Authors: Christine Duval
“Well, I’d hate to see you going through your entire savings account, and I don’t want you to avoid coming in, so until you find a way to talk to him, I will waive my fee.”
I shift in my chair. “You will?”
“I won’t charge you as long as you promise me you’ll keep your appointments. I see too many young women who skip prenatal care, and I don’t want that from you.”
“I’ll keep my appointments. I promise.”
“This leads to my last question. The baby’s father.”
I let out a deep breath.
“Do you mind telling me about the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Was he, is he a boyfriend?”
“He was a friend but not my boyfriend. We…got together…right before I was leaving for school. We haven’t spoken since I’ve been here.”
“Are you planning to tell him?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“You know, many of my teenage patients rely on their mothers quite a bit. Maybe you could start by talking with her first.”
I bite my lip. “My mother died in a car accident eight years ago.”
Dr. Adler’s eyes lock on me like magnets. I can tell there is something registering in his head, but I’m not sure what.
After an uncomfortably long silence, he asks, “Was your mother Carolyn Ramsey?”
“Ramsey until she married my dad. Did you know her?”
“We were…friends. We were both from Dresden. Population 307 per the last census. And we both managed to get into Colman, which, considering the high school we went to was a big accomplishment. I was sorry to read of her death in the alumni paper. You look like her.”
Of all the doctors I could choose, I had to pick one that knew my mother?
“I’m sure she’d be real proud of me right now.” I cross my arms.
“Your mother was a practical woman. I’m sure she would have understood. She was always good at seeing the bigger picture.”
“It sounds like you knew her pretty well.”
“I did.” He doesn’t elaborate. “I think what would make her proud is how you deal with this going forward.” He closes my chart, and the meeting is adjourned. “I need to see you back here in one month. Don’t forget to contact Alison.”
I get back to school in time for Swedish Massage – the strangest class I have ever taken in my life. Madame Beurnier is both a French language professor and certified to teach massage. It was her idea to add this course to Colman’s phys. ed. requirement, and she takes her job a bit too seriously.
The first few weeks of the class we were more observers than participants, but now we have to take turns practicing the basic techniques on each other. Liz and I quickly declared each other partners so we wouldn’t be paired up with some sweaty football player who just came from practice, or worse.
Today, I am the masseuse, and Liz is lying head down on a massage table with her face in a contraption that resembles a donut. Although it’s customary to be naked in Swedish massage, Colman wouldn’t go for it, much to Madame’s disappointment. So instead, we opt for light, loose-fitting clothing – per the course catalog – although some of the guys take their shirts off anyway.
The two techniques Madame has us practicing today are effleurage and petrissage. Effleurage are continual gentle gliding strokes on either side of the spine. Petrissage is when you knead and lift tissue like balls of dough. I alternate my hands, running them up and down Liz’s back scooping up what little flesh I can through her T-shirt, and wait for Madame to come to my table and approve.
“Do you feel like doing anything tonight?” Liz mutters through the hole. Then, “Ouch, Laurel. My back is burning.”
I lighten the pressure. “I don’t know. What about you?” I’ve almost forgotten it’s Friday; I’ve been so preoccupied.
She lifts her head. “There’s a happy hour at the Towers. I think Mikayla wants to go.”
“I’m sick of the happy hours.”
“I want to go. I’m studied out this week.” She returns her face to the donut. “I could use a night out.”
The picture of her stumbling drunk flashes through my head. I don’t feel like babysitting.
“Well, have fun if you go tonight,” I say after class. We part ways in the hall.
Sometimes I retreat to my room and am so thankful I have it to myself, I pinch my arm. I don’t know how I would have gone through everything I have in the past few weeks with a roommate. I lie down on my bed and log on to my laptop. My father’s email with an exclamation point is the first thing I see.
I understand that you are busy with school, but I asked you weeks ago to call me regarding Jake and you have yet to. I will be home on Saturday morning after my run. Pencil me in. P.S. I have some exciting news.
Pencil me in. That’s Dadspeak for call or else. Okay, Dad. I’ll pencil you in.
My head throbs almost constantly now with the headaches I’ve been getting. I read they could be a side effect of pregnancy, but I’m not supposed to take anything for them other than Tylenol, which doesn’t do anything, so I don’t bother. I wake up almost every morning feeling sick to my stomach now too, but as long as I eat the crackers I keep next to my bed before I lift my head off the pillow, I’m usually okay.
Snuggling under my comforter, I distract myself by surfing the internet for all the information I can find about pregnancy. The hours pass without my noticing. There is a wealth of stuff out there, and it’s pretty engrossing.
Before I realize, it’s after 8pm and I’ve missed dinner. So yet again, I end up combing the various menus that have been dropped at the dorm from places that deliver to campus and settle on my third meatball sub in a week.
Within no time there is a knock on my door. But when I open it, it’s not the delivery man, it’s Mike with his book bag slung over his shoulder and a smile on his face. He’s adorable.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
I open the door wider, and he slides by and plunks down on my bed.
“What’s up?” he asks.
My eyes shoot over to the laptop right next to him, displaying a blown-up picture of an embryo at week nine. I walk to the bed, pick it up as casually as I can, and shut it. He pulls me down next to him.
Our legs and arms are touching, and it’s a little too close to have a conversation comfortably, but I try, “Were you at the library?”
“All afternoon, then I went to dinner. I haven’t seen you around much.” He shifts so now he’s facing me.
“Are you going to the party at the Towers tonight?”
“I was thinking about it. Are you?”
“I’m not up for a party.”
“Do you want to hang with me instead?” Now he’s up and grabbing a DVD from the small collection I brought from home. “We could watch a movie or even go to the movies. You still have your truck, right?” He hitches himself on the edge of my desk, reading through the summaries on each case.
“I do.” I squint to see which one he’s holding.
Casino Royale
.
“You’ve got a lot of James Bond movies here.” He smirks.
“Yeah. And I’ve seen each and every one at least five times. What’s playing in theaters? I haven’t been paying attention.”
Less than an hour later, we’re standing on line at a multiplex theater in a small town I’ve never heard of. And judging by the number of people waiting to buy tickets to the fourteen different movies they have showing tonight and how packed the parking lot is, it’s clear this is the only game in town.
Mike and I have decided we’re going to wing it when we get up to the counter. We are both such Colman geeks, neither of us has any idea what’s worth seeing. When we’re finally corralled to the front of the line, a girl with both arms covered in tattoos, a nose ring, a lip ring and five piercings zigzagging up her right ear glares at us while we make our decision.
“How about
Witch Hunt
?” Mike suggests. “It’s starting in ten minutes.”
Feeling the pressure to pick fast, I shrug. “Sure.” Even though I hate slasher films with a fiery passion.
I start to take out my wallet, but Mike touches my hand. “I got it.” He passes the girl his debit card.
“Thanks.”
He smiles at me. Standing this close to him, I can’t help but notice how boyishly soft his lips are.
She pushes the tickets under the window.
“You want popcorn?”
“Yes!!” I exclaim, realizing we left before my sub arrived. “I’m starving!”
He grabs my hand and leads us to the snack bar.
Once we’re seated in the crowded theater with about a hundred noisy high school kids and our $14 soda, Skittles and popcorn combo, I kind of feel like a normal – aka not pregnant – girl on a date. Wishful thinking, but still…
“So, Mike, you really have six brothers and sisters?” I ask once I’ve devoured a couple fistfuls of popcorn.
He nods. “Yup. My youngest brother is two.”
I almost choke. “Wow! How old are the other ones.”
Mike rattles off the list. “Sixteen, fourteen, twelve, eight, five, two, plus me at nineteen.”
“You’ve got a full house!”
“And that doesn’t count my parents, my grandmother and her sister who live there too.” He takes a sip of Sprite. “I had three years of peace, and then all hell broke loose.”
I laugh.
He drapes his arm over my chair, and I rest against it. “How many of each?”
“Two sisters, four brothers.”
“It must be fun to have so many people around all the time.”
“I don’t know if fun is the right word. But it’s not terrible either. It kind of feels a lot like this theater does now. Loud. All the time.”
I try to imagine what dinner must be like in his house.
Organized chaos
.
“What about you? It’s just you and your dad?”
“Since my mom died, then my grandparents. I don’t even have any cousins. My parents were both only children, and my dad’s parents were gone before I was born. A different universe.”
The lights in the theater dim, and the previews start.
Mike leans in and whispers in my ear, “I’d like to spend some more time in your universe.” If I wasn’t so turned on by his velvety voice and his warm breath on my cheek, I would call him out on such an awful line. But my brain and mouth seem to have short-circuited.
The movie starts with the sound of a chainsaw buzzing in the distance while a bunch of big-boobed sorority sisters stand around a campfire in the woods doing some kind of initiation rite.
Why is it always a chainsaw?
Four of them are hacked apart in the first five minutes, and I snap my eyes shut. The killing spree continues, from what I can make out from the sounds, now with the massacre moving into the sorority house. There are blood-curdling screams and lots of slamming doors and panting. When the spine-chilling drone of the chainsaw starts up again, people in the audience call out things like, “Oh shit!” and, “Dude!” and I hear girls gasping, probably hiding their heads in their boyfriends shirts from whatever slaughter is occurring on the screen. I’m now covering my ears.
After about half an hour, Mike pulls my hand away and says, “Are you going to watch at all?”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
He laughs. “Well, then why did you want to see this?”
“I didn’t. I hate these kinds of movies.”
He grabs my hand. “Come on.”
We stumble over a dozen overexcited kids in the row to escape the bloodbath. When we’re in the parking lot, he takes the keys. “I can drive.”
Once on the road, I notice he is grinning to himself, laughing really.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. It’s just, you’re funny.”
“Those movies give me nightmares.”
“Okay. No biggie. I think it’s cute.” He reaches over and pulls me toward him, closing the gap between the passenger and driver seats.
When we’re on Rural Road Number Forty-four (that’s actually what someone’s named it), he motors to the shoulder, turns the ignition off, and moves in with those lips of his.
Before I know what’s hit me, our hands and mouths are all over each other, and I’ve somehow been repositioned so now I’m on his lap, knees straddling either side of him. It feels like we’re on fire.
When we come up for air, he reaches up and pulls the clip from my bun, now a disorganized heap anyway, and my hair falls around my face.
“You’re beautiful, Laurel,” he says in that silky voice. “Where’ve you been all my life?”
“You and the lines.
“They aren’t lines.” His eyes are intense, and he draws me into him again. We kiss more passionately now, if that’s even possible, and I feel his hands working the buttons of my sweater. When he’s managed to free me from it, my bra is fast to follow. I pull at his shirt, and he takes it off, then he lifts me off of him, and he is on top of me in the crowded cabin, working his way down my body with his mouth.
When a car races past with high beams on, we freeze, breathing hard.
“I guess we should go back,” I murmur.
He nods and eventually climbs off me.
I know I shouldn’t do this. I know it. But it’s like I’m drunk on him or something. And when we’re back at Miller, instead of saying good-bye in the lobby, I can’t help pulling his hand and leading him up the stairs to my room.
Once inside, we start where we left off, shirts and jeans shed fast. Then we’re on my bed, and he’s kissing me everywhere, reaching his hand down to just the right spot.
Jeez
.
I shift and lean forward, trying to grab for his boxers. Mike moves too, so now his face meets mine, and breathless, he asks, “Do you want to?”
My heart is pounding. But when I look into his eyes, warm with anticipation, reality hits like a cold hard smack in the face. I’m pregnant with another person’s baby! I am horrible.
Horrible.
I push him away. I can’t hold the tears in.
Mike’s face switches from eager to alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
He keeps talking while the tears stream down my face, my lips squeezed together, trying to figure out how I’m going to explain. “What is it? Are we moving too fast? Talk to me.”
I can’t look at him, so I just stare out the window and blurt it out, “I’m pregnant.”
Mike sits up. “You’re what?”