Pregnant Pause (20 page)

I turn to leave, and Lam drops the canoe and calls after me. "Elly, wait." I hear Gren howl, and I turn to see her pulling her foot out from under the canoe. Fake out on her. She got what she deserves.

"We weren't doing anything, I swear. We were only getting the canoe out because it needs fixing. All the good canoes are already out. Really. Look."

Lam points back at the canoe that Gren is still hopping around. "See that split near the tip?"

I look and I see the split, but really, who cares? "Whatever, Lam. Look, neither one of us is ready for this. I don't know what's going to happen to us, but we can't take care of this baby. We'd make such a mess of it, just like we've done with this so-called marriage. You're fun and all, but I guess fun isn't enough, is it? Not when we're talking about a family. Not when we're talking about forever."

I continue back up the hill, and Lam comes after me. "I love you, El," he says. "When camp is over and it's just me and you again, you'll see. I'll be different."

"So what are you saying, Lam? I mean, really, what are you saying?" I keep climbing, because if I stop I know it will be harder to get going again. I've reached the steepest part of the climb back up to the cabins.

Lam walks beside me. "I'm saying that I'm not ready to lose you, and my parents really want the baby, and I think they should get it because, okay, I'm screwed up, but that's mostly my fault. Yeah, they spoiled me to make up for losing their first kid, but I'm the one who's been the asshole. They got all that spoiling out of their system, so now they're ready, and anyway, they're here, in Maine, where we are, and they love kids, and they work with kids all summer long, and they've got experience."

"And they're old, Lam. They're in their fifties. My sister is only twenty-six and Robby's twenty-nine. They're the perfect age, and she's never had a kid, and anyway, I don't get the connection between you saying you love me and how you don't want to lose me, and saying your parents should get the baby—unless..." I stop, in spite of the hill. "Oh. Oh, I get it. As long as we stay married, you figure your parents still have a chance of getting the baby, and they're putting the screws to you, is that it? They've told you to give me a pot of geraniums and take me out and show me a good time and be good to me so they can get the baby. Your mother's being nice to me and letting me put on this talent show just so I'll agree to giving them the kid? Yeah, yeah, I see how it all fits. You don't care about us. They don't care about us. Wow! Wow, what a scam."

"No! It's not like that. Don't put the mess I've made of things onto them. They had nothing to do with it, I swear."

I'm walking again and so is Lam, and I feel like pushing him down the hill and watching him roll all the way into the lake. I hate him and his parents and this camp and blushing Gren and my whole stupid life. How did I ever get into this fix? I'm going to give birth the day after tomorrow. I'm going to have a C-section, and I've got all these people who want my baby, but I'm not sure anybody really wants me—not even me.

IN THE EARLY hours of the day of my C-section, at about one thirty, I get up for the third time to go pee. I slide into my sandals, ignore the bathrobe rule because my bathrobe doesn't even begin to fit around me anymore, grab my flashlight, and head out to the latrine, which is farther away now that I've returned to my old cabin. On my way back I notice some kind of movement out of the corner of my eye. I look to my left and see someone, and I think it's Lam. I quickly turn the flashlight on him and say, "Got ya, you bastard."

A startled Banner stands frozen with two loaves of bread, one in each hand, and squinting in the light.

I'm just as startled, and for a moment neither one of us says anything. Then Banner lets go of the loaves and they drop and roll in their plastic wrappers down the hill toward me. "Please don't tell on me," Banner whispers. "Please, please, please," she says. She's standing there in her Camp WeightAway shirt and the boxer shorts with kittens all over them that she wears as pajamas, and her little knees are pressed together as if she's desperate to go to the bathroom.

"Banner? What are you doing?" I say. I know, stupid, right? I can see what she's doing, but I just can't believe it. I walk up the hill toward her, and she crumples to the ground and starts whimpering with her hands over her face.

"Hey, Banner. It's okay. Everything is okay. What's going on?" By now I've caught up to where she is, and I struggle, and I mean struggle, to get myself down on the ground so I can put my arm around her and show her she's not in any trouble.

Banner really starts sobbing when I do that, but it's this funny sob because she's trying to be quiet and she's all torn up at the same time. Her whole body shakes with her sobs and she falls against me, and I grab hold of her and hug her even though her elbow is pressing into my thigh because of the awkward way we are both sitting. I'm super uncomfortable. "Come on," I say. "Help me up, and we'll go down to the counselors' break hut and talk."

When we get to the hut, we sit on the couch and Banner starts crying all over again, only louder now that we're inside and alone. I've set the loaves of bread on the coffee table.

I ask her about the bread and where she got it, and she tells me that she got it from the kitchen. She admits to me that she sneaks out every night and takes two loaves and eats them at night and during the day.

"I can't help it," she says. "I'm so hungry all the time. And I know the whole cabin hates me because I'm not losing any weight, and my parents are going to hate me even more than they already do because I'm so fat."

I think of the Hollywood-type parents of hers. I brush the hair out of Banner's face and look into her eyes. She's serious. She believes her parents are going to hate her because she's fat. "Banner, they won't hate you," I say. "You know they love you. They don't really care how much you weigh. I'm sure they just want you to be healthy."

"No, they don't. Why do you think I'm here? My parents put me here. They think I'm ugly—fat and ugly." Banner sits up and wipes her eyes. "My mom works for
Vogue
magazine, and my dad's a publicist. It's all about looks and image. That's what my mom says. She says, 'You can't get anywhere in this world without looks and image. You'll always be at a disadvantage if you're fat. People will hate you if you're fat.'"

"But that's not true. Only dumb, ignorant people would hate you for how much you weigh. Only unimportant people."

"Well, my parents are very important, and they hate me." Banner takes my hand and examines my wedding ring. It's just a silver band, nothing special, but she's looking at it like it's smothered in diamonds. "My father says no one would ever marry me if I'm fat."

"What? That's so stupid. My great-great-grandmother is huge, and she's been married four times! And never from divorce. They all died before her. She's ninety-nine years old, so there."

"I don't want to go home. Camp is almost over. I want to stay here. I can't go home. I can't. It's even worse there than it is here. I want to stay here. I want to live in one of the cabins all by myself. Then we can be neighbors."

"But you know you can't do that, right? Nobody's here in the winter."

"You'll be here," she says, and she strokes my arm. "I could live with you and take care of the baby."

"Look, Banner, I don't think I'm going to stick it out here after the baby's born. Anyway, your parents wouldn't let you stay here. There's no cook here in the winter—there's nobody here. And despite what you believe, your parents would miss you too much."

"Nobody would miss me. Nobody. My parents are divorced," Banner says, letting go of my hand and leaning her head on my shoulder. "They argue over who's going to have to take me for the weekend. I told them I wouldn't go to this camp unless they both took me. Big mistake; they totally ignored me and fought all the way here. Neither one of them wants me. They're too busy. The only time they talk to me is if they have something to say about my weight."

"Well, okay, that sucks. You've got everyone picking on you."

Banner nods, and fresh tears roll down her face.

"Hey, now. So what? Don't just curl up and let everybody kick you around. Fight back, Banner. You know? Screw 'em. You'll show them."

"I will?" She peers up at me with this trusting look in her eyes that breaks my heart.

"Sure you will. Anyone ever gives me a hard time or tells me I can't do something or whatever, I just say, screw 'em, and then I show 'em. I just show 'em good."

"Yeah, show 'em good." Banner nods and stares down at her lap.

I look at the bread on the table, and I ask Banner how she ever managed to sneak past me every night. "I'm a light sleeper, and I'm always getting up to pee."

"Yeah, I know. I wait until you're almost to the latrines, and I sneak out. Then I wait until your next trip and I sneak back in. Only tonight you were in
your
cabin, so I wasn't sure where you were, and then I thought I saw a bear or a moose, and I got scared and had to go a different way, so you caught me on the way back this time."

I laugh at this, and Banner kind of laughs, and then we get to talking about bread and we each have a slice, and then Banner has several more. I watch her eat, and she looks so hungry, but I don't think it's for bread.

After our talk, and after I promise not to tell on her, we decide it's time to go back. I watch her go into her cabin, then I return to mine. I climb into bed, careful not to wake Lam, and for a few minutes I lie there thinking about Banner. I'm glad that I could make her smile and that she knows I'm her friend. It feels good to help somebody like that, really good.

Soon I'm asleep again, and I dream about Banner's parents. They're ten feet tall and beautiful and all powdery and they say
dahling
all the time and they have diamond-studded cell phones. Banner's in the dream, too, dressed like Cinderella covered in soot, only she's wearing my orange maternity dress, and she follows behind her parents with a broom and sweeps up all the clouds of powder that falls from their faces.

In the morning I get up to go pee and I think,
Today's the day. This is the day I meet my baby and see Sarah and maybe my parents. This is the big day.
I feel so—so aware, so different somehow. I hear myself on the way to the latrines saying hi to the kids I pass, and I call out, "Tie your shoe, Janet," and I'm so paying attention to what I'm saying, as though I'm watching myself on television, or like this is an out-of-body experience. I like hearing myself say "Tie your shoe, Janet," because it's what I say every time I see her, and I think,
This is me. This is my life, with these campers, going to the bathroom, saying hi, hugging a camper good morning, telling Janet to tie her shoe. This is my life, and it's wicked cool.

I notice everything I do and say, and everything feels so important, so wonderful and important. I feel so awake. I feel such a part of everything—of the whole world. I'm marveling at this as I make my way back to my cabin, and I think all these campers are beautiful and wonderful, and this day is just going to be perfect. I start to sing "Everything's Coming Up Roses," a song my mom and I used to like to sing together. I see a necklace hanging on our door latch. I'm still singing while I examine it. It's one of the ones some of the campers made in crafts out of clay. All it is is this piece of clay that you press your thumb into to make like an oval shape, and you pull it some at the top and form a little loop for the piece of rawhide to slip through and then you draw some kind of small design on the thumb print, or a symbol or a word, using a pin, and then you leave it to dry. It's the first craft I actually could do. I lift the necklace off the handle and notice the heart on the front. Lots of campers drew hearts. I turn it over and I see the initials
B.S.
I stop singing. It's Banner's necklace. She wants me to have it as a thank-you for last night. I slip it over my head and smile to myself and go back inside to get dressed. Lam is still sleeping, so I try to be quiet. I think about Banner and our conversation, and I feel the necklace hit my chest every time I lean forward and stand back up. Then something comes over me. I'm scared all of a sudden. I hear Banner's voice from last night saying, "Nobody will miss me," and I see the necklace hanging from my neck, and a chill runs up my back. I hurry into my sandals, go back outside, and make my way up to cabin seven.

I step inside, and all the kids are busy with their cleanup duty. They're making their beds and cleaning the sinks in the back of the cabin, tidying up the closets, sweeping the floor, col lecting clothes and books and junk and putting them away. It's all the normal morning stuff, and this reassures me. Everything's okay. Everything's normal. I look around for Banner, but I don't see her. The counselor's in the back with the girls doing sink duty, so I just call out, "Banner?"

There's no answer. "Anybody seen Banner?" I ask. I wait and get no response. "Anybody seen Banner this morning?" I call out again.

"I heard her get up around four to go to the bathroom," her bunkmate says. "I'm not sure she ever came back."

I look at her bed, still unmade. It looks so empty. "Thanks," I say. "I'm worried about her. I'm going to go look for her."

The counselor, Haley, hears me and turns around. "Everything okay?"

"I don't know," I say. "I'm worried about Banner. She was really upset last night, and she's missing. I've got to go look for her. Tell the Lothrops, would you?"

"Yeah, sure. I knew somebody was missing," Haley says.

I hurry to the latrines, but she's not there. I check the kitchen, but she's not there, either. Then I decide to go to the counselors' hut, thinking maybe she went back to get the bread and just fell asleep. When I get there, the bread is still on the table, but she's not asleep on the couch.

Where could she be? Did she run away? Did she give me this necklace as a going-away present?

I step out of the hut and look about. Could she have taken off into the woods? I hear all the campers cleaning and talking in the cabins, and occasionally a counselor calls out some kind of order or reminder for the day. It's all happy noise, and it's comforting, and I try to get into my earlier mood. I look toward the lake. Someone's left a raft out. Probably Lam, or maybe Banner took it out and left it. I head down to the lake, remembering how much Banner likes to swim. Maybe she just went for a swim and now she's in the bathroom down there. Don't they say the simplest explanation for something is the most likely? I make my way down the steep path through the pines, and I notice that the air smells sweet. It's still cool like it is most mornings and evenings, but since I'm pregnant I like the coolness. I don't even need a sweater or a jacket the way I usually would if I weren't pregnant. I think for a second how the next time I climb down to the lake, my stomach will be flatter and I'll have had a baby. Me, a baby. I wrap my arms around my belly.