Pregnant Pause (4 page)

"Don't you be sad," I tell it. "I don't even know why I'm crying, except I just feel so alone, except for you. Mom and Dad are gone, and I'm pregnant, and I'm married, and Lam's at a party, and I'm at a camp in the middle of nowhere, and I mean
nowhere.
This has to be the last place in the whole state of Maine where cell phones and computers don't work, you know? You know, baby cakes? Anyway"—I rub my belly some more and I feel it move—"what if I want to keep you? You're kind of growing on me—ha, ha. Well, if I did keep you, I wouldn't ever leave you to go off to Africa, or to some dumb party, that's for sure. And you wouldn't leave me, and I would never feel alone like this again." I sigh and feel the baby move, trying to get more comfortable inside me. "Maybe Lam really wants you, too. Maybe that's why he let me and our parents push him into getting married. Maybe—I don't know."

I cry some more, but after a while I hear kids outside yelling and counselors ordering everybody around, and then I hear the heavy clang of the dinner bell, and I figure I might as well go eat, although since I'll be eating at least twice as much as everybody else at the camp, I can't eat in the dining hall with the kids. I have to eat in the kitchen.

The dining hall is at one end of Moosehead Lodge, the camp's main cabin. Instead of being boxlike and made of un-painted logs or slats of wood like the campers' cabins, it looks more like a sturdy barn, with the two-story roof and dark red paint and these wide entry doors that slide open.

When I step inside the dining hall, I'm hit with the smell of something really sweet and something really sour at the same time. It makes the baby kick. One of the counselors hired to do kitchen duty—or, sorry, KP; that's what they call it—tells me to sit at the picnic table in the back of the room where the kitchen help eats. I waddle my way to the back, noticing the trays of dessert lined up on the stainless-steel counters—some kind of oatmeal/berry crunch brownie stuff. Only you can't call it a brownie, because it's not brown, but they're the size of brownies, and they smell really good. My stomach growls.

I struggle to fit myself between the bench and the table. Once I'm seated, I stare at the ketchup and mustard in front of me and listen to all the voices. There's the noise of all the kids on the other side of the wall, and the
tap-tap-tap
of someone patting a microphone. In the kitchen it's dishes clattering, and stainless-steel cabinets opening and closing, and orders being given, and laughter, and laughter, and laughter on both sides. I'm not a part of any of this. I'm just sitting like a rotting pumpkin one week after Halloween. Why, I wonder, did my mother ever buy me such a stupid dress? I hate being pregnant, I hate being married, and I hate this backwoods, fat-ass camp.

The campers on the other side of the wall are called to order, and after a welcome and the reading of some dining rules, Lam's dad says in a very serious and solemn voice, "Let us now say the camp prayer." Then the kids all shout at the top of their lungs, "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yea God," and I guess it's all the new kids who laugh but maybe the old kids do, too. Some of the KP duty counselors smile to themselves and look at one another, but they keep on scrubbing gigantic pots or dumping mashed potatoes into serving bowls.

Kids come up to a wide window with a tray in their hands, and the KP counselors pass the bowls and platters of food out to them. It gets really noisy on the other side of the wall, but on our side it gets quieter.

I watch a guy load some dishes onto a tray and then head toward me. He stops in front of the table. "
Here, my lady, is your dinner. If there be anything else you are wanting, sing out. Sing out! Oh, sing out!
" He sings this to me. I swear on a stack of Bibles. He sings like a lady opera singer. Then he pauses, and it's like he's waiting for me to applaud him.

"Okay, first of all," I say, "don't
ever
sing to me again. Second of all, just put the tray down and go away."

The guy, tall like Lam but thinner, with a goatee, pierced ear with small hoop, dark brown hair in a ponytail, and gray eyes, sets the tray on the table and sits down across from me.

"I'm Ziggy," he says. "I'm the kitchen help and music counselor, and I already know that you're Eleanor Crowe, Lam's wife. Oh, or are you Eleanor Lothrop now that you're married?"

"No, it's still Crowe," I say. My last name is just about the only thing I like about myself, but I don't tell this Ziggy-person this. "Why should I take Lam's last name?" I say instead. "If there's going to be a name change, he can take mine. Crowe is better than Lothrop any old day."

"So then what name will you give the baby?" he asks, and picks up the bowl of mashed potatoes.

I shrug. "We're not sure yet," I say, as if this was something Lam and I had been discussing.

He hands me the bowl of potatoes and says, "Here, have some cauliflower."

"Uh—" I stare into the bowl.

He pulls it back, grabs an empty plate off the tray, and scoops some cauliflower onto it.

"Are you kidding me?"

He laughs. "You thought it was mashed potatoes, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Not at this camp." He gestures toward each item on the tray. "We've got mashed cauliflower with skim milk, parmesan cheese, and pepper; corn on the cob—no butter—and ham slabs with Diet Coke and raisin sauce."

I scoop up a blob of cauliflower and sniff. "What kind of hell is this? My baby's going to starve to death here. Diet Coke and raisin sauce?"

"It's not too bad." He takes a bite. "So, you don't like my singing?"

"I don't like you singing to
me.
That's so queer. Don't
ever
sing to me.

He holds one arm out toward me. "
Why ever not?
" he sings.

I get to my feet. "Rub-a-dub-dub and opera-singing counselors and fake mashed potatoes—I'm outta here!"

"Hey, where you going? Come on, sit down. I won't sing. I promise. Now, come on, sit. You need to eat." He reaches across the table and grabs my hand. I think he looks like he's proposing to me, and other kitchen workers are looking at us, so I sit down fast and take my hand out of his.

"So, where's Lam, anyway?" Ziggy glances around the kitchen like he might spot him rising from the sink or popping out of the toaster.

A girl carrying a small, single-size tray of food bustles up to the table and, after slamming her tray down, climbs over the bench and sits with a grunt. She's, well, I guess you could call her plump—not all that fat, but jiggly and pretty if you like that candy-coated look in a person.

"Ahh," she says. "It feels so good to sit down. I always forget how tiring the first week is. I get so out of shape during the winter." She looks at me. "You must be Lam's—uh—wife? I'm Jen." She tosses her over-highlighted, shoulder-length hair back with a jerk of her head, and smiles at me. She has the whitest, fakest-looking teeth I've ever seen. They're creepy looking.

"Yeah, hi," I say.

She stares at me a little too long, so I'm starting to feel squirmy. Finally she speaks. "So you're going to have a baby, huh? Like any minute, by the looks of things." She smiles after this comment, but it's one of those fake smiles that come out looking more snotty than friendly.

She keeps going. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Where's Lam? Isn't this your wedding day? Did you wear that ... dress ... to your wedding? I like orange. It's so—bright and festive. Reminds me of a certain holiday—hmm, which one?" She turns to Ziggy. "Don't you like her dress?"

Ziggy shrugs. He's well dug into the ham and Diet Coke crap. "She looks like a pumpkin. No offense." He blinks innocently at me.

"Ziggy..." I say to change the subject and go on the attack, since clearly that's what they plan to do to me. "So were you named after the bald comic-strip guy or what?"

"It's Siegfried, and I'm named after my grandfather, one of the greatest men to ever live. I'm proud to have his name."

"Then why don't you go by Siegfried instead of Ziggy, if you're so proud?"

"I take it you've never heard of Siegfried 'Ziggy' Grumbauer, the tenor."

"No, why would I? Is that you?"

Jen snickers.

"It was my grandfather. He sang with the Metropolitan Opera back in his day."

"So why the hell would I have ever heard of him? Opera? Who likes opera?" I take a bite of the cauliflower, still expecting mashed potatoes. I spit it back out onto my plate. "What the...?"

Jen laughs out loud, and when I say out loud, I really mean
loud.
She's got a laugh like a foghorn—I mean!

"It's cauliflower. You ate it expecting it to taste like mashed potatoes—like fake mashed potatoes," Ziggy says.

I'm still spitting. "Well, aren't they?" I ask between spits.

"No. It's still just cauliflower. Just accept them as a veggie, not as a substitute for anything else."

I shove my plate away. "No, thanks. I'm not that hungry, and the only veggies I like are real potatoes and green beans, and I don't like pig on a plate, just cow."

Jen laughs again. Gee, I'm so glad I can keep her in stitches.

"So how old are you? You look young—I mean younger than Lam," Jen says.

"I'm—uh—twenty. How old are you?"

"Right, uh-huh, sure you are." Jen nods and shakes her hair back out of her face again. She does this so often I think it's a nervous tic. "Well, I'm only sixteen.
Sweet
sixteen."

Sweet, my ass. The girl has horns coming out of her head.

Jen presses her lips together and shakes her head, not to get her hair out of her way this time but in preparation for zinging me one more time. "I'd hate it if I were knocked up. I mean you totally lose all your freedom. You can't go to parties or just hang out with friends. Lam must
hate
it. Everybody knows how he loves to play the field. And then there's college, and I want to be a pediatrician, which takes years and years. If I had a baby, my dreams would just go down the toilet."

She says all this with her head bent over her plate, digging into her food and stuffing her face with it. There's sauce on her chin and she dabs at it daintily with her napkin so the pounds of makeup she's wearing don't smear. Finally, she looks up and she has this gleam in her eyes, but she's doing this sweet, innocent-like smile act. "Did you
mean
to get pregnant," she asks, "or haven't you ever heard of birth control?" She shakes her hair out of the way again, and before I can answer, she adds, half under her breath and as if she's just meaning for Ziggy to hear and not me, "If she's gonna sleep around, you'd think she'd learn a little bit about birth control."

I check out Ziggy's expression, and his face says, "I'm staying out of this catfight."

"For your information," I say, "I only slept with one person, Lam, and I got pregnant the first time, and we did use birth control, not that it's any of your business, so just in case you think you're safe, you aren't. The first time I had sex. The first time, and with birth control, so—"

Jen pokes Ziggy with her elbow and giggles. "It helps if you actually know how to
use
the birth control, I guess. A condom goes
on
the—"

"Shut up," Ziggy says, not laughing, which makes me like him just the very, very slightest, teeniest, tiniest bit. "You're just being mean."

Jen opens her mouth wide with a look of innocent surprise. "Hah. Mean? I'm just trying to understand. What kind of example is she going to be setting for all these kids? She looks like she's twelve years old. I'm surprised it's even legal for her to work at the camp. And anyway, she's about to give birth any second. She shouldn't be here."

Ziggy brushes her comments away with his hand. "You're just jealous and being mean 'cause she's good-lookin' and she married Lam. Everyone knows you've had a thing for him for years." He looks at me. "Pay no attention to her."

Jen gives Ziggy a shove, and he just chuckles.

"Hah! You take that back. I am not jealous of that cow." She jerks her head back for the millionth time, and I can see her face is flushed. "And I could care less about Lam. He's already screwed just about every girl counselor here."

"Everyone except you," Ziggy says.

"Um, hello," I say. "I'm right here." I wave my hand in front of them. "Sitting right here across from you." I hate hearing what they've just said. Lam's been with me for two years. He's always denied that he's cheated on me.

"Believe me; we know," Jen says. "You're kinda hard to miss.

"Well, then, stop talking like I'm not," I say. "If you've got something to say to me, say it, and don't play games with me and pretend that you only meant Ziggy to hear, or that you're being nice when you're really not. What did I ever do to you, anyway? I hate girls like you. You give all decent girls a bad name. You're candy on the outside and tar on the inside. Be real, be straight, or stay outta my way. You got that, honey pie?"

I shove my tray at the two of them and stand up to leave. My exit would be great if I could just climb over the bench and sashay off, but I have to clamber over it, holding on to the table, taking it slowly, and then I have to waddle away. The effect I wanted is a total miss, but I had my say, and that at least feels good.

I LEAVE BY the kitchen exit, grabbing a couple of those oatmeal-berry brownies on my way out. I take a bite and chew on it waiting for the big surprise, like they're really made out of beets and not berries, but it actually tastes pretty good—not too sweet, and kind of sour, and the oatmeal is crispy-crunchy. I come around the side of the building, and the wind serves up a nice warm gust of pine scent. I stop and just stand there on the side of the mountain, squinting out over all the pine trees, and I see the sun shining on the lake below. I take a deep breath. The water shines and glints like a million diamonds. I take another deep breath and mull over the conversation in the dining hall.
So that's what this place is going to be like, huh? Nasty counselors and bratty fat kids. Great. Well, they can all count me out. I'm going to do the bare minimum around here. The very barest of the bare. I'll
get up late and quit early. I'm just a CIT, anyway. It's a nothing job. It's like being a babysitter, and I hate baby-sitting.