Immaculate (13 page)

But why is this a narrative that human beings keep latching onto, keep grasping at as truth, as proof of some supreme being? Why did the divine need a womb at all, really? Why not just spring out of the ground, or fall from the sky? Materialize out of nothing and nowhere?

I kept hoping that something would jump out at me from a page, a word or an image, some cryptic message that would somehow illuminate everything I was going through. But so far—nothing. I wasn't closer to any sort of explanation than I'd been in August, staring at those damn pee sticks in the woods.

I grabbed my English notebook from the rubble pile and flipped open the front cover. An essay with a big red
C
stared up at me, and I quickly jammed it in the back pages where I could at least temporarily pretend it didn't exist. It was my first C in the history of my education, and in English of all classes, my strongest subject. My favorite subject. Reading and writing had always just come so naturally to me, so effortlessly, like breathing and walking and eating. English was the only college major I had ever seriously considered, the only future I could picture for myself. Teaching, editing, writing—anything that involved words on paper, thoughts pinned down in black and white.

But now I had proof that I couldn't even count on a guaranteed A in English, not if I planned on doing nothing to really earn it. This particular essay had been the first of the school year, written about
The Scarlet Letter
, appropriately enough—an analysis of knowledge, sin, and the human condition. One would think I'd have excelled at the topic, but the C seemed to say otherwise. I had already read the book on my own two years earlier, so I'd figured it was reasonable to rely on online summaries and critiques the second time around. I'd been so proud the week before when I'd managed to cobble together the entire paper in less than three hours. Safe to say, all pride had vanished.

I felt as if I should care more than I did. I should care enough to beg the teacher for a redo. I should care enough to start reading the copy of
Heart of Darkness
, the next book on our list, that was sitting on my nightstand. I should care—but I didn't. I was scared of what my parents would say if they knew, and of what other students would think about my stunning fall from the top. But when it came down to me and what I really felt, the part of me that had held so much stress and ambition and fear about school . . . that place now just felt hollow. Perfect grades had lost their power over me. Grades couldn't define me anymore. It was petrifying, all of a sudden existing without the clear spectrum of success that I'd held myself up to for the last twelve years. Grades made it easy to label yourself: As meant you were a success, you were smart and capable and in control. Cs meant you were mediocre. You needed to study longer, try harder.

I was on my own now, with no clearly set marks to validate my progress. Real life didn't quite work like that, I was learning. Real life seemed much more pass or fail to me.

I sighed and tossed my English notes back in the heap. Tomorrow would be Friday, and then I'd have the whole weekend to catch up. I would make to-do lists for each of my classes and systematically cross off each assignment, one by one, powering through all of Saturday night if I had to. I'd worked too hard for too many years to ruin it all so close to the end. I didn't need all As, but I still needed to pass. I still needed to get into college. As soon as the most urgent schoolwork was done, I'd go back to the applications. Reassess, reevaluate. Come up with a new, more functional plan of attack. A plan that somehow figured in caring for and supporting a tiny, helpless, fatherless baby on my own.

I sat down at my desk in front of the computer, scanning mindlessly through a few e-mails before my fingers typed in
modern-day miracle
on autopilot. I'd searched slightly different combinations and variations of the same words almost every day, hoping each time that I'd find a story I'd somehow missed before, some hint that even one other person in the entire world had experienced something remotely similar—that genuine miracles were happening if people were open and willing enough to believe.

There were the standard stories about miraculous healing, and who was to say what really happened in those cases? Amazing genius doctors and brain-numbingly innovative medications and procedures? Pure and simple good luck? The human body could perform some pretty spectacular, awe-inspiring feats sometimes—that much seemed inarguable. But the spontaneous growth of a baby sans sexual reproduction? That would be a first—or a second, depending on who you asked.

A knock at the door made me jump.

“Mina?” my mom called out from the hallway, her voice low and tentative. Before this had all happened, she would have opened the door without giving me the chance to respond, the knock more on principle, an alert rather than an actual question. But privacy lines had changed. My life inside my room was suddenly much more my own, my one free space to think and cry and breathe.

“You can come in, Mom,” I said, closing the window on my computer screen and turning in my seat to face her. She stepped in and shut the door, glancing at me briefly before looking away, her eyes twitchy and unfocused.

“What's up?” I asked, nervous because she was nervous. Her anxiety was contagious. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

She nodded as she perched herself on the edge of my bed. “I've been wanting to talk about this ever since . . . well, ever since we found out the news. But I also wanted to give you time to think on it by yourself, to come to your own decisions. I didn't want to push you.” She paused, and we both stared down at her hands, her fingers spinning her thick band of bracelets in jangling circles around her wrist. “The thing is, sweetheart, you're going to be showing any day now. To be honest, this morning at breakfast I thought I noticed a bump for the first time. A very small bump, but this is just the beginning. It's only a matter of weeks, maybe even days, before people start to talk. Before they start to ask questions. And I just want to know that you're prepared to give them some sort of answer. Now, I will fully support you on whatever answer you want to give—that's your decision—but I don't want you to be caught off guard when it does happen. And it
will
happen.” She exhaled for what seemed like the first time since she'd walked into the room, her face flushed from the exertion of pushing it all out.

“It's not as if I haven't been thinking about this, Mom. Trust me,” I said, my voice shaking. “I've gone over it so many times in my head, played through every sort of answer I could give. No one will believe that I'm a virgin if my own dad and boyfriend and best friend can't even have that sort of faith in me. But I don't want people to think that I cheated on Nate. I don't want people to think there's a random daddy running around out there, some kind of meaningless one-night stand. How do I win, Mom? How do I make people hate me the least? Because that's the best I can hope for.”

My mom kneeled next to my chair, wrapping her arms around me. She burrowed against my chest, not bothered by my tears streaming down through her hair.

“We'll give it a few more days, Mina. We'll both think about this over the weekend. We'll come up with something. I know we will, Mina. We will.”

I wanted to believe her. She was my mom—she had always been able to solve every problem, to make everything wrong become right again. But this time I wasn't so sure. Because this time, a solution might not exist.

Not without another miracle.

• • •

I couldn't fall asleep after that, not as I kept replaying what my mom had said, brainstorming one impossibly lame explanation after another. At midnight I gave up and kicked off my blankets, quietly making my way down to the kitchen to heat up a glass of milk on the stove. I hadn't resorted to that since I was little, afraid of monsters and ghosts and every little sound that came out of an old house at night, and it was always Mom or Dad heating the milk up then. It had worked, though, every time, whether it was the milk itself or just the idea of it that made it so effective. The warm mug cupped in my hands, the warm milk against my throat—I barely had time to swallow the last sip before I'd be passed out on top of the pillows.

As soon as I stepped into the kitchen, before I even flicked on the light, I realized that I wasn't alone. My dad was sitting in a chair by the window, his silhouette dark and hazy against the backdrop of pale moonlight. I jumped in surprise, my hand smacking against the doorframe behind me as I started to spin back around. My dad started, his chair scraping against the tile floor as he stood.

“Mina?” he asked, his face turning toward me, though I couldn't see his eyes in the darkness.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you,” I said, backing away toward the hallway. “I just wanted some warm milk. I couldn't sleep, and I remembered how well that used to work when I was a kid.”

“No, it's fine. Don't leave,” he said, his voice sounding too tired and worn to hold any of his anger right now. “I was actually down here doing the same thing. The pot's still on the stove. Sit down. I'll heat it up for you.” He pushed his chair forward, motioning me toward it.

“No, it's fine. I can make it,” I said, starting toward the stove.

“Sit down, Mina. I got it.” The gruffness I was used to hearing lately was back, and I was too exhausted to fight it. I sat down as he grabbed the milk carton and flipped on the small light over the stove, leaving the room still mostly in darkness. It was better that way, I thought, easier not to be able to see each other in too much light. I waited for him to say something, anything, but he didn't. I listened instead to the tap of the wooden spoon as he stirred in slow, careful circles so that the milk wouldn't scald at the bottom of the pot. I watched as he stuck the tip of his finger into the milk, cocked his head, and stirred for another minute or so before testing the temperature again and then, deciding it was just right, poured it into the same mug he'd used. He clicked off the burner, walked over to me, and handed me the mug.

“I hope this helps,” he said, his eyes looking out the window just behind me. “Good night, Mina.”

I wanted us to say so much more, but I just nodded as I took the milk, our hands brushing for one precious second.

“Thank you, Dad. Good night.”

I really miss you,
I almost said, but the words caught in my throat as he disappeared down the dark hallway.
Do you miss me, too?

chapter eight

I woke up
the next morning with the sort of grotesquely ballooning eyelids and blotchy cheeks that made it obvious to anyone with eyes that I'd spent most of the previous night wide awake and drowning in tears. That, of course, only added to my fears that everyone was analyzing my every movement, speculating about what devastating secret could possibly be putting me through so much anguish. And so my Friday at school passed, as usual, in a blur of dodging glances in the hallway, head tucked like a defensive linebacker as I sprinted from class to class. I was desperate to avoid Izzy and Nate, and now Arielle Fowler was on that list, too—I could swear she had been staring at me during lunch again. But why? She'd certainly never shown any interest in me before. She'd barely ever acknowledged that I existed at all. What would she be saying now to all her sycophantic cheerleading and drama groupies about me? Just thinking about those cool, calculating blue eyes from across the cafeteria gave me the chills for the rest of the afternoon. The three-o'clock bell that marked the official start to the weekend did little to comfort me, not with a long closing shift at Frankie's to get through first.

I had considered quitting countless times, probably twenty times a day, give or take a few—throwing in the apron and finding a new job that didn't involve working in a crowded, claustrophobic room with everyone I'd ever known in the entire community of Green Hill. People staring at me, waiting for me, shouting out my name across the busy restaurant for more ice in their Coke or an extra side of ranch. Leaving would be the easy choice. But I needed to be saving money now, before I was too far along to be on my feet. The tips weren't a fortune in the grand scheme of things, but they were still much better than nothing, and they were more than I'd make in any new job I could find in Green Hill.

And there was something more that kept me there, another reason to keep pushing through. There was a powerful, almost masochistic need to be connected to Iris. I was scared by the memory of her, terrified, really, but I still clung to it, wrapped my arms and legs around it like a little kid hanging onto her parent's leg. I needed that memory as validation—the clear, definite moment that marked the beginning of my new, alternate existence. It's not that I expected her to walk back through the front door—I had a sickening feeling that that was a one-time-only appearance—but I was desperate for more answers. There were so many questions and explanations that I needed to hear, and being at Frankie's gave me a small seed of hope—as if by going back to the beginning, I could gradually start to unravel the middle and the end.

I drove straight to the restaurant from school and changed into my bright green Frankie's T-shirt and my alarmingly tighter-than-usual jeans in the staff bathroom. I couldn't stop playing over what my mom had said the night before, and no amount of sucking in made me feel safer or more invisible. Tucking in our shirts was mandatory, but I tugged the extra material out from my waistband, carefully bunching and scrunching, making a loose, billowy cloud of cotton to block what may or may not have been a conspicuous bump. As a secondary precaution, I tied my apron on above my hips a good few inches higher than usual so that it flapped down over my stomach. Slightly awkward-looking, sure, but better than the alternative.

Satisfied that I'd done the best I could do with my limited wardrobe options, I stepped out into the kitchen, already warm and sticky from the heat of the brick ovens, and went to help Frankie prep the counter.

The first few hours melted away before I'd had the chance to even think about looking up at the clock. At eight or so, when there was a small lull between the main dinner crowd and the second string of stragglers, mostly kids my age and younger couples, I pushed through the back kitchen door and stepped out for some cool, clean, pizza-free air. The worst of the nausea had passed by then, thank God, though the omnipresent, stinking haze of oozing mozzarella and garlicky tomato sauce still didn't smell nearly as good to me as it had a few months ago. But I could fight through it. I could smile while I sliced up steaming hot pies for customers, swallow the gag reflex that threatened to come out with an especially strong whiff from the ovens.

I closed my eyes as I leaned back against the outside brick wall, breathing in the scent of the late-September evening, the smell of grilling steaks from a nearby backyard barbecue, fresh grass clippings from the soccer fields across the back alley. It would have been so easy to walk just a few more feet to my car, to drive away and lose myself on some winding back country roads with old-school John Mayer blaring from the speakers. But I couldn't let myself give in to that impulse, just like I couldn't quit altogether, not yet. There was more money to make first, before I was too far along, before the jig was up and all eyes really would be on me. And I knew I would need that money, when I had a newborn to support. Besides, I was getting so used to fighting myself—I seemed to be doing it all day every day lately. It was getting harder to separate what I actually felt from what I thought I should feel, or what I actually wanted from what I thought I should want. The line was so faded and fragile, I could blink and miss it, almost like it hadn't existed in the first place. And maybe it hadn't. Maybe I'd never really listened to myself before now.

The door next to me swung open with a bang, colliding with the wall only a few inches away from where I was leaning. My eyes split open and I jumped forward, startled.

“Oh, hey, Mina, didn't mean to scare you there, kiddo,” Carl said in his jolly round voice that so perfectly suited his jolly round body. Sweat was pouring from under his white cook's cap as he heaved a massive carton of what looked like plates and glasses from the top of his shoulder down to the pavement in front of us. “Just getting ready to clean out the back of my van and load up some supplies. Frankie's catering a party in the morning, before the lunch rush.” He paused, huffing as his bright red cheeks mellowed back to their more normal shade of light, rosy pink. “Jesse should be right behind me with another big box. He has a list with him. Would you mind seeing if he needs any help? I know he's been here a few months now, and he's a smart enough kid, don't get me wrong, but his head's not always on the ground if you know what I mean. Too much of a thinker and a dreamer for his own good, that one. He looks like a space cadet most of the time, floating around the kitchen here with stars in his eyes. I don't know where he actually is, but it sure isn't Frankie's,” he said, chuckling as he winked at me conspiratorially. “Must be from his mom's side of the family. Didn't come from my brother or me, that's for sure.”

I grinned at him. Carl generally had that effect. Everyone loved Carl. He was like a younger version of Santa, a big, happy man who made everyone else around him happy, too, just by the sheer proximity of his presence. It was a shame he was hidden away in the back, slaving in the kitchen, but he seemed perfectly content dicing onions and frying cheesesteaks on the griddle, as if there was no better job to be had anywhere in the whole entire world.

“Sure, no problem,” I said, slapping him on the back as I reached behind him and pulled the door open. “Whatever Carl asks, I do. You know that. I'll keep tabs on that nephew of yours.”

I sounded more confident than I felt, but that was the power Carl had over people. As soon as I'd set foot back in the kitchen, my stomach fluttered with doubt.

I was being ridiculous, I reminded myself. I could talk to Jesse. We were both outcasts, so why not at least be friendly to each other? So what if he thought I was a little weird, especially since it seemed as if he was a little weird, too, based on what Carl had said and my own observations. And besides, it wasn't as if I could really have avoided him altogether forever, given the fact that we worked at the same restaurant and went to the same school. I wasn't even sure why it mattered that I tried to anymore.

I walked across the deserted kitchen and poked my head into the storage closet. He was sitting on top of another enormous box, his forehead wrinkled in concentration as he stared down at a grease-stained, crumpled piece of paper. His fingers were knotted up in his dark brown mop of hair, a Medusa-like mass of wild curls that looked outraged by the steamy heat pouring out from the kitchen.

I bit back the small smile that was creeping up my lips. “Hey there.”

He jumped up in surprise, his customary distracted haze slipping off as his eyes focused on me.

“Your uncle . . . asked me to check in. Give you a hand if I can.”

He grinned at me, the same grin I suddenly remembered with a flash from that first night, so shockingly bright and genuine. Infectious smiles seemed to run in the family.

“Old Carl doesn't trust me, does he?” He shrugged, waving the paper in the air. “I'm just going over the list for the last time, but I think everything's crammed into this box now, so I should be all set. But thanks for the offer. Really. I appreciate it.”

He put a slight emphasis on those last words, like he wanted me to know that he really meant it. That he was touched that I'd gone out of my way to help him, probably because it was so entirely out of character based on the Mina he'd witnessed for the past few months. I blushed and looked down at the ground, scraping my foot against the light dusting of flour.

I watched from the corner of my eye as he folded the paper into his apron pocket and bent over, hunching his shoulders as he started to pick up the box.

“Let me help with that at least,” I said, rushing forward to grab the other side. My fingers had just barely grazed the cardboard when Jesse put his hand on my wrist to stop me.

“Wait,” he said, sounding panicked. “You shouldn't be lifting that.”

I looked up, confused. My eyes met his, dark honey brown and rimmed with worry.

“What's wrong?” I asked. “I know I'm not exactly Superwoman, but I think I can help you move this box to the back door.”

“No, it's just that . . .” he started, and stopped, his cheeks flushing a deep red.

“It's just that
what
?” A slow burning ache gnawed at the pit of my stomach.

“It's nothing. I mean, I shouldn't have said that. It's not any of my business . . .” His face was tilted down, his eyes hidden from me behind thick black lashes.

“What were you going to say?” I needed him to answer. Now.

“It's just something I overheard,” he said, still refusing to make eye contact. “Two girls sitting in one of the back booths yesterday, at the very end of the night. They were the only two people in the restaurant at that point. I was wiping down a table near them, but I don't think they even realized I was there. I tend to be kind of invisible, I've noticed . . .” He was still staring down at the floor, where his ragged blue and white Converse sneakers were rocking back and forth to a nonexistent beat.

“What did you hear?” I asked, more hesitant this time.

“I . . .” He broke off as he raised his eyes to face me. There was so much regret and sympathy looking out at me that I gasped and stepped back to move away from him. I felt entirely too vulnerable, as if he was gazing straight through my clear blue eyes while I laid out every last intimate detail of my life for him to see all at once. I couldn't look away, though, either unwilling or unable to break the connection, I wasn't sure.

“I heard you were pregnant, and I just assumed it was true. It seemed as if the girl knew what she was talking about, but that was still really out of line for me to say to you. It's your business, not mine. I just got nervous when I saw you trying to lift such a heavy box, and I didn't think before I spoke, that's all.”

The words fell on me like a collapsing ceiling, as if the whole restaurant were crashing down, beam by beam and brick by brick, burying me in the wreckage. But I had to keep going before I was cut off completely. I had to know everything.

“Is that all she said? If she said more, I really want you to tell me. I can handle it.”

His cheeks turned an even more intense shade of red. “The girl, she said that you were claiming to be . . . Jesus, this is hard to say out loud. I mean . . .
shit
, no, not
Jesus
. No. Bad word to use there.”

He winced, cursing under his breath before he composed himself and started again. “The girl said that you're claiming to be a virgin. That you didn't have sex, and there's no actual dad. That's why you had some big breakup recently, because the boyfriend didn't believe you.” His body slumped as he exhaled, emptied of all the details. I watched as he reached out to touch my arm and then stopped his hand midair, shoving it back into the pocket of his jeans.

“What did they look like? The girls who were talking about me?” I forced myself to ask, even though I already knew the answer. There was really only one possibility.