, the kind of virus you get when sperm implants itself in your egg.
“I’m just really tired. I think I’m going to go home.”

I take one step forward then another, Michael by my side the whole time, his hands hovering, ready to catch me if I fall.

Ready to catch me if I fall.
I hate to like the sound of that.

We reach my car and I open the door and slide behind the wheel. On the plus side, at least I hadn’t had to fake any more of that booze drinking, meaning I can now drive home suspicion free.

“Are you okay to drive?” Michael asks. The moon plays havoc with his cheekbones. It carves them into lust.

“Fine.” I nod. “Just tired.”

“Ha! You’re acting like my mum did when she was pregnant with my sister,” Michael scoffs. “She’d throw up, cry, be tired …”

Sometimes in life, the world gets so quiet you can hear a pin drop.

Now is one of those times.

I open my mouth to speak, but it takes too long for the thoughts to travel from my brain to my lips. Michael’s eyes balloon up, as if someone is inflating them with the world’s slowest air pump. I drop my car keys, and they flitter to the base of my car.

“You’re freaking
pregnant?”
Time speeds up again for the second time tonight. Now the hurt, anger, and sadness are flashing across his face all at once.

“Yes.” My voice is a mouse.

“What the fuck? To who?” Michael runs his hands through his hair, paces back and forth the length of my car. “
Why?
”

“Well, when a penis and a vagina—”

“Shut the fuck up, Stacey.” Michael pounces. He’s all up in my face and I gasp for breath. His words are harsh, but his eyes … they’re glassy. Too glassy.

I’m not Stacey In Control anymore. Now I’m Destruction Barbie.

Michael’s breath heats my face. “Why did you do this to me?”

A car whooshes by on one of the lower car park levels. A group of guys laugh somewhere on the street. Still, this space stretches out between us.

Seven seconds. One for each shot of tequila.

“Michael, I’m sorry, I—”

“Just, save it, okay?” He steps back. My words are whips. “I have to … I have to go.”

He turns and walks away, his retreating form spotlighted by the streetlights. The soft rolling of small waves onto the lakeshore is the soundtrack to his departure. A gull cries somewhere overhead and it’s lonely, so lonely.

“So that’s it?” I bite my lip. I knew he only liked me for what he thought I represented. What he thought I could be. It would never have worked.

Never.

“You know what hurts the most?” He spins around. A couple walking past look at us, then hurry on their way. “You didn’t even
try
us, Stacey. You just put us in the too-hard basket.”

“You had a girlfriend!”

“Stop, with that. Stop.” He shakes his head. “Six months ago. You could have tried.”

I swallow. “I … I want …”

I don’t know what I want.

“We leave for the States in a fortnight. Maybe …” He throws one hand up in the air, and I don’t know if he’s saying we’ll talk then, saying goodbye or flipping me off. Maybe all three.

I’m hit with another wave in the stomach, but this isn’t butterflies or pregnancy sickness.

It’s heartache.

And I have no idea why it happens down there.

January 4

F
IVE DAYS,
fourteen hours and fifty-two minutes. That’s how long it’s been since I last heard from Michael.

They are the numbers I work out as I stagger from the car back into the building with the perfectly white walls and furniture, designed in a minimalist style so as “not to detract from the pureness of one’s psyche”, as Candy tells me, when I ask her about rules for or against pink fluffy pens. (There’s no reason I can’t try and make work fun, right?)

Despite that frivolity, I’m not particularly thrilled about being here. I’ve lied to my parents, told them I have a job at a call centre—well, okay, it’s not exactly a lie, but I still don’t feel happy about it. Honestly, I’m not particularly happy about anything, especially since Michael found out the truth. It feels like each minute, each second has slowly, slowly ticked away. He hates me. He’s leaving.

Each time I picture his face, it’s like a knife twists further into my heart.

“Okay, now everybody, I want you to imagine your toes. Feel them relaxing, melting into the floor …” Mischa starts, and I shift my weight, trying to concentrate on my toes. I’m staring at the stark white ceiling, my back comfortably supported by the thick, white yoga mat I’m lying on. Because yes, here at Power of Pets¸ we have a daily mediation session to begin work. It helps us open our minds, and sets us up for a productive day ahead.

Or in my case, it gives me an extra twenty minutes to think of Michael’s face as he accused me of not trying. Michael’s words when he found out I was pregnant. Michael’s feet as he walked away. “
Why did you do this to me?”

They’re words I may never forget.

“Stacey? Are your eyes open?” Mischa’s face pops into view, her pink lips a pop of colour.

“Yes,” I mumble.

“This is meditation. How will you ever open your mind and further explore your psychic abilities if you don’t participate properly?” she tuts, tilting her head to the side. “Now close.” She brings her hands down and trails her cool fingertips over my eyelids, effectively shutting them herself. I shiver.

“Let the relaxing of muscles travel up your body, your calves, your thighs … your pelvis …” I snort. Relaxing my vagina seems weird. Luckily, Mischa ignores me. “Your stomach, your shoulders, right down your arms, then up your neck, until finally, you’re relaxing every muscle in your face.”

I try to de-tense my lips, my forehead, my eyes. It’s tricky, especially since as soon as I relax my eye muscles, my stupid lids want to spring back open. I sigh.
Focus
.

“Now focus on white light. On nothing. On empty space.” Mischa drones, and I picture a white, pulsing ball of light in my mind.

Michael, wiping away my tears.

No! White pulsing light.

Michael, his arm around me helping me walk.

White. Pulsing.
Light.

Michael, holding my baby …

This time, I shake my head. Michael wouldn’t do that. I’m pregnant, he’s a good guy, he’s in a rock band, and he basically told me he hates me; why on earth would he consider being in my life? The list of cons just keeps getting longer.

Pain throbs in my heart again, in my stomach, in my head. It’s so hard to shut it all out.

When meditation is over, I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Making calls, I can do.

At least that’s one thing I’m going to get right.

“Hello, is this Mrs …” I look at the name on the sheet in front of me, and decide to take a stab in the dark. “Mck-in-liar?”

Silence.

“Hello, is this Mrs—”

“McIntyre, not McInLye.”

Damn it! Not for the first time this morning I curse whoever wrote these names down on the spread sheet. Firstly, for the fact they chose to collect hand-written data, versus digital. Secondly, for the fact that their Ts clearly look like Ls. And thirdly, because I know I’m about to make my eighth non-sale of the day. And it’s not even one p.m..

Yep. When it comes to selling pet futures, I suck. I suck puppy … fleas, or something.

“My apologies, Mrs McIntyre. I’m calling today on behalf of the Power of Pets, Australia’s number one spiritual pet consultancy company in Australia. You signed up for our newsletter at …” I squint a little, trying to decipher the handwritten word in the box next to her name. “… the Pet & Animal Society Show. And wrote that you don’t mind us contacting you in the future. Speaking of, how is little …” Pause, try very hard to decipher next boxed word. “… Buttons?”

It’s hard to keep the question out of my voice. Luckily, it kinda goes with what I’m saying.

“Buttons …”

Silence.

Did I get the name wrong? Oh, God. Surely I haven’t insulted this woman twice in two minutes! It’s one thing to mistake a surname, another entirely to get the name of a crazy pet lady’s pet wrong. Trust me, until you’ve met a truly crazy cat or dog lady, this sentence wont make sense. But once you have … well, you’re on your own.

“Bottom?” I screw my nose up and give it a try. It’s seriously the only other thing I think the scribbled word could be.

“Pardon?” Mrs McIntyre asks, suddenly sounding far sharper.

“Your … dog?” I’ve gone from certain she’s a crazy canine lady to replacing her as a crazy cat one. God, they should list this stuff on the form, as well as a 1–10 scale of nuts to measure them by.

“He … he died. From cancer.” Mrs McIntyre makes a choking sound—some sort of a relative of a sob—and my heart goes out to her. “Can you put me in touch with a psychic now?”

I blink. I know that Mischa has already left on her lunch break, and I don’t know any of the other girls’ names, let alone if they’d consider giving up their lunch breaks for a random client. Especially since opening the conversation involves a woman who is now actively sobbing, her broken wail a continuous cry for help.